by Eden Summers
“I bet your assistant doesn’t agree. Or Tank. Or even your label.”
Yep. She’d nailed it. “They have no right to judge you. Or us, for that matter.”
She broke eye contact and nodded into the pillow.
“Why do you seem disappointed by my answer?”
She sucked in another one of those exhaustive breaths and then glanced over her shoulder to shoot him a full smile. A fake, flawless curve of her lips. “I’m not disappointed.”
Not disappointed, yet not telling the truth either. He could see it in her eyes.
She rolled onto her side, blowing his mind and hardening his cock with the exposure of her body. Her breasts were still as luscious, the patch of curls at the apex of her thighs trim, leading to the smooth skin beneath.
She inched closer and wrapped her hand around his neck. “You missed me.” She nipped his bottom lip, stealing every thought from his mind with the tiny pulse of pain. “Isn’t that sweet?”
Sweet? Fuck. He was already drowning in her seduction. She was a temptress. A witch. She dissolved all the gentlemanly pretense in his body and replaced it with need and addiction. “The things I want to do to you are far from sweet.”
“Mmm?” She nuzzled his nose and nipped at his lip again. “Prove it.”
“Gladly.” He palmed the back of her head and plastered his mouth against hers. Their tongues collided in a harsh dance while their hips rocked together in a slow tempo. His cock was pulsing with every brush of her skin, demanding more. Demanding everything. He could already feel pre-come beading at his slit, the precursor announcing his restraint was non-existent.
Her hair cascaded between their noses, a honeyed, allusive scent that he wanted to lick from her skin. And her taste. Fuck. Her flavor was sweet and tinged with lust while her tongue beat away his pride and made him pliable to her every whim. He didn’t know how or why she did it, but he was completely lost to her. He would never crave another the way he did with Harper.
“I’ve missed this.” She kissed him, all lips and tongue and teeth.
“Me, too.” He gripped her ass in his palm and squeezed the plump flesh. “You’re too damn perfect, princess.”
She nudged his shoulder with her hand, demanding he roll onto his back, then climbed on top of him with exquisite beauty that belied the evil temptress burning bright in her eyes.
She was one in a million. A gift. A fluke. He refused to believe this was everyday love. The world couldn’t function if it was. No man on earth would be able to hold a decipherable thought when they had a woman like this waiting in their bed.
God knew he couldn’t.
He’d been in a tumble dryer of bewilderment when they were last together. He didn’t pay attention to the outside world. He went through the motions—eating, drinking, sleeping—with one woman constantly on his mind.
The only thing that came naturally was his music. And the reason it was entirely effortless was because of Harper. When he sang, he sang for her. When he scribbled lyrics, he scribbled them about her. Even when he was on stage, he performed for her.
She was his restoration and his destruction.
He placed his hands on her waist and ran them down to her hips, relearning every curve. Her skin had always amazed him. So smooth, so soft. She rocked against him, teasing the length of his shaft with her moistened pussy as he traced his palms over her stomach to the mounds of her breasts. Her nipples were still the most alluring shade of deep ruby, tempting his tongue. He tweaked the peaks, eliciting a jerk from her hips and a gentle whimper from her mouth.
She held his gaze with confidence as he rubbed his thumbs back and forth over the side of her breasts, up to her neck and down her sternum.
“You’re awfully slow tonight,” she murmured.
“Just enjoying the process.” He slid his hands down to her hips and ground his pelvis into her. “You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. But now that I have it back, I’m going to enjoy the fuck out of it.”
She smiled and rolled her pretty blue eyes. “You’re so sweet.”
“You want sweet?” He quirked a brow. “Like the truth of knowing I fell asleep with thoughts of you every single night since you’ve been gone?”
She diverted her gaze to his chest.
“Or that I couldn’t answer questions from the crew of where you were for weeks because I couldn’t admit to myself that you weren’t coming back?”
“Don’t ruin this,” she whispered.
“I’m not trying to.” He was only being honest. Evidently, his feelings still weren’t a topic for discussion. “Why don’t you lean those gorgeous breasts toward me and reach into my top drawer for a condom?”
She did as requested with relief heavy in her features.
Fuck. He was flying blind. She wouldn’t talk, and he didn’t know why he suddenly felt the need to push for it. But he’d take her pleasure over her sorrow any day. There’d be time to demand answers after.
He arched his neck and sucked her nipple into his mouth. Her gasp filled him with pride. Damn it, that emotion would be the death of him.
“Don’t stop,” she demanded, rustling in his drawer, knocking over things and scattering others.
Her sex rubbed faster along his length, back and forth until the friction alone was enough to have him clenching his ass to fight the need to come. He continued sucking, inching closer to the brink, slipping further under her spell.
He released her flesh with a pop and smiled at her responding whimper. “Condom.” He held out a hand.
She sat up straight, the heat of her sex still positioned over his shaft, and ripped the packet open with her teeth. “I think I can handle this part,” she drawled.
His cock jerked with anticipation as she leaned forward and gave him a chaste kiss. She descended, crawling down his body, until those delicious lips were poised in the kill zone.
“Would you like me to put this on for you?” She raised a brow, her taunting mouth curved at one side.
Fuck, yes. Fuck, yes. Fuck, yes. “I guess.”
She snapped her teeth and instinct made him flinch. Damn her.
“Viper,” he breathed, clenching the bed covers at his sides.
“I thought I was your princess,” she cooed.
She gripped the base of his shaft and placed the condom at the tip of his cock. He was shaking—his legs, his arms, his vision. He never thought he’d be back here. In heaven. About to be blown by an angel. His relief was palpable. He could’ve pulled buckets of it from the air between them.
With delicate fingers, she lowered the protection a mere inch, her confident gaze eating him up as she did it. She licked her lips and he had to close his eyes to fight the fantasy brought to life. Her chuckled breath heated his crotch mere seconds before the warmth of her mouth engulfed the head of his dick.
“Fuck.” He clenched his fists tighter, demanding self-control. He could see her in his mind, could envisage the way her sensuous mouth worked to push the condom down his length. She nudged further, over and over and over again until the tip of his shaft was poised at the back of her throat.
She pulled back, leaving him senseless and forsaken.
“Don’t stop.” He opened his eyes to find her smiling back at him.
“You know, I remember making the same demand not long ago.” She climbed up his body, bringing them chest to chest. “I didn’t get what I wanted. So neither do you.”
He growled and wrapped his arms around her. He dragged her down to the mattress and onto her back, caging her beneath him. “You’re such a witch.”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “I’m a princess.” She wove her legs around his waist and pulsed her hips in an endless taunt he couldn’t deny. “Now fuck me.”
“Jesus Christ.” He couldn’t deny her. He didn’t even want to pretend he could.
He tilted his hips and closed his eyes as the head of his shaft glided through her slick heat. He’d forged a successful career through his lyric
“You’re mine.”
He was going to do his best to destroy her before he left Denver. Destroy her for any other man. And any other future.
“Mine, princess.”
Chapter Five
Everything inside Harper clenched as he thrust into her. He filled her, stretched her, and made every inch of her skin ripple with goosebumps.
She clung to him, gliding her nails along the skin of his back, increasing her grip with every lethargic undulation. His half-lidded gaze brought back memories. It reminded her of the pain of love and the heartache of leaving.
“Stop staring and kiss me.” The taunts poured from her. She didn’t have conscious thought of their arrival. They simply flew from her tongue. She circled his hips, grinding into each of his movements to add more friction to her pulsing clit.
“I like staring.” He leaned closer, the mingled brown and green of his irises blazing. “But I like kissing you even more.”
Her heart constricted as his lips brushed hers, lazy and deliberate. She sank everything she had into that kiss—her heart, her agony, her longing. She dug her nails into his back with one hand and wove the other into his hair, holding onto him for dear life.
Their tongues tangled, stoking her pleasure, inspiring a faster pace of her hips. Her core contracted with each thrust, clinging to the sensation, begging for just a little more. Her release was close, hovering on the edges of every movement.
Unable to breathe, she pulled her head away and gasped to fill her lungs. His hair brushed her cheek, the chin-length strands tickling her as his lips trailed a path from her neck to her shoulder.
“I don’t want to lose you again, Harper,” he murmured against her skin. “Don’t let me lose you.”
Too late. She was already lost—to passion, to pain, to panic.
“I’m close.” She ignored the hopelessness and tightened her legs around him, bucking her hips harder. “So close.”
He growled and wove his arms around her biceps to grip her shoulders from behind. His thrusts became harsh and delirious. She could stay like this for hours, walking the tightrope of ecstasy, if it meant not falling into the aftermath.
“Harder,” she panted, trying to push away the fear for tomorrow. “Faster.”
“Bossy,” he whispered into her ear.
She anticipated retaliation, instead she received blissful acquiescence. He increased his rhythm and gripped her thigh to plunge deeper. He kissed her everywhere—her jaw, her neck, her cheek, and eventually her mouth, sending her toppling, not only into an orgasm, but into unstoppable renewed love.
“Judd.” It was all the warning she could give.
“I know, princess.”
He increased his rhythm, holding her tighter as her pussy spasmed and reality blurred. She whimpered through the torturous pleasure knowing it would be short-lived. Knowing that as soon as the endorphins wore off, she’d be broken and scarred with a breathtaking man collapsed on top of her. And still she couldn’t stop grinding into him, closing her eyes to the guttural sound of his release and the intensity of his grip on her thigh.
“Mine,” he growled, over and over and over, making the word sink into her brain, making it tattoo her soul.
Yours.
She was. Entirely.
Her pussy constricted with the last pulses of orgasm, and she released her nails from his skin. His thrusts slowed, the decreasing rhythm warning of the solitude that was to come.
He panted into her neck, his hands still gripping her shoulders. “I wish you knew I loved you before today.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “We had a different way of communicating than most people.”
“We won’t anymore. I’ll tell you every day if I have to.”
She sighed, long, loud, and full of frustration. “I had sex with you, Judd. It doesn’t mean we’ve fallen back into old habits. You’re still leaving tomorrow.”
“You can come with me.”
Her chest clenched, squeezing every ounce of blood from her heart. “No.”
“I’ll win you over if it’s the last thing I do.” His lips moved against her collarbone. Pure laziness. Pure confidence.
“No.” She pushed at his pecs and met his gaze. “Just stop, okay?”
Dark ferocity stared back at her. “Why? Because I’m getting to you? I might actually be winning already?”
“No.” Her denial was pathetic. But so was that smirk plastered across his lips. “Asshole.”
He hitched her leg higher over his hip, reminding her of their connection. “You’re falling for me again.”
Falling was an understatement. There was nothing that mimicked the way she currently felt. Nothing in the realm of love and lust that perfectly encapsulated the utterly terrifying sensations overwhelming her.
“Get over yourself.”
He chuckled. “You’re not walking away, princess.”
She shoved at his pecs again. Shoved and shoved and shoved until he rolled off of her with his belly convulsing with laughter.
“I missed this.” He scooted from the bed and strode his naked ass over to open the door. “I’ll be back in a second. Don’t go anywhere.” He padded down the aisle and disappeared into the bathroom, clicking the door shut behind him.
As if she had anywhere else to go.
She leaned on her elbows and took in the pitch black sight through the windshield straight ahead of her. The bus had stopped at some time during their scramble for pleasure and was now dark inside and out. Although Tank wasn’t the usual driver, she assumed he was in the spare bunk, hopefully with a set of earplugs firmly planted in his ears. She had no clue where they were, so walking home wasn’t an option. And the thought of calling her brother or a cab didn’t set well either.
She wanted to stay. For a few hours at least. Until the lust faded and reality dawned with the rising sun. Daylight always brought clarity, and tomorrow would be no different. If anything it would be harsher, highlighting her stupidity in Technicolor.
The bathroom door reopened with a deafening click and her pulse quickened at the silhouette of Judd before her. He padded into the room, flicked off the light and closed the door.
The covers flicked back on his side and the mattress dipped with his weight. She held her breath as his arm snaked around her waist and instead of snuggling into her, he dragged her back, pulling her into his chest. Making her come to him. Always making her come to him.
“I need to know why you left me,” he murmured into her hair.
“Go to sleep, Judd.” She scooted under the sheet and nestled back into him, unable to stop herself. “We’ll talk about it later.”
He kissed her shoulder, branding the spot forever. “Later, when?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he repeated on a breath. “I’ll hold you to it.”
The room fell silent, the world dying under the noise of her thoughts. She clung to the arm around her waist, wishing she could be the person needed to maintain this relationship. But she couldn’t. She’d spent her childhood in places she didn’t belong. Scholarships had allowed her to be a temporary part of high society, rubbing shoulders with teenage millionaires and entitled brats. She lived each day surrounded by wealth she couldn’t experience and prestige she didn’t deserve. Then her father became sick and she had to change to a public school closer to home. One without expensive text books that was also overflowing with kids who considered her previous education a point of contention.
She hadn’t fit in with the rich, and the less fortunate didn’t want her either. She’d been a loner who didn’t belong on either side, and she wouldn’t put herself through that again by staying with Judd.
He was the scholarship from her childhood. He was the wealth and prestige she didn’t deserve. He was all the things she wasn’t, and the differences between them had been slammed in her face too many times to ignore.
She sighed into the silence and waited until he was purring with slumber before she slid out from under his arm. She dressed quietly and crept to the door as she finger combed her hair. He didn’t wake when she turned the latch, and she didn’t hear him stir with her progression down the aisle.
“Where the hell are you going?” Tank pulled back the curtain to the spare bunk beside the booth seat and blinked his sleepy gaze at her.
“Can’t sleep.”
He huffed and fell back against his pillow. “There’s food in the fridge if you’re hungry. Or vodka in the freezer if you prefer.”
“I’m good. Thanks.” She slid into the booth and pulled her feet onto the seat, cuddling her knees to her chest. The bus was shrouded in darkness, the moonlight from outside barely shining in through the tinted windows.
She was alone in the middle of nowhere, and all her heart wanted to do was climb back into bed with the man she had to say goodbye to. He didn’t even know her. Not really. She’d placed too many barriers between them, hiding herself behind a shield of sarcasm in an effort to stop herself from falling too hard.
She’d descended in a tumbling free fall anyway.
A thud sounded behind her, and she turned to find Tank striding toward her in boxer shorts and a whole heap of exposed muscle. “You plan on staying out here for a while?”
“Yeah. I’m organizing an escape plan.”
He scowled. “Not on my watch.”
She released a breath of defeated laughter. “I’m not going anywhere, Tank. You can go back to bed.”
“Want to talk about it?” He slid into the booth opposite her, shoved his elbows onto the table and sank his head in his hands.
“Nope.”
“Are you going to talk to him about it?”
“Nope.”
“Want me to mind my own business?”
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