Love Me Like I Love You

by Willow Winters

  Emotion suddenly reared inside me, filling me with alarm. It was so overwhelming, I couldn’t tell if I was about to laugh or cry. So, I did neither. I knelt at his feet and stared at him with wonder.

  Dear lord, he stole my breath. His face was glossy with sweat, and his heartbeat seemed to be pulsing in the side of his neck. He gazed at me with satisfaction, but also with a touch of embarrassment, like a student about to admit he hadn’t done his assignment.

  I was buzzing, and my warm voice reflected my dreamy state. “What is it?”

  His gaze shifted away. “That was over a lot sooner than I wanted it to be.”

  If anyone should have been embarrassed, it was me. I’d ruined our chances for anything else. “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I was enjoying myself and got carried away.”

  He laughed like what I’d said was amazing. He bent and grasped my arms, helped me to my feet, and then pulled me close. “I need fifteen minutes,” he said softly, “and I’ll be ready again.”

  “What?”

  The corner of his mouth lifted into a sultry smile, and his confidence returned faster than the snap of his fingers. “If you want to go down on me again,” he drawled, “I bet I could be ready in ten.”

  Erika

  I stared at the red bodysuit in a heap on the floor as the air conditioner kicked on. I was right under a vent, and when I shivered, Troy walked to my robe, picked it up, and held it out for me to put on.

  And when that was done, he gently grasped my face and kissed me, dropping a quick series of playful pecks before growing more serious. His tenderness was disorienting. He was young and supposed to be inexperienced, yet he knew exactly what I needed.

  His hand slid down my neck and inside the robe, cupping a breast, and heat began to pool inside my center. He thought he’d need ten minutes, but my body was ready whenever he was. I was dressed in my robe, but he made no effort to put on his clothes.

  “You’re still naked,” I whispered.

  He grinned lazily. “You noticed that, huh?”

  It should have felt uncomfortable and awkward . . . but it didn’t. It had to be him. He had no problem being alone with me in my house—which he’d never stepped foot inside before—and being here sans clothes, he acted like it was perfectly natural.

  Like he’d been here all along and I hadn’t noticed him until now.

  “Maybe,” he sandwiched between kisses, “we can go somewhere more comfortable? Not that the counter wasn’t fun.”

  I smiled. “Hey, that was all your idea.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t wait any longer.”

  His words caused flutters in my belly, and I tucked a lock of my hair behind an ear. “Well, I have a bedroom. It has a bed and everything.”

  He exaggerated his fascination. “You don’t say? This I gotta see.”

  Troy released me, scooped up his shorts and t-shirt, and followed me through the doorway out into the living room. I passed the couch, the fireplace, and was nearly to my bedroom door, before I realized he’d stopped.

  He stood with his gaze fixed on the wall, and my pulse quickened when he examined the pictures hanging there. It was a series of photos taken of me throughout my stalled career as a performer.

  There was one photo from twenty years ago, where I was sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar in my lap and a microphone in front of me. The background was blurry and indiscernible to anyone else, but I recognized it as the coffee shop I’d often performed at when I’d been a music major at Vanderbilt.

  I’d been in a band for a hot minute right after graduating, and there were pictures of us on stage during the Tennessee State Fair. Beside that, my debut at the Opry House.

  Last, and most important to me, was the framed artwork consisting of two sheets of paper lined with bars and musical notes.

  Troy gestured to it. “What’s this?”

  I fiddled with the belt to my robe, not wanting to give away how proud I was and risk sounding pompous. “It’s ‘Reckless.’ The first song I ever sold.”

  You mean the only song you ever sold.

  Troy’s brow furrowed as he read the lyrics, and his gaze traced over the notes. He’d said he was learning the piano, so it was likely he knew how to read music.

  “Have you heard it?” I asked.

  Without prompting, I sang the first line of the chorus, which was the most recognizable part. The song had been a modest hit for Alan Foles six years ago, but since then, we’d both faded into obscurity.

  Troy’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but I wasn’t sure if it was my abrupt singing—or if he recognized the song. He stared at me with unflinching eyes as I softly sang about secret love and being scared to tell the other person how I felt.

  The atmosphere in the room grew enormously intense in a single heartbeat. The lyrics and their meaning were so powerful, it forced me to trail off.

  Oh, Jesus.

  Was this how he felt about me all these years?

  “You make me want to be reckless,” he sang back, completing the line in his smoky voice and with perfect pitch, and my hands tensed into fists beneath the long sleeves of my robe. I had to clamp down and squeeze my throat shut to stop the gasp from escaping. Hearing him sing my lyrics was an emotional assault I was entirely unprepared for, and I blinked back the tears that stung my eyes.

  It was so beautiful and perfect, I worried I’d fall apart.

  And despite my effort to look unaffected, Troy could tell.

  His expression warmed and his voice softened to a hush. “I like that song,” he said. “I had no idea you wrote it. That’s awesome.”

  “Yeah, well,” I raised my eyes toward the ceiling to drain back the tears, forced a casual smile onto my lips, and shrugged. “Alan did a great job with it.”

  The sudden emotional turn in the conversation had put Troy off-balance because he dropped his clothes and pulled the throw blanket off the back of the couch, wrapping it around his waist and using a hand at his hip to hold it closed. I had the weird feeling that he hadn’t covered himself because he felt vulnerable. He’d done it to make me more comfortable.

  “What else have you written?” he asked.

  I swallowed painfully. “Nothing.”

  He tilted his head in question, and I dropped my gaze to his hand clenching the gray blanket. The fabric draped loosely around his waist, dipping down on the side opposite where he held it closed, revealing paler skin that hadn’t seen the light of the sun.

  “Maybe it was my job, or the way things got with Clark, but the music dried up,” I admitted. “I haven’t been able to write at all the last two years.”

  He hesitated. There was a question he wanted to ask but wasn’t sure if he should. Or maybe he didn’t know how to phrase it. But he pressed forward. “It’s none of my business, but can I ask what happened?” He frowned at himself. “You don’t have to tell me. You probably don’t want to talk about it.”

  I went with the easiest answer. “He fell in love with someone else. And he forgot he was still married to me.”

  “He cheated on you?”

  I inhaled a deep breath. “Yeah.”

  I didn’t tell him with who, because despite everything that had happened between us and how terrible Clark had treated me, I wasn’t going to ‘out’ him. I hadn’t even told Jenna the truth. Just that I’d caught my husband having sex with someone else, and I didn’t correct her when she made the assumption it’d been a woman.

  Anger flashed across Troy’s face. “He’s a fucking idiot.”

  I lifted a shoulder in response. What else was there to say? “You’re not wrong.”

  “I got cheated on once.” As soon as his statement was out, he frowned and waved a hand like he was trying to brush his comment away. “Okay, I get it’s not the same. Doesn’t compare to yours, but I just meant it sucks and people are stupid. If you want to be with someone else, go be with them. It ain’t that hard.”

  I drew in a deep breath. �
��Again, you’re not wrong.”

  We lapsed into silence, and it grew cold and awkward.

  He scrubbed his palm over his chin as he contemplated what he’d said, making his scruff bristle against his fingertips. “I made it weird.” He gave an apologetic smile. “Sorry about the boner-killing conversation.”

  A short, unexpected laugh burst from me. “Boner-killing?”

  “Yeah.”

  As he strolled toward me, the mood in the room shifted yet again, but it lightened. How the hell did he do that? The promise of sex lurked in his eyes, and I couldn’t help but see dollar signs in his future. I’d given up any attempt to be professional with him, but when he strutted to stand in front of me, I had a vision of him in a music video, crooning a love ballad and making every woman in America swoon over his bedroom eyes.

  They’d go as weak kneed as I was now.

  He let go of the blanket and it dropped to our feet. “I promised you another round, didn’t I?”

  Excitement edged my voice, but I tamped it down and bit my bottom lip. “Troy—”

  Too late. He threaded his hands into my hair and lowered his mouth to mine. He kissed me as if it were do-or-die, like an audition where he’d have to give it his all, leaving everything on the table.

  Instantly, I was drowning in him. I succumbed to his lips and the desire coiling inside me, not fighting him as he tugged at the knot on my belt to undo it. I followed him blindly as he led me to the couch, slipped a hand inside my open robe, and eased me down to sit on the cushions.

  Did he know his kiss was just as powerful as his singing voice was to me?

  He knelt beside the couch and nibbled on my lips, his hands roaming over my bare skin.

  “How is it,” I murmured between his slow kisses, “you’re so good at this? More YouTube tutorials?”

  His grin was lopsided. “Those kinds of tutorials aren’t on YouTube.”

  Troy’s hands scooped under my legs and he jerked me to the edge of the couch, making me flop back on the cushions at an angle. My legs straddled his waist, and I was still technically wearing my robe because my arms were in the sleeves, but the sides were wide open. It gave him a perfectly naked ribbon of my body to drink in.

  A moan seeped from me as his hands took full advantage of the access he had. His palms smoothed over my breasts. They caressed my stomach, my hips, my legs. His musician hands played me like an instrument he’d studied, and I made all the sounds he’d hoped for because lust flared across his face.

  The way he looked at me was amazing. And sort of terrifying because he gazed at me with reverence. He’d put me up on an unwarranted pedestal and it was much too high.

  His blue eyes were focused as his hand glided over my waist, inched downward, and brushed between my legs. His featherlight touch sizzled.

  “Oh, my God,” I whimpered as he pushed his middle two fingers inside me, all the way until his knuckles pressed against my sensitized skin. I arched up, bowing off the couch cushions at the sudden pleasure. I reached out, grabbing onto the thickest parts of his arms, and my gaze was drawn to his fingers as they slowly eased out and disappeared inside me again.

  The sensation made my toes curl into points and I dug my fingernails into his skin, unable to control myself. Shit, it felt good. So different and new and better than anything I’d had before.

  Troy was kneeling next to the couch, but he sat back on his heels and dipped down, running his tongue up the length of my slit. It tore a cry of satisfaction from my lungs.

  “Yeah?” His question was teasing, seductive, and one hundred percent rhetorical.

  He swiped the tip of his tongue over me again and chuckled wickedly when my legs trembled as he passed over my clit. Blood rushed through me, hotter than lava, and I struggled to catch my breath.

  While he licked and teased, his fingers continued to pump, and goosebumps burst down my calves. I’d had to give up my hold on him when he’d started going down on me, so now I clutched at the couch, fisting whatever part of the upholstery I could latch on to.

  “I could eat this pussy all day,” he said.

  The room tumbled as his tongue swirled, and it spun faster still when he pulled his mouth away and used his fingers to rub. He’d had his arm under my thigh and a hand on my stomach, but he trailed it down so his first two fingers could manipulate the swollen nub of flesh that gave me the most pleasure.

  My moans filled the room, overpowering the sounds of enjoyment he made. He liked watching what he was doing to me. His lips were parted, and his eyes were magnetic.

  Back and forth his fingers rolled, filling me with a powerful, urgent need. He was absolutely going to make me come again. The only question now was when, and my body wanted the answer to be, “right fucking now.”

  He adjusted the angle of his thrusts, sliding deeper.

  “Oh,” I breathed, “right there.”

  He moved faster, sliding his fingers so quickly we could both hear the sound they made against my wet skin. If I wasn’t so frantic, I might have blushed, but there wasn’t room to think about this sound as anything other than sexy.

  I pinched my eyes closed and savored his possession. He was young and gorgeous—he could probably get any girl he wanted. What on earth was he doing with me?

  It was unavoidable, the way my body began to writhe, as I approached my orgasm, but luckily his hands moved in sync with me. Troy’s thick fingers plunged and retreated while he rubbed me viciously with the ones from his other hand, causing sparks to fire behind my eyelids.

  “Oh, my God,” I cried in warning, but it only made him ratchet up the intensity. Tremors skirted up my legs as the storm of ecstasy took me over.

  “Fuck yeah,” he groaned. “Come all over my fingers.”

  His dirty talk was shockingly sexy, and it poured gasoline on the fire of my orgasm. Bliss exploded, forcing me to buck, but once again he moved with me, keeping his fingers lodged inside. It prolonged my climax, making wave after wave crash into me and causing my nails to drive into my palms.

  I floated in a daze, unable to do anything but breathe while the pleasure began to recede. As I recovered, Troy straightened and set his warm hands on the tops of my thighs, gently squeezing as if wanting to remind me of his presence. To be connected to me throughout the experience.

  My heart was still hammering in my chest as I propped myself up on my elbows and peered at him. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like, although my face had to be flushed. The robe around my shoulders was a cloak of fire, making me sweat even more than I’d been before. Surely my hair was a mess. I could feel it plastered to the back of my neck.

  Yet, he blinked seductively as his gaze drifted up over my naked skin, and he stared back at me like I was flawless. The hunger was back in his eyes and his body. His erection was nearly as hard as it’d been when I was on the counter.

  His tone was flirtatious. “Do you have a condom I could use?”

  If I wasn’t already out of breath, that would have done it. “Yeah,” I said. “In the drawer of my nightstand.” I collapsed back on the couch. “Give me a minute and I’ll be able to walk again. My legs are still shaking.”

  Troy chuckled proudly, leaned over, and dropped a kiss on my lips. “I’ll be right back.”

  There wasn’t time to stop him, even if I’d wanted to. He was up on his feet instantly and disappeared into my bedroom, leaving me to recover while I was strewn across the couch cushions. He’d gone with such urgency; he’d practically bounded from the room.

  There was a pang in my heart. He was eager to have sex with me. Lord, I’d spent so much of my life with someone who didn’t initiate and certainly never was excited for intimacy. All those years with one man, while another was right there, secretly wanting and willing to give me exactly what I craved.

  The sound of the drawer sliding open came through the doorway, followed by rustling and the tearing of perforated foil. But then it went silent and still.

  My heart thudded, slowing down
with each quiet second that ticked by. There was no noise of him shutting the drawer, and no footsteps thudded closer to announce his return. What was he doing in there, alone in my bedroom?

  “Troy?”

  There came a thump as the drawer closed, and he emerged from my bedroom with a smile tilting on his lips.

  “Did you get lost?” I teased to mask my relief.

  He lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “A little. That’s some collection you’ve got there, Erika.”

  When I realized what he meant, my mouth went dry. I sat up on the couch and swiped a hand over my hair to smooth it back into place while my face burned. “Oh, shit.”

  In my disoriented state, I’d forgotten about the rest of the contents of my bedside drawer. When he’d paused in my room, it was because he’d been staring at the various vibrators, dildos, and toys I used to get myself off at night.

  The muscles in his chest and arm flexed and rolled while he stroked a hand over his dick to maintain his erection. It was unavoidable the way my gaze caught the glint of the pale blue wrapper in his free hand as he sat down beside me.

  His voice was low and pure seduction. “You should show me how some of those toys work.”

  My heart stumbled over itself. “Now?”

  He grinned and shook his head. “No.” He tore open the condom wrapper and began to fit it over himself. “Some other time, because right now I just want it to be us. Me fucking you exactly how you want it.”

  He finished rolling on the condom and ringed his fingers around the base of his cock, holding it proudly out from his body. His words sent a jolt of pleasure down my spine that settled between my legs, and grew more acute when he asked his question.

  “So, how do you want it?”

  It felt like someone else was in command when I stared at his sheathed dick, awaiting me to climb on, and his direct question unleashed my thoughts. “I want your mouth on my tits as you fuck me.”

  Air left him in a sharp exhale and desire consumed his face. My words had surprised him, and he not only approved, he looked utterly thrilled. As I rose onto my knees and turned to straddle him, he pushed a hand inside my open robe to grasp my hip and help guide me.