Chapter 2
(Steel)
“Stay just like that and don’t move,” I growled. “I want to look at you.”
The last place I’d expected to be tonight was in Rebel’s room, staring down into green eyes flecked with gold, while he knelt naked on the carpet, hands gripping my thighs.
We hadn’t even gotten to the good stuff yet. Just the yank and rip of clothes sent flying in between messy, desperate kisses and grumbled pleas.
His.
Begging me to hurry the fuck up.
He could wait for fast. This moment was one I intended to savor.
I stepped back and his hands slid down my skin, like he didn’t want to lose the connection, but he didn’t move when I stepped around him, fingertips trailing over sun-kissed skin, occasionally pausing to trace a tattoo.
“Interesting choice,” I muttered.
“I’ve got a thing for seahorses.”
“You knew which one I was touching,” I said, mildly surprised, with how many of them were etched into his skin. “Shocking.”
“Why?”
“Out of sight, out of mind,” I replied.
“Doesn’t mean I forgot it was there, or why I got it.”
“So, there’s a story behind it.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll have to tell me about it on one of our hockey nights,” I declared as I moved from his shoulder to his back, always touching just to feel him quiver beneath my hand.
His breathing picked up when I swept his hair to the side and bared the nape of his neck so I could give it a squeeze. He exhaled, ragged with a hint of a whimper to it, but held his position, even when I leaned in to nip his skin.
“Please…” he groaned.
“Patience.”
He grumbled fuck patience beneath his breath, soft enough that I almost missed it, so I made it my mission to show him the value in waiting. Kneeling behind him, I ran my hands up his back, kneading muscles tense with anticipation until he shuddered and let his head hang.
“There we go, that’s better,” I murmured, leaning in so I could kiss his shoulder. “Let me enjoy this.”
He didn’t respond with words, but his body went lax beneath my hands, and he stopped pressing into my touch, constantly seeking what I was freely offering him.
Sliding one hand beneath his chin and the other around his waist, I tugged him against me, tilted his head up, and caressed his abs, all while kissing every inch of skin I could reach.
I deliberately avoided his cock and only skimmed his nipples before stroking back over his midsection. When I glided my hand down his thigh, he tried to squirm, so I stopped touching him and waited until he settled down to kiss him again.
“You’re not going to rush me,” I told him. “You’re just going to tempt me to go slower.”
This was the quietest I’d ever seen him. It was like my touch had shorted out that snarky mouth of his and left him pliant and willing to let me lead.
Or maybe this was what he’d been looking for. Rebel’s words rolled through my head.
I wanted to be the fuckboy tonight.
Well, shit. I could give him that and more.
I held him there, caressing him a little longer, before letting him go so I could move around in front of him.
“Do you want this cock, boy?” I asked, hand around my shaft to hold it pointed at his lips.
“Fuck yeah.”
“Then have at it.”
His lips parted, the tip of his tongue poking out as he leaned and licked over the slit, hands coming to rest on my thighs again.
He mouthed the head, licked around it, and nuzzled my cock with his cheek, proving that he could be patient, or at least take his time.
Watching him lick me from balls to tip, eyes rolling up to meet my gaze as he flicked his tongue over me, was better than any porno I’d ever watched.
I crushed his hair in my hands and guided him back down, feeling his mouth engulf the crown of my cock, tongue pressed against my shaft.
He hummed, and pleasure jolted through me.
My hips flexed, driving more of my cock past his lips until his nails dug into my thighs, forcing me to pull back again.
“Hot,” I growled as I peered down at him. “Fucking stunning.”
He hummed in response, head bobbing, the slow, sucking glide rapidly becoming too much. Pressing against his shoulders, I eased away until my cock slipped from between his lips, and he knelt there smirking at me.
“See, patient,” he said with a half-assed shrug.
“Menace,” I declared, wagging my finger at him before I hauled him to his feet. “Get on the bed.”
“Make me.”
He barely got the words out before I picked him up and tossed him onto the center of the bed and listened to him yelp when he bounced. Wide-eyed, mouth half-hanging open, he stared up at me, blinked, and widened his knees in invitation.
Damn, okay, good to know he got off on that.
“Supplies?” I asked, shocked they weren’t out in the open with the night he’d had planned.
Then it dawned on me that he’d never bring anyone back here; he’d have gone to their room, where anything could have happened.
Fucking hell, that was unacceptable!
I was tempted to leave a handprint on his ass when he rolled over and reached for an end table drawer, but that required a conversation at the very least, though I preferred to reserve that sort of admonishment for those I was involved in a relationship with.
Instead, I pressed my hand on his back so he couldn’t turn back over after he’d retrieved the condoms and lube and kept him pinned in place while I took my time prepping him.
Every time he tried to get more, I withdrew my fingers, circled his entrance, and teased before sliding them back in again.
I couldn’t tell if his grumbles were complaints; it was impossible to make any words out, just raw frustration and need.
By the time I entered him, even my patience was at the end.
The slap of skin on skin filled the room, accompanied by Rebel’s low, throaty groans and my grunts each time I bottomed out.
When he came, whimpering, hole tightening around my cock, he pulled me over the edge with him, pleasure slamming into me until I was wrung out and breathless.
We collapsed into a sweaty tangle of arms and legs, Rebel’s eyes closed, his hair a messy halo around his face that I couldn’t resist smoothing back.
“Don’t tell me we have to move,” Rebel muttered. “My move receptors are broken.”
It was so unexpected, and yet so Rebel, to come up with something so off the wall yet absolutely fitting for the situation. Being assigned to Damaged Saints meant my contact with him was limited to when the two bands merged during a handful of random encounters backstage and at hotels.
He’d flirted from day one, singling me out from the rest of the guards, who he spent the bulk of his time avoiding.
He did not like having someone glued to his hip.
Tonight wasn’t the first time he’d slipped away from the man assigned to protect him, but it was the first time he’d done it without his guard knowing he’d wandered off somewhere.
The longer I lay there, arm draped across his back, lamplight sending glints of gold streaming through those curls of his, the more my concern grew. Tonight, we’d got lucky; he’d stayed in the hotel, but what if he hadn’t?
Would anyone else have spotted him sitting at the bar the way I had?
The hoodie and the sideways slouch had given it away.
He wore it often. The grim reaper emblem on the back faded and flaked away in several spots, so distinctive, I’d know it anywhere.
I’d come to look forward to the times when he’d seek me out, lean against the wall beside me, and kick off the conversation with some snarky-ass comment that drew stares our way when one of us started laughing.
He truly was a menace, but the topics he chose showed a deeper side of him and a kind of sarcastic curiosity that never failed to keep me engaged.
If we didn’t get cleaned up, one or both of us was going to wind up stuck to the bed. He must have been thinking the same thing and reengaged his move receptors, because he finally started squirming out from beneath my arm, grumbling all the way to the edge of the bed.
“Why is the bathroom so far away?” he complained as he sat there brushing the hair out of his face.
“No clue, that’s above my paygrade,” I replied, snorting when he turned a look of disbelief my way. “What?”
“Now you have jokes,” he said. “Where was that at the bar?”
“They’re bed jokes, not bar jokes,” I replied, laughing so hard I collapsed back on my pillow when he shot me the bird on his way to the bathroom.
We swapped places when he emerged, and when I came out, it was to see him pulling the cum-splattered bedspread off the bed, casting it aside to reveal that only the fitted sheet remained on the mattress.
He might want to think about allowing housekeeping in to freshen it up in the morning, because I didn’t intend for us to be done for the night.
But first, a hit of nicotine and a chance to fully recover.
“I’m going to hit my vape,” I declared as I pulled my jeans on and felt around in my pockets to make sure it hadn’t fallen out. “You coming?”
“Yeah, let me just…” he said, words trailing off as he looked around for the clothes he’d discarded.
He was halfway to his jeans when he stopped and turned back around. “Actually, no, I’m good; it’s kind of late to vape, isn’t it?”
His eyes shifted to the balcony when he said it, his hesitation coming completely out of the blue, considering it was only a quarter past one and I knew he partied way later into the night than this.
Hold the fucking phone.
I stalked over to the sliding glass door, slid it open, and immediately spotted the sheet knotted through the grating.
“Are you fucking kidding me!” I snapped, whirling around to see him standing there looking sheepish.
When I peered over the edge, I saw the end of the sheet fluttering above the balcony below.
“They were super cool about it,” Rebel said, as if that somehow made it better.
“Who? The people downstairs? What were you going to do if there hadn’t been anyone in that hotel room?” I asked.
“I’m not stupid,” he said, untying it and carrying it back inside with him while he retrieved his vape, now that the cat was out of the bag. “I waited until I heard someone down there, then asked if I could pop through their hotel room to get to the hallway.”
“And they just said yes?”
“Well, yeah. For two hundred dollars.”
“You paid two hundred dollars to sneak into a hotel bar to watch hockey?” I said. “Make that make sense.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense to you,” he replied as he took a drag. “To me it makes all the sense in the world. Doubt you’d have walked up to me at the bar if I’d had my shadow with me.”
Okay, he had me there. Not that interacting with the band was prohibited, far from it; Sully’s policy was that it was easier to guard people when they knew and trusted you.
The one rule he did stress was the no dating policy between guards and their principals, but I wasn’t even assigned to Rebel’s band, let alone him personally, so this and anything else we got up to wasn't in violation of my contract.
“You’re right, I wouldn’t have,” I admitted. “But only because you haven’t given me any indication that I’d be welcome to drop in on you that way.”
“Would you prefer an engraved invitation, or will verbal work?”
“Verbal is fine,” I said. “What you pulled with that sheet isn’t. If it had come unknotted…”
“I could have fallen and broken my neck,” he grumbled, cutting me off. “I know, okay? I don’t need a lecture.”
“Or worse. Let’s not forget that part.”
“No, we mustn’t leave out the dreaded death omens; we have to make sure they don’t feel neglected as we run down the list of worst-case scenarios.
That’s a solid knot; I made sure it would hold me before I lowered myself over the edge.
Give me a little credit, will you? I don’t have a death wish.
Those folks in the room below us were right there to help me onto the balcony. ”
“Yes, because we wouldn’t want to drop two hundred dollars onto the parking lot,” I grumbled, completely thrown by his nonchalance.
“I was never in any danger,” he huffed.
“Bullshit. You were in danger the moment the idea popped into your head,” I hissed, forced to keep my tone down so we wouldn’t disturb the other guests. “Don’t you have a shred of self-preservation?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not going to stand in the way of a moving vehicle or stick around after someone pulls a knife out in a store, but this wasn’t that, and you can personally attest to the fact that all my pieces are in the right places.”
How the hell was I supposed to get through to him when he made cracks like that? Groaning, I slapped a hand over my eyes and stood there sifting through words, searching for ones that might make a lasting impression.
“If you want me to keep playing with those pieces,” I said when nothing else came to mind, “you’ll keep them that way.”