“Want me to stop?” he asked, nipping on the lobe of my ear. “Say no, Isabelle.”
I said nothing.
He bit my neck with more force and I clutched my pillow, trying to figure out what I was allowing to happen. I wanted him to stop, and I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted our friendship to stay the same, but I wanted a claim on him that no other woman had. It was an unattainable wish, and Jericho wasn’t at a place in his life where he desired a mate.
“Can I touch you, Isabelle? I need to touch you,” he said, his voice breaking apart.
His kisses worked up into a frenzy, mixed with light sucking, and when he curved around to the left side of my neck, an intense tightening began to release.
Jericho’s hand searched for the one place that needed to feel him. His hand memorized the shape of my body as it leisurely made its way toward my thighs. When he suddenly cupped his fingers over my sex, I came to a full orgasm with one deep stroke of his finger. The intensity shattered me, and I made a soundless gasp, gripping the pillow tightly. Jericho nestled against me and nipped my left shoulder while I rode it out.
All from a kiss to my neck.
No man, before or since, has had the power Jericho held over me, unleashing a frenzy of desire from within that made my wolf pace and howl. And I wasn’t even in heat.
Afterward, I was so embarrassed and confused by what had happened that I leapt out of bed and bailed on him. I’d spent the next day confronting my feelings for Jericho and realized that I must have meant more to him than the other women, and maybe we could build a relationship from the strong foundation of our friendship. It might pull him out of the chaos he’d gotten himself into with the partying and drugs.
Maybe loving him out loud would make a difference.
The next evening, I returned to our room and decided to apologize for running out on him. I went with my heart on my sleeve, and that’s when I walked in on Jericho having sex with another woman.
In my bed. The very bed he had pleasured me in not twenty-four hours prior.
Standing so close to him in Austin’s hallway conjured up all those buried memories—good and bad.
I pushed at his chest and felt him resist. “I have to go.”
“Go where?”
“I don’t know. Away.”
He slipped his hand behind my neck. When I felt his fingers against my bare skin, I pulled his arm until he let go.
“Why do you keep touching me, Jericho? One minute you hate me and the next you can’t seem to stop groping me.”
He jerked his neck back. “Groping?”
“Yes, groping. I’m sure your girlfriend wouldn’t appreciate you hitting on other women.”
“That woman you met at the bar is not my girlfriend,” he said, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth as his jade eyes centered on mine. Why did he have to have such provocative eyes?
“What happened to the Jericho I remember? Is he still in there? Or has he been replaced by Sexton Cole?”
He blinked and stepped back, brushing his hand across the thin fabric of his black shirt.
“Was that sealed with liquid fire?” I asked softly, admiring the ink on his arm.
Jericho touched the image of the guitar on his left arm. “I had it done a year after you split.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said truthfully. “It suits you. I’m just glad you didn’t get something silly, like a cartoon duck.”
I stared at his lips and noticed how perfect they were. I secretly used to call them sugar stamps because every woman coveted his sweet kisses, but I’d never seen him stamp anyone.
Jericho had the most sensual mouth—the kind that when his tongue swept over it, you wondered what he tasted like. And that man knew how to work his tongue. He could stare at you from the opposite end of the table, slightly drawing in his bottom lip and licking it with a slow and deliberate stroke, only showing you the tip of his tongue. I used to think of it as his opening act, and it’s how he got the girls to stay for the big show.
He pulled a cigarette from behind his ear and popped it in his mouth, letting it flick up and down between his lips. Jericho eyed me, from my damp shirt all the way down to my bare feet.
“Never thought I’d see you again, Isabelle.”
“How come you’ve never called me Izzy?”
He bit the cigarette between his teeth and rocked on his heels. I snatched the stick from his mouth and threw it down the hall.
“Quit trying to be the badass rock star in front of me. I know the real you. Not the one you pretend to be because maybe that’s who you think you are now. This is an image—a projection of what you thought a rock star was supposed to be to women, the public, and maybe yourself. I remember the guy who used to laugh so hard that he’d cry. I remember the guy who laid out a blanket in the back of a pickup truck in a motel parking lot so we’d have a place to sleep and watch the stars. I remember a guy who beat up four Shifters in the biggest fight I’d ever seen, all because one of them called me a whore. I remember a guy who canceled a big show so he could buy me donuts at the coffee shop on my birthday.” Tears wet my lashes, and I wiped them away. “What happened to that guy? Is he gone for good? Because if he is, I don’t want to keep having these run-ins. What existed between us was years ago; we’re in different places now. If we can’t settle what’s between us because of the shadows from our past, then I may need to move on. I’m not the quiet girl you met at a bus stop on a rainy Saturday—I’m tougher. But that’s kind of how life molded me.”