by Jamie Shaw
Adam lets it fall from his mouth before I can. His lips crush against mine and his fingers scrape against the back of my scalp to lock me in place. My hands fist in his shirt, and he steps tight between my knees, tugging me forward on the stool until he’s fitted against my heat. I whimper against his mouth, and he breaks his lips from mine to press his lips against my ear.
“Here or the bus?” he purrs.
Last time he kissed me like that and asked me to go to the bus, I told him I just wanted to be friends. This time, I say, “Bus.”
Adam is lifting me off the stool a second later. He takes my hand and whispers something in Shawn’s ear on our way out, giving clipped responses to every fan who tries to spark up a conversation along the way.
“What did you say to Shawn?” I ask when we emerge outside, on the same stoop Adam comforted me on the night we first met.
He wraps his arm around my shoulder to ward off the cold while we practically sprint toward the bus. “I told him the bus is off limits to anyone without a death wish.”
“You did not!” I gasp, and Adam laughs at me. He unlocks the door to the bus and opens it for me, and then he steps on behind me and immediately tugs me back against him, his hands splayed along the front of my hips. “Do you know what I wanted to do inside?” he asks.
“Hm?”
His fingertips glide under my top again, snaking up my stomach and over my bra. He clutches me possessively, his hands squeezing and kneading until my head falls back against his chest. His lips feast on the curve of my neck a moment later, and I wrap my arms behind his neck, drunk with desire for the man who put my heart back together and finally has his hands on me.
“Fuck,” Adam breathes when I grind my ass against him. He reaches down to hold me still, and I know he’s holding back. He said he was afraid of pushing me too far, so I take the lead, threading my fingers with his and tugging him away from the door. I don’t stop until we’re in the black-satin bedroom.
“Peach,” Adam says from the doorway, his voice cracking with restraint.
I turn around and flatten my hands against his chest, staring up into the same eyes I fell in love with in a line outside of Mayhem. “Ten.”
His brow dips with confusion, and I continue staring up at him. The first time he brought me to this room, he asked me to count backward from ten to prove I was still sober enough to not be taken advantage of. I need him to know that I know exactly what I’m doing and I’m doing exactly what I want. “Nine.”
Recognition begins to dawn across his features, and I continue counting. “Eight.”
The sexiest smile tugs at his lips, and he takes a step forward. I take a step back.
“Seven,” I say with my knees pressed against the edge of the bed, and he begins crawling over top of me. The restraint in his expression is gone, replaced by a predatory smile that makes my heart patter against the wall of my chest while I inch farther onto the bed.
“Six,” I say, and Adam’s hands push my top up until he’s sliding it over my head and tossing it over his shoulder. He drops his lips to my neck, and my breaths quicken.
“Five,” I breathe, reaching behind my back and unclasping my bra.
Adam’s fingertips graze softly over my shoulders as he pushes the straps down. He drops the bra to the floor, and I say, “Four.”
He kisses an invisible line between my breasts and down my stomach, and then he slips off my shoes, planting a soft kiss against my ankle before grasping the waistbands of my skirt, leggings, and panties. He pulls them down in one slow motion and sits on his knees to rake his eyes over every inch of me. His tongue traces the seam of his lips, and I moisten between my legs.
“Three,” I say, bringing him back to the moment.
He takes off his shirt, and I quickly say, “Two.”
Adam crawls back over top of me, his hair tickling my cheeks until his lips are a breath away. I trace a fingertip over the Magic 8 Ball tattoo inked on his pectoral before sliding my fingers over his sides, relishing in the freedom to finally touch him wherever and however I want.
“What are you waiting for, Peach?” Adam asks, and I never get to one. I kiss him fiercely, and he moans against my mouth. His hips rock against me, and I moan right back. His fingers thread into my hair, his elbows weigh into the pillow under my head, and he kisses me until I can’t think straight. I’m writhing beneath him, needing so much more of him than he’s giving me.
I reach between us to unbutton his jeans and then I push them as low as I can manage. My thumbs hook into his boxers, but then Adam pulls out of my reach. He rests his forehead against my chest, breathing heavily. “Peach, we don’t have to go all the way right now. I swear to God I just wanted to kiss you.”
I comb my fingers through his hair, knowing he doesn’t want to push me. But this feels right, so right, and I need him to understand how ready I am.
“I wouldn’t have regretted it,” I say, and his beautiful eyes gaze up at me from beneath thick, dark lashes. “Last night . . . you told me I’d regret it, but I wouldn’t have . . .” I swallow the lump in my throat, distracting myself by brushing his soft hair away from his forehead with my fingertips. My gaze finds his again, and I muster the courage to say, “I want it to be you, Adam . . . I’m yours if you want me.”
When he kisses me this time, it’s different. It’s slow and soft, but it makes me just as dizzy. He finishes taking his jeans and boxers off, and then he pulls a condom from his wallet and rolls it on. When his tip presses firmly against me, I suck his tongue into my mouth to draw him in. A moan rumbles low in his chest, but then he wrestles control away from me, nipping at my tongue and lips until I’m soaking wet with want for him.
“Peach,” he says, and I open my lust-filled eyes to stare up at him. “Ask me why I want you.”
He wanted me to ask him this last night, but I was too scared. I’m still scared—I’m freaking terrified—but I trust him. He said he wouldn’t hurt me, and I know he won’t. “Why do you want me, Adam?”
With one hand holding himself up and the other tenderly brushing his thumb beneath my ear, he stares down at me and answers, “Because I love you.”
His lips follow his words, kissing me hungrily as his hips press forward. A sharp sting breaks between my legs, and I gasp against his mouth and dig my fingers into his shoulders. Adam pauses, pulls back, and then kisses me so insistently that all I can feel is his lips bruising mine. The pain between my legs ebbs, replaced by the overwhelming crush of his lips, and he rocks back into me, a little farther this time while my fingers scratch between his shoulders. He continues easing in and out of me until he’s buried all the way inside and I’m able to loosen my hold on him.
“Are you okay?” he pants, but I’m still lost in the three words he said before he broke the last barrier between us.
“You love me?” I ask, happy tears welling in my eyes.
The concern on Adam’s face is replaced with a warm smile. “More than anything.”
He kisses me until the entire room is swirling with heat, and then he resumes rocking, the sting inside me gradually overwhelmed by sensations that leave me whimpering sounds of pleasure into the shell of Adam’s ear. His soft lips explore every inch of my body—my mouth, my chin, my neck, my breasts—until the flood inside me starts welling again, threatening to burst all around him.
I hold him so tightly that I’m surprised he can even move, but his hips are relentless. Our hearts pound against each other and sweat beads across our skin, and Adam thrusts into me over and over again, nibbling at my ear as I plummet over the edge. I call out his name as I fall, and the sexiest sound of surrender rumbles in his chest as he follows me over. His body grows heavier against me with each thrust, and I hold him tight against me, my pulsing matching his throbbing while I struggle to catch my breath.
When Adam lifts onto his elbows to stare dow
n at me, I’m barely holding back tears. I thought I had loved Brady, but that was the love of a girl who barely knew herself. She didn’t know what she wanted out of life, and she didn’t know what she was capable of. My love for Brady was born of sacrifice—sacrificing my own goals for his, my own needs for his, my own self for him. With Adam, we’re both willing to give each other everything.
“Ask me why I want you, Adam,” I say, and he stares down at me with so much love in his eyes that I almost tell him right then.
“Why do you want me?” he asks, and a thousand reasons come to mind. I want him because of his eyes and his smile and his laugh and his heart. I want him because of his dreams and his goals and his sense of humor and his light. I want him because he made me promises even though he never makes promises, because of the way he looks at me like he looks at no one else. I want him because of the way I feel when I’m with him and the way I feel when I’m not. But all of those are really just one reason waiting to be said, and I’m not afraid to say it anymore, because I know he wants to hear it.
With Adam in my arms and in my heart, I finally say the words I’m no longer afraid to admit to him or myself or anyone.
“Because I love you.”
Epilogue: Adam
WHEN MY ALARM goes off that morning, two months after making things official with Peach, I ignore it, wrapping my arms tight around her so that she’s snug inside the curve of my body. I bury my face in her long blonde hair and breathe in her strawberry shampoo, hoping that if I just ignore the alarm, she will too.
“Adam,” she groans, her voice heavy with sleep.
I hug her tighter and squeeze my face into the space between her neck and pillow. The alarm keeps screaming.
“Adammm.”
When I continue ignoring her, a smirk already sneaking onto my face because I know what’s coming next, Peach grunts and starts rolling over. She rolls me onto my back as she reaches across me for the alarm. She can’t reach it—she never can, because I’m a brilliant strategist encouraged by positive reinforcement—so she crawls over top of me to hit the OFF button, and then she collapses on my chest, her face smothered in my pillow.
Seeing my opportunity, I brush her hair away from her neck and kiss her there—softly, knowing it drives her crazy. I’m rewarded with an involuntary squirm that makes me harden between us, and my fingers dip beneath her soft cotton top. I trace feather-light lines up her back until her skin goose bumps under my fingertips, loving how her body responds to me.
When her lips find mine, I’m the one who moans, which might embarrass the hell out of me if I wasn’t so busy concentrating on trying to keep my hands from literally tearing her thin top and adorable bunny shorts off her tiny little body. I don’t know how she does this to me, but she always does—makes me fucking crazy to be as close to her as possible. No one—no one—has ever made me feel so desperate. I’d probably hate it if I didn’t love her so damn much.
Three and a half seconds later, I’ve had more than I can take. I flip her over, and she lets me. I drop my lips to her neck, finding the spot that makes her moan even louder than I did, restoring some of my dignity. My fingers graze under her top, and her back arches when I trace my tongue across her collarbone, making her skin flush my favorite shade of pink. Her hands curl between my bare shoulder blades, scratching at my skin and threatening to steal what’s left of my self-control. If I don’t get inside her soon, I’m pretty sure those bunny shorts are done for.
“Adam,” she moans, and it completely does me in. My name on her lips, sounding like that . . . Yeah, I’m not a damn saint, and she knows that as well as anyone. Her bunny shorts are tossed on the floor a second later, and then I show her why that obnoxious alarm is the best fucking device mankind ever invented.
Afterward, she’s breathing deeply, sound asleep in my arms, and I’m remembering the first time I ever held her like this. That first time I held her in my arms as she drifted to sleep—the night I nearly broke my fist on her asshole ex-boyfriend’s face—I was fucking terrified. I held her to make her feel better, but once I had her in my arms, I couldn’t let go. All night, I had the opportunity to roll away from her—and I knew I should—but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I squeezed her tighter, scared shitless about the feelings I was having, and about fucking it up and losing her. I’m not sure if that’s the night I fell in love with her, but it’s the night I started realizing I’d do anything to keep her.
“SHIT!” Peach suddenly yells, jerking out of my arms and launching herself out of bed. “THE ALARM, ADAM!”
“Yeah?” I say, shifting until I’m sunken deep in the warm center of the mattress.
“I promised Dee I’d meet her at IHOP! Why didn’t you—”
When I start chuckling, she glares at me. It’s not my damn fault she’s so irresistible, and she should know better than to trust me to share her with anyone else—even her best friend—when I’d rather keep her for myself.
She growls at me, reading my thoughts, and then she stomps over and whacks me with a pillow. When I grab her wrist and yank her back onto the bed, she squeals and frantically scrambles to get away. I wrestle her beneath me, giving her a smirk she can never resist. My hair is hanging down over her face, and she’s pretending not to want me. Even though she just had me less than half an hour ago, she’s not doing a very good job.
When I wink at her, she giggles, and I plant a quick kiss on her nose before letting her back up. Peach wouldn’t mind if I kept her here another few hours, but Dee . . . that girl is another story, and I know better than to get on her bad side. A few days after Peach and I became official, I accidentally brought up the night she and I met at Mayhem. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to mention it in front of Dee because I had no idea Peach had been keeping what happened between us that night a secret from her. The girl had a meltdown that I’m surprised didn’t take out the entire East Coast. Peach spent days texting her and calling her. She even tried prying intel out of Joel, who was the only one of us Dee would still bother talking to, and considered forcing him to deliver flowers and chocolate until I warned her he’d probably take all the credit. Eventually, she had enough of Dee’s drama and asked me to drop her off at her dorms. Twenty-four hours later, it was like nothing had ever happened between them, and I knew better than to try to make sense of it.
When Peach bends over to grab a pair of jeans from a bottom drawer of our dresser, I enjoy the view, disappointed when she slips from the room for a shower. If I hadn’t already worn myself the hell out, I’d be tempted to try and join her. With other girls, sex was sex, but with Peach, each time is like . . . God, I don’t even know. It’s exhausting in a way that leaves a satisfied smile on my face and heavy weight in my bones. With her, I’m in it. I’m in every second of it, giving as much as I take because sex isn’t just sex with her. It’s so much more than that, and if I tried to describe it, I’m pretty sure the guys would have my balls in a jar.
The first time we almost went all the way . . . well, that entire night was just confusing as fuck. First, when I asked her why she wanted me and she clamped her mouth shut in the middle of a sentence that started with “Because I . . .” I thought she was going to tell me she loved me. My heart thundered in my chest, with as much fear as hope. I wanted to hear it, but looking back, I don’t know if I was ready—because when she refused to tell me, I started doubting. We both pretended like nothing happened, until I was wrapped in a rubber and pushing into her, and she told me she was a virgin and blew my fucking mind.
I still have no idea how or why that shithead ex of hers dated her for three fucking years and then lived with her and never once crossed that line, but I’m glad he didn’t.
When I found her sleeping on the bathroom floor, I felt like the biggest asshole in the entire world. I picked her up and brought her to my room, and it dawned on me with blinding clarity why I
wanted to kick my own ass for embarrassing her and why taking her virginity—something I had always avoided doing with other girls—was suddenly the only thing I could think about.
I loved her, and I wanted to tell her, but I was terrified of losing her if she didn’t feel the same way. So instead of just saying it, I told her to ask me why I wanted her. If she wanted to know, I’d tell her, but if she didn’t, I wouldn’t push it on her and mess things up. When she refused, I should have been hurt, but then she kissed me and fried every circuit in my brain. I went down on her because I just wanted to give her something, anything, and when she melted in my mouth, I savored every last bit of her.
She told me to get a condom, and my heart galloped like a prize-winning Clydesdale in my suddenly tight chest, but one look in her eyes told me she was still high off her orgasm and that I’d be taking advantage of her if I pushed her any further. I loved her too much to do that to her, even though I was pretty sure I’d be dead from blue balls by morning, so I rolled to her side and spooned her tight against me, holding her in my arms until she drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, when I woke up and she was gone, I panicked. I rushed from my bedroom to find Joel on the couch, and he told me Peach had left with Dee. I raked my fingers through my hair, asking over and over again if she said anything or if he knew anything. The guys wanted to know why I was freaking the fuck out, but what could I tell them? I pushed her too far and now she couldn’t even look at me? I sat on the floor in my room staring at my phone until I got the guts to text her. I asked why she snuck out, and a second later, the most confusing text I’ve ever read flashed onto my screen.
Sorry about last night. I know you don’t want a girlfriend. I didn’t mean to be one of those girls.
She was apologizing? To me? My brain couldn’t wrap around any of it, so I texted back, One of those girls?