“Ah, now I understand.”
He gave me a long look, and when I gave him one back, he continued. “I was a total geek back then. Glasses. Music nerd. But I loved the music. Loved the whole idea behind rock ’n’ roll where a misfit like me could be a king.”
His hands low on my back, he slid them down to my ass and pulled me closer. His gaze turned unfocused as he remembered. “But we would never have gone anywhere with me singing lead.”
I didn’t agree. I’d heard Rush, plugged and unplugged. Brad now too. I knew who I thought was better.
“We were frustrated. We had some good material, but were only playing dive places around campus when I found out Sierra was pregnant.”
“So you walked away from your dream. Changed majors.”
“It was the right decision. I’m good at what I do. Rush is where he was always meant to be. We all are. It worked out.”
“You saying you don’t have regrets?” I tilted my head. I didn’t for one moment believe it. “Don’t you ever wonder what if?”
Brad gave me a solemn look. “I’m saying if I had to do it all over again, I would do the same thing. Where I am—here, right now, with you in my arms—is exactly where I want to be.”
Chapter 49
* * *
Camaro
I let Brad drive home, didn’t even think of asking. I was too distracted to drive.
A lot of my distraction was anticipation. Slow dancing with Brad, his hands on my ass, and his hard cock near but not near enough, was all the foreplay I needed. I wanted to feel him moving again inside me. Hopefully, we would spend all night in his bed. I looked forward to showing him all that I now knew I felt for him. But I remained distracted by what I’d learned about him tonight.
“Hey, you okay?” Gripping the Z’s steering wheel with one hand, he turned to look at me.
“Sure.” I covered his other hand where it rested on my knee. “Why do you ask?”
“Because we’re here, and I don’t think you even noticed.” He nodded toward the windshield. “Back at the house.”
“Oh.” I blinked my surroundings into focus.
“You didn’t say a thing all the way home.”
“Listening to the music on the radio.” I shrugged. “Lost in thought mostly, I guess.”
He squeezed my thigh. Fiery sensation zinged straight to that spot between my legs.
“C’mon.” He shut off the engine and tugged at my hand. “Let’s go inside and talk.”
“Talking’s not what I want to do.” I gave him a long searching look.
“Me either. Not first, at least.” He shifted and leaned over the console.
I framed one side of his face with one hand, my gaze traveling over his handsome features. His earnest brow, the glitter of starlight in his eyes, the often arrogant curl of his mouth, the sexy low croon of his voice . . . I’d noticed all those things before. They were the parts that made up the compelling whole of him, only I saw them now with a completely different perspective.
His hand curling around my nape, he brought my mouth to his and kissed me. Just a touch of his lips to mine, but I melted. I was so far gone for him. He eased back, and this time, it was his gaze that was searching.
“It’s still me,” he said, his brow creasing beneath the wisps of hair that fell forward, platinum in the moonlight. “Bossy Brad.”
“I know.” But now a missing, hidden piece had been revealed. “It’ll just take me some time to get used to.”
“It’s in my past.”
“Like me and Chris?” I gave him a disbelieving look. I didn’t buy it. Not for him and his music. It wouldn’t be right.
He nodded. “Yes, of course.”
My hand slid away from his face, but I noted a shadow in his gaze that hadn’t been there before. My past, his, or both, they needed to be resolved.
He unlatched his door and got out, and I shook the reverie from my head. By the time he rounded the hood and held open my door, I was focused solely on the here and now. On him.
He placed his hand on my lower back, guiding me up to the house. Relinquishing me at the garage entrance, he inserted the key, opening the door and gesturing for me to precede him.
“Thank you,” I murmured, slipping past him.
“Welcome home, my lady.” His voice was low and shiver-inducing, like his words.
It felt like home with him right behind me as I ascended the stairs. Protecting me, watching out for me, caring for me. No man had ever treated me like he did. And I realized that any place with him would feel like home.
Home wasn’t a place. It was Brad. He was home for me.
At the top of the stairs, I stepped aside and waited for him, to tell him the words. The ones I knew to be truth, better than I knew myself. “I love you.”
His eyes flared, but before he could speak, I held up my hand.
“You don’t have to say the words back. I am who I am, and you’re you. We’re only trying for something real, and only slept together the one night. But I know how I feel, and it would be the worst sort of lie to pretend when we’re in bed together again that what I feel for you isn’t exactly what it is.”
“I’ve never been given a more lovely gift.” He reached up and framed my face in both hands.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my face more fully into his hold, blinking through the burn in my eyes. Even though I told him he didn’t have to say the words too, it hurt that he hadn’t. But I wouldn’t cry because he didn’t reciprocate my feelings. He didn’t like it when I cried, so I wouldn’t do it.
“Let’s go upstairs.” Releasing me, he offered me his hand, and I readily took it.
He led me up the remaining staircase. Where he led, I would follow. Always and anywhere, if he said those words.
Down the hall we went. Once we were inside his room, he released my hand. I wanted to reach for him, but feeling vulnerable, I left both hands at my sides.
I swallowed as he stared at me, and wondered if I’d made things awkward. “Would you like me to go?”
“Hell no, Cam. It’s just daunting to look at you and be given so much. I don’t know where to start.”
“I’ll start.” I smiled slowly, projecting confidence, though loving a man like I loved him was all new to me. “You can join in when you’re ready.”
His eyes cobalt flames, he nodded.
Emboldened by his desire, I placed my hand on his chest. His heart thumped beneath it as if it leaped to my touch. Stepping closer, I dropped my gaze and began to unbutton his shirt. One after another, I released the buttons, separating the silk as I went lower and lower still.
“I love your chest, your abs.” I love you, I thought, but I wouldn’t say it again. “Even in your suits, the definition is noticeable.”
I skimmed my fingertips over his pecs, flicking each masculine nipple with the edge of my nail. He hissed, and wet heat rushed to soak my already hot core.
“Mine are as tight as yours,” I whispered, “and just as sensitive to your touch.”
Once I had all the buttons undone, I drew the tails of his shirt out from his pants, then slid my hands underneath to slip it from the wide slabs of muscle at his shoulders. Rustling, the silk fell to the floor, a black puddle around him.
Not an omen, I quickly told myself. He’s not tainted by your affection.
“Show me.” He stepped back to give me room. “I want to see all of you.”
“I’ll need help loosening the laces.” I turned, giving him my back.
He stepped closer while I turned my head to watch him over my shoulder.
“This okay?” He paused with his hands near the tie, glancing up at me.
“It’s okay because it’s you.”
“Good memory replacing bad.” He pressed a kiss to my temple, then untied the bow, working his way up, loosening the leather laces as he went.
“Yes.” It was so good with him. I shivered as he glided his warm hands over my skin. “I love the w
ay you touch me.”
“How’s that, babe?”
“Like you have to. Like you need me. Like you won’t stop, and can’t until you’ve unveiled all of me.”
“That’s exactly how it is.”
His features tight, he reached for the hem of my dress and whipped it off over my head.
“Fuck,” he said, discarding the dress and stalking around me. “No bra. No panties. All night, you were naked?” His eyes glittered like the night sky.
“I had on the leather dress and the heels.” I preened for him, all of me taut, swollen, and prickling with need as I followed him with my gaze.
“Take down your hair,” he said, his voice husky.
Immediately, I reached up and removed the bobby pins. Released, each long midnight tress fell to my shoulders, a cool silken caress against my fevered skin.
“You’re so gorgeous.”
“Thank you.” I peered up at him through my lashes. “You make me feel that way, but it’s your turn now.”
I reached for him, but he grabbed my wrists, separating them and bringing them back together behind me.
“Brad, what are you doing?”
“Enjoying you.” He lowered his head, gold strands dipping into his eyes, even as I closed mine.
I savored the brush of his firm lips, the insistent pressure as he moved them over mine. Urgently, he coaxed me without words until I opened my mouth. His hands flexed tighter where he held me.
He groaned, and I moaned as his tongue rubbed mine. Exploring, he stroked his tongue deep. The deeper he stroked, the hotter and wetter I became. My legs trembled and I moved them restlessly, slickness coating my inner thighs.
“Brad,” I said, breathing out his name like praise when he lifted my head. “Please.”
“Please what?”
“Please give me more. More of whatever you want to do to me.”
“Ah, Cam. More is always what I want when it comes to you.” He reached down, and I followed the movement of his hand as he palmed himself over his slacks. “I’ve been hard all night looking at you, so beautiful in that dress. So beautiful out of it. But no more teasing me. Get on the bed. Now.”
“Okay.” I moved past him to climb in, and when he slapped his palm against my ass, I jumped. Heat burned my buttock and throbbed inside my pussy from the lover’s tap.
“On your back.” He watched me, his gaze heated as it swept over me. “Those heels with your amazing legs is pure fantasy.”
“I’m no fantasy.”
Just yours, I thought.
Yet, I posed prettily. My breaths were short, my nipples tight.
“No, you’re not.” Grasping my knees, he slowly separated my legs. “You’re wet and very real.” He slid his fingers up my slick inner thighs.
I held my breath. Aching, anticipating.
“Not yet.” Grinning darkly, he straightened. Toeing out of his shoes, he removed his socks while I watched him. He unbuckled his belt, undid the button, and glided his black boxers with his pants down his muscular legs.
“Want something?” he asked when I licked my lips.
“I need you. Please.”
“I want you too. I just can’t decide if I should lick you until you come, then slide inside you, or slide inside you and make you come with only my cock.”
“I can start while you decide.” I cupped a breast in one hand and slid the other straight to my pussy. Arching into my own fingers, I moaned from the stimulation.
He groaned. “Decided. Cock it is.”
“Oh, Brad,” I said when he put a knee to the bed and moved between my legs. “Yes.”
He twisted an already tight nipple on the side I didn’t hold and moved my other hand away from my pussy. “Touch yourself. Like I just did. Both tits.”
I twisted my nipples until they burned. Raptly, he stared while gliding his hands along my thighs.
“I’m so close.” My breath hitched. “You make me so hot.”
“You set me on fire.” His dark gaze gleaming, he squeezed.
I moaned. His fingers were close, but not close enough to where I ached the most.
When he removed his hands. I started to protest, but stopped when I saw him tear open the condom packet.
“Did you want to say something, babe?”
“Hurry. Get inside me now.”
“I plan to.” After rolling the rubber on, he moved between my legs and thrust his cock all the way inside me in one breath-stealing stroke.
“You feel . . .” I sucked in air. “So good inside me.” I wrapped my arms and legs around him, crossing my ankles.
“Need some room to fuck you.” He reached back and uncrossed my ankles.
“Yes,” I said as he started to move, shallow at first, then deep long strokes.
Stretching me with his hard cock, he drove inside me again and again. I lifted my hips, digging my heels into the bed, wanting him deeper. The sheets bunched beneath me.
“So wet. So hot. So perfect.” His voice was a low chant.
“Brad,” I cried as he hit that perfect spot. “I’m going to come.”
“I’m going to explode in your hot pussy.” He thrust hard and ground down.
“Brad. Oh my.” I strained for the perfection only he could give me, and it erupted inside me—the fire, the heat, the melting. I started to unravel.
“Cam. Fuck. So good.”
When he stiffened and let out a long groan, I felt his heat pouring into me.
On fire, I floated in some mystical forge with him until I eventually drifted back to myself, back to him. Not remade, maybe, but those fiery pieces of me were and always would be only his.
Chapter 50
* * *
Bradley
“Oh.” Cam stepped out of the guest room shower and ran into me.
Wet, slippery, warm Cam putting her hand on my chest made my eyes glaze over and racked my body with renewed need. My cock was as hard again as it had been when I’d been driving it into her perfect pussy.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked, tilting her head.
I didn’t answer that. The explanation wasn’t simple.
“From now on, you shower in my bathroom.” I gave her a firm look.
“Why?” She shook her head in confusion, her damp ponytail skimming the water droplets on her slender shoulders.
“Get your stuff.” I gave her my managerial tone. “I moved all your clothes over to my room.”
“All of them?” she asked, her eyes wide.
Man, she was in a questioning mood.
“Yeah. Most fit in my dresser. Some I hung next to my suits in the closet.”
“Okay.” Her expression went as dewy as her freshly showered skin.
“Good.” I grunted. I wasn’t really asking for her permission.
“Okay, as in when the sun goes down, you morph into Caveman Brad.”
“This is serious, Cam. I want you in my room with me, not the guest room anymore.”
“I get that. So, should I gather my remaining things and walk down to your room like a normal person, or would you like to sling me over your shoulder, caveman style?”
“Normal is boring.”
She smiled, and I grinned back. I didn’t care how I got what I wanted, so long as I had her beside me.
Cam glanced around. “Just throw everything that looks like mine into my duffel. If I miss anything, I can always come back and get it later.”
“Okay.” I started grabbing girly-looking shit. “But the things you forget, you can get while I’m at work. Yeah?”
“Sure.” She put a mascara tube and a couple of eye shadows in a zippered bag and tossed them into the duffel I held open for her.
“All set?” I lifted a brow, and when she nodded, I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder.
Her towel came off on the way down the hall. It was fabulous.
I tossed her naked onto the bed, making her tits bounce, then jumped on after her. I yanked off my pajama bottoms, a
nd within minutes, I was buried deep inside her again. Seconds after that, she climaxed. Watching her come, I flooded the condom only a moment later.
Then we were showering together. In my shower. I pinned my woman against the wall and had her again, and then I carried her to my bed. Our bed.
“I should have moved you in here from day one,” I said, staring down at her after settling her beside me.
“I think we had some things to work through before then, but I’m too tired to argue.” She lifted her face for the kiss I leaned down to press to her perfect lips. Yawning big, not exactly an endorsement, she pulled the covers up and over herself.
“What’s to argue about?” I reached over to turn off the lamp, then pulled her closer.
“Not sure exactly.”
“I want you here. You want to be here. We’re together. It’s right.” I stroked her hair, feeling so much for her, too much to process without a guitar in my hand.
“You were amazing.” She lifted her chin from my chest, peering up at me with the full moon outside the window illuminated in her heavy eyes.
“It’s not hard to be amazing in bed when you’re in it.”
“Not that, though you are phenomenal. I meant onstage.”
“Logan’s a stellar musician. Aces High has some decent material.”
“Not sure about that. I’m no expert, but to me it sounded like a bunch of noise until you got up there and led them.”
Her praise filled me with pride that made even the tips of my ears tingle. Performing brought a long-dormant part of me back to life. But I downplayed it.
“I have some experience. Just trying to get Logan and the guys where they need to be.”
“You should front them.”
“What?” I tensed, though at another time and in another place, when I didn’t have the responsibilities I did now, the idea would have had definite merit.
I shook my head. “No, babe. I have a job, a really well-paying one. It keeps my parents’ farm in the black. Dylan’s college fund growing. The Z in fuel. And me and you eating in fancy restaurants, like we did tonight. Aces High is an up-and-coming band, maybe a well-known one someday, if they get the right front man and are extremely lucky.”
The Right Wish Page 27