"How you feel about watching me play—" I said, "—that's how I feel about watching you, um, just watching you. You know, be alive and breathe. Looking at this—" I used my fingertips to trace his face, neck and down onto his chest. "Makes me feel all those same things you're saying."
"Well, it's a good thing we are where we are, now isn't it, Addison?"
I ran my hands down his back, pulling him toward me as I lifted my hips into him. "It's a really good thing," I said.
He positioned himself in the channel between my legs, and pushed himself into me as he rubbed up and down along my center. I wanted to come to pieces already.
"Draaaake," I said. I closed my eyes, as I swam through the haze of erotic aches that hit me over and over. Feeling him hard and heavy along my clit was just about to push me over the edge. He must have known that by the way I said his name.
"No Addison," he said, bringing me back from the brink. "Not until I'm inside you, Kitten."
"Do it nowwww, please Drake, I'm begging you."
He pushed himself inside me so gently that just the very tip crossed the barrier. I brought my hips up, encouraging him to go deeper. "So impatient," he said shaking his head.
"You're such a tease," I said.
"A tease?"
"Yes," I said with a challenging stare.
"What is it you want, then?"
"I want it all the way inside."
"Like this?" He said the words casually, but when he did, he dipped in and out of me one time fully causing me to gasp at the sensation of being so full so fast. "Is that what you want?"
"Yes." I breathed.
"This?"
He did it again.
"Yes." I whimpered.
"How about if I leave it in there?" He pushed into me fully, causing me to take a sharp intake of breath. He pushed his hips into mine, driving himself as deep as he could go. He held still while I began to writhe and squirm beneath him. I pushed my hips upward and pulled them back, riding him from the bottom. I pushed and pulled again and again, going wild for the sensation of his hard length moving in and out of me. My hips quickly found a rhythm that threatened to send me over the edge.
Drake must have sensed that I was about to lose my mind because he whispered in my ear. "Now you can come, Addie. Now that I'm inside you and I can feel it happen." He pushed down onto me harder. "Do it."
I moaned and he pushed again.
"Yes Kitten, I feel you."
I writhed and bucked underneath him as I rode waves of ecstasy. He whispered in my ear as I came, which prolonged the amazing sensation. "Good girl," he said. "That's my girl."
I had no idea how long it took me to come back to reality, but when I did, he was looking down at me. Some of his hair had fallen out of the rubber band, and was hanging over his beautiful face.
I reached up and tucked it behind his ear. "That felt really good," I said a little shyly.
"It felt really good to me too," he said, smiling. "Still does." He gave a tiny little thrust to show me what he was talking about. I smiled up at him, and without a word, I pushed him out of me, got out from underneath him, and turned around to get on my knees.
I looked back at him and smiled.
Drake had his way with me in that position before taking me over to the couch where he had me lay over the arm some funny kind of way before finding his release. I loved being bent over the arm of the couch, and told him so when we'd finished and were laying there talking to each other. He promised that was just the beginning of things I'd be bent over, and we laughed about that for a long time, naming all the things I could lean over, and ways to do it.
Drake and I ended up staying in my bedroom the remainder of the night, only emerging to get food or drinks. I felt like all was right with the world when I was with him, and it wasn't just because his hands were the ones that made the bench that made me into a performer again. It wasn't the bench that made me love him—that was just icing on the cake.
The next morning, I went into the living room to find Steven Richie sitting in a recliner. He was staring at his phone, but looked at me when I opened the door.
"What are you doing here?" I asked. I tugged at the hem of my shirt, wondering if it was long enough to cover me.
"The hole's gone," he said. He said it like it was the most shocking bit of news ever. "It's not just gone, it's like professionally fuckin' gone. It's been filled in with whatever the wall's made out of. It's totally gone. I couldn’t even tell where the fuckin' thing was."
"That had to be taken care of," Drake said, coming out of the bedroom behind me.
"Oh shit, he's here?" Steven asked, holding his fist over his mouth and shifting his weight excitedly.
"I'm sure you agree that it's weird to watch us through the wall now that we know each other," Drake said.
He followed me to the kitchen where I poured us each a glass of orange juice.
"Yeah, I mean, I wasn't gonna fuckin' look through it or shit like that, I just thought it was weird that it was filled with the same shit as the wall. That one time Addie did it, it was just full of sand and coffee." Drake looked at me curiously, but didn't ask. He just stared at Steven.
"It looks professionally filled because it was. I know a lot of professionals."
"Is that why they call you Drake the Dreaded?"
"No. They call me that because I caught a guy spying at me through a fence one time and I gauged his eyes out with my thumbs."
"Are you fuckin' serious, dude?"
Drake laughed. "No, but don't fuckin' test me, dude. I don't want you looking at me. That's just weird. If you wanted to hang out with me, you should have just come over to ask like Addie did."
Steven's eyes got huge. "Would you have let me?"
Drake smiled at him. "No, but now that you come with Addie, I guess I'm sort of stuck with you."
"Oh shit, does that mean I can come over sometime?" Steven asked. He stared at Drake longingly—there might as well have been sparkles in his eyes.
"Probably so, but you better get lost right now, because I'm still pissed about you looking in the first place."
Steven stood up with a gigantic smile plastered on his face. He looked at me. "He just invited me over to his fuckin' house!" he said.
"I heard that," I said nodding and smiling at him.
Steven made fists and pumped his arms as if congratulating himself. "Yesssssss bitches!" he said. He stood and went to the door, but looked back at Drake before opening it. He pointed directly at him. "You won't regret having me over. We'll just chill sometime. I fuckin' knew it." He opened the door and started to walk out, but stopped long enough to slap the door and let out an excited yelp before closing it.
Drake laughed as he drank the juice I poured him, then he turned to grab me. "What a piece of work," he said.
"He's obviously a big fan of yours," I said, laughing. I looked up at him. "Without Steven, I would have never known you were back there, though."
Drake was quiet for a second then shrugged. "I guess I owe him one."
Chapter 23
Megan still hadn't made it home, and once Steven left, Drake and I were once again alone in the guesthouse. I told him I wasn't much of a chef but that he could help himself to whatever we had in the pantry if he was hungry.
"Dad's at the house and he loves to make breakfast," he said. "He'd whip something up if I told him we were going over there."
He had on his grey pants from the evening before, but no shoes or shirt, and I stared at his broad back as he rinsed his glass and bent to put it in the dishwasher.
It wasn't sinking in that he was mine. In my eyes, he was so perfect that I couldn't help but doubt the trueness of my situation. I tried to remind myself of all the sincere things he said the night before, but the magnitude of his beauty was enough to make a girl doubt.
"What are we?" I asked. He came over to me and bumped into me, pushing me against the kitchen counter. I looked up at him and we both smiled.
&
nbsp; "What's that mean?"
"I don't know. I guess I'm just trying to settle into our situation." I shrugged, shyly. "I mean—I figure it's safe to say we're not seeing other people or anything."
How mortifying. Did I just ask him for some sort of commitment? I knew it made me seem insecure, but it was too late and the words were hanging in the air.
He looked down at me with an unreadable expression. "Did I not make my intentions clear last night, Addison?"
His accent made him seem intimidating, and I took an irregular breath as I stared at him. I smiled and squirmed because he had made his intentions clear, and I just had to go and beat it into the ground.
"I'll say it any way you need to hear it," he said. "Is it the word girlfriend you want to hear? Do you want me to say you're my girlfriend?"
I giggled, and covered my face, but he continued, "Because I'll say it. You're my girlfriend, lover, lady, kitten. Fill in the blank with whatever you want. But that's not the important part. The my part of that phrase is more important than whatever comes after it. Because that's what you are. You're mine, Addie. You can say it however you want, but what it comes down to is you're with me now."
I thought about that for a second. "What kind of time commitment are we talking about here?" I asked.
"Well, I can tell you right now that it's gonna be on a regular basis. We'll have to figure it out as it comes, but I don't plan on going days in between seeing you, if that answers your question. Why? Are you too busy for a boyfriend?"
And there it was—gut-clenching butterflies at the sound of that word coming out of his mouth referring to who he was in relation to me. What was the question? Did he ask if I was too busy for him?
"No. I'm not too busy, I was just sort of wondering what to expect from here."
He ran his fingers through the hair on the back of my head and held me securely in place as he leaned in to speak. He was only inches from my face when he said, "What to expect is that I don't really feel like being apart from you. I want you to be in the same place at the same time as me as often as we can." He let is eyes roam over my face and the hint of a smile touched his lips.
"We can start with breakfast," I said, smiling. I was nervous about seeing his family, but had an innate desire to face my fears and confront them as soon as possible.
"Do you like eggs, and bacon, and regular breakfast food?"
I put a hand on my stomach. "I will destroy some breakfast right now," I said.
And right when I said it, as if I could make it happen on command, my stomach growled. We both burst into laughter for a few seconds, before agreeing we should head out for breakfast.
He called his dad before we left. He was only on the phone long enough to ask him to make breakfast, and I assumed Tom agreed because Drake hung up with a smile. I couldn't believe I was having breakfast cooked for me by a ruthless pirate. Drake and I talked about his dad last night. He said Tom was indeed a real life modern day pirate, but that if you asked him what he was, he'd say he was a smuggler. Either way, the dangerous and powerful Captain Tom was delicately cracking eggs for my breakfast at this very moment.
"Is it weird that I think it's cool that you're dad's a—that your dad, you know, does what he does?"
Drake was driving, but glanced at me smiling.
"Does it do it for you that we're dangerous?"
"No."
"Don't lie."
He was smiling as he stared at the road, then he glanced at me.
"Okay, so maybe it does do it for me a little bit," I said. I reached out and put a hand on his thigh. "Are you dangerous?"
He did the same, putting his hand on my thigh, only he gave mine a squeeze. "You have no idea."
"Are you dangerous to me?" I asked.
He glanced at me. "No."
I leaned over, stretching the seatbelt to the max, and put a kiss on his jaw. Seconds later, we pulled into the driveway. He stopped at the gate, and pushed a few buttons on his phone to get it to open. He parked at the front door, and we went inside.
I made the decision to act like I didn't know his family hated the idea of me being around. My plan was to simply pretend I'd never overheard that conversation.
Tom was staring down at the stove when we rounded the corner to the main part of the house.
"Smells good," Drake said.
His dad looked up and squinted at us, waving.
"It's Drake and Addie. You need to put on your glasses."
"I don't need em to cook, and I can see you anyway. Drake said you played real good last night, Miss Addie," Tom said. He looked at me with a smile and a wink, and I thought if Tom Kelly couldn't charm you, no one could.
"He didn't say she played good," Rory's Irish voice said from the living room. He was in the middle of the living room floor laying on one of those foam back rollers. I hadn't even noticed him there when we came in. He sat up and looked straight at me. "He didn't say ye played good, he said ye were a bloody genius and dad and I were twats for not coming to your show. He said ye had the whole place on their feet and that the next time we decide to stay at home when you play a show, he was gonna hang us from a tree."
"I did not say I was gonna hang you from a tree," Drake said. "I didn't specify what I would do."
"Well, I assumed it was something along the lines of stringing us up."
"You shouldn't have missed it," Drake said.
I glanced at him like it really wasn't that big of a deal. "They didn't miss anything. You guys have a piano right here," I said.
"They did miss something. They missed the fuck out. They missed the thousands of people on their feet clapping and yelling for you."
"They were clapping for all of us."
He looked at his brother. "They weren't," he said. "She was amazing. They were freaking out for her. She might as well have been Lady Gaga."
I looked at Rory. "Hardly," I said.
"Would you and Lady Addie like to come make your plates?" Tom asked from the kitchen. Drake and I went into the kitchen. As we approached, I could see that he'd already made a ton of food. There were pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon and toast all spread out on the countertop.
"I changed my mind I want some," Rory said.
"I made extra because I knew you would," Tom said. Rory came into the kitchen, and the three of us piled food on our plates. We sat around the bar talking about everything from dogs, to music, to sports.
You can imagine how surprised I was when Drake randomly said, "Addie lives right there." He pointed in the general direction of his backyard, and both Tom and Rory looked at him with confused expressions. "Yeah, the kid who lives there heard they had a family of pirates living back here and Addie pretended she wanted some furniture to come check us out."
Captain Tom Kelly let out a hearty laugh at that. Rory and Drake laughed too, but Tom's laugh was that of a real pirate if I've ever heard one.
"So what do you think now that you've met us, brave Addie?" Tom asked, still smiling.
I only had a split second to think of something to say so I went with honesty. "I like you guys, and I think you're great at making breakfast. I'm not so curious about your job now that I know those two things."
Rory stared at his phone, but Tom regarded me with an expression I couldn’t figure out even though I tried desperately. "I like you too," he said. His face broke into the same handsome smile he shared with both of his sons. He was so charming that it was hard to imagine he was the same guy who carried around a skull. The thought made me look around for it. And, yep, there it was, on a little catchall table against the wall. A bona fide human skull.
"You ever been deep-sea fishin' Miss Addie?" Tom asked.
His question startled me. "Sir?"
"Have you ever been out deep sea fishing?"
Maybe I should've been freaked out that a guy with a skull was asking me about deep-sea fishing, but I liked Tom, and found it easy to trust him. Maybe he was just good at getting people to trust him, but I was sold.<
br />
"I grew up in Jensen but I've never done that. It isn't my dad's thing, I guess."
"Do your folks live in Miami now? How'd you end up livin' behind us?"
"My friend Megan lives back there in her parent's guest house. Her dad's a big plastic surgeon."
"Is she hot?" Rory asked.
Drake and I both answered, "Yes," at the same time, and we looked at each other, him smiling at me and me looking marginally jealous. I came really close to telling Rory that Megan thought he was hot, but at the last second I remembered he didn't know she had seen him. I caught myself right before I said it, and my heart raced at what a close call that was.
"So your folks are still in Jensen?"
"Yes sir. And my sister. She's two years older than me. She's a physical therapist. They were at the concert last night. Drake met them all."
"Is her sister hot?" Rory asked.
"Yes she is Rory. They're all hot. Every girl there was hot last night which is yet another reason you're an idiot for missing out."
Rory looked at me. "When are ye playing again?"
Epilogue
The next time I played for a crowd that size was eight months later. My next big performance was in London.
It was something I had to do.
I didn't play Rachmaninoff. I checked that off of my fear list when I played it in Miami.
Drake and I had fallen into a bit of a routine during the last eight months. I stayed busy with school as he did with work, but we constantly made efforts to be together. At first, we spent two or three nights a week at one place or the other, but lately, we'd been waking up at one another's house nearly every morning.
Finding the Magic (Tom Kelly's Boys Book 1) Page 16