Seeing Stars

by J. Sterling

  “Of course,” I responded as he pushed up from the couch and stepped out into his backyard.

  I sat alone in the living room, scanning the framed pictures on his mantel and the artwork on his walls. Curious, I got up and walked over to the fireplace to inspect the framed black-and-white photos. One of Walker and his mom backstage at one of his concerts made me smile, and I fought back sudden tears. She looked so happy.

  There were pictures of him with his friends, his family, other singers and musicians, and a small four-by-six photo of him and me as teenagers in the sand. I had completely forgotten his mom took our picture that summer. Walker stood holding his surfboard at his side, his other arm wrapped around my waist. I was looking up at him like there was no one in the world I loved more. And at the time, there wasn’t. His head was angled down toward me as well, the smirk on his lips saying it all. He had been in love with me too. Sure, we were just kids then, but what we shared that summer had been as real as it got at the time.

  “Sorry about that, but I’d been waiting for that call. It was actually about you, so…” He paused and walked in through the patio doors, a broad smile on his face.

  “Me?” I drew a hand up to point at my chest in question.

  He nodded and then sat back down on the couch, spreading his arms out along the back of the cushions. “I made a few phone calls yesterday to some friends. You have a couple of options, Miss Myers.” His expression turned serious.

  “Do I?” I narrowed my eyes as I settled down on the couch next to him, wondering what the heck he was talking about.

  “As you know, I’m in the market for an agent. And I think I’ve found the perfect one.” He stared at me, a smile spreading across his face, and I widened my eyes in surprise.

  “Me?” I shot bolt upright in shock. “You want me to be your agent?” I asked incredulously.

  “Yes. I will only sign with you. So you have two options. One,” he lifted a finger in the air, “you can either open your own agency and I’ll be your first client. Or two,” he lifted a second finger, “you can go to work at the Warren Taylor Agency and I’ll still be your first client.”

  “Warren Taylor’s? But I couldn’t just go there and be an agent—” I stopped mid-sentence, my thoughts spinning too quickly for me to keep up.

  Walker pressed a finger to my lips to stop me. “They said they would hire you. That I would be your first and only client until you learned the ropes and got some agency experience under your belt. They want to help you grow and they want you to learn from them. They’re completely on board and more than happy to help with this transition period in both our lives. You just have to call them and accept.”

  He removed his finger and I smiled as big as my lips would allow. The uneasiness that had settled in my stomach over my career suddenly disappeared. “Oh my gosh, Walker, you’re amazing.” I crawled onto his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Thank you so much. You didn’t have to do that, but I really appreciate it.”

  He leaned his body away from me, breaking our contact. “I wanted to.”

  I smiled, filled with happiness. No one had ever done something like this for me before. In a town filled with people pulling strings, I never intended to play that way, and was amazed that this agency would do the same. “Do I need to call them now and work out the details?”

  He tilted his head. “They can wait. I can’t.”

  “Is that so?” I giggled against his mouth as his lips found mine, his hands gripping me tighter.

  “Wait.” I pulled away, forcing him to release me as I crawled off his lap and stood. “What if I’m bad at it? What if I’m a terrible agent who makes horrible business decisions?”

  “You won’t be. But we’ll add a clause in our contract that you’re not allowed to ruin my career,” he said with a laugh and moved to kiss me again, my mind still racing.

  I leaned away. “Wait!”

  “Again?” His eyebrows shot up as a smile teased his lips.

  “Last thought. I don’t normally mix business with pleasure. This might not be a good idea. What if we don’t last?”

  “We,” he said as he shook his head at me disapprovingly and rose to his feet as well, “are never breaking up. And you know it. I don’t normally mix business with pleasure either, but I’m making an exception. And so will you.”

  Walker was right.

  He was so damn right.

  His hand snaked around my lower back as he pulled me toward him and our lips met. I parted my lips slightly and the tip of his tongue teased mine, tentatively at first before going all-in. Happiness swirled around me on every level, and I realized I’d never felt luckier. Or happier.

  He lifted me by my ass and I wrapped my legs around his waist. “I’m taking you to the bedroom. You can thank me there.”

  I threw my head back and laughed. “I know I should be saying something like, ‘No, Walker, this is too soon,’ but we were in love once before so it doesn’t count, right?”

  “Doesn’t count? It all counts. Every moment with you counts, Madison.” He walked us through the double-door entry to his bedroom, and I gaped at the room’s ocean view. I could definitely get used to this.

  Walker placed me on the bed before he knelt, straddling my body with his. I reached for his arms, feeling his biceps flexing as I ran my fingers across them, tracing the tattoos that swirled down to his forearms with a light touch. His gaze trapped my own, refusing to release it as he slowly stretched out his legs, lowering his hips against mine as he rested his weight on his elbows. When I closed my eyes at the delicious tingles that began when he pressed all that wonderful male hardness against me, he said, “Open your eyes, babe. Look at me.”

  Without conscious thought, my eyes fluttered open as my body reacted to Walker’s words and actions instinctively, no permission from me requested or needed. He asked, and I obeyed. I wrapped my arms around his neck and tilted my hips against his, trying to get closer, and closer, letting him know just how badly I wanted him inside me.

  “Don’t rush me.” He focused on me intently, and the determination and passion I could see in his eyes took my breath away. “I plan on taking my time.” A devilish smirk crept across his face and my cheeks heated.

  I slid my hands over his back before grasping the hem of his shirt. Tugging on it, I forced it up until he ducked his head through the opening and discarded it onto the floor. I inhaled quickly, the sight of him shirtless even better than I could have imagined. Definitely better than I remembered. His tanned skin was beautiful, all hard and smooth at the same time, and I wanted to lick every square inch of it, especially the tattoo of five numbers in a simple, but masculine script placed above his heart. When I traced the numbers with my fingers, I must have frowned in confusion because he glanced down at it.

  “I got this tattoo once I started making money and traveling a lot. I was hardly ever home for a while there.”

  “What do the numbers mean?”

  “It’s the zip code for Malibu. I thought about getting the coordinates for our beach, but I didn’t like the way it looked. Too many numbers.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. “You were going to get a tattoo about me?”

  He smiled. “This one’s about you too.”

  “It is?”

  “Not just you, but yeah, you’re a part of it. You were always a part of my heart, even though I swear you took it with you the day you left. I wanted to carry my home with me when I was far away. My mom, Malibu, the surf, my friends, you. As long as I kept you all right above my heart, you’d always be with me, no matter where on this planet I was at the time.”

  My heart did a little flip-flop inside my chest. Everything this guy said to me made me feel like I was fourteen all over again, falling in love for the first time. The past few days had been straight out of the pages of a fairy tale, and I wanted to live my life in it.

  “When’d you get so romantic?”

  “Birth,” he crooned.

  Swooning
a little inside, I sucked in a sharp breath, wanting that magical mouth all over me.

  As if reading my mind, he tugged my shirt up a few inches, leaving part of my stomach exposed. He shifted back and dipped his head to my abdomen, touching his tongue to my skin in slow, sensuous strokes. From time to time he paused, pressing his lips to my skin, dropping small kisses here and there as he ventured to the next exposed piece of me. I gasped as he gave me a small nip, the excitement building within me almost too much to handle.

  “I need this off. Now.” He tugged at my shirt impatiently, then pleaded with his eyes for me to get rid of it.

  “You said not to rush you,” I teased, but did as he asked.

  When I dropped it to the floor, his eyes gleamed with an undisguised hunger as his gaze drifted over me, dropping to my waistband before traveling back up and stopping at my breasts, encased in a skimpy satin and lace bra. Thank God I decided at the last minute to grab my sexiest lingerie; from the looks of it, Walker liked it. A lot.

  He hesitated, licking his lips like I was his last meal, so I grabbed his head, my need for his mouth on mine overwhelming any rational thought. My tongue found his as I stroked it, then sucked his bottom lip between my teeth. When I bit down gently, Walker let out a moan that almost had me screaming for him to take me. How long did I have to wait until I could feel him inside me?

  Fuck taking my time; I needed him like I needed air. Walker was my oxygen and I desperately needed to breathe.

  “I want you,” I huffed out between pants, my greedy hands pulling his hips into me, against me, onto me.

  His head pulled back from mine, a half smirk on his face. “You think I don’t want you? I want you so fucking bad it hurts. It’s hard to go slow. It’s fucking torturous,” he said, dragging out the last word. “But I need to take my time with you. I want to remember every detail, every expression on your face, every sound you make. I want to make love to you like it’s the last time I’ll ever get to do it.”

  “Why would you say that?” I asked sharply, my defenses instantly up at the notion of anything ending between us.

  He chuckled. “I just meant that I want to appreciate it. But if you don’t let me take my time, it will be just as quick as if we’d done it when we were teenagers. And that would be embarrassing.”

  “Fine,” I agreed reluctantly, my hormones clearly not on board the slow-moving train.

  When he resumed his attention to my bare stomach, this time teasing the sensitive areas on the side of my rib cage, his tongue left a trail of warmth in its wake. I closed my eyes and threw my head back, all my senses on overload, affected by his every move. I gripped his head, threading my fingers through his short-cropped hair, my nails scratching, my fingers pulling. Wherever he was, it was never enough. I wanted him all over me, every part of him connected with a part of me. The feeling was overwhelming, all-consuming, and I’d never felt anything like it before.

  After teasing every square inch of my stomach and ribs, he moved his mouth slowly up toward my breasts. With a quick one-handed flick, he unclasped my lace bra and tossed it on the floor. At least I think that’s where it landed; I didn’t know anything anymore. The room spun around me as Walker took the tip of one breast inside his warm mouth and began to suck. Teasingly, he switched between sucking and flicking me with his tongue as pleasure shot through my entire body. Pulling away from me, he moved to the other breast, already pebbled with desire and waiting for him.

  As he gave attention to my other breast, he slid one hand down to my jeans, unbuttoning and pulling down my zipper. I tried to wriggle out of them for him, but could barely move any part of my body, I was so consumed with his mouth and the things it was doing to me.

  He pulled away, all the heat from his body roughly torn away as he stood up and quickly ripped my pants from my legs. Before I could complain at the loss, Walker was back, his hot mouth meeting my skin again, but this time starting at my ankles and I hissed with pleasure. He worked his way up my calf, alternating between stroking me with his tongue, kissing me with his lips, and nipping at me with his teeth. By the time he reached my thighs, every nerve in my body was afire, and I trembled at his touch.

  I moaned, arching my back as he flicked his tongue against my panties, which were already embarrassingly wet. Desperately I reached for his head, pulling and grabbing at him, wanting him to stop teasing me and get on with it, already.

  His eyes burned with desire as he met my gaze before sliding my lace panties to the side and dipping his head to take a taste of me. I bit my lip to keep from releasing a pleasure-filled scream, and sucked in a breath instead.

  Pausing for a second, his voice thick and raspy, he said, “I can’t do this for long or I won’t last, babe. I apologize in advance.”

  Another flick of his tongue and I was completely lost, no longer able to formulate words or thoughts. My body tensed, my entire consciousness focused with the intensity of a laser on the sensations he gave me. Little gasps and moans escaped me, and he groaned in response. He lapped at me deliberately, his tongue taking its time with each carefully placed stroke. I moaned again, my voice almost unrecognizable, and he pulled his mouth away. Part of me wanted to cry from its absence, but another part of me felt relief. We were that much closer to finally coming together the way we had always been meant to, and I had never wanted another human being so badly in my life.

  The heat from his mouth was replaced by two of his fingers. They moved in and out of me as he dropped soft kisses onto my stomach, every action working in complete harmony with the other.

  “You’re so beautiful. I can’t believe you’re here. Never leave,” he whispered against my skin between soft kisses.

  I whimpered, the overload of sensations tearing through me, as I pushed and pulled against him, wanting to feel him everywhere, all over me at once. His hot mouth moved up my stomach, over my breasts, and landed on my neck where he delivered more achingly beautiful attention. He pulled my earlobe between his teeth as he nibbled and then sucked, his tongue sweeping around it.

  My jaw line was pampered next, his mouth loving on every inch of skin it touched. His full lips pressed against my cheek before stopping just short of my waiting mouth, which I had parted in desperation for him. Walker pulled back slightly and grinned.

  “You like teasing me?” I barely breathed out.

  “Who wouldn’t?” he said hoarsely before taking my mouth roughly, his tongue sweeping in and finding mine. Frantically, I pulled at him, digging my fingertips into his skin as I rubbed myself against him, desperate to finally feel whole.

  “I need you. This has been slow enough. Get inside me, Walker. Please,” I managed to get out between kisses.

  “Now who’s the bossy one?” He smirked, his eyes hooded and filled with want.

  “I want you.”

  “Say it again.”

  “I want you. I want you inside me. Right now,” I begged without shame.

  He reached across me and pulled out a condom from his nightstand drawer. Impatient, the second he was done covering himself I reached for his body and pulled him back on top of me. I wanted all of him, needed to feel connected in every way to this man.

  “There’s no going back from here, Madison,” he said as he poised himself above me. “It’s you and me against the world. You understand?” His voice shook the slightest bit, much like his arms as he held himself back while holding himself up.

  I nodded and he lowered his chest to mine, his expression serious. “Tell me you understand what I’m saying. Once we do this, there’s no going back. We’re not going to be just friends. We’re not going to be just buddies, or people who work together. This is it for us.”

  The heaviness of his words settled into my heart and calmed it. I half expected it to do the opposite, but Walker’s demands were just what I needed when it came to him. “I understand.”

  “Good. I couldn’t take losing you twice.” He lowered himself against me so that every possible part of us could
touch, and the utter happiness I felt coursed through every fiber of my being.

  His hardness pressed between my legs and I lifted my hips, arching my back, begging him to enter. Slowly, oh so slowly, he pushed himself inside me, and my body took him in, adjusting around him. He filled me completely and I squeezed my eyes shut, my chest tightening with anticipation as my body opened to accept more of him.

  “Don’t close your eyes, babe.” He ran a finger feather-light down the side of my cheek, and I fought to open my eyes, when all they wanted to do was close so I could get lost in his touch.

  He moved in and out of me slowly, each time filling me more fully than the last. Every pull of his body made me want to scream out to make him stop as each push back in achingly fulfilled my desires. Our bodies fit perfectly, moving together in a synchronized rhythm that built quickly, and I began to pant.

  “I wanted to take this slow,” Walker breathed out against me, “but I’m having a hard time. No pun intended.” Then he found my mouth again and swept his tongue swept across my bottom lip. I nibbled and sucked his bottom lip into my mouth before tilting my head to kiss his neck, to nip and lick at his skin the way he had mine. The salt on his skin turned me on even more, and I lapped at his neck greedily.

  Our sweaty bodies slid against each other with each thrust, our mouths and hands desperate for each other as our passion built. My hands lowered to his ass and I pulled him harder, my nails digging into him as I pulled him hard against me.

  “Walker, I think I’m going to—” I stopped short and gasped, my hips rising and pressing against him over and over again. “Oh yes, God,” I cried out, louder than I’d intended as a current of pleasure ripped through me, sending shivers down my spine.

  “Madison.” Walker’s voice shook as he breathed out my name, his eyes wild as he watched my body jerk with spasms of ecstasy. When the contractions subsided, I loosened the grip I held on his backside and moved my hands along his slick skin to stroke along the tensed muscles in his back and shoulders. He stared at me deeply, his eyes never moving from mine as tiny beads of sweat dripped down his forehead.