Light My Fire (Rock Royalty Book 1) (20 page)

"Draw up the robe," he ordered softly. "Bare yourself for me."

She made another sound, half-distress, half-acquiescence, and then reached down to pull at the fabric so it bunched at her waist. "Oh my God," she said, as he leaned forward.

His tongue met smooth, hot flesh and then it wiggled between the soft lips of her labia. They opened for him, unfurling in welcome, and he explored the petals with his mouth, the other hand cupping the curve of her ass to keep her in place.

Her taste flooded his mouth, both lemon sweetness and salt and cream, and he savored it, closing his eyes. He felt her fingers sift through his hair as he began to lap at her, tapping the nub of her clitoris at the top of her sex then dancing away from it. The scrape of her nails set goose bumps rolling down his back and he shuddered even as he flattened his tongue and pressed against the pink tissue.

She moaned, clearly wanting more, and he gave it to her by sliding his finger out of her hot channel then pressing another beside it before gliding back in. His light and easy rhythm had her legs trembling—or maybe that was the continued pressure of his tongue. With another little sound, she broke, her body moving against his mouth, pushing and grinding with her hips.

God, it was hot.

But more so when he went into new action, his tongue moving to her clit in a flurry of light, lashing strokes. Cilla made a strangled sound and her inner muscles clamped down on his fingers. He shoved them deep and held them there, then made his mouth go still too.

"Ren." She sobbed out his name and started moving once more, trying to get herself off on his tongue.

His fingers dug into the skin of her ass and then he withdrew his other hand from her and used it to cup the other cheek. Holding her in place, he let his mouth slide down the slippery furrow of her body and then he was fucking her with his tongue, spearing inside that hot, wet channel, her juices deliciously coating his lips and his tongue. He swallowed down her taste and his cock ached, the head throbbing.

His dick wanted to be in the paradise his mouth was now enjoying.

But first...Cilla.

He lifted his head, giving a little nudge to her clit with his nose, and then he went to town, lapping, toying, licking, playing. The tension gathered in her body, he could sense her muscles tightening, and then it was upon her and she made a low, keening noise. Her body quivered, once, twice, and then she was coming, as he pulsed his tongue against her sensitive knot of nerves.

Her hips were still rolling against his mouth when her fingers fisted again in his hair. "Bed," she said in a hoarse voice. "I need you inside me."

But she didn't get to make the demands. She'd already gotten so much—too much—from him.

He jerked to his feet, taking in her flushed face and darkened eyes. Sometime during the oral play she'd flung away the robe. The terry cloth lay several feet away and he stepped over it as he lifted Cilla and boosted her onto the kitchen counter.

She made a surprised sound as her bottom met granite. He ignored it as he wrenched open his jeans and freed his cock. His fingers fished a condom out of his wallet and rolled it on. "Get your ass to the edge of the counter," he said, at the same time pulling her there himself. Her thighs widened to make room for his hips and he took one mind-blowing moment to look at the sight of her spread for him, her pink pussy lips open and glistening with wetness. Then he drove inside her in a single stroke, his hands tightening on her hips so she had no escape from him and his possession.

"Oh, God." His head dropped back as her swollen tissues encased him, so hot and so tight that each flutter of her inner muscles rippled down the length of his dick.

Her hands were tugging on his shirt and he lifted one hand to grasp the cotton between his shoulder blades and yank upward. When his chest was bared she leaned into it and kissed a trail along his collarbone and up his neck.

He drew back his hips, shunted inside her again, and felt the scrape of her teeth along his jaw.

That did it.

He speared his fingers in her hair at the back of her head and tilted her mouth for his kiss. The advance-and-retreat of his tongue and his cock were near-brutal, uncompromising, but she didn't protest. Instead, she wound her ankles at the small of his back, pulling him back to her each time he withdrew.

This was great. This was working, he told himself. Screwing her like this would put emotional miles between them. When he treated her like a mere toy for his pleasure, she'd distance herself from him. Crawl out from his head, separate from his skin.

Of course, he didn't need for her to make that move.

Detachment was what
he
did best.

But he couldn't think straight with his dick in the heavenly vice of her body and it was about to blow in three...two...one.

His hips pistoning, he tore his mouth away to suck in air. Pleasure rose high, twisted sharply, burned bright as it ripped through him. He groaned and yanked her tight against his groin as the climax pulsed...pulsed...pulsed.

When his brain could function again, her forehead was resting against his shoulder. He pinched her chin to take a look at her face, and at the flushed, slumberous expression a disconcerting, unwelcome surge of tenderness swept through him.

Fuck!

"Can we go to bed now?" she murmured.

"No," he said, adamant. "We've got more to do."

He had to keep her tentacles from winding around him.

"Okay," she said, drowsy but agreeable, and her fingertips brushed his bottom lip. "Whatever you say."

So he said they needed a shower and he let the water wake her up a little so he could do her again, his favorite this-is-just-fun position, her hands on the tile, her bottom pushed out, his cock once again tunneling within her. When she winced a little as he reached around to touch her clitoris, he gentled his caress until she was pushing back into his hips in clear sexual demand. Her mouth closed over her own forearm as she came, but he still heard the muffled cries.

After that round was over, his dangerous mood hadn't dissipated. Cilla was limp as a fading flower, however, so he decided they needed provisions before starting the next operation in extricating her from his psyche. With Cilla rewrapped in her terry robe, he deposited her in a kitchen chair. Barefoot and wearing only his jeans, Ren made those quesadillas she'd half-prepared.

Once he turned with a plateful of triangular pieces, it was to find her asleep in her seat, her head cradled on her arms braced on the table.

"Oh, Cilla," he murmured. She didn't stir and he just continued staring at her, the vicious feelings that had been riding him earlier evaporating. How could he possibly have found her some kind of threat? Why was he so worried she was a danger to him? With her tousled hair and her swollen mouth, she looked impossibly sweet and incredibly ravished.

He'd done that to her—ravished her, and all for the sake of putting distance between them, something that was going to happen anyway. Home, after all, in just nine days.

With quick movements, he stored the food. Tomorrow, he'd serve her mountains of calories to make up for what she'd lost out on tonight.

She was light in his arms. Her head went to his shoulder as one arm curled around his neck. He experienced that weird constriction once more in his chest, but he ignored it, telling himself it didn't matter because everything would be all right when he was on a big flying machine and heading to London courtesy of Richard Branson.

In the master bedroom, he placed her on the mattress, then pulled back the covers on the other side and nudged her onto the sheets. He had to bend close to make that happen, and she did it again, she somehow had her arms and then her legs wrapped around him.

Cilla, you're a clinger.

I am
not
!

She sure as hell was.

Resigned, Ren let himself roll to the mattress beside her. He could fight her hold, he supposed, but he was tired too and it didn't seem worth it to summon the energy. Despite her hold on him, he managed to shed the jeans and then she settled with one arm and leg thrown over him. He reached to turn out the bedside lamp and then linked his arms around her and breathed in the citrus-blossom scent of her hair. His head settled into the pillow and he realized the sex bouts had done him some good.

With Cilla wrapped around him now, he felt mellow. Edginess only came about when he tried to resist her, he realized.

Right now, his emotions were not so loud in his head.

But the Cilla situation was not fixed. Not at all.

"I'm going to want you every night," he admitted to her sleeping form on a sigh.

Every night...but only until he was gone. Home in nine days.

Funny, how that certainty didn't dispel the getting-to-be familiar sense of loss.

Chapter 11

Cilla woke to the twittering of birds, to the pale yellow light of morning filling the bedroom, to the knowledge that she was in bed with Ren, cuddled close. Her cheek was pillowed on his chest, one of her arms was stretched across his abs, and her legs were tangled with his.

Oh, God.

She was
clinging
to him.

The undeniable fact of that sent a chill over her, starting from her naked shoulders and traveling all the way to her bare toes that were pressed to his warm shin. Her stomach folded in on itself and Cilla could only think of one thing: retreat.

The operation took long minutes. She held her breath as she eased away from him, raising her arm as if it went weightless, sliding her legs from his in miniscule increments, scooting her booty across the soft sheet one centimeter at a time. He slept on and she wanted to keep it that way.

When the soles of her feet found the carpet, she tiptoed around, gathering fresh clothes, her toothbrush, toothpaste, and comb. At the doorway, she glanced back at Ren. He hadn't moved and she allowed herself a few seconds of silent admiration. One long arm was thrown over his head, his glossy hair lay disordered on the pillow, the sheet was gathered low on his belly to reveal more rippled muscles. In sleep he didn't look any less dangerous, especially with that gunslinger-stubble of dark whiskers around his mouth and jaw, but she felt a jot safer with those silver-green eyes closed. Unseeing.

After last night, she was afraid of what he might read on her face.

It had been crazy. Wild. She'd recognized his mood the instant he'd said he wanted to have sex again and what proceeded after that...she could still feel his kisses on her mouth, his mouth between her legs, his body thrusting inside hers.

But she was afraid he might have touched her even deeper.

Which was why retreat was imperative. Time to regroup. Get perspective.

She rushed to the hall bathroom and washed and dressed there, then made a pot of coffee. Steaming mug in hand, she let herself out of Gwen's house, trying to decide where to escape. Her eyes drifted across the compound and caught on the tower of the Castle—the name they'd given the house where she and Bing and Brody had grown up. The turret had been both playroom and refuge, and it called to her now.

But she'd have to go back inside the cottage to hunt up the key. The one to Gwen's storeroom was on the ring in her pocket and she had work to do there.

The space was quiet and again she was struck by the sense of the older woman's lingering presence. Cilla breathed deep of it, turning in a circle to run her gaze over the shelves of shoes and the racks of vintage costumes. Giving in to her need to touch, she picked up a pair of rhinestone-encrusted platform stilettos and ran her thumb over the bristly, "diamond"-studded surface. Then she walked them over to the room's single side chair and set her coffee onto the small adjacent table. On a whim, she kicked off her flat-soled TOMS, and indulged herself by strapping the sandals around her ankles. They wobbled as she stood, but she grinned as she caught sight of herself in the free-standing mirror propped in a corner of the room.

Paired with her jeans and a vintage Three Dog Night concert tee that she'd redesigned and reconstructed to womanly lines, the shoes made her look more hooker than musical act.

Of course, after last night...

Shoving those hours once more from her mind, she removed the shoes. But instead of replacing them on the shelf, she slid hangers along one of the racks, searching for the perfect pairing. It showed up in a polyester jumpsuit with stripes of white, black, and silver. A costume made for the Motown sound. She remembered that Gwen had showed her a stack of flat cardboard dress forms and she found them in another corner of the room, piled on top of a plastic bin. When she shifted them, she saw that Gwen had inked "REN" across the top of the box.

His inheritance.

Without allowing herself to speculate, she dragged the forms into the middle of the storeroom. Each had a kickstand of sorts, so that once dressed, the costume could be displayed upright. Motown was slipped over a form and then propped with the rhinestone platforms peeking out from the stovepipe pant legs.

Something about the sight lifted her mood. What could be wrong when she had clothes to play with? She put together several other outfits, until the empty space in the middle of the room was peopled with a half-dozen forms dressed in pop-music chic. A "rocktail" party, she decided, grinning a little.

Going back to the racks, she did more exploring, the slight screech of metal hangers against metal pole like nails on chalk, raising the fine hairs at the back of her neck. Then she froze, her fingers clutching the clear plastic covering a beautiful, maxi-length vintage dress.

Gunne Sax. Gunne Sax
black label
. That meant it was from 1969, the year Jessica McClintock took over.

Cilla swooned. It was Renaissance-inspired, with a high, lace-edged collar that circled the back of the neck but was open at the throat to accommodate a square-shaped, low neckline that would offer a deep glimpse of décolletage. Made of a delicate, off-white cotton, the two halves of the gown's bodice was fastened by thin cord. A fall of lace trimmed the cuff of each long sleeve and another fell from below the bustline as a second, shorter overskirt.