by Neve Wilder
He started to snicker and then choked on the sound as I shoved him by the shoulder and urged him onto his back, tracing my lips over every hill and valley of his torso on my way to the thick, juicy cock waiting for me at the end. His back arched and his fingers clamped onto my shoulders when I took him into my mouth, tasting him as much as exploring the stiff shape of him. A deep suck to his crown had him emitting a low, restless groan. His fingers upon me relaxed and tightened again, threading through my hair as I wet my finger and teased over his hole before sliding inside.
He hissed out a yes, knees widening as he opened to my exploration, twisting with a moan when I hit that tight bundle of nerve endings. Then he tugged at my hair, pulling my gaze up to his, and I thought about what I must look like, my lips swollen, as wet as my chin from nuzzling him.
“Get inside me before Fate throws us another curveball and the Kool-Aid Man bursts through the wall or something,” I begged.
Ru wrestled to a sitting position as I slid off the end of the bed, and had the condom I tossed him from the drawer on in seconds.
“How do you want it?” he asked, giving me that gamine little smile of his as he tugged me back in front of him by the backs of my thighs.
“Too many ways to count,” I said in a lilting tease, easing back onto the bed to straddle him.
He let out this growly, aggressive rumble of sound that made my skin feel as if it were catching fire. Then he pinched my chin, drawing me down for another hard kiss before he wrapped his big hands around my waist and unseated me from his lap. I let him shift me around on the bed, bracing my hands over the headboard so I could twist a look over my shoulder back at him. That intensity was back, digging deep, pensive lines between his brows, his lips slightly parted and glistening from our kiss as he glanced up at me from where he’d been concentrating on the graze of his fingertips down my spine.
I shivered at the sight, all that fervent heat in his expression like it’d been funneled down and was pouring out of his fingertips onto me as pure electricity. When he caught me looking, he cut me a little grin and shook his head, hair gone all cockeyed and disheveled. “I may disappoint Marco, because just being behind you like this has me so fucking close. Fuck, you’re sexy.” He palmed one cheek, spreading me as he drizzled cold lube down my crack and warmed it with the press of his thumb against my hole until I gasped.
“S’okay. We’ll just go again,” I croaked, then let my head droop between my arms as the head of his cock nudged inside me, thick and so fucking hard. I relished each slow inch of the invasion and was just about to reach back and grab for his thigh to speed him deeper inside me when he abandoned patience and buried himself, his arms coming around me to yank me up and fit me tightly against him.
I widened the spread of my legs, keeping one hand on the headboard as he splayed his fingers over the raging gallop of my heart and tugged me by the roots of my hair until he could kiss the side of my neck and along my jaw.
It was everything I’d been wanting and anticipating, the burning power of his thrusts inside me, the intensity of his lips and teeth marking my skin in a riot of sensation, wet and hot and so fucking good. He pounded into me relentlessly, and I was helpless to the sounds spilling from my mouth, little chanting curses, gasped encouragements. Our panting breaths made the air around us humid, and the sweat from our bodies made us slippery as we moved in perfect harmony. The walls of the bedroom zoomed in and out of my peripheral vision, and his grunts guttered out into a primal sound as he fucked me like I was his possession. When he grazed my cock, just the suggestion of touch had sweet ache and pressure rolling through me, ready to spill over.
“Fuck. Yes, please. I’m dying for it,” I cried out hoarsely, and he let out a groan and held me tighter, nicking my earlobe with his teeth, then taking my mouth again.
“I want you in my mouth,” he growled.
So I pushed his hand away and clenched tight around him, and with a sharp hiss of sound and a deep thrust, he came on a shout, his whole body shuddering against mine. I rode him through it, milking every last spasm and moan from him, and when he collapsed back against the bed, he dragged me with him.
I shivered with the effort to hold back from the edge of my orgasm as I twisted around and rose onto my knees. Ru lifted onto his elbows staring up at me as I crawled atop him. I almost couldn’t stand it, those big, dark eyes boring into me, that solicitous, lusty cast to his face as his mouth dropped open, waiting for me. I felt the urge to capture that expression in paint, something private, just for me. Rufus Merrill in black and white and so many shades of gray, staring up at me with naked desire. Another tremor coursed through me as I edged close and he settled one hand on my hip and guided me toward him. “Want it,” he whispered, and the way he said it, the deep ache inherent, was almost like a song. He wrapped his lips around me, that first contact so fiery and slick and perfect. He lapped at my slit, and even when I pushed deeper and hit the back of his throat, his eyes remained fastened to me, an open burning in them that shattered me instantly. My fingers fisted in his hair, and I fucked his mouth through the orgasm that tore from me, feeling him swallow around me, sucking down every drop until I was spent and weak.
I finally slid from his mouth to curl next to him in bed, and he licked the traces of me from his lips and turned on his side to face me, dancing his fingertips from the corner of my eye down my cheekbone, then hooking me under the chin for another kiss, savoring and light. I tasted myself on him, tasted us both.
We cleaned ourselves up. I showed Ru where the bathroom was, and when he came back and got into bed next to me, we lay in the darkness.
“This has been the weirdest fucking week,” he said with a laugh of disbelief. “If you’d told me last Saturday I’d be lying here in bed a week later with a guy I thought was either a vampire or an A&R rep trying to test my guitar skills, I’d have said you were crazy.”
“I wasn’t trying to test your guitar skills.” I smiled. “I was trying to get your attention.”
“You already had it.” He was quiet for a second, and then I felt his lips brush over my shoulder in a quiet, saccharine flutter. “I’m glad you came back.”
“That seems to be a running theme between us, doesn’t it?”
“It does.” I heard the smile in his voice.
* * *
And yet, I woke up alone. My temples pulsed with a faint headache as I rose up on my elbows. Aside from the nightstand, which was exactly where we’d set it the night before, the room was devoid of any sign of Ru. Disappointment blossomed as a groan. Had I been wrong about the connection? Again? Had Ru just been putting on a front to get laid, to pull one final one over on me?
I frowned as I found my glasses, then put them on and went into the kitchen to start the coffee, pulling the curtain over the sink against the bright morning light. I’d be glad when those contacts came in. Once the coffee was brewing, I absently grabbed a garbage bag to finish the cleanup, only to discover that it had been done. My loft was still decked out in the plastic sheeting, and the cobwebs still dripped from the walls, but there were no more empty beer cans, bottles, or cups littering every surface. I considered texting Ru to thank him, then realized I didn’t even have his number, which just made my stomach sink further.
And then, while I was standing there holding my phone in my hand, it chimed with a notification from an unknown number: I wasn’t planning on waking you, but I’ve been standing in this aisle for twenty minutes trying to figure out if you were subtly trying to tell me you didn’t like bacon and eggs last night.
The message made me smile, and I picked up my coffee, carrying the mug with me to the table while I thumbed a response back to him.
Quinn: I love bacon. And eggs. You don’t have to cook breakfast, though. I have coffee.
Ru: You don’t want me to?
Quinn: Do you cook in the nude?
Ru: I might by special request.
Quinn: Do I need to write it on a napkin?
&nb
sp; Ru: Nope. You just have to say it in the sexy, growly voice you were using last night.
Quinn: I’m growling at the screen right now. I thought you’d left for good.
Ru: Meant what I said. Think I’m going to need more than a night. And we still have a shower to take.
Ru: Besides. You still have my nightstand.
Quinn: Thinking I’ll hang on to that for a while.
Ru: Good. Maybe I’ll bend you over it when I get back.
Quinn: Do you think it’s sturdy enough?
Ru: I’m game to find out.
Ru: Can I take you out to dinner tonight?
Quinn: Did you just tell me you’re going to bend me over a Goodwill nightstand in the same breath you asked me out to dinner?
Ru: Yes I did. Is that a problem?
I thought for a minute and had to laugh, because this was the strangest beginning I’d ever had with another person, and somehow it felt perfectly appropriate, perfectly us. And I was liking the sound of that.
Quinn: Not at all. The only question is which comes first?
Ru: Pretty sure we both know that answer to that. Don’t want to mess up this thing we’ve got going by actually taking logical steps.
Quinn: Grrrrrr.
Ru: Nnnnnnnnn. Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. On my way.
9
Epilogue: Rufus
I balanced a coffee carrier in one hand while I keyed in the code on the back door of Grim’s, then rushed into the warmth of the shop. Once I’d shrugged out of my coat and left it in the back office, I picked up the coffees again and headed out to the front to find Dan with his elbows planted on the front counter as he idly paged through a guitar magazine.
“Where’s Owen?” I asked, plunking the coffee carrier down next to him. The peppermint mocha I’d gotten for Owen suffused the air around us with minty steam.
“Had him go over to the Gatlinburg store for the weekend. We’re short-staffed again, and there’s that Christmas thing going on there, so should be good for sales.” He flipped the magazine closed. “I knew you had that show coming up.”
I nodded and held out the mocha to him. “You want his peppermint thing?”
“Too damn sweet. I swear that kid’s bones are made of sugar and held together with cotton candy.”
“You oughta see him drunk.”
Dan cracked a grin. “He get mean? Wouldn’t surprise me. He’s got that fire in him somewhere, I know it.”
I laughed. “No, he gets really… he dances a lot.”
“Doesn’t surprise me, either.” He picked up the peppermint mocha I’d set on the counter, gave it a sniff as if he might be reconsidering, then set it down again, wrinkling his nose. “Fucking Christmas,” he grumbled. “City’s a zoo.”
“Yep. I’m making bank, though. It’s great.”
Dan eyed me for a moment, then said, “Les was in here earlier, told me to tell you hello.”
“Shit, it’s been forever since I’ve even talked to him. How’s he doing?”
Dan shrugged. “Still bummed about the last album flopping. But you know, it’s Les. He just plows through. Came in, went straight to bluegrass, and then ended up buying $75 worth of Eric Clapton, of all things. All over the place, that one. Said he’d catch you when they got back from tour.” He shook his head and grinned, then shoved the magazine aside and pulled out what looked like a glossy postcard.
“Someone else was in, too.” He arched a brow tellingly. “You missed him by about ten minutes.”
A smile broke over my face, because I knew exactly who it was and what he was doing. “That motherfucker.”
“That a term of endearment?” Dan’s eyes sparkled with amusement.
“Sure is.”
“Still weird to see him without those sunglasses all the time.”
“Yeah, I get him to put them on sometimes, though.” I waggled my brows at him. “For old time’s sake.”
“Old times,” Dan scoffed. “It’s been what, two months?”
I shrugged. “It works.” I could feel Dan studying me as I took the glossy postcard, which turned out to be an invitation to some charity masquerade ball. Quinn had donated a painting for the silent auction that preceded it. I’d watched the canvas come to life in the loft over the previous weeks, these big, soaring streaks of black that I’d wondered over, because he wouldn’t tell me what it was, initially. On the fifth day, I’d figured it out.
“It’s music.”
He’d grinned at me, pleased. I could see the faint suggestions of notes and time signatures, though they weren’t obvious. And scattered here and there were a few hints of color, tints of blues and reds. “You entering a new phase with these bits of color?”
He’d pressed his lips together and shrugged as I wrapped my arms around him, kissing the side of his neck as we looked at the painting together. “I’m relying totally on the tonal differences, the names of the colors on the tubes, and a shit ton of color theory, so I’m not sure how it’s going to work out, but I’m experimenting.”
“You’re amazing,” I’d murmured into the warm skin of his neck, and he’d turned his head aside to kiss me as I rubbed at a faint line of blue along his jaw.
“Do I need a shower?”
“Yes you do.”
“Good.”
* * *
“You’ve got it bad, kid,” Dan said, jolting me back to the present as he prodded the corner of my mouth. “That’s one hell of a cheesy grin.”
I swatted at his finger and refocused on the invite. “Leave me alone.”
At the bottom, Quinn had stuck a Post-it note that read, “I’m thinking Victorian couple, because you in a waistcoat and vest… Unf. Also, my place at 7 tonight. Demand, not request.”
That last bit had me grinning all over again, because we’d kept up our innuendos and game of chase in the weeks that followed Halloween, and we always ended up sweaty and satisfied.
I narrowed my eyes at Dan. “So where the hell do I find a Victorian gentleman’s costume?”
—The End—
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Turn the page for EXTRAs from Neve and a note about upcoming release, DEDICATED.
Extras
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Turn the page to find out more about DEDICATED, Rhythm of Love Book 1, coming early December 2018.
Coming Soon
DEDICATED, Rhythm of Love Book 1
* * *
“Our greatest hit is a love song I wrote for my bandmate. And he has no idea.”
* * *
Messy-haired, soulful-eyed, off-kilter lyricist Les Graves holds tight to the hedonist’s credo of consumption in every avenue of life. He has trouble staying still, trouble staying sober, trouble being on time, but put a pen in his hand and he can set a page on fire.
* * *
Music was Evan Porter’s ticket out of the backwater mud puddle he was born in, the passion keeping him warm as he busked on street corners, fueling him through a dead-end bartending job. Every chord, every song, every ounce of sweat has been devoted to making Porter & Graves a success. He’s the level-head, the quiet maestro, the seatbelt that keeps Les from flying too far out of control. Their differences used to be a part of why they worked so well together. Now they just seem to drive them farther apart.
* * *
After Porter & Graves’s third album bombs, the pressure is on for them to redeem themselves with their fourth. But as they sequester themselves in an East Tennessee cabin to write, things take a turn for the worst when an event from their past comes back to haunt them in an embarrassingly
public fashion, and forces them into an unusual position that tests a partnership already hanging by its bloody roots.
* * *
As they confront buried feelings and new desires, both their music career and friendship is on the line.
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A bisexual friends-to-frenemies-to-lovers romance—yeah, it’s tricky—featuring forced proximity, a fake relationship, a metric ton of snark, first-time steam, a cock-blocking greenhouse, and an OTT HEA. Best considered romangstic comedy.
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Release date: Early December, 2018
Also By Neve Wilder
Center of Gravity
"Once in a while, a book comes along and knocks you for six; this is one of those books. It was a joy to read and it had so much depth that it reached another level for me."
—OMGReads
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"Slow burn, heavy on the angst....I loved every minute of it!"
—WickedGoodReads
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"Center Of Gravity is just what I hope for and rarely find when reading a new author and new contemporary romance. It's that marvelous, heartwarming story full of just about every element that grabs at you and compels you to read it!"
—Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words
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It was angsty and funny and touching and poignant and bittersweet and deep and moving. Oh…and one last thing…hot AF. Holy Moly!