“Bristol.”
She doesn’t budge—she never was one to take orders—but her eyes track me as I walk over and turn the lock on the studio door. “See? Now he can’t know. Easy.”
“I get this is all fun and games to you, but this is my—”
“Excuse? Justification? Because from where I’m standing, you enjoyed that kiss just as much as I did. It seems every time you give in just the slightest, you put up a fight to justify why you shouldn’t. We both know you want this as much as I do. First it was the truce and now it’s McMann.” I shrug. “If you don’t want me, just say it, and I’ll walk away.”
I watch her lips. I wait for them to deny me. Seconds pass as our breaths remain the only sound in the room.
“I thought studio time was precious,” she finally says. I don’t want you, never falls from those lips.
I bark out a laugh. It’s all I can do because I want to pin her against that wall at her back and knock those gold records off. “It is. I think I can make an exception this once.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t understand. You’ve never played by the rules so why would I expect you to do so now?”
“Fine,” I finally say, pained as it is. “We can play by the rules.”
Her eyes flash and her mouth shocks in an O. She wants to bend them just as much as I intend on breaking them.
Perfect.
“I forgot how hard it is for you to color outside of the lines, Shug,” I murmur as I step into her and trace a fingertip over her collarbone. She sucks in a breath, and it’s all I need to hear.
I’ve read her right.
She wants this.
She wants me.
But she doesn’t know how to give in to what she wants.
Thank fucking God I know how to do it for her.
“So we’ll follow the rules.” I lean in, my lips right at her ear, and her perfume in my nose. “There’s a whole hell of a lot we can do.”
“Vince.” My name is part plea, part protest, and a whole lot of gray area in between.
I love gray areas.
I lean back. “McMann says we can’t sleep together. Fine. So that means sex is off the table. Care to define that term for me, though? Sex?”
She gives me a look—eyes wide, lips parted, cheeks flushed. That look alone is enough to get me hard.
“No touching.”
“No?” I study her. “So if I were to do this, we’d be breaking the rules?” I run the back of my hand down her arm, then slide my fingers over her midsection, before gripping her hip and pulling her against the length of me. There’s no mistaking what she’s doing to me. My rock-hard, confined-by-my-jeans cock speaks for itself.
“Yes.” She’s breathless. Affected. “No touching.”
“Hmm.” I bite my bottom lip, the pain a handcuff on my restraint. “It wouldn’t be touching if you slid your fingers between your thighs and I watched. I mean, that definitely wouldn’t be sex, right? It would be me enjoying your company is all.”
“We can’t—”
“But we wouldn’t be touching. Just like if while you were spread eagle over there—ass on that soundboard, thighs wide so I can watch those red nails of yours work over the pink of your pussy—I were to free my cock from these jeans and stroke it while I watched . . . I mean, that would still be coloring inside the lines, wouldn’t it?”
She emits a sound I can’t decipher, but I’d hedge my bets it’s more on the side of desire than denial.
“And if I brushed my lips against yours,” I say, so that with each word, our lips share just a whisper of a touch, “and then ran my tongue over your lips just like this, I wonder if you’d consider that coloring right on the lines or if it’s outside.”
“Vince.”
“Yes, Shug?” I murmur, my fingers itching to touch and my body begging to take.
“I want . . .”
“Or is skin-on-skin contact your definition of touching? I could close my mouth over your nipple like this,” I murmur around a mouthful of cloth and pebbled peak, “and technically we wouldn’t be touching.”
But her head dropping back and the arch of her chest pressing her more against my mouth tells me I’m oh so close to breaking that will of hers.
“I can’t,” she moans.
“Ah, but you just said you want, and I sure as fuck want too,” I murmur as I drop to my knees in front of her and do the exact same fucking thing I did to her tit but this time to her pussy. “Hold on, Shug. My hair is there to grip if you need to.”
She yelps as I hike one of her legs up over my shoulder. Immediately she fists my hair for balance at the same time I close my mouth over her.
I draw in a deep breath, drowning in everything that is Bristol Matthews . . . everything that is but the goddamn taste of her.
But I work my tongue over and against the fabric. I trace the lines of her lips as she starts to swell and her pants grow wet.
She bucks her pussy into my face—no man would ever complain about that—and a soft moan floats through the studio as I do the best I can given the restrictions.
My balls ache something fierce with a want I haven’t felt in forever. If I could manage to free my cock and stroke it while holding her, I would, but I only have so many hands, and fuck if I’m going to give up any iota of concentration right now.
“Vince.” My name is the sexiest goddamn music to my ears. I’ll do whatever it takes to hear it again.
Her scent grows sweeter as she becomes more aroused. As I work her into a frenzy. As her fingers grip tighter and as my dick grows harder.
Fuck your coloring inside the lines, Shug.
Fuck your clothing.
Fuck your rules.
But I promised to play by them—for her—just this once. Next time it’ll be for goddamn good.
She cries out when, without warning, I drop her leg, yank her against me, and close my mouth over hers.
“This. Just this,” I murmur again before I dive back in, desperate to taste so much more than only her tongue.
I want you.
Now.
Desperately.
“Vince. We can’t.” She says the words but she cups my cock.
The guttural groan that fills my ears must be my own, but hell if I remember emitting it as I’m too busy touching. Her hair. Her ass. Her chest. Her—
Pounding on the studio door jerks me back to reality. I personally don’t want to be anywhere near reality since it doesn’t include fucking Bristol on the floor.
“Oh my God,” she says as she pushes herself away from me and frantically fixes her clothing.
I watch her, chuckling. How did I forget how flustered she gets when she thinks she’s going to be in trouble? It’s adorable.
“Quit looking at me,” she scolds in a whisper-yell. “He’s going to know what we were doing. Go answer the door.”
Noah can fucking wait a second while my hard-on dissipates. That, and so I can steal one more kiss from her.
“I fucking love truces,” I murmur as my lips find hers.
“No.” She pushes her hands on my chest, struggling against me while I chuckle against her lips.
“Relax. I’m sure there’s been many worse things happen in this studio before.” I take a step back and wink as I take her in one more time. “You might want to take a seat in the booth for a few seconds. Wait for that wet spot I left on your pants to dry.”
She looks down and then back up, eyes wide and full of panic before scurrying into the booth to sit on the couch and cross her legs, seconds before I unlock the door.
“Hey. Sorry about that, Noah—” But when I swing open the door, it’s not just Noah standing there. I cough out a laugh. “Xavier. Well, this is a surprise.”
Knowing Bristol, she’s probably having a fucking heart attack at the sound of his name. When I reach out to shake his hand, I get off knowing that a minute ago that same hand was all over Bristol.
“I haven’t been getting any updates, so I thought I’d stop by myself to see how things were going.”
“Everything okay in here?” Noah asks as he steps into the booth and nods to Bristol.