by Taryn Quinn
Wasn’t seven years long enough?
Especially since for two of them, I’d had to watch him from afar. On the nights I couldn’t help myself, I’d watch endless videos of him on YouTube. Thank God for the fans who loved him just as much as I did. Especially for the ones who’d kept their cameras trained on Myles instead of the lead singer in his band.
I’d soaked up those videos, followed those people who had Vaughn or Myles in their profile names. I knew those were the ones who would feed the need.
Just the idea of him being here with me again was so preposterous. It felt like a whole lifetime had passed since he’d left me behind.
God, I couldn’t think about that now.
I could still picture the shattered ice of his eyes when he’d taken one step back, then another. As my beautiful, funny, and amazing best friend had literally shut himself off from me.
And now my thighs trembled as he teased the edges of lace and found skin. The softness of his beard and the knowledge in his eyes left me aching and full of anticipation. No one had ever touched me like this.
I’d had boyfriends, of course—a few of them who had made me forget him for a while. But no one who made me feel even a tenth of the intensity wrapped around my feelings for Myles. And eventually, every one of those men drifted out of my life with the complaint that I’d never been really present.
I tried.
So hard.
But no one got me like this man.
I sifted my fingers through his curls, then down to the beard hiding half his face. But it seemed to make his lips seem even more lush, his features even sharper. Those little things somehow made everything more complicated. That he was so very much the same and leagues different from the man I’d loved for so damn long.
He pushed his cheek into my hand and kissed the side of my palm before he leaned forward and flicked his tongue at the center of my panties. He brushed his nose along the lace as his eyes did that heavy-lidded thing that made my knees quake.
“Myles, I—”
“Shh. This is so long overdue. You have to be with me on this.”
I nodded and swallowed. “I want this. I just…”
He rose up on his knees and pressed a kiss to my belly, then traced his tongue down to the dip at the front of my panties. “I can go if you really want me to.”
“No,” I whispered. I wouldn’t survive it this time. And yet, here I was, asking for pain to come at me with a gale force wind instead of the aching emptiness I’d been living with. I tucked a wild curl back away from his face. “Not this time.”
“Good.” He hooked his fingers into the elastic and slowly rolled them over my hips, pausing just before the tiny triangle of hair above my pussy.
The buzz of his beard across skin that hadn’t been touched in way too many months to count—nearly a year, if I was honest—created an ache so fierce, I almost changed my mind.
Surviving Myles a second time was not in my tidy little planner I’d been keeping since the day he’d left me.
Wanting him, loving him, aching for him had been a constant in my life. But the reality of him was staggering.
The tip of his tongue slid between my lips as my rolled-up forty-dollar panties hit my sister’s carpeting.
“Oh, God.”
I clenched my fingers in his hair and the flare of his nostrils matched his pupils. Wide and feral. As if I’d activated something inside him. The sweet, complicated boy I’d loved in my early twenties wasn’t the same man on his knees before me.
He was a man with a skill I didn’t want to think about. He delved deep, taking everything as he poured pleasure inside of me. I had no idea a tongue could do half the things he was doing to me. The sounds.
Sweet mercy, the sounds coming from my body, my mouth…the roaring heartbeat overtaking my brain. All of it was too much. First times were supposed to be bumbling and awkward with a little bit of magic.
Not this.
My head thunked against the wall as my fingers speared into his forest of curls. I wanted to push him away and pull him tighter to me all at the same time. My thighs shook and my breath stalled as he held me at the edge of something.
Hell.
Heaven.
Fire.
Blackness.
“Breathe, love.”
I dragged in great gulps of air as he hooked my leg over his shoulder and slowly tucked two fingers inside me. With the help of a very dexterous thumb and his accompanying tongue, my clit had a no quitting sign hanging off of it.
“Fuck. Myles, please.”
He stared up at me with a sly grin. “Please what?”
“End the damn torture. Make me come already.”
“There’s only one first orgasm with a man, Fee. I want this one to last forever.”
“Then you shouldn’t have started with me standing, you masochist.”
He laughed, and the rumble of it vibrated against my thigh. He tucked my leg tighter to his shoulder and rose slightly. The man was so damn tall. He made me feel small and that was a feat in itself. But here, where just a few minutes ago he’d been in full-on worship mode, now he was a little scary.
That feral light was back.
Wild like his hair, his music, and the light that burned so damn bright inside of him. That had been a beacon for me so many times, in school and after.
One that had left me in the dark when he’d chased his dreams, leaving me behind in this damn town.
I didn’t know I’d been chasing that light for years now.
And here it was, in front of me.
Leaving me on a precipice I wasn’t prepared to face.
I unhooked my leg. I needed to push him back and pull myself together. My shoulders heaved with a sudden need to drag in a huge lungful of breath.
He stood and flipped out his wallet, yanking out a condom before his jeans and wallet hit the floor with my panties.
“Then I’ll help keep you standing.”
The crinkle of plastic was my only warning.
He curled my leg around his hip, arrowing himself up between my thighs into the embarrassing wetness of my pussy. It felt like he was drilling down into my soul with his cock. He stretched me and filled me as his warmth permeated my flesh and made room only for him.
His shirt disappeared over his head and he did the same with mine. The scrap of matching lace fell away from my breasts. For a moment, he cupped them both, sucking on each nipple strongly before there was no air between us.
Skin to skin. My softness to his lightly furred belly and arrow of hair that climbed up his defined chest. Definitely not a boy any longer.
Morning sunshine dappled the room between slatted blinds and filmy curtains. The air was still sharp with coffee and his smoky scent. Underneath it all was me—the undeniable scent of sex and lust. Then that taste was in my mouth as he closed the circle.
Mouth, body, arms, and legs. There was nothing but Myles filling me up, surrounding me and forcing me to accept it all.
There was no hiding from any part of him.
He slowly drew out of me and drove back inside fiercely. His unearthly silver-blue eyes riveted me, the pupils blown wide with the cavernous blackness of perfect pleasure.
I wanted to shut my eyes against it.
I didn’t want to see it.
See him.
The darkness and pleasure he dragged out of me would leave ashes.
Would it leave a new me, or would I just blow away?
He caught me closer, sucking in a huge, growling breath as his hips pounded into me, and my body made all the decisions for me.
I broke.
Pieces falling away as the sun fuzzed at the edges of his wild mane of hair. His hands framed my face as he touched his forehead to mine. Sweat poured off his shoulders as I held onto him.
He buried his face in my neck and his groan was hoarse, matching mine as I cried out his name. I shook with each wrecking heartbeat of release. I was holding myself up with one foot on th
e floor, one leg around him. I was barely able to function, let alone stand.
Thank God he’d pinned me to the wall with every bit of passion we’d both been denying for years. The gates we’d held up between us were gone.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to put them back up.
No matter the plans I had, I hadn’t been prepared for this.
8
Myles
I wasn’t entirely sure my body was still on the same plane.
Her sweet, perfect pussy was still fisted around my cock. And somehow I was still hard even though I was fairly sure I just literally came my fucking brains out.
I circled my hips lightly and she groaned against my shoulder. I had a pair of bite marks there. I was pretty sure she didn’t know she’d done it. The sounds we’d made—for fuck’s sake, I hoped her neighbors were at work.
Because there was no quiet between us.
It had been a war. Me trying to climb inside her, her trying to wrap herself tighter around me.
I wanted to do it every fucking day of my life.
I’d never let her out of the house.
Hell, who needed a house? I’d never let her off a bed.
Fucking her unconscious would be a daily goal.
Or in this case—against a wall.
Literally.
I swiveled my hips again to test the waters.
“You can’t be serious.”
I laughed into her neck as I sneaked a hand between our bodies and found her swollen clit. I circled it slowly. “Well, if you’re serious about multiple orgasms, I can provide.”
She flinched and shuddered. “Multiples? Don’t flatter yourself.”
“So we were going for the longest orgasm in the history of time?” I lifted my head from her sweaty tumble of hair. I undulated my hips one more time and her eyelids fluttered shut.
She gnawed on the inside of her lip and let out a kitten-like mewl.
That was new.
I liked it.
I did it again and her thighs shook.
Intrigued, I hooked her other leg around my hips and ground against her again, deepening the shallow thrust.
“Myles, I…”
The last time she’d started with that statement, I’d lost my head. Then again, I hadn’t come like that in too many years to count. There was a difference between a tension-relieving fuck and whatever had just happened between us.
Nirvana seemed a touch too existential, but it was probably the closest word for it.
Glad for my big hands, I gripped her hip in one and thrust lightly as I strummed her clit with the other. She tried to fight it. Not sure why.
Sex was supposed to be fun, intense, and sometimes entered the realm of an out-of-body experience. The third one had been on the menu today, but that was a special case. I’d known the first time with her would be.
Now I had to go for the fun or I’d lose her. She was already getting too thinky and it was too dangerous to allow that. Not yet. Not until I could truly make her see this was what we were supposed to be.
Together.
Always.
I lowered my mouth to her neck and hummed against her salty skin. “Come for me. I love when you squeeze around my cock.”
“Fuck you, Myles.”
“I believe I’m fucking you, Fee.” I increased the power behind my thrusts and each ripple of her pussy made me eager to slide back in. I’d happily stay like this all damn day.
The scream was trapped between us. I could feel it bubbling away inside of her. I wanted it out. I wanted everything all over again. I didn’t want to have to steal it away like a fucking thief. I wanted her to give it to me, goddammit.
I gripped her hips and stumbled back into the living room. Her damn suitcase tried to take me out at the ankle again as I finally stepped all the way out of my jeans. I careened into the living room and dropped into the big, cushy recliner as she crashed on top of me.
I drove up into her harder, and her hair curtained around us as she held on to my shoulders. Her knees clasped my outer thighs as she bounced on me, trying to reach that peak. I didn’t want her to just use my body to get there. I wanted her with me.
Whatever it took.
Grabbing her hair, I yanked back her head until our eyes met and I watched her break. Her dark eyes neared black as she cried out my name.
“Fuck, yes.” My voice was a growl to match the mounting animal inside me.
Keep it light, man.
Don’t go all caveman on her yet.
Fuck that.
I didn’t stop.
I powered up inside of her sweet, tight body as she melted over me. She shook and screamed in frustration until she finally threw back her head and shoulders and came.
I leaned forward and took one nipple into my mouth, sucking hard as she quaked above me before finally falling against my chest in a honeyed heap of wildflowers, sweat, and sex.
Mine.
I wrapped my arms around her back and took each shuddering breath and drop of sweat into my skin, savoring it like nothing else in my life.
She turned her face so that her cheek pressed against my shoulder. Words didn’t seem to fit this moment, even though there were thousands twisting inside of me. I wanted to tell her I loved her. That I always had.
That walking away for even a moment had been the biggest mistake of my life. I should have tried harder to find a way. I should have cuffed her to me, for fuck’s sake. Everything would have been different.
But I hadn’t.
A mistake I wouldn’t be making again.
I opened my mouth to tell her that when my phone screamed from my jeans across the room. It was enough to break the moment. I cursed as she drew away and got to her feet, leaving me with the proof of just how maddening our lovemaking had been.
I took care of the strangled condom and my slick skin. Sunlight might have been pouring through the windows, but it was no match for the sudden cold front chilling the air.
She gathered her clothes and rushed down the hallway to the bathroom again.
“Fucking awesome,” I muttered as I picked up my jeans off the floor. I never left my damn ringer on, but I’d been too worried I would miss the realtor’s call.
My agent’s name flashed on the screen.
“Hell no,” I said to the empty room and sent the call to voicemail. The ink was barely dry on the paperwork to dissolve my part of the partnership in the band. I didn’t know what Harvey wanted, but I wasn’t interested.
I was officially retired. At least as far as the business was concerned. I hadn’t given any interviews even though Harv had sent through half a dozen links to magazines, blogs, and vlogs. I didn’t have anything to say.
Not sure I ever would.
With pants in hand, I followed Felicity down the hallway and knocked on the bathroom door.
“I’ll be out in a second,” she called over the running water.
“Fee.” I rested my forehead against the door. “Let me in.” I laid my palm on the cool painted wood.
She opened the door, her eyes wide when she skimmed her gaze down to find me naked. “Myles!”
“What? I need to wash up. Not that I really want the scent of you off me just yet.”
Her dark eyes went that molten chocolate color that made my gut twist.
I pushed the door open and closed it behind me. She was already back in her clothes, but there was no mistaking the scent in the bathroom. Us. Twisted and sweaty and screaming. The echo of it was all over her. And I didn’t want her to forget it or put it in a box. I could already tell she was doing just that.
Instead of allowing distance to rise up between us—as my cock already was, thank you very much—I dragged her to me.
She set her jaw and backed up a few steps. “I just got cleaned up.”
Nope, that wasn’t going to happen. I invaded her space. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. You still smell like me.” I buried my nose in her hair and nipped behind her ear
. “I can’t tell you how many nights I wanted this.” My hands slid down her ass to line us up again. “I knew it would be good, but not like this.” I drew back until our gazes locked. “You knew it too.”
She closed her eyes and tipped back her head. “Myles.”
The distress in her voice brought me back to earth with a crash. All the post-sex bliss dispersed like confetti under a sneaker in Times Square at 12:05.
I tunneled my fingers into her hair and gently brought her face back down so I could meet her gaze once more. “This isn’t supposed to make you miserable. I promise.”
“I’m not miserable. I’m…” She slipped under my arm then opened the door. “I just need a little space.” Then she closed the door and left me to clean up alone.
Son of a bitch.
9
Felicity
Everything jangled inside of me. Emotions, lust, afterglow. Did afterglow jangle? It sure felt like it did. And he wouldn’t get out of my damn face about it.
Just five minutes to put myself back together. Was that too much to ask?
I stalked down the hallway into the living room where my bags were scattered and his shirt had somehow gotten draped over a lamp. I wasn’t sure this house had ever seen so much action. And if it had, I didn’t want to think about it.
I swung into my sister’s room and borrowed a shirt from her wardrobe. We weren’t quite the same size, but it would do in a pinch. I looked down at the slight gap in the shirt. Ugh. Maybe not.
I turned to the large mirror over her dresser and winced. I’d tried to repair some of the damage after…well, just after. But there was no denying the just-fucked hair I had going on, or the beard burn feathering across my neck and collarbone.
Since when had my collarbone been sensitive?
Oh, right. When he’d done that thing with his tongue. Jesus.
Toast. I was freaking toast. How was anyone supposed to just walk upright and have a conversation after getting laid like that?
That wasn’t sex. It was something way—
Not thinking about it. Nope.