Come Alive

It was the location and timing that were the issues.

Dani clasped her hand tight over Xane’s where he’d just slid it beneath the hem of her regrettably short skirt. ‘Will you behave? Your band-mates are going to be here any minute.’

‘Then that’s a minute we can use to our advantage.’

Trust him to see it that way. Not that she really minded, because while she certainly didn’t share his exhibitionist tendencies, Xane only had to quirk his brows the way he was doing right now and her insides started fizzing with excitement. From everything she’d heard and read about relationships, the first flush of love ought to have been wearing off a little now, but that wasn’t her experience. Looking at Xane still made her heart skip a beat. She still woke beside him and grinned inanely at her good fortune, and the sex … Well, the sex still happened all of the time. Whenever they had a minute or three spare, in fact.

The only slightly troublesome aspect of their relationship was Xane’s attraction to his band’s new drummer, Luthor Albrecht. Dani had tentatively agreed that it was OK for Xane to see him too, but she’d not had to think about that over the last 22 days, because Luthor had been off drumming for his former band, Denna Rädsla.

‘Dani,’ Xane coaxed her with his come-to-bed eyes and a husky purr. He stroked a finger down the side of her throat.

Dammit! How did you say no to six foot of solid muscle with the hots for you? You couldn’t. Leastways, she couldn’t. Not when he had bone-structure to rival the gods, and his beauty hit you like a smack in the guts. He literally took her breath away, every time.

‘No one is going to see us. There’s no one around to see us.’ As far as Xane was concerned his band-mates didn’t count, not that they were here yet, but they would be, and all too soon.

After their lead guitarist had collapsed on stage during their last gig, and innumerable troubles with their former drummer had led to their current tour being delayed, the various members of the band had gone their separate ways in order to get some quality R&R. Today was when that vacation ended and they were supposed to start pulling their shit back together – Xane’s words, not hers. Although he still hadn’t explained why that meant they had to meet in a quayside carpark in some random Swedish town.

‘I don’t think the fish are interested in us.’

‘There’s a windsurfer on the lake.’

‘Yeah.’ Xane turned his head, causing his dark hair to stir against his leather jacket as he checked him out. ‘And he’d have to be Hawkeye to realise what we’re doing from that distance.’

‘He could be.’

‘Superheroes aren’t real, Dani.’

They were. He’d been her superhero for years, long before they’d accidentally bumped into one another, but she didn’t feel like arguing the point. ‘An old person or someone with little kids might wander past. It’s not right to go flashing them.’

‘It’s nine p.m., past their bedtime.’

‘It’s the holidays, they could be up late.’

‘Right, and a sea monster might just rise from the depths to ogle my naked arse too. Admit it, Dani, really this is about you not wanting to share, not the remote possibility of corrupting an innocent.’

Dani pursed her lips, because maybe there was a grain of truth in his observation. It wasn’t so much random strangers happening upon them that she was worried about, as what would happen if Luthor turned up and caught them. She’d die if he tried to join in. The morning the three of them had spent in Halmstad making sense of their feelings and figuring out a way forward now seemed like a half-forgotten dream from a lifetime ago. A dream she’d prefer to forget.

She’d foolishly let Xane drink his fill of Luthor’s body, said ‘OK, I guess it can happen again as long as I’m aware of it,’ and then nothing more was said because events had overtaken them. Consequently, she had had to think about Luthor and his sexy smile for weeks. Now she was riddled with anxiety. He’d been all she could think about for the last two nights. He’d haunted her dreams, crept into bed beside her and Xane and smothered them both in dream kisses. This morning she’d woken having orgasmed in her sleep, as Luthor pushed in alongside Xane.

He was even indirectly responsible for her choice of outfit today. There could be no slumming it in a pair of tatty old jeans when she was about to face stiff competition for Xane’s attention.

‘And there goes another wasted minute while you pretend you don’t want to get off.’ Xane flashed her a glimpse of the gold stud through his tongue. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t want me to make you squeal.’

Black Halo fangirls creamed their panties over fantasies of Xane Geist going down on them. Dani was his number-one fangirl, plus she knew what he could actually do with his tongue, which made it damn near impossible not to melt on the spot.

‘Maybe if we hopped back on the bus for a minute or two.’

‘Cave Troll locked it before he headed off to find a shop.’

Dani wasn’t entirely convinced that Troels would have locked them outside – too risky, considering how often Xane got mobbed – but as Xane wasn’t about to budge and allow her to check, it was largely irrelevant.

‘Why don’t you open your legs a little?’ Xane played with the strand of her hair that was resting against her cheek.

Dani made the mistake of peering into his eyes. Neither alienesque contact lenses nor sunglasses covered them today, meaning she got the full dose of his heartbreaking baby blues. Well, actually more grey than blue, but … Damn! Why did he have to be so pretty? Those cheekbones, the long slender line of his nose, even the piercings, one through the centre of his lower lip and two through his left eyebrow, made her tingle in places where a woman didn’t really want to get an itch in public.

‘What’ll you do?’

‘Tickle you somewhere only a dirty girl would allow me to touch.’

‘My fancy?’ She giggled. ‘I’m not a dirty girl.’

‘But wouldn’t you like to be one?’ He leaned in close, so he could whisper in her ear. ‘I want to get dirty with you. I want to suck your clit and put my fingers and my cock inside you. Do you want to get dirty with me?’

‘It’s wrong, Xane.’ Not to mention it could get them arrested. Sure, Sweden was a liberal country, but it still had public decency laws.

‘Fucking you is never wrong.’

Her heart-rate kicked up a notch. For a moment an internal war raged in her head, religious indoctrination on one side and unrepentant sinner on the other. Sex is wrong, Dani. Sex is wrong. Wanting it is wrong. Letting him fuck you is wrong. An orgasm is the devil’s way of entrapping you. Every time you come, you’re trading him a piece of your soul. It’s called the little death, because you’re giving away God’s eternal love.

‘How could me expressing my love for you ever be wrong?’

True. The damned Sisterhood of St Agatha had much to answer for, filling her mind with so much crap. She was trying to shake it all out, but it wasn’t an easy battle. Of course climaxing didn’t buy you a one-way ticket to hell.

Common sense prevailed. She parted her thighs.

Xane’s hand immediately filled the space, his long, clever fingers curling against her sex. ‘Babe, you’re already wet for me.’

Well, he was her personal invitation to sin and enjoy it, the man who always managed to convince her to sod propriety in favour of naughtiness. Was it any surprise her panties got wet when he leaned this close and promised to do wicked things to her? If it was, it really shouldn’t be.

‘I think these need to come off, don’t you?’ He plucked at the side of her knickers. ‘Why not step out of them?’ He helped by tugging them down to her thighs, and from there it was simply a matter of giving a little wiggle and gravity did the rest, leaving the scrap of silk and lace around her ankles.

‘Much better.’ Xane rested the heel of his hand over her mons, while two fingers traced the split of her pussy. ‘Now, how about a few little pointers? Why don’t you tell me what it is you’d like me to do?’

‘I don’t think you want me to tell you what I want. I think you want me to tell you what you want.’

‘What I want?’

‘Yes,’ she sighed against his lips.

‘And what is it I want, Dani?’ His fingers were already sliding against her wet clit, making the little pearl stand up hard and proud.

‘You want me to ride against your hand and work myself up to a fever point, until I’m begging you to slide those fingers inside me, in order to stretch me wide for your cock. Then you’re going to edge down your zip ever so slowly and show yourself off to me. You’re thick and long and hard, too big to fit in my hand, too big for me to believe you’ll ever fit inside me.’

‘Sorry, whose fantasy is this?’

‘Yours. Definitely yours.’

‘I think it’s your fantasy. If it was mine, there’d be fewer lingering details about my cock and more about your nakedness. I want to see you lift that skirt right up and show me what you’ve got for me.’

She shook her head. It wasn’t happening. Not just because she’d be mortified if his band-mates stumbled upon them while she was displaying herself like that, but because she couldn’t risk anyone seeing the sin marks that etched the flesh of her hips and upper thighs. The questions that would be asked would be a trillion times worse than any embarrassment over being caught having sex.

‘Not even a little glimpse, just for me?’

She shook her head.

‘Still worried about Hawkeye?’

‘No, the rest of Black Halo. Xane, they could be here any second.’

He did glance over his shoulder, but the quayside remained empty apart from them, and one lone car at the far end of the carpark. ‘I’ll wager I can get you off twice before any of them put in an appearance.’

‘Twice.’ Oh, God!

‘Do you accept?’

‘Xane, I’m not sure.’

‘Honestly, Dani –’ he imitated an irritable tut ‘– I can’t believe you have so little faith in me. You should know by now, I have all the skills.’

Yes, all the skills, little or no self-restraint, and exhibitionist tendencies that she didn’t share, and yet she was wriggling on the spot so that the lips of her pussy rubbed against his fingers, getting her wetter by the second. ‘How are you going to?’ she asked.

‘On my knees, with my tongue.’ He poked it out and wiggled it at her. ‘And possibly employing a finger or two.’

‘If you do that it’s going to be completely obvious to anyone passing—’

‘There is no one passing by.’ He held her gaze. ‘Let me give you this, Dani. It’ll help you relax. You think I don’t know you’re worked up about me seeing Luthor, but I know. I get it, but you really don’t have anything to fear.’

‘I don’t.’ Heat flooded Dani’s cheeks, but before she could bow her head, Xane was holding her and kissing her in a way that damn near robbed her of all rational thought. It certainly drove all thoughts of the other man from her head.

‘You don’t. You never have to worry about Luthor.’

‘You’re not going to—’

He stopped her words, her thoughts with his kisses, made her forget for a moment that she was Daniella Fosbrook, the girl abandoned by her dad and left with her crazy mother. She stopped being the girl whose sins scarred her flesh and who was terrified of losing the man she loved to another man. She became an object of pure desire instead. Her nails raked against Xane’s back as she hugged his hard body to her so that her breasts were squashed against his chest.

‘I love you, Dani. I’m not going to do anything to risk what we have. We’ll take things as slowly as you like with Luthor. It’ll be OK.’

She liked Luthor. She kept reminding herself of that fact.

They were friends, and he’d promised, sworn that he wouldn’t deliberately steal Xane away. He’d said it wasn’t in his interests, because he wanted her too. Too bad, she wasn’t interested in that. She had Xane. She didn’t need another man, regardless of whether she found him attractive. The one she had was more than enough, as he was currently down on his knees proving.

‘You have such a gorgeous cunt.’

‘Xane!’

‘What? It’s true. I love the way your cunt tastes too, and how it’s so tight and grips my fingers.’

‘Don’t call it that.’

‘Cunt? Why not? It is what it is, and it’s such a deliciously evocative word, don’t you think?’

‘It’s so harsh. Coarse. I don’t like it.’

‘I suppose you’d prefer if I called it your sex or your pussy?’ He shook his head at the notion. ‘I’m more of a dirty-fucking sort of guy. And that’s how you like it too.’

‘I don’t,’ she mouthed, barely sounding the words, but she knew he heard her and didn’t believe her. Hey, she didn’t even believe herself, not when she was so blatantly aware of what his dirty loving did to her. It made her overheat, exactly as he was doing now.

Xane grinned up at her. ‘That’s funny, because every time I say it, your juices run thicker onto my tongue and it makes you shiver like you’re about to come.’

That couldn’t be true.

It was totally true.

‘Hello, cunt,’ he teased, tickling all her folds with his tongue, and then lavishing flicks and kisses on her clit. ‘You’re so fucking pretty I can’t even begin to describe how much I want to stick my cock into you.’

Dani tried not to wriggle, as it would only prove him right, but goddammit, she wanted his touch, his words – craved all of it.

‘Need to rub up against my thigh?’

‘No, you’re good right there.’

‘Am I? Am I really?’

Damn him, he could be such an incorrigible tease. Her irritation melted away the moment his tongue-piercing made contact with her clit, as did her worries about his friends arriving. Instead, her synapses burned with pleasure, as he took her from zero to a hundred in about three-point-six seconds.

‘Xane.’ She danced on the spot, unable to keep her body still, it was fizzing with so much trapped energy.

‘Yeah,’ he drawled. ‘Let it flow, Dani. I know you want to come for me.’

She inhaled sharply through her teeth as warning tremors shook her body. Her spine arched, head tipping backwards so that it bumped against the side of the tour bus, but she barely registered the thud. Because yes, she did want it, and he was making it happen.

Dani came hard against his mouth. Her limbs turned to jelly, but Xane held her steady, refusing to allow her to melt into a puddle on the tarmac. He wasn’t through with her yet. Almost the second she came down from her flight, he had her shooting back into the clouds again, his tongue on her clit and this time two fingers pushing inside her.

If the paparazzi turned up now she’d look every inch the slut her mother had always accused her of being. But then, her mother was a mad woman whose opinion she no longer needed to worry about. In any case, she could have settled down with the most vanilla man on the planet to a life of technicoloured tranquillity with a white picket fence and two-point-four children and she’d still have been a whore in her mother’s eyes. Why was she even thinking about the stupid woman?

‘Fuck me, Xane,’ she whispered. ‘Lift me up and slide into me.’

He was on his feet immediately. ‘Babe, I thought you’d never ask.’

Another man might have ripped open his fly and shoved inside her right away, but not Xane, not the man who continuously lived up to her every fantasy. He teased open his fly millimetre by millimetre, giving her exactly the sort of show she’d described. The man had a body to die for, ripped muscle and inked skin that made her lick her lips in appreciation. ‘Hello, handsome.’

He laughed. ‘Which of us are you talking about?’ Her gaze was fastened on the tip of his cock.

‘Both of you.’ She peeped up at him. His lips and chin were shiny with her juices.

‘Any preferences as to how madam would like me?’

Dani licked her lips. Her nervousness about being caught hadn’t entirely disappeared. It never did, but there was always a point of no return with Xane, a moment when excitement dwarfed any fears. ‘Inside me, now.’

Xane leaned into her, obliterating the gap between them. His mouth met hers in a hungry kiss as he lifted her into his arms. Dani wrapped her legs around his hips, trusting him to support her. She wasted no time in reaching down and letting his hot length fill her palm.

‘Fuck,’ he hissed as she stroked him. He bucked when she traced a ring around the tip of him.

‘Guide me in, sweetheart.’

She rubbed him against the split of her sex, enjoying the anticipation of knowing he was so close, but they weren’t quite joined.

Xane dug his teeth into his lower lip. His eyelids fluttered as she continued to tease him. She was so wet for him that their bodies were making sticky sounds.

‘You’re determined to make me wait for this, eh?’

‘Just reassuring myself that it’s really what you want.’

‘How can you even doubt it?’

‘I doubt everything.’

He was holding on tight to her, maintaining their balance, but somehow managed to slide a hand into her hair and bring her head forwards so that their brows touched. ‘You don’t need to doubt this. I’m yours, Dani. I’m so very definitely yours.’

‘And Luthor’s.’

‘That’s irrelevant. What I feel for him doesn’t change how I feel for you.’

She teased his earlobe with her teeth. ‘How do you feel about me?’

‘Crazy.’

‘Do I turn you on?’

‘What do you think?’

Dani flexed her inner muscles around him, tugging him deeper, and causing his breath to catch.

‘Do that again.’

She did.

‘And again.’

Xane slowed his movement, and let her do the work. ‘Fuck, that feels nice.’

‘No stalling,’ she chastised. ‘Show me some jackhammer loving.’

‘Speed demon.’

‘Fast and furious, that’s me.’

He cocked a brow. ‘Somebody watching?’

‘No.’

‘Because, you know, if they are, I’m going to have to take things extra slow. I wouldn’t want to ruin my reputation as a stud by hammering you like a randy college boy.’

She laughed. ‘There’s nobody watching.’

‘Glad to see we finally agree on that point.’ He grinned, showing her a hint of teeth. ‘Therefore, I guess it’s OK for me to do this.’ He quickened his thrusts again, pushing her away a little to lean against the bus, and then pulling her hips forward so that she completely engulfed his cock. A couple of thrusts like that and his lips peeled back as he gritted his teeth, trying to hold it all together and simultaneously maintain the pace.

Dani clawed at his back, wishing she could tear through his T-shirt to reach the skin beneath. She hated being naked, but she loved seeing Xane in the buff, because he was ripped and inked, and had rings through his nipples that she liked to suck on.

His movements became a little ragged, and his hold on her slipped. Dani locked her legs more tightly around his waist. She didn’t want this to stop, or for them to fall apart, although the idea of him turning her around, shoving her dress right up so that he could fondle her nipples while he jammed her against the warm metal of the bus and did her from behind, certainly fired her imagination.

But it was only ever happening in her head.

Xane’s big hands found a purchase on her arse as their bodies continued to slap together in a steady rhythm. She could feel the tension building inside him. His pulse throbbed against the side of his temple, and a line of perspiration formed above his lip.

‘God, I fucking love you.’ He slid his hand into her hair and pulled her forward so that their mouths met in a hard, biting kiss. Then he was thrusting deep and crying out, while his grip tightened almost to the point of being painful. ‘Dani … Fuck, Dani …’ His loins glued themselves to hers and she felt the spurt of his come inside her. It was enough to tip her over the edge again. And enough, at least for a moment, for her to forget about their surroundings.

At the sound of a quiet round of applause, Dani opened her eyes and gave a screech.

Cave Troll was standing a few feet away, watching them.

‘Damn … damn …’ She tried to straighten her clothes, but Xane was still inside her and wouldn’t let go. ‘Put me down, Xane. Right now.’

‘Take a breath. It’s OK.’ He kissed the tip of her nose. Then he turned his head to address their observer. ‘Fuck off, mate. You’re making the lady jittery.’

‘You can’t crucify a guy for watching when you’re shagging out in the open.’

‘I’m just saying, give us a moment.’

‘That’s all you’ve got. Spook’s on his way across, and I’ve just seen Rock Giant too.’ Black Halo’s favourite roadie then ambled back up the tour-bus steps as if it was commonplace to have a chat with people who were making out.

‘You OK?’ Xane asked.

Dani nodded. ‘Put me down, though, before they get here.’

Xane lowered her gently. He’d only bared his arse, for his jeans were slim-fitting and clung to his thighs. He tucked his rapidly fading hard-on back inside them and zipped up.

Dani kicked her knickers out of sight underneath the bus, then instantly regretted it. Her skirt was too short to be going commando. ‘I need to nip back onto the bus.’ She hastily kissed Xane on the cheek, then slipped out of his grasp and followed Cave Troll up the steps. All her possessions were packed in her suitcase ready to leave, but Xane had left a stash of things in the closet. She quickly rifled through the items in the upper bunk room and found a pair of clingy shorts. They were a little on the large side, but at least she wasn’t going to unintentionally flash anyone. Now all she had to do was brace herself for seeing Luthor.

Chapter 2

Xane watched Dani hurry up the steps onto the tour bus, disappointed that she felt she needed to hide. He understood her reasons. He just didn’t necessarily get them, but then he hadn’t had his skin sliced open by a group of religious nuts every time a dirty thought had crossed his mind. If he had, they’d have run out of skin a long time ago.

If he had his way, the evil witches responsible for making Dani’s life such hell would be doing jail time right now. He wished Dani would report them, but her expression turned cold and the light in her eyes died if he so much as mentioned it. At least it seemed her father wasn’t quite the prick she’d been led to believe. Dani had contacted him a few times now via Skype, and there was even talk of them meeting up at some point.

‘Did I scare her off?’ Spook asked, joining Xane by the side of the tour bus.

‘She wanted to freshen up.’ He noticed her panties poking out from under the bus, and hunched down to retrieve them.

‘Corrupting her again?’ Spook asked, watching Xane stuff the scrap of silk and lace into his pocket.

‘She initiated everything.’

Spook clapped him across the back. ‘Only in your dreams.’ They stood back and looked one another over for a moment. Three weeks wasn’t a long time, considering the length of their friendship, but there had still been a few changes. Spook’s blond hair was a good few inches shorter, and the skin on his upper arm was still slightly pink around the design of a new tattoo.

‘Let’s have a look.’ Xane turned his friend’s arm so he could see the design. It was clearly another variant on the Norse theme of Spook’s other tattoos.

‘Mjolnir,’ Spook elaborated. ‘Thor’s Hammer.’

‘Looks good. That the only new addition?’

‘For the moment.’

They began walking towards the lake edge, where rows upon rows of speedboats and sailboats were moored. Xane looked back, but there was still no sign of Dani. Xane prayed she wasn’t cowering in a closet.

‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ Spook asked. ‘I like her, Xane, and she’s good for you, anyone can see that, but it’s obvious she’s way out of her depth. You’re a dirty fucker, you don’t need me to point that out, and she’s like spun sugar. I’m not sure she’s really cut out to be part of your threesome fantasies.’