CHAPTER 12
SAMANTHA
For the first time since I’d met Xander, I felt completely vulnerable. It wasn’t a situation I’d ever wanted to experience, but I couldn’t avoid it. I’d gotten too close, near enough to get burned, but the pull of my desire for him was too damn painful to ignore anymore.
Instinctively, I knew if he touched me, everything was going to be different. It would change our relationship. It wasn’t going to be like the first time. But I couldn’t bring myself to care enough about being at his mercy to give a damn.
My need was too strong.
My desire was too white-hot.
And my feelings for this broken man who was trying so damn hard to figure things out were too raw.
I knew him.
I understood him.
And for some strange reason, he was the one who made my loneliness easier to bear. Xander had penetrated a part of me that I allowed no one to enter, and now that he was there, I wanted more.
He’d dropped me on the center of the bed, my head resting on the pillows. His powerful arms had lifted me like I was no heavier than a rag doll, without even a small grimace on his face.
I turned my head to see him towering over me, even though he was on his knees. Xander was a big man, and his cock was standing at attention. But that wasn’t what I noticed the most.
With him completely nude, I could see every scar, and my heart wept as I looked at his ripped body covered in what had once been critical injuries that had nearly killed him.
I rolled onto my side and reached up to touch a large white line on his chest, then proceeded to stroke every stab wound I could see on his torso and defined abs. I felt his body tense, but he didn’t pull away.
“I told you that you didn’t want to see my body,” he rasped.
Oh, he was so very wrong. “I do want to see it. I also want to touch it. You’re strong, Xander. These wounds probably should have killed you, but you survived.”
“My body is a mess,” he said hesitantly.
“It’s amazing,” I corrected, my fingers finally tracing over the tattoo that he had on both biceps. “What’s this?”
“It’s a tat,” he answered in a husky voice.
I bit back a laugh. “I know that. What does it mean?”
He still looked uncomfortable that my eyes were eating up the sight of his naked body as he answered, “They’re Celtic. Our ancestors were Irish. Honestly, they don’t mean a hell of a lot. I went out and got hammered with my band when we got our first record deal. So we all went to the tattoo shop and got tattoos. I just asked them to do something Celtic.”
I loved the one I was fondling, and I traced the head of the black dragon that fanned out on his bicep with Celtic knots entwined together. “Turn,” I requested.
He did, and I ran my fingers over the large sword on the opposite side engraved on his upper arm. “They’re beautiful. You were lucky that you got a good artist,” I mused. Getting a tattoo when you’re drunk could be dangerous. He could have ended up with something totally not him. But both tats suited him, and his strength.
“I chose the sword,” he said hoarsely. “The dragon was pure drunken impulse.”
“You got the sword later?”
He nodded. “When my first album went platinum. I was completely sober that time.”
“I like it,” I confessed. I generally wasn’t big on tattoos, but Xander’s were a part of him and his history, and he wore them well.
I let my palm trail down his chest and over his ripped abs. His enormous hard-on was almost right in front of my face, and I was dying to touch him.
“No!” Xander insisted as he grasped my roving hand at the wrist. “This isn’t about me, Samantha. Not this time.”
His dominant tone shook me, and I flopped onto my back again. “I want to touch you, Xander. You’re probably the most attractive man I’ve ever seen.”
“Then I’m going to start thinking you’re fucking blind or haven’t seen very many guys, woman,” he said in a confused tone. “I’m a carved-up mess.”
“No, you’re not,” I argued. I may have hated the pain he’d had to go through, but I could never hate his scars. Just like his tattoo, they were part of his history, and something that he couldn’t change.
He straddled my hips and laid his palms on my ribs. “But these . . .” His hands moved up to cup my breasts. “They’re perfect.”
Desire fired in his eyes, and my core flooded with slick heat. My breasts were small, but Xander didn’t seem to notice.
I opened my mouth to tell him that I was far from perfect, then forgot what I was going to say as his thumbs circled the hard nipples, stroking over them to tease them even tighter.
“Xander,” I squeaked.
“I love hearing my name on your lips, Sam,” he answered in a coarse, covetous tone. “Keep saying it. Yell it over and over again. Scream it while you come this time.”
I shuddered as he moved back so he could lower his mouth to my chest, then moaned as his mouth clamped over a stiff peak. He wasn’t gentle, but he seemed to know exactly what I wanted. He sucked, then nipped, and finally stroked a rough tongue over the tip of one breast while he manipulated the other expertly with his fingers.
My body flooded with sensation, and my head tilted back on the pillows. “Oh, God. Yes.”
I wrapped my arms around him and then speared my hands into his hair, relishing the feel of the coarse locks between my fingers.
“Xander,” I whined. “Fuck me.” I had an empty space where his engorged cock should be.
He slammed his hands down on each side of my body and moved up until I could feel his lips beside my ear. “Not happening, Samantha. Right now all I want is to see you get off harder than you ever have before.”
Oh, God. My empty channel clenched so tightly it was painful. “And what gets you off?” I panted.
“Honestly?” he questioned in a hoarse, aroused tone.
“Yes. Tell me,” I begged.
His warm breath caressed the side of my face and wafted across my sensitive earlobe as he answered. “Watching a woman trust me enough to do anything I want with her body, trusting me to satisfy her completely.”
Holy shit! I felt the heat flow between my thighs, and I quivered at his authoritative explanation. I had very little sexual experience, and I didn’t exactly see myself as submissive, but his little bedroom games might be pretty damn hot.
“I don’t know if I can do that right now,” I admitted.
“And I don’t expect it, Sam. I fucked up royally the first time. Just trust me to make you come right now.”
“I do.” Maybe after his first performance, I was being naive. But I was going with my gut instinct. At some point, things between Xander and me had changed and shifted. It wasn’t anything I could pinpoint as happening at a specific time. But as we got to know each other, everything had become . . . different.
My body jolted as I felt his fingers on my breasts again, and his mouth on my belly. I broke out in a sweat as his tongue meandered down to my belly button and left a trail of fire wherever he went.
“Xander. Please,” I begged. A little teasing wasn’t cutting it for me. I needed something real and hard.
My fingers fell from his hair as he let go of my breasts and placed his body between my legs, forcing me to open them wider.
“You really are hot for me, Samantha,” he said in a deeply satisfied tone.
Like he didn’t believe me before?
My hands clenched the bottom sheet as he drenched his fingers in my pussy, making me moan for something more substantial. “Too damn hot,” I finally answered in a clipped, frustrated voice.
“Never,” he argued as his finger brushed over my clit. “You can never want me enough to equal how much I need you, Samantha.”
His teasing fingers circled my clit, then briefly pressed over the engorged bundle of nerves, making my body jerk with the intensity of my rapidly growing need to orgasm. I could feel his mouth on my inner thighs, licking and teasing while his fingers drove me nearly insane.
I gritted my teeth, then panted as each touch flowed over my body. Finally, I screamed as his mouth landed on my core, and his tongue thrust through my folds and licked hard over my throbbing clit.
“Yes, Xander. Yes.” I needed to climax. My body was tight with need, begging for release.
I lifted my hips and clutched his hair, urging him to give me more.
He gave me exactly what I wanted.
Big hands went under my ass and he lifted me so his mouth had better access to my pussy, and he licked, nipped, and stroked until my entire body shook with my approaching climax. My head thrashed as I arched my back, completely lost in the pleasure of Xander’s mouth all over me, pushing me to the limit.
My climax wasn’t subtle like it normally was. It hit me like a freight train, and I shuddered as tension gave way to a mind-blowing pleasure that I’d never experienced before.
“Xander!” I screamed in ecstasy, a little frightened by the intensity of my orgasm until it started to recede after the incredible crescendo.
I could hear him suckling between my thighs, leisurely lapping at my juices until I almost lost my mind.
I was a sweaty, panting mess as I lay on the bed trembling from the aftermath of what had just happened.
Putting my hand up, I flipped the hair from my face. “What in the hell just happened to me?” I muttered breathlessly.
Xander was there to answer as he slid up beside me. “You had a good orgasm.”
“Good?” Holy shit, if that was good, I’d hate to see great. I wouldn’t live through it.
“That’s never happened to you before?” Xander guessed as he flopped onto his back and pulled my upper body over his.
“Not like that,” I admitted as I laid my head on his chest. “I’ve only been with a couple of guys. And it’s never been like that. I usually only come when I’m . . . um . . . masturbating.”
“I owed you that, Samantha. What I did to you before was probably unforgivable. But I hope you’ll forgive me anyway.”
I lifted my head and pushed the hair from his face. “You need a haircut,” I observed. “And you don’t owe me anything. But that was amazing.”
He grinned up at me. “I’m glad it felt good.”
I didn’t have any words for how he’d just made me feel. Probably the best part was feeling . . . wanted. “I still want you to fuck me, Xander. Maybe now worse than ever.” All of the emotional connection was there for us right now, and I ached to feel him inside me.
He slowly shook his head. “Not this time, Sam. This was for you.”
“What about you?”
He was still smiling. “I’ll survive. Watching you come like that was enough for me.”
He rose from the bed, and I immediately protested. “Can you stay?”
Xander turned off the light and came back to the bed. “Yeah. I’m staying. Maybe I can keep the bad dreams away.”
After he settled us both back on the bed and pulled the sheets up, I put my head back down on his chest, starting to feel my exhaustion. But my curiosity about something he’d said wouldn’t let me fall asleep. “So are you into BDSM?”
“No,” he answered frankly. “I went to a club once with some of my band members, but it wasn’t for me. I’m not into inflicting pain to get a woman in a zone, or having them call me their master. And it’s not a lifestyle I want to lead. I just feel like a fucking god when a woman trusts her pleasure to me. I get off on watching her let go of her control so she can just enjoy the ride.”
“Bondage?” I asked curiously.
“Depends on the circumstances. But yeah, it can be pretty hot.”
“Nipple clips?”
“Nope. Too painful,” he answered.
“So just submission?”
“Not all the time. Truth is, it was just an occasional bedroom game that got me off. But I’m starting to feel some kind of out-of-control desire to stake my claim on you.”
I swallowed hard, not brave enough to tell him that every word he said made me hotter than a firecracker on the Fourth of July. I was an independent woman who had never had the desire to be dominated. But I had the feeling that Xander was as much a prisoner of this crazy desire as I was. “I’m jealous of every woman who has ever gotten what I haven’t,” I confessed in the darkness, not sure I would have told him that if I was looking at him face-to-face. I’d never been the jealous type, and I’d never understood other women who were.
“Don’t be,” he rumbled. “I’ve never felt like this with any woman before. And you’ll end up getting everything you want and probably a whole lot more. Now sleep.”
I wanted to ask him to define everything to me, but I was afraid it would sound a little pathetic.
I yawned against his chest, my body and mind completely drained. “Thank you for staying with me.”
His arms tightened. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
I sighed, and then closed my eyes, more content than I’d ever been as I slowly sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.