Kiss the Stars

by Jackson, A. L.

  “You owned me the second I saw you sitting in that chair in the attic, Leif Godwin. I hadn’t even seen your face, and you had me.”

  She rolled her shoulders gently as she murmured it. A motion that undulated through her entire being, her hips beginning to sway to the beat that pulsated through the floor.

  God damn.

  My stomach fisted. Knots of greed. A tumble of lust.

  Cock raging at the tight fabric of my jeans.

  Tried to play it cool, but Mia unraveled every seam.

  Slowly, she peeled off the leather jacket, letting it slip down her delicate arms, exposing all that snowy flesh that shimmered and glistened beneath the harsh dressing lights, girl moving in the slowest dance the whole time.

  Heels shifting on the table surface as the jacket fell in a puddle at her feet. Underneath, she had on a thin, satiny black tank that showed off her toned shoulders, her tits peaking behind the fabric.

  Flames curled and leapt.

  The girl came on like the swelter of a blistering summer storm. Building in the distance. My mouth parched, waiting on the relief of the rainfall.

  She reached up and gripped the railing, bending her knees as she shifted and swayed that delicious body.

  Sensuous.

  So damned sweet.

  She angled to the side, presenting me the zipper to her heeled boot. I was all too happy to oblige. I dragged the zipper down, planting a kiss on her jean-covered calf as I slipped the boot from her foot. She swiveled around, allowing me the honor of doing the same to the other.

  “Killing me, Mia,” I muttered as I dropped the second to the floor, and something sly was playing around her mouth as she rocked her hips and shifted her shoulders and sucked me right into a delirious trance.

  Dazed by the fucking wonder of this girl.

  “That’s what you get,” she murmured, turning around and rolling her ass in my face, her fingers going to the button and zipper at the front of her jeans. The sound of her peeling it down hit the air before she nudged the waist of her jeans down just a peek. She looked back at me from over her shoulder. “That’s what you get for making me feel this way.”

  “What is it I’m making you feel?”

  Yeah, I was masochistic, too. Wanting to hear it. To know exactly what was brewing in that beautiful mind.

  Easing around, Mia shimmied the pants down her hips, leaning forward a bit as she did. “Like I’m getting ready to witness the most brilliant, amazing thing. So bright it will eclipse everything. Like I’m so close to touching it, catching it. But I know it’s gonna burn out, and I’m not going to know how to find my way through the darkness when it does.”

  Emotion fisted. Tangled with the need. “You’re wrong, Mia. Burned out a long time ago.” The words were grated. Shards of glass that scraped my raw throat.

  “Then how’s it that I feel you blazing through me?” Her confession was a petition. An appeal.

  Guilt and greed warred inside me.

  I sat forward in the chair, and I reached out and dragged her jeans the rest of the way free.

  Nothing but gluttony.

  She stepped out of them, girl in nothing but that flimsy tank and the skimpiest pair of black lace underwear that I’d ever seen.

  Long, long legs on display.

  A grunt broke loose.

  Feral.

  I gripped her by the outside of her thighs, running my nose from the inside of her knee.

  Up, up, up.

  Inhaling deep.

  “Such a tease,” I said.

  Her head shook, and she knelt down. She might as well have been a viper getting ready to strike with how dangerous she was to me.

  “It’s not a tease, Leif. Not when it’s the realest thing I’ve ever felt.” Vulnerability seeped into her expression.

  “Gonna show you just how real you make me feel, Mia.”

  Alive for the first time in years.

  “That’s going to require you on my lap.” I let a smirk ride free, and I lifted her off the table, loving the way she exhaled a shaky, excited breath when I situated her to straddle me.

  The girl the perfect friction where she instantly ground herself against my jeans. “Leif.”

  She needed it every bit as bad as me, and my hands slipped under her shirt as she pressed herself up onto her knees, her palms on the roaring vortex at the center of my chest that wanted to suck her into eternity.

  Watching her, I inched her shirt up over her head. That river of black hair fell around her shoulders and down over her tits that were barely hidden by the strands.

  “So pretty, baby. Got me so spun up, I don’t know what to do with myself.”

  I fiddled with a lock, trying to get myself together. To tame the hunger that raged and begged and struggled to break free.

  I dragged a knuckle across a rosy nipple that peeked out through the billowing waves.

  She gasped, then writhed, grinding down on me hard as she wrapped both her hands around my head, girl’s body pleading for more. “God, Leif.”

  “These tits,” I murmured, caressing my lips across the tight bud. “So fuckin’ perfect.”

  Shivers raced across her flesh, and her breaths turned shallow, and she was searching for a smile. For the lightness we’d been feeling earlier before the intensity had chased it away.

  Obliterating reason and thought.

  Just me and the girl.

  My angel in the attic.

  “They’re tiny. Tell me you aren’t a boob man,” she attempted to play, but it was her eyes that gave her away.

  Unguarded vulnerability.

  Couldn’t stop the admission from getting loose. “Think I’m a Mia man.”

  Her chest trembled. “Don’t say things you don’t mean. My heart can’t take it.”

  I threaded my fingers in her hair at the side of her head. Forcing her to look down on me where she was hovering an inch above. “I mean it, Mia. If I could be. If I was different. Better. I’d be yours.”

  We stared for a bated beat.

  Held.

  Suspended.

  Then we collided in a flurry of need.

  A bomb going off at the base of a dam.

  Everything we’d been holding back gushing free.

  I pulled her to my mouth, kissing her deep and long before my lips were moving down to nip at her chin, sucking at the flesh of her throat that wobbled and bobbed, kissing down to her breast, sucking that sweet tip into the well of my mouth.

  Mia moaned and jerked at my hair, and her head tossed back in a shock of need. I held her up as she arched back, devouring this girl’s beautiful tits.

  Moving from one to the other while she writhed and moaned.

  “Leif. I don’t know myself. Not anymore. Not with you. You make it different. Better. I want . . . I want . . .” She trailed off.

  She didn’t even need to say it.

  I knew. I knew.

  And I wished I could give her everything that she deserved. Love this goddess that I held in the palm of my hands.

  She fought to touch me everywhere, hands getting under my shirt and dragging it over my head. My chest shuddered and shook, and she was diving in, going at my jaw, my neck, across my broken heart that she’d somehow managed to shatter even more, her lips and tongue kissing me in every spot she could find.

  She was gasping, frantic, her fingers trembling as she went to work on the buttons of my jeans. I held her tight as I lifted my hips from the chair so I could shove them down, and she eased up a fraction so I could tear the lace from her body.

  Her cunt bare and pretty, and my fingers were slicking through her drenched folds.

  Lust surged, and I pressed two fingers deep into the well of her tight, sweet body.

  She lifted and rolled, riding my hand. “Please. Yes. Leif. I can’t.”

  A tumult of pleas fell from her mouth, and she dropped her forehead to mine, her head rocking while I wound her high.

  “Want to touch you everywhere, Mia. O
wn you in every way. Mark you the way I’ve been dying to do.”

  Invade.

  Infect.

  “Scar me,” she whimpered, a breath at my lips, like she was giving me permission to make good on all the warnings I’d given her the day we’d met.

  Same ones I’d been giving her all along.

  I grabbed my dick, stroking it once, positioning myself between her thighs.

  She trembled, and I surged, guiding her down onto me in a swift, hard thrust.

  Mia whimpered, and she buried her shock in my throat as I filled her full, her walls clutching all around me, so fucking good I nearly went off right then.

  Both of us struggled for a breath, for air, to cling on to some sort of reality.

  But if something true existed right then, it was us.

  The devil and the savior I couldn’t keep.

  “Ride me, baby.” I murmured the command, my hand at the back of her neck, holding her down close.

  She exhaled, shivered in my hands, girl rising up to do me in.

  Letting go.

  Her body manic.

  Her hands wild.

  Girl touching me down to the vacant soul.

  Teasing me with the idea that she might be the one able to hold it.

  I shoved the thought down and existed in the moment.

  Hands gliding up and down her glorious back, palms sliding over her lush, round ass. Gripping and taking, fingers sliding along her cleft.

  Mia gasped, swishing her head as she fought to keep up.

  To understand.

  Girl meeting me thrust for desperate thrust.

  Rocking over me like she meant it. Like this was it and there was no tomorrow.

  Or maybe she was thinking if she held on tight enough, she might be able to do it forever.

  Never let go.

  And I wanted it.

  To fucking fall.

  To let go of the ropes from which I’d been dangling.

  My stomach fisted and my body burned.

  Fire taking us whole.

  Torched.

  She watched me with those eyes, and I held her at the small of her back so I could angle her just right, and I moved to strum my fingers over her clit.

  She held on to me by one shoulder, the other running my abdomen.

  Searching me.

  Loving me.

  “You, Leif. You.”

  I wanted to tell her not to do it.

  To stop it before it was too late.

  But she was there. The brightest burst of light that I felt fracturing to the depths of me.

  A crack of lightning.

  An earthquake.

  Complete and utter devastation.

  She trembled on my lap, crying out my name as bliss shredded her body.

  The tight ball of pleasure that had gathered at the base of my spine split.

  I gripped her by the waist, tucking her close as I came.

  Body jolting. Mind splintering. Like I could feel who I was breaking in two.

  Old ghosts found their way through the crack.

  “Only you. Forever. No matter what.”

  “Do you promise?” she whispered, her smile soft, her trust real.

  “I promise.”

  Vapors of the oath curled through me like an omen. A bad fucking dream.

  Mia slumped down on top of me. Her chest jerked and heaved, like she was searching around for breath when she’d been the one who’d stolen it from me.

  I burrowed my face in the erratic beat I could feel drumming in her neck, this shattered boom that sought refuge in the space between.

  Searching for a new home.

  “Fuck. Mia.” I edged her back, stared up at the girl. “You are perfect.”

  Heat splashed her cheeks. It was something that was more than just shy. It was an overwhelming emotion that climbed and curled and fought to be recognized.

  Mia touched my cheek. “I think you were the gift I have been asking for.”

  I couldn’t answer her, just eased her off my cock, grinning smug when she glanced down at me and another shiver rolled through her body.

  “Don’t think I’m ever going to get enough, either. Wait until I get you home, Princess.” My voice was gruff, things I was wanting to say barely contained.

  She leaned in, a whisper at my ear, “I can’t wait.”

  I grabbed her shirt. “Arms up.”

  Giggling, Mia eased back and lifted her arms, that sexy mouth twisting in a tease. “Yes, sir.”

  A grunt punched from my chest while I eased her shirt over her head, thumb and forefinger tweaking her chin when I said, “Watch yourself, Mia. Think you might be asking for more than you bargained for. I come with a greater cost than you think.”

  “That’s funny because I was just thinking you’re worth more than you know.”

  “Mia.” It was a rasp. A warning and a goddamn prayer.

  Severity stretched tight between us. Hearts connected. For one second, one-hundred percent in sync.

  Then a peal of laughter ripped from her when I looped my arm around her waist, lifting her against me while I shrugged my pants back up without letting her go, and she watched me like I was her king when I sat her onto the edge of the table, got on my knees, and helped her back into her jeans and boots.

  But it was me who was kneeling in awe.

  Adoring and worshipping the grace that was this girl.

  By the time we slipped out of the dressing room, the roar of the club pounded through the old walls. A thunder of energy. Everything bottled. An edge of desperation and decadence riding in the air as people cut loose. Let go of their chains. For a few moments free of the burdens of this world.

  I’d always thought that was what music was all about.

  A reprieve.

  An expression.

  Freedom from what was holding us down.

  I dug into my pocket and shot off a text.

  Me: Sorry to dip out. Got business to handle.

  He replied before I even had the chance to shove my phone back into my pocket.

  Rhys: Not sure how you’re gonna handle that Sunder Princess. She’s way too hot for you. Let me know if you want me to stand in for you.

  Fucking Rhys.

  Me: You wish, asshole.

  He didn’t even have to return the text to know the smug bastard was laughing, giving me a rise.

  Her hand burning up in mine, I led Mia through the maze of narrow corridors, winding all the way along the back. We skipped the areas where the crowds had gathered, sneaking by the elevated voices.

  The debauchery and revelry.

  I had plenty of that myself.

  Right there in the fact I wanted this girl for myself. Even if it were only for a little while.

  A minute of relief.

  We slipped out the back door and into the night.

  Fucked with my head when she slipped onto the back of my bike like she’d done it a thousand times. Arms around my waist. Her cheek rested on my shoulder.

  This girl feeling too right.

  I took to the street, winding us back through the historic area of Savannah. The night thick and deep and hovering low.

  Stars so close, we could almost reach out and touch them.

  Mesmerizing.

  Beautiful.

  Wind whipped against our faces, and my heart ran so fast I was sure it was going to explode.

  I took the last turn onto the street that led behind Lyrik and Tamar’s house. I slowed when I saw the headlights facing back our direction. Parked on the other side of the garage up near the curb.

  If I lived a normal life?

  Wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

  It was just a fucking car.

  Except unease clawed along my flesh. Sticky and hot. A rush of dread and anger and hostility.

  My heart thudded in a ragged, restless beat.

  Making the quick decision, I whipped my bike to the curb right in front of the gate, and I whirled my head around to
look at her. “Get off, Mia. Get inside. Right now.”

  She hesitated.

  “Go,” I shouted.

  Trembling, she jumped off the bike. Wary and confused, she fumbled up the steps to the gate, punching in the code and rushing inside, looking back at me in terror when she did.

  Headlights still glared, but the car hadn’t moved.

  It just sat there . . . idling.

  But I could feel it.

  Something sinister that rode on the dense, suffocating air.

  I inched my bike forward, coming closer and closer to the headlights still baring down, my eyes narrowing and trying to get a hold on the make and color.

  And if I got lucky enough?

  The bastard sitting behind the wheel.

  But I could make nothing out, completely blinded when the driver suddenly gunned the accelerator and the car sped forward.

  Adrenaline spiked, a vat dumped in my veins.

  Instinct took over, and I wrenched the throttle back, angling the handlebars enough that I jumped the curb. The bike bounced as it hit the sidewalk, barely remaining in control.

  Flash of a second later, the car blazed by. An inch away. Heat of it racing across my flesh, so close I could almost feel the hatred emanating from within.

  Only thing it did was stoke my own.

  Malice and disgust.

  I flipped the bike around, body jolting as I jumped the curb, hitting the pavement hard. Didn’t let it slow me, I gunned it, throttling it as fast as it would go.

  World a blur as I raced to catch up to the asshole driving that car. Not knowing if it was me who was bringing my baggage, the landfill that was my life, or if it was the trouble she’d gotten herself into that was the real danger.

  Made me feel deranged.

  Recklessly determined to get to whoever was responsible.

  To end it.

  Fix it.

  Eradicate it.

  Whatever it took.

  Aggression flamed. Hatred burned.

  Blood turning to cold, bitter ice.

  A war raging within.

  For her.

  For her.

  Problem was, I didn’t know who she was anymore.

  My bike rocketed down the street at a dangerous speed, houses and trees whizzing by, and I was barely able to process what was right in front of me.

  Nothing except for the taillights that I gained on.