Ripped (Real Book 5)

Pandora

Concert night is crazy. You need ten eyes when you walk backstage to keep from tripping over anything and crashing into anybody, much less staying in one piece.

I spot Jax in a corner near the curtains, smoking, and I suddenly wish I’d tucked my e-cigarette into my jeans. “Oh, can I get some?” I ask. Jax puffs out a stream of smoke as he hands it over. I give it a hit and cough. “It’s pot?”

“What did you think it was?” He grins and lifts his hand to retrieve it from me, but I quickly move away, deciding to take another quick hit.

Jax laughs and pounds my back when I cough. “Easy, Miss Jones,” he says.

“Oh, puleeze. I’m not Miss Jones.”

“Well that’s what everybody calls you ’round here.” He grins at me, and I notice he has the strangest shade of eyes I’ve ever seen. They’re violet. “We feel like we know you, being that Jones sings about you and him and all,” he drawls out, acting quite brotherly to me now.

“They’re all lies, I tell you. Wait till you hear what I have to say about him.” I nod direly, and he lets out a booming laugh.

From out of nowhere, Lionel grabs the cigarette and stubs it out. “Get rid of this, Jax. Jesus F Christ, how many times must I tell you?”

“Umm. Once more?”

Leo scowls at him and turns to me. “Want to watch the concert from the front row?” Clearly noticing my hesitation, he ushers me toward the doors leading out to the stadium. “Come on. It’ll be fun for you, and one less thing for me to worry about. I don’t want Kenna distracted. He’s already obsessing over what wig to wear tonight.”

“He looks ridiculous either way, so tell him he might as well go for a Mohawk,” I say drolly as I follow him outside.

I guess I knew there could be repercussions to being in the front row: listening to the crowd clamor, “CRACK BIKINI!” as he walks in, the Vikings pop out, and the music builds . . . slow at first—like foreplay—then races toward a musical orgasm that grabs you in a choke hold and doesn’t let go. I should have known my body would betray me, just like last time. I should have known I’d feel hot and bothered and confused . . .

Just like last time.

But Mackenna? He wears a spiky blue mohawk over his buzz cut, and the things that does to me. Is he teasing me, or indulging me? He’s just so good at what he does. The crowd is hyped, and he greets them all with a low chuckle and a vigorous yell.

“Aren’t you a noisy crowd tonight!”

The crowd responds by yelling louder, and after a short interlude from the orchestra, he gets into position at the center of the stage and starts to sing.

My body reverberates with the music. With his voice.

He sings with incredible focus—and one of the things I most marvel at is that he never just stands there. His body is always on the move, rippling muscles and fluid movements that have to be deceptively strong. Those leaps he makes . . . how he leaps from one level of the stage to the other and flips in the air . . . I need to consciously fill my lungs. They’ve stopped working on automatic.

And, as if the sight of him isn’t enough, the sound of his voice bolts through my body and makes my blood pump furiously in my veins. His voice is so deep and masculine, you cannot be both a woman and unaffected. He sings from the heart, and you can see it—feel it—in every word. When he sings “Pandora’s Kiss,” I can hear the anger in the song, even in the mad strike of the twins’ guitars . . . and my own anger, frustration, and pain rise up to meet Mackenna’s sudden frown.

He looks at me with pained eyes, and my stomach plummets when he keeps singing without looking away from me. Those wolf eyes have hunted me down in the crowd, snagged and captured me. He’s stopped dancing too. The dancers dance behind him, but he just sings, and looks at me, and sings, “I shouldn’t have opened you up, Pandora . . .”

As he sings his frustration and regrets to me, I know it’s for the cameras.

It has to be.

I’m confused. Confused when his anger and mine mix in a powerful combination that brings forth an undeniable, electric spark of lust. People scream, the music vibrating in all of us, but in me it’s tangled up like another being. Breathing. Pulsing. Beating.

As the music continues, Liv and Tit come up to his sides and start rubbing up his chest. He’s ignoring them, still singing while their fingers trace his nipples and chest. Just like I will in Madison Square Garden. If I don’t puke from the nerves first.

Tit looks at me from upstage. It’s a brief flick of her eyes that everyone else would miss—even me, if I weren’t so engrossed by what they’re doing to him—then she leans and licks his nipple. Jealousy flits through me as his voice rumbles through my body, spinning me into a frenzy to the point where I want to go and scream at the bitch, “He was mine first!”

He turns and moves against Tit, looking at her now as he sings, and strangely I feel the absence of his eyes like a punch in the gut. But then the guitars come in for their turn, and when his stare comes back to me, I’m charged with a thousand watts. The night progresses and his attention keeps straying to see that I’m watching him, and I feel . . . sexy, wanted, womanly. I remember how Brooke used to sit when her husband spotted her from the boxing ring. I used to think how ridiculous it was to be so stunned and excited. Yet here I am, trapped in my seat. In trying to show how tough I am, I’ve repressed the sensual side of me for so long that it feels good to embrace it now. Aware that he’s watching, I close my eyes and lose myself to the music, somehow feeling the shift in his voice.

When this last song is done, I open my eyes to see him whispering something to someone. One of the roadies comes out and ushers me backstage.

“What’s going on?” I ask, confused.

“Kenna gets a water and costume change. He wants you there.”

As the Vikings take over the microphone for a while, I find myself waiting in darkness under the stage until, suddenly, he drops through the same open elevator that lifts the Vikings at the start of the concerts.

I cry out in surprise when he rockets to the ground. He leaps off and grips me to his hard body to steady me, saying against my temple, “Easy.”

He holds me, his heart beating wildly under my ear. We’re both panting. It’s dark, but I feel his eyes looking down at me, gauging me. The silence here is eerie, but I can still hear the roars of the public outside. “I never thought you watching me perform would get to me the way it did.” His eyes are silver flames. “Did that turn you on as much as it did me?”

Whatever it is I expected, it wasn’t this.

And I bite my tongue before I can tell him that it turned me on more. My god, it turned me on more. His desire isn’t the only turn-on; it was also the way his stare felt almost intimate on me. I feel it right now, close and heady, and like a heavy anchor in my chest.

“Tell me,” he repeats, seizing my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Why didn’t you come to me last night? You’re determined to be stubborn about this, when you know I want you?” He tips my head back so I have no choice but to stare into his heartbreakingly handsome face. He wears this beautiful, partly amused, partly regretful smile. “Well, you know what they say, Pandora,” he murmurs, stroking his thumb ring over my chin. “If Muhammad won’t come to the mountain, then the mountain will come to Muhammad.”

“And you’re this walking, moving mountain?” I scoff, trying to lighten the atmosphere between us. It’s too much. It’s electric. Magnetic.

He slides his fingers under the fall of my hair and massages my scalp, the movement almost as hypnotizing as hearing his rough rocker’s voice so close. “That’s right. I heard you were dancing your heart out. You’re determined not to embarrass yourself on our final concert night?”

“That’s right.”

I focus all my attention on his strong jaw and then his mouth. Anything so he doesn’t look into my eyes and see the things I’m suddenly thinking. I want to impress you. I want you to remember the girl in the ice skates. The one you said you loved . . .

God, I’m such a bluffer. Black clothes, black nails? I’m a pussy. An innocent little kitty pretending to be Catwoman. This man could kill me, over and over, until my nine lives are done.

“You know,” he says. His tone is conversational, but there’s a lingering huskiness in his voice, an exertion from his vocal cords roughening it. “When I kiss you in front of the world, I’m going to tongue you. I’m going to fucking ravage your mouth and give Lionel exactly what he wants. A kiss that’s going to be plastered on every fucking screen across the country. A kiss you’ll never, ever forget, Pandora. It’s what you want too, isn’t it? To make people see that I’m really into you. That I’m a fucking fool, singing about you as if I don’t want you when the truth is, I want you more than my next fucking song?”

These words are so unexpected, my lungs forget to expand and contract. The only things expanding seem to be my throat and my chest, and contractions flutter between my legs. “It doesn’t matter. It’s an act,” I say.

“Is it.”

It’s a statement, not a question. He keeps his four long fingers cupping the back of my head and uses his thumb to trace the line of my neck. “I’m a singer, Pandora. Not an actor.”

One second he’s warning me, looking at me, the next he ducks with that strangely sexy mohawk and brushes his lips across mine. A teasing brush, but enough to set me ablaze.

“Urghm, Kenna . . .”

I don’t like the sound I make. Like I have longed for this for Lord knows how long, but who cares when he’s pushing his tongue through my lips. I’d make that sound again to get him to keep stroking into my mouth.

So I do.

And he rubs in, wet and slick, hot and deeper, lips angling over mine. My world spins and I grab his hard arms and push closer, while his hands settle on my bottom and he pulls me up against his hips. I can feel his big erection against my tummy. But it’s at the wrong place. I want it somewhere else.

I’m ready to twine my legs around him and rub myself against him, when he tears free and sets me aside as though it’s taking a monumental effort to do so. The mountain unable to stay away from Muhammad. “Stay here, babe. Don’t so much as twitch a single of your sweet, long, delectable little muscles. I’ll be back in three songs.”

He steps onto the elevator platform as a counter lights up in the dressing room, counting from 10 down to 0. Then he seems to remember the costume change. Racing into the room, he swears and jerks off his shirt, grabbing a new one from a hanger before he climbs back up onto the platform again.

I cover my mouth. Wet and hot, it tingles, and tastes of him.

“Stay here,” he says again.

His pale eyes glimmer on me, and his feet are braced apart, hands fisted at his sides.

I’m so hot I’m roasting in my skin. I can’t answer. God, what is he doing to me?

The moment the platform shoots back up, I groan in despair. Then I hear his voice above me. Shit. What am I doing? I start pacing, imagining licking his nipple and rubbing him like those dancers did. I’m feeling a little envious of all those people ogling him right now, but most of all, I feel high. With emotion. Desire.

Lust.

I’m still here waiting. Why am I waiting? I can’t think of anything except his nipple under my tongue. Silver eyes. That wig I’m going to yank off him so I can run my fingers over his close-cropped hair.

When there’s finally a huge, huge roar—after like a year!—I know the show is over.

My heart is pounding as I wonder where he’ll come from. After a few more moments, he charges down some hidden side stairs, his body filling the doorway.

Like two magnets, our eyes lock.

My breathing hitches.

Mackenna yanks off the small microphone taped to his back and the earbud in his ear, then tosses them aside.

He starts walking toward me. There are all kinds of cables and contraptions around us, and I back up until I hit a wall with a metal door. My brain feels as scattered as the butterflies in my stomach.

Oh god, I have to let him.

No. I can’t let him.

Panicked for what I feel, I turn and run, frantically searching for an exit. Down here, it’s a labyrinth. I’m dodging cables and equipment, but there is no exit I can find.

Behind me I hear his footsteps gaining on me and then, low and rough with lust: “Pandora.”

He’s at my back, hand on my wrist, pulling me back to him. My heart is pounding helplessly in my throat as I feel my muscles sag at his touch. I let him turn me. I face him, full of dread, want, dismay as I let him slowly press me up against the metal door. He eases his hands into the waistband of my skirt as I grab his spiky mohawk and pull on it. He drags his nose against mine as I toss the wig aside, and I kiss the top of his head because . . . I don’t even know why. Because he’s Mackenna Jones. Infuriating and odious and also . . . an adorable dreamer I once knew, who made his dream come true. The kiss was impulsive, but it makes him groan as though it did something profound to him. I’m shaking with emotion, and he’s shaking with something I suppose is adrenaline.

“Are you wet?” he asks through panting breaths.

“Yes,” I say. And I am. From watching him, with his chest sweaty, and from the feel of his inked skin, warm under my fingers.

“I’m so fucking turned on,” he groans and shoves my panties aside, giving me two fingers. Just like that. They slip in so easily because I’m soaked. I have no control, and I can’t stop myself from throwing my head back and riding those fingers with a circle of my hips. Oh god nothing’s ever felt like this. . . . He bites my lower lip and sucks it into his mouth. It feels hot and wet and good. So good. I bite his lip hungrily, sinking my nails in his scalp.

“Kenna,” I moan.

“God, I missed the way you say my name like that.”

Except you know this can’t happen, Pandora, this is going nowhere but a dark, dangerous dead end.

And because I know this, it’s with a strange pain and dread that I stand here, both wanting and not wanting what I can tell by his gaze he’s about to do.

He spreads my arms out and pulls my shirt off. The cool air brushes across my skin, and my nipples pucker as he unfastens my bra.

“Don’t, Kenna,” I suddenly say, stepping back and awkwardly closing my bra.

“Don’t fucking cover up, Pink,” he gruffly commands.

My hands shake as I try to fasten my bra back up.

He chuckles—the sound sexy, male—and tsks as he tugs my bra open again, his fingers brushing my skin as he tosses it aside.

He doesn’t know the regrets and memories roiling inside me as he cups me in his hands. He leans down to kiss my lips, and he smells of mint, his hands warm. My breathing quickens and I gasp when he tugs my skirt up to my hips and drops to one knee, spreads my legs, and takes my ankle in his firm grip.

“One leg up around my shoulders,” he says.

I lift my leg, and he bends over to set his mouth on my pussy. The heat of his tongue as it flashes over my clit makes me moan.

No, no, no. We shouldn’t be doing this.

But he spreads my legs wider by wedging his shoulders in between them, reaching up to let his fingers caress a path up the inside of my thighs. My naked legs tremble as his tongue rushes over my skin.

I reach between my legs and cup the back of his head, arching my back so he can eat me up harder, faster, deeper.

His hunger is palpable in every flash of his tongue, every groan he buries inside me. I writhe. I moan. He lifts his head to look at me, and his eyes are molten, his jaw clamped as though he’s holding something back with brutal force.

“Look at you,” he hisses, taking me in with a sweep of his fevered silver eyes. His lips glisten with my juices. His closely shaven head is still perfect, not rumpled by my hands. I hear a scraping sound as he drags a hand across the back of his head. “Son of a bitch, Pink.” He says something that sounds like me being this vulnerable right now undoes him. But there’s something odd here. Instead of feeling vulnerable, when he drinks me up with his eyes I feel powerful, like I’m all the air on this earth, and all the water, too.

Back on his feet, he pulls me against his body. Every hot, hard, unyielding muscle against me, his body fevered and damp against my bare skin. And he comes at me like an animal—his mouth, teeth, tongue, lips, working up my body. His groans coming from deep inside him like my own, jerked from the very pit of me.

Our hands are all over, mouths all over.

I can feel his thighs against mine, the line of his cock digging into my pelvis. I’m unstoppable. Rabid. I want him closer, I want him in me.

“Hang on tight, babe,” he whispers in that low, after-the-concert gruff voice of his, understanding me, understanding what I need.

I wiggle into position, panting hard.

He reaches between our bodies to peel off his tight, black rocker leathers completely down his thick, muscular legs. I hurry to push my undies down my hips, struggling to kick them off as he sheathes his cock with a condom.

He lifts me and my body twitches and quivers as he lowers me down on him, penetrating me, inch by inch. I groan again, shoving my hands under his shirt and pulling it up over his head so that he’s naked. He inhales deeply when he can’t go any farther. He feels so thick that all of a sudden, I’m ready to burst.

I suck on his nipple as he fondles my breasts in the most delightful ways. His teeth sink into my earlobe and tug as he starts thrusting, the delicious drag of his cock stimulating all my nerve endings.

Our mouths become voracious, and his sudden rhythmical thrusts tell me he means business and I’m open. The way he grabs my hips and moves me on him, setting the exact rhythm he wants, is like I was made just for him to fuck and god, he’s so . . .

So much stronger than before. Bigger than before. Thicker than before.

I can’t think . . . can’t breathe . . . he’s hot, hard . . . ooh, god, I need this. I never knew how much until his arms are tight like clamps around me. And he’s inside my body. His tongue flashing into my mouth.

Nothing else matters but this—his breathing, my breathing, his grunts and my groans, my body wrapped around his. I’m wrapped to his body, my arms, legs, even my neck, curled into his, my whole body clinging to him. He knows just what to do, with his mouth, his lips dampening the skin on my neck, my jaw, my ear, then meshing with my mouth.

“You feel so . . .” I bite back the word “right” and instead push my lips hard to his. Our teeth gnash, then he pulls free and stares into my face with burning eyes as if he’s high on me, plowing me fast and faster, watching me gasp as my breasts bounce.

He rasps, “Come,” and comes hard and fast as it starts for me. His cock jerks inside me three times, and the breath hisses out of him as his muscles clench and tighten against me. He grasps me to his body and continues pumping as we shudder together.

It takes us minutes to recover, neither of us moving. I’m still clutching him, but when I realize how clingy I must appear, I lift my head from the crook of his neck and open my mouth to speak. Mackenna presses his finger to my lips. “No, babe,” he says, his voice both tender and chastising.

My brain is still buzzing. Feeling lusty and strangely playful, I open my lips again, and I bite down on his finger with a smile. He clenches his jaw and his eyes flash, almost like he’s remembering the other times I did that. Then without warning, he leans over and bites down on one of my fingers too. Like old times . . .

Ouch! I playfully protested. You’re going to snack on my finger? Really?

Oh, stop complaining. Here, take mine . . .

A strange emotion tightens my chest, and it hurts. Gently, he rubs his finger against my tongue, and I do the same.

“You taste like sweat,” I say, with a mock grimace.

“You taste like sugar,” he husks out, his lids heavy.

I pull my hand free and he continues gazing at me, waiting for me to say something. I’m trying to pull up my walls, but I’m failing miserably. “I . . . ,” I begin.

“Don’t ruin it,” he says, setting his forehead on mine and sighing, “but you’d be surprised to know what I’d give to hear this mouth tell me how it really feels about me.” He rubs the mouth he’s speaking of with his thumb ring and my nipples harden again.

“I expressed it with vegetables, remember?” I say, unable to rein back the lust in my voice.

“Hmm, yes, a memorable experience.” He gives one last nibble to the tip of my finger, holding it by the base and kissing the pad before letting me go.

It was such a genuine act of tenderness, I surprise myself when I nuzzle his throat, still feeling oddly playful as I drop one last kiss to his lips, wanting to surprise him by saying something he’d never expect to hear. “I really like the way you come.”

He grabs my head and looks at me in shock. “You being serious right now?” He searches my face.

I lick my lip and love that his eyes fall there. I’m feeling the best I’ve felt in a long time as I peer up at him through my lashes. My body is lax against his and I feel . . . good. Happy. Content with the world. He smells like a man—like the only man I’ve ever been with. He smells of my memories and my dreams, and my childhood and teens. Of the boy who drew me out enough to make me feel carefree.

He frames my face and searches my expression with complete intensity, his textured voice prickling across my skin. “I don’t just like the way you come, baby—I get off on it. The way you fight your orgasm but it takes you over and you can’t keep your eyes open. The way you can’t bite back the sounds you make, and you grip me like you don’t want to let go. Do you feel me?” he demands in my ear, clutching me close. “I’m stiffening up inside you and you’re still slick and hot, like a fist around me. Do you feel me?”

I close my eyes and shudder as he begins caressing me under my top with one long-fingered hand, relaxing against me as he slides down against the metal door and we stay there for a while.

A flick and the scent of tobacco filters through my daze, and I angle my head to see the tip of a cigarette glowing in the dark as he gives it a hit. He expels the smoke quickly and offers it to me. “What is it?” I ask, narrow-eyed.

“Camel. Just normal tobacco. I’m not into drugs. Guess they ruined my fucking life already through my dad.”

The smoke trails out of his lips and I watch it, impulsively bending to inhale it. I cough and laugh, and he laughs and slaps my back. He smokes several cigarettes in a row and I wonder, dazedly, if this is his life. So I ask, “This is what your life is like?”

He looks at the mess around us and smokes lazily. “Yeah.”

“Do you like it?”

He shrugs.

Suddenly I realize that even if he still wanted me, even if he hadn’t broken my heart, there would be no room in this life for me. And if there were, I wouldn’t see Magnolia. He chose this over me. And I choose mine over this.

It makes me sad.

But I don’t want him to know that, so I groan and squirm free from the heavy arm he holds around my shoulders, saying, “You’re sweaty.”

“So are you.”

I try to put some distance between us, but he puts the cigarette out on the cement floor and looks at me, dragging his hand through his hair before laughing. “Do I have to be inside you to be touching you? Do you need to be fucked to be touched, babe?”

“I hate displays of affection. They’re silly.”

“Nobody’s here but me. And this is silly.” He tugs the pink strand of my hair with a playful smile.

I sigh and yield to the impulse to press against him, acutely aware of our shoulders touching.

“Living with the band gets too noisy almost,” he says as he studies the ceiling, absently playing with my hair and making me feel childish and wonderful, just like he used to before. It worries me—a lot—but not as much as I love feeling childish and wonderful.

“Do you get away to be alone sometimes?”

“Not as much as I’d like.” He drags his hand over his hair again as he meets my gaze in the dark. “I think about you, Pandora. About us.”

We look at each other for a moment.

My lungs—what is up with them today? It’s an effort to pull in air, and all the while I’m trying to disguise it.

“I guess every time you make a choice, you wonder if you made the right one,” he explains to me.

“And . . . ?” I ask, needing to know his thoughts more than my lungs need the oxygen.

“And what?” he prods.

“Was it the right one?”

“You tell me,” he shoots back, his eyebrows slanted slightly in assessment.

“No, you tell me.”

“No. Because it wasn’t really my choice.”

I stare back with my own frown because, suddenly, it’s too much. This conversation. Him saying he didn’t choose to walk away. Fuck that!

“Mackenna, I can’t do this.” I try to rise, but his hand clamps on my wrist to stop me. I’m so hypersensitive, the touch sizzles down my nerve endings. “Kenna,” I say, and my voice falters.

Will you come to me tonight?

Always . . .

God, I wish I could get a brain enema and wash my every memory away so that it stops hurting like this, but instead, every memory of our past is with me—with us—as he starts laughing over my quicksilver temper, tugging me back to him. “Come here,” he coaxes.

I’m humming with so much feeling it’s indecent. Thrumming with life. It’s too much, it’s not enough. It’s torture.

He’s torturing me. Prolonging the moment until I finally, finally, fall—straight into his lap. Then his hand spreads against the back of my head, his lips on my neck. The gesture is soft. Tender. He follows the arc of my throat and shoulder. Words, thick and sexy, reverberate against my skin. Spilling in my ear. “God, I can’t get enough of you. You’re such a vixen.”

He speaks it reverently, so reverently my heart hardly hears the words. Just the tone. And it is beating somewhere in the sky. But I want it back in me. He broke it and I’m not letting him take it away. I can’t let him take it away.

I want to cry but I rarely do—not even when he left. I cried when I lost my virginity because I was happy. I cried when my father died because I was sad.

Your father doesn’t deserve a single one of those tears! my mother screamed. He betrayed us. You won’t shed a tear for him, do you hear me?

When I lost Mackenna, I kept hearing those same words. My mind replaying them for me, over and over. He betrayed you. You won’t shed a single tear for him.

I make an angry sound and try to get free, but I can’t believe how easy it is for him to stop me, and more so . . . how very much I actually want him to stop me.

Is that why I came? Because I wanted to see if he gave a shit? To see if he’d even try to get a little piece of me back? That thought worries me more than anything right now, and it gives me the strength to pull free and leap to my feet, stepping quickly into my jeans.

“You’re going to pretend you don’t want this?” he asks me devilishly as he jumps back into his leather.

“It wouldn’t be pretending. It’s a chemical animal attraction, nothing more.” I turn around and straighten my clothes before heading to the same stairs he’d appeared through. I hear his footsteps behind me as we head upstage, where roadies and team members are cleaning up.

“I’ll prove you wrong tonight,” he says, following me to one of the cars meant to take us back to our hotel. A camera catches up with us down the hall, and I know we won’t be able to shake it off—at least, until I get back into my room.

“What are you doing?” I ask when Mackenna slips into the car after me. He says nothing as we drive away, the cameraman nicely slipping into the front of the car and aiming back at us, silent. Thankfully, Kenna doesn’t press the issue with him here, and neither do I.

Silence surrounds us the entire journey, following the three of us up the elevator, and silence remains even as Mackenna follows me to my room. “Mackenna, what are you doing?” I whisper-hiss.

Alarm, anticipation, burn in me as I open my door.

Always . . .

He flicks his middle finger at the cameraman, then slams the door in his face and turns around to look at me.

“Your room is that way.” I point at the door behind him.

“Tonight, my room is here,” he says with a cocky smile. He also watches my reaction.

Which is to stutter.

“N-n-no. No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

Suddenly, he scoops me up in his arms and grunts, saying, “You’re heavy, babe.”

“Put me down or get a fucking hernia! God!”

He laughs. “Hernia it is.” He carries me to the bed with ease—the fucking clown isn’t even struggling to carry heavy ol’ me. Then he eases me down on the bed, tugs off my heels, and tosses them to the floor. I bolt, alarmed when I realize where this is going again. Danger!

“Don’t! This isn’t happening again, Mackenna.”

“It’s happening,” he contradicts. “I’m spending the night, Pandora.”

“But I don’t want this!”

He takes my foot in one hand and slides his fingers up my bare leg, a white wolf-smile on his sexy mouth. “Give me ten minutes to prove you wrong. To prove to you how much you do want this.”

I look at his bare chest, feeling his fingers at the arch of my foot, my voice shaky as I say, “I don’t want you here.”

He falls silent, and for a moment I think he’s going to leave, and it fills me with an unexpected panic that only confuses me more.

He doesn’t leave, though.

He shoots me a lopsided grin. “Ten minutes and you’ll be singing a different tune.”

“I don’t sing—you do.”

“You’ll sing like a fucking canary, baby. Lie down,” he says, and the intensity in his gaze goes perfectly with his devil’s smile and attitude.

“Okay. I’ll give you ten minutes. But with clothes on,” I say. “And if you can’t seduce me in ten, you leave.”

He lifts his hands innocently. “I’m not touching your clothes. And consider yourself seduced.”

I relax. Somewhat.

My heart is still beating like a drum.

The bed embraces me as I settle back down, and I don’t know why I don’t protest, except I don’t have energy to do anything but breathe. I have never been more aware of my breath.

In, out. In, out.

When his touch returns to one of my arms, starting at the back of my hands, it makes me tense up. I exhale in a rush as he trails his fingers upward, his touch familiar, delicious. Oh, god, it feels delicious. Soft as a feather, but with the voltage of a gazillion kilowatts.

My eyes want to drift shut as I remember the first time Mackenna touched me. I remember his face, how his sexy mouth would form this perfect smile, and I swear his eyes said that he loved me like Romeo loved that stupid Juliet. I felt his gaze in my heart. Now his eyes are dark and hooded and he’s not smiling, his expression grave and intent as ever as he runs two fingers up my bare arm. My heart can no longer feel his gaze, but I feel his gaze between my legs. In my nipples. My fucking ovaries. I could get pregnant with this gaze.

He slides his fingertips under the sleeve of my top, then runs them back down my arm. “Relax, Pink,” he coos.

His voice has gained a roughness that makes the hairs on my arms prick pleasurably. “My name . . . is Pandora.”

“I happen to know your name very well and I remember you didn’t like it, but you liked it when I called you gorgeous. It made your eyes dark and made you bite your lip, just like you’re doing now, because you wanted me to kiss you. Do you remember that, gorgeous girl?”

I scoff, but the sound is feeble. I bite my lip, but now it feels wet, and he’s looking intently at it as if expecting me to invite him to kiss me. He keeps touching me with those long musician’s fingers.

Never, ever date a musician. Other men will never compare.

Lithe fingers trace my arms and elbows. My wrists and fingers. Then up my legs. Those fingers brush over me and my tummy caves in from the pleasure.

I’m breathing in, out. In, out.

My tense muscles feel bunched up as he strokes his fingers up my throat. Gah, how to resist? Resist the only guy I’ve ever kissed. Ever loved, ever made love to. I start squirming as his fingers skim over my skin.

“Relax. I wanted ten minutes to change your mind, it’s only been two.”

“Seriously? Only two?” I whine.

He leans over and kisses my collarbone, his breath warm on my body as he starts kissing up my throat, and I remember it all.

Fingers touching me. Perfect Pandora . . .

My fingers curling awkwardly around his cock. How do I . . . ?

Babe, I swear, you move that hand and I’m going to go off.

My heart racing, my body trembling with nerves and the excitement of having Mackenna hot, long, and thick in my hand, looking down at me like a hungry sex fiend. The tip is wet, can I taste . . .

Fuck, don’t move that hand!

The memory creeps up on me, how innocent and hormonal we were, and before I can stop it, I curl my arms around his neck and I gasp into his ear, “Okay, you can sleep here tonight.”

His eyes shoot to my face and he lifts one brow. “Yeah?”

I bite my lip and nod eagerly.

I hear him whisper, “Fuck,” and he shoves his hands under my T-shirt and cups me over my bra, looking down at me and licking his lips as if savoring me. I should not want this so bad, I really shouldn’t.

“Just tonight,” I say. Always . . . I hear in my mind.

But he nods intently and says, “Just tonight.”

I lift my head and part my lips as he kisses a path up to my mouth, and when our lips brush, he groans and keeps brushing across them. I am so aroused by the thought of kissing him in bed that I have to peel my eyes open.

“What?” I whisper breathlessly, my body squeezing spasmodically with want as he thumbs my nipples. “Don’t you want to kiss me?” I wanted to tease him with my kiss, but now I’m the one feeling teased because he won’t take it.

His eyes burn with lust as he pulls his hands out of my top and angles my head to his, his hands cradling the back of my skull as he studies me and murmurs, “I want to do more than kiss you.”

I lick my lips and stare at his mouth. His mouth, which I really want—no, need—right now. I want to ask for what I want, but I’ve already asked him to stay and asking for more makes me feel open . . . so open . . . so weak . . .

I’m not comfortable expressing my feelings, a trait I inherited from my mom. The relationship she and my dad had was almost businesslike. Since he died, since Mackenna left, my only source of emotion has been Magnolia.

But she’s not a danger to me like Mackenna is.

She hasn’t broken me like he has.

So I just grab the back of his head, lift my head, and kiss him. Barely a nanosecond passes before he gets aggressive in return, almost squishing me as he stretches over me with his big body so that his cock is nestled between my thighs. And I feel it. His thick, hard, throbbing shaft. Against my body. Only my jeans and his leather pants separating us.

“This has to come off,” he says and tugs my top upward.

I stop him, pulling it back down. “Wait.”

His eyes sparkle in challenge and I smile playfully, trying to do it slowly, to make him anticipate it.

Do it, Pandora. He’ll get even more excited when you take all this away. Think about the blue balls you can give him, a little devil tells me. The same devil who watched me get hurt.

He watches, rapt.

I pull it over my head.

He reaches for the bra.

“Wait,” I again command.

His lids grow even heavier, his jaw tightly clamped as he licks his lips once more. My silver-eyed, hungry wolf . . .

I slowly begin to unlatch and slip off my bra.

His eyes keep darkening and darkening, a muscle working in the back of his jaw as he now watches me unzip.

He follows me and unzips his leather pants.

He looks at one pointed, hard nipple, then the other, leaning over to take one tip between his teeth, tugging as he shoves down his pants and I kick off mine. Moaning, I rub instinctively, skin to skin. This wasn’t planned—all this sex—but I haven’t had sex in so many years and I just . . . oh. His groan. His groan kills me as he engulfs my other breast in his hand and murmurs, “You enjoy that little striptease?”

“Did you?” I shoot back.

He tugs the nipple harder, almost to the point of pain. “How much do you think I want you?”

“Judging by . . .”—I rock my hips—“I’m guessing a lot?”

He laughs against my breast and it makes his laugh that much hotter. “I want you a hell of a lot more than a lot.” He lifts his face, then his gaze looks haunted. “Pandora . . . ,” he says as if it’s the beginning of something else, his thumb ring running up my rib cage. “What happened?” He studies me. “What happened?”

I close my eyes and breathe deep as a thousand words slam into me. You fucking left! You broke my heart. I weathered my mother alone. I lost my will to live. I lost what we could have had.

“Hey, hey, look at me,” he says, turning my head by the chin. But I can’t look at him.

I can’t.

Suddenly, there’s a noise outside and a knock. “Hey! Dora! DORRRRA! Hey! We’ve got the alcohol! Open up, bitch!”

I groan.

“That Liv and Tit?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Dude, you’re friends with those two vipers? They want your head on a stake.” He sounds annoyed as fuck. And now, with this interruption, actually so am I.

“Any other girls around I can hang with? No. So yes, we’re friends.”

He sighs and edges back, then quietly stands. No. No, no, no! I think, panic rushing through me as my body is rocked with shudders of need.

“You want me to go?” he asks.

No. No, I don’t. I don’t.

But once again I sit here, watching him, speechless, and he’s watching me back. “Nod your head if you want me to stay,” he says, softening his voice.

His hands are flexing at his sides as if he’s anxious for my answer. I motion my head, and I’m not sure if it’s a yes or a no. He sighs, then slips his T-shirt over his head. As he heads to the door, panic grips me. He’s not coming back to bed.

“Mackenna!” I yell to stop him—at the exact moment he yanks the door open.

“Take the party elsewhere. She’s got company,” he growls low in his throat.

And slams the door shut in their faces.

I blink, my heart completely motionless in my chest. He turns around to me, his eyes like flames on my skin. “One day, you’ll beg for it.” He jerks his shirt off again.

My heart pounds as he crosses the room. “In your dreams, Mackenna,” I bluff.

He only laughs softly and shakes his head. “You’re stubborn, I’ll give you that. But you’ll wear down.”

“Never.”

He leans over and, suddenly, all his male weight is hovering over me, his lips pressing to my ear in the most tender kiss I’ve ever felt.

“No, babe. Always.”