Loving the unmistakable honesty of her response, he kissed her again, then nudged one finger just inside her. She clenched tight and slick around him, and he wanted more. He wanted everything. "Yes?" A question asked against lips swollen from his kisses.
Fingers digging into his shoulders, she simply nodded.
"Say it, baby." He didn't want any doubts in Molly's mind about their first night together, now or later.
"Yes." Throaty and breathless, the single word threatened to snap the ragged leash around his instincts, but he'd promised not to hurt her and Fox didn't break his promises.
He pushed deeper, slow and relentless, adding a second finger when she moaned. Sweat breaking out over his skin, he spread his fingers inside her, moved gently... and she began to rock instinctively on him. "Yes," he said, his voice rough. "Move on me." Withdrawing without warning, he pushed his fingers back into her in a single thrust, her body slick enough to take it.
She cried out his name, burying her face against the side of his, her breath a burn over his skin. Hauling her back with his free hand in her hair, he ran his lips down her jaw to her throat, pumping his fingers into her the entire time.
Her muscles fluttered around him, her nails cutting tiny half-moons into his shoulders, her breathing soft pants.
Groaning, he continued to plunge his fingers in and out of her, even as he placed his thumb on the plump, slippery bud of her clit. "Open for me, baby." He bit her lower lip as she'd bitten his, caught her startled whimper in a kiss. "I want in."
He flicked her clit.
Back arching, she came in a shocked spasm that left her melted and ready in his arms. He kept his hand where it was, pressed his body close to kiss her again. Seduce her. That orgasm had been beautiful, but he knew she had more inside her, his sexy little librarian. And he intended to see it, coax it out of her.
His cock throbbed.
Gritting his teeth, he reined in the driving need to pound into her. That would come. Right now Molly was back with him, that first short, sharp orgasm having left her ripe for another, this one darker, deeper, tighter. Her body twisted on his, her nipples pebbled points he fully intended to bite.
Later.
The wet sound of his fingers plunging into her body, the scent of desire thick in the air, her muscles clasping him with a sensual greed he fully intended to feed. "Don't you come again, Molly," he warned, sliding his fingers out of her, to her moan. "I want to feel you squeezing my cock this time, not my fingers."
Lace tore, her panties in shreds in two short seconds.
"Open your eyes." Holding the eye contact when she obeyed the harsh order, the possessive drive inside him a primitive thing, he luxuriated in the way she dug her fingers into the heavy muscle of his shoulders as he circled the broad head of his cock against the nerve-laced skin at her entrance.
A soft, feminine sound, her body going taut as a drum, her skin flushed a luscious pink. "I can't--"
That was when Fox tightened his hold in her hair, his other hand gripping the softness of her hip, and pushed in an inch. Molly stiffened, her body rippling around him in a way that had nothing to do with pain. Growling in his throat, he kissed her again. "Don't."
"Now," she whispered. "Before I--"
He was buried in her the next instant.
Molly cried out into his mouth as he fought for control. Kissing her with every ounce of skill at his disposal--and yeah, he had a lot of skill--he licked his tongue against hers, stroked and sucked until she shifted restlessly.
He clenched his jaw so hard he could hear his bones grinding against each other. No way in hell was he going to last much longer. "Does it hurt?" She was stretched tight around his thickness.
A shake of her head, her fingers curling in his hair as she asked for another kiss with a sweet, hot brush of her lips against his. Willing to give her anything she wanted, he opened his mouth over hers at the same time that he began to move. Slowly. It took furious self-control.
Molly began to move with him on his fourth stroke, impatient and needy. "Fox."
Thank God. Shifting both hands to her hips at that broken cry, her head falling back to expose the delicious line of her throat, Fox pounded into her, deep and relentless and ruthlessly fast, his chest rubbing against her nipples with every movement.
Wanting more, wanting her, he curved his hand around her throat and drew her down to his mouth. His ring pressed into the softness of her lower lip, his chest crushed her breasts, but she held on tighter instead of pushing him away, her pleasure-swollen tissues providing erotic friction against the aching hardness of his cock. "Wet and tight and so good." The words came out a growl. "I might just fuck you forever, Molly."
She orgasmed on a gasp, her body gripping him with such feminine strength he was the one who felt taken, possessed, owned. Sliding his hold to her jaw, he kissed her throughout her pleasure, and then he pinned her to the wall and took his own.
"You found the bedroom."
Fox looked at her from where he lay beside her on his stomach, his eyes lazy and satisfied in the muted light of the bedside lamp. "Not difficult." One big hand stroked down the line of her spine to splay on her lower back, fingers just brushing her buttocks.
Molly's own fingers curled in the sheets. "Only one bedroom." It was a nonsensical statement, but she was having trouble thinking past the heavy afterglow of unadulterated pleasure... and the bite of a fear that said maybe she'd made a terrible mistake. This had been meant to be her one wild night, something to carry with her as she walked into a safe, calm, happily dull future, except it had felt like more than sex, more than a single moment of madness in a life lived by the rules.
It had felt like a branding.
"I might just fuck you forever, Molly."
He'd used her name, that's what got to her. Right at the end, when she could've been any warm, willing female, he'd called her by her name, made it crystal clear he remembered exactly whose body he held against the wall. And she'd never forget his, never forget the man who'd taken such rough care with her. His entry had burned, the pressure intense, but that had faded into a pleasure that blinded.
"So many thoughts in those big brown eyes," Fox said, playing his fingers over her hip.
Drawing in a long, quiet breath, she turned onto her side and shook her head, a knot of worry in her chest. "Nothing important." It had been her first time, she told herself, with a man who knew exactly what he was doing. No wonder she was off-balance.
The fact was, Zachary Fox might've taken her as if he meant forever, but this one night was all they'd ever share. There was no cause to worry she'd started something that held the potential to devastate the life she'd so painstakingly built for herself.
"Did you say something about a second time?" she asked when it looked like he might follow up on the implied question--though she wasn't sure her body could handle Fox and what he did to her again.
His smile was pure sex, his hair falling over his eyes as he shifted over her, pressing her onto her back. "You'll be even more sore than you're already going to be."
Molly could feel her skin coloring, but she said, "I can handle it." It panicked her a little to know their time together would end with the dawn, but that was the reason it had to end. Even should Fox lose his mind and decide he wanted to start up a relationship with a librarian who couldn't pull off sophisticated no matter how hard she tried. "Please."
Dimple creasing his cheek, he dipped his head to her breast. "Since you asked so nicely"--a playful lick--"I'll even give you a reward."
The second time around was delectably slow and astonishingly instructive. Molly might've been inexperienced, but she was smart, read a lot. She knew there were endless nuances to what men and women got up to behind closed doors. But when Fox lowered his head to between her thighs and put his mouth on her, when he showed her exactly what that ring felt like against her most delicate flesh, she realized some things required practical application.
And, when it was over
and he tucked her close to the hard planes of his body, she stayed. For this one night, a night that would never be repeated, she could trust a man to hold her.
"You work every Saturday?" Fox asked the next morning as they walked toward her car.
Molly nodded. "The library opens seven days a week, rain or shine." Her work-week started Tuesday, ended today.
"When will you finish?"
She felt her stomach dip, shook it off with pure strength of will. The night was over; wild, dangerous Molly with her taste for rock stars and bone-melting pleasure put permanently under dustcovers, leaving sensible Molly in charge. "Around five," she answered. "Can I drop you off somewhere?"
Her heart stuttered with the effort to keep her voice steady. Even she knew there were certain unwritten rules of behavior after a one-night stand, chief among them a calm, mature morning after. No blushing, no thinking about how Fox had wakened her an hour before her alarm had been set to go off, his fingers between her thighs.
She was sore. It had been worth it.
"The library where you work," he said now, "where is it?"
"City center." Realizing she was staring at his lips, her skin flushing and breasts aching, she wrenched her gaze away and unlocked the car.
"I'll get off there," he said after sliding into the car with an audible groan at having to fold his body into the compact space. "It's an easy walk to the apartments we've taken on the waterfront."
Molly's hands clenched on the steering wheel as she drove out of the garage. "I thought you'd be on one of the private islands?" Safely beyond her reach, where she couldn't give in to the temptation to ask him for just one more night.
"Nah, that's not our style, but one of Thea's minions did also book out a small hotel for us on the island with the wineries."
"Waiheke." The vibrant island was a short ferry ride across the water, though she guessed Fox and his bandmates had their own transportation to a no doubt private beach.
"Yeah, that one." He tugged at a tendril of hair that had escaped the twist at the back of her head. "Fancy."
Damn her skin and its inability to be mature, but at least her voice only sounded a fraction husky when she said, "Professional." It was getting harder and harder to breathe with him so close.
He looked her up and down. "Boots, skirt, slinky top. Nice."
Having stopped at a traffic light, she resisted the urge to tug at the soft coral-colored wool of her thin V-necked sweater. "It's not slinky. It's warm. The air-conditioning's high at work." As for the skirt, it was tailored but not tight; she needed to be able to move freely.
"I bet you give all the teenage boys hot flushes."
"I don't give anyone a hot flush."
"Yeah?" A single word full of sensual challenge. "I seem to recall having several heat waves hit me. Four times, wasn't it?"
Molly had never been teased this way. "Do you always keep score?"
"Hell yeah." He leaned back in his seat, hands behind his head, biceps taut. "You sore?"
Molly was fairly sure he wasn't supposed to care after a one-night stand, but since he did, she fought her embarrassment to say, "Nothing major." Except that she'd feel him inside her with every step she took today.
"Good." He tugged on the curl again. "Anyway, four times in the span of less than eight hours is excessive, even for me. Especially since right now, I'm fighting the urge to push up your skirt to see if you're wearing pantyhose."
Mind scrambled, she stared straight ahead. "No."
"So if I slid my hand up, I'd touch--"
"Unloading zone." She came to a hard stop on the street kitty-corner from the commercial parking lot where she usually left her car. "Out before I get a ticket." Or before she turned the car around and spent the day letting him make her even more deliciously sore.
"Mean, Molly. That was mean." Undoing his seat belt, he reached over to clasp his hand over her nape, kiss her on the lips. A full kiss. A kiss that made her want to play with that ring, suck on his lip, lave her tongue against his, her hands in his hair instead of locked to bone-white tightness on the steering wheel. "I'll be seeing you, Molly Webster," he murmured with a final nibbling taste of her lips.
"Yes, see you." But as she watched him walk away, a rock god burnished by the morning sunlight, she knew that was the last she'd ever see of Zachary Fox outside of music videos or Schoolboy Choir concerts. His life and her own, they might as well have been on different planets.
Swallowing the thickness of emotion in her throat, she pulled away from the curb.
The fantasy was over.
Chapter 4
Exiting on the top floor of the serviced apartment complex on the waterfront, Fox went not to his own apartment but to Noah's. He knew the band's guitarist, who also played bass like a pro, would be in; Noah might bed a different woman--often women--every night, but he didn't stay the night with any of them, and if he brought them back to his place, it was only for as long as it took to have sex.
Fox knew why the other man couldn't sleep with anyone else in the room, but they never discussed it. Not like women discussed shit. They simply had each other's backs--Noah knew if he felt himself sliding too deep into hell, he just had to reach out a hand and Fox would haul him out. Not that Fox was sure the stubborn bastard would reach out. Didn't matter. Fox would never allow Noah's demons to swallow him up.
He knocked lightly and wasn't surprised when a rumpled Noah opened the door soon afterward. The other male looked like he'd rolled out of bed a second ago, his jeans hanging low on his hips, stubble on his jaw. It was an illusion--Noah rarely slept past dawn, regardless of his nighttime activities.
"You got coffee?" He walked in, leaving the door open. It was only the four of them up here, with the elevator locked to their personal keycards and service personnel instructed to come up only on request. It was one of the first things they'd realized after Schoolboy Choir's first album went triple platinum--that if they wanted any privacy at all, they'd have to fight for it.
"Check this out." Noah pointed to a machine that looked like it had escaped the deck of a spaceship. "Looks worse than the monstrosity you have at your place back home."
"I know how my monstrosity works." Fox scowled, kicking himself for not having properly checked things out before the party last night. He'd just thrown his gear inside his own apartment, the band having been at a nearby hotel till then. "Damn it, I walked right by the coffee place next door because there was a line."
Dark gray eyes glinting, Noah found a mug, thrust it under one of the many spouts, and pushed three buttons of the thousands on the spaceship coffeemaker. Half a minute later, Fox was holding some kind of cinnamon-scented coffee so frothy he could feel his testosterone levels dropping just looking at it. "What the hell, Noah? You want me to drink this?"
"You have to drink it," the blond male snarled. "It's the only crap I've figured out how to make on this thing."
Fox took a sip, got mostly foam. He tried again, shuddered. "Give me another mug." When Noah handed it over, he started slotting in the shiny pod things that sat in a basket beside the coffeemaker and pushing random buttons.
Three pods later, he hit on the right combination for plain black coffee. "Clearly, I'm the brains of this outfit."
"Gimme that." Commandeering the coffee, Noah took a long drink, groaned. "This is coffee. Now show me what the fuck you did."
Fox successfully made a second cup and, taking it, followed Noah out onto the balcony, both of them leaning their forearms on the balustrade. The view of the harbor was spectacular, the sparkling blue-green water busy with countless watercraft. Close to the city it was mostly commuter ferries, though there was also a tall-masted racing yacht and a boat that looked like it might be taking tourists out to see dolphins. Farther out, Fox could see sailboats and small personal fishing craft as people headed out to enjoy the brilliantly sunny--if cold--fall day.
"You had breakfast?" Noah asked as they watched a kayaker set off for one of the islands, his m
uscular arms and smooth pace as he rode the waves created by bigger craft making it clear he was no amateur. "I can scramble some eggs. Or we could wake David up and hold him upside down over the balcony until he agrees to feed us."
Fox grinned at the reference to David's superior culinary skills. "I already ate." Finishing off his coffee, he dangled the mug from his fingers and thought of the delicious armful of woman who'd kicked him out of her car.
"You have a look that says 'I not only got laid but had my mind blown.'" Noah froze in the act of grinning. "Shit, Fox. I saw you leave the same time as the woman Thea pointed out as her sister. If you've touched her, Thea will make your life a living hell, probably schedule you to appear on a Japanese game show."
Damn right he'd touched Molly. And he planned to do it again. "She's mine." Sex usually worked women out of his system; it had only worked Molly in deeper.
Noah angled his body to stare at him. "What?"
"Molly. She's mine." This was no longer about anything as simple or as easily handled as physical attraction.
"I need more coffee." It was a groaned-out statement from his bandmate. Grabbing Fox's cup as well, Noah went back to the machine, returning a few minutes later to say, "You're serious?"
"Deadly." Fox drank from the full cup the other man had handed over. "You know when you get the whisper of a melody in your head, or the murmur of a song? And you have the gut feeling that if you could just hear the rest of it, just capture the music"--the need an ache as frustrating as it was piercing--"you'd have something fucking amazing?"
Noah nodded.
"Yeah well, that's what it feels like with Molly." The most compelling whisper of his life. "I'm not about to walk away from that."
"Could just be lust," Noah said bluntly. "It can hit hard, leave a man seeing stars, and then it's over."
Fox thought of Molly, of what her body, her scent, her taste, did to him.
His own body hardened at the memory. Yeah, their physical chemistry wasn't in question; he could've happily stayed in bed with her all day today and been greedy for more. The things he wanted to do to Molly Webster... But despite their erotic connection, sex wasn't the first thing that came to his mind when he thought of Molly.