RIPPED: A Rockstar Romance (Wreckage Book 2) Page 12

  He was silent again, but this time the van didn't speed up. "I've got no personal evidence to refute that claim, love," he said quietly. There was a naked, vulnerable quality to his voice, like he was making a confession. "So I can't rightly tell you that you're absolutely wrong. But look at our friends, though, yeah? Celia and Ewan seem like they're doing okay."

  "Maybe they're the exception that proves the rule."

  "Maybe," he said. "But maybe the issue with your ex wasn't that he was a musician. Maybe the issue was that he was a cheating asshole."

  "Yeah but why?" I said, unable to keep the note of whining out of my voice and hating myself for it. "I tried so fucking hard to show him how much he needed me. I wasn't just his manager, I managed his...his life!" The words were tumbling out of my mouth now in a rushing torrent of pent-up confusion. "I fixed his diet, cooking fresh food for him. I called every club in town and booked shows for him. I made the doctor's appointment for him when his blood sugar started getting too low. I did everything I could, gave him everything I had and he just took it." I blinked back the tears that were threatening to fall. "He just kept taking and I didn't know why he wasn't giving me anything in return, so I just kept giving more in the hopes he'd finally give me something back. But he never did."

  At that, I fell silent, horrified at the weak, sickening underbelly I'd just exposed to him. Now Jules knew I'd been a doormat. Now he knew how weak and pathetic I was, trying to force a loser to love me and make space for me in his life. I hated Noah for what he'd done to me, but I hated myself more for letting it happen.

  And now all that self-hatred had tumbled out of me when I was with the person I most wanted to see me as strong. Now, instead of the fierce, together woman I'd been play-acting, he saw me as who I really was. Weak. Scorned. Cast aside. Noah had taken all I had and still found it easy to stray. I'd done everything I knew how to do to make him love me...

  But it hadn't worked.

  And now I had no idea how to love again.

  If what I was wasn't enough, how could I be anything more?

  I sniffled in the darkness and realized Jules had yet to speak. The pitch black around us was so vast that I felt suddenly all alone.

  That is, until his voice rumbled up out of the darkness. "I got a lot to give you," he said. "If you want it, it's yours."

  Chapter Thirty

  Jules

  The turn off came suddenly. I spun the wheel, catching the back tire in a ditch before we popped back out again and bumped onto the dirt road. In a few hundred meters, I pulled up and parked in the shadow of the giant gray boulder that glinted in the moonlight.

  "I read about this place in a guide online," I told her, handing her the keys to the van for safekeeping. "Apparently the devil used to wander around this valley, until somebody killed him by praying or something." I walked up and patted the enormous boulder. "This is his tombstone. Come here."

  She sat down next to me and followed my lead as I leaned back, lying down on the cool ground and looking up at the heavens swirling above us.

  The moon was bright above us, full and round, white light illuminating her face, making it shine up at me, her eyes gleaming. "They killed the devil," she said in wonder. Then her tongue poked the corner of her cheek. "Nah," she said. "He's still here, and he plays drums in a rock band."

  But her voice was gentle, her tone teasing, not harsh. She looked up above us to the sliver of sky above the clearing, folding her hands on her stomach. "It's beautiful," she whispered reverently. "I've never seen so many stars."

  "And this is with a full moon too," I said. "We should come back here when there's no moon, it'll be bloody amazing."

  She turned to look at me. "You want to come look at the stars with me again in a few weeks?"

  I inclined my head in a shrug. "I mean, I'd come with Ewan, but he doesn't smell nearly as good."

  She laughed and rolled over to smack my chest. "I bet he's jealous you're with me tonight."

  "Do me a favor love? Stop talking about Ewan Boyd when I'm kissing you."

  "You're not...oh." Her words died off in a little moan as I shut her up the only way I knew how. The only way that seemed to work. And luckily it was the funnest way too.

  Way better that pissing her off, as a matter of fact. I kissed her slowly, searching her mouth, telling her things I could only express in a kiss.

  "Jules."

  Fuck, I loved the way she said my name. Always with that little sigh in the middle, like she was giving in to saying it.

  "Yeah, love." I kissed her shoulder.

  She turned to me with an exasperated smile. "I'm cold."

  "I can help you with that."

  I rolled over on top of her and she laughed. "No, it's the ground," she protested, batting me in the chest. "It's freaking freezing. I wish we had a blanket or something."

  I sat up and thought for a second. "Here," I said, standing up. "Follow me, I have an idea."

  She looked skeptical as I helped her to her feet, and held her up as she stomped and jumped to warm up again. "The van," I told her, reaching out to take her hand.

  When my fingers closed around hers she looked down as if startled that we were connected that way. "It's called hand-holding," I intoned in a dry, professorial voice. "It's long been seen as a means of expressing affection."

  "And is being a pompous ass how you express affection?" she retorted.

  "Ah, I'm glad you're finally getting it." I squeezed her hand as I led her back to the van. "You have the keys still? You didn't drop them on the ground, right?'

  "Of course I didn't. Who do you think you're dealing with here?" she said, holding them out. But when I reached for them, she clutched the ring a little tighter. "I'm not going to drive off and leave you here, love."

  "So all the times you've threatened to do that in the past were just..."

  "A means of expressing affection," I deadpanned, because what else could I say?

  The moonlight caught the gleam in her eye as she laughed a different kind of laugh. One that sparkled and bubbled like champagne. A laugh of pure delight.

  Because I'd told her I liked her.

  I should have fucking told her that from the very beginning.

  "So what's your idea?" she prompted me and I realized I'd just been looking at her in wonder.

  "Give me the keys."

  She dropped them in my hand. I turned and pretended to sprint a few yards, then jogged back laughing as she raised both middle fingers. "Here," I said, unlocking the trunk of the van. "Let's put the seats down and lie in here."

  As I folded the first seat into its hold, her mouth fell open. "These seats go down?" she marveled, watching me as raptly as if I were a magician.

  "It's a cargo van, love. It's for transporting cargo." I slammed the last seat down into its stowage and brushed my palms off. "And not just the human kind you like to ferry around."

  She wrinkled her nose at me. It was fucking adorable. I hopped up and sat down on the now level floor of the van, letting my legs dangle over the bumper and patted the space next to me. "Sit that pretty little arse down right here."

  She hugged her arms across her chest. "And do what?"

  "Just fucking sit, August. Sit here and be with me a second."

  I saw her tongue flick nervously across her front teeth. With a heavy sigh, she plopped herself down, making the van bounce and rock. "There," she said.

  "Thank you. That must have been hard for you," I said with mock heavy-seriousness.

  "I'll get over it eventually," she shot back.

  I laughed and slid my hand behind her. "I feel like a teenager at the movies," I complained. "Fuck it." I slung my arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

  She resisted only slightly before relaxing against my side. I turned my head, breathing in that amazing, complex scent of hers. "What do you smell like?" I asked.

  She turned and looked up at me. "I don't know. What do I smell like?"

  I buried my face in
her soft curls and inhaled deeply, making her giggle. "I have no idea." I took another deep breath. "I detect hints of incense, and an overlying sweetness like honeysuckle."

  Her laughter echoed off the Devil's Tombstone. "What are you, a hair sommelier?"

  "Only when it comes to you, love."

  "It's a shampoo," she explained, snuggling even closer. "It costs a fucking arm and a leg but it's the only thing that works with my curls."

  "It's doing a great job then." I sniffed again. "And it smells fucking amazing too. It's been driving me nuts for months."

  "Months?" she asked quietly.

  "Aye, love," I confessed. "Since the day I met you."

  She fell quiet and I held my breath, afraid that I'd revealed too much. That I'd scare her off.

  Then she quietly reached over and grabbed my other hand, bringing it around so that she was nestled in both of my arms. "The day we met?" she repeated, and there was a softness in her voice I'd never heard before. I wondered how many had.

  "Aye."

  She twisted up and looked at me. "It's been driving you nuts that long and you only asked me now?"

  "You really think a month ago you would have reacted well to the idea of me smelling your hair?" I chuckled. "Love, I'm an asshole, but I'm not a stupid one."

  "I thought you hated me."

  "I knew you hated me." I looked down. "Because you told me as much."

  "I don't hate you. I was scared of you. Scared of...what I felt."

  I tilted her chin up and kissed her. Slow, the kind of kiss that up to now we'd been denying ourselves. Soft, the kind of exchange - a give and take - neither one of us was used to, but that I was ready to start trying out.

  As long as it was with her.

  "Don't think I don't like sitting here with you..." she ventured when at last we broke the kiss.

  "But you have to go back and work and make a million phone calls, and then go on a date with Eric," I teased. "Am I right? Is that what you were about to say?"

  "No, jackass." She stabbed her finger upward. "I was going to say we should lie down again. I can't see the stars."

  Chapter Thirty-One

  August

  He shifted and shimmied, stretching his long body feet first into the van and scrunched his legs until his head was aligned with the very edge. I watched him squirm a little, then crane his neck. "Ah yeah," he said happily. "I see 'em."

  I stretched out next to him, mimicking his pose, acutely aware of how my body was pressed up against him. We'd fucked in a diner bathroom, but right now was as close as our bodies had ever been. The thought made me laugh.

  "What's funny?" Jules wanted to know.

  I shifted, shimmying until my cheek rested against his shoulder. "It's weird to be using the van for downtime." It was the truth. I inhaled sharply. "You smell that smell in here?"

  "The smell of five weeks worth of crammed together bloke?"

  "Gross. It doesn't smell like that." I sniffed again. "Oof, okay, maybe it does. Whatever. The point is, I get in here and I immediately start running through my to-do list. I feel like I should be working right now."

  I expected him to laugh, but he was quiet for a long time. I turned my head to see that he was watching me with an unreadable expression in his eyes. "What?" I asked, letting out a nervous laugh.

  "You don't always have to be doing something, love," he said, slowly pushing his way up to lean on one elbow. "You can just lie still."

  I wetted my lips. "I'm not sure I can."

  "You can," he said, kneeling up. "Just do it." He deliberately rested his warm palm on my thigh. "Just lie there and let someone else do the work for once."

  I stiffened as he slid his fingers up my skirt. He paused and looked up at me, eyes searching. "All right, love?"

  It was the way he was looking at me that finally had me convinced. Like he knew me better that I knew myself. Like he knew just how much I could take before I had to back away. And like he was willing to go exactly that far and no further.

  I nodded.

  He narrowed his eyes. "Need to hear you say it, love."

  "Yes," I whispered, then cleared my throat and arched my hips upward. "Yes," I said, louder now.

  "Aye," he growled and shimmied my skirt up, grinning at my bareness. "You're never getting these back, you know," he said, patting his pocket, where my favorite red lace panties were presumably still bunched up. "Think I might start a collection."

  "I have a collection of my own," I reminded him.

  He paused and grinned up at me from between my legs. "Aye, you do, don't you love. Probably worth a lot too."

  "It's my retirement fund," I teased. "Since you guys clearly don't pay me what I'm worth, I have to resort to...oh!" I cried as his tongue found my clit. He hummed a little, letting out a soft breath that whispered up my stomach before something seemed to break loose inside of him and he began moving his tongue in earnest. Little flicks and jabs at first, the kind of short, stuttery strokes that sent disjointed sparks up my spine, little feathery bursts that both melted me and had me needing more in an instant.

  "Ah," he breathed, shifting his palms under my ass cheeks to lift me closer. "So this is what I have to do to get you to stop running your mouth."

  "Hey!" I started to say, but I hadn't even gotten the word fully out before he slipped one thick drummer's finger inside of me.

  "Fuck, you're burning up for me, love. Why am I not surprised that a red-headed firecracker has a pussy this hot?"

  "Dunno," I mumbled. His tongue was robbing me of coherence, diligently working me over until suddenly, so suddenly that I nearly levitated at the shock of it, I was coming. My eyes flew open, and then squeezed shut and I might have said his name or it just might have been nonsense but either way I suddenly didn't care any more about being the one in charge because right now I was so clearly not.

  And that was fine. All I had to do was lie back and let someone else do the work for once. In this moment, I was taking without giving and he was okay with it, so I was too.

  I opened my mouth to tell him that, but he gently pressed his finger to my lips. "Hush," he whispered. "You and me, love? We're better when we don't try to talk." He blinked and I saw regret in his eyes. "End up saying a whole lot of things we don't mean."

  I swallowed and nodded, then kissed his finger. A faint smile ghosted across his lips. He lifted his shirt over his head and leaned in to kiss me, slow and soft at first, but then building, his body arching above mine so that his naked skin slid against mine, finally, finally. I wrapped my arms and my legs around him as tight as I could, pulling him down to me, needing to feel everything, to learn his body the way he seemed to already understand mine.

  I traced a finger down his cheek, swirling it in the patterns of dark stubble along his jaw. The soft velvet of his earlobe made me smile for some reason and I was delighted to find the scars of old piercings all along his cartilage. I started to tell him how much I loved that he had his ears pierced, but he smiled and shook his head, pressing his finger to my lips again.

  This time I opened my mouth and took it in between my teeth. His eyes widened and then he inhaled sharply as I bit down. When I closed my lips around it and sucked, I heard him groan something unintelligible.

  I pulled my head back. "Shh," I admonished him.

  He screwed his lips down in a frown. "So bossy," he mouthed. He didn't make a sound, but I could read lips.

  "So bad at following directions," I said at a normal volume.

  He slid his hand between my legs, brushing my clit with the side of his thumb. "You made it exactly thirty seconds without being a pain in the ass," he marveled, bending down to nip at my thigh. "So far there's only one reliable way to render you speechless."

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Jules

  She smelled just like she tasted. I should have known that she would. There was nothing about August Waverly that was one-note. She was intricate and wild and fucking complicated as hell. Other women we
re a simple melody. She was a whole goddamned symphony, with movements and variations and a crashing, thunderous coda. Other women were a light snack. She was the full-course meal - eight, twelve, twenty courses - a whole goddamned banquet spread out before me and I was determined to devour it all.

  I was so taken with how shocked she looked when I made her come that I did it again and again, fucking her with my fingers and my tongue, letting her grind herself against my face before pinning her down with my hand and devouring her again. And all the while I was rock-hard, my cock straining painfully against the fabric of my jeans, nearly out of my head with the need to be inside of her, but I held back because more than that, she needed to know she could take what she needed. She needed to know that it was okay to just lie still. She needed to know that it'd be okay to let someone else do the work for once.

  And she needed to know that someone should be me.

  I alternated between fucking her with my tongue and sliding across her pretty little bubblegum pink clit. Whenever I found the place that made her hips rise off the floor, I stayed there, letting her move against my mouth and fingers. There was something about letting her use me this way, about letting her take her pleasure from me without asking for it that had me delirious. I was certain that I could do this forever, stay right here in this van and watch August orgasm herself into oblivion. If I did nothing else with the rest of my life, I could die a wildly happy man.

  Her thighs clenched my head in a vise as she came again, bicycling her legs against the floor of the van and then suddenly - to my disappointment - she pushed up and away from me. "Too much," she gasped, flopping back down again. "I'm... oh god..."