I laughed and swatted his chest, and he locked my wrist in his palm and brought it to his lips, breathing hard against it. I shivered again.

“Okay.” His tone was low. “No fucking tonight. We’ll take it slow.”

A kiss on the lips. The nose. The forehead.

Jesus Christ, heart.

I’m trying my best here, heart.

Enough, heart.

“I’m tired,” I said, even though it was a lie. I was buzzing and high and in need of a release. I wanted him to get the hell out so I could run to the bathtub and release the ache between my legs with my fingers.

He pushed off me without an argument. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. Alex Winslow was an accidental rock star. I knew it when I watched his bigger-than-life figure moving in the luxurious hotel room, and knew he didn’t belong there. He belonged in some dingy underground pub in the bowels of London, screaming to the microphone about anti-fascism and anarchy. He’d lost his soul somewhere along the way, and I was just another piggybank he shook, trying to see if what was inside resembled what he was looking for. And at that moment, I knew I’d take it.

He was going to break the pig, and I was going to let him.

“I found my well in the middle of the desert,” he said from the threshold of my open door. “Now it’s time to drink from it. Every. Single. Drop.”

Moscow, Russia

T he plane ride was the closest thing to hell ever recorded on planet earth.

Partly because Blake and Jenna were yelling at each other in decibels that threatened to bring the aircraft down—she was on speaker, since Blake had to answer emails simultaneously—but mostly because Lucas insisted on not getting the memo that Stardust was not for the taking and lay beside her on the L-shaped sofa, gazing at the ceiling like a fucking John Green character and talking to her about life. Which was ironic, really, considering the fact I was about to end his if he kept throwing himself at her. Alfie was curled up beside me, playing a video game and making sure I didn’t use any of the laptops or mobile phones around us to go on the Internet. I was bored, and agitated, and fuck, hadn’t I told her she couldn’t hang out with Waitrose? Obviously, I had to put my point across more blatantly.

Because subtlety is clearly my forte.

“Ever seen a cockpit from the inside, Stardust?” I asked Indie from across the room, sprawled on a recliner high and plush as a cathedral.

She looked away from Lucas and at me lazily, putting her patched dress down. She was sewing every spare moment she had. Compulsively. Wasn’t that the only way to make art?

“So many sexual innuendos from this one.” Alfie smirked to himself, eyes still hard on his Nintendo screen.

“You know the answer to that question.” Her scowl warned me not to screw with her unnecessarily.

Fair enough. I did know the answer. The only times she’d ever been on planes had been with me, and I’d never offered to show her anything other than my boot inside her arse as I sent her away. I shot to my feet and sauntered over to them, stretching my open palm in her direction.

“You’ll like it. Lots of buttons to push,” I enunciated the last sentence, in case Lucas didn’t quite understand what kind of fire he was playing with. I wasn’t a match. I was the kind of flame that burned down an entire forest.

“I can show you, if you prefer.” Waitrose looked over at her, still holding the next patch she was meaning to sew. Surely, he couldn’t have been that daft. But of course he knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn’t only pushing my buttons. He was prodding them so hard, they cut deep.

Ignoring him, I turned my head back to her.

“Time is money, Blue,” I used the nickname Blake gave her, for no other reason than to remind everyone they didn’t have exclusivity on anything Indigo Bellamy.

She scooted her perky bum from the sofa and followed me, silently refusing my hand. Which was fantastic, because it only served to turn me on even more. Her defiance was refreshing. She should patent, juice, and give it to the next girl I dragged into my miserable life.

“Thanks for doing that,” she muttered behind me.

“Sure.” I had no idea what she was referring to. My mind was set on one thing, and that was finding out what color her knickers were today.

“Can you take a picture?” We were out of the main space, advancing inside the narrow corridor.

“Of what?”

She hesitated. “Umm, me in the cockpit?”

I’ll show her a cockpit…

She was still mid-step when I pushed her hard against the bathroom door and locked us both inside. I had no illusions about making her a member of the mile high club. She needed more prepping. Still, messing around was part of the process, so I needed to make sure she wasn’t skipping any classes.

Her back dug against the sink as I lifted her thigh up and curled it against my waist, dipping my groin against her clothed cunt without warning. This couldn’t have been a comfortable angle for her, but I had a point to make.

“Feel that?” I was fully hard and strained against my jeans, my balls already swollen and heavy with need. “Feel what it does to me when you go and shit all over our arrangement?”

“There’s no arrangement. Lucas and I are friends.” Strong words, spoken by a woman who sounded almost believable, if it wasn’t for the fact she was grinding her sweet groin against my crotch.

“Lucas wants you.”

“Debatable. And even if he does, he can’t have me.”

“But I can.”

“For a while.” Pause. “Maybe.”

Fuck. Your. Maybe. Lady.

I crushed my mouth to hers so fast and so hard, she stumbled backward, even though there was no space to fall into. Grabbing the back of her neck, I bit her lower lip until I produced the sound I was after—the moan I knew had sat somewhere at the back of her throat since the day she fucking saw me—as I slowly but surely thrust between our clothes, dry-fucking her. My firm torso against her soft everything made both our bodies tremble. She whimpered every time my cock hit her groin, and I inwardly cursed the pretty baby blue dress that separated our skin and matched her hair so nicely.

She pulled her lower lip away and flicked her tongue into the roof of my mouth, dragging it leisurely, making my skull break into goose bumps. The surprise alone made my cock jump in appreciation, and it was already straining inside my tight jeans. Why couldn’t I be a rapper? They had such great attire for erections. I could hide two Indies inside Lil’ Wayne’s trousers and no one would know.