Page 96 of Resonance
I handed Dan a plate of barbecue and dug into my third serving.
“Jesus, did you eat while I was gone or what?” He eyed the well-sauced mound I was attacking.
“Watching you perform gave me an appetite.” I shrugged. “Plus I figured I needed to be well fueled for your second performance tonight.” I waggled my brows suggestively, but before he could retort, Les and Evan sidled up.
“So how about Owen. Pretty awesome, huh?” Les said, after he and Evan had congratulated Dan on the show. He beamed proudly.
Dan paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, confusion in his voice as he nodded slowly. “Owen’s very awesome. Also, right next to me in case you somehow overlooked the signal fire he’s calling a jacket.”
“Oh, I know, I meant—” Les bit off the rest as Evan gave him ashut-upglare that could’ve put a crater on the moon. I shook my head minutely, and Les’s eyes widened. “Right! No, I was just saying that—”
Evan sealed his hand over Les’s mouth. “He was just saying that we have to go and… get some food before they run out of veggies.”
I was pretty sure no hors d’oeuvres table in the history of man had ever run out of veggies, but I kept quiet, holding back laughter as Evan dragged Les away. I had to admit, it was kind of gratifying to witness Les Graves flail.
Then there was Dan’s suspicious stare to contend with. I sucked in a deep breath. “I was gonna wait until later to tell you because the show and… and… you just got back… and, well, shit, Soundhouse loves the songs Les sent over,” I blurted. “They want more, and there are already a few people interested in ‘Blue Dahlia,’ one of which is Terryl-fucking-Black. He can’t have that song, though, because it would be like selling my soul to some creepy clown standing on a curb. I might have watchedItwhile you were gone and regretted it mightily, because fuck that movie is scary.” Dan set his plate aside, and his arms slid over my biceps, the solid weight of his touch winding me down. “I wanted to tell you in private because I figured I’d probably get choked up which… yeah.” Sure enough, a lump formed in my throat that I swallowed around.
Dan took my plate, extended it casually toward a passerby who actually took it like it was no big deal, and then he tugged me a short distance away from the crowd. His thumb wandered along my jaw and dropped to my collarbone. “That’s amazing. And they’re lucky to have you. Told you your stuff was good.”
“I assumed bias.”
“I know.” He chuckled.
I laced my fingers through his and took another deep breath, pushing through the ingrained fear that told me that asking something of someone made me a burden. If I couldn’t ask the man I loved, who could I? “I um… I might need some help navigating all of this. I don’t know what I’m doing, and even though Soundhouse says they have all the resources I need, and Les said he’d help, too… I’d feel better if you were involved.”
Dan’s expression softened. “As much or as little as you want,” he promised, brushing a kiss over my knuckles, then my mouth. The corners of his eyes crinkled. “I do have one suggestion to start with.”
I nodded eagerly, happy to dive in. “Tell me.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here so we can go celebrate proper.”
And, well, I was just as eager to do that, too.
* * *
We stumbledtoward the bedroom together, wrestling off articles of clothing—mostly mine—as we went.
“Sorry,” I murmured to Jez, tearing my lips from Dan’s as my shirt landed at her feet and she gave us a disgruntled glare. Dan guided my chin back around and kicked the bedroom door shut behind him.
He pressed me gently to the mattress, then spilled kisses along the knobs of my spine that reverberated through my entire body like the patter of raindrops on a roof. Capturing my hands, he drew them down and placed them over my ass cheeks. “Let me see you.”
The command in his voice made me shivery, and I spread myself for him as he continued to loose those light kisses over my lower back and sacrum until they became wet heat tracing down the furrow of my ass and then my entrance.
“Oh god,” I whispered. We’d barely made it through a half glass of champagne in the kitchen before we’d started making out, and the effect of his tongue in my mouth and his hands roaming my body had been instantaneous. I was so fucking ready for him, for this.
Velvety heat surrounded me, flickering over my skin like tendrils of flame, lapping at the inside of my thighs. The pressure of Dan’s tongue was ecstasy, and his hands spanned over mine, thumbs spreading me wider until a tiny sting melded with the heat and the arch in my back deepened reflexively.
He kept going, and I lost myself to the torture-pleasure tug of my balls when he brushed his fingers over them, then the rough rubs and sharp pulls on them when they tried to draw up. My hips rolled, thrusting into the frictionless softness of sheets, arousing me but doing absolutely nothing for the building ache.
“Dan?” I ground back against him.
He kissed the inside of my thigh, then nipped my ass cheek, and the sharp bite of pain helped me focus. “Yeah, baby?”
“Can you fuck me now?”
“You need it?” The rumbling drawl of his voice against my skin felt like it could consume me whole.
“Bad.” I nodded fervently into the sheets, desperation thick in my voice. “So fucking bad.”