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  “No, what?” he says, relaxing.

  “I’m glad you came.”

  Chapter Ten

  Taboo

  Nick

  Natalia lays naked on the bed next to me, half dozing on her stomach, her body stretched out. It’s all sweetness and light hiding the dirty girl inside. I lay on my side next to her, stroking my palm up and down the curve of her ass. I can’t stop touching her.

  My hands are addicted to her skin.

  Even though we’re exhausted and worn out, though I’ve done nothing but touch her and kiss her and fuck her in delicious boundary-pushing ways for two days straight—minus the time I had to leave the room to do a show—I still can’t stop. We’ve only stopped going at it to order room service and catch a couple hours of sleep here and there.

  I don’t know what it is about her that I can’t get enough of. I’ve had my share of good sex. Dirtier sex, even. Experimental sex, occasionally. Kinky sex, often. Two girls at once. Three.

  But of all those experiences, only the ones with her drift into my mind when I’m in the middle of something else. And it isn’t just the sex that distracts me. The sound of her laughter adds harmony to every melody I play. The particular shade of blue in her eyes pops out in anything I’m looking at.

  She’s infiltrated me somehow. Gotten inside me while I’ve been inside her.

  Maybe it’s because of all those years I fantasized about her. Or because she’s one of the only women who has been in my bed who hasn’t tried to cling onto more than physical, who hasn’t started making plans and assumptions about the future. Who hasn’t tried to reel me into her life.

  In fact, she’s spent an awful lot of time making sure I understand that it’s the exact opposite, warning me that I’m not to do that to her. Surely this is reverse psychology working on my mind, making me want what I can’t have. She’s so adamant about it, though. About wanting nothing outside us to exist when we’re together. There’s no careers or obligations or family or friends. Jesus, she’s antsy any time I even try to ask about something beyond the four walls of my hotel room. It would be refreshing, if it didn’t also feel like the lock on a prison door.

  When we were texting, she’d throw in all sorts of tidbits about friends and scripts and restaurants she wanted to try. I find myself wanting more of the casual conversation. Wanting more of every part of her.

  Only because she interests me, genuinely. I like the things she has to say. I like seeing how her mind works when she’s making professional decisions. I like the funny faces she makes in candid interview pictures. I like the way she taps crossed fingers against the side of her lip in a gesture that she delivers to someone every time she’s in front of the camera. I want to know what the gesture is for.

  I want there to be a gesture for me.

  Is it because I’ve been raised to be selfish? I was told the world was at my fingertips before I even hit fifteen, and in my short life since then, there’s been very little I want that I haven’t gotten. I’m talented. I’m good-looking. I’m richer than some small cities. I’m the guy who gets all-access, all the time. It’s only because Natalia has such tight boundaries that I’m eager to get past them.

  I shouldn’t be so greedy. What we have is awesome. It’s more than enough. I need to be happy with what I have.

  Like the perfect globes of her ass.

  I dig my kneading fingers into her flesh, massaging her cheek.

  “Mmm,” she moans. “That feels good. Don’t stop.”

  I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. “You have the most luscious ass I’ve ever seen.” I sit up so I can palm both cheeks at once. “It’s so tight and perfect. With just the right amount of wiggle.” I spank her, loving the way her flesh bounces as her skin reddens.

  She moans again pleasantly, which is all I need for my dick to go from half-mast to rock-hard.

  I spank the opposite cheek and admire the blossoming pink, the symmetry I’m creating. “Have you been spanked before?”

  “A few times,” she mumbles half into her pillow. “I like it. You could do it more.”

  I spank her again, because she basically just asked me to, but also because she dared to tell me what I could and couldn’t do to her body. The body I’ve begun to consider mine.

  When we’re together, anyway.

  And I know I have no right to be jealous that anyone else ever smacked these two gorgeous ripe peaches. But that doesn’t stop my mind from wanting to reclaim it from any previous hands. From wanting to make this part of her mine, too.

  I squeeze a handful of flesh again, both hands at once, and this time it’s my turn to moan. “I can’t stand it. I am seriously into this part of your body right now. No one makes it feel like this but me, right?” Silly, stupid man that I am, needing reassurance, but she smiles and arches her back to deliver herself to me more fully, and I’m gratified.

  “No one makes me feel like this, Nick,” she says, and I think she means it.

  I need her to mean it.

  It feels impossible that I could be this hard again, but I am. It should be impossible after all the action it’s gotten in the last two days, but my cock seems to be as obsessed as the rest of me.

  If I had any energy left for it, I’d slide my cock between her cheeks right now, fuck along her crevice while I fingered her.

  I settle for biting her instead, sucking just enough at the end to leave a bright hickey on her left cheek. There. Now it’s mine.

  “Ouch,” she exclaims, but in that breathy way that says she really doesn’t mind. So I bite her again. I’m tempted to leave marks on every inch of her derrière. Tempted to get out the pen I keep on me for autographs and write my name across the dimples at her lower back. No. More than that. Property of Nick Ryder: To be touched, sucked, and fucked only by him.

  God, I’m an animal. A filthy-minded pig. To want to own this woman like I do. To want her body and her soul to be mine alone. I have got to stop thinking like this.

  But I won’t.

  Inspired, I slide my finger down the length of her crack, circling the tight hole I find there. “Has anyone ever fucked you here?”

  “No. I’ve never done . . . anal.” The cheeks on her face pinken to match her ass at merely saying the word.

  “Never?” I don’t want her to just be saying that. Although I’m inclined to believe her. No one who’s ever experimented looks this embarrassed at the thought.

  “Never! I’ve . . . I’ve hardly worn out the regular way of doing it.” As though that’s the only reason to try something new.

  A sudden burst of excitement washes over me. “Good. I’ll be your first.”

  She props her arms up to hold her upper body, giving me a tasty view of her perfectly teardrop-shaped breasts as she turns her head quickly to glare at me. “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t not say it.” I grin. Just like she hasn’t not said we could continue this little fling of ours. She hasn’t not said we could hook up again in the future.

  The very near future, if I have anything to say about it.

  In fact, she hasn’t not said an awful lot of things. Maybe I can quit brooding over what she has said if I focus on what she hasn’t. And right now, the possibility of being the first man to ever take her ass, the first man to show her the dirty pleasures that await her, means I don’t have time to focus on anything else.

  Because I have tasted so many parts of her, and I still haven’t had enough.

  “Don’t hold your breath,” she says, her tone slightly teasing. Then she settles back down on her pillow, hiding her tits again, to my dismay.

  But just like that I’m hooked in even deeper. Because I want all of her sexually. I want to own every one of her filthiest memories. She may keep me at arm’s length, but she’ll never let another man touch her again without comparing him to me. It’s my job to make sure they’re all found wanting.

  I settle back on my side next to her, but I keep my fingers playing with the rim of her as
s. I want to watch her face as I circle around her inner sanctum. When I breach it for the first time. Her features are relaxed, her eyes closed, and a soft smile plays on her lips.

  I reach around to her pussy. She’s still soaked from our last round, and I pull the moisture back to her other hole, using it as lubrication so I can press my finger inside, ever so gently, to the first knuckle.

  “What are you doing?” she asks, her eyes still closed. I don’t miss the fact that she doesn’t stop me.

  “Convincing you.” I lean forward and kiss her forehead. “Trust me. Relax.”

  She doesn’t say anything, but she takes a deep breath in and blows it out slowly. I dip another finger back to her pussy again for more lube. “You are still so fucking wet.”

  “Because I had, like, seven orgasms.”

  I rub my nose along hers. “I think it was actually eight,” I point out cockily.

  She giggles, and I circle her back hole again, this time with my middle finger. I kiss her, and she responds greedily, inhaling sharply when I use that finger to maneuver in again, this time to my second knuckle.

  “Oh. That feels weird. And good. Weirdly good.” That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Exactly what I wanted her to feel. It’s time to give her more.

  “Push out against me,” I demand, and when she does, I insert my finger all the way. She squirms and gasps at the foreign object invading her personal space, but I know how to make it better. And for once, it doesn’t involve me kissing it.

  “Now I need you to do me a favor, baby. I need you to touch yourself. Can you do that? I need you to rub that pretty little clit of yours until it’s nice and plump and buzzing, okay?”

  Her eyes are still closed but she pushes her hand down under her body, and I can tell the minute that she hits the jackpot because her whole body jerks. “Oh my God, this is amazing.”

  I kiss her again, kiss her for trusting me, for being willing.

  “This is so dirty,” she says when we break away. That’s how I know she’s really happy.

  “And there are still so many dirty things I want to do to you,” I tell her.

  “Tell me. Tell me what things,” she pleads, her voice stuttering now.

  “Well, with your ass alone,” I say continuing my invasion of said ass as I talk, “I want to fuck it with my tongue. I want to fuck it with my cock. And I want to bend you over my lap and spank it so hard that my hand leaves an imprint.”

  “Go on,” she says, and I can hear that she’s already nearly to climax. It’s the heightening of her voice, a tell I’ve discovered in my short time with her. She gets louder, and just the smallest amount more high-pitched, and that particular tone has started to be the thing I need to push me over the edge too.

  “So many other things, baby.” I kiss her again but my teeth nip gently into her lip. “I want to fuck your tits. Press them around my hard cock while you fuck yourself until I come all over those pert little nipples. Want to leave my cum all over your throat, coating it. I want you to ride my face and go down on me at the same time. Take every ounce of the pleasure you’re giving me out on your clit. I want to blindfold you and tie you up to the bed, and torture you slowly while you anticipate what’s coming next. I want to finger-fuck you in public.”

  Her breath hitches on the last one, and that fuels me to go on.

  “Imagine me touching you under the table at the Ivy. Making you come while you’re trying to order. I want to fuck you where you have to be quiet. Want to fuck your pussy so hard that you come all over my cock, and then I want to pull out, feed it into your mouth and make you swallow every drop, make you clean up every bit of your pussy juice from the length of me. I want to—”

  I don’t have to go on, because she’s over the edge then, letting out soft little gasps as she grinds against her hand, shaking the bed as she pulses around me.

  And I’m stone hard, but still thinking as I watch her. Still thinking of all the dirty, filthy, taboo things I want to do to her, and how the list goes on and on and on.

  I realize there’s other things I want to do with her too. Things like, bring her on stage for one of my concerts. Escort her down the red carpet. I want to travel and go bowling with her. And teach her how to play the guitar. I want to ride a roller coaster with her, our hands laced tightly together as we throw them above our heads to descend the first hill.

  She’s asked me to be her booty call, but I don’t want that to be all there is between us.

  I want to see her, for real.

  And, as she’s made quite clear, of everything I want to do with her, that’s the most taboo thing of all.

  Chapter Eleven

  Better than Sex

  Natalia

  “Did you really say what I think you said?” Nick asks.

  It’s been more than a week since I left him in Vegas, but we’ve been talking on the phone every night.

  Talking. On. The phone.

  Yeah . . . did I mention I can’t fling right?

  I don’t talk to anyone on the phone, not regularly. I usually roll my eyes at anyone who refuses to communicate by text. There’s frankly nothing that can’t be decided in a few sentences and emojis back and forth. Calls are for rambling. For chitchat.

  And yet, here I am, phone-talking with a boy who is supposed to be just a booty call. While a good majority of our calls end in phone sex, the bulk of our conversation is not booty-related at all. It’s chitchat. It’s rambling. It’s real.

  I’ve learned all about his rise in the music business, how his overbearing parents pushed him and his brothers into performing as soon as they could keep a tune. He’s told me how they grew greedier as the boys found success, how the first two million the Ryder Brothers made disappeared under their parents’ management, and about the painful emancipation from them before he was even legal to drive.

  I’ve learned things about music I’ve never known, the difference between a bass guitar and a lead guitar and a twelve string and a double neck. I had no idea that Nick was the only brother of the three that actually writes lyrics, or that Jake struggled with staying on pitch for much longer than the other two. I’ve discovered how much Nick really loves what he does, how he enjoys dancing almost as much as singing. How the night he and I danced together at the club was one of the highlights of his life.

  He also told me about all his past loves including the real story behind his relationship with supermodel Tuscany Hills, and how his first hit solo single “Stolen Lives” was about the way the two got together. Then he told me about how she broke his heart when she left him for an Italian actor. It was a sad story, even if I rejoiced a little bit over their separation.

  We’ve talked about dumb stuff, too. Whether we like to wear socks with our shoes or not (firm no from me, he never goes without) and what kind of candy bar is the best (I’m a Mounds girl, he’s a Nestle Crunch guy) and which porn sites are our favorites. Once we argued about who knew eighties sitcoms best. He wasn’t even alive in that decade! I declared the win by default.

  Tonight he’s asked the question, What would you do that you can’t do now if you weren’t a celebrity? Apparently he’s surprised by my answer.

  I’m lying on my bed facing the headboard, my legs stretched above me against the wall. I cross my feet at the ankles, swing them back and forth. I feel like a teenager again. Closer to his age than my own. “Yes, I really said that I would go to the library.”

  “But you can buy books. I know you can afford to buy more books than you have time to read. Why not just go to a bookstore? Or order them online? Or download them onto an e-reader?”

  The tone of his voice is teasing, and under that, sincerely curious.

  “Bookstores aren’t the same. Ordering books is not the same.” Even though we’re on the phone and he can’t see me, my free hand is wildly gesturing, emphasizing my point. I’m fanatical about my stories.

  Or should I say, other people’s stories. I know my own, after all. The story of a young w
oman who gave everything up to become a star. Including her heart. Including her own story. Is it any wonder I spend as much of my life immersing myself in other ones as possible?

  “Okay, bookstores are fine and everything, but they don’t have all the categories the way the library does. All the numbers in the Dewey Decimal system—the zeros to the nine hundreds, every category you can imagine. Categories that don’t exist in brick-and-mortar places anymore, because they’ve had to become slaves to the dollar. I love walking into the stacks and stacks of books and running my fingers across the spines of plastic-protected hardbacks. There are so many stories to absorb there. So many things to learn. So many possibilities.”

  I’ve been passionate about books for as long as I can remember. Passionate about stories in all forms. It was the reason I wanted to be an actress, because I sure as shit couldn’t write. But in acting, I had a chance to be part of creating adventure after adventure, part of taking people on a journey. I couldn’t imagine a better way to spend my life.

  “And you’re telling me there’s not the same variety on Amazon? You can one-click those bitches, and not even have to worry about returning anything.”

  I groan in frustration. He definitely doesn’t understand. “Listen, e-books are fine and everything,” I say reluctantly. Truth is I read the majority of everything these days on a Kindle. It’s harder and harder for me to go out and enjoy myself in a public setting. “But it’s not the same as holding a book in your hands or turning those pages and seeing the notes that other people secretly wrote in the margins or imagining how many hands have held the same novel and were taken to the same places that I was. And real books invoke the senses! E-readers are sterile and cold. Books have a scent to them. They feel more momentous in your hands. They don’t all look the same the way they do when you’re looking at covers on a screen. Books have personality just in their physical appearance.”