Cover Me: A Rock Star Romance (7 page)

A molten sensation ran through my chest. “It’s the easiest question I’ve ever been asked.” Her eyebrows rose in question, wanting an answer. Instead of telling her, I showed her by pressing my lips against hers, kissing her slowly, softly. I didn’t want to scare her away. She had to believe I would never hurt her.

Her hands came up to my wrists. They trembled as she held on to me, but she didn’t try to stop me from kissing her. It took every ounce of will power to keep my tongue from darting into her mouth, but this was about rebuilding the trust I somehow lost with her. I had to take my time and do this right.

I stroked her cheeks with my thumbs and peppered kisses on her chin, her nose and her forehead. I’d been all over the world, but standing on the city beach in Santa Cruz kissing Bess Halprin with the sun beating down on us, the waves crashing, kids shrieking and sand between my toes was my favorite place I’d ever stepped foot.

“Does this answer your question?” I whispered in her ear while kissing the side of her neck.

“It can be interpreted a few different ways,” she said, leaning into me.

I lifted her chin and looked down into her eyes. “I want all the ways. I’ll start with earning back your friendship.”

She smiled and licked her lips. “Friends don’t kiss like that.”

“You were always an A.P. student. Think of this as A.P. friendship.” I tugged on a lock of hair hanging beside her mouth then tucked it behind her ear.

She let her head fall back and laughed. “A.P. friendship. Okay. I’ve heard it all.”

“I’m sure I can come up with more.” I took her hand, locking my fingers between hers. “What did you need money for?”

“That?” She dug a hand in my pocket—her hand dangerously close to my dick—and pulled out a wad of cash. I adjusted my swim shorts so she wouldn’t see what her foray into my pocket had started. “It’s a surprise,” she said. “Stay right here at the end of the trail so nobody figures out you’re you. I’ll be back.”

She turned and ran through the sand, her legs stretching gracefully. I watched her until she was a speck in the distance. Then I wondered if she’d really come back.

It took longer
than I thought. I darted back down the beach straining to see if Derek still stood where I’d left him a little over a half hour ago. I wouldn’t blame him if he left. He probably thought I took his cash and ran off with it. Not that he wouldn’t be able to find me right next door anyway.

A beach ball rolled in front of me and I almost tripped. “Sorry,” a pre-teen girl said. I waved and kept running, dodging rafts and towels.

I could see the end of the trail that led back to our allotment, but I couldn’t see Derek. I scanned the area as I neared and didn’t see him anywhere. I reached the spot where I’d left him and sank down in the sand, defeated.

“Took you long enough.” I looked around trying to find where his voice was coming from. Then he stepped out from underneath the wooden stairs that led back up to the trail into our allotment. “Some guy with a camera was trolling around. I hid.”

“You’re covered in sand!” I stood up and brushed his back off, letting my hands trail down over his firm, round butt.

“Hey. This A.P. friendship thing’s working out already.” His eyes gleamed and I gave him a smirk.

Friendship I could do. Even his A.P. friendship. There was no point in trying to resist him physically, that would be like getting the moon to stop its rotation. But as long as it was friendship and didn’t threaten to emotionally pummel me, there might be a chance for us.

I ignored the buzz rattling around somewhere in the back of my brain warning me that friendship was based on trust, too. Did this mean I was letting him off the hook?

No. He wasn’t off the hook. If I was the only person in the world who enforced consequences on Derek Bast, so be it. I wouldn’t let his past insults slide by. But for now, whatever it was we had was safe enough.

“So where’s the surprise?” He held his palms up and looked around us.

“Do you think you can walk down the beach without being mobbed?”

He grimaced. “I can’t make any promises.”

Hiding a six foot five star built like a Greek god wouldn’t be easy, but I was determined to get him down the beach. “Okay, we need an umbrella. A beach umbrella. We’ll walk next to the dunes, so nobody will see you from our right, and you can shield us with the umbrella tilted to the left.”

“Perfect plan, my super smart companion. Now, where are we going to get a beach umbrella?” He gazed out over my head at the beach studded with them.

“Easy, my strong-armed superstar. You’re going to steal one.” I pointed to a vacated spot with towels and a beach bag under the umbrella. “They must be in the water.”

His eyes went wide. “You want me to
steal
an umbrella? Do you know what would happen if anyone saw me? It would be everywhere in about thirty seconds.”

I slid my glasses down my nose, dipped my chin and looked up at him over the rims. “What happened to wanting one thing—anything—to be how it used to be? I remember a night our junior year when you ‘borrowed’ a jet ski from the rental place after they closed. All I’m asking for is a stupid beach umbrella.”

He smiled so big, I got a rare dimple sighting. “Alright. Be ready to run for it.”

A mixture of nervous energy and excitement bubbled in my chest. What if he got caught? He was right, the news would take thirty seconds—probably less—to be everywhere.

Instead of darting down to the umbrella, he walked casually, like he was only going for a stroll on the beach. When he got close, he walked right up to it and pulled it out of the ground as if it was his and nobody should question what he was up to. Then he bent down and grabbed one of the towels under it, too, and shook out the sand.

I covered my mouth, hiding my laughter. He was making a good show of it, that was for sure. With calm and assured steps, he strode toward me. “Care to take a stroll with me?”

I hooked my arm through his and side-by-side, we hustled down the beach, keeping close to the dunes and hiding behind the filched umbrella. “Where are we going, anyway?” he asked.

“Just a little farther. See up ahead where the walkway off that house jets out into a cabana? I paid the owners of the house to let us use it for the day.”

Derek let out a shocked burst of laughter. “You rented us somebody’s cabana? At their house? What, you knocked on the door and said… What did you say? You didn’t tell them it was me.”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I told them.” I smacked his arm. “I’m the smart one in this operation, remember?”

“That’s it.” He tossed the umbrella on the ground and came at me.

“No!” I ran, but in two strides he lunged and had me up over his shoulder, running for the cover of the cabana. Every footfall made me bounce, jarring the giggles coming out of me into sporadic yelps of high-pitched laughter. “People are watching us!”

“Almost there, smart
mouth
.” He bounded the stairs up to the cabana two at a time and pushed through the white mesh curtain. Inside, my eyes didn’t have time to adjust from the blinding sun to the shade before I was sprawled out on my back on the square cushion that covered the entire area with Derek lying beside me. I hadn’t realize it would be a giant, enclosed bed on the beach. I was thinking more an enclosed patio with lounge chairs.

I pushed up and leaned back on my hands. He was panting and grinning and looked exactly like the boy that used to live next door to me, if a bit bigger. “I can’t believe you stole a beach umbrella,” I said. “What will your mother say?”

He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back off his face. “I’ll tell her you made me. She’ll understand.” He pulled me down so my head rested on his shoulder and kissed the top of it. “Do you make a habit of daring your friends to do childish pranks like that?”

“Ha! No. Karen keeps me in line. Most of my other friends are from college and we’ve all gone our separate ways. We get together once a year at least and then it does get a little nuts.”

I looked up at him through my lashes to find him gazing down at me. “I’d like to see you let loose with your friends. I never knew that side of you before.”

“There’s a lot about me you didn’t take the time to get to know.”

He inched down and rolled toward me so we were eye-to-eye. “Is that what it was? What I did to make you not trust me?” His fingers entwined with mine and he lifted our joined hands up between us.

My eyes roamed over his face, following the line of his eyebrow to his temple, down to his prominent cheekbone to his straight nose then over his full, beautiful lips that could be so gentle and so demanding at the same time. The lips that always spoke what was on his mind and never held back. “If only you did know me better, then you’d know that wasn’t what broke my trust in you. But maybe you wouldn’t have done it in the first place if you’d have thought about my feelings at all.”

He kissed my hand and spoke against my fingers. “What if I did think about your feelings, but got it wrong. You said I didn’t know you, so I might have done something I thought you would be okay with.”

I shook my head. “No. If that was true, you’re not the kind of person I should be here with right now.”

He held my hand more firmly. “So, if I was selfish and didn’t consider your feelings at all, it would be better than thinking you’d be okay with whatever horrible thing I did?”

“Are we going in circles? It sounds like we’re talking in circles.” Derek had the gift of gab and I had to be careful he didn’t talk his way out of this.

“Bess, whatever it was that I did, I’m so sorry. I apologize. But, I do know you well enough to know you won’t accept my apology without me realizing what I’m saying I’m sorry for. Correct?”

“Yes. And no, I won’t tell you. I know you well enough to know that if you think about it long enough, it’ll finally come to you.”

“Well, I know that you know that I know that—wait. We are going in circles.” He grinned and kissed my hand again. “Just know I can’t think of anything else and when it comes to me, I’ll be down on my knees begging forgiveness.”

We lay there for the longest time looking into each other’s eyes, listening to the ocean and the sound of our breathing in sync. My fingers itched to touch him, to trace over his arms, his chest, along his stomach, hold his hard cock in my hand again. I could almost hear his thoughts mirroring mine, wanting to touch and taste, caress and seek release.

Our hands were the only parts of us touching and I was so turned on my body hummed like a live wire. If the wind blew too hard, I’d explode. I could hear a slight hitch in my breathing. He had to hear it too.

“Don’t look down,” he whispered, his addictive lips so close I could feel each word against my own.

“Why?”

“I can’t help what’s happening in my head or my pants and don’t want something else to apologize for.”

I grinned and looked down. “I think you’re growing a tree in there.” God, he was well endowed.

“That explains why it feels like something’s about to break ground,” he said through gritted teeth.

My eyes found his again. The air between us hung heavy and dense with tension. “What’s on the A.P. friendship syllabus regarding this situation?”

He lifted our joined hands and ran his index finger over my lips. “You write the syllabus. I’m only here for the coursework.”

Not able to stand it one more second, I leaned in and brushed my lips to his. “It’s never
only
anything with you.”

I indulged with my lips and my tongue, rolling him to his back before making my way down his body to the hard, long gift in his trunks.

Derek

I
could not
fucking believe Bess Halprin’s mouth was around my cock. “Please don’t regret this,” I said, weaving my fingers through her hair. She glanced up at me, popped me out of her mouth and smiled before licking me from bottom to top like a sucker. I let my head fall back and tried not to die of heart failure.

That image would be seared on my retinas for the rest of my life.

I thought of all the other times I’d been in this position and not one came close to the way it felt to have her sucking me and massaging my balls. It wasn’t the how, it was the who. But the how was pretty fucking spectacular, too.

Her head bobbed in my hands and I restrained from pushing her down onto me or thrusting. She got up on her knees and pressed her hands against my thighs, lowering her mouth a little at a time until I hit the back of her throat. My pelvis jerked and she worked her head in circles before sliding up and down my shaft.

She opened her mouth and slowly took me out, leaving a string of saliva connecting us. “Jesus, Bess,” I whispered. “You’re going to make me come everywhere.”

“That’s the point.” She dove back in, jerking me off and teasing my balls with her tongue, taking them in her mouth and sucking, letting them pop out between her lips. All I could think about was grabbing her by the ankles and pulling her around so I could stuff my face between her legs and lick her pussy while she worked me. I had to let her call the shots though. So far she didn’t seem to be shy with what she wanted. I hoped she’d make me reciprocate when my turn was over—which would be any second now.

“You’re so hard,” she said and ran pouty lips up and down the side of my shaft. “So big.” Her tongue laved around the edge of my head. “So good. I’m going to make you come now.”

The pressure was unbearable. “Suck me again and I’m done.”

She closed her lips around me and sucked, hard, hollowing out her cheeks and bobbing up and down fast while her hand worked the base of my cock. My hands fisted in her hair and my hips rose up to meet her as blinding heat exploded into her mouth.

When I came to my senses, I lay panting with her head resting on my thigh. One of my hands was still clutching her hair. Coming back to myself, I realized she kept me in, swallowed me down. How could she say she didn’t trust me if she’d risk doing that without knowing who I’d been with. Of course, she had nothing to worry about. I didn’t bang skanks and always wore a condom. It told me something though. Something she wouldn’t verbalize: there was hope for her trusting me. She at least knew I’d never let her come to harm. She trusted me with her body if not her heart.