by Piper Lawson
It’s so good, and not nearly enough.
“That better be a booty call,” Elle whispers over the symphony.
I flip my phone to hide the light in the darkened theater. “I’m waiting for the showcase results,” I whisper back.
I don’t want to be that asshole interrupting a public event, but I’m waiting for the biggest news of my life.
All of the emotional turmoil I’ve felt this semester I put into five minutes with Tyler. Four choruses. Three verses. One bridge.
The symphony orchestra is amazing, The Planets a work of art, but I’m fidgeting, picking at the hem of my black dress.
When it’s done, we applaud, then I hit refresh again.
“It’s here!” I say hoarsely as the email subject line imprints on my brain.
The patrons in the next several seats look over.
I scan for my name or his. A breath whooshes out when I finish.
“Well?” Elle demands.
Emotion wells up in my chest, and I shake my head. “We didn’t get in.”
She sighs. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I mean, we didn’t only get in. We’re closing the show. Me and Tyler.”
I hold up the phone so she can see both our names.
Her face splits into a grin. “Damn.”
I scan our row and the one behind, recognizing a couple dozen Vanier students. Since we’re at intermission, I race out of the row and sprint to the subway.
I debate texting Tyler, but this requires a face-to-face conversation.
My fingers drum the pole until the doors open at his stop. I bound up the stairs, and the city lights blend with the throbbing in my gut.
These aren’t the heels for sprinting, so I half jog, half limp down the street to Tyler’s. In the dark, there’re a few sketchy-looking people, but they can’t crush my high. I ignore them, ignore everything until I’m under the streetlight in front of his building.
I hit the intercom, the buzzer ringing on the other end.
No answer.
I take off toward Vanier. I’m going to have serious blisters from these shoes, but within minutes, the familiar building looms over me, graceful and stately in the dark.
The glass doors give under my hands, the light of the hallways beyond. My feet ache, and my lungs burn, and I don’t know what I’m running toward until a hoarse voice from down the hall has me grinding to a halt.
“Annie.”
He’s dressed in the same clothes as earlier, and he fills the hall despite the trickle of students moving past him. His face is full of emotions—maybe the same ones I’m feeling that create this impossible expansion in my chest.
Tyler closes the distance between us.
“You weren’t at home,” I say as he comes to a stop inches away.
“I was looking for you.” His chest isn’t heaving like mine, but his eyes are wild.
I must look like a mess, my hair sticking to my neck and face, my skin flushed. He doesn’t seem to notice as his mouth curves with the ghost of a smile. “Congrats.”
I muster a cocky smile. “Was there ever any doubt?”
He shakes his head, then before I can protest, he wraps his arms around my waist.
He’s going to kiss me. Every nerve ending in my body tingles as I stare at his mouth. My hands land on his chest, and my eyes drift closed.
A moment later, my eager lips brush his cheek as he tugs me into a hard hug.
“Oh,” I blurt. “Um. Thanks.” I try too late for an awkward recovery.
I almost think I’ve gotten away with it when his chest rumbles with laughter. “What did you think I was gonna do?”
“This,” I lie, my fingers still trapped against his pecs. “Exactly this.”
But I can’t bring myself to care about the embarrassment, because being enveloped in his strength feels like home. His hand slides around my neck, fingers tangling in my hair.
I melt against him.
God, it’s good to be in his arms.
When he pulls back an inch, our lips are a breath apart.
“I could kiss you now,” he murmurs, and my heart skips. “You’d kiss me back, too,” he continues in that beautiful voice. His mouth moves to brush my ear, lips skimming my skin and sending shivers through me.
“You seem extraordinarily confident,” I manage.
Students pass us, but I don’t know if they’re looking. I’m trapped in Tyler’s attention.
His chest is heat and muscle beneath my hands, and my fingers flex on his pecs through his thin shirt.
Tyler turns his face, lips grazing mine when he speaks. “A man who’s seen heaven is more dangerous than one who only believes. And I’ll never forget how it feels to have you need me.”
My fingers dig into his muscled arms. I want him so much I ache.
I cut a look past him to the students in the hallway, the ones who don’t know that everything in my life has been leading to this moment. Not only because of the showcase, but because of the man holding me.
“You don’t have to remember it.” I take a deep breath, ready to dive off the cliff. “I need you now.”
12
Tyler’s kissing me.
He’s dark and warm and thrilling, and when his tongue presses against my lips, I welcome him inside. It feels as if all I’ve ever wanted is to have him inside me—though I often think I’m part of him instead.
I’m the stars, burning and shifting, and Tyler’s my sky, the dark and velvet eternity I live for.
If tonight hasn’t already changed me, I know now that it will.
Tyler’s steel arms bring my hips against his.
He’s a brick wall, hard and unrelenting, and I want every inch of him.
Catcalls go up from somewhere.
Tyler pulls back, his breath rough, his gaze liquid desire. I thread my fingers in his hair, grinning.
“What’s that face?” he demands.
“That night we danced together, I decided your hair wasn’t long enough to pull. I’m glad I was wrong.”
His growl sends heat pooling between my thighs. “Upstairs. Now.”
We stumble toward the stairwell, and the door closes after us.
“Please tell me Rae and Elle aren’t home.” He takes the steps two at a time. I try to keep up, my fingers laced with his.
“Don’t think so.” I hope to hell Elle’s still at the performance and Rae’s… wherever she disappears to.
On six, we trip down the hall, passing only one other girl on the way to my room, who offers me a thumbs up as she takes us in.
I push open the door, relieved to find it empty, then I tug my hand from his and head for my closet.
I take a ballet flat and hang it on the door handle. “It’s not a sock, but she’ll figure it out.” I shut the door after us.
The laughter fades from his face, replaced by intensity as he realizes the same thing as I do.
It’s been five years since I had a crush on Tyler.
Two since I fell in love with him.
A year and a half since he broke my heart.
And now we’re going to do this.
Tyler backs me toward the bed until my calves hit the side.
I’m older now. Wiser. This doesn’t mean I’m losing my head or my heart.
But as he reaches behind his head and strips off his shirt, tossing it on the floor by the bed, I nearly swallow my tongue.
His shoulders are broader than I remember, his abs and pecs even more defined. Tyler’s so distractingly attractive with clothes on it should be illegal for him to take them off.
“Holy… You’re like art,” I blurt, and his sudden smile cracks the mask of intensity on his face.
He’s muscled and beautiful, and I want to trace my hand over every inch of him, especially when those muscles leap under my touch. But the ink swirling up his shoulder, across the left half of his chest, brings back a tiny portion of my brain power and has me questioning something beyond how it would feel to have hi
s body over mine, driving into me.
“What are these?” I murmur, tracing the lines as he holds himself over me.
One looks like a flower over his pec, which connects to the vines down his arm. One beneath it looks like an old-fashioned ship rocked by waves. Farther down his ribs is a compass.
Tyler rasps out a breath. “You wanna do this now?”
He’s testy and turned on, but I can’t help myself. “Yes.”
He inches back so I can bend to inspect him.
“This one, I got this one after I came to New York.” He points to the ship. “This one after I started at Vanier.” The compass. “This one this summer.” The flower.
I bite my lip. “Tell me what they mean.”
“Later. Turn.”
I do as he asks, and he lifts my hair, laying it over one shoulder. His touch grazes between my shoulder blades, finding the zipper and working it down.
“The ink I want to hear about is all the words you wrote me on this.” He strokes a finger across my skin, and I shiver.
Cool air hits my back as the straps slide off my shoulders. The dress skims down my body, falling to the floor.
Tyler’s lips graze my ear from behind. “Show me where you put me.”
My entire body is humming when he turns me back to face him, and his expression strips away the rest of my defenses.
He’s gorgeous. A fiery prince set out to claim what’s his.
I point to my wrist. “Here.”
He lifts it, presses an open-mouthed kiss to the skin there, and I shiver.
“And here.” My finger brushes my stomach, next to my navel.
Tyler’s hands smooth down my sides, and he bends, his lips hot on my stomach. I grab his hair as I swallow, the feeling of his wet mouth sending need pooling between my thighs.
“Don’t stop now.” His voice is barely audible.
I point to the inside of my thigh. “Here.”
With a dark look, he drops to his knees.
Then he strokes a finger up my skin, close to my panties.
I sway.
I want him to touch me. I need it more than air.
He bends toward my center, my panties the only thing between his mouth and where I’m slowly burning up.
His lips graze my skin on the inside of my thigh. “Every word you wrote I’ll trace with my tongue.”
It’s too much. I’m overwhelmed.
But before I can respond, he rises and steps away, nodding at my bra and panties. “Take them off.”
He says it softly—a question, not a command—but the fact that he’s asking makes it impossible to deny him. With shaking hands, I reach for the back of the bra and unhook it. It slides down my arms and falls to the floor. Swallowing, I hook my fingers in my panties and slide them down too.
When I straighten, my knees are shaking. It’s only when his finger finds my chin, tilting it up, that I realize I was staring at his feet.
“It’s just me,” he murmurs.
“I know.” My lips curve, wavering. “That’s why I’m shaking.”
An expression of hunger and utter adoration fills his face. His hand finds my hip, tugs me close to him. “Me too.”
He presses himself between my thighs, and my eyes squeeze shut. The roughness of his jeans sends waves of sensation through me. Tyler’s hands slide up my sides. He palms my breasts as if they’re precious, as if I am. The callouses on his fingers feel so good and a little dirty.
I arch into him, wrapping my fingers around his neck and pressing my lips to his shoulder. He responds, rolling one of my nipples between his thumb and finger.
Ribbons of pure pleasure shoot between my thighs. “Oh God.”
He switches to the other breast, and the tugging between my thighs intensifies, grows from a thread of desire to a chain of need—need for this, for him, for more.
“You feel so good in my hands. The times I’ve wanted to do this, Six, just this…”
My fingers dig into his neck, urging him to continue, but he nods at the bed.
I shift back onto the comforter, and he follows me, then moves down my body. When I realize where he’s headed, his name tumbles from my lips.
“I’ve come so many times thinking of you,” I whisper.
He rubs the back of his hand across his mouth. “You’re about to again.”
Holy.
Tyler drags my ankles apart.
I want this, but I’m too exposed. I try to close my legs, and he looks up, darkly questioning.
He doesn’t correct me. Instead, he traces a path down my stomach with his fingers, and right before they dip where I need them, they turn, stroking the inside of one shaking thigh.
My thighs spread on their own—an inch, then another.
His touch traces up the other thigh, but it’s too slow and too soft. I bite my lip in frustration.
He brushes across my opening, and I buck my hips.
“You’re so wet,” he growls, his fingers returning to toy with me. “The things we could do with you this wet.”
I’m so close to whining, to fucking begging him to touch me. Maybe he knows and likes it.
“Tell me you want it,” Tyler murmurs. “Ask me with those pretty words. That voice I can’t get out of my head.”
I shift up on my elbows, my heart hammering in my chest as I stare down at him. “Tyler Adams. I’ve been waiting years for you to fuck me. Do it already.”
His chocolate eyes flash with heat and satisfaction before he lowers his head. His tongue hits the sweet spot between my thighs, and it’s like being jolted with an electric current.
Oh. My. God.
My head falls back against the covers as need, hot and wet, rushes over me.
He moves between the lightest touch of his tongue and slow strokes with his finger as if I’m an instrument he’s experimenting with for the first time.
My hips snap toward him. My hands fist in the sheets.
“More,” I pant, writhing, but he ignores me.
Just when I’m starting to get into a rhythm with his mouth, his damn finger takes its place, teasing and stroking, pressing inside an inch only to slip back out.
“Tyler…”
He takes pity on me, sliding that finger all the way in. The feeling is exquisite, and it’s only his damned hands.
I grab his hair and exhale hard.
If I’d ever wanted to know how Tyler got to be so good at music, it’s obvious from the way he pleasures me.
Every touch and stroke is an experiment that informs the next, one that he changes and repeats and twists into a pattern that drives me insane with need.
But I’m learning him, too, learning how to make him give me what I want.
Like saying his name.
By the time he’s sucking on my skin in earnest, sliding a second finger into me, I’m making noises with every breath.
I squirm because I can’t not, and that makes him groan. “All the times I got off to you, I never thought you’d be this tight. I don’t know if I could have stayed away.”
Those filthy words have me breaking on his lips, my hands fisting in his hair as I arch against him, crying out his name.
The last thing I see before my eyes squeeze shut is his face, full of need and satisfaction.
I ride out the waves of feeling with him, on him.
When the aftershocks rock me, he slows but doesn’t pull back. He licks me clean, as if every inch of me was made for his enjoyment and he won’t allow any of it to go to waste.
“Wow,” I murmur, dragging him up my body so I can loop my arms around his neck. “At the risk of inflating your ego,” I start, and his mouth, still wet from me, curves. “You’re pretty good at that.”
“Pretty good.” Tyler brushes his lips across mine, and I can taste myself on him. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced.
“Let’s see what else you’re good at.”
My hands drop to the button on his jeans, hovering there as I take in this
moment. Him and me. Joined.
For real.
Fucking finally.
But his hand closes over mine.
“Tell me you’re going to fuck me already,” I murmur.
Tyler brushes a piece of hair out of my face, his tight jaw working.
“No. I’m not.”
13
The last time I kissed Annie Jamieson in her bed was eighteen months ago. We were different people then.
I’m reminded how different as her eyes flash up at me.
“What the hell?” Annie demands. She’s naked and beautiful and, apparently, pissed.
I roll off her and onto my back. I can still taste her, and the way she fell apart under my hands and mouth left me nowhere near satisfied, but I force out the words I need to say. “Tonight was about you. Giving you what I wanted to give you then.”
“You’re overthinking this.” She shifts over me, and I bite back the groan at the feel of her. “Stop thinking. Just be here with me. I know you want to.”
She’s killing me—with her voice and her intentions and the way she responds. My cock is swollen and leaking at the thought of making her mine.
But the second I make her mine, I’m hers, too. And even though I want her back, I’m grasping for some semblance of control.
She’s so fucking sweet, with a new edge I love every bit as much as the sweetness.
Unable to resist, I prop myself up on my elbows and tug her lips down to mine. My fingers tangle in her silky hair, wrapping it around my hand like I’ve been thinking about all semester until she opens over me.
I used to tease Annie Jamieson for wearing her heart on her sleeve, but I feel as if I’m the one who’s exposed.
I want to bury myself inside her so deep she can’t get me out. Not now, not ever.
Her breasts graze my bare chest, making my impatient dick swell even more. This time when her hands drop to the button on my jeans, I don’t stop her.
Not when she works the zipper down, makes a little groan in her throat as she sees the hard ridge of my cock, the wet spot on my boxer briefs.
Not when she reaches inside, her aroused gaze meeting mine.
My eyes fall shut as her hand wraps around my shaft. Her touch is warm and soft and a cruel tease. I want to be inside her yesterday.