Hendrix: A Raleigh Raptor Novel Read online

  “Wow,” she whispered.

  “Just wait,” I promised her with a low laugh. Then I kissed and licked my way down the smooth column of her throat, lingering on the spots that made her gasp while removing myself from the reach of her hands. One more touch like that and my already fraying control would unravel completely.

  Her fingers found their way into my hair again as I traveled south of her collarbone and across the swell of her breasts. I looked up to find her watching me with lust-hazed eyes, her lips parted and breaths rapid. When I lowered my mouth to the top of her corset, she arched.

  I reached beneath the fabric with my thumb and forefinger and freed her breast from the confines of the lace cup, my eyes locked on her slightly widening ones. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, waiting for her to tell me if this was too much.

  “Hendrix,” she whispered in a plea that hit me straight in the dick as she tugged my head toward her skin. My name had never sounded so good, so full of plea and pleasure.

  But I still didn’t know hers.

  I glimpsed creamy skin and a rose-colored, taut nipple just before I took her into my mouth, swirling my tongue over her tip before sucking the flesh between my teeth.

  She cried out, the sound reverberating off the gallery walls as I sucked her softly and lashed my tongue over her again and again. Her hips rose as she rocked against me.

  Her honest, uninhibited response took me from hard to throbbing and desperate. There were no coy games, no nervous laughter, or assessing, measured looks—she was as lost to me as I was to her, and damn if that didn’t take me further down the rabbit hole, wiping away any care of where we were.

  Nothing mattered but the woman beneath me, her body shimmering in the soft light. She was the finest piece of art I’d ever seen in my life.

  Her hips rocked again as color flushed her skin. I released her breast only to give the other equal attention as she writhed beneath me.

  “Fuck, I want to taste every inch of you,” I said with one last lick over her nipple.

  She moaned, her fingers tightening in my hair as her thighs tightened.

  “I’m going to work you over so slowly you’ll be begging me to come,” I promised as my hands traced the indents of her waist, the flare of her hips.

  “And if I’m ready to beg now?” she asked, gripping the sides of the cushion when I moved beyond her reach, straddling the bench.

  “Tell me your name.” My hands gripped her thighs, and I grazed my thumbs over the frilled edge of her stockings. Maybe her name didn’t matter at this moment, but I’d need to find her again—I had to find her.

  “Hendrix,” she begged, rocking her hips so my fingers slid under her skirt.

  “That’s my name,” I teased, skimming under the straps of her garters.

  “Please!”

  A slow, wicked smile spread across my face as I lowered my lips to the strip of skin just above her stockings. Fuck, she even smelled sweet. I flipped her skirt up and nearly swallowed my tongue. Her thighs were toned, soft, and only a tiny piece of purple lace covered her pussy.

  “Goddamn, you’re beautiful,” I muttered, taking in the entire view, from her pleading eyes to those kiss-swollen lips and hard-tipped breasts.

  She only whimpered in reply.

  “Tell me your name.” I kissed her inner thigh.

  “Oh, God.”

  “Still not it.” I sucked her tender skin in three hard pulls, leaving a mark, claiming that one piece of her for as many days as it took to fade.

  “I need…I need…” Her breath stuttered as I skimmed my mouth over that purple lace, breathing deep, taking her scent into my lungs and letting it brand me.

  “And I’ll give it to you all fucking night if you just tell me your name.” My self-control screamed, my entire body demanding to nudge that lace aside and slide my tongue inside her, but I managed to turn my lips to her other thigh and press a soft kiss over a tiny tattoo of a slightly misshapen star…as if it had been hand-drawn.

  I’d seen it before.

  Where?

  A necklace flashed through my mind, the custom-made, gold charm winking in the sunlight, taunting me to look just a second longer at the breasts it lay just above—

  One tattoo doesn’t make you a rebel. The memory crashed over me.

  No. Fucking. Way.

  “One tattoo doesn’t make you a rebel,” I repeated slowly as my thumb stroked over that little star, sending up a little prayer that it would smudge—that it would be a fake.

  “What?” she asked, her voice breathless. Familiar.

  My heart slammed wildly, my brain shouting at me to accept what my cock had ignored from the second she’d come up to me on the dance floor. “That’s what I said to you last year when I overheard you telling Teagan about that tat. One tattoo doesn’t make you a rebel.” I jolted upward and lifted her mask to the edge of her blonde wig. “Goddamn it, Savannah!”

  She gasped.

  I lurched off the bench, stumbling for balance.

  Savannah. Fucking. Goodman.

  My coach’s gorgeous, brilliant, very off-limits daughter. The woman who’d driven me mad for the last few years with her long legs, thick red hair, and sharp little tongue.

  The tongue I’d had in my mouth a few minutes ago.

  “Hendrix, wait!” She followed after me, her gorgeous tits bouncing slightly, her nipples still damp from my mouth.

  I’d had my hands on Savannah. My mouth. My tongue. How the fuck were heaven and hell wrapped up in one person?

  “You knew!” I shouted, raking my hands over my hair, unsure if I was yelling at her or myself for not recognizing her earlier. “You knew who I was, and you still let me…” I shook my head, backing away before my cock overruled my brain.

  “I let you because I knew. I know I’m safe with you.” She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth as my back hit the wall, close to the exit but not close enough. “You said it didn’t matter, remember?”

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” She’d given me a taste of sheer bliss, only to yank it away. She’d fucked us both because I couldn’t touch her again. Ever. My entire career depended on it. And yet one glance at her breasts and my cock was willing to toss it all out the window—the NFL career, the money, the security of it all, for one more taste of her mouth.

  “Kissed you.” Her hands framed my cheeks, and I slammed my eyes shut.

  “Your father would kill me—”

  She stopped my words with her mouth, sliding her tongue between my teeth and stealing every ounce of my common sense. I’d wanted her for so long, and here she was, kissing me like it wasn’t going to destroy both our lives, kissing me like she wanted me just as much.

  Fuck it.

  I spun and pinned her to the wall, then took her mouth with deep, punishing strokes of my tongue. Addicted. I was addicted. She was fire in my veins, scorching her way through me, burning away every woman who’d come before her until she was all I tasted, all I knew.

  “Hendrix, please. I need you to touch me,” she whispered.

  Touch her. Taste her. Fuck her. Lose myself in her incredible body.

  Lose my career and the stability it gave me—gave my family.

  I ripped my mouth from hers and fumbled for the door handle. As soon as I felt the smooth metal in my hand, I ripped the door open and lunged through it, slamming the solid surface behind me like it could close off the need, the taste of her on my tongue.

  “Hendrix, what are you doing?” she shouted through the wood.

  “Saving us both!” I held the handle tight, shutting her in the gallery and me in the—Oh shit, this isn’t the hallway. It was pitch black and stuffy. My free hand fumbled at the wall along the door frame and flipped on the light switch when I came across it.

  I was in a goddamned broom closet, but hey, she was on the other side of the door, so I’d take it…instead of taking her.

  “You’re being ridiculous!”

  “Ridiculous? Do you
know what your father would do to me? He’s told us every single season that touching you gets us kicked off the team!”

  “And who says he’d ever find out?” she challenged.

  I blinked. Wrong. So damned wrong, Malone. “I’m not the asshole who lies to my coach, Savannah.”

  “I want you!”

  “I want you, too!” I let my head drop against the door with a thud.

  Silence stretched between us.

  “Don’t do this. Don’t deny us what we both want.”

  “I don’t have a choice.” My dick throbbed, arguing differently.

  “Yes you do, and you’re making the wrong one.”

  “I’m…” I sputtered. “You have to be kidding me, right? Do you have any idea how many times I’ve woken up hard, dreaming about you? How many times I’ve had to stop myself from kissing you?” Too many times. I should have known it was her. No one else made my blood hum the way she did simply by walking into a room. “How many times I’ve wanted to punch that dickwad of a boyfriend when you bring him into the training facility?” At least a dozen times, if not more. My blood pressure skyrocketed at the thought of that Abercrombie wannabe putting his hands on her, touching her, sliding inside—

  “Damn it!” I slammed my hand against the wall. “This is impossible. You have to go.”

  My eyes opened slowly as I heard a shuffle, and I flipped the light switch off so I could see if there was still a shadow from her feet. Nothing. My chest nearly shook with relief…or disappointment. It was too painful to decipher.

  Just when I was ready to open the door, the shadows appeared again.

  “I’m not kidding,” I said. “All you’re doing is torturing us both. For the love of all that’s holy, put those incredible breasts away and go before I do something we’ll both regret.”

  The handle turned and I gripped it tighter.

  “Hendrix? Are you in the closet?” a deep voice came through the door. Roman.

  I stepped back and yanked the door open to find my best friend staring at me in confusion. “Hi. Don’t ask.”

  “Right. You know what? On a scale of one to walking-in-on-you-in-a-threesome-at-the-bar, this is about a four, which really says something, but I’m going to simply say thank you for saying my breasts are incredible and let the rest go.” He stepped aside with a slight smirk.

  “Jackass,” I muttered as I walked past him.

  “I’m not the one hiding in a supply closet from incredible breasts.”

  “You have a point.” They were incredible breasts. Everything about Savannah Goodman was mouthwateringly delicious, and now I knew it.

  I was so fucked.

  4

  Savannah

  Hendrix’s tongue teasing mine.

  The sharp bite of delicious pain as he teased my bottom lip.

  His hands—electric against my skin.

  His lips, warm and hungry as he kissed my thigh—

  Four days.

  It had been four days, and I still couldn't get the taste of Hendrix out of my mouth. It didn't matter how many times I brushed my teeth, how many types of mouthwash I used. It was like his kiss had branded his flavor on my tongue.

  Or more like the sensation of his lips on mine. His hands on my body. I’d never felt so alive, so wild, so reckless, or so wanted before.

  And I wanted more.

  Humiliation curled up inside me like dying petals on a flower. The way he jerked away from me the second he recognized me, like I was a hot branding iron. The way he locked himself in that closet as if I were the one to fear.

  But that kiss? Every second before he found out who I was?

  That was worth another try. I mean, good God, the man knew his way around my body. And it was an unbridled type of need. And now I knew only one person had the power to unravel me so thoroughly.

  Hendrix Malone.

  Despite the mortification of his reaction, despite my fury, my absolute rage at the fact that he would touch literally every other woman on the planet but me, I was even more determined than I had been that night of the costume ball. There would be no better first than Hendrix Malone. I knew that just from one kiss. The question was how to convince him.

  "Hey, beautiful," London said by way of greeting as she walked through the apartment door. She scanned the living room, eyebrows raised as she set her keys and book bag near the drop station by the front door. "The place looks immaculate," she said with an air of hesitance. "Are we still fuming?"

  I blew out a breath and shrugged. Had I been anger cleaning for the last two hours? Maybe. I slumped onto our couch, and London instantly took the seat next to me.

  "What are we more frustrated about right now?" London asked without any hint of annoyance. "The kiss thing or the dad thing?"

  I huffed out a laugh because my best friend knew me so damn well. Knew that my mind was churning up thoughts a mile a minute. "I know I shouldn't be whining about the position I've been offered on the Raptors," I said.

  And it was the truth. I should be incredibly grateful that before I'd even graduated, I had a job offer at one of the best NFL teams in the country. I just wish it didn't come from the one my father happened to coach. But it was hard as hell to get a job in this business, so I should be thanking every star in the sky that I'd been born to the family I had.

  Didn't stop me from wanting to prove myself on my own.

  "Hey," London said. "It's okay to be frustrated. I get it. This business, this enterprise we decided to launch ourselves into, is ridiculous. It's almost incestuous in the way people get hired. It's all who you know, who you’re related to, who you're dating. It's exhausting, but it's part of the game we have to play. And no one is saying you have to work for the Raptors forever. You get a couple of great years under your belt, and you'll have people beating down your door trying to hire you."

  I swallowed hard and smiled at my best friend. "They'll be saying that about you too," I said.

  "Naturally," she said, dusting off invisible dirt from her shoulders. We both had a good laugh at that before she planted me with a serious look. "So, this is about the kiss then." She doesn’t pose it as a question.

  I gripped one of our throw pillows and shoved my face into it, muffling a scream of frustration. I dropped the pillow into my lap, feeling slightly better after the outburst.

  "Well, that wasn't dramatic at all," London said, smiling at me.

  "Of course it’s about the kiss," I admitted. If not a bit reluctantly. "No one and I mean no one has gotten under my skin this much in the history of forever. I thought it was merely a means to an end with Hendrix. I mean we fight more than we talk most of the time. But that kiss?" My eyes rolled back in my head, shivers dancing along the edges of my skin.

  “Mmm, girl." She shook her head, a warning to her tone. "I have no idea how it feels, but the way you described it?" She glanced around our apartment, at the way I had made it sparkle in the last few hours. "I understand why you're cleaning to try to distract yourself."

  "I can’t get this kiss out of my head."

  "So what are you going to do about it?" London asked, the slight hint of a challenge in her voice. My sweet and innocent best friend had always taken pleasure in living vicariously through me. Through my wild and reckless stories. Stunts and events she would never try to attempt even in her wildest dreams. I think that was one of the things that made us work so well together. We were opposite in every way, except for the fact that we adored each other. She was soft where I was harsh, light where I was dark, well-mannered where I was…well, I didn’t give a fuck.

  "I'm more convinced than ever that there's no one else better suited to take my V-card."

  "And the fact that he's terrified of touching you?" London asked almost timidly. The sadness in her eyes flickered in a way that was all too understanding.

  "I'll just have to convince him it's not that big of a deal. Because it's not. He literally sleeps with everyone on the planet. Why not me?"

  "Oh, I
don't know, maybe because your dad forbid him to do that?" London's face scrunched up a little bit at the end of her declaration. And she shook her head. "Actually, you know what? Screw that. No one should be able to set those limitations on what you do with your own body."

  My brows raised as well as my smile, and I nodded at her affirmation. I hurried to stand from the couch, revitalized by her words. "Right, exactly. That’s what I’ve said a million times. Just because he’s my father doesn’t mean he can place that restriction on me. And if I can just convince Hendrix of that, I may very well be rid of this problem once and for all."

  And once I got the taste of Hendrix out of my mouth, the craving out of my system, I could finally move on with my life. Bury Trevor's betrayal in the past, and step into the future with a newfound confidence that only getting rid of this ailment could give me.

  I hurried to gather my things, throwing my bag over my shoulder as I headed for the door.

  "Where are you going?"

  "To find Hendrix and convince him that I'm just like every other girl he's pursued in the past. Ready and willing."

  "You know where he is?"

  "It's Tuesday morning," I said, shrugging. "Hendrix is nothing if not routine." I shut the door behind me, flashing a wink over my shoulder as I did so. The second the door shut, I blew out a tight breath. My nerves tangled in a mess of knots as I headed to my car. What if he said no? Even after I explained everything? What if he said yes?

  At least I knew I’d be safe with him, but…

  Well, I guess I’d have my answer soon enough.

  The drive to Lake Wheeler was calm and quiet. The trees on either side of the road offered a secluded and beautiful route. I took a private pass, driving down a partial dirt road until I came to a stop near the lake. The water was calm, rippling peacefully with the shocks of the boaters that were farther out on the lake.

  I stepped out of my car, ignoring the slight trembling in my fingers as I walked toward the small boathouse that sat along the edge of the lake, a personal dock extending into the water. Dark green trees hugged either side of it, giving it a private feel. And of course, it would. Hendrix wouldn’t have it any other way.