Clare Connelly - Burn Me Once / Boardroom Sins

‘But the first time I recorded at Abbey Road I just about shit myself. I mean...’ He shakes his head as he reaches for the faucet and turns on the water. The bath is around the corner, half hidden by a dark wood-panelled wall. ‘The history is thick in the air at that place. The microphones, the carpet, the pictures. Legends—so many, a list as long as my arm. Not just the Beatles—though that’s everything . But all the bands, musicians, songwriters. It’s impossible to explain—except I guess it’s like you just said. I was in the middle of something so much bigger than me. It took me three tracks to get the jitters out of my voice.’

‘The jitters?’

Oh, no. There goes my heart, flopping just like my tummy has been all night, squeezing with something a lot like affection at the sweetness of that word. Jitters. Twenty-eight, sexy as sin, and a gold medallist at pleasure-giving and he uses words like ‘jitters’. He gives me the jitters.

‘Yeah. You know. The heebie-jeebies.’

‘Stop.’ I burst out laughing and hold a hand up at the same time. ‘You need to stop using language like that.’

‘Like heebie-jeebies?’

‘Yeah. It’s too...’ Cute. Adorable. Sweet. Lovely.

‘I’m sorry, Ally, there’s no other word for it. I had medically diagnosed heebie-jeebies.’

But he grabs the hand I’ve held out and pulls it—and me—towards him. Our bodies meld together and his eyes lock to mine. Breath snags in my throat like a piece of thread that won’t give. I stare up at him, waiting, transfixed, my heart throbbing.

He kisses my forehead lightly, softly, gently, and a moan is trapped in my throat. Yes. This. All of this. The paths are back in my mind, opening up and inviting me to choose one.

There’s a sound from outside and he reaches for a towel, breaking the sense of magic that was enveloping me. ‘Hop in. I’ll join you in a minute.’

‘The bath?’

‘Why not?’

He wraps a towel around his waist, low-slung so that—if it’s possible—he looks even sexier than when he was all gloriously golden and butt-naked.

‘You got somewhere else you need to be?’

The paths look at me.

He looks at me.

I expel a long, slow sigh as I shake my head. ‘Not right now, I don’t.’

‘Good. Then you’re all mine.’ He kisses me quickly on the cheek. ‘And I’m going to make the most of it. I’ll be right back.’

He disappears from the bathroom but I move to the door and watch him. I watch him because I seem unable to help it. Because I am pulled to him like a bee to honey.

* * *

Her eyes are shut when I step back into the bathroom, bowl in hand. The water swirls around her, and her breasts are two perfect peaks floating on the surface. She’s added some of the shower lotion, and the bubbled top creates a frustrating visual barrier to the rest of her body.

A body I now yearn to see again.

To make completely my own.

It is a primal need to possess her, and I’m more surprised by that than I should be. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a woman. And things between Sienna and me were shit at the end. For a long time before the end, actually.

But I don’t want to think about her now.

I don’t want Sienna in my head, ruining this for me.

‘You look good enough to eat.’

Her eyes ping open, searing me with awareness. ‘You should know.’

‘Uh-huh.’

I grin as I step into the bath, relieved as all fuck when my legs brush against hers. I like touching her. I like it a lot .

Maybe it’s just the newness of this. The freshness of being with a woman I barely know.

‘Definitely something I want seconds of.’

Her cheeks flush bright pink—God, I love how she blushes, and I can’t resist teasing her more.

‘And thirds...and fourths.’

Darker pink glistens on her cheeks. I settle myself against the head of the bath and scoop some ice cream onto a spoon, holding it out to her. She keeps her eyes locked to mine as she takes a bite. A dribble of vanilla escapes down one side of her chin and I watch its progress. She makes no effort to check it, and after a moment it falls to her décolletage and slips down to where her breast meets the water.

Shit.

She’s perfection.

‘You know...’ I continue, hell-bent now on my mission to make her whole body glow red with knowledge and awareness. ‘You make the sweetest noises when you’re coming.’

Mission accomplished. She lights up like a Christmas tree, her eyes not meeting mine.

‘Why are we eating ice cream?’

It is the most goddamned clunky conversation-change I’ve ever heard—and I’m often around women who are nervous as all hell.

I laugh, the noise soft in the quietness of the bathroom, and I lift a spoonful of the confection out of the bowl. ‘I’ll show you.’

I place it in my mouth and then move through the water, finding one of her breasts, which I’m already thinking of as my breasts. I know how she loves them to be played with—how much it drives her crazy.

For the smallest moment Sienna is in my head again. And she’s pissed off as all hell at what I’m doing.

Anger briefly flares in my gut, followed by satisfaction. I’m glad she’s pissed off. She can join the club.

Sienna always was jealous. Jealous of the women who’d get backstage at my concerts. Women the band would introduce me to. Women who’d find out where I was staying and make their way to the hotel and wait outside my room. Women who emailed and Tweeted me their most obscene fantasies in the hopes I’d turn them into lyrics...or reality.

Well, no sense crying over spilled milk or unsown oats. Here, in this enormous bath with Ally, I’ve got every opportunity to make up for lost time. And I intend to use it.

She’s so hot. Like the sex gods recognised my deprivation and decided to reward me with an actual bona fide angel.

I slide the ice cream over her perfect peach nipple, my hands braced on her hips beneath the water so I feel the way she sucks in a hard breath of surprise at the ice-cold invasion. The frozen heat—such a contradiction.

She shifts underwater, dragging her breath lower. I make a ‘tsking’ sound of disapproval. ‘You don’t like it?’

‘Oh, I like it,’ she mutters, without meeting my eyes. ‘What I don’t like is how easily you can drive me crazy. It’s not fair.’

‘Not fair?’ I shake my head. ‘Believe me, I get as much out of your pleasure as you do.’

And to prove my point I nudge my dick against her, so she can feel how hard I am for her already. How no relief could erase the need I feel for her.

‘That’s reassuring,’ she murmurs.

I laugh. ‘I’m glad you’re reassured, Alicia.’

Something serious flickers in her eyes and she moves forward in the bath, making a small wave that ripples around me and crashes to the edges. She reaches for the ice cream spoon and takes a bite before bringing her mouth to mine. The kiss is hot and cold and I groan into her mouth, my hands seeking first her hair, tangling in its lengths, before dragging themselves down to her hips and squeezing her flesh, loving the feeling of her as she moves over me.

She’s so close I want to take her then and there.

Thank God she’s still got room for thought. She shakes her head, keeping herself just far enough away from me to inspire a sort of madness. ‘No condom,’ she murmurs.

I swear, if it hadn’t been for that I’d be taking her now, driving into her again.

She kisses me and I move closer and closer to bursting. She rolls her hips against my waist, teasing me, inviting me, even when we both know we can’t do this. She’s tilting her pelvis, simulating sex, and my temperature is skyrocketing. I’m harder than granite and there’s only one cure.