Come Alive Read online

  However, Luthor was right: it technically wasn’t permitted. They were no freer to do this now than he’d been a little over a day ago. Though really, where was the harm in it? It was only a kiss. It wasn’t as if they were about to hump one another blind amid the detritus with Rock Giant watching them from the bedroom. He didn’t doubt that the big guy was doing exactly that. Rock Giant liked to prove his heterosexuality by watching guys make out and then proclaiming the lack of agitation in his pants. That and, like every other member of Black Halo, he was a nosy bugger.

  It was just a kiss. How could Dani say it was OK for them to fuck in her presence, but not engage in any sort of affectionate or sexual behaviour in privacy? Maybe Luthor did have a point. He’d been so excited and relieved yesterday that she was happy and wasn’t going to leave him that he’d not analysed the reality of what they’d agreed to.

  ‘I’m not interested in just being your fuck toy, Xane. I don’t want to be the guy you call when you and Dani feel like spicing things up a little.’

  ‘You won’t be. Just give things a chance to settle.’

  ‘I’m not expecting perfection overnight. I just want to know exactly what it is I’m getting myself into, because I thought it was a relationship.’

  ‘It is … It will be.’ Xane fisted a handful of Luthor’s T-shirt and jerked the cotton up enough so that he could rub his other hand against the skin he exposed. Luthor was so frickin’ perfect to hold and touch, with his work-hardened physique and long slender limbs. He was damned good to look at too, and that was before you even got as far as his natural heterochromia. One sea-green eye and one tawny drank down his image.

  ‘Is that a promise? Do you swear it?’

  Xane answered by pushing his tongue into Luthor’s mouth and initiating another round of fierce kissing. He shifted his stance so that their hips ground against one another, providing some welcome friction where he suddenly needed it.

  ‘I love the way your tongue stud feels.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Xane pushed his hands into the back of Luthor’s baggy jeans and grabbed himself a satisfying handful of firm arse. ‘Wait until you feel it caressing your cock.’

  ‘It has caressed my cock, and I can recall exactly how mind-blowingly good it felt. Too bad a blowjob is beyond the bounds of your accord.’

  ‘Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Luthor.’

  ‘Am I making it hard?’ He pushed a hand between their bodies and copped a feel of Xane’s cock where it was trapped behind his zip. ‘I guess I’m making something hard.’ He squeezed. ‘You can see the problem we’re going to have, can’t you? If we spend time together, it’s inevitable that things are going to get tense, but actual relief, that’s not allowed.’

  Yes, he could see the dilemma, and his mind was frantically trying to see a way around it, but, as Luthor said, there wasn’t one, other than somehow conjuring Dani out of thin air and having her just stand and watch. Even if he could do that with a simple snap of his fingers, he couldn’t see her patiently standing by and observing them even kissing, let alone screwing one another above once a week, and possibly not even that often.

  Luthor was right, there were serious holes in the plan, and yet he understood why she’d insisted on those conditions. Dani wasn’t specifically trying to keep them apart, or torture them; she was trying to buy herself some security. He couldn’t snatch that from her, not when she was adapting and trying so hard to understand and give him what he wanted.

  He pushed Luthor to arm’s length, breathing hard through his open mouth. ‘Stop … We have to stop … show some restraint.’

  ‘For how long?’

  He didn’t have an answer to that question. ‘Let her get used to the idea of us. Then we can reopen the negotiations.’

  ‘Or I could just get down on my knees right now and suck you off.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Xane held out his palm to keep Luthor at a distance, but with his other hand he was toying with the fastening of his jeans. ‘Take the bucket, go and help Rock Giant.’

  ‘I don’t think he wants my lips around his cock.’

  Xane turned his back. He didn’t know why Luthor was being like this, after he’d been so reasonable before, but piling on an additional layer of stress when he was already feeling stretched and torn wasn’t helping him keep his head clear. Sex, after all, was his drug of choice. It had ever been his method of checking out of bad situations. Flood the pleasure centres and the world became a happy place. If he was fucking, he didn’t have to think, but not thinking about this was only going to get him into trouble.

  ‘Did I hear you offering me a blowjob?’

  Praise be for Rock Giant. That bastard had just saved him.

  ‘Graham didn’t actually make you sign up to that as part of your contract, did he? I enjoy getting head as much as the next guy, but I’m strictly no-dudes when it comes to my tackle.’

  ‘I just had to make myself available … to play,’ Luthor clarified. ‘The contract didn’t cover blowjobs.’

  ‘No dodgy codicils or anything.’ Rock Giant scratched his armpit.

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s OK, then.’ He held up his mobile phone. ‘I just got a call from Elspeth. Apparently Graham and Sally want to talk to us all. We’re to head over to the motorhome for a conflab. Decisions need to be made about what happens next.’

  Chapter 1

  Three weeks later. July 17, Sweden.

  ‘No, Xane, don’t!’

  Dani’s protest went unheeded as her lover pressed her against the side of the tour bus, trapping her between warm metal and his scorching hot body. She supposed saying ‘wait up’ to a sex-addicted rock star was rather like taking an alcoholic to a bar and then forbidding them to drink. And she could hardly protest if her efforts were having the desired effect when she’d dressed to entice him.

  It was the location and timing that were the issues.

  Dani clasped her hand tight over Xane’s where he’d just slid it beneath the hem of her regrettably short skirt. ‘Will you behave? Your band-mates are going to be here any minute.’

  ‘Then that’s a minute we can use to our advantage.’

  Trust him to see it that way. Not that she really minded, because while she certainly didn’t share his exhibitionist tendencies, Xane only had to quirk his brows the way he was doing right now and her insides started fizzing with excitement. From everything she’d heard and read about relationships, the first flush of love ought to have been wearing off a little now, but that wasn’t her experience. Looking at Xane still made her heart skip a beat. She still woke beside him and grinned inanely at her good fortune, and the sex … Well, the sex still happened all of the time. Whenever they had a minute or three spare, in fact.

  The only slightly troublesome aspect of their relationship was Xane’s attraction to his band’s new drummer, Luthor Albrecht. Dani had tentatively agreed that it was OK for Xane to see him too, but she’d not had to think about that over the last 22 days, because Luthor had been off drumming for his former band, Denna Rädsla.

  ‘Dani,’ Xane coaxed her with his come-to-bed eyes and a husky purr. He stroked a finger down the side of her throat.

  Dammit! How did you say no to six foot of solid muscle with the hots for you? You couldn’t. Leastways, she couldn’t. Not when he had bone-structure to rival the gods, and his beauty hit you like a smack in the guts. He literally took her breath away, every time.

  ‘No one is going to see us. There’s no one around to see us.’ As far as Xane was concerned his band-mates didn’t count, not that they were here yet, but they would be, and all too soon.

  After their lead guitarist had collapsed on stage during their last gig, and innumerable troubles with their former drummer had led to their current tour being delayed, the various members of the band had gone their separate ways in order to get some quality R&R. Today was when that vacation ended and they were supposed to start pulling their shit back together – Xane’s words, not hers. A
lthough he still hadn’t explained why that meant they had to meet in a quayside carpark in some random Swedish town.

  ‘I don’t think the fish are interested in us.’

  ‘There’s a windsurfer on the lake.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Xane turned his head, causing his dark hair to stir against his leather jacket as he checked him out. ‘And he’d have to be Hawkeye to realise what we’re doing from that distance.’

  ‘He could be.’

  ‘Superheroes aren’t real, Dani.’

  They were. He’d been her superhero for years, long before they’d accidentally bumped into one another, but she didn’t feel like arguing the point. ‘An old person or someone with little kids might wander past. It’s not right to go flashing them.’

  ‘It’s nine p.m., past their bedtime.’

  ‘It’s the holidays, they could be up late.’

  ‘Right, and a sea monster might just rise from the depths to ogle my naked arse too. Admit it, Dani, really this is about you not wanting to share, not the remote possibility of corrupting an innocent.’

  Dani pursed her lips, because maybe there was a grain of truth in his observation. It wasn’t so much random strangers happening upon them that she was worried about, as what would happen if Luthor turned up and caught them. She’d die if he tried to join in. The morning the three of them had spent in Halmstad making sense of their feelings and figuring out a way forward now seemed like a half-forgotten dream from a lifetime ago. A dream she’d prefer to forget.

  She’d foolishly let Xane drink his fill of Luthor’s body, said ‘OK, I guess it can happen again as long as I’m aware of it,’ and then nothing more was said because events had overtaken them. Consequently, she had had to think about Luthor and his sexy smile for weeks. Now she was riddled with anxiety. He’d been all she could think about for the last two nights. He’d haunted her dreams, crept into bed beside her and Xane and smothered them both in dream kisses. This morning she’d woken having orgasmed in her sleep, as Luthor pushed in alongside Xane.

  He was even indirectly responsible for her choice of outfit today. There could be no slumming it in a pair of tatty old jeans when she was about to face stiff competition for Xane’s attention.

  ‘And there goes another wasted minute while you pretend you don’t want to get off.’ Xane flashed her a glimpse of the gold stud through his tongue. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t want me to make you squeal.’

  Black Halo fangirls creamed their panties over fantasies of Xane Geist going down on them. Dani was his number-one fangirl, plus she knew what he could actually do with his tongue, which made it damn near impossible not to melt on the spot.

  ‘Maybe if we hopped back on the bus for a minute or two.’

  ‘Cave Troll locked it before he headed off to find a shop.’

  Dani wasn’t entirely convinced that Troels would have locked them outside – too risky, considering how often Xane got mobbed – but as Xane wasn’t about to budge and allow her to check, it was largely irrelevant.

  ‘Why don’t you open your legs a little?’ Xane played with the strand of her hair that was resting against her cheek.

  Dani made the mistake of peering into his eyes. Neither alienesque contact lenses nor sunglasses covered them today, meaning she got the full dose of his heartbreaking baby blues. Well, actually more grey than blue, but … Damn! Why did he have to be so pretty? Those cheekbones, the long slender line of his nose, even the piercings, one through the centre of his lower lip and two through his left eyebrow, made her tingle in places where a woman didn’t really want to get an itch in public.

  ‘What’ll you do?’

  ‘Tickle you somewhere only a dirty girl would allow me to touch.’

  ‘My fancy?’ She giggled. ‘I’m not a dirty girl.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you like to be one?’ He leaned in close, so he could whisper in her ear. ‘I want to get dirty with you. I want to suck your clit and put my fingers and my cock inside you. Do you want to get dirty with me?’

  ‘It’s wrong, Xane.’ Not to mention it could get them arrested. Sure, Sweden was a liberal country, but it still had public decency laws.

  ‘Fucking you is never wrong.’

  Her heart-rate kicked up a notch. For a moment an internal war raged in her head, religious indoctrination on one side and unrepentant sinner on the other. Sex is wrong, Dani. Sex is wrong. Wanting it is wrong. Letting him fuck you is wrong. An orgasm is the devil’s way of entrapping you. Every time you come, you’re trading him a piece of your soul. It’s called the little death, because you’re giving away God’s eternal love.

  ‘How could me expressing my love for you ever be wrong?’

  True. The damned Sisterhood of St Agatha had much to answer for, filling her mind with so much crap. She was trying to shake it all out, but it wasn’t an easy battle. Of course climaxing didn’t buy you a one-way ticket to hell.

  Common sense prevailed. She parted her thighs.

  Xane’s hand immediately filled the space, his long, clever fingers curling against her sex. ‘Babe, you’re already wet for me.’

  Well, he was her personal invitation to sin and enjoy it, the man who always managed to convince her to sod propriety in favour of naughtiness. Was it any surprise her panties got wet when he leaned this close and promised to do wicked things to her? If it was, it really shouldn’t be.

  ‘I think these need to come off, don’t you?’ He plucked at the side of her knickers. ‘Why not step out of them?’ He helped by tugging them down to her thighs, and from there it was simply a matter of giving a little wiggle and gravity did the rest, leaving the scrap of silk and lace around her ankles.

  ‘Much better.’ Xane rested the heel of his hand over her mons, while two fingers traced the split of her pussy. ‘Now, how about a few little pointers? Why don’t you tell me what it is you’d like me to do?’

  ‘I don’t think you want me to tell you what I want. I think you want me to tell you what you want.’

  ‘What I want?’

  ‘Yes,’ she sighed against his lips.

  ‘And what is it I want, Dani?’ His fingers were already sliding against her wet clit, making the little pearl stand up hard and proud.

  ‘You want me to ride against your hand and work myself up to a fever point, until I’m begging you to slide those fingers inside me, in order to stretch me wide for your cock. Then you’re going to edge down your zip ever so slowly and show yourself off to me. You’re thick and long and hard, too big to fit in my hand, too big for me to believe you’ll ever fit inside me.’

  ‘Sorry, whose fantasy is this?’

  ‘Yours. Definitely yours.’

  ‘I think it’s your fantasy. If it was mine, there’d be fewer lingering details about my cock and more about your nakedness. I want to see you lift that skirt right up and show me what you’ve got for me.’

  She shook her head. It wasn’t happening. Not just because she’d be mortified if his band-mates stumbled upon them while she was displaying herself like that, but because she couldn’t risk anyone seeing the sin marks that etched the flesh of her hips and upper thighs. The questions that would be asked would be a trillion times worse than any embarrassment over being caught having sex.

  ‘Not even a little glimpse, just for me?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Still worried about Hawkeye?’

  ‘No, the rest of Black Halo. Xane, they could be here any second.’

  He did glance over his shoulder, but the quayside remained empty apart from them, and one lone car at the far end of the carpark. ‘I’ll wager I can get you off twice before any of them put in an appearance.’

  ‘Twice.’ Oh, God!

  ‘Do you accept?’

  ‘Xane, I’m not sure.’

  ‘Honestly, Dani –’ he imitated an irritable tut ‘– I can’t believe you have so little faith in me. You should know by now, I have all the skills.’

  Yes, all the skills, little or no self-restrain
t, and exhibitionist tendencies that she didn’t share, and yet she was wriggling on the spot so that the lips of her pussy rubbed against his fingers, getting her wetter by the second. ‘How are you going to?’ she asked.

  ‘On my knees, with my tongue.’ He poked it out and wiggled it at her. ‘And possibly employing a finger or two.’

  ‘If you do that it’s going to be completely obvious to anyone passing—’

  ‘There is no one passing by.’ He held her gaze. ‘Let me give you this, Dani. It’ll help you relax. You think I don’t know you’re worked up about me seeing Luthor, but I know. I get it, but you really don’t have anything to fear.’

  ‘I don’t.’ Heat flooded Dani’s cheeks, but before she could bow her head, Xane was holding her and kissing her in a way that damn near robbed her of all rational thought. It certainly drove all thoughts of the other man from her head.

  ‘You don’t. You never have to worry about Luthor.’

  ‘You’re not going to—’

  He stopped her words, her thoughts with his kisses, made her forget for a moment that she was Daniella Fosbrook, the girl abandoned by her dad and left with her crazy mother. She stopped being the girl whose sins scarred her flesh and who was terrified of losing the man she loved to another man. She became an object of pure desire instead. Her nails raked against Xane’s back as she hugged his hard body to her so that her breasts were squashed against his chest.

  ‘I love you, Dani. I’m not going to do anything to risk what we have. We’ll take things as slowly as you like with Luthor. It’ll be OK.’

  She liked Luthor. She kept reminding herself of that fact.

  They were friends, and he’d promised, sworn that he wouldn’t deliberately steal Xane away. He’d said it wasn’t in his interests, because he wanted her too. Too bad, she wasn’t interested in that. She had Xane. She didn’t need another man, regardless of whether she found him attractive. The one she had was more than enough, as he was currently down on his knees proving.