Playing Games
Page 30

He shrugged, his shaggy hair brushing against my fingers. "Was an idea I had. Kind of symbolized being caught in a web at the label and all that. When I got too frustrated with how things were going, I'd go out and get another tattoo."
And he had sleeves of them and others on his body. "You must be frustrated a lot."
Liam grinned. "Sometimes I just like the art. But sometimes, yeah. It's the best career in the world, and the most frustrating at times."
"I think every career is like that," I told him, tracing the lines of a star on his shoulder.
"Even baking cupcakes?"
I gave him a wry look. "It sounds corny, but you haven't made six dozen cupcakes for a client who then insists that they didn't want them in that shade of yellow and can you have new ones ready in an hour?"
"No, I guess I haven't experienced that," he said, and ran his fingers along my bare shoulder again.
I shivered, my nipples hardening under the blankets.
My fingers moved to the bottom of the star and noticed there was a broken heart mixed into the lines covering his arm. "What's this for?"
He glanced down at his arm and sighed. "No one important."
"Tesla?" I guessed.
He raised an eyebrow at me, the piercing glinting. "You know about that?"
"Saw it on your website." Got a little hurt by it, if I was being honest with myself. Of course, I couldn't hope to compete with her. She had history with Liam, and a connection through the band that I could never duplicate. I was a small time baker. She was Tesla Spooner, hot rock chick and star of Finding Threnody.
He grunted, considering. "It was a long time ago, you know. I don't want you to feel weird about it."
I had to laugh at that. "You don't think this whole thing is a little weird?"
"Well, yeah." His mouth quirked. "But I don't want you to feel weird about her and me. Ancient history. I swear."
I nodded, and decided to touch one of his piercings, instead, brushing my thumb over the ring in his lower lip. "What made you get this?"
He shrugged. "I liked it. I like piercings."
I touched the stud on his eyebrow, and then the bar across the bridge of his nose. "Did this hurt?"
"Nope."
"Which one hurt the most?"
He brushed his shaggy hair back and showed me his ear. There was a bar in the cartilage of his ear, pierced from the top to a hole in the side. Instead, he pointed to the tiny hoop at the front of his ear.
"This tiny one?" I brushed my fingers along it, smiling. "It doesn't look like it would."
"This is called a tragus. Hurt like the fucking dickens. Even my dick piercing didn't hurt that much."
I stilled. "You have a…um, piercing?"
He grinned again. "Told you I like piercings."
I could feel my face getting hot again. "I don't have any."
"That's all right," he told me, and his hand slid to my waist, resting over the blankets. "I kind of like you just how you are."
"Boring?"
"Never boring," he told me. His thumb brushed over my hip, that small movement noticeable even through the thin blankets. "Different from the usual kind of girl I run into. That's all."
That was sweet of him to say. I didn't know if it was true - if the tables were turned, I'd probably think I was pretty boring. But maybe Liam liked me because I was different than Tesla. Way different. My fingers brushed along his jaw, and I tilted his face toward mine.
His lips parted as I kissed him, and I felt his tongue stroke against my lower lip, felt the piercing flick against my flesh. The man did love his piercings. I kissed him back, my tongue brushing against his as we began to kiss in earnest. My fingers twined in his hair and I held him against me, kissing in a dance of tongues. Over and over, they slicked together, forming a suggestive rhythm that made the blood pound in my veins and made my hips start to rock with the suggestion of it.
Liam didn't move, just let me kiss him. His hand remained anchored at my waist.
The more I kissed him, though, the more I wanted. His mouth brushed against mine, and his lips felt like that delicious, curious mixture of metal and flesh, and every time a piercing rubbed against my skin, it made a little flash of excitement roll through me. Kissing Liam wasn't like kissing anyone else. He was considerate, and thorough, and his tongue felt amazing against my own.
And still I wanted more than kisses.
My hand slid below the blankets, to his chest, and I brushed my fingertips over his lower belly, exploring him. The blankets were starting to slide down off of my body, and I hesitated, wondering if I should pull them back up. But Liam's gaze was locked on my face, as if suggesting that he'd move as slow as I wanted to move. He wouldn't look if I didn't want him to.
And I knew that even though I was in bed with a sexy, edgy rock star? I was still in control. He'd let me call the shots. If I wanted to stop, all I had to do was ask.
Of course, I didn't want to stop.
I kissed him again, soft and sweet, no tongue. Just a coaxing of lips. By that point, I'd shifted toward him so much that I was practically hovering over his face, my hand cupped on his stomach while the other tangled in his hair. The blankets fell down to the small of my back, and I was exposed to him.
And he still wasn't looking. I hadn't given the signal that it was okay. So I took his hand, and pulled it onto my breast.
His gaze slid down, then, to my naked breasts and exposed belly. "You're beautiful, Katy. So beautiful." Reverently, he cupped my breast, staring at it, at the small pink peak that hardened when he brushed his thumb over it. My breasts weren't large - nothing about me was large, sadly - but in his hand, my breast looked like it was just the perfect size. Small, perky, uptilted.
Liam's hand slid to my back and he pulled me against him, then rolled us over in the bed until I bounced onto my back. "I want to get a good look at you," he told me, and simply gazed down at my naked body sprawled on the bed under him as he hovered over me, propped up on an elbow. His fingers brushed over my breast, then the other.
I sucked in a breath, watching the reverent look in his eyes.
His gaze went to my stomach as if fascinated, and brushed his hand over the plane of it. "Not a tattoo on this skin anywhere. You're like a blank canvas."
I gave an awkward laugh at that. "Is that a good thing?"
"It's kinda beautiful on you," he told me, and I felt warm with the glow of his approval.
He shifted against me, and then Liam's fingers moved back to my breast, cupping it and flicking at the peak to make it harden. I whimpered at his touch, jolts of intense feeling sparking through my body. He leaned over and brushed his lips over the tip, caressing it.
I moaned, my back arching. His hard, hot form was pressing down over me, and that felt almost as delicious as the touches he bestowed on my skin.
Liam's tongue brushed over my nipple, swirling, and then I felt the flick of metal against it. I gasped as he rolled my nipple against the piercing.
He looked up at my response, looking pleased with myself. "Do you like that?"
I blinked rapidly, dazed. "How can I not?"
He shrugged, then pressed kisses over my chest, moving over to my other breast. "You'd have to tell me if you didn't like it."