Hollywood Rebel by Misti Murphy

Chapter Nineteen

 

Summer

He’s so close and I’m so lost in the heat of his body and the seriousness in his eyes. Even when his lip ticks up when he uses the word ballsy there’s a depth to the way he’s looking at me that screams give this guy a chance.

But I don’t leave things to chance. I can’t. Every time I make a decision I run full throttle with it. And he beat a man. I’ve seen the pictures. And I can’t ignore that. Even if my body wants me to.

I press my hands to his pectoral muscles to increase the distance between us, but he’s really something else. Hard attitude. Hard muscles. Hard as granite cock when I dry humped him too. His musky odor and that sexy cologne he wears fills my nose and makes my mouth water. There’s a little eau de dog as well. He really does need to shower, but it doesn’t detract from his sexiness.

The idea of watching him step under the water, all those rivulets as they run across his skin…following him in. Checking out that piercing I know he has. “You think I’m ballsy?”

“Are you going to try to argue it?”

“No.” I press my lips together. “One more question.”

He sighs. “Go ahead, Red.”

“You don’t regret beating Alec Hawthorne. You’d do it again.”

“That’s not a question,” he says. “You already know it’s true.”

My pulse rabbits, and the coffee and croissant I chowed down for breakfast threaten to make a reappearance. “So, what did Alec Hawthorne do to you?”

“Nothing,” he says, but he’s not quick enough. He might be an award-winning actor, but he doesn’t have a chance to shut down the anger and shame that clouds his eyes and turns his jaw to granite.

“So not you then,” I say. “Not directly at least.”

“We’re not talking about this.” He stands.

I grab his hand. Tug on it. “Won’t or can’t?”

He swallows and his Adam’s apple bounces like a gymnast on a trampoline. “Won’t. Can’t. Does it make a difference?”

“It was bad then.”

“Summer,” he warns.

“I have six brothers.”

“I know,” he says.

“Shut up and let me speak,” I say without looking at him. I take a moment to gather my guts. He thinks I’m ballsy, but the truth is I’m not. I’m trying to be. I’m a work in progress. I’ve nailed the brave takes no prisoners face. I know how to defend myself if I’m accosted. But it’s all a lie. “I was sixteen when a group of boys trapped me in a bathroom at a dance. One of them was my boyfriend. One of them was a guy I’d known since I was a kid. I thought we were close. Friends.”

His breath hitches. It’s a sharp sound in the silence. His brothers are outside somewhere playing with the dog. The hair on my arms stands on end. This is one of those stories that you know isn’t going to end well. Like a horror story. Like Chucky or Paranormal Activity, but you sit through it anyway. You hide your face in your shirt, but you can’t look away. “The other guys were so called ‘great guys.’ They weren’t the popular jocks, but they were well-liked, respectable… nice types.”

“Fuck, Red.” He hisses between his teeth and his hand tightens around mine. He knows where I’m going with this.

I could stop now and he would get it. And I have a feeling he would understand, because I have a feeling that Alec Hawthorne is the kind of golden boy that I despise. And Rebel Maddox might be somewhat rough and wild and gives absolutely no fucks about a lot of things, but he’s loyal and caring and takes responsibility for the people in his clique. I’ve seen all these sides to him. So I swallow down the bile, and I keep going.

“I was drunk. My dad used to make moonshine.” Before he left us anyway. He kept a stock that he’d sell locally. Occasionally the boys would steal a couple bottles. “My mom had just died. I wasn’t handling it well and my brothers thought it would be good for me to hang out with my friends, I guess.”

I take a breath. “I haven’t really talked about this since it happened. Because no one wants to remember the worst moments of their life.”

I wrap my arm around my waist and watch Rebel’s eyes narrow on the gesture. He’s caught on before, but I brushed him off. I’m not scared of him or sex, although I’ve only done it once and that was before...But I am uncertain about men and allowing myself to get close to them. He got to me anyway. I let him touch me. I wanted to come home with him. I wanted to see if I could be brave enough to trust him.

He doesn’t say anything, but his fingers tangle with mine. Offering me support. Lending me his strength.

“I was drunk,” I start again. “I was sixteen and drunk and alone in a bathroom full of boys. My best friend was dancing with her boyfriend in the gym, along with everyone else. And these boys, these so-called nice guys, including my boyfriend, were talking about how they were going to take turns on me, when I couldn’t even stand unassisted.”

It’s so hard to even think about it. My lungs don’t work properly. My breathing is stiff and fragmented. More than five years have passed and I still remember the cold, sticky tiles under my knees. And the smell. Oh my God, the stench of chemical cleaner mixed with the disgusting smell of piss from people using the facilities all night is burned into my sinuses.

Music pumping so loud that I’d have been lucky if anyone heard me scream. That’s if the guy I thought was my boyfriend hadn’t had his clammy hand plastered over my mouth.

A few yards away in the gymnasium, my peers were all having fun under the watchful eye of several chaperones who didn’t even notice I was missing because I’d been spending so much time at home with my mom instead of at school.

“Sum—”

I hold my hand up to stop him. I know what he’s going to say. That I don’t need to tell him anything more. That I can lock it all down deep inside and pretend I never found myself in that situation. That I’m strong. More than that, I can see the anger in his bulging jaw and a new awareness in his eyes. I’m not strong at all. I am weak. I needed protection.

I couldn’t save myself when I so desperately wanted to. I couldn’t do a thing to those boys. And that haunts me. But I’ve come a long way since then. Still, the feeling never really goes away. Knowing that someone stronger than you can take any strength you have and strip it from you. Knowing that my brothers still think I need to be protected.

“I got lucky. Like incredibly, you wouldn’t read about it lucky. Jett broke up with the girl he was seeing that same night. He decided to get into the moonshine and realized I had too. He mentioned it to Owen.” Any one of my other brothers and they might have let it slide, but Owen was on a mission to prove he could be all the parent I needed. “There was no way he was waiting to yell at me. And when I didn’t answer my phone, he jumped in his truck to come get me. Burke and Jett tagged along, hoping to get him to calm down.” I still remember hearing Owen’s voice bellowing down the hallway outside the bathrooms. The look on my ex’s face–he looked like he shit a brick. One of the other guys knocked my head against one of the urinals to keep me quiet. “I was barely coherent. I couldn’t scream. But Owen had a sixth sense that would rival the nose of a blood hound.”

I let go of Rebel’s hand and wrap both my arms around my waist. Curl into them. “He found me. Burke and Jett were right behind him. They got me out of there with nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. But not before the boy I thought was my boyfriend pawed me in front of his friends.”

I shut out the memories before they have a chance to catch. There are parts of my past I don’t want to relive. Then. Now. Ever. I focus on the fact that it didn’t go any further. That I was truly lucky that Owen wouldn’t let my drinking go that night. That they found me before those jerks could inflict more damage. Psychological and physical.

Rebel doesn’t say anything. He’s deathly quiet. When I look up at him, he’s trembling and the murderous glint in his eyes is fierce. “Why did you tell me that?”

I wipe my sweaty hands on my skirt and get to my feet. “Because I needed you to know. Because sometimes the nice guys aren’t really what they seem. And sometimes the guy everyone thinks is angry and violent and unhinged has a reason for the way he acts. Because I want to believe that I have you figured out, even if you can’t confirm or deny.”

I walk around him and touch his hand. Trail my fingers up his wrist and the inside of his forearm.

“Summer.” He breathes my name like a benediction.

“Owen would have gone to prison for me,” I say. “That night. He would have killed those guys, if it wasn’t for Burke and Jett.”

“Brothers,” Rebel murmurs. “They’ll save your ass every damn time.”

“You are a good man.” I step in to his chest and lift his arm around me. I need the weight of his hard brawn surrounding me. I need something to hang onto. And I think he does too. “That is what I want to believe. That is why I’ve told you something I’ve never told anyone. I want to trust you. Tell me I’m making a smart decision here.”

He presses his forehead to mine. Groans. His fingers ride my hip. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

“Don’t.” I cover his mouth with my fingertips. I don’t need to hear platitudes, especially not from him. He hasn’t walked in my pointy stilettos. He can’t. All I wanted is for him to understand that I haven’t made the decision to get close to him lightly. “Don’t be sorry. Don’t look at me like I need protecting. I already get enough of that from my family. Don’t treat me like I’m broken. Don’t make me feel like I’m fragile. Treat me like I’m anyone else.”

“Not fucking likely.”

My heart sinks. These past weeks I’ve felt alive and strong. Sure, he hasn’t bent to my will, but he never looked at me like I wasn’t capable of holding my own either. I don’t want to look him in the eye and find he sees me differently now.

“You’re a ballsy chick, kitten. You’ve handled me more times than I can count. And I haven’t been easy. I thought you were tough, but now I know you’re stronger than I could have imagined. But see you as just another person? No chance. The things I want to do with you…the naked things I can’t stop fantasizing about doing with you…I don’t want to do them with anyone else.”

“In that case.” I wrap my arms around his neck and draw his mouth down to mine. “Do them. Don’t hold back.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” He pulls back to study my face. Probably searching for vulnerability or any doubt or fear. Probably ready to suggest we take it slow because I’m traumatized.

And I was traumatized. For a long while I didn’t want anyone to touch me. I didn’t trust myself or anyone else. But I didn’t want that to be my life. I wanted to live in a world where orgasms don’t just come from vibrators. And that’s when I kissed Bray. And I realized I wasn’t ready, so I focused on my studies. That’s part of the reason why we never went further.

With Rebel…it’s different. I don’t feel safe because he’s safe. I feel challenged and respected and powerful. Well, I did until now.

“This is what I get for telling you about that night.” I tug free from his grasp and fist my hips while I glare at him. “I can never be a normal girl who wants to be thrust up against a wall and fucked really, really hard. I’m the girl who has to be treated with kid gloves. Well, that’s not going to cut it.”

“Summer.” He growls.

“No, I mean it.” I jam my hands on my hips even more firmly. “If you’re going to turn into another macho idiot who thinks I need to be kept under house arrest and treated like porcel—”

“Shut up, kitten.” He rushes me. Plucks me off my feet.

“—ain. Oh my God, what are you—”

His lips clamp over mine and his tongue strokes mine with a hardness that leaves me breathless. My back meets the wall. “I asked you if you were sure. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to fuck you the way you want to be fucked.”

“Oh my God,” I say as he lowers me to my feet in the narrow space between him and the wall. I’m suddenly nervous. But not so nervous I don’t want to do this.

“There are things I’ve been thinking about since the first time I saw you,” Rebel tells me, glancing over my shoulder.

I follow his gaze. Giggle. “You have got to be kidding me.”

I’m back in the hallway. Where I knew I would let this man do anything he wanted to me if I wasn’t careful. Apparently I didn’t protect myself as well as I thought, because he got through my defenses anyway. His huge, naked image is at my back. And that piercing is against my hip. I’ve seen it, of course. In the photo. In the flesh the night we went skinny dipping. I’d felt the metal through my panties when I dry humped him. But I haven’t seen it up close, and I’m curious. “Can I see it? Your piercing?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” He pops the button on his jeans and pushes them down his hips to reveal his cock.

I drop down to my knees. I’ve seen a lot of male anatomy in my lifetime. Unfortunately. My brothers are idiots. So many snatched towels, so many drunken dares that ended with one or the other of them streaking. And I saw my ex’s. Not that I care to remember that. This is different.

“Can I touch it?”

“Please.” He watches me from heavy, hooded eyes, his hands resting on his hips. Not budging.

He’s hard and long and hot in my hand. The metal piercing runs through the fat crown. A drop of pre cum wets the tip of my finger when I touch it. I run the pad of my thumb over the warm metal and around the head. “What made you do it?”

“Get a piercing?”

“Yeah.” My thumb follows the ridge that runs along the underside of his shaft. Over the veins that pop so purple and blue under the flushed pink of his swollen cock. He’s velvet smooth. Hair trimmed. Beautiful.

“Heard it could increase sensation for both partners. Make sex better.”

“Oh.” I wrap my fingers around the wide girth and lever my hand up and down its length. If that’s true…

He groans and his hips dart forward to push into my grip. “Fuck, that feels so freaking good.”

He hasn’t seen anything yet. Or at least I hope. What I lack in experience I have always been willing to make up for in enthusiasm and diving in, er, mouth first. This is no different. I lean forward and open my mouth around the head of his cock. Draw it between my lips, as far into my mouth as I can muster without gagging.

“Damn,” he says with awe in his voice.

His fingers brush along my jaw and sink into my hair. His hard cock slides back and forth across my lips. I suck my cheeks in and wrap my tongue around the underside, letting him guide me.

“Christ.” His breathing gets faster. Grows shorter. His hips push harder. “You’re a greedy girl.”

I balance myself with my hands to his thighs. I love the way he feels between my lips. The feel of his velvety skin and the smoothness of the metal piercing. And the way it makes me feel when he looks down at me like I’m some kind of Amazonian sex goddess while tugging on my hair; it’s addictive.

“Fuck.” He pulls out of my grasp all too soon. Lifts me to my feet and thrusts his tongue into my mouth. His hand slips under my skirt. Finds my panties and shoves them aside for his fingers. “We’re going to revisit that soon, but not before I’ve been inside your sweet pussy.”

That dirty talk…it caresses my ear and turns my brain into a happy little marshmallow. I whimper as he swirls a digit through my wetness. Slides it between my folds to tease me. One quickly becomes two. He curls them into my entrance and strokes my inner walls. Pumps them in and out while his thumb works my clit.

My hips follow the magnetic draw of them. I’d let him do whatever he wanted to me and die happy in this moment, it feels so good.

He kisses me hard. Tongue and teeth. He pulls his fingers away, and I want to shake him. “I was so close.”

He smirks as he spins me around so fast I almost lose my footing. His front pressed to my back, he guides my hands to the wall…no, to the portrait of him. The glass is cool under my palms. His lips are like a brand on the back of my neck. “This is the position you were in the first time I saw you. Your hands braced against my naked photo, your ass sticking out like you were waiting for me.”

I moan. But he’s wrong. “Actually, I was lower. And is my lipstick still here? Seriously?”

“Think of it as the proverbial glass slipper. The night you left that mark on me, I knew I wanted you to be mine.” He chuckles deep in his throat as his hand spears a path across my hip, back between my legs and inside me. He does something with his fingers that hits exactly the right spot to make my eyes cross.

“Oh fuck,” I wheeze as I quickly find myself on the edge again.

His other hand unlatches the buttons on my shirt and squeezes my breast. He’s rough, but it’s hot. So freaking hot.

I thrust my ass against his crotch when he pinches my nipple. My body is his plaything, but I don’t feel out of control.

“I want you out of these clothes,” he murmurs against my ear.

“Can I come first?” I’m so close. So freaking ready. In fact, holy shit, never mind. He twists his fingers up to stroke my G-spot and I orgasm like a firecracker on the Fourth of July. “Oh my…oh my…oh my.”

“God?” He smirks against my ear.

I reach back to wrap an arm around his neck. Twist my neck to kiss him. “Mmm.”

He kisses me long and easy before he steps back to pull his T-shirt over his head. I get the hint real quick. My blouse joins his on the floor. He pulls his wallet out of his jeans before discarding them as well. My skirt lands on top of his jeans. Panties too. Retrieving a foil packet from his wallet, he tosses the leather case over his shoulder.

He unhooks my bra with one hand and that joins the pile too. His gaze narrows on my body and he smiles. His hands skim my curves. His thumbs move over my nipples. “Damn, you’re gorgeous.”

“Corny.”

“That’s it.” He chuckles. “I’m banning clothes from this house.”

“What about your brothers?”

“They can fuck right off.” He takes my hands and puts them back on the glass. “They don’t get to see you naked.”

“But I can see them naked?” I waggle my eyebrows.

“Kitten, you better stop talking before I decide not to fuck you.” He tears through the foil and pulls out the little rubber circle.

“You wouldn’t,” I gasp.

“Keep going and you’ll find out.” His lips caress my ear as he reaches between us to put the condom on.

“Shutting up now.” I press my lips together.

One of his hands finds my hip, the other guides the tip of his cock to my entrance. It sits heavy and hot against my core for a moment before he pushes an inch inside me.

“Take me all the way in.” He breathes into my neck as I push back on him. “That’s a good girl.”

We’re a tight fit. He feels so big inside me. So damn good. His piercing hits in just the right spot.

“Fuck, you feel so good.” He starts to move, his strokes measured and easy.

Feeding the connection I feel to him. Creating sparks in every part of me. Building on each other. Until we’re both panting.

And then he pounds me and that feels amazing too. His hips jerk as he fucks me harder and harder.

“Oh God.” I cry out as my climax melts my bones. “That’s…oh… holy sheeeeet. I’m going to…oh…oh…oh…”

“Christ.” He groans into my shoulder. His cock pulses and his hands flex on my hips as he holds himself deep inside me while he comes too. “That was…”

“Amazing?”

“Yeah.” He nuzzles my neck. Presses his lips to the top of my shoulder. “Fucking amazing.”

“Uh, hello. We’re back,” Rogue’s voice booms from downstairs. “In case either of you are in a scandalous position. Although if you want me to join, all you have to do is say the word.”

I giggle. “Do you think they know what we were doing?”

“We’ll be in the kitchen, feeding Dog,” Riot adds. “In case you need a minute.”

“It’d be amazing if you took all the time you need,” Rogue hollers.

“They know.” Rebel shakes his head, a small chuckle making its way up his throat.

“Oh no.” I cover my face with my hands as my cheeks grow hot. “Oh no, that’s not awkward at all.”

“Either everyone will get used to it or they’ll move out,” he says. “Because I’m going to have you screaming all over this house.”

“But—”

He slides his hand around my neck and tilts my head back so he can kiss me before he growls like a dangerous and feral animal ready to defend me against predators. “They can get the fuck out.”

“That won’t be necessary.” I turn in his arms. “We’ll just be discreet and quiet.”

His gaze darkens. His lips twist wickedly. He picks me up and drapes my boneless body around him as he strides beyond the fake wall. Into his bedroom. “If you can.”

His bedroom is tasteful with its masculine wood and dark linen. I stare at the bed with thick wooden posts.

“You have a four-poster bed?”

“Ever wanted to be tied up?” He stares at me with more heat than I can handle for having had two amazing orgasms.

I bite my lip, uncertain. On the one hand I get wet at the idea. On the other hand the thought of being that powerless with anyone…“Can I think about it?”

“Absolutely. We’re not going to do anything that you’re not totally on board with.” He bypasses the bed for the open bathroom at the other end of the room. “How about a shower instead?”