Page 25 of Knot Their Opening Act

After the coursing river of pleasures winds through my core and hips in shudders, he raises up slightly, his face inches from mine. Gently, his fingers find the back of my head and holds it like delicate pottery. I think he’s about to kiss me, which I certainly don’t mind but didn’t expect. And then Thomas Ashcroft, bassist of the band that made me want to perform before becoming my mortal enemies, lowers his nose to my neck and inhales me like he wants to take a part of me with him.

I arch my back and tilt my head away, and he plants kisses between my neck and shoulder. Jesus, he could mark me right now and I feel like my senses are so detached from reality I would let him. Thankfully, though, he doesn’t.

He smells amazing, like midnight beaches, coconut and night-blooming flowers. My panic is miles away now, but my heat is the one calling the shots, which makes it almost as bad. Maybe worse. Because what’s worst about my panic is the lack of control.

Control is what I wield, as much as I can, in every moment of my day. Yes, Viv, helped me with the box-ticking exercises of my daily life. But control is what I felt I had over my career, however small my stages were, however small my reach was. I had control. Giving it up for this tour was one thing; it could take me further than I could ever get alone, but it was hard. Giving it up to be at a Fable member’s mercy is another thing completely.

And yet, he smells like heaven. The shiver of need returns and he looks up for—I guess—confirmation.

“Yes, please, yes, Thomas,” I whisper. He nods, and even smiles, those chocolate brown eyes behind those wire-rim frames feel somehow older and wiser than the rest of the group. Maybe because it feels like he seems to read me where maybe the others have dismissed me.

Or that’s just the heat talking.

He pulls my jeans off then my panties, which are soaked, and sets them gently aside as though they’re precious artifacts instead of sopping-wet clothes that are now ruined until I can get a private laundry facility. I’m not handing any of that over to a crew member to clean.

Not taking his eyes off me, Thomas spreads my legs again, and lowers his nose gently to my entrance. Eyes holding mine, he raises two fingers like a magician demonstrating he has no tricks up his sleeve. But I bet he does.

I smirk, the panic washed completely away and the heat fully taking over. I’m rocking my ass back and forth in anticipation, my fingers scrabbling at the floor but there’s nothing to grab. And then as he leans in, sliding those two fingers—now three,there’s the trick—inside my drenched entrance, I reach for his hair and grab hold.

A moan works its way up from the center of my being and out past my lips. He’s thrusting the fingers, gently but firmly, in and out for me, curling forward. And then my hips wrench off the floor and I gasp.

“Jesus, Thomas!”

Whatever he did really was magic. It felt like nothing else, and as the second orgasm thunders through me, my legs wrap automatically around him, pulling him to me.

“Strong legs,” he murmurs. He lowers me again and presses his weight into my chest, lips back to the skin between shoulder and neck, then sliding back down to my breasts.

“I can do more if you require it, rock star,” he says.

I lift his head back up to face me with one hand beneath his chin. He has full lips and a light hint of stubble on his jaw. It’s unbelievably sexy, this whole professor-meets-art student look he’s got going on.

“I want more. I want you,” I say. My hand reaches down to fumble for his cock through his jeans. “How much time do we have?”

A crooked smile lights up his face in the most devilish expression that sends my mind reeling. I cannot believe we’re doing this, and yet it feels like it was meant to be.Howcan this be?

A voice in the back of my mind tries warning me:There will be consequences.

“I could come to your room when we get out of here,” he whispers.

“What will they say?” I blink up at him. I know what I want his response to be.

“This was helping you with your heat. You were in a tight spot.”

“I have a tight spot I want you in,” I say without hesitation, and that’s all it takes to feel his cock driving against his trousers and into my hand.

“It’s quite a lovely spot,” Thomas murmurs. God, his voice is delicious. I can’t believe I’d never heard it before this tour. Just grunts, nods,mmmphs.

“Well?” I say.

“It’s your heat, Jesamine.”

And that’s the first time he’s said my name to me. A sweet shiver slithers its way through my defenses.

“I will do whatever it takes to help you. I’m an Alpha, after all,” he says, as though he’d like to give a flourish and bow as well.

I grin up at him.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t want it—desperately—too,” he finishes.

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