Mixtape: A Love Song Anthology

by Nikki Sloane, Elle Kennedy, KL Kreig, Leslie McAdam, Lynda Aicher, Mara White, Marni Mann, Rebecca Shea, Saffron Kent, Sierra Simone, Veronica Larsen, Xio Axelrod

  “Stop looking at me like that,” I rumble.

  “Like what?” she whispers, panting, her chest almost touching mine, her eyes darken, clouded with desire.

  Despite myself, I close that slice of a distance between us, until her soft body is touching mine. “I’m not going to kiss you, Fallon.”

  Her breaths escalate, and her eyes drop down to my mouth. “Good. Because I don’t want you to.”

  I study the curve of her parted lips. “Liar.”

  She pushes against me, but again, it’s half-hearted. “I don’t want you or your mouth anywhere near me. Okay?”

  My arm around her waist flexes. “I don’t think you mean that.”

  “I can’t stand you right now.”

  “I don’t think you mean that either.”

  She growls, fisting my shirt, shaking me. “I hate you, Dean.”

  “Good,” I grit out, still studying her lips before looking into her eyes. “Because you don’t fucking know what love is.”

  “You’re such an asshole. Just go away and leave me alone.”

  “I did.”

  “What?”

  “You want to know what love is, Fallon?” I growl. “Let me tell you what love is. It’s a burn. An explosion. It’s like I’m exploding every second of every day. With the need, this fucking urge to see you. To touch you. To kiss you. Even though I know I can’t. I can’t do it because it’s wrong. But it doesn’t matter because that burn, that ache? It never goes away. In fact, instead of going away, it only grows bigger and bigger. And fucking bigger. To the point where all I can think about is you. All I can think about is destroying every single thing, every single reason, every single person who’s trying to keep me apart from you. Love is watching you go to prom with your douchebag of a boyfriend and going so crazy, so fucking insane with jealousy, I cornered that sixteen-year-old boy and threatened him to stay away from you. That’s what love is, Fallon.”

  I want to keep going but I don’t think I can. I don’t think I should even be touching her after confessing how petty, how small I’ve become in her love. But I can’t seem to let her go, either.

  Seconds pass as she studies me and then in a soft voice, she asks, “Y—You told Brad to stay away from me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that why he backed out of our date just an hour into prom? Because you threatened him?”

  Regret burns every inch of me. It was my lowest moment, threatening a sixteen-year-old boy because I was in love with his girlfriend. But I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t see Fallon wearing a girly, pink dress, all made-up and stunning, going on a date with someone who didn’t deserve her. Not that I did, either. But I couldn’t . . . stop. I didn’t know how to stop.

  “Yes,” I repeat.

  “I—I didn’t know. I didn’t know you threatened him . . .” She swallows, looking at me with new eyes.

  She’ll probably hate me now. Probably regret her confession from last night.

  “I cried when he just left me there. I called you to come get me,” she continues, as if remembering that night. “I kept crying in your arms. I thought there was something wrong with me.”

  I want to hang my head, drop down to my knees and ask for her forgiveness. But I pull up whatever strength I have and keep holding onto her.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you,” I tell her with as much love as I can muster, as much anger as I can muster on her behalf. “He didn’t deserve you.”

  No one deserves my Fallon, least of all me. When I said she inspires me, I wasn’t lying. I’ve seen her at her lowest and I’ve seen her pull herself out of it, too. Her strength, her will to fight keeps me going, gives me the will to fight, to be better.

  “What about you? Do you deserve me?”

  A short laugh bursts out of me at her question. “Fuck, no. That’s why I moved away. Because I’m so crazy in love with you I threatened a high school boy just because he was your prom date.”

  She grips my shirt harder. “Y-you are in love with me?”

  My heart thuds loudly in my chest. “It doesn’t matter. It’s wrong.”

  So far I’ve been pushing my body over hers, trying to consume her like she consumes me. But now, she’s pushing back. She’s molding her body against mine. “What’s so wrong about it?”

  “I’m too old for you.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t have time for love. I have my job. My cases. I can’t ignore them.”

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  “One day you’re going to find someone your own age, someone who isn’t jaded, a workaholic, control freak like me and you’ll . . .”

  “I’ll what?”

  A pressure forms in the vicinity of my heart as I say. “You won’t love me anymore.”

  She lets go of my shirt and snakes her arms up and around my neck. Her fingers sink into my hair and I almost groan out loud. I don’t know where she learned to do that, play with my hair like that and rake her nails up and down my scalp, but Jesus Christ, it relaxes me and makes me hard at the same time.

  “Maybe,” she whispers. “And maybe one day, I’ll have a major depressive episode like my mom did. Maybe my meds won’t work for me anymore. Maybe I’ll try to . . . to end my life. And then, you’ll leave me because I have epic issues.”

  I bow my head, taking up all her personal space. “I’ll never leave you. Do you hear me, Fallon? Not a chance in this lifetime.”

  “That’s what I’m asking for, Dean.” She smiles slightly.

  “What?”

  “A chance. To be together. To love each other. There are a million things that could go wrong but I don’t want them to stop us. I don’t want anything to stop us from trying to be together. Maybe we’re the exception, you know? Maybe we’re the miracle, you and me.”

  “You and me, huh?”

  Blinking her teary eyes, she nods. “Yes. Be my miracle, Dean. And let me be yours. Please?”

  Nothing matters when Fallon is looking at me with wide, almost silver eyes. When I’m breathing the same air as her. When all I want to do is cover her with my body and protect her from everything bad out there, even her own mind.

  It doesn’t matter how many ways this can go wrong and how different we are from each other. I’m too old for her and her dad will probably never agree to us being together.

  None of it matters because my love for her is stronger, unstoppable. I’ve tried purging it, but that hasn’t worked.

  Perhaps, I should try embracing it and see where it goes. Maybe I should try to be her miracle and let her be mine. Because the alternative—a life without her—hasn’t worked me.

  “Dean?”

  Swallowing, I whisper, “I love you,” before I cover her mouth with mine.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Fallon

  Is this real?

  Is this really happening? Is Dean really kissing me?

  Oh God, please let this be real.

  His mouth is warm and wet. And thorough. I feel it everywhere. In each and every part of my body. In my toes, even.

  I’ve been kissed before. Brad, my high school boyfriend, kissed me a few times but that was nothing compared to this. This epic consuming of my mouth by another human being. It’s like his kiss is my entire world.

  If Dean stops kissing me, I’ll die. I’ll burn.

  It’s like he told me. Love is a burn. It’s an explosion and with his mouth, his tongue, his teeth, his taste—citrusy and masculine—the way he’s holding me, all tight and almost aggressively, he’s showing me that.

  I kiss him back with all the pent-up emotions of the past two years. I’ve been dreaming about this ever since he left me at the airport and said goodbye. I’ve pictured his lips over mine countless times.

  But I didn’t imagine this. I didn’t even know how to imagine this.

  His grip in my hair, my breasts flattened against his wildly breathing chest. His mouth slammin
g into mine as he groans like he’s dying. His hot skin, soft hair and rough mouth.

  When we break apart for air, my hands are tugging at the shirt at his shoulder and one of my legs is wrapped around his hips.

  “I—I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time,” I admit to his glistening lips.

  “Not as long as I have,” he says.

  I creep my hand up and tug at his hair. “I should be mad at you.”

  He swallows. “Yeah.”

  “I can’t believe you scared away my date, Dean. And then, you just . . . left.”

  I should be angrier about this. Him threatening away my boyfriend—though, later I realized I didn’t love him anyway—and up and leaving for California a month later. Not to mention, the things he said to me last night when I told him I loved him. But weirdly, anger is the last thing on my mind.

  “I hated myself for doing what I did. I still do.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “For threatening a perfectly nice guy?”

  He squeezes my waist, making me feel the sculpted slabs of his body. “For loving you a little too much.”

  I bite my lip to hide my smile. I can’t stay mad at him for saying these things to me and looking so tortured about it. Maybe I’m a sucker, but, whatever.

  I reach up and kiss the side of his pulsing jaw—something I’ve been dying to do ever since I saw him standing across from my dorm room four days ago. “How are you gonna make it up to me?”

  He narrows his warm brown eyes at me. “What do you mean?”

  My thigh clenches around his hip as I arch my back against him. “You ruined my prom, Dean. No fair.”

  “What did you want to do at your prom?”

  “Dance, for one thing.”

  “I can put on some music.”

  I shake my head and kiss his jaw again. The bristles of his five-o-clock shadow taste so delicious on my tongue. “I was gonna lose my virginity, too.”

  “I’m glad I ruined it, then,” he says with gritted teeth.

  Smiling, I trace his harsh cheekbones and angled jaw with my hand. “Me too. Because I want you to take it.” He goes to protest, if grabbing a fistful of my butt through my shorts is anything to go by, but I put a finger on his lips. “I know what your answer’s gonna be. Because you think you know everything and I’m this innocent flower who has no idea what’s going on in the world. But I do know things, Dean. I do know what I want, and I want you. I’ve been waiting for you forever. In fact, if you hadn’t gone away, we’d be together right now. Instead of scaring away my date like an idiot, if you’d said something, we would’ve done it ages ago. So, it’s only fair you make it up to me now.”

  Dean takes my hand off his mouth. “We wouldn’t have done it ages ago. You weren’t legal ages ago.”

  I wave my hand. “Minor detail. The point is . . .”

  “What’s the point?”

  “The point is I love you, Dean. And you love me, and we’ve wasted enough time already. So, are you gonna give me my prom or not?”

  “Fallon —”

  “Besides I’ve heard it hurts, losing your virginity. And I know if you take it, it won’t hurt.”

  I’ve never seen him look harsher than this. The room is flooded with light but strangely, Dean appears all dark and made of shadows. His eyes have turned black and his high, king-like cheekbones have a flush to them.

  He’s hard and barely breathing as he looks down at me. “And why’s that?”

  Maybe it’s the way we’re standing—my leg draped over his hip and our lower bodies intimately flushed together—but I feel his other hardness too. His dick at the juncture of my thighs.

  “Because you’ll take care of me.”

  “Is that right?”

  I move against him, against it. “Yup. Because you always do.”

  He watches me for a few beats before looking up at the ceiling and shaking his head. Then, he grabs hold of my waist and halts my movements.

  Pinning me with his eyes once again, he growls, “Stop tempting me, Tiny.”

  “I will, if you agree.”

  “I’ll burn in hell for this.”

  I cock my head to the side and smirk, “I thought you were already burning. Exploding.”

  “Fallon,” he warns.

  His reluctance is weak, weaker than his desire to claim me; I can see it in his eyes. And it makes me bolder, shameless. “I’m burning too, Dean. I swear. It hurts, you know. I’ve been hurting ever since you went away and every night, I dream of you coming back and kissing me. Touching me where I hurt. In my—” I lower my voice and whisper the word I’ve only thought about in the dead of night “—p-pussy.”

  I don’t even have time to catch my breath after that. Dean hauls me up, causing both my thighs to clench around his hips and he claims my mouth in a kiss. And then, we’re moving. He’s taking me somewhere, but I don’t care about that. As earlier, his kiss becomes my entire world.

  Until that world tilts on its axis and I’m lying flat on my back. I feel the softness of the mattress and the ceiling fills my vision, as Dean kneels before me, settling himself between my spread thighs.

  From my position, Dean looks huge, larger than the sky. I should feel vulnerable or maybe even, shy. We’re getting ready to have sex, aren’t we? But I don’t. Not even when he makes quick work of our clothes, and we’re both naked in about three seconds.

  I’m more interested in watching him. His broad, corded muscles. Grooves and dips of his body. Light scattering of dark hair on his chest.

  Dean’s eyes are scorching as he takes in my small body, and I writhe on the bed, willing him to do something . . . anything.

  “Do you hurt, Tiny?” he whispers, his fingers trailing from the top of my chest, through the valley of my breasts to my trembling stomach.

  “Yes.”

  “Where? Show me.”

  A flush overcomes me, but I’m determined to not let it deter me. I’ve waited long enough for this moment.

  My hand shivers as I reach down and touch my most intimate part, making my hips jerk. It’s not that I haven’t touched myself. It’s just I haven’t done it in front of someone.

  I touch my slick core. Gosh, it’s so slick, so swollen. My fingers slip over the wetness. Under his intense stare, my pussy gushes. Again, I should feel shy but I don’t. In fact, I can’t stop touching myself. I can’t stop watching for his reactions, either.

  His chest is heaving. The muscles of his thighs and his stomach are flexing. Not to mention, his dick. His dick is throbbing. I’ve been avoiding looking at it because I don’t wanna be afraid. On my stomach, through the layers of our clothes, his cock felt enormous. But I can’t stop staring at it now.

  It is enormous and dark, and the more I touch my pussy, the more I think it’s never gonna fit. But then again, doesn’t every girl think that? I mean, hello? It always fits.

  A second later, I can’t think about anything but Dean. Because growling, he falls onto me. Onto my pussy. His warm mouth envelops my entire core and even my fingers.

  “Dean . . .” I moan, my hips going crazy, my legs shaking with sensations.

  Dean splays his palms on my thighs and keeps them spread open. He sucks on my fingers, drinking down all my juices before focusing on my pussy. My hands go to his shoulders as I try to hold on against the waves of lust that rack my entire frame.

  I’ve never felt this way, like, ever. This unmoored and this overcome. The pulses of lust fire from somewhere deep inside my stomach in all directions, making my heart race, making my toes curl.

  But apparently, that’s not enough. Dean lets go of my pussy and kisses and nips my thighs, my stomach. He keeps stimulating my clit with his fingers as he crawls up my body, sucking the flesh along the way. His mouth closes over my nipple and I lose it.

  Arching my back and screwing my eyes shut, I scream out his name and come.

  I come and come like never before, and it feels like it won�
��t stop. My body won’t stop coming or jerking or twisting. I won’t ever stop feeling the rush of my orgasm.

  My eyes fall open to find Dean hovering over my body. His hair’s a mess and his lips are shiny with my juices. I’m so replete I don’t have it in me to even blush.

  “You know what you taste like, Tiny?” he whispers, settling himself between my legs.

  The head of his dick touches my fluttering pussy and I dig my nails in his biceps. “What?”

  Smirking, he tells me, “Horny.”

  “Shut up,” I mutter.

  “You were horny for me, weren’t you, Tiny?”

  “N—No.”

  He kisses me. “You were.” He nudges my opening with his big cock, stretching me out slightly. “You are.”

  Without my volition, my back bows and he slides in a little deeper. We both hiss. There’s a weird pressure in my pelvis. It makes me want him more even though I know it’s gonna hurt.

  “You are, too,” I whisper.

  He licks his lips, staying still inside me. “Yeah, I am.”

  I rub his shoulders with my palm, feeling his hot skin. “You’re burning up.”

  “That too.”

  I open my mouth to say something but can’t because I feel Dean playing with my clit once again. He bends down and sucks on the side of my neck, just under my ear. Who knew that was my sweet spot? I throw my head back and moan loudly, my legs going up and cinching around his waist.

  He growls into my skin when my pussy flutters over the head of his dick. I can feel it shivering, juicing up.

  I realize he’s making it easier for me to accept him inside my body. The realization makes me fall in love with him even more.

  “Y—you’re taking care of me,” I whisper, rubbing my cheek in his hair, feeling his thumb on my clit, his teeth on my neck.

  Dean looks up, his eyes intense and full of what I feel for him in every corner of my heart. Love. “Always.”

  “I love you, Dean.”

  “I love you too, Fallon.”

  He kisses me then, and I lose all my words. I lose myself. In him, in his mouth, in his body that’s moving in a slow, smooth rhythm inside me. I don’t feel pressure or pain when he thrusts deep, taking away my virginity in one stroke.