CHAPTER EIGHT
ALEXSEI KNEW SHE’D been upset by her parents. He’d heard bits and pieces enough over the years he’d been her friend. Understood there was a battle centered around control of Rachel’s life.
It seemed, the longer he’d known Maybe, that her parents’ biggest problem was that they didn’t appear to have much affection or respect for their youngest child and a lot of affection and no real respect for their oldest.
One of the things he admired most about Maybe was her dedication and loyalty to her sister. He knew she put herself in the way to give Rachel a break, but it pissed him off to think she had to.
So when he’d watched her face fall, he knew inside—though she’d deny it and play tough—that it took a toll on her to have to manage all that negative interaction. She was a badass, without a doubt. But she had a big heart. He’d known that long before he’d begun to put the pieces together about her parents.
Maybe deserved to be loved and protected, not held off at arm’s length and scapegoated.
They headed from the car he’d parked in his aunt and uncle’s driveway over to her place, but there was a dog in between.
Maybe let out a sound, a happy squeal of greeting as she went to her knees. “Hey there, Barky! This is Barky, he lives across the street but he can’t be tamed. Oh no, he can’t be tamed because he’s a man on the prowl. He tunnels under fences and runs out of doors. He’s a rebel all fluffy in his winter coat, looking for a lady to love.” She sang, rather than spoke the sentences, managing to sing them out and make them into a song about winter coats and dogs on ice skates.
This was the heart of her. This silly woman who sang songs to dogs. He grinned like an idiot when her back was turned but pretended to scowl when she stood.
Someone across the street called the dog, who barked and trotted back home after one last hug from Maybe.
“I love that dog, man.”
“I’d assumed that from the sound you made once you caught sight of him. Or her. Whichever.”
She looked back over her shoulder as she let them both into the house. “Barky is obviously a boy’s name. Jeez. It’s like Barry, only with barking. Because dog?”
“I get it.” He gave up his scowl and smiled.
“Rachel won’t be back until later. She’s got an after-work thing.”
He stepped closer. “So we’re all alone here?”
“For about five minutes. The rest of the band is on the way so take your mind out of my panties. For now. I’ll be back in a few. I have to change my clothes. There’s stuff to eat and drink in the fridge if you want.”
He watched her traipse away before heading into their kitchen, where she joined him just a few minutes later wearing tiny shorts and a tank top emblazoned with the words Feminist as fuck.
She looked hot and scary and dangerous and sexy and all manner of things that seemed to fill his cock until he was so hard it hurt.
“I have some really good ear protection downstairs.” She barely looked at him as she grabbed a water bottle and filled it. “I won’t be offended if you want to leave early, or you just want... Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re fire.” He smiled briefly. “Every inch the rock star.”
Was that a blush on her cheeks?
“Oh this old thing?” Maybe indicated her body with a wave of her stick. “Not like you haven’t seen me play music before.”
The tiny dive bar he’d gone to see her at had been so full it was most likely some sort of fire code violation. Sticky floors. So hot and close as the crowd had moved as one. Up and down, side to side.
The scene had been raucous to a level he rarely experienced or sought out. But it wasn’t novelty that had drawn his attention to her up on that rickety stage sitting behind her drums. She loved what she did and it seemed to flow from her like magic.
The distance before, him in the crowd, her up on the stage, had been like watching a very sexy video. Maybe standing just inches away, that same determination and love of her task seemed to flow from her. But she was close this time and he was free to touch.
Unable to stop himself, he slid his fingers through her hair.
She blushed again before he hauled her close and kissed her.
Maybe wrapped her arms around him and held on, giving over to his lead, opening her mouth on a sigh of pleasure he greedily sucked in.
Her body pressed against his brought a groan from him when the doorbell began ringing.
“Sorry,” she muttered as she ripped herself away. “We can pick that up later?”
“We will most definitely pick that up when we’re alone once more.”
* * *
HE WAS GRATEFUL for the beer he’d elected to grab when the other women had shown up and they’d headed down to the basement.
Maybe pointed at him with a drumstick. “You all remember Alexsei? He’s going to hang out tonight.”
They all nodded and said their hellos before switching their focus back to the instruments and one another.
“It’s going to be loud in here. Use those.” She pointed at the ear protectors hanging nearby.
He settled into his chair and took them in as they tuned up and spoke back and forth about what they’d play.
This was a side to her he hadn’t seen a whole lot of. Here, she was in her element. At the shop she was independent and opinionated as well as good at her job. But behind the drums there was something else about her.
She was under no one’s control as she twirled a drumstick before striking it against the other four times to set the beat, launching them into a blistering song with a relentless, pounding rhythm.
The next song slowed a little in a few places during the chorus, which she sang on. Sweat began to glisten on her skin and her eyes had gone half-lidded.
They’d break every few songs, each of them drenched in sweat by that point. Sometimes to argue about something, usually just to talk and guzzle water.
The Maybe who played drums with so much delight and power was a revelation to him. This was her inner self.
She joked about being punk rock, but she was 100 percent punk rock. No limits, no hesitation. No filters. The precision she cut hair with was still around, but different. More feral.
Each time she made contact with her drums or the cymbals, she did so without fear of being wrong.
Alexsei wasn’t sure why it occurred to him that way, but there was a fever to the way she made music. Which was why she’d been pulled toward whatever type of music it was she created with these three other women. It wasn’t all driving punk, sometimes it went into something more like electronica.
Unusual. Bracing, certainly.
Maybe was one of a kind. Brilliantly layered with a core of steel and fire. Watching her over two hours had been a long, slow striptease. The hidden parts of her were sexier than he could have imagined.
He normally wanted to nuzzle her, to sniff and lick, kiss and caress. Just seeing her brought that out. But this was more. Every part of him seemed to hum with awareness of her.
The wilder and more animalistic she got, the harder his cock got. The more he wanted to take her down to the floor right there and fuck her so hard they’d both be sore for days.
Wanted to mark and claim. Taste.
She was fire and he didn’t want to tame her. Had no desire to control or dampen her ferocity. No, he wanted her even more because of it.
The light in her eyes was an aphrodisiac. The gleam of sweat on her chest a siren song. He shifted in his chair as he remembered what it felt like to be deep inside her.
She was dirty in all the best ways. Sexy in all the best, rawest ways while still evoking tenderness. She was so many things and all of them appealed to him.
Right then he wanted to get dirty with her. Lick a trail from the nape of her throat as he pulled her shirt off, then he wanted to lick and bite her nipples until all he tasted, touched and smelled was her.
He stayed seated, mainly because he had such a hard cock he didn’t want to make an ass of himself in front of her friends and bandmates. They packed up their gear and she escorted them out.
When she got back downstairs and he was sure they were alone, he backed her against the wall, his hands at her waist, his mouth skimming up her neck.
“I’m sweaty!” she squeaked.
“I know.” He licked down to her cleavage. Her taste there was better than he’d imagined. A quick flick of his fingers, the hands he’d run up her belly to her bra managed to pop the catch between her breasts to free them into his hands.
He flicked his thumbs over them until they hardened and her breath came short.
She let her head fall back. “Just let me shower. You can even come in with me,” she gasped out when he used the edge of his teeth.
“I find myself liking you when you’re dirty and sweaty and move like you’re slightly drunk. Just a little boneless.”
Her laugh went very breathless at the end.
One-handed, he peeled her tank up and off, along with the bra. Pupils huge, glistening with sweat, shirtless, the sensual punch she made there sent him back for more. He gathered her breasts in his hands, lowering his head to taste again. Lapping up the salt of her skin as she squirmed to get more.
Even through the haze of need beating at him threatened his composure, he forced a pause to note her body language, reassuring them both, making sure she was still good with the direction this was heading.
Knowing this woman had the strength to demand what she wanted and had gifted him with her trust meant that very clear consent she gave as she gave over with a shudder and a whispered, more.
He went to his knees, skating kisses over her belly, loving the way the muscles there jumped as he touched her.
He shoved her shorts and panties down, exposing her pussy to him.
The sounds she made in the back of her throat had gone thready and husky. That pushed at him as relentlessly as the scent of her skin and the taste of her. He wanted more. Wanted to give her what she’d demanded.
Fortunately what she demanded was precisely what he’d been aching to do all night. With a palm against her hip, he pushed her back to lean against the wall behind her to keep her balance. Then he put one of her legs up on his shoulder and leaned in to take a lick.
Her taste—holy shit—so raw. So good. All her. He spread her wide with his thumbs as he went back again and again, kissing, nibbling, sucking and teasing her clit.
She shuddered and murmured something about sweat again and he sighed, looking up the line of her body up into her face. “I love the taste of your sweat. And your pussy. We can shower. Afterward. I’ll eat you again later if the mood strikes.”
He dived back in, devouring her, letting the ferocity of his need for her out to play. She trembled and snarled, yanking his hair a few times to let him know how she felt about whatever he’d been doing.
Here she was totally open to him. Sweet and salty, wide to his mouth and hands. She rolled her hips to get more from him and he gave it to her.
“You are unbelievable behind your drums,” he said, mouth against her. “So fucking sexy. In charge.”
She moaned.
“Beautiful. More beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen. Or tasted.”
Nothing...nothing was better than this woman when she came. And she was about to. Her body trembled slightly, fingers tangled in his hair. Held wide open with one leg on his shoulder.
He wanted it. Needed it and when she came against his lips in a hot rush, he nearly lost it like a teenage boy.
He continued to lick softly, petting down her thighs as he got her leg down so she could stand on her own.
It wasn’t over. This had merely been the first orgasm of many he planned to deliver that night.
On his way back to his feet, he kissed and caressed anything that caught his eye until he pulled her tight against his body and found her mouth with his own.
“Thank you.” She smiled and then did that thing with her piercing that made him so crazy.
“No need to thank me. It was my pleasure.”
“I think it’s important to thank someone for rocking your world,” she said quietly before picking up her clothes and making a quick dash toward her bedroom.
He followed at a more leisurely pace, thinking about what she’d said and the ways she’d meant it as he checked the locks. Rachel hadn’t returned yet, but he wanted her to know that while he was in the house he’d always go out of his way to lock up the way she preferred.
He wanted her trust too. Wanted to be worthy of the trust Maybe continued to show him.
He walked into her room just in time to catch sight of her ass swaying as she headed toward the shower in the adjoining bath.
“Come on in, Lyosha, the water is hot. Let’s work up an appetite,” she called out.
He halted for a moment. It had been a totally natural utterance of the diminutive of his name. Something family and friends did all the time. But they called him Alyosha usually. Rada had called him Alyoshka when she wanted something.
Lyosha was all hers. Something no one else called him. That pleased him more than he was comfortable examining very closely. He wasn’t even sure she knew it. More likely she’d just decided to call him that and hadn’t really thought about who else might use it.
“I’m coming, don’t start without me.” He closed the door at his back and began to strip on his way to her, holding a condom aloft.
“But some people like it when the other person starts without them,” she teased as she eased back under the spray.
“My heart can only take so much in one day. Take pity on me,” he told her with a grunt when a soap-slicked fist wrapped itself around his cock.
“You can’t take it away now that you’ve given it to me,” she said slowly, thrusting her fist around him.
He snorted. “I have no plans to separate you from my penis.”
She drove him crazy with kisses and nips as he rinsed off and got a condom on. Even as he slid inside her and she wrapped her legs around his waist, she continued to drop tiny kisses over his face.
He used the wall at her back to keep their balance as he fucked into her body, still hot and wet from climax.
“Watching you tonight was incredibly sexy,” he said into her ear before he nipped at the lobe. “You’re so badass and punk rock and no one else knows you like this. Only me.”
That still got him. The reality of her was far more than he ever had imagined. And now that he’d experienced it, he only wanted more and more.
Her inner walls hugged his cock, narrowing his vision with each squeeze, with each thrust. Taking him closer and closer to climax though he’d wanted to take his time.
“I’ll have to give you a private show sometime,” she told him.
Fuck yes.
Blunt nails dug into his shoulders as she hung on, urging him deeper and harder. He gave her what she demanded and fell as she did. Snarling, he took the skin where neck met shoulder between his teeth as he came.
There’d be a mark, he wagered and part of him roared in appreciation.
He lowered her carefully and they finished rinsing before spilling out of the shower, drying off as she told him some story or other—she had a lot of them.
“I need food. Let’s order a pizza. Rachel should be home by now, or very soon. She’ll want to eat too.”
Alexsei frowned when she pulled on panties and got dressed. He rather liked her totally naked. But he did the same, minus panties.
She headed into the kitchen to call in the food and he settled on the couch with a beer for each of them.
Rachel rolled through the door about ten minutes later.
“Hey, surly Russian barber is here,” she said.
He frowned at her as she laughed and then hugged him.
“We ordered pizza, so be nice to the surly Russian,” Maybe told her sister.
“I am not surly,” he muttered and both women just smiled at him and went back to whatever they’d been doing.