JAGGED: A Rockstar Romance Read online

  "I'm just glad to know you have a weakness I can exploit."

  "Bloody...CeCe, you're my weakness."

  "Yeah?"

  I pushed myself up onto my elbows. "I thought I'd made that..." I kissed her gently. "Amply clear."

  It was a fucking rush to kiss her like that, with her naked tits pressed against my chest and her legs wrapped around my waist so I could feel the slick heat of her as she squeezed her thighs tight. She arched into me, melding her body to mine and we undulated together once before her hands slid down my chest again. I fucking loved the way she touched me like she needed to check that I was real. "You don't seem that weak to me," she said.

  I raised an eyebrow at her. "I don't like that gleam in your eye."

  She bit her lip and brushed her hand down over the crotch of my pants. "Yeah you do," she whispered.

  "Holy fuck," I breathed as she pressed her small hand in the center of my chest, pushing me back with that one while the other tugged at my zipper. "CeCe?"

  "Sssh," she hushed me. "I'm still trying to figure me out."

  "Bloody figure all you want, lass," I groaned. "Fuck, your mouth is..." Whatever nonsense comparison I was trying to make, whatever half-formed poetry I was babbling died away as she slid her lips over the head of my cock. The way her tongue slipped around was heaven enough, but even better was watching her sweep her hair away so she could peer up at me with those liquid brown eyes. "Fuck," I hissed. "Baby, that's too much."

  She moaned a soft sound around my shaft and slid her lips down further. My hips jerked and I felt that white heat coiling at the base of my spine and as much as it pained me to stop her, I needed to before I lost it. "CeCe," I said and my voice sounded strangled and far away. "Fucking hell, lass, I need to be inside of you."

  She slid her hair back from her face again. "Then lie back."

  "So eager." I sat up and grabbed her wrists, flipping her around so that she landed flat on her back. We both groaned as my cock brushed against her slick heat. "I told you," I warned her, sucking a trail of kisses down her neck. "We have all night."

  "Ewan," she gasped as I nibbled along her collarbone. "Ewan goddammit!"

  "What love?" I pulled back. "Are you okay?"

  Her eyes were ablaze and for a second I wondered how I had gotten her all wrong. That is, I wondered until she wrapped her legs around my waist, yanking me off balance so I landed with my arms spread on either side of her head. She nipped at my lip, making me hiss. "If you don't fuck me right now," she hissed in return. "I'm going to take back the offer from Anthem." She released my lip and then bit hers playfully. "Your band would murder you."

  I grinned. "So really, I have to fuck you in order to keep my contract?"

  She arched up against me. "Yes."

  "This is extortion?"

  "I don't know, maybe it's blackmail? I'm not really sure how this works."

  I reached over to my bedside table and grabbed the condom. "Don't worry love," I told her as I tore it and unrolled it down my length, pausing to appreciate how her eyes widened as I pressed against her entrance. "I know how exactly it works."

  Her eyes widened and then narrowed as I teased her, sliding just in her pussy and then just out again. It was torture to hold back like this, to deny myself the all-consuming rush of pushing myself all the way inside of her in one smooth motion. But it was worth it to see her trembling, her whole body shivering in expectation, waiting for me to give her what we'd both wanted for so long. I'd held back this long and these few precious seconds would be forever etched into my memories. CeCe spread out underneath me, her gorgeous, pink-tipped breasts rising and falling with each gasping, impatient breath. "I told you I'd make you scream," I reminded her. "Is it working?"

  "Ewan," she groaned, half yearning, half angry.

  "Do you know how amazing you look?" I asked her, slipping in another fraction of an inch. She squirmed, trying to wriggle downward, to get more of what she craved but I pulled back. "All wet and waiting for me like this." I looked down at her impatient, desperate eyes. "I'm going to remember you this way," I promised her.

  She opened her mouth. Maybe it was to yell at me, maybe it was to scream after all but at that moment I could take it no longer. I drove myself inside of her and she groaned and arched up to meet me and I let out a hoarse kind of shout the likes of which I'd never heard from my mouth before and suddenly I wasn't toying or teasing or trying to draw it out so I could last all night long. Her need for me was matched only by my need for her and so I gave her everything. Everything I had. From somewhere in the back of my head I tried to rein myself in, maybe slow down and savor it even longer because I didn't know how long I'd have her like this, but in the next moment I knew that I'd have her forever because there was no way I was ever going to let her go.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Celia

  His sounds, his shouts, his wild, punishing thrusts. His hands on my ass, cupping me higher to him so he could grind against me, driving me closer to the brink. "Go on, lass," he urged me, no, begged me. "Let me hear it. I want to hear you scream."

  It's not me. I don't fall apart. I don't crumble to pieces and I don't lose myself in anyone. I was my own woman through and through but in this moment I was pretty sure I didn't want to be anything but his. That feeling of being his, it was fucking incredible and it was filling me up, pouring and gushing through me and I was so full of that amazing feeling that if I didn't open my mouth and let some of the amazingness out I might get washed away in the flood that was now consuming me. So it made perfect fucking sense for me to suddenly start to scream even though I never had before. Because I wasn't screaming, not really. No, I was singing out the sound of how he was making me feel. Nothing had ever felt this amazing and something this amazing deserved its own kind of song.

  It felt like I was coming forever. I was coming and screaming and cupping his face and kissing him, then gasping for breath and coming some more. On and on it took me, stretching out into infinity and I stretched out like I could just grasp the edge of something precious before it slipped through my fingers and sent me crumpling back down again. I fell back gasping like I'd been caught up in a drowning wave and then washed up suddenly on shore again.

  "Fuck," he murmured into my neck and my face was wet and I didn't even know why because I was so fucking happy to be with him like this. My hands found his hair, newly shorn and soft and brushed through it, making sure I could see his face, watching him watching me.

  "I like making you scream," he whispered, pushing himself up on his elbows. I groaned as he drove into me, quick, darting movements of his hips before he pushed up to a kneel. "Do it again."

  "I think I'm dead," I moaned. I very well could be.

  He grinned and reached down, pressing his thumb over my clit in time with his thrusts. "Wake up, lass," he said, that dimple blazing as he watched me respond. "Wake up and let me hear you sing one more time. Let's make it a fucking duet."

  His quick moving thumb was one thing, but it was his words that sent me over the edge. "That's right lass," he growled as I arched up to meet him again. "Scream for me, but not yet," he thrust harder, eliciting little hiccuping yelps from my mouth. "Yes, I feel you getting there. You feel so fucking good like this, I'm so fucking close CeCe. Wait for me..."

  "Fuck!" I was about to shatter into a million jagged pieces.

  "Do you want to come now?" he asked.

  "Yes!"

  "Say please, C. Ask me to make you come."

  "Fucking hell Ewan, please! Please make me come!"

  He grinned and drew himself nearly the whole way out of me before slamming himself so high, so deep and then he just...stayed there, grinding his hips in a full circle with his thumb on my clit in the perfect, precise way I needed and I was already so far gone, so lost in him that I could barely wait but he still hadn't said it so...

  "Come for me, CeCe."

  A bomb detonated under my skin and the shock wave roiled outward, liquifying me fr
om the inside out. I had no idea who was screaming, him or most likely me. Ewan jerked over me, his whole body tense and his groan was its own kind of song. A song composed just for me. The second one he'd written for me. And as rational thought slowly made its way back into my brain, the thought made me smile.

  "Hey." A light sheen of sweat glistened on his beautiful face. He was breathing hard, clearly as gobsmacked by what we'd just done as I was, but he still peered down at me with concern as I giggled wildly, like a crazy person, underneath him. "What's funny, lass?"

  I licked my lips and then grinned back at him and shook my head. I couldn't put it into words, not yet anyway, and he seemed to understand that. He pulled out, and watching him carefully tie off the condom to dispose of it gave me an odd tug in my stomach. And the tug pulled even harder when he disappeared for a moment and then reappeared with a washcloth. When he pressed the warm cloth to my pussy, gently cleaning me up, I didn't understand the feelings that were welling up inside of me. My limbs were jelly, my body sinking heavily into his sheets. I'd barely done more than lie here while Ewan did all the work, but I felt utterly drained and spent.

  Wrecked, even.

  Another smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. He set the cloth on the bedside table and leaned over me, tracing the curve of my smile with a searching finger before leaning down to kiss me so sweetly that tears sprang to my eyes.

  "Hey?" he breathed again, a question this time. "Are you good?"

  "That was..." Words were still failing me.

  "Intense?"

  "Yeah."

  He took a deep breath. "For me too."

  "Yeah?" Suddenly I had to blink rapidly to keep the tears from spilling. What now? Did I ask to sleep over? Did I gather my things? Did he kiss me good night at the door with the promise to see me in the morning? What if there was no promise? What if the song wasn't really just for me?

  He looked down, and I swore that he understood what was happening to me even though I had no idea what it was myself because he crawled over to the other side of the bed and fitted himself along the curve of my body again. "Stay," he whispered into my neck. "Please stay with me?"

  "Sure," I breathed, exhaling out the knot that had been sitting in my gut forever. He'd sworn he would protect me from whatever I needed protecting from. Myself most of all. "I can stay."

  His sigh sounded just like mine did. Relief. This was still the worst idea ever. This was still a giant mistake. But as I slowly descended into the heaviness of sleep, with Ewan's arms wrapped tightly around me, I had a hard time believing it was anything but exactly the right thing to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ewan

  This apartment had come fully furnished. Right down to the pots and pans that had, up until this morning, sat unused in the glass-fronted cupboards. I had always assumed I had everything I needed. That is, until I actually needed it.

  "A fucking saute pan," I muttered as I opened up the third cabinet in a row in a so far unsuccessful search. "That's all I'm looking for."

  As I shut the door, one of the many, many pans I had that weren't the ones I actually needed to make eggs, slipped down with a resounding clang.

  "Fuck," I hissed under my breath. Rummaging around my own kitchen, searching for implements I wasn't even sure were in here was proving to be an exercise in futility. And worse, I was making a fucking racket.

  And CeCe was still asleep in my bed.

  I momentarily gave up the search in favor of walking back to my bedroom to look at her again. For such a tiny girl, she sure took up a huge part of the bed, rolling and thrashing like she was fighting invisible monsters. I hadn't slept much, preferring instead to reach out and catch her when she rolled my way, folding her close to my body.

  It seemed like that helped her keep the monsters at bay.

  When my stomach started growling, I'd gotten the notion to make us both a big Scottish breakfast. My soul yearned for a big plate of streaky bacon, beans and some fried tomatoes with a cup of tea brewed so strong you could stand a spoon up in it. But my bachelor's fridge had yielded up nothing more than a half dozen eggs, so I'd settled for eggs and toast.

  It was strange how having her here awakened these odd instincts. Breakfast had been nothing more than a cup of black coffee for years now.

  But there was something about that girl in my bed that made me want something more.

  As I looked in from the doorway, CeCe suddenly stretched her arms over her head. "Hey," she murmured sleepily. She flopped over to her side and blinked up at me with a slow smile.

  I went over to her immediately. "Hey yourself," I said, perching at the side of the bed. "I'm sorry if I woke you, lass."

  She stretched and looked over at my never used alarm clock. "Oh shit, I need to be getting up anyway." She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  I shook my head. "I have half a mind to chain you to my bed," I told her, letting my eyes trail down her naked body. "Keep you here forever."

  She let her hands fall down to either side of her and her grin nearly knocked me backward. "Don't you want your contract brought to the label? Keeping me prisoner is not exactly a good career move."

  "Fuck my career," I growled, pushing her back and pinning her down underneath me. Her indignant squeal died away as I kissed her, long and slow, so that by the time I pulled back we were both breathing hard. "Stay with me?" I begged her.

  "You really don't want me going, do you?"

  I shrugged. "If you leave, I'm afraid it'll fuck everything up for us."

  She blinked. I felt a sinking sensation in my stomach as soon as I said the words, and slowly drew my hands back away from her. "Ewan," she said slowly. "This wasn't...."

  "Yes, it was," I interrupted. "Tell me you felt it, lass."

  She looked away. "It was nice but..."

  "It was more than bloody nice."

  She looked back at me, lips pressed tightly together. I gathered the sheet up into my fist, squeezing it together. "Whoever you think I am, love," I told her slowly, sadly. "I need you to stop thinking it, yeah? Because you're wrong."

  "I don't think..."

  "Yeah, you do. You think I'm not serious when I say I'm mad for you. You think it's a line I've used on all the groupies and all that bloody rockstar shit, but I'm wondering if you've been paying attention at all?" I looked up at her as she regarded me with a carefully neutral expression. "I've never wanted something disposable," I said. "I not a fucking one-hit wonder. I'm only interested in things that last."

  Her eyes flicked away from me, and my heart sank right down to my feet when I saw what she was seeing. The short term apartment. The life on the road. The band that was on the verge of breakup. The success I wasn't even sure that I wanted. I swallowed and squeezed my fist tighter. "I don't care how it looks," I said with my jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. "I'm telling you how it is."

  She looked back at me, ready to say something, but at that moment, the trilling sound of a retro desk phone filled the silence.

  With an apologetic look, she dove for her jeans, fishing her phone out of the pocket. "August?" she asked.

  I turned in time to catch her glancing up at me. "Yeah," she said with a rueful little grin. "I'm with him." She listened for a second and her eyes widened. "That's great news! You're amazing!" She glanced back at me. "You want me to tell him?" She paused and nodded again. "I'll let him know."

  Rage flickered through me like the sputtering of a candle in a drafty room. I was angry at her but I didn't want to be angry at her, not after last night, and the fact that I was angry at her only made me angry at myself. So when she hung up and turned back to me I couldn't have kept the biting sarcasm out of my voice even if I tried. "Is this the professional relationship you wanted, love? I give you orgasms, you take my phone messages?"

  Her eyes flashed. "Don't be an asshole."

  "Don't make me feel like one."

  She got up and started yanking on her clothes. "I was going to tell you," she snapped, hoppi
ng into her jeans. "That August had good news."

  "Maybe you can pencil in an appointment to tell me," I growled.

  "Ewan!" she said. "You guys are playing two nights at the Sound Garden!" I opened my mouth but nothing came out. She nodded. "Yeah. Want to stop being a dick to me now?"

  "Sorry, love," I mumbled.

  But even I could hear how hollow my apology sounded and CeCe wasn't having it. "I have to get to work."

  I unclenched my fist, feeling the sheet slide through my fingers like my vision of a sweet cuddly breakfast in the kitchen, maybe followed by a second breakfast of me eating her out on the countertop. "I'll walk you down."

  The silence in the elevator was so loud it drowned out my thoughts. I felt numb and hollow and filled with the need to say something but with no idea what it could be. The door opened and Celia rushed towards the entrance without a backwards glance and even though I had no idea what had just happened between us, it felt wrong to have her leave this way, without her knowing...knowing...

  Knowing what?

  She pushed the door open and I dashed after her on pure instinct. "Celia!" I called, reaching out to grab her arm. She spun around with a wild look in her eyes, the same wildness that I'd seen last night and maybe that's why I kissed her like I did. Harder. Rougher than I meant to, but not nearly as rough as I needed to. I slid my tongue against hers, letting her feel me, telling her something I needed to say and she sagged against me for a moment like she understood. I brushed her hair back, tilting her chin to kiss her more sweetly, loving how soft her mouth was.

  She inhaled sharply and then pulled back. Biting her lip, she looked down and made to move away but my hand was still on her arm. "Hey," was all I said.

  She nodded. "Okay."

  "When?"

  "I don't know."

  I breathed out. "Okay, I'll wait."

  She blinked up at me.

  "I told you. Only things that last."