Getting Lucky (Jail Bait #4)

by Mia Storm

  Her pace quickens as her moans become louder and more feral. I lift her and shift so my knees are bent under me and use the leverage to thrust deeper. She throws her head back and groans with her orgasm, and I pull out as I come just behind her.

  After she’s taken a second to catch her breath, she leans her elbows on my shoulders and gazes into my eyes. “Welcome back.”

  Chapter 38

  Shiloh

  When I got home from Austin after Tro sent me away, it only took Children and Family Services a week to find me at Lilah’s. But instead of sending me back to the group home in the city, they found me a foster home only a few towns away from her.

  But today is my eighteenth birthday—the day I’ve been dying for since Tro bought a house in a little town in the mountains near Yosemite, about twenty minutes from Lilah’s place, and asked me to move in with him. He picks me up at eight in the morning and we make a beeline for his place. He scoops me into his arms, bride style, then kicks open the front door and carries me through.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, struggling in his arms.

  He grins, his whole face lighting. It’s been a long road back since Lilah and I found him half-dead in his apartment three months ago. He’s started taking care of himself again, and there are times he almost seems back to his old self, but this is the first time I’ve seen that reckless spark in his eye since before everything happened with Kate. “Practicing.”

  My insides turn to cement and I squirm out of his arms, my feet thudding onto the hardwood floor. “Don’t make me change my mind and move in with Lilah instead,” I warn.

  The spark fades with his grin, and instantly, I hate myself for saying that. His gaze grows intense and searches mine. “You don’t ever think about it?”

  I shake my head slowly as I step into him, my fingers caressing down the three-day growth along the line of his jaw. “Right now, all I can think about is what it will take to get you naked.”

  My diversion works. The devil is back in his eyes as he rips his T-shirt over his head. He toes off his shoes and a second later, he’s stepping out of his jeans and boxer briefs. And then he’s got me in his arms again. He lifts me by the ass and hooks my knees over his hips, taking the stairs up to his bedroom two at a time, as if I weigh nothing.

  This is the room that sold the house. The master suite is the only thing on the second floor: a large room with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides that look over the woods to the mountains beyond—a view that would make even birds jealous. For miles all there is is serenity. Which has been good for Tro.

  I’ve been here before, of course. Tro has fucked me on this bed at least a dozen times since he bought this place last month. But this feels different. I feel his need in the pound of his blood under my hands on his neck, and in the hard heat of his cock between my legs, as usual. But what’s overwhelming me, making it hard to breath, is the intensity of his gaze. He holds me in that gaze as he lays me back on the bed and undresses me, and right here, in this instant, I understand that there is such a thing as a soul mate. Suddenly, I feel closer to him than I ever thought possible to feel to another human being. I see him, hovering over me. I feel him as he enters me. But I know him in every cell of my body. And as he takes me, mind, body, and soul, I know in my heart that I’m finally where I belong.

  Home.

  It’s dark by the time Tro is done with me, but I’m not tired. I’m wired. Being with Tro is like being plugged in. We lay in a pool of sweaty sheets, catching our breath.

  “You hungry?” he asks.

  I left the foster home without breakfast this morning. Not that they weren’t good people, but I wasn’t going to waste a minute getting here. “Sure.”

  Tro peals himself out of the sheets and snags his boxer briefs off the floor, tugging them on as he moves to the door. “Think I’ve got a box of mac-n-cheese downstairs.”

  I’m suddenly freezing without him, despite the heat the summer sun through the windows has left behind. I pull on my underwear and one of his T-shirts, then pad down the stairs behind him. I slip onto a barstool at the long island separating his kitchen from the large, open living room. Down here, the floor-to-ceiling windows are painted green by all the cedar trees just outside, making me feel fresh and clean despite all the dirty things Tro just did to me in his bedroom.

  I watch him knock around the kitchen, and a few minutes later, he’s scooping mac-n-cheese onto two plates. He sets them on the island in front of me then goes to the fridge, coming back with two beers.

  “I’ve been working on something the last few weeks,” he says, watching his plate as he stirs the food around with a fork. “I’m stuck on this one spot.”

  My heart skips. I haven’t pushed him, but I know getting back to his music will help him so much. “Tell me about it.”

  We sit and eat, and he takes me through where he feels like it’s not quite right. When we’re finished, he pulls his guitar from the corner near the window and we settle onto the couch.

  “So, it’s right here,” he says as he strums through a progression leading back to the chorus.

  I slip the guitar out of his arms. “How ‘bout if you just do this?” I say, modulating it up a chord.

  “Shit,” he says with a shake of his head. “That’s fucking brilliant.”

  I give him a look. “It’s not brilliant.”

  He takes the guitar back and plays the song through the way I showed him. “Brilliant,” he mutters again as he grabs a paper off the table and jots some notes.

  I pull the guitar away and lean it against the coffee table, then climb on, straddling him. “You want to know what’s brilliant?” I ask, my fingers trailing over his body, still skinnier than it was when we met, but so fucking hot. “This.”

  His mouth pulls into that lopsided cocky smile that I used to hate. Now, it lights desire like a slow-burning fuse in my heart that works its way to my belly and sets me on fire. I kiss it off his mouth, then kiss him some more. When he lifts my T-shirt over my head, I break this kiss and find the same fire in his eyes as they gaze into mine. I free his cock and he pulls my panties aside, and when I sink down his length, he grabs me and flips us so I’m under him on the couch. He fucks me again, so slow, so deep, unlocking every sensation and making me wonder for the hundredth time what I did to deserve something so perfect in my life. I come twice before he does, and I know that’s on purpose. He definitely knows what he’s doing.

  “Why was that so scary to you?” he asks, trailing a fingertip over my cheekbone as we catch our breath.

  I open my eyes and look at him, still on top of me. Still inside me. “Nothing you do to me scares me, Tro. You should know that by now.”

  He lifts a skeptical eyebrow. “When I carried you over the threshold, you were scared.”

  At the mention of it, I freeze. I guess I’d blocked that out. “I wasn’t scared.”

  It’s not a lie. What I feel lodge in my heart at the thought of marriage…or anything permanent, isn’t fear. It’s cold, raw terror.

  He sees it in my eyes, apparently. “Talk to me,” he says, rolling on his side and propping himself on an elbow.

  But I can’t find words. Panic builds in my chest like a lightning storm, short-circuiting my thoughts.

  He leans in and kisses me, and just that begins to calm the storm. “I will never ask you for anything you’re not willing or able to give, Lucky. But just know, there’s nothing I won’t give if you ask.”

  “So, what are you saying? That I have to ask you to marry me?”

  He nods. “Down the road, whenever you’re ready.”

  “What if I’m never ready?”

  “Then we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing.”

  I smile, some of the tension softening out of my shoulders, and roll to face him. “Fucking on the couch?”

  He smiles back and the devil flashes in his eyes. “And on the kitchen counter, and in the shower, and on the porch, and in the woods, and on my bike. Wh
erever the fuck I can have you.”

  I tug him closer. “You can have me anywhere, anytime.”

  So he does. We start on the couch, but end up on the floor. And again on the kitchen table. And again in the shower. And in between we talk, and write, and sing, and belong. We give a little more of ourselves to each other with every touch, every word. And at dawn, we finally fall asleep in each other’s arms.

  #

  “Let’s take Shiloh’s part from the bridge,” the sound guy Ricky says from the booth.

  Tro backs away from his mic and nods at me as the guitar line starts in my earpiece.

  He’s been in the studio for the last month, working on his first solo album. I told him he needed to focus on his own music for this one, but he never listens to me. He wants the lead single to be the one we wrote together the last few weeks on tour, which is why I’m here today recording.

  As I belt out his lyrics, he watches me with eyes that tug at every level of my being all at the same time. I want him. I need him. And, God, I love him so fucking much. My heart swells, then overflows with everything I’m feeling for him, making my voice a little scratchy with emotion. He comes up behind me, wraps me in his arms as I sing, and all of a sudden, I’m more.

  That’s what we do for each other—make each other something bigger than we are when we’re apart.

  In the three months since Tro asked the question, I’ve been thinking more about why I’m so scared of anything permanent. I haven’t come up with an answer. But what I know is, with each passing day, I’m a little less scared of something permanent with Tro. He’s not the same person I met over a year ago. And I’m not the same person he met back then either. We each cancel out the other’s insecurities and doubts. We make each other whole.

  When we’re not working, we spend most of our time the same way we spent our first day together at his place. We stay up until dawn most nights, writing music, talking, fucking, then sleep until afternoon. We only get dressed when we have to leave the house.

  And we’re touring again next spring—the Lo and Tro tour. Or as Tro calls it, the Lucky Me tour. Either way, it’s going to be my new tracks with Lilah playing lead for me, and I can’t fucking wait. I kind of want to send copies of our bank statements to all those high school teachers and guidance counselors who told Lilah and me we’d never amount to anything but a drain on society.

  “That was great, Shiloh,” Ricky says in our ears as I wrap. “Let’s take it from the same spot on Tro’s harmony.”

  Tro doesn’t let me go as he sings, and I shiver in his arms with the memory of the weeks we wrote this song—the weeks I wouldn’t let myself admit I was falling for him. I never could have dreamed then that we’d end up where we are: Tro without Roadkill and me without Billie. But everything happens for a reason.

  Tro and I collided in fiery crash that melted away all the bullshit until we each found the person we were meant to be. The road eventually smoothed out and led us to the place we both needed to end up, in each other’s arms making the music we were meant to make.

  And this is where I plan to say.

  Acknowledgements

  Many hugs to the incredible team at New Leaf, including but not limited to my omnipotent uberagent, Suzie Townsend, for being the most incredible advocate any author could have, and Danielle Barthel for everything she does behind the scenes. To Danielle Sanchez and the fabulous ladies at Inkslinger, who put up with me for some unknown reason. And my writer friends for all their incredible support.

  About the author

  Mia Storm is a hopeless romantic who is always searching for her happy ending. Sometimes she’s forced to make one up. When that happens, she’s thrilled to be able to share those stories with her readers. She lives in California and spends much of her time in the sun with a book in one hand and a mug of black coffee in the other, or hiking the trails in Yosemite.

  Connect with her online at MiaStormAuthor.blogspot.com, on Twitter at @MiaStormAuthor, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MiaStormAuthor.