Faded (Faded Duet Book 1)

by Julie Johnson

  His eyes drag up to mine, molten with heat.

  “We have this one night,” I tell him, reaching out and sliding my fingers into the buckle of his belt. My hands no longer tremble as I tug the leather from its loops. “We better make it count.”

  His pants hit the floor the same second his mouth hits mine.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ryder

  I’ve been dreaming about her for so long it’s hard to believe I finally have her in my hands.

  I don’t bother with gentle, don’t waste time on chaste. Our hours are numbered; there’s no time to move slowly. I can already feel her slipping away with each passing second. I clutch her tighter to compensate, my fingers digging into her skin like a brand. My control has officially expired.

  My lips crush hers — carnal, almost brutal. I ignore the stinging pain from Linc’s punches as my tongue spears into her mouth. She moans as she returns the kiss, her hands clutching at my bare shoulders. She feels it too: the urgency pulsing in the air between us, hot and swift as a wildfire.

  Consuming us both.

  We make it to her bed, a blur of lips and limbs. I come down on top of her, skin against skin, and worship every part of her body I can reach. My tongue traces the fine veins in her slender neck as my hands slide between her legs. She practically convulses when I touch her for the first time, her eyes wide with wonder and desire as I slide two fingers inside her. I keep our gazes locked as I work her with my hands, trying to go slow. Trying to make her first time last. It’s damn near impossible. She’s so responsive to my touch, so unhesitant in her reactions. My heart is racing like a fucking snare drum.

  She grinds against my palm, slowly spinning out of control as the pleasure mounts to a breaking point. I see oblivion in her eyes, hear the catch in her breath, feel the quickening of her pulse.

  She’s close.

  “Come for me, sweetheart.” My mouth claims hers as I move my fingers expertly. “I want to watch you break.”

  And she does — into a million pieces, a firework exploding in my hands, crying out my name like a curse and a prayer. My mouth finds hers as she finds release, and I kiss her until I’ve wrung every ounce of pleasure from her system. It takes a long time for the aftershocks to subside, for her limbs to go slack against her pale blue sheets.

  “Wow,” she breathes up at me. Her eyes are so wide, I could fall in and drown. “I never thought it could feel like that…”

  Sliding down her body, my hands wrap around her hips as I lean down to kiss her stomach, my tongue skimming teasing circles around her navel. She inhales sharply as her hands slide into my hair.

  “You’ve never had an orgasm before?” I whisper, tilting my chin up so I can see her better. She’s luminous, sprawled out beneath me. Her small breasts heave with the force of each breath as moonlight streams on her skin. “Even by yourself?”

  I watch her head shake, confirming my guess.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” I grin. “We’ve got serious work to do.”

  “What do you mean—”

  Her question cuts off sharply as I grab her hips and hoist her legs up over my shoulders. My mouth hits her core and she lets out a needy cry, her hands fisting in the sheets on either side of my head.

  “Oh my god.” She starts to writhe as I devour her, my hands holding her hips steady. “Oh. My. God. Ryder!”

  I grin against her clit.

  Yes, sweetheart.

  Tonight, I’m your god.

  The second orgasm hits her so fast, so hard, I’m unprepared. Her thighs clench as the waves of pleasure crash relentlessly through her body. While she regains her breath, I grab the condom from the wallet in my jeans. I feel her eyes on me, watching as I pinch the head and roll it onto my throbbing cock. She’s barely touched me and I’m harder than I’ve ever been in my life. Just the feeling of her eyes on me makes my balls tighten.

  I need to be inside her.

  Now.

  There’s a flicker of fear beneath the residual lust in Felicity’s eyes as she takes in my sheer size, but she reaches for me anyway.

  “Christ,” I groan, watching as her fingertips trail an achingly slow path down my abs. My dick is pulsing, so hard and heavy with need it’s almost painful.

  “Tell me you’re sure,” I whisper, one final plea before I lose it completely.

  She sits up on the bed, bringing her eyes to mine as her hands find my hips. Her mouth is parted, her cheeks are rosy with lust.

  “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life.”

  With a growl, I push her back to the bed, spread her legs as wide as they’ll go, and drive into her, sheathing myself to the hilt. She cries out sharply and I instantly go still, not wanting to hurt her.

  “You okay?” I grit out between clenched teeth. She feels so fucking good, it’s taking every ounce of my self-control not to jack-hammer like a fucking fifteen year old.

  “I’m okay,” she breathes, looking up into my eyes with total trust. Her legs wind around my hips as her body adjusts to me. I sink deeper with a groan, pleasure spiking so intensely I nearly lose control.

  “God, Felicity.”

  My voice is ragged. She cranes her neck to kiss me as her hands clutch me closer. That’s all the incentive I need. I start to move, slowly at first, then faster as she begins to rock against me, matching my rhythm thrust for thrust. She’s so wet, so tight, I can barely see straight. She’s…

  Mine.

  All mine.

  Every fucking inch of her.

  This moment, buried inside her… our bodies in total sync, our heartbeats harmonizing in a perfect melody…

  It’s the best damn music I’ve ever made.

  Chapter Eighteen

  felicity

  “Felicity.”

  I turn my face to look at him. We’re lying in the dark, holding each other close. Both pretending that dawn isn’t creeping closer with each passing moment. Both in denial that a few brief hours from now…

  He’ll be gone.

  He runs his fingers through the loose tendrils of hair framing my face, fanning across the pillow in a dark wave. His expression is indecipherable.

  “What is it?” I ask softly, my words barely above a whisper.

  “Ask me to stay.”

  I jolt. Of all the things I expected him to say, that wasn’t even close to the top of the list. Heck, it was the last measly line, penciled in halfheartedly at the bottom. And yet… my answer is there instantly, poised on the tip of my tongue.

  Stay with me.

  Stay.

  Stay.

  Stay.

  But I know that’s not the answer I can give him, however much I’d like to. I haul in a deep breath and try to compose myself before I respond.

  “I can’t do that,” I murmur.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I l—” I swallow down the word I want to say, the word I should say, because that word that scares me worse than anything else in the world. That word means surrender. It means relinquishing all boundaries. Giving yourself over completely to someone else and trusting they won’t destroy you.

  I’ve seen firsthand what that word can do when placed in the wrong hands.

  I banish it to the back of my mind, pull in a breath, and restart. “Because I care about you too much to see you give up on something you’ve wanted forever. You’d always regret it if you didn’t at least try.”

  And eventually… maybe not right away, but eventually… you’d resent me for convincing you not to go.

  The thought nearly breaks me. As hard as it is to imagine him leaving in a few hours, we both know it’s the right choice for him. The only choice. Cuddled close to his chest, listening to the sound of his heartbeat, I ignore tomorrow and focus on the present.

  This. Us. Now.

  There’s nothing else.

  My eyelids are growing heavy and I’m half-asleep when he shocks me with one more question.

  “Felicity?”

 
; “Mmm?”

  “Come with me.”

  My eyes spring wide. My neck cranes back so I can see him properly. If his first suggestion was scribbled at the very bottom of the list of possibilities, this one isn’t on the list at all. It’s so far off the list, at first I think I’ve misheard him. And yet… my response is ready on my lips in the span of a heartbeat.

  Yes, I’ll follow you anywhere.

  Yes.

  Yes.

  Yes.

  But I know that answer would be just as bad as the first. Maybe worse. So, instead, I lean in and press a soft kiss against his mouth to temper the blow as I reply.

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “LA isn’t for me.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then how do you know you’d hate it?”

  The parties, the drugs, the traffic, the vapid materialism…

  I swallow down my list of insults regarding his soon-to-be home and shrug lightly. “I’m an introvert.”

  “So? Why should that matter?”

  “Spoken like a true extrovert.”

  He snorts. “Felicity, be serious.”

  “I am being serious! I don’t drink, I never party. I don’t even own a cellphone. I like reading books and writing in the park. My dream day involves a swim at the lake, a pretty sunset, a guitar, and a warm bonfire sparking up toward a sky full of stars.” My voice goes soft. “Does any part of that picture bring LA to mind?”

  “Not exactly.” His lips twist. “But tell me, in this dream…”

  I arch my brows.

  “Are you alone? Or is someone sitting at your side by that fire, playing that guitar on the side of that lake?”

  “Um… maybe there’s someone with me.”

  Maybe that someone is you.

  “We could make new dreams,” he murmurs, his eyes almost pleading. “Start fresh. A whole city to explore. Think about it.”

  “Ryder… I can’t leave. I just got here. I’m finally settling in, finally building a life.” His mouth opens to object, but I barrel on. “And I know you’re going to say I could do that anywhere… but I don’t want to do it anywhere else. I like Nashville. I like being able to visit my grandmother on my days off. I like working at this bar. I like hearing music in every shop and restaurant. I like the rowdy tourists and the honky tonks and the bright neon lights.”

  “I get that. I do, but—”

  “No.” My voice gets quiet. “I feel safe here. And for me, a girl who spent pretty much her whole childhood never feeling safe… that’s huge. It’s everything.” I smile, even though I want to cry. “But you… you’ve been safe your whole life. That’s why you’re so desperate to get out of this town. For the first time, you’re choosing a path that isn’t safe, one that’s scary and unsettled and full of adventure. And I’m so, so incredibly—” Heartbroken. “—happy for you.”

  A deep sigh rattles his chest. “Opposites attract, I suppose.”

  “So they say.”

  “I— I don’t want this to be goodbye.” His mouth hits my hair, breathing me in. “I don’t want to walk away from you when the sun rises, not knowing if I’ll ever see you again.”

  “I know. Me neither.” A few rebellious tears trickle from the corner of my eye, despite my best intentions to keep them at bay. “But you and me… we suffer from a case of bad timing.”

  “Ships passing in the night?”

  “Star-crossed lovers.”

  “Scorpius and Orion,” he mutters darkly.

  My brows lift. “Who?”

  “The constellations.” He pauses. “Orion only comes out in the winter; Scorpius can only be seen in the summer. They never appear at the same time, because they’re constantly in different hemispheres. Two opposites, forever chasing each other across the cosmos.”

  My tears drip faster against the skin of his chest.

  His mouth drops to my ear, rasping deeply.

  “Don’t worry, Felicity. For you, I’d move the stars.”

  Despite my determination not to fall asleep and waste even a minute of our time together, at some point I must drift off because I wake to Ryder’s lips on mine, kissing me awake. My eyes slide open to look at him and I feel the smile fall off my lips.

  “You’re dressed,” I whisper, scanning him up and down. He’s fully clothed, sitting beside me on the bed stroking his fingers through my hair. His bruises are worse in the light of day, but at least some of the swelling has gone down.

  “I have to go.”

  “Already?”

  “My plane leaves in less than two hours,” he says, voice aching with regret. “If I don’t go now, I’ll miss it. If I don’t go now…”

  He’ll never go.

  “I can’t believe I fell asleep!” I bolt upright, scrambling for my clothes. I yank my sleep shirt over my head and try to locate a pair of jeans. “Give me two minutes to get dressed. I’ll come with you to the airport, we can say goodbye at security—”

  “Felicity.” His hands lock on my shoulders, stilling me. “Stop, sweetheart.”

  I try to be brave, but it’s useless. I can feel the tears gathering in my eyes even before they lift to meet his. “You don’t want me to come?”

  “If you do, I’ll never get on the damn plane.”

  “But—”

  He doesn’t wait for me to get the words out. His mouth comes down on mine and he lets the kiss speak for him. His lips say all the things we never got the chance to, all the things we might’ve shared if we’d only had better timing or better circumstances. I taste goodbye on his tongue, bittersweet. I try to memorize his smell — smoke and spice. The way his beard feels when it scrapes my skin. How his eyes look in the faint morning light, mismatched and mesmerizing. I lose hold of my composure as he pulls back. When the tears begin to roll out, he cups my cheeks and kisses them away.

  “I wish…” he murmurs, eyes scanning my face.

  …I could stay.

  …You would come.

  …We had more time.

  “I know. Me too.” I brush my mouth against his one last time. “Now, go. Get out of here, before you miss your plane.”

  He takes a step away from me, hesitating a beat before his hands fall to his sides. I try to pull myself together as we walk to the door. I don’t want the last image he has of me to be a sad one — red-faced and tear-stained. The smile on my lips is wobbly, but it’s there.

  I open the door and we step out onto the landing. The pale morning sunshine streams down all around us. I crane my neck up so our eyes meet.

  “You’re going to kick some serious ass out there in LA, Ryder Woods.”

  “Thanks, Felicity—” His brows pull together. “You know, I don’t even know your last name.”

  Acting on autopilot, I start to give him the fake one I’ve been using, but I can’t bring myself to lie to him.

  “It’s Wilde,” I tell him, offering my hand like we’re two strangers meeting for the first time.

  “Felicity Wilde?” His palm engulfs mine as a smirk plays at his lips. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious.”

  “You realize your name literally means happy-crazy?”

  “Well, now I do.”

  His eyes narrow. “You sure you’re not giving me something fake, so I can’t track you down?”

  “I swear,” I say, choking down a laugh. If only he knew…

  “Felicity Wilde,” he murmurs, shaking his head like it’s the most amusing thing he’s ever heard.

  “Uh huh. Don’t forget it when you’re a famous rockstar.”

  God, I wish my voice didn’t break.

  The amusement fades from his gaze. “Not a chance in hell I’ll ever forget you.”

  My eyes are starting to well up again, so I jerk my head toward the stairs. “Go. You’re going to miss your plane. I mean it.”

  A deep sigh moves through him. With regret etched on his feature
s, he makes his way down my stairs. Pausing at the bottom, he casts one final look up at me. There’s nothing he can say. No promises he can make. No vows he can take. Just one thing left to say.

  “Goodbye, Felicity.”

  My throat seizes up as I watch him walk out of my life. I wait until he’s around the corner, out of view, before I exhale the ragged sob I’ve been keeping inside my throat.

  Goodbye, lover.

  I spend the rest of the morning curled into a ball on my bed, hugging a pillow that still smells like him tight against my chest, watching the seconds tick by in slow circles on my silver watch face. Unmoving, I count down the hours until noon. Until I know, with absolute certainty, that he’s on that plane. Out of my life.

  Gone.

  Three tiny drops of blood on my pale blue sheets are the only evidence in existence that, for a single night, Ryder Woods was mine and I was his. Well… in addition to the dull ache between my thighs and the faint hickey mark on my neck. With time they’ll fade, and everything will go back to the way it was before I met him.

  But nothing, nothing, will ever be the same now that he’s gone.

  Eventually, I force myself to stop moping — more out of necessity than actual desire. I shower and dress for my shift at The Nightingale, sliding into my crop top and booty shorts with a grimace. No matter how many times I wear this outfit, it never seems to improve.

  It’s a busy night at the bar. I’m so occupied filling orders, I barely have a chance to talk to Carly at all. She’s equally busy handling the stage, ushering different acts on and off with a tenacity I admire. I don’t let myself think about Ryder or what he’s doing, because I’m nearly positive crying into people’s cocktails would have a detrimental effect on my tips. I paste a smile on my face and put a bounce in my step as I flit through my section, grabbing empty glasses and refilling baskets of bar peanuts.

  It’s almost closing time when Adam walks up to me, a pissy expression on his face.

  “There’s a phone call for you.”

  My heart leaps at the news. I feel a grin tugging at my lips. “Really?”