Rough Rhythm: A Made in Jersey Novella (1001 Dark Nights) Read online

  “No.” She wet her parched lips. “It might fix what’s broken with us, though.”

  Oh, he wanted to take the opportunity and run. There was no denying it. Not when he grew winded looking down at her thighs, her bare midriff. He’d been in check around Lita so long, resisting even her most brazen advances. Maybe it was their dynamic as musician-manager having changed, or maybe it was the feeling of isolation provided by the silent motel. But she saw his hunger, not just for her, but to replace the memory of their night together with one he could stand. One he could live with. “Have…” His throat worked. “Have you eaten?”

  Lita shook her head.

  James’s face remained impassive as he set to work cleaning her ankle, wiping it clean and holding a towel against the cut until it stopped bleeding. All the while, his gaze coasted up her legs, dipping to the space between where she knew the cream-colored material of her thong could be seen. She leaned back against the bathroom mirror and arched her back, letting him peruse her breasts through the awful polyester, focusing on keeping her breathing even.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was so raw Lita was transported back to that night in the Los Angeles hotel. He sounded edgy. Just a hint pissed off. “Can you stand in the shower?”

  “Yes.”

  James nodded once. “Get clean while I find something to feed you.” He turned to leave the bathroom, but paused with one hand on the doorjamb. “If we do this, you need words. And you’ll need to remember them, Lita. I want you to say Beverly Wilshire if I need to stop. Do you understand?”

  Breathe. Breathe. “Yes, I understand.”

  He nodded once, his voice dropping another devastating octave. “Put the outfit back on when you’re finished.”

  Without waiting for Lita’s response, James left the room, closing the door with a decisive click. She slipped off the sink, careful not to agitate her ankle, and started the shower. As steam filled the white tile room, she looked at herself in the mirror, noticing the red staining her cheeks. The excitement dancing in her eyes. How long would it take him to touch her? Anticipation blazed through her veins, vitalizing, electrifying. A significant part of her wanted to goad James to lose control, because while he’d roared over her like a freight train during their one physical encounter, he roused something hot and dangerous. Something she’d spent four years trying to recapture, to no avail. But no. If she forced him to repeat actions he regretted, she would regret it tomorrow. Staying the course was tonight’s game plan.

  She’d been in the shower for a handful of minutes when James returned, slamming the door and making her jump. She soaped herself faster, wanting to hurry and join him in the room before he changed his mind.

  James walked into the bathroom.

  He came to a stop inches from the glass stall, watching as the soap rinsed from her body, down to the drain. For a heavy, breathless moment, he stared at her breasts, belly, and backside. Not moving. Just when she thought he’d frozen into marble, he heaved a shaking exhale that fogged the glass and twisted lust in Lita’s belly. She swore his warm breath reached her through the barrier, the way it turned her nipples to points, forcing a moan past her damp lips.

  Unsure how to proceed with this wickedly intense James of her memory, Lita turned off the shower and stepped from the stall to dry herself with a scratchy white towel, rubbing the ends of her hair to remove excess water. His cool began to slip when she stepped into her discarded skirt, dragging it up her damp legs, situating the garment even higher than usual. The material clung to her hips and buttocks like seeking hands, turning her on, readying her body.

  Deciding to forgo the bra, Lita tugged the matching shirt down over her head. “Are you going to say anything?”

  “Go eat,” James growled. “Before I eat you first.”

  Game plan. Game plan. Lita launched herself into the bedroom, noticing the box of donuts immediately. Of its own accord, her hand lifted to clutch at her chest, an attempt to soothe the sudden hammering beneath. “Chocolate?”

  His footsteps drew up behind her. “I always wondered why you picked donuts that night. I told you I’d bring you anywhere.”

  She swallowed. “You were so intimidating in your suit. I thought maybe if I saw frosting on your fingers…”

  “I wouldn’t be so scary?” His hand settled on her hip, giving it a squeeze, as if testing her resilience. “It didn’t take me long to disappoint you, did it?”

  Knowing from experience that her reassurances to the contrary would do no good, Lita went to the basic, wooden table and selected a chocolate donut from the box. When she took her first bite, she faced James, remembering that night how he’d watched her chew across the plastic Dunkin Donuts booth, encouraging her to eat more. That night, she’d polished off four donuts and two paper cups of room service hot chocolate before saying uncle. Now, she could barely manage to keep half the pastry down, thanks to the butterfly rave taking place in her stomach.

  “You’re done?”

  “Yes.” Before he could argue, she rushed to speak. “What would you have done next? If you could go back.”

  He looked away on a harsh laugh before gray eyes blazed back to hers. “I wouldn’t have behaved like a sick motherfucker. Wouldn’t have made you crawl across the floor to me and beg. I wouldn’t have—” His words broke off when Lita came toward him. “What are you doing?”

  She didn’t think, couldn’t think around the regret and pain radiating from his powerful frame. Nor could she restrain herself after hearing him finally acknowledge the fantasy she’d reenacted so many times in her mind. Over and over. So she went up on her bare toes and kissed his hard mouth….and…ohhh. Just like that, they were having their first kiss. Good Lord. The first taste of James was so outrageously right and delicious and sexual, she sagged against him, fingers twisting in his shirt to keep balanced. Man. He was coarse, unfiltered man. He tore his mouth away on a groan of her name before diving back in, yanking her off the floor and flush against his body.

  Desperation gripped Lita when she felt his erection, a mountain of denim prodding her belly. She scrambled up his muscular body, wrapping thighs around already rolling hips, and received that first upward thrust between her legs. A pop of color decorated her vision, a montage of blinking lights. Their mouths ravaged harder, James the clear aggressor now, with Lita struggling to accommodate his hunger. Loving it. Figuring out new ways to greet his tongue, stroke it. She couldn’t get her mouth open wide enough. More. All. All, all, all.

  When James broke away, she twined her fingers in his hair to pull him back, but he evaded, drilling her with tortured eyes. “I spanked you so damn hard. You were lost…hungry. You needed help and I fucking failed you.”

  “No. How can you say that after everything you’ve done?”

  His hands roamed down her back, stopping just before her backside, clutching the hem of her shirt. “Nothing can fix it. Oh, God. You had…bruises.” He closed his eyes. “You ran away from someone who hurt you and I did the same thing. I was just another monster.”

  Lita kissed his mouth until he looked at her again. “I made you leave the lights off so you wouldn’t see them. I did that.” Another soft kiss. “You didn’t know until the next morning. And it’s not the same.”

  “Yes,” he grated against her mouth. “It is.”

  “No. I enjoyed it. I…loved when you did it. The way you did it. We both wanted everything that happened. I’m sorry you don’t remember it that way.”

  She didn’t realize they’d moved until her back landed on the mattress. James’s weight came down on top of her and she almost screamed at the necessity of that gravitational pressing of their bodies. Like a drink of cold water in the desert. In the sexiest move of all time, he pinned Lita with his hips and whipped the T-shirt over his head, baring his rough-hewn body. God, it was so hot, heat went straight to her clit, sensitizing the flesh, making her whimper.

  “You don’t think I know you enjoyed it?” He drew her top up, past her bre
asts, baring them to his stark hunger. “You’ve spent every minute since that night trying to tempt me back here. Pressing your tight backside against my lap, then apologizing with those big, innocent eyes. Calling me into your dressing room, nothing but a scrap of fabric running between your legs.”

  “I’m not sorry,” she breathed. “You should have given in.”

  He drew a circle around her right nipple with his index finger, bringing the pink bud to a sharp point. “I held back that night, Lita.” His hand closed over her breast, squeezing. “Rough as I was, you enjoyed a restrained version of me.”

  Yes, she did know that now. He’d only allowed her a small glimpse of his dark tastes, hoping to send her running. But it had backfired. Now her curiosity ran neck and neck with unrepentant desire. With the mention of his harsh treatment of her, James’s eyes were taking on a faraway look, though. Was he remembering? She needed to keep him here with her, in the moment.

  Lita leaned up to bury her nose against his chest, his scent sending her pheromones into a swoon. “You smell so good.”

  “Yeah?” James scrutinized her, a muscle jumping in his cheek. He clasped her wrists and drew them over her head. Slow, so slow. The higher he placed them, the harder his arousal ground against her center. “Enjoy it now. Because in around an hour, I’m only going to smell like your pussy.”

  Lita started shaking. James had never spoken to her like that. Even that first night, he’d been so full of visible tension, every command had been issued through his teeth. Holding back. This man looming above her was one she trusted, but the nuances, the sudden edge to him excited her beyond words. “I want to smell like you, too.”

  “Oh, you will.”

  His hips were so heavy between her legs, creating such sweet pressure. And when he moved them in a rough circle, Lita’s eyes rolled back in her head. “Now. Please, now. I need you inside me.”

  “Goddammit, Lita.” He dropped his head into the crook of her neck on an uneven groan, his hands tightening around her wrists. “Let me fix my mistake.”

  Right. This was their do-over. His chance to replace his guilt from that night with something good. Something better. With his big body weighing her down into the mattress, his breath rasping in her ear, she was losing focus of that goal. But she couldn’t. It was too important. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “You’ve taken care of my ankle. Fed me…kissed me. What w-would you have done next?”

  His stubble slid against her cheek as his head lifted. “First, you’ll say out loud what I did to you. I don’t want to be let off so easy.”

  Lita swallowed and focused on the ceiling, her memory calling forth sounds and touches in the dark. “You tied my hands to the headboard…above my head. Then you…”

  “Say it.”

  “You put yourself in my mouth.”

  He released one of Lita’s wrists to tilt her chin up. “That was after. After I made you crawl to me like a beggar, after I slapped the hell out of your sweet ass. That’s when I propped my knees on the pillows and I fucked your little mouth. Didn’t I?” He visibly attempted to center himself but didn’t succeed. “You needed a savior and you found Satan, instead. Took you so many times, so many filthy ways in the dark, I lost track. And not once was I gentle. Did I leave anything out?”

  Afraid that if she spoke, her words would be incoherent, Lita only shook her head.

  Despite the regret he projected, she could see he was turned on. To an immense degree. Could feel his erection bulging against the inside of her thigh. Both of them were panting into the scant space separating them, heating the air. “You liked those things I did to you?”

  “Yes. My answer isn’t going to change.” Goals. You have them. “The do-over ends at midnight, you know. We just have to make it to midnight and you’ll have made up for what happened.”

  James’s frown was thunderous. “You’re making this up as we go, aren’t you?”

  By way of answering, she lifted her legs to surround his waist, loving the way his eyes glazed over. Empowered by it. “I remember how you tasted in my mouth. Your ridges sliding over my tongue. How heavy you are down there.”

  “I hear your little sucking noises in my sleep. Fuck.” His hand tightened its grip on her face but loosened as he exhaled. “I’ve had my turn, though.” He released her jaw, coasting his hand down her thigh and hiking up her skirt. “I’ve apologized to you, now I’m going to repent between your legs.”

  James’s hand cupped her damp flesh, forcing a cry from Lita.

  “Mmm. So wet. Does that mean she’s in a forgiving mood?” Lita didn’t dare answer as James slid his middle finger inside her. Pushed in deep on a low growl. “Yes, she knows. She knows I made sure no one touched. Kept her safe inside those panties, away from hands and mouths that weren’t mine.”

  James dragged his mouth down between her breasts and lower, licking at her belly button twice before settling between her splayed thighs. Lita could barely wrap her mind around the image of James so close to her private flesh. She’d imagined it so many times, but the visual reality—James licking his lips and draping her thighs over his shoulders—almost climaxed her. Illuminated only by the distant bathroom light, he was a dark god, sent down to earth with one intention. To feast and give pleasure.

  When he leaned forward and dropped a kiss over her clit, she strained on the bed, hands twisting in the comforter. “Oh, please.”

  He laid another gentle kiss on her flesh. “So, so sorry, little girl.” His voice was a thick murmur. “I saw my Lita and got carried away, didn’t I? Couldn’t handle the way she made me feel. The bad things she made me want to do.” He parted her flesh with big fingers and gave a long lick through the middle. “Bad things I still want to do. To her. Only, ever, her.”

  Lita’s thighs attempted to close, but only succeeded in hugging James’s head. That single stroke of her clit had already drawn her toward the finish line. So long, she’d waited so long. No fair that it could be over so quickly.

  “Will your pussy forgive me for being a greedy bastard?” James flicked his tongue over her clit. Fast, too fast. “For not giving her what she deserved?”

  “Yes,” she moaned. “Oh God, I can’t take it.”

  “I wasn’t finished apologizing.”

  Before she registered his movement, James rolled over, reversing their position on the bed. It left her straddling his face, her hands clutching at the bedclothes for purchase. “What—” She broke off on a scream when he slipped his tongue inside her, drawing it in and out. “Ohhh. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

  The sweet torture lasted a few blissful moments, before he stopped to tug her clit between his lips. “Now I’m the hungry one, Lita. Feed me.” He gave her bottom an encouraging pat and she could feel his restraint in the touch, knew he wanted to give her a hard slap instead. After that, she could barely think at all because he stiffened his tongue, a silent command to ride. Lita leaned forward, fists planted above his head. She rolled her lips faster and faster, goaded by masculine hands digging into her backside, propelling, encouraging. The buildup of heat was swift and unforgiving. It sang in her veins like an operatic solo, but her mouth could only repeat James, James, James.

  He groaned each time she slicked over his waiting tongue, the sound growing louder until it vibrated her clit. Their erotic position, the absolute possession in his eyes, the grip of his hands, her own wheezing breaths…they combined and lifted her past the point of no return. She started to fall forward when the orgasm blasted through her system, but James grabbed her thighs and pressed his mouth closer, closer, sucking her clit with such ferocity, another climax wracked her muscles on the heels of the first.

  “So good, so good. James. I can’t. It’s so good.”

  Finally he released her legs, allowing her to pitch sideways and land on the bed, her body covered in sweat, chest heaving. The skirt was twisted up around her hips, but she didn’t have the energy to pull it down. James entered her line of vision, looming above he
r in the near-darkness. He watched her in that intense manner, that inscrutable stare of his never wavering until her body cooled. His fingers raked up and down her thighs, pausing only when her attention landed on the erection outlined by his jeans. As if he could feel her attention there, his breath turned shallow. “I’ll wake you at midnight, Lita.”

  Something about the way he said the words bothered her, but she didn’t pinpoint the reason until the second before sleep claimed her. And she realized what she’d heard in his voice.

  Dread.

  Chapter Five

  James stood beside the motel room’s water-stained window, watching the streetlight flicker over the empty parking lot. He could hear Lita’s soft breathing coming from the bed behind him. She hadn’t shifted once since slumping onto the mattress and passing out, a fact that caused tenderness to build every time he glanced over. Tangled hair lay across her cheek, the way he’d seen it countless times when she woke on the tour bus, but it looked different now. Now, he could put his hands in it. Stroke it. Twist it in a fist.

  Damn you. Why couldn’t he be content to lie beside her instead of watching the clock, waiting for midnight? Earlier, while cleaning her ankle, he’d noticed chipped pink nail polish on her toes. A detail he should have found endearing, but only made him eager to…corrupt that sweetness. Eager to have those same toes digging into his ass as he pumped and pumped, silencing her screams with his mouth, his hand. All the while, whispering inexcusable things into her ear. Things his rational mind knew were wrong, but his body liked the sound of.

  How could he feel such protectiveness for Lita and want to dominate her in such a way? It was as though his two urges went hand in hand. Protect and punish. Cherish and…imprison. Keep her still and make her take. He’d never allowed these urges to play out with another woman, because they were only inspired by Lita. When she came into his life, he’d been searching for something without a name. She’d woken up his baser instincts, forced them to take shape, but they’d never gone further than her. Part of him wished it had extended to others, disloyal as that thought made him feel. But at least if this need didn’t have a specific target he could walk away. Leave her to a more natural relationship than the one he could provide.