Manipulated: a Rockstar Romantic Comedy (Hammered Book 3) (13 page)

I held out my hand to her and she clasped my fingers. “How many bats are we talking?”

“Roughly a million, give or take.”

“Holy crap.”

“Yeah. It would have been amazing to show you, but then again the view is pretty inspiring at the moment anyway.” I curled my arm around her waist.

She lowered her camera to her side. “Is that right?” She looked around. “And my, so secluded.”

I shrugged. “Off-season, sure. During the season, this area is crazy.”

“Handy it’s this time of year.”

“Handy, indeed.” I leaned down, bumping my nose with hers. “Cold?” I glanced down at her toes.

“Not at the moment.”

“Sure?” I hovered closer to her mouth.

“Well, maybe a little.” Her eyelashes swept down as she stared at my mouth.

“Have a hold of that camera?”

“Glued to my hand.”

“Good.” I boosted her into my arms.

She squeaked. “These jeans are not made for this.” But she hooked her legs around my hips anyway.

“Then maybe we should take them off.”

“Here?” Her eyes got huge. “I was thinking that we could, you know, make out.”

“I’ve made out with you enough, bunny. I want to be inside you.” I hiked her up until she was just above my eye-line. I nipped her chin and coasted down her neck. “There’s one thing I love about these old cars.”

She curled both arms around my neck. Her camera dug into my shoulder a little, but the padding of my leather jacket helped. “What’s that?”

“Big backseats.” I slowly made my way up the hill to my Buick. She wasn’t heavy, but the incline was definitely working against me.

“Is that right?”

There was pleasure winding through her husky voice. Enough that my pants were more than uncomfortable. I’d swapped from jeans to cargos so I could get a break from the eternal strangle of denim lately. It didn’t much matter. Everything felt like too much fabric when it came to getting close to Callie.

I set her on the edge of the hood. I meant for her to slide to her feet, but she hooked herself tighter around me.

She pushed her camera up to the windshield.

“Don’t want to put that away,” I said, smiling against her mouth.

“Right now, I just want you.” She reached between us. “And this moon and star-filled sky seems like the perfect backdrop.”

My cock went from hard to painful. “Christ.” In the backseat of the car was one thing, but here? My bunny was always surprising me.

I looked over my shoulder. There were so many vantage points for someone to catch us. Her cool fingers had slipped past my zipper when I was looking around.

I hissed as she circled the base of my cock.

“Oh, wow. I kinda forgot what one of these felt like.”

“Not the little vibe I found in your shower.” I pushed myself into her hand.

“No, you are not.” She stroked me lightly.

I groaned. “Firm. Let me know you want to touch it.” My mouth hovered over hers as she leaned back to get a better hold of me. “Oh, yeah. Like that.” I closed my eyes as her grip increased. She rolled up against me and I pushed her back. “Keep that up and I’ll have you laid out on this hood.”

Her eyes widened. “Yes, that.”

“Here?” My eyebrow spiked up. “Are you sure?”

“Sure of anything that’s you and me? No, not really. But this?” She let out a slow breath. “I just want to get this over with.”

“Gee, thanks, bunny.”

“No. I just mean I need to get this first time over with so I can move forward. I want more. I want to experience everything.” She brushed her thumb over the head of my erection. “I want to know what it feels like to let go.”

“Don’t let go, love. I like where your hand is.”

She laughed. “I can’t remember the last time I laughed when I was in this position.”

The thought of her with any other man teased that possessive demon out of my chest. “As long as you’re not laughing at me, then we’re good.” I covered her mouth and let out the attention-seeking bastard inside me. I liked to laugh in bed as much as the next guy, but right now, I wanted her groaning. I wanted her desperate.

“Oh, no,” she said between panting breaths. “Definitely not.”

“Good.” I thumbed open her jeans. “Because I intend on making you scream.” I shrugged out of my jacket and stepped back. I threw it behind her and lifted her enough to get her onto the leather. Her eyes went wide as I peeled down her jeans and pushed her back.

“Owen.”

Stone had nothing on me right now. “Well, fuck me. You keep on saying that name, bunny.”

I scraped my fingers down her belly and through the silk covering her trimmed curls. I dipped my knuckle right down through the seam of her lips and groaned at how ready she was for me. My mouth followed my fingers, my tongue breaching her barriers. Her taste flooded my mouth.

No hesitation lived in me. I wanted this, wanted her taste destroying my senses. I wanted to make sure there was no way I could forget this night. No way she would forget it either.

I knew her body. The few times I’d managed to get my hands on her, I’d learned the little sounds that she made when I found a particularly intense spot. I attacked every one of them like a damn marauder. I wanted her shaking.

Her fingers went right to my hair and twisted as she bowed up. I held her down, my thumb stroking her little hidden clit. I circled and circled until there was nothing but soft shudders around my ears. Her thighs quaked and I went for broke.

I lapped at that spot as I drilled my fingers into her. I knew I couldn’t be gentle, so I needed her beyond ready for me. She practically heaved up off the car and I slammed her back down.

Christ, I hope I didn’t hurt her, but she was wild under my touch.

Just like I wanted her.

I just wasn’t sure I could withstand it.

I dragged her down the hood of the car so I could get between her legs and line us up. When I felt her break against my mouth, flooding my throat with everything that was good and holy on this beautiful planet, I went for more.

“Not done,” I mumbled as I gripped her ass.

I was going to come in my damn boxers if I didn’t get inside of her. I drew back, and the freaking world shimmered. I’d stopped breathing, my only focus to get more of her inside me. She grabbed me by the shoulders and hauled me to her mouth.

The quick hum of surprise had me drawing back. Some women didn’t like the taste of themselves.

Not Callie.

She reached between us, groaning around the kiss as our tongues tangled. I growled against her lips as she stroked down my shaft. Pre-cum was going to be cum in a moment if she didn’t stop.

My brain literally fogged as I pulled myself out of her hold.

Her mouth was swollen from our ravaging kisses, and her pupils blown. One leg dangled off the side of the car and the other was propped on the headlight.

“Fuck, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

She swallowed. “Thank you?”

I laughed. “Aye, was a compliment.”

“Then why are you over there?”

“Because one more stroke from that lovely hand and I’d have been filling it with the goods.”

“Oh.” She licked her lips. “Then what’s the term? Suit up?”

I laughed and the need backed up enough for me to search the pocket of my jacket. I flipped the wallet onto the hood and pulled out a condom. “Last chance to say no. I’ll probably have to have a good cry down by the water, but I’ll live through it.”

She scraped her teeth over her naked mouth. For fuck’s sake, I was probably wearing all of her lipstick, but I didn’t care. She was gorgeous and she was mine.

For tonight.

I ignored the little voice. It didn’t have any place here.

I snapped the condom in place and hissed around the little flash of pain. It helped. It would allow me to curl those perfect legs around my hips and melt into her perfect pussy.

And maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t be a goddamn two-pump-chump.

If there’s a God up there in the heavens, please let that be so.

I moved forward just as she scooted to meet me. I gripped her hip and snaked my other hand under her frilly little blouse. I swiped over her nipple. I hadn’t even had time to get the pretty little bits out of her shirt. But right now, my cock was making all the rules.

I was heading in.

My head bumped along her slick hood. She hissed as I rubbed along her clit.

“Won’t you let me in sweet, Calliope?”

“God, yes.” She reached between us and pushed me down just enough for a homecoming like I’d never known before in my life.

I wanted to slow down. She deserved for me to slow down.

I couldn’t. I thrust in until I was seated and she gloved me like she was made for me. I threw my head back.

Two? I wasn’t entirely sure I’d make it one.

Her nails nipped into my side as she pulled me closer. Somehow I found the strength to go for more. I drew back and sank inside of her again. Her gaze locked with mine as she took me again and again. The wonderment faded to pleasure and agony that matched my own.

I buried my face into her shoulder.

I ignored the crushing need to proclaim her mine. Caveman tactics for sure. It was just that animal side. I was sure of it. It would die down.

It had to. But it wouldn’t be doing that right now.

I wrapped her tighter around me, or maybe it was her doing the clasping. Her legs, her pussy, her body, her arms—there was nothing but Calliope. I didn’t just come. It was raked out of me with teeth and claws. I heard her cries in the distance. The night faded around us, and the cool water-soaked air drifted away.

Blood pounded and fuzzed in my brain as I came inside her. It was inconsequential that it was a condom that kept me from her. Her walls pulsed around me, or I pulsed inside her. There was no difference. There was only Callie and possibly the sweet release of death.

Or at least that’s what the Parisians called it.

Sweet bloody fuck, I was wrung out.

My chest heaved and I forced myself to pull out and take care of things. When I turned back around, Callie was practically sliding off the hood of the car.

I shook off the insidious need to drag her into the backseat and sleep for a week. Instead, I gathered her into my arms. She shuddered and muttered a few nonsense words.

“What was that?”

“I think you found my G-spot. Or else you made a new spot all your own.”

I laughed and hauled her off the car. “Ready to go back?”

“I’m not sure I have feet.”

“Well, you are missing a pair of sneakers. Stay there.”

I ran down the embankment and got them, then jogged back up. Now that my brain was working again, I was infused with energy.

Damn, this was going to be fun.

“
S
o how are
you doing on the tour bus of love?”

I threw a furtive glance over my shoulder as if the guys could hear my sister on the other end of the phone. I’d finally had a spare moment to call her, and now I was feeling flushed and squirmy and all kinds of sensations befitting a newly sexualized—or re-sexualized in my case, though Owen sure made it all feel brand new—woman of, oh, seventeen.

Too bad I had a decade plus on that.

Was I going through a second childhood? Ick, no. Second womanhood? My girly parts were certainly all blooming and blossoming and coming all over the dang place.

Yes, there was an image. I’d just go throw up my perfectly nice dinner of glazed ham and little baby carrots and peas along with a delicious portion of wild rice, made by Hunter.

“It’s certainly not…that,” I said in a low voice.

I reached for my glass of soda. Some of the guys were watching
Friends
. Keys and Quinn had gone off to their hotel room, and Hunter had gone off to the other bus where Wyatt tended to stay if Hunter’s wife wasn’t with him. We were in Lincoln for the next night or two, and then on to somewhere else.

So many places. The days blurred in a wash of photos, and sex, and traveling, and secret hot looks between me and Owen, and laughing with the band, and photos, and more sex.

Sex, sex, sex. I was becoming an addict, which probably explained why I was drawing a man humping a baby blue whale in the condensation from my glass on the table.

Ugh. My doodling skills needed serious work.

“Not for lack of hot dudes to bang. You have a veritable buffet of penis, right there for the stroking. A smorgasbord. All those pretty peens might as well be lined up in a—”

“Stop. Please. The pictures forming in my head will keep me up all night as is.”

Ava laughed. “You’re honestly not into any of them? Surely some of them are still single.”

“Most are, actually. Hunter is the only male band member who is spoken for, unless you count Bats—”

Ava made a sound not meant for human ears. Especially not mine. “That Sheer woman, God. How can he even go there? She’s so shameless.”

“They’re pretty low-key.” I made sure my voice remained soft. “At least lately. Bats is scarce most of the time. Shows up for shows and band functions and then he splits. Gotta say he’s got a cool fascination.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that? Not minding the taste of shady ass—”

“Bats!” I shouted, turning my head just as the three guys on the couch glanced my way. Yes, Owen, Zach and Wyatt were all sitting around watching an old TV show. Zach had his guitar in his lap and Wy kept scanning his phone. Owen seemed to be dividing his attention from the TV and me.

“You okay, love?” he asked mildly.

I waved him off. “Fine. Go back to your pivoting.”

In truth, the “Pivot” episode was one of my favorites. I loved Ross. But the couch was only so big, and to make room for me, Owen would probably pull me into his lap. Which I should be against, since that would be openly affectionate and we didn’t want people to know we were forking like bunnies every time we bumped into each other in a darkened hallway.

It wasn’t that bad, but close enough.

Actually, I didn’t think he’d care if everyone and their cousin knew. I was the one who had all the hangups. One of them just happened to be a concern about my job—and losing it. I’d reminded him of the issues with professionalism if we were caught, and he’d nodded and proceeded to feel me up outside the bus bathroom when Zach had been sawing them off not five feet away.

I should mind such things. I should be telling him no. I shouldn’t be squealing through the climaxes he doled out like pineapple fruit snacks.

Glancing down, I sighed and pitched the wrapper beside my elbow into the trash. I was stress-eating those suckers by the boatload.

Going with the flow wasn’t really me anymore. But here I was, flowing. Going for crazy sex on car hoods—even sort of initiating it in that location—and enjoying flirting with Owen and even getting my wild side on by taking risks. Not only just climbing up on railings and leaning over precipitously to get the best shot. Now I was getting naked outdoors with a man who always came prepared…to come.

Ava sighed and reminded me I was still on the phone. I’d nearly forgotten. “I do know his name. Sorry. I didn’t mean to nag you. You’re on your own timetable, and I’d never try to push you into something you aren’t ready for.”

Somehow I smiled. “Yes, you would. How did I end up at that Halloween party?”

“Sheer brilliant luck,” Owen murmured beside my ear, making me jump and bobble the phone.

“Who was that?” Ava demanded. “Callie? Are you still there?”

Owen smirked at me and neatly plucked my cell out of my boneless fingers. “Well, hello there. Is this the lovely Ava Templeton? Yes. Mmm-hmm. Yes, your sister is right here.” Idly, he stroked the ends of my hair while I tried to see if the other guys were looking without seeming as if I was doing so.

Owen’s sharp tug brought my gaze back front and center, and I stuck my tongue out at him. He only chuckled.

“She’s doing very well on the tour. Blends right in. Meshes especially well with some of us. Oh, and who am I? Tell me, Ava T, you aren’t familiar with the Irish bassist of Hammered?”

The twinkle in his eyes was irresistible. That was the only reason I wasn’t shutting him down. Not because I had a feeling he could handle Ava and dish back everything she shoveled out.

“No, I’m not hammered myself, but thank you for asking. Your sister? She had to step into the loo. She’s been hitting the cups hard. Happy hour, you know.”

I shoved his arm and he swallowed a laugh.

“Here, you should speak to her. It looks like she’s finished throwing up now. Keep her on the phone so she doesn’t go back for more hair from the dog who bit her.” He handed me the phone and trailed his fingers along the side of my neck, leaving a wake of sparks that tingled right down my spine.

Wicked, sexy as hell man.

“Sorry about that,” I said to Ava.

“You’re sleeping with him!” she burst out. “I can tell. He’s overly familiar with you, which means he’s been smashing you like an Idaho potato.”

I sputtered. “What does that even mean?”

It sounded painful. And insulting.

Smashed? Me? Owen wasn’t even all that rough. He pulled my hair now and then when I asked him to.

Okay, maybe I’d screamed it this morning. Same difference.

“It means you lied to your own sister. You denied getting any sexual action from those hotties, and you’re getting naked with one of them. Irish to boot. You may even be naked right now.”

“Um no.” I glanced down at my babydoll top and flared leg black pants. “That’s an absolute no.”

“Are you denying you’re shagging him?”

Laughter spilled out of me and I propped my fist against my mouth. “Av, no one says that anymore. I have to edit some photos. Can we talk later?”

“Hello avoiding the question. Fine, fine. You enjoy yourself while I finish my blog about the benefits of kelp masks over oatmeal. It’s hard being an expert on nearly everything.” She gave a dramatic sigh. “Later. Love you.”

“Bye. Love you.” I clicked off and tucked my phone on the chair beside me.

I reached for my laptop and pulled it closer. The table on the bus was serving as my de facto work station while Patrick and the guys rigged me one in a U-Haul attachment that could hook right onto one of the trucks traveling with us. It would be ready soon, but until then, have laptop, will work anywhere—including where your-so-not-a-boyfriend was leaning over your shoulder to read your screen.

“Don’t you have a TV show to watch?” I asked, pulling up Photoshop.

“Episode ended.”

I glanced over my shoulder and the couch was empty. Whew. Hard to imagine I hadn’t heard the other guys clomping off the bus, but Wy and Zach could be quiet. Occasionally.

Bats, on the other hand, was a different story. Of course he rarely spent much time with the others lately if he didn’t have to. TV time definitely wasn’t on his agenda.

“They went to the other bus to play
Call of Duty
.” Owen sat in the chair beside mine at the table and reached out to pull me into his lap. I didn’t go right away, but I didn’t exactly protest either.

Yes, I had work, but I’d been staying up on my photo processing, and I had automated the basics a lot. Photoshop was so intuitive and allowed an artist to—

“What are you doing?” I gasped as Owen pulled down one strap of my top and sucked on a particularly sensitive spot between my neck and shoulder.

Who was I kidding? My body was one big erogenous zone when it came to this man.

“Typically this is called foreplay. However, in our case, I’d almost call it ongoing play, as I can’t seem to keep my hands off you. Or my mouth.”

I clasped my hands behind his neck. “How long will they be gone?”

“Time enough for me to lay you out on this table and finish the job properly.”

My blood sizzled and roared in my ears. Naturally, this prompted me to say something entirely inappropriate.

“My ex and I had sex on a table once. But it wasn’t good. We ended up breaking the table in an argument afterward, because that was the day I found out he’d bled our account dry. He shoved it against the wall when I questioned him and broke one of the legs. He gambled and played the stock market.” I fell silent at the gleam in Owen’s eyes.

It was feral, for sure, but it wasn’t filled with only longing anymore. Something colder and meaner sheened over the top.

“Your ex bled your account dry and then broke your table. Oh, and there’s no
we
broke the table. He shoved it, so he broke it.”

“I was asking too many—” I stopped and took a breath. “Sorry. So sorry. Not your problem and I wish I’d just learn to hush up.”

“I don’t. I love that you tell me things. I wish you’d tell me more.”

I exhaled. “I don’t want to change the boundaries we have. They’re good ones, right?” I studied his tense jaw until finally, it began to relax. Slightly.

“If they’re good for you, they’re good for me.” He reached up to brush my hair away from my forehead. “What say you we go take a shower while we have some privacy? I have the sudden need to wash away your memories of him, and you’ll indulge me if I turn to a bit of fancy there, I hope.”

My eyes smarted and I turned my cheek against the side of his head before he could see me cry. I didn’t let anyone do that. Not anymore.

I’d cried rivers in front of my ex-husband, and it had only brought me more pain and shame when he’d taunted me for being weak. So I’d stiffened my backbone and built up a crusty shell where no one could ever hurt me—or touch me, even in a good way. I’d insulated myself against both kinds of feelings and tried to convince myself it was for the best.

Until Owen had broken right through those flimsy blockades. And thank God for that.

“You Irish tend toward the fancy, don’t you?” I stroked my fingers through his silky dark hair. “So romantic and poetic.”

“Aye.” He drew me back to look at him and pulled my strap back into place. “I’m happy to show you just how romantic I can be by fucking that slick little pussy until you’re blind from wanting to come.”

I didn’t expect to laugh. Shiver, yes. That reaction he caused in me effortlessly. But smiles and laughter were so much harder to come by. At least they had been before this tour, and this bus, and this life that I was beginning to claim for my own, one day at a time.

“We’ll have to be quick in case the guys come back or Bats shows up,” I warned him, hopping off his lap.

He grabbed my hand and kissed my knuckles. “Wrong turn. Try again. There’s a lock on that door for a reason.” He rose and breathed against the shell of my ear, “So I can lick every drop of water off you until you’re dry…and then start all over on the task of making you wet again.”

I shut my eyes and sucked in desperately needed air. “Okay. Lock it is. Let’s go.”

His laughter followed me into the bathroom.