by Robyn Thomas
Beth’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Soft, huh?”
“Not as soft as chicken feathers.” He set the quilt aside and gave his right thigh a welcoming tap. “Find a perch.” He bit back a grin at her splutter of protest. “Don’t get uptight. I’m only suggesting that you make yourself comfortable.”
She made a strangled sound. “Yeah, perched on your lap.”
Perched on his lap? Whoa, the image that conjured almost blew him away. “Couch-surfing is one of the few advantages of our situation, but you don’t have to indulge in it.” He waved one hand. “Your living room, your fiancé, your choice.”
“It’s not what I had in mind.” She stared at him, then said the oddest thing. “But if Skyla trusts you, I can too.”
His breath hitched when she stepped forward. One of her knees bumped his thigh when she knelt on the edge of the couch, her hands resting like feathers on his shoulders.
“I guess this is your rock-god version of a shoulder to lean on?” Nervous laughter escaped her and then she nodded. “We’ve already established that I need that tonight, so here goes.”
She didn’t move, but he sensed that she would when she was ready. The delay was sweet torture. It had been forever since he’d shared any real intimacy with anyone, and being here with Beth felt momentous. He smiled and saw the corners of her lips twitch in response. “Who knew you’d lean so lightly on my shoulders?”
Her smile widened into one of pure relief and she shifted to straddle him. He reached for her hips, curling around her made-to-hold curves on the pretext of steadying her. A groan emerged from deep in his throat when she slid forward and pressed against his arousal, her legs squeezing his hips as she struggled to reduce the level of intimacy. She slid, she slipped and bumped and bounced.
Joy and agony assailed him in equal measure until he pressed her hips down and held them in place. “Be still.”
“Sorry. This is new for me. Couch-surfing, I mean.”
It was new for him, too. Being in a cozy home with a woman unlike any he’d ever met had his head spinning. Women weren’t incredibly generous and loving toward men like him. They offered sex, not trust. They didn’t throw their homes open, lay their hearts bare, or beg for comfort. Beth was the exception to every rule, but the margin for error was enormous. Pleasure and consolation he could provide, a deep emotional connection he couldn’t. He’d channeled his raw emotions into his music for years. That wouldn’t change overnight.
Beth’s lips grazed his jaw in a fleeting caress. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re here tonight. I made it through the last few days on my own but I think my reserves are getting pretty low. Too much cooking and crying. Not enough sleep.”
The slight shrug of her shoulders hinted at an apology. The emotion she saw as weakness took a great deal of strength to share. He should know. He’d spent eight years playing it super— cool, cultivating rumors of a one-night-only philosophy and expressing the rift with his family in cryptic song lyrics. The closest it had ever come to the surface was earlier in her kitchen when she’d told him about her mother. He lived as if his life had begun with his music career, refusing to acknowledge the twenty-three years before it. Beth was braver; she owned every second of her life, including the ones at rock bottom.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
“That I can believe.” A dimple flashed in her cheek as she dug her knees deeper into the cushions on either side of his hips. “I’d argue that I have the best seat in the house, though.”
The delicious pressure made him harden even more and begrudge his beloved Jake Olsen label jeans for the first time ever.
His hands stroked over her back until she sighed and melted into him. Her arms lifted to wrap around his shoulders, her lungs expanding with every breath she took. The fullness of her breasts and the firmness of her thighs imprinted themselves on him. Heat from her body burned through the fly of his jeans and the point of no return careered toward him.
What the hell had happened to just holding her while she slept?
Clutching at straws, he said the only thing he could think of that might keep him from stripping her clothes off and taking her here on the couch. “This is not gonna happen. There’s no honor in seducing a grieving woman.”
The half-muttered truth was barely out of his mouth when she jerked back, shock and hurt battling in the depths of her eyes.
“There’s not much honor in rejecting someone whose life is in such turmoil they’re barely holding it together. I’m willing to overlook the fact that I’ve just met you. I have no idea how one-night stands usually play out, but if you do your usual rock god thing, I should be able to keep up. I want to feel like it’s okay to abandon the rules I normally live by and enjoy a night away from reality.” She blew out a shaky breath and straightened her spine.
Her green eyes met his, a fine sheen of tears adding weight to her words. “The way I see it you can either be an arrogant rock god who keeps to himself, or a doting fiancé who doesn’t. The choice is yours.”
His hands chose for him. She’d had the worst of days—topped off by some famous guy insisting they were engaged and moving in with her. The chance to be Beth’s doting fiancé wasn’t one he was willing to pass up, but he realized that he was playing with fire.
He dipped his hands beneath the elastic waist of her pajama pants to trace the sweet curve of her bottom. Soft female flesh yielded to his touch when he rocked her forward a strategic inch before backing off and repeating the move.
“Couch-surfer,” she said. “Works for me.”
He’d love to work for her. What would it be like to share his private thoughts with her instead of stewing over them alone, choosing a select few to translate into coded verse? It was difficult to maintain a train of thought as her hips picked up the subtle rhythm he’d begun, ebbing and flowing against him as naturally as the ocean on a sandy beach.
He pushed his head back against the couch as he swelled further and pressed more firmly into the heated cradle of her body, his half-tortured growl blending with her moan of contentment to form the basis of the sweetest soundtrack ever heard.
“You’re happy now.”
She made a low purring sound and leaned back, her arms looped around his neck as if that was their rightful home. He studied her dreamy expression, his body screaming for action. His head demanded answers. “If we do this, will you regret it in the morning?”
“That’s the beauty of it, Famous Man.” She slipped her fingers into his hair and tugged in a playful motion. “Morning is already here.”
Chapter Four
“Day two.” His eyes locked with hers. “I haven’t spent two consecutive days with a woman since before I formed the band. We’re adding weight to the lottery bride story. If the press find out that I’m here…”
She laughed and curved one small hand around his jaw.
“They’ll have our wedding planned before we know it?”
“I don’t want a wedding any more than you do.” Think before you speak, you stupid bastard. “You don’t, do you?” Her head shook without the slightest hesitation, and he was able to suck air into his lungs. “When our time is up, you’ll have to ask me to leave.” Again with the unvarnished truth. Clearly he’d lost his ability to put a spin on things.
“Don’t look so worried. It’s not me you’re attached to, it’s my house. It often has that effect on people. It’s my favorite place in the world, and I’ve always drawn strength from it. Last night it felt like an empty shell for the first time ever, until you arrived.
I’m glad you didn’t disappear in a puff of smoke when the sun came up.” She prodded his shoulder with gentle insistence. “I’m beginning to think you’re real.”
Real? It was an interesting word for a fake fiancé who led a superficial existence. “This is real,” he said slowly. He leaned in to press his mouth over the pulse pounding at the base of her neck.
“I like your reality. Can I have more?�
�
Yes ma’am. The tiny pom-pom buttons on her pajama top slipped undone beneath his fingers, and he wasn’t surprised when she broke their kiss to watch his hands. He slid a couple of fingers under her top and skimmed his knuckles across her chest. “I like the way you watch me.”
She blushed and curled her hands around his wrists. “It’s bright enough to see and I don’t want to waste that.” She gasped and pushed the cuff of his shirt upward. “You have a tattoo?”
“I have three.” Her surprise morphed into genuine delight, sending a multitude of half-formed song lyrics through his mind.
“You want to see?”
“Yes, of course. Whenever you’re ready. What’s this one?”
“It’s my family crest.”
“Cool. It’s so detailed.”
He pushed the two sides of her top apart in super slow motion.
“I’m a huge fan of details, especially visual ones.”
Cupping her breasts through her tank top was tempting, but he needed to see them almost as much as he needed to touch. He eased the soft fabric up over her ribs and then lifted it to bare her breasts. Following his instincts at the last second, he buried his face in the valley between them and nuzzzled against her, breathing in the scent of ripe green apples with a subtle undertone of pure Beth. Her skin was warmer here than anywhere his mouth had touched before. The urge to linger, to devour and inhale, would’ve been impossible to ignore if she’d given him free rein.
She didn’t. Her hands cradled the back of his head for a fleeting moment before easing him away from her, and he realized with a start that she was waiting for a verdict. On perfection?
“You’re so beautiful. It’s got to be fate that you’re the woman I’m engaged to.” He stroked one fingertip over a taut nipple, swept away for a brief moment by the idea of moistening it with
the tip of his shaft. One day soon, he’d have to do that.
“You chose me as your fiancée. How is that fate?”
“I never dreamed anyone could live up to all the things Skylaand Brad said about you.” He bent his head and ki ssed each breast in turn, his tongue circling her nipples without making contact.
She leaned closer, tempting him, nudging her soft flesh against his jaw until his tongue flicked out to moisten one pouting point.
“That’s it? The best you can do?”
Impatient, was she? “Don’t rush me. Some things are best savored slowly. Look what happens when I do this.” He closed his mouth over the tip of one breast and sucked hard, surprised
to find her so enthralled with her swollen nipple. He’d been right in thinking she didn’t know what she had. How was that possible?
He turned his attention to her other breast, and together they watched her nipple respond to the heat and pressure of his lips and tongue. He sat back and traced his finger over it.
“Bigger.” He waited for her head to bob in agreement.
“Darker too. More sensitive. And sweeter than anything you can imagine, so sweet, like caramel apple cake drenched in syrup.”
He dipped his head again, rejoicing at the long low moan that accompanied the pull of his mouth. He repeated the motion, more gently, and was rewarded with her broken sigh. It felt like a victory, like something special that she’d remember long after he was gone. All of his memorable moments from the past eight years had been on stage. But not Beth—Beth was private.
“I’ve spent too many nights alone”—he paused to taste her—
“wishing I had time to search the world for the one woman whose breasts would fill my hands exactly.”
He demonstrated, stroking his open hands over her until she quivered. “My search is over. You’re a perfect fit.”
Her husky laughter caught him by surprise. “Is this your version of a glass slipper?”
“Why not?”
She pressed her breasts into his hands and asked. “You like these?”
“Breasts that fill out a tight white tank top in a way that sucks all of the air out of my lungs? Yeah.” He kneaded her in a slow and steady motion, his hands memorizing the shape and heat and texture of her for all the lonely nights that lay ahead of him. “You can safely assume I like them.”
“We’re kind of even, because I love how your hands are so gentle while your skin is so rough. I like watching you touch me.”
“In the hall, earlier, I had this idea that your breasts were supported by invisible palms, and I wanted those palms to be mine.”
He lowered his hands, cupping the air just below her breasts.
“And now they are. From this point on you’ll know it’s me who keeps you so high and pert when you’re naked.” He took the weight of her breasts in his hands, his thumbs rubbing back and
forth in a wide arc. “And when your nipples ache for attention
you’ll only have to close your eyes and you’ll be back here filling my hands, waiting for my mouth to soothe you.”
A wash of color flooded her face and she seemed lost for
words. “I’m never going to be able to take my clothes off without thinking of your hands on me. You need to stop talking now.”
Happy to comply, he held her breasts together, his open mouth
cruising from one to the other, teasing the aroused peaks with
rapid flicks of his tongue while she slowly killed him with the rise and fall of her hips. It wasn’t hard to imagine himself pushing up into her, but she seemed so affected by his mouth on her breasts.
Maybe that was enough for one morning? She said his name in a
questioning tone but he didn’t respond. He couldn’t justify a split second away from his new hobby.
“I need skin. I need to touch you. I need to match your
heartbeat and smell your sweat and feel your muscles. Your reality has so much life and I want to be a part of it. I want—”
She broke off mid-sentence and slid off his lap, toppling
backward onto the couch and tugging him down with her. “You,”
she whispered as his body blanketed her and pressed her deep
into the cushions. “I want you.”
His clothes hit the floor almost before she’d finished speaking, but reality tiptoed across the edges of his mind as he hooked his fingers in the waistband of her pants. “Beth, we have a problem. I wasn’t expecting—”
“Top drawer of the coffee table. They’re gift-wrapped.” She
gave a strangled laugh. “Please don’t ask why.”
He reached over, retrieved the box, and gave it to her to
unwrap while he finished undressing her. Encircling both ankles
with his hands, he coaxed them apart so he could kneel between
her legs. He sucked in a breath when she raised her knees, his heart galloping so fast he feared it would explode. How long had it been since anyone had wanted more than bragging rights from sleeping with him? Eight years. A lifetime? So long he’d almost forgotten what it was like to be welcomed and nurtured and valued.
“Do I want to know what’s so important that you had to stop
and think about it now?”
“I was wondering if there might be a hidden clause somewhere
that would make our engagement real and binding.”
“Good answer. But that’s enough talking. And looking.”
“What about touching? Are you going to ban that, too?”
A sweet smile curved her lips. “What would you be doing if
you weren’t talking or looking?”
She shook as he traced a meandering path up the inside of her
thighs. Finding her wet and ready, he nudged his knee against her moist heat. When she arched her back and rubbed against him, a powerful surge of clarity shot through him. It wasn’t enough for him to take pleasure. He wanted to give it, wanted this to be a place she could revisit in her mind when she needed a moment’s
respite.
He ripped the small foil packet open and sheathed himse
lf,
one palm flattening over her stomach to hold her steady while
he probed gently and backed off. Soft green eyes held his gaze,
widening when he slipped up through her damp folds to tease
her clit with his hard length. Making her wait hadn’t been on his agenda, but he couldn’t resist. His lifestyle didn’t allow for lasting attachments. This opportunity to make sweet love with this woman who was now his fiancée, however tenuous and brief their
engagement was, might be a once-only deal. He wasn’t rushing it
for anyone.
“Jake, please.”
He circled his hand on her stomach, barely moving, his
outstretched fingers skimming over her curls. His control was
slipping, but it seemed important to voice the thought uppermost in his mind. “You’re my fiancée.”
Beth shook her head. “You’re mine.”
If only that were true. He slid into her in one long stroke, then flexed to let her know there wouldn’t be a moment’s respite.
Staying with her for more than a few days was out of the question, but he was here now. And there was nothing fake about this moment.
One of Beth’s hands had fisted in the rock-god hair that she
claimed not to like. That level of acceptance was what separated Beth from every other woman he knew. He trailed his lips up her neck to her ear. “You’re not mussing up my hair, are you?”
She mussed it on purpose. It made his day, but he feigned
retaliation. He slid his arm beneath one of her knees and gave a murmur of triumph when she breathed his name and locked her ankles together behind him. For the first time in his life he wanted to give a commentary, but he couldn’t find the words to describe how closely this resembled his idea of the perfect night in.
Despite his earlier resolve to push her straight over the
edge, he stilled, giving her a moment to catch her breath. But she wouldn’t allow it. She urged him on and he gladly surrendered his entire length to her again and again, giving her what she wanted, what she craved, what her body was telling him she needed. His tongue invaded her mouth, dominating her, thrusting arrogantly