Elfie walked into the hotel bedroom ahead of Tryp, and he closed the hotel room door behind them. The flimsy wooden door rattled in the frame. Elfie used better wood than that to build flats, plus the cream and gold bedspread and walls would have washed out under the blazing stage lights until the musos looked like they were playing in ecru limbo.
When she turned back, Tryp was leaning his shoulder against the wall, his arms folded tight over his chest.
“So here we are,” she said. That sounded sort of sophisticated, right?
His arms were so wound around each other, and his eyes were so dark, and his big, strong body blocked the door.
Oh, shit.
She tottered backward on her heels and grabbed the bed for balance. “So, what’s up?”
The tension in all the lines of his body looked like he was struggling with himself, fighting his inner beast, as her step-father called it.
She stepped backward. “Tryp, is everything all right?”
One second he was as still as a coiled rattlesnake over by the door, the next he was across the room and his big hands encircled her upper arms. Pain creased his eyes. “Elfie—”
He looked so hurt, and she lifted her arms to his waist. “Tryfon, I’m listening.”
She felt his hand on the back of her skull, his fingers slipping through her hair, and he bent and touched his lips to hers.
She would have never guessed that Tryp Areleous, the dirty rocker who thrashed his drums every night, pounded a crowd of thousands with his rhythm, and had bragged about hard, dirty fucks, would be so gentle when he kissed her.
His lips brushed hers, the softness of his warm flesh on her mouth, and his arm slipped behind her waist. He wasn’t tentative at all. He was utterly confident in this dance, too, but he chose not to be brutal.
Elfie forgot to panic.
Her hands moved around to his back, and she stepped closer. In her arms, under his clothes, he was a bundle of twisted steel sinews and heat. His arm around her waist tightened, drawing her against himself, and his hand cradled the back of her head as his lips opened against hers. The warmth of his breath flooded her mouth with just a wisp of the dark malt of whiskey. His satiny cheek brushed hers.
The absence of panic felt like she was stumbling, but the taste of whiskey and Tryp’s warmth in her mouth filled her thoughts, and his hard waist and thighs against her body were all she could feel.
His tongue slipped into her mouth, stroking her, as his hand dropped to the small of her back and pressed her more tightly against him.
Her own breathing rasped, and her skin burned.
He broke off kissing her, moving his soft lips to her neck, barely nipping the tendons there and running his tender lips down her shoulder. He slid the thin strap of her dress off her shoulder to kiss the skin under it. The silk fell down her arm, sending a shiver through her. She gasped, just a little. He was so sweet. He was so gentle. Tears scratched her eyes.
Tryp picked her up under the backs of her legs and kissed her, then walked to the side of the bed, laying her on it and crawling on top of her. His scent washed over her: soap and a sweet, masculine musk from under his clothes, like crisp sheets and night-blooming flowers. He kissed her again, softly.
As his huge body hovered and blocked out the LED lights set in the ceiling, Elfie stiffened and splayed her hands on his shoulders.
Trapped.
Her whole body chilled with sweat. Tears rolled out of her eyes and soaked her hair, but she kept kissing him. His soft lips were so tender on hers that she couldn’t stop herself, and she wound her arms around his neck.
Tryp froze, then pushed himself up on his arms. “Elfie, are you crying?”
“I’m sorry.” Her feet were hanging off the side of the bed, and she slithered to the floor from underneath him.
Tryp twisted in the bed and turned, his dark eyebrows lowered in confusion. “Are you okay? What the hell is going on?”
“I’m fine.” She pulled her dress strap up and over her shoulder. “I’d better go.”
His mouth opened just a little, and he blinked. “I thought you were into it.”
Her hands were shaking now. The panic hadn’t gone away. It just hadn’t kicked in yet, and now her whole body vibrated with terror.
His lips had been so gentle. She scrubbed at the tears, smearing her remaining eyeliner and mascara on her palms.
She grabbed her purse off the floor. “You’re a really good kisser.”
The gel had lost its battle with his glossy curls and the make-up was gone, and he looked like Tryp Areleous the rock star again, sitting on the bed, his black shirt clinging to the bricks of his abs and his broad shoulders. The top button of his jeans had come undone, and a vee of hard flesh showed where his shirt had ridden up around his waist.
“I’m really good at a lot of things.” He smiled and held out his hand, inviting her back. “Come on.”
Elfie wanted to reach out and hold his hand, to let him comfort her while she shook, and she looked at his hand for a long minute and was sure that her longing was written on her face, but her legs skittered backward.
“Elfie!” Tryp chased her to the door and shut it with one hand above her head.
She flipped around on the door. His lips were swollen from kissing her, redder, and his eyes seemed half-closed and darker, too. He was breathing hard.
His voice cracked. “Don’t go.”
“I have to. I have to be somewhere. There’s something I have to do. Gerbs and flame projectors,” she rambled. The clock read four-fifteen.
“I’m going to let go of the door now. I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to. I’ll prop the door open. I’ll drag a chair in here and sit over by the window. Or we’ll talk in the living room. Don’t leave me out in the cold. Don’t shut me out. Talk to me. Okay?”
She was choking on terror. She couldn’t breathe, so she nodded.
Tryp lifted his palm away from the door.
Elfie snatched the door open and ran as fast as she could on her high heels to the door out of the suite.
“Elfie!” he called from behind her.
She yanked open that door and ran down the corridor and pattered down the cement stairs to her own room, where she collapsed on the bed and shook until her muscles were so exhausted that she slept.
She dreamed of enormous birds of prey diving at her, blocking out the sun, tearing her apart.