Page 63 of Seven Night Stopover

His brows rose. “You object to what I’m wearing?”

She stared him up and down, and her tongue swirled over her upper lip in an unconscious gesture of want that spiked fire through his blood.

“Yes, I do. The way your jeans hug your ass isn’t legal. And that blue T-shirt brings out your eyes way too sexily for me to even want to think about you leaving this room dressed like that.” The deadpan delivery drew a stunned laugh from him.

“Are you telling me you like what you see, baby?”

Her eyes met his and that rawness exploded between them again. “You know I do,” she said in a hushed voice. She stepped closer and her hand slid up his chest to curve around his nape. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to lean down and kiss her.

His hands skimmed her back, curved over her ass and squeezed.

Her flinch made him freeze and pull back. “How badly does it hurt?” After the insane frenzy of their fucking last night, he’d known she would bruise but even he hadn’t realized how far things had gone until he’d seen her ass and breasts. The marks on her shoulder and neck were covered by her top and loose hair.

Grey eyes met his and a wave of heat swept into her cheeks. “It’s not that bad.”

“Leia?”

“I mean it. The pleasure I got from what you did made the pain worth it. In the bathroom just now, I touched them just to remind myself how good I felt.”

The rush that broke free threatened to cap him at the knees.

He cupped his hand around her throat and brought her face up to his. “Tell me again. Slowly.”

“I like it, Noah. The pain, the pleasure. All of it.”

He smashed his mouth down on hers, kissing until they both couldn’t breathe. When he raised his head, the beauty of her face sent him under once again.

“This jazz thing. How wedded are you to the idea of attending?”

“Fused Realms have hit the billboard charts consistently for over fifteen years,” she whispered against his lips. “This is an opportunity of a lifetime.”

Growling, he grabbed her hand and splayed it over his aching groin. “I have an unending opportunity of a lifetime right here, baby. We don’t even need to leave the room.”

She laughed despite the dangerous currents flying through the air. Caressing his cock, she answered, “Let’s go rock out, baby. Then you can bring me back here and rock my world again.”

He held her against him, let her stroke him for another minute before he reluctantly stepped away. “I’ll agree on condition you don’t bend over at any point during the evening. If I catch even a hint of your ass on show, we’re coming back here and I’m making your ass sing again.”

She tilted her head and stared up at him. “Yes, Noah.”

A clock chimed somewhere in the room. Had he been able to look away from her stunning face to look at his watch, he would’ve known the exact moment he relinquished part of his soul to Leia Michaels forever.

23

“Should I be jealous that your heart is racing and you have a blissful smile on your face that has nothing to do with me?” Noah growled close to her ear to be heard above the sound of band rehearsals.

Leia laughed and turned in the circle of the arms caging her in on either side. Behind them, the huge stage in the Vienna Stadthalle, where the bands would perform in an hour, gleamed under powerful colored lights. Sliding her arms around his neck, she stood on tiptoe and kissed his jaw.

“Sorry, for the next few hours, you have to share me with a serious addiction to jazz funk.”

He grunted but allowed her to tease him with light kisses before their inevitable hunger for each other threatened to fire out of control.

When he raised his head, his blue eyes were dark and his breathing a little ragged. Leia was beginning to think she would never get over how staggering their hunger for each other was, or how this breathtaking man seemed to be as caught up in the turbulent emotions swirling around them as she was.

“Don’t worry, baby, I’ll be right next to you to remind you of your other addictions.” He cupped her ass and squeezed. Her gasp at the fused spike of pleasure and pain darkened his eyes further.

“So you’ve changed your mind about singing backup with me?” she teased.

One corner of his mouth twitched in a purely masculine, insanely sexy smile. “Fine, maybe not right next to you but close enough to make sure you stay on the right side of groupie lust.”

---