“And then I tried…I tried so hard to find something that didn’t remind me of you. Someone who could fill that hollow ache you left inside me.” She felt the wounds she was inflicting on him as his body tensed beneath her hands in response. “And then he walked away. Like everyone else. And I didn’t even care.”
The sound of his zipper coming down as she lowered it slowly filled the silence.
“And these past few days, spending time with my band and letting them see me—
the real me, the feel-first-think-second me—made me realize I was never empty. I’d kept something no one could take away from me. Not even you.”
“What’s that?”
A slow smile spread across her face as she shifted his pants down his hips.
“This.” Grabbing his strong, warm hand, she placed it in the same spot where he’d touched her chest. His fingers pressed into her flesh. “Loving you is as much a part of me as my music is. It’s not a choice and it’s not something I can live a full life without. I love you. I never stopped, Trace. Not for a single second. Even when I tried my hardest. Even when I wasn’t sure if you loved me back.”
For the first time since their emotionally charged exchange had begun, he closed his eyes.
“You know,” he said softly.
Kylie leaned back against the counter behind her.
“I do.” She nodded. “You brought me back to life. You made sure the only one who could record our song was us. You kissed me on stage because I sang a song that hurt to sing. You bought my daddy’s truck. You went to rehab and got sober. You ditched everyone, your band, your family, to come have a pity party bonfire with me, you—”
The rest of her words were cut off by his mouth clamping down on hers. She opened for him, moaning softly when his tongue plunged inside.
She felt him stepping out of his jeans as he lifted her off the ground and headed toward his bedroom. Her bare back brushed roughly against several surfaces and doorways in the dark as they made their way to his room, but she didn’t care. As long as his mouth didn’t leave hers, she was happy. For what felt like the first time in forever.
When he laid her down on his mattress, she stared up into his handsome face, placing both hands on either side once more and admiring the beautiful angles of it.
“Even though I know, I still want to hear it.”
He grinned, that slow, intense smile he gave only to her. Bracing himself above her, he stared straight down into her eyes.
“I love you. God, I love you so damn much, Kylie Lou.” His lips danced against hers and she whimpered at the force of the emotional dam breaking inside of her.
“I love you, too, Trace,” she whispered against his mouth. “I thought you broke my heart. But you didn’t. You are my heart,” she said with a tremor in her voice.
He kissed her so hard their teeth gnashed against one another’s. Panting, she began to shimmy out of the denim that still sheathed her legs. Trace divested her of them in one swift movement. He was above her again before she could take a breath.
“I missed you so fucking much, baby,” he told her between placing frantic open-mouth kisses down her jawline and neck. “Every day. Every second of every day I missed you. It hurt like hell being away from you. It nearly wrecked me…having to see you and not being able to have you.”
The intensity of his words combined with the damp heat of his mouth stripped away the remaining protective layers she’d kept around herself.
“Show me, Trace. Show me how much you love me. How much you missed me. How much it hurt. I need to feel it. I need to feel you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Strong fingers slid her black thong down her thighs.
She let herself go as he kissed his way back up her legs. When his teeth grazed over flesh, her body jerked in surprise.
A low dark laugh reverberated against her skin.
“Behave yourself, Mr. Corbin,” she warned.
He growled—actually growled—at her.
She giggled, a soft, genuine sound she hadn’t heard from herself in over a year.
His hands were everywhere at once. Palming her breasts, clutching her hips, spreading her thighs. It was as if he was literally devouring her. She couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t get open enough or get him close enough.
He massaged and open-mouth kissed his way all over, taking his sweet time on his exploration of her body. She wondered if he’d forgotten how it felt, if he was trying to remember and memorize it with his hands and mouth.
His tongue slid south and teased the center of her, causing her body to bow off the bed. As he licked her gently to her first orgasm, she felt all the tension she’d carried for so long extracting itself from her muscles and floating into the air.
“Now that I’ve said it, I can’t stop.” His hands massaged their way up her body as he made his way back to her. “I love you. I love the feel of you, the taste of you, the scent of you. I love you so much I lose control sometimes—lose the little bit of sense God gave me. If all I was allowed to do was sit and watch you exist for the rest of my life, I would die happy.”
She smiled as his mouth came down on her left breast. “I love you, too. I love the way you touch me, the way you taste me.”
He grunted his appreciation of her words and sucked her nipple into his scorching hot mouth before moving to the other side. “I hate myself for not telling you sooner. For walking away without letting you know that I loved you.”
“I think I always knew deep down that you loved me, Trace. That’s not why I’m scared.” Her whispered confession stilled him.
His head snapped up from her chest to her face and his eyes met hers. “Then what are you scared of, Kylie Lou?”
She pulled in a ragged breath of air. “That you won’t let me love you. That you’ll walk away again. Like before…” A sob escaped and she laughed at herself as she wiped her tear-filled eyes. “Sorry. I know this isn’t the time—”
He cut her off by kissing her on the mouth. She tasted the faint hint of herself on his lips. “It’s always the time, baby. You can tell me how you feel, or what you’re afraid of, or worried about, or what you need, anytime you want.”
“Okay,” she whispered against his mouth. Her fingernails raked over his chest, pressing him backward. “Let me love you, Trace. I need you to let me do that. You deserve to be loved. You are more than deserving of my love. It’s always been yours.”
She grabbed his shoulders and pressed her palms against him until he got the message. Once he’d rolled onto his back and she was straddling him, she slid her wetness along the underside of his steel erection.
He groaned from the contact. His warm hands grazed her breasts and her body responded immediately, arching into his hands for more.
“Tell me what you need, baby.”
“I need you inside,” she whispered. “I need to feel you inside of me.”
Trace sat up with his back against the headboard and pulled her against his chest. His hands pressed a path down her back until they gripped her ass and lifted.
She cried out when he sat her down on the full length of him. Despite her body’s protest at the blunt force of the intrusion, she began to slide up and down readily. His desperate hold on her was breathtakingly tight as he pulled her legs around him.
Her body surrounded him as if it knew the same thing she did, the same thing she always had.
She was made for him. And he was made for her.
“I can’t go slow or be gentle,” she warned him. “I might hurt you.”
“I can take it,” he said against the valley between her breasts.
It was mere seconds before the pressure began to build inside of her. The force of it was so intense she wondered if it would break her in two. Wondered, but wasn’t concerned enough to stop.
Her erect nipples chafed against the smattering of hair on his chest as his hands guided her body, setting the pace of their lovemaking even from beneath her. The light stubble on his face
rubbed against the side of her neck as she moved up and down above him.
Words came out of her mouth and were breathed into his ear. Some of them sounded like his name. Some were declarations of love, and some were just sounds of unadulterated pleasure.
She lost count of how many times she came until it seemed to be one endless stream of intensity, wave after wave of ecstasy crashing over her.
When her body went limp and she was certain she couldn’t take any more, Trace gently eased her onto her back and began his worshipful treatment all over again.
“Oh God. I-I can’t. Trace, I can’t feel my legs.” She jerked in an attempt to move them, but it was pointless. She was boneless.
His fingertips drifted lazily up her inner thighs, one of them venturing dangerously close to her opening, causing her to twitch in response.
He chuckled, that deep timbre warming her from the inside out. “There, baby. See? Your legs just moved.”
She was too weak to even open her eyes. His warm, wet mouth placed sweet kisses across her stomach.
“Say it,” he murmured against her navel.
She moaned her inability to speak.
“Or don’t say it. And I’ll just keep turning everything you say into something dirty. I think you like it anyways.”
“Say what?” she pleaded weakly.
He trailed a finger through her damp swollen folds, applying pressure where she still tingled.
“Oh my God, Trace.”
“Mmm, I do like that. But it’s not what I’m looking for. Say, ‘You still have feelings for me, you still think about me…’” he began.
Kylie smiled into the darkness. “You missed me terribly every second we were apart.”
“Oh, you’ve done it now.” With a dark chuckle, he climbed on top of her, sliding the head of his length up the sensitive path between her legs.
“I said it,” she cried out with urgency as her nerves flared back to life at the contact between him and her overstimulated core. “Now just let me lie here and die happy.”
“It’s me and you, darlin’.” He took her wrists in his hands and pinned them above her head. “I’m pretty sure you already know we’re nowhere near done here.”
“Trace,” she cried out, his name a plea for mercy as his mouth made its way back down her body.
It was all coming back in exquisite detail. Not that she’d forgotten, she’d just forced herself not to think about it. But some things never changed. He took control in bed, took control and never let up, taking her to the precipice of what she thought she could handle and flinging her right over the edge.
Releasing her wrists, he skimmed his fingertips down her arms, neck, and breasts with deliberate, unhurried, and feather light delicious torture.
He placed a gentle kiss on the cleft of her mound. “I should’ve said it before. Should’ve told you. I try not to have regrets, but I do have one.”
His powerful tongue dipped inside and parted her.
A moan that bordered on being a scream escaped her lips. Her lungs began pumping air in sheer panic as she throbbed hard against his mouth.
“Trace, please.”
“Please what, baby?” His voice vibrated against her, sending her careering out of control. Her body was no longer hers, but his to do with as he pleased. And apparently what he pleased was pleasing her until she completely lost her mind.
She couldn’t answer so she just shook her head violently against the pillows.
“As I was saying,” he continued from between her thighs. “I regret that I didn’t tell you, didn’t make it abundantly fucking clear…” Another intense lick and her body began simultaneously straining toward him while struggling to get a safe distance from the relentless pursuit of his mouth.
“That you…”
His fingers dented the flesh on the tender curves of her hips as he held her down. Pausing to run his tongue up the delicate strip of her center once more, he suctioned her into his mouth briefly.
“Are…”
She writhed beneath him. It was nearly impossible to concentrate on what he was saying with the mindless frenzy he had her in.
“Mine.”
“Yes, yes, yours,” she breathed. “Only yours.”
Before she could reassure him anymore, he was up on his haunches, sliding himself over her sensitive flesh. She came apart so ferociously her body convulsed even under his weight.
The sensation made her needy even as she came. Her insides clenched on emptiness. She wanted more, needed more. Needed all he could give.
He seemed to realize this. Teasing her, he placed the head of himself just barely at her entrance.
“Say you’re mine, baby,” he commanded, applying the slightest bit of pressure.
“I’m yours, Trace.” Refueled by desire and an overwhelming ache, she reached up and dragged his face to hers, kissing him hard and deep. “And you’re mine.”
He entered her as they continued whispering their love-filled confessions, sounds of pleasure and devotion slipping from each of their mouths into the other’s.
When he finally gave into his release, squeezing her hard and groaning until the veins in his throat and arms bulged above her, she found hers once more. Their bodies, damp and drained, collapsed together in a heap of heavy breathing and sheer fulfillment.
She rolled onto her side, draping one arm and one leg over him.
“Never leave me. Promise you’ll never leave me again,” she whispered against his chest. “I wouldn’t survive it.”
He wrapped his arms around her and held tight. “Me either, baby. Me either.”
She was too weak to point out that he didn’t promise.
DESPITE HOW thoroughly depleted her body was, Kylie didn’t fall asleep afterwards. Not really. She was hovering, having an out of body experience in the strange, murky haze of twilight between consciousness and unconsciousness when Trace broke the contented silence.
“I meant what I said.”
She tried her best to lift her head off his chest and look him in the eyes to let him know she was listening. But after the earth-shattering sex that had sapped her of all ability to use her muscles, it wasn’t easy.
“Which thing?”
“That I’m sorry I hurt you. That walking away from you like that was the hardest decision I ever made. And I’ll spend every second you’ll let me trying to make that up to you.”
She took a deep breath. “Trace, if you ever go back into rehab, then I’m visiting you whether you like it or not, dammit. You don’t get to cut and run. No more making those kinds of decisions without me.”
She felt the low rumble of his chuckle against her bare skin.
She made the tremendous effort to rise up and glare at him. She pinched his bare side. Hard. “I’m serious.”
“Ouch. I know, Hothead. I know you are.” He kissed the top of her head and gave her a reassuring squeeze as she returned to her restful position. “Trust me. Losing you was the worst fucking thing I’ve ever lived through—and for me, that’s saying something. I won’t intentionally do that to myself ever again.”
She didn’t know if it was his postcoital honesty, her own recently exposed emotions, or the reminder of the nickname he’d given her, but tears began to slip from her eyes.
“Hey, hey,” he began softly. “None of that.” Trace wiped her tears with his thumb and leaned down to press his lips to hers. “I’m so sorry I hurt you, pretty girl. Believe me, I hurt myself pretty good too.”
“Yeah, well…” she paused to sniffle in an attempt to suck it up before she became an ugly-crying mess. “Don’t do it again.”
“I swear, baby. I will try my absolute best not to.”
She snuggled back down into his arms. Minutes or hours might have passed, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she was safe and happy with the man she loved, and it was like…like going home after being away for far too long.
“Babe?” He traced a slow circle on her back with a calloused finge
r.
“Hmm?”
“There is something I should tell you. Something about Gretchen.”
Kylie froze. Her body went from a warm, boneless heap to a tight, rigid bundle of nerves. She wanted her warm and fuzzies back.
“Trace, whatever it is, let’s just not right now. Okay?”
This was their place, their private reunion, and no one else was invited. Damn sure not Gretchen Gibson.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “I guess I won’t ask about Rocker Boy either. Not that I even really want to know.”
Kylie took a deep breath. She’d hoped after tonight there wouldn’t be anyone else between them. But it looked like that might’ve been too much to hope for.
“He and I never did what you probably think we did.” She drew a heart with her pointer finger on Trace’s chest.
She felt him raise his head to look down at her. “Seriously? Never?”
“Nope. Not even once.”
“Huh.” She smiled as he relaxed beneath her. “Well now I feel kind of bad for slugging him.”
“Oh, I mean, we did stuff. Just not that.”
“And magically my remorse is gone.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. Boys.
A violent knock on the bus door startled them both.
“What the hell?” Trace sat up, and so did she. “I told everyone I didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Trace! Trace, it’s Pauly. I need you to open up if you’re in there,” she heard Pauly Garrett yell from outside the bus between the pounding knocks. “It’s important.”
“Shit,” Trace mumbled as they pulled themselves from the warm bed. “What now?”
They dressed as quickly as they could. Kylie couldn’t find her underwear so she slid her jeans on over her bare skin. She located her bra but couldn’t find her shirt anywhere. Trace handed her his. She buttoned it hurriedly as they headed to the door.
“I hope everyone’s okay. What do you think is going on?”
“No idea,” Trace answered. “But there are cops out there.” He pulled back from the window and reached for the door. “You got warrants out, baby?”
Girl in Love Page 24
