Nolan paused, teasing my nipple. Fear shot through me that maybe I’d misread the situation and he didn’t want me the same way I wanted him.
“Are you sure, Forget-Me-Not? If we do this, everything will change between us. Is that what you want?”
I bit my lip to keep from saying that things had already changed between us. They’d changed years ago. I knew what he meant, though. If we had sex, there’d be no going back to what we used to be, especially because there never could be a him and me. Our lives made that impossible. While we wouldn’t exactly be a one-night stand, it would be close enough. Once he left for L.A., there would be no more us.
But I was willing to take the chance, no matter how much it hurt later on. And it would hurt. A lot.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s what I want…if it’s what you want.”
His hand on my breast moved to my face and his thumb caressed my cheek. The intensity in his eyes almost did me in, and I inhaled sharply. The sound was soft and slightly shaky.
“It’s what I want too,” he said. “More than you can ever realize.”
I pulled away and yanked my tank top off over my head. In the dim light, I could just make out the slow rise and fall of his Adam’s apple.
He reached up and cupped one of my breasts. My ribs were still bruised and slightly sore from the attack, but the discoloration had faded enough so it wasn’t noticeable in this lighting. The last thing I wanted was for Nolan to change his mind about what I sensed we were going to do, worried he might hurt me.
Wonder lit his eyes, like he was gazing upon one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The expression made him even sexier—something I’d never thought possible until now. I bit my lip to keep from moaning out loud.
“Do you have condoms?” I didn’t want to get all heated up only to realize he didn’t have any in his room. I had some, but I needed to know if I should get them.
He cringed. “I wasn’t planning to get lucky on the trip, so no.”
“I’ll be right back.” I slid off the bed and practically ran to my room. I opened the drawer in my bedside table and removed the box of condoms. I dumped the contents on the bed. Three spilled out. I shook it again. Nothing else joined them. But really, did we need more than three? Unless we were going to be snowed in for the next two days and required steamy sex to stay warm, the answer was no.
But I wouldn’t have complained if we were snowed in. The sacrifice, well worth it.
I grabbed the condoms and rushed back to Nolan’s room. “I have three left.”
Nolan was standing next to the bed. He grabbed my hips and pulled me to him. My breasts squished against his chest and made them very happy. Then his mouth was on mine again.
One of his hands traveled to my lower back and his thumb stroked lazy circles against my skin. My hands knotted in his hair as our kisses heated up.
But it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. More of him. More of us.
I let my fingers explore his body, enjoying every ridge of the muscles on his stomach. Enjoying the smooth skin above the waistband of his boxer briefs.
I ran my fingertip above the stretch of fabric. His muscles tightened, then relaxed under my touch.
Nolan’s hand moved down to squeeze my butt. It stayed there for a second, then drifted to the waistband of my cotton shorts. I wasn’t the only one excited at what we were doing. His length strained against the fabric of his underwear.
A thrill trembled through me. Touching a guy this way wasn’t new to me. But this was Nolan. The last thing I’d ever expected was to one day touch him so intimately.
Other than in my dreams.
I ran my fingers along the length of him, but it wasn’t enough. I slipped them under the waistband of his underwear and wrapped them around him. I came close to purring at the velvety softness of his tip, and traced my thumb under the head.
“Oh, God, Hailey,” Nolan breathed, and I couldn’t help but smile at his reaction. “Unless you want this to end before we’re started, I recommend you slow down.”
My thumb found the sensitive spot below the head and I gently massaged it. “Maybe I don’t want to slow down.”
He let out a hiss of air, then his fingers tugged on the waistband of my shorts. He peeled them off ever so slowly. His touch, as it caressed my skin, tormented my supersensitive body. The way he looked at me sent a warm flush over me, and I was positive if he didn’t stop doing that soon, I’d combust.
Which, right now, sounded like a heavenly way to go.
His finger brushed the outside of my right ankle, against the six forget-me-not flowers tattooed there. Each one tiny, delicate, realistic. An old belief claimed if you had a forget-me-not tattoo, your lover wouldn’t forget you. When I’d gotten it, Nolan had just moved to L.A., and I’d foolishly wanted to ensure he never forgot me—even though he wasn’t my lover. But when he never called back or texted me, I’d known the old wives’ tale was nothing more than a foolish belief.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“They’re forget-me-nots.” I skipped on my reason for getting the tattoo. Let him believe I got it because I loved the flower (which was true) and not because of some misguided story.
He lifted my ankle, removed the shorts, and tossed them aside. He gently kissed the flowers. The sweet and simple action almost did me in.
Nolan lowered my foot back down.
With my shorts off, I was lying on the bed in nothing but my red cotton underwear. Okay, not the sexiest piece of underwear I owned. That honor went to the satin panties Kayla had given me for my birthday. Her motto: if I was going to get lucky, I’d better look sexy while it went down. To her, plain cotton underwear was a big no-no. It wasn’t sexy enough. But the way Nolan looked at said underwear, he clearly didn’t agree with her. Not even close.
I licked my lip, a slight nervousness at what we were about to do creeping in. I’d had sex plenty of times, enough to know what I was doing, yet for the first time since I’d lost my virginity, I was genuinely nervous. Things were different when you weren’t about to screw some random guy you didn’t care to see again after that night. It was different when you were about to have sex with someone you’d been secretly in love with for so long—and that scared me.
Nolan didn’t give me a chance to dwell on it further. His mouth was on mine again. I pushed aside my fears at what was about to happen, and at what would happen once he returned to L.A. For one night I wanted to forget all that. I wanted to live in the moment. This moment.
His fingers, warm and callused, traced along the outside of my thigh. At my knee, he nudged my legs apart. His fingers resumed their journey up, up, up to torment me. Once he was midway, he paused and drew lazy circles on my skin.
My skin tingled in response, and the throbbing between my legs begged for those lazy circles to migrate closer. I might’ve even wiggled a little, encouraging Nolan’s fingers to keep moving north.
And eventually they did.
While his mouth created music against mine—and holy mother of all things wonderful, did that man ever know how to kiss—his thumb brushed against my supercharged center. A jolt of electricity shot through my body, enough to power Northbridge if it ever experienced an outage. My lower body jerked in response.
Nolan wasn’t the only one who knew how to please. I had my own tricks I was dying to try out on him. I tugged his boxer briefs past his hips, wrapped my fingers around his balls, and gave them a light squeeze. He groaned his satisfaction, and he might have muttered, “Holy shit.”
I grinned. “Liked that, huh?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled away from me and practically ripped his underwear off. It landed somewhere on the floor, presumably near mine.
His fingers returned to what they’d been doing earlier—making the ache between my legs a little happier, a little more demanding. And just when I thought it couldn’t get better, he slipped a finger inside me and then another. He didn’t move them. He just pressed against the lining. T
he promised combustion from earlier was nothing compared to now.
“Oh, God, Nolan,” I somehow managed to say.
He chuckled. “Liked that, huh?” he replied, echoing my earlier words.
“Yes. I like.”
He moved up the length of me, his fingers still inside me, and settled his mouth on one of my nipples. He sucked on it as he slowly pumped his fingers in and out. I guessed I shouldn’t have been too shocked. He was both the singer and guitarist from Pushing Limits. That made him multitalented in my book.
I ran my fingernails roughly down his back and he groaned, further exciting the nipple in his mouth. I was so close to the edge, it wouldn’t take much more to push me all the way.
“I need you. Inside me. Now,” I said, voice husky.
Grinning, he pulled away from my nipple and reached for a foil package on my nightstand. He carefully ripped it open and rolled it onto his thick length. Oddly enough, seeing him like this and remembering how we used to be as kids was enough to set my face on fire. He wasn’t just another guy I had met and gone home with. This was the guy who had played 007 with me when we were ten and were chasing around the neighborhood on our bikes. The guy who had been there for me when I suffered through my first heartbreak at fourteen years old. The guy who had been there for me at every soccer game while we were growing up.
He positioned himself between my legs. I wrapped them around his hips and he slowly plunged inside me. My body stretched to accommodate his wide width. Those girls who’d written all the erotica about him on the fan sites turned out to have been right about a few details after all. Not that I planned to tell them.
“God, you’re so fucking tight, Forget-Me-Not.” Nolan’s eyes flared with lust and desire. “So fucking tight and hot. I’m not going to last much longer.”
That made two of us.
I expected him to begin pumping inside me. He didn’t, though. He lowered himself so his chest lightly touched mine and he kissed me long and hard.
Before he started moving inside me, I caught a flash of emotion in his eyes. It went further than lust and desire. What I saw in that moment was a reflection of what I felt for him: love.
But there wasn’t enough time to register what it meant. The slow burn inside me, which had ignited when he first touched me, flared out and consumed me.
I cried out his name. And the sound of my name falling from his lips was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.
Never until then had I loved my name more.
Chapter 23
Nolan
I could’ve easily stayed inside of Hailey all night. So it was with great reluctance that I pulled out of her and tossed the condom in the garbage. Outside, the wind howled, restless, the opposite of how I now felt.
But by the time I returned to the bed, Hailey was bailing on me.
Like hell if I’d let that happen.
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her tight. “Where do you think you’re going?” I murmured in her ear.
“My room.” The vulnerability in her eyes almost brought me to my knees, and I took her face in my hands.
“What if I don’t want you to go?” This was the first time I’d ever said that to a girl. With all the other girls I’d spent the last few years entertaining myself with, none had meant enough to me to want them to stay after we’d fucked.
“All right,” she said hesitantly.
“Thank you.” I brushed my lips against hers, then led her back to bed.
She cuddled up to me, her head on my chest, listening to my satisfied heart. Listening to the heart that wondered how the hell I’d be able to leave her again.
Which was why I couldn’t say the three words sitting on the tip of my tongue. As much as I loved Hailey, and because I did love her, I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t ask her to come with me to L.A. I couldn’t introduce her to my world. I couldn’t expect her to put her life on hold and come on the road with me. Everything about my life would destroy all that made her special.
So, instead, I traced lazy circles on the soft skin of her lower back, hoping that deep down she would hear the words I couldn’t say.
After a few minutes, Hailey’s breathing evened out, and for a few seconds I allowed myself to believe this was my new permanent. That every night and every morning for the rest of my life, Hailey would fall asleep and wake up in my arms.
But while my brain knew this was all only temporary, I wasn’t so sure my heart was on the same page—or even in the same book.
Careful not to disturb Hailey, I moved from under her. She muttered in her sleep, then curled up under the covers. I grabbed my notebook from the nightstand. Using my cellphone to light the page, I scribbled down the lyrics that poured from my heart.
And like the last song I’d written since moving in with her, the words easily poured onto the page.
Chapter 24
Nolan
The first thing I noticed when I stirred from my sleep was the warm body pressed against me. The second thing I noticed (well, third after the raging hard-on) was Hailey’s scent.
I smiled and lightly kissed the naked shoulder peeking from under the covers. Hailey stirred, pressing her hot ass against my cock.
“Mornin’,” I murmured into her ear. I had no idea of the time, but judging from the sunlight streaming into the room, it had to be midmorning.
“Hmmm,” she replied, which I took to be a positive sign.
My hand shifted under the cover and brushed against her full breast. This time she sucked air in sharply. I cupped the warm flesh and traced circles around her nipple. This was met by a moan from Hailey and her body jerking back against me.
From the bedside table, my phone played Jared’s song. I ignored it and moved my hand down Hailey’s stomach to between her legs. I palmed her heated pussy, which was already aroused and waiting for my touch. “God, Hailey. You’re so fucking ready for me.”
I interpreted her answering moan to be an agreement, then slipped a finger between her folds to tease her. My thumb brushed against her clit.
“Oh, God, Nolan,” she called out.
Jared’s song played again.
Again I ignored it.
With a little more pressure this time, I circled her clit, and I swear she was this close to coming.
The song played for the third time, and I was ready to hurl the damn phone against the wall.
“You should probably answer it.” Hailey shifted away from me, not giving me much choice.
I reached for my phone. “Hey, what’s up?” Lucky for him he couldn’t read my mind.
“Who the hell are you?”
At his near shout, I yanked the phone from my ear. “What are you talking about? You know who I am.”
“What they’re saying about your name. Is it true?”
“What are they saying?” Not that I needed to ask. I had a painful suspicion I already knew.
“That your real name isn’t Tyler Erickson. It’s Nolan Kincaid.”
Fuck! How the hell…? Who the hell…?
My head flopped forward and I shoved my hand through my hair. “It’s true.”
I smoothed my hand against the sheet, ironing out the creases. If only it had been as simple as that when it came to the mess of my life. If only it had been as simple as stripping the bedding from the bed and starting fresh.
“But why?” Jared said. “I don’t mean why the name change, but why didn’t you tell me? Why am I only finding out now?” The hurt in his voice almost gutted me. He was right. I should have told him. “I’ve told you things I’ve told no one else. Why? Because I trusted you, Tyler—or Nolan, or whatever your real name is.”
“Nolan is my real name,” I muttered.
Hailey moved to kneel behind me on the bed and held me close, sharing her strength. She tenderly kissed the bare skin on my shoulder.
I smiled at her, the movement small but genuine. “And I’m sorry,” I told Jared, “but I had my reasons for keeping it a sec
ret.”
“Are you in trouble?” he asked.
“No, nothing like that. I needed to escape my past and couldn’t do that with my old name.” Since I had nothing to lose by telling him the truth, I told him about my family and how I couldn’t remember that night. Better he found out from me than from the media.
“I’m sorry, Ty…Nolan.”
“Once the police finished questioning me, I ran off to L.A. Where I’ve been ever since.”
“But how come no one knew until now about your real identity?”
“My mom home-schooled me. So other than a few friends, who I trust with my life”—I glanced at Hailey—“no one remembered me by the time we signed with the record label.” Same deal with the kids I used to play soccer with when I was younger. I’d changed enough over the years that they didn’t recognize Tyler Erickson as the same lanky kid who’d been on their soccer team.
“So the record label doesn’t even know?” he asked.
I cringed. “They know. They did a background check before they signed us. They couldn’t find a single mention about my life. Nothing. They asked me about it and I told them.”
“And they didn’t have an issue with it?”
“It’s not like I’m the first musician to use a different name from what they were born with. They just wanted to make sure I hadn’t been involved in anything illegal. They understood my need to protect my privacy. And that I wanted to be known for my music, not because of what my father did.”
“You could’ve told me. I would’ve understood and wouldn’t have told anyone.”
“I know.” And I did. “But I’d kept it a secret for so long, I was used to being Tyler Erickson. As far as I was concerned, Nolan didn’t exist anymore.” I looked at Hailey, my gaze absorbing everything about her, including the part where we were still naked. “Or he didn’t exist until recently.”
She smiled softly at me, understanding what I meant.
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