THE DRAKE WAS THE CLASSIEST, most elegant hotel in town, the place famous politicos and Hollywood royalty stayed when they hit Chicago. Doormen, marble, polished brass and lush carpets…right now it all made Sam feel as if she should be wearing a big scarlet S on her chest. S for sin. Or spectacular, which was undoubtedly what a night with the Prince of Give-It-Up-Baybee would be, if that kiss were any indication. Not that he’d said anything about a night, or about sin either, for that matter.
But she had watched his body move as they exited the cab and thought of how he would look naked and hard, muscles pumped, braced above her. And as they entered the lobby, she couldn’t take her eyes off the flexing of his long, muscular legs beneath those worn jeans and the rhythmic sway of his shoulders. Sex was exactly where this was headed; the certainty unrolled in her like a roadmap.
It was insane. Her sinking inhibitions were clearly pulling her principles down with them. Getting physical with Nick would only compound her mixing-business-and-pleasure issues. On the other hand, she could just hear Tori and Kitty reacting to the news that she’d passed up a mind-blowing bout of pleasure and walked away from a lifelong dream.
Girl, your manhunting license ought to be revoked.
Hell, it was going to be revoked anyway when she came up dateless on Valentine’s Day. So why not enjoy the now?
Her body came alive with anticipation as they passed on the elegant Palm Court where high tea was in progress and opted for the lobby bar instead. By the time he slid into the leather-clad banquette beside her, she had gooseflesh all over her legs and was so tense with suppressed arousal that she practically snapped “gin and tonic” at the waiter.
“You were going to explain?” she said, trying to pull her gaze from his moist, parted lips. Finding that impossible, she focused instead on trying to control her breathing. It was probably bad form to pant all over your girlhood sex god.
He slid an arm along the back of the banquette and leaned in. “I didn’t want to do the shoot,” he said, “because I knew it would be all about my old songs and that’s not my sound anymore. I haven’t been a rocker in a long time. I’ve moved on from all of that. I’m a different man, with different music.”
“You seem pretty ‘Nick Stack’ to me.” Swallowing, she gave up fighting the pull of his magnetism and let it drag her closer. “Sound like him, too.” She licked her lower lip. “Except…maybe, better.”
“Better?” His mouth drew up on one side, into the most decadent expression she’d ever seen. “How’s that?”
“Fuller. Earthier. More complex.” She squeezed her thighs together to quell the burning ignited between them. “Just more you.”
“More me? You mean, like that last song?”
“Especially that last song.” Her face flamed—from his breath curling over her skin or the memory of what that song had done to her?
“That was my new sound, my real sound. I’ve worked long and hard develop a whole different voice in jazz, and I’m trying to cut a new record deal. Rereleasing that old schlock will only confuse things.”
“I don’t think anyone will be the least bit confused,” she said, her throat tight and her tongue—its mind clearly on another duty—a little clumsy. “They’ll hear Nick Stack’s rough velvet tones and think—”
“Yeah? What will they think?”
His mouth grazed hers, shunting thought onto a sensual side track.
“What I always think when I hear your voice.”
“Which is?”
“‘Do me right,’” she quoted his lyrics, shocked to hear it come so bluntly out of her mouth. “‘Tonight.’”
Sweet Jesus. Had she just propositioned him?
Then he supplied the next line, pouring it between her tingling lips.
“‘Yeah, bay-bee.’”
That unabashedly erotic refrain, half spoken, half sung in the deepest, sexiest part of his range, turned her blood to syrup. The bar, the other patrons, the upscale, old-school propriety of the place—suddenly nothing mattered but her desire for the feel and taste of him.
As their lips collided, the lightning that was produced shattered all the inhibitions holding her back. Her hands flew to his hair; his sank around her waist. She pressed closer, wanting every solid, sexy inch of him against every aching, hungry inch of her.
Pleasure seared down the back of her throat like a triple shot of single malt, leaving in its wake only a half-coherent vow that she would not regret whatever came next. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A dream come true.
She ran her hands down his neck and shoulders to biceps that were flexed hard and filled with the same tension she was feeling…just as the waiter arrived with their drinks and gave a muffled cough that could have been either disapproval or recognition.
They broke apart and Nick slid to the edge of the booth, tossing some bills onto the table beside the untouched drinks and pulling her along.
The elevator doors opened the very instant he pressed the button. It was no surprise that the minute the doors closed, he pressed her back against the wall and kissed her until vertigo set in. She was oxygen deprived and panting as if she’d just finished the Boston Marathon by the time a discreet ding announced they had arrived on the tenth floor.
The elevator doors were closing again before he reached out to stop them and pulled her out into the hall. Whipping out a key card, he led her past several rooms to a pair of ornate doors bearing a classy suite name.
“We paid for this?” She glanced around a parlor furnished with a baby grand piano, a full-size bar, and ultra-plush sofas that probably cost more than her car.
“Habit. From the old days,” he said, ripping off his jacket. “Demand the best and you get treated like the best. Record label logic.”
“That actually works?” She watched the way his shoulders flexed and his shirt tightened across his lean muscles. Have mercy. She could die on the spot, this minute, and consider her life fulfilled.
“Today,” he said, prowling toward her with an appreciative look that made her flush with pleasure. “Today it’s working just fine.”
A heartbeat later he was kissing her witless and she was running her hands possessively over those memorable shoulders and up that broad back. His kisses were long, lush and lubricating enough to free all the rusty impulses she had refused to exercise ever again until it was right.
And, baby, this was right.
Her legs trembled and her intimate muscles clenched as he peeled off her jacket. Her skirt stayed in place, caught between their straining bodies, until he gave a wicked laugh and backed off enough to let it fall. She fumbled with his shirt buttons but soon was kissing her way down a slice of bared skin. He tasted of salt and a sharp, clean tang of arousal. She was suddenly starving for more.
“Briefs,” she whispered as she sank her hands between his jeans and his tight, muscular buttocks. “I would have guessed commando.”
“Overrated,” he murmured as his mouth migrated down the side of her face and neck to her shoulder. “Zipper rash.” Then while nuzzling her throat, he gave the back panel of her bra a tug. “Undo it.” When she met his gaze, there was an odd glint in his eye. “After today, I’m not going anywhere I’m not invited.” His voice dropped to a whisper and his eyelids lowered to produce a very focused smolder. “So invite me.”
That multilayered request tugged her heart wide open. It was now or never, all or nothing. She dropped her bra and held her breath. His appreciative groan sent a shiver of exultation through her. His fingers closed around her breasts as if they were national treasures.
When he bent to rake her sensitized nipples with his tongue, her knees gave. Laughing with a wicked edge, he wrapped his arms around her naked waist and hauled her up onto her toes, against him. Every tug of his mouth at her breasts sent a sweet spear of arousal straight to her sex.
They stumbled through the bedroom door, still joined, and sank together onto the bed…knees first, then hips, elbows and shoulders. She shivered as he rolled her onto her back, nipping her breasts and running his hands up her bare sides, giving extra attention to every part that made her breath catch.
Skin against glorious skin and stroke upon quivering stroke…sensation poured through her in torrents. He shifted to the side, nibbling his way down her body. Her every muscle—even her lungs—contracted when his fingers began to strum her slick, swollen flesh and jacked her response to a whole new level.
She pulled his mouth up to hers and pressed wantonly against those fingers, urging them inside her, seeking what they could give—needing, demanding, breathless—until her nerves shorted, muscles seized and reality blurred.
For a moment she floated out of body—expanded, freed—before sinking back into a steamy haze of need.
“Now, Nick—” She reached for him.
He sucked in a sharp breath and his hand closed around her wrist.
“Give me a minute, babe.” He rolled to the side and the sound of the foil ripping brought her halfway back to reality. “Like the song says—” he gave her a wink “—there’s nothin’ like ‘a sharp-dressed man.’”
That unexpected thoughtfulness gave her a glimpse of the man behind the public guise, a man who kept one foot firmly on the ground even when his hormones were leaving planet Earth behind. As she brushed his hands away, taking the condom and rolling it down the length of him, his eyes went molten and he turned to ribbed steel beneath her hands.
With a growl, he pulled her beneath him and settled purposefully between her legs. The weight of him, the feel of his body blanketing her, his heat molding her, turned her breath to gasps.
Pleasure saturated her as he raked her sex with his, pausing along the way, tantalizing her with the hint of fulfilling her desire. Then he pressed slowly, centimeter by delicious centimeter into her, parting her, filling her to heart-stopping perfection. He moved so rhythmically, drawing her to meet each stroke, to luxuriate in the feel of being penetrated, filled and claimed, to seek that elusive blend of position and pressure that would bring release.
“Samantha,” he muttered, adjusting each movement until he found the precise angle and thrust that wrung helpless shudders of response from her. “Samantha…Samantha…Samantha…”
She crashed through every sensory boundary, shattering. When her thoughts reassembled and her vision returned, she was holding him fiercely while aftershocks of pleasure rumbled through them both. He finally slid to the bed beside her, murmuring her name over and over as if trying to brand each sensation with her identity.
When she turned to him a moment later, he was watching her with a soft smile.
“Wow,” she said. “You’re really, really good at this.”
“Practice makes perfect,” he said, his smile dimming.
“Then you must have practiced a lot.” It was said lightly, but as his gaze clouded, she wished she could take it back.
“That’s how rock legends are made, and there was a time I wanted to—” He paused to meet her gaze. “I won’t lie to you, Sam. There were lots of women. That’s just part of the package with me. Somehow I managed to make it through that stuff healthy and relatively sane. So I have no desire to be a legend anymore. It’s enough for me to be a good musician and songwriter. And someday, hopefully, a good man.”
He pulled her into the curve of his body and nuzzled her neck. She sighed and welcomed that honesty into her soul.
A good man. Now, there was a concept.
And at that moment she thought he didn’t have far to go.