Marco was grateful he"d been holding strong and wasn"t abusing his body like that anywhere. Being on the road was hard enough. He didn"t need to add a bottle of vodka a day to that kind of strain. All these guys were old before their time.
"Hey," he said, sliding up behind Allison and lifting her hair off the back of her neck so he could kiss the hollow in her skin there.
She jumped, the back of her head cracking him in the nose. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" She put her hand on her chest. "Jesus, you scared me."
"And you injured me." Marco rubbed his nose, his eyes watering. "f.u.c.k, you have a hard head."
"Ask everyone who has ever met me and they"ll agree with you. But h.e.l.lo, you deserve it for being a creeper."
That was his Allison. Definitely not a groupie.
Gold Daddy laughed. "Hey, Marco, how"s it going?"
"Good, thanks. Or it was until Allison a.s.saulted me."
"Don"t be a baby," she scoffed. She turned to him. "Let me see it."
"No." His nose felt swollen. He kept his hand there, not wanting to look anything less than his best for her.
"Let me look at it." She reached up and pried his hand off his face. Briefly, she studied his nose, then shrugged. "You"re fine."
Nice. "Thanks. Your sympathy is overwhelming." The reception wasn"t what he had wanted. This whole night wasn"t what he had wanted.
So he did what a rock star would do. "Let"s get out of here."
"What?" she asked blankly. "You"re having a party. We can"t leave."
"I"m not having a party. Aidan is having a party. I"m having a-"
"Temper tantrum." But she took the edge off her words by giving him a smile. "But you"re very cute when you"re doing it." She cupped his cheeks and kissed him.
He figured he"d lost about a thousand points on the man scale, but he was mollified. "We"ve have this conversation before. I"m not cute."
"To me you are."
G Daddy coughed. "Hey, uh, catch you both later. I"ve become the awkward third wheel to this conversation."
"Sorry, G." Marco clapped him on the shoulder. "Good seeing you again."
"Yeah, yeah." The producer grinned and rolled his eyes. He wandered off, most likely to find someone more normal than Marco was at the moment.
"What was that all about?" Allison asked him, one eyebrow arched. "Were you jealous?"
Yes. "No. Come on." He tugged her hand. "We"re going over the wall behind these bushes."
"Excuse me?"
Allison was in shorts and a billowy white shirt. He wanted to put his hand under there and tease her nipple until she made that sound in the back of her throat that he loved.
"I"m wearing sandals," she added, when he didn"t say anything.
"I"m going to hoist you up, then just ease yourself over the top. There"s a hill on the other side where we can sit. It"s only four feet. You"re way taller than this wall."
It was to keep out intruders, he guessed, but it was a ridiculously easy wall to scale. Maybe it was actually designed to keep his pool from sliding off the hill, h.e.l.l, he didn"t know. But at the moment he was glad it was there, because it was a good boundary between him and the party. Someone screamed and there was a splash. The point in the evening had arrived where girls were being thrown in the pool. Not a good sign.
"Is that peer pressure?" she asked.
"Yep."
"At least you"re honest."
"I want what I want. And I want to be alone with you," he told her, his voice low.
Her eyes widened. "Well, h.e.l.l, I can"t say no to that. Give me a hand. Apparently I"m going over a wall."
Marco bent down and cupped his hands for her to step into. Allison was extremely graceful. She was straddling the wall in one jump. Then she disappeared. He put his foot against the wall and leaped up onto it. He looked down on the other side so he wouldn"t land on her head. That would not be good. But she was smart enough to shift to the right. She was sitting on the ground, her back against the retaining wall. He jumped down with a soft thump and slid into place beside her. He was wearing jeans and he tugged them up to give himself more room. Resting his hands on his knees, he took in the view of Los Angeles down below them.
"This is better. I can hear myself think."
"You"re a country boy at heart, aren"t you?" she asked. "You like New York in small doses. And maybe even people in small doses."
"I"m not sure what I am," he said truthfully. "I like performing a lot. It gives me a total rush. But I don"t like the constant press of people afterwards. And parties like this?" He jerked his thumb back toward his house. "I still enjoy them ninety percent of the time. But I guess when I want to be alone, I want to be alone." He laughed. "Then when I"m alone, I get lonely."
"Are you my twin?"
"d.a.m.n, I hope not, since I"ve f.u.c.ked you, like, four times." He nudged her knee with his.
Allison laughed. "Haha. No, you just sound like me. I constantly change moods and expect everyone else to keep up with me. It"s not particularly fair to everyone around me."
"But I find your moods very easy to interpret. I don"t think you"re exactly a mystery."
"You"ve shattered the whole image I"ve been cultivating for a decade. I should be mysterious."
She smiled, and he knew she was joking. "You"re too honest to be mysterious."
"Honest with everyone but myself." Allison started to play with the hole that he had in the knee of his jeans. She flipped the frayed edge, her finger brushing across his skin, tickling him. He wasn"t sure if she even knew she was doing it. "But all this has been good for me, Marco. I"m actually, in a super-weird way, looking forward to hitting the reset b.u.t.ton on my life, you know?"
"I think that"s awesome. I did that a year ago. But sometimes I wonder if it was enough." Then he immediately regretted turning her statement into a thought about himself. "Sorry. This isn"t about me. I have a lot of nerve sounding like I"m complaining."
"Hey, it"s okay. We"re sharing." She stilled her hand, but kept it resting on his knee. Turning to study him, she said, "I think what you"re saying is you want to continue to grow as a person. That"s not complaining. That"s a desire to improve who you are, and I admire that."
Marco put his hand over hers and pulled it up to his lips. He kissed her smooth, silken skin. "I don"t want your admiration."
Her head tilted a little and she eyed him with naked curiosity. "What do you want from me?"
That was the million-dollar question. He didn"t know the answer. But what he did know was that he couldn"t just let her go back to New York and never see her again. "Stay here in LA with me. I can introduce you to people, get you a job in the fashion industry as a stylist."
She gave a soft laugh. "Thank you, but no thank you. My life is in New York. And that didn"t answer the question, by the way."
She was right.
So he took the easy route. "I want you to kiss me."
There was a pause, where he thought she was probably debating if she should call him out or not. But then she just murmured, "I can do that."
The kiss was slow, exploratory. It wasn"t fiery, urgent.
Marco knew what he was doing as he gripped her head and pressed his mouth on hers over and over again. He was staking a claim.
He wanted her to be his.
He couldn"t have her, though. He knew that.
But he was used to getting what he wanted, and he f.u.c.king hated that he couldn"t have Allison, not even to explore and see where dating could go. So he tried to take her with his lips, to change her mind.
He reached down and yanked her shirt up and over her head.
Allison tried to catch her breath. Marco was dominating her, his hands and lips everywhere. He ripped her shirt off without warning, that rough movement the only interruption in his exploration of her mouth and neck. What had started out as a slow, almost tender kiss had morphed into a full-on s.e.xual tsunami. This wasn"t what she had expected for tonight from him, but he"d been in a weird mood the whole party.
She reminded herself she didn"t know him well, and maybe the moodiness he"d shown was typical for him, as was this. It was like he was trying to prove to her she should stay in LA, with him. Whatever that meant.
Even as her body responded, her nipples hardening, and her inner thighs aching, she was angry with him. She"d played it casual, but what the h.e.l.l? It didn"t make her feel good at all to have him suggest on a whim that she stay in LA. What was the promise of a job? Real in his head for the moment? What happened in a few weeks when he had gotten busy and there had been no phone calls from contacts he had and she was still unemployed, lounging around his house bored? Was that when he got bored with her?
Most likely. Then she was where she was today, but having wasted a month when she should have been getting her life back together, not playing mistress to a musician. She"d start to feel like their budding friendship was being destroyed by the imbalance of their positions. She didn"t want that. Any of that. That he didn"t even bother to think through any of those implications p.i.s.sed her off.
Sure, this was fun for her. He"d offered her a break, and she"d taken it. But this was real life for her, not his surreal existence. She couldn"t make impulsive choices and not expect to pay the consequences for a long time. If she stayed and the shine wore off in a month, Marco was out nothing. She liked to think they were friends, and that his feelings were genuine, and maybe they were, but she did not have the luxury of playing pretend girlfriend to a rock star.
Which meant she was actually going to have to leave first thing in the morning. The whole vibe was destroyed.
Yet somehow that didn"t stop her from clawing at his T-shirt, wanting to feel his skin on hers. It wasn"t fair. It wasn"t f.u.c.king fair that she actually liked him. Maybe she was still just raw from losing her lottery ticket, but she suddenly wanted to cry. Even as she wanted him to take her hard and fast and right on this hill, she still felt the hot burn of tears at the back of her eyes. All of her emotions felt raw, sc.r.a.ped, and part of her desperately wanted to share all of her with him, while the other part was terrified that it would hurt to leave then even more than it already was going to.
She couldn"t stay in Neverland with Marco. But G.o.d, she wanted to suddenly. She wanted to be his in every sense of the word.
Since that was impossible, she wanted this. Right here, right now. The rough scramble to tug off clothes. The sc.r.a.pe of the gra.s.s and dirt and who the h.e.l.l knew what under her a.s.s as Marco tugged her shorts down over her hips and thighs.
"I want you so much," he said, his breath hot on her neck. "Let me have you."
What the h.e.l.l was he asking?
Allison almost pushed him away, but his hand slipped inside her panties and stroked into her heat, dragging moisture across her c.l.i.toris. "Marco, what..."
What were they doing? That was the question she wanted to ask, but couldn"t formulate.
But he didn"t really give her any time to speak anyway. His mouth crushed hers. He"d stripped his own shirt off too, and he had her flat on the ground, her bra shoved out of the way so he pull her taut nipple between his lips. She tried to remember to think, tried to remember why there were things they needed to discuss. But it was too hard to concentrate on anything but the feel of his finger sliding into her moist heat, his beard scruff sc.r.a.ping the delicate skin of her breast.
Then, before she could grab a breath, Marco pushed inside her. Shocked, Allison moaned, caught off guard, her body giving way for him. She was on the ground, and Marco Lucky was in her. Allison had no other thoughts but that as he took her hard, pounding into her with fierce and frantic thrusts. Her head knocked into the retaining wall but she barely noticed. Marco yanked her away from the wall with one swift tug, barely breaking rhythm.
The night air was cool on her skin, and she could hear the sounds of the people out on his pool patio, talking, laughing. It felt s.e.xy and dirty and right and wrong all at once. She gripped his shoulders tightly and hung on for dear life. Her mind was blank, her focus all on the wet friction between him, the tug inside her body, careening toward release. Her o.r.g.a.s.m came fast, and intense, like his invasion of her, and she bit her lip so she wouldn"t cry out too loudly. Something was sc.r.a.ping her back, but she didn"t care. She didn"t care about anything.
There was her and Marco and something important and not good for either of them happening between them. He came right behind her, burying his head into her shoulder as he shuddered through the pleasure. Allison lay still beneath him as he relaxed on top of her, sighing in satisfaction.
She wanted to say something, but she still couldn"t seem to find any words, or form any thoughts. It was so unlike her it was unnerving, and the urge to cry was there again. Swallowing hard, she squirmed a little so he would get off her. She couldn"t deal with his weight, with that oppressive feel of intimacy. It made her want things she couldn"t have.
He took the hint and eased out of her with a sigh.
When she felt a warm rush against her thigh, she realized that they had just had s.e.x without a condom. Alarmed, she shoved at his chest, trying to sit up.
"What"s wrong?" he asked.
"You didn"t use a condom. Are you f.u.c.king insane?" Her voice rose in something akin to hysteria.
He suddenly looked as shocked as she felt. "I didn"t, did I?"
"Don"t tell me you didn"t notice, because I call bulls.h.i.t." Allison bit her lip and pressed her fingertips to her eyelids. She wasn"t going to cry. She was not going to f.u.c.king cry. "Why would you do that to me?"
"I don"t know." He shook his head. "I just got caught up... I"m sorry. Are you on the pill?"
"No. I have an IUD, but still. That was f.u.c.king rude, Marco."
"You could have stopped me." His voice was defensive as he shoved his d.i.c.k back into his pants. "I said I"m sorry."
"What am I doing?" she asked, in the world"s most rhetorical question. "This is just such a bad idea. I need to go home."
"Now?" he asked in astonishment.
He could probably arrange that for her, but she wasn"t that much of a diva. "No, but first thing tomorrow."
"Allison. You don"t have to do that. Just enjoy another day here, like we planned."
"I don"t belong here." She heard her voice catch, and it p.i.s.sed her off. She wasn"t even fully sure what the h.e.l.l was wrong. "d.a.m.n it," she said, angry with the tremor in her voice.
Marco tried to adjust her bra back into place, but she brushed his hands off. She couldn"t think when he touched her.
"I"m sorry," he said.
She was pretty sure neither one of them knew what exactly he was apologizing for, though if she had an STD he was getting the d.a.m.n medical bill for tests and antibiotics. "Can I go around the front of the house and stay in the guest room?"
"Sleep in my room. No one will bother you in there. You can"t stay in the reptile room."
She really didn"t want to, no. But she would if she had to. At the moment she was so emotional and confused, she"d cuddle up with a boa constrictor if it meant she wouldn"t have to look at Marco. "Where are you sleeping?"
He draped his arms over his knees, leaning back against the wall with a heavy sigh. "The couch, I guess. After everyone leaves. You can leave in the morning if you want. I"ll have Sharon make the arrangements. I just want you to be happy."
What a joke that was. Everyone in theory wanted other people to be happy, but mostly, they wanted themselves to be happy. She knew that. She had lived that. Maybe he believed it. Maybe he even meant it, like a lot of people did. They wanted other people to be happy as long as it was what they wanted.
But she didn"t want to get into a thing with Marco. She didn"t want to lose control of herself. She didn"t want to cry, especially when she wasn"t even sure why she was crying. "Thank you," she said.
"Are we going to talk about this?" he asked.