Bassist Instinct (The Rocker Series #2) (20 page)

She couldn’t speak at all, the explosive orgasm rocked her to the core. She had known it was going to be massive, she simply had no idea just how encompassing it was going to be. Just as she peaked he began thrusting up into her with purpose, pinning her to him with force and he swelled within her and she came yet again, their bodies slamming against each other, every muscle flexed and tensed. Tate sat up and held her, nuzzling her neck and running his fingers through her hair wanting to consume her, to never leave her bed her arms, her lips. “Fiona.” He pulled her back on to the bed and cuddled her.

“That was unprecedented,” he said into her hair. “My sweet Fiona.” He dealt with the condom and turned to face her. They said nothing, they just enjoyed the feel of the other, skin on skin; it was powerful. Neither of them was ready to admit what had happened, even to themselves.

***

            “Tell us what you’re thinking, lass,” Tate said quietly as he held her in his arms.

            “I was thinking that I am happy for this moment of time we have together. Thank you, Tate,” she said. “What were you thinking?”

            “I was thinking many things. I was thinking that you smell really good, your body feels perfect next to mine, the neighbor’s spot light is irritating, but without it we’d be fumbling in the dark and I like to see you,” he chuckled. “And I was thinking, this is related to the fumbling, how much I’d like to make love with you again and again. That is, of course, if you’ll have me.”

            “Tate,” she touched his face. “You’ve already proved yourself to be the best lover ever.”

            “Have I?” He laughed. “Good for me then. So, now that I have nothing left to prove, why don’t we just be? Enjoy this moment, as you say, be compassionate with each other and throw moderation and humility out the window for now.”

            “Tate, are you a Taoist?” She asked when he mentioned the three tenets of that philosophy.

            “I am a very bad Taoist, my love. I stray from the path far more than I walk it. I have a particular problem with inaction.” With that he gave her a truly wicked grin and closed his mouth over her nipple.

            “Me, too.” She ran her fingers down his torso and he shuddered.

            “Thank the gods,” he said and bent to her again.

***

Tate woke sometime later with a smile on his face. Fiona. She was his first thought. He turned to reach for her just as he registered the piano music that must have awakened him. It must be her. Beethoven. He stepped out of bed and pulled his trousers on and padded silently downstairs. The house was dark, the curtains were drawn downstairs. How could she even see the keys, he wondered? Stevie Wonder couldn’t see his keys, either, he supposed. His eyes grew accustomed to the light, and he sat and watched her sway gently, gracefully to the music in the darkness. “Ode to Joy,” he realized. She must be happy.

The last chord of the Beethoven segued into the next piece without pause, and he smiled. This one was an old favorite of his. “
Glad
,” by Traffic. He played that record thin in high school. He moved to sit next to her on the bench and she didn’t skip a beat, only turned to him with a huge smile on those delectable lips. He felt his desire for her snake through him. She’s a musician.
She loves the things that I love,
he thought
. She’s a giving lover, and she’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.
For the first time he didn’t want to move on, he wanted more of her.

With one finger he pulled her thick hair back, away from her neck and put his lips there. Her breathing hitched, but she played on, almost finished with the song. He saw her determination to finish and he stopped teasing, instead he simply watched. He wondered if she would move on to the next song, “
Shiny, Happy People
,” perhaps, “
Happy
,” or “
Joy to the World
”? It made him puff out like a peacock to think it might be he who made her happy. She stopped at the end of the song and smiled up at him.

“Come back to bed, my beauty,” he said and leaned into her. She tilted her head to meet his and they kissed.

“Someone named Christie has been calling you all night long, a girlfriend, perhaps?” Liam said from behind them. Fiona squeaked and Tate pulled his lips away from hers reluctantly.

“Liam,” Fiona breathed. “Christie’s his sister.” She looked at him. “You need to stop sneaking around, you nearly gave me heart failure.”

“I wasn’t sneaking, you were pounding on the keys,” he said handing Tate his phone. “Are you feeling better?” Fiona bit her lip and nodded, glancing at Tate and then away. Tate saw the smile playing on her lips that she was trying to subdue.

“I’m fine, I just couldn’t sleep.” Tate stood up and took her hand. He knew what she needed, and as it happened, it was what he needed, too. Tate smiled as he passed Liam.

“Goodnight,” Liam said watching them go back upstairs with an excited spring in their steps. “Bastard.”

***

The sun was high in the sky when Fiona woke again. Everything was stiff, and quite a few things were sore. She looked at Tate who was still asleep with his arms around her, an adorable smile on his well-defined lips. She felt like a new woman. She heard the buzzing that had awakened her, she turned to grab her phone. “Hello,” she said in a very sleepy voice. There was a pause.

“Is Tate there?” A woman’s voice asked. Fiona looked at the phone. It wasn’t her phone. Oh God, a woman was calling him.

“Sorry, I answered his phone by mistake, hang on a second,” Fiona said.

“Fiona, is that you?” The woman asked, more gently, she thought.

“Yes, is this Christie?” She saw Tate open one eye and focused it on her.

“Yes, are you both okay? Tate didn’t answer his phone all night, and after the day you had yesterday, I was getting very nervous,” Christie began her rant. “One call would have satisfied, even a text…” Tate sighed and picked his head up and took the phone away from Fiona.

“Sorry, love,” he said to Fiona. “You don’t need to subject my woman to yer wee rants, Christie,” he said into the phone. Fiona could still hear her going strong.

“
Your
woman?
Wee
rants
? You have the nerve, Tate-o,” she heard. Her eyes found Tate’s and she mouthed “Tate-o?” And giggled silently. He grinned and sat back in bed and pulled her into his embrace, kissing the top of her head.

“Christie, for the love of…put Ryan on…Christie…oh for fuck’s sake…give it a rest, love…” He held the phone away and looked at Fiona. “I’m buying a different color Otter Box from yours so this never happens again, you wee trouble maker.” He grinned at her. “Aye, I’m still here, Christie, but I’m fine, thank you very much for asking. Goodbye, love,” he hung up as fast as he could and turned his phone off.

“Sorry, but on the up side, it means she loves you.”

“Mmm.”

“So, Tate-o?” She giggled and he cocked an eyebrow at her. “As in po-tat-o?”

“Ah, very funny, it’s Irish jokes already.” He kissed her and ran his hand through his hair.

“Bugger, what’s the time?” He sat up, his lean body beautiful with the sun shining on it.

“10:38,” she said. He turned his phone back on.

“Christ, you’re lovely in the morning,” he said.

“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” she grinned.

“And you look properly shagged,” they laughed.

“Because I have been, several times!” They laughed some more.

“Just give us a minute, love,” he said and she moved to get out of bed and give him some privacy. He closed his hand around her wrist. “Where are you going?”

“Bathroom, I thought you’d want a minute, you know,” she motioned toward the phone.

“I’m merely calling Connor, we’ve got a practice, and I need to know when it is so I can plan the rest of my day in your bed.” She smiled. That sounded like a really good plan.

“Perfect, but I’m still going to the bathroom,” she said and walked naked toward it.

“Stop right there!” Tate said climbing out of bed and going toward her.

“What?” She asked surprised. He put a finger to the center of her upper back, in between her shoulder blades and pushed the hair away.

“This missed my attentions last night, as I suspect this missed yours,” he turned and showed her the tattoo of the yin and yang on his shoulder blade. “I can tell you’re a much better Taoist than I am. And by Christ, I had no idea I was so sexy.” She laughed and kissed his shoulder blade.

“I find
that
hard to believe,” she said. He cocked his head at her and continued.

“Because judging from this,” he put his arms around her and touched her circle of ink. “I am
so
sexy.”

“Wow, we have the same tattoo.” He grinned wickedly at her. “Wow.” She said again, feeling his erection poke into her. “You have a large friendly penis.” She wrapped her fingers around it.

“Connor can bloody wait,” he said hoarsely as he scooped her up and brought her back to the bed.

***

Armed with coffee and her glasses, Fiona set her computer out on the dining room table. She was finding it very difficult to concentrate on the task at hand. The music, Tate’s music, was playing on the stereo and she heard his thumping bass, and his true voice singing harmonies, and felt the soreness in the muscles she’d used as he put her through the paces for the past twelve hours, and each sensation was delicious. The idea of a nice long bike ride was niggling at her, but she didn’t know how safe it would be, or how comfortable, now that she thought about it. Maybe a bath.

Tate would be gone for two or three hours, Sam would catch up on his sleep, and she could finish grading papers. Liam was ready to wring her neck, she was fairly sure, the last straw was when he walked in on her and Tate when they were grappling with each other in the shower because a man named Rensselaer came to the door as Edgar’s replacement and Liam wanted to confirm that with Tate. Liam should have expected something, she was in the shower for heaven’s sake.

Fiona’s back was to Tate’s front and he was lifting her off her feet with each glorious thrust. When Liam cracked open the door without looking, thank God, they both made loud guttural sounds as they found their crushing release.

“Fiona,” Liam barked.

“Fuck! Is nothing sacred?” Tate said breathing heavily in her ear and holding her tight. “Your brother is fucking with my afterglow.”

“Liam, can it wait?” She asked breathlessly. She felt weak at the knees, but Tate was supporting her easily.

“No, believe me, if it could wait I would not have listened to that,” Liam said from the other side of the door. “Now I need a lobotomy. I’m praying for amnesia.”

“Maybe I can help you with a head injury, it’s the least I could do,” Tate said cupping Fiona’s breast. She leaned her head back into him and raised her arms to run her fingers through his hair. Everything he did just made her want him more.

“What can we do for you?” Tate asked nipping at her ear.

“There’s a guy downstairs who says Edgar sent him,” Liam began.

“Rensselaer? Tall bugger, gingernut?” Tate said. “Don’t get any ideas, love, you are mine.” She giggled as he spoke quietly in her ear, still holding her close, his fingers running the length of her torso, making her feel wonderful.

“That’s him, carry on,” he said and closed the door. When she and Tate finally came down stairs Liam had already left, and she couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing him, either.

Later, as she stared at the work of her students, reading the same line over and over, she realized that she was completely unable to concentrate. Tate Dylan monopolized her thoughts. She had thought she was over-sensitized when she went to Thanksgiving dinner, but after a night of extraordinary sex, she was way past over-sensitized and slipping into semi-shock. Like a high school freshman, she was almost giddy when she thought of how he made her feel.

That was not the first time Tate made her feel like a kid, and he was twelve years older than she was. The thought of his endearing smile made her grin to herself as she stood and stretched and made her way back to the kitchen to make tea. She filled the kettle with enough water so if Rensselaer wanted some, it would be hot for him. She didn’t know where he was, he was not a chatty fellow. She leaned against the table and looked at her small back yard. The bird feeder was empty, and there was a white plastic bag caught in the branch of her dogwood, flapping in the breeze.

Finding the tin of thistle seed she opened the back door to her garden. It was chillier than it had been the past few days, and she thought to get this done quickly since she hadn’t grabbed a jacket. She put the tin on the patio table and pried it open and scooped the seed up and poured it into the feeder. She heard a shrill whining sound and realized her kettle was hot, but the plastic bag in the dogwood was going to bother her so she pulled the patio chair over to a spot underneath it and stepped up, snatching it from the bare branch.

Without fully understanding what had happened, she suddenly found herself bent over a broad shoulder and being taken at a brisk pace to the far gate in the fence, easily snatched from the patio chair as the bag was from the tree. She pounded ineffectually at the man’s shoulder, and screamed for all she was worth.

“Freeze,” she heard someone say as she took a breath, she lifted her head and there stood Rensselaer in a stance she’d seen in every cop movie, legs shoulder distance apart, gun in both hands leveled on the man who held her. The man holding her stopped, turned quickly, and she heard the gunshots, and watched the surreal image of bright yellow chrysanthemums flying up her too quickly to track, she could only put her hands out to meet them.

The next thing she knew, Sam was lifting her up in the same fashion, slung over his broad shoulder and bounced her into the house, stepping over Rensselaer who was cupping his bloody abdomen and looking very pained. It would piss her off later that this seemed to be the preferred method of getting her from A to B, but right then it was all happening too fast to realize it bothered her.