by Tara Leigh
If she only knew how badly I wanted to make one slight adjustment, one long thrust. I groaned my restraint into her mouth, releasing her hair to wrap my hands around her tiny waist.
With Piper in my arms, I backed up, moving farther into the pool, water climbing to the base of my neck. Slanting my mouth over hers, I kissed this girl with everything I had, everything I couldn’t say, every ounce of wanting I’d stored up over the past six years. From the intensity of her response, she was doing the same.
Felt so fucking good.
My bare cock was pressed tight against her belly, pulsing to a beat all its own. Impatient to be deep inside the woman trembling in my arms.
I meandered in circles around the pool as we kissed, finally bumping up against a ledge and turning around to pin Piper’s back to it. I pulled away from her mouth, trailing kisses along her jaw until I came to her delicate shell of an ear. Sucking the tiny lobe into my mouth, I licked along the baby-soft skin tucked close to her skull.
Every inch of this girl was delicious.
And I wanted every inch to be mine.
Piper was making stuttering noises, gulping at air between low moans and whispered pleas. In my head, they converted to beats, and I could feel music taking shape, rising and falling. I rarely came up with the words to my own songs, but I could feel them loitering at the edge of my conscience, almost twittering.
I found the back strap of her bra through the wet tangle of her hair, unclasping it easily and pulling the straps from her shoulders. Palming the perfect mounds in my hands, I flicked her nipples with my thumbs, my cock jerking at her throaty yelp. Her hips swiveled, her pelvis grinding against me.
Only my strong sense of self-preservation saved me from sliding my cock between her thighs and fucking her senseless in the pool. I’d never wanted anyone this bad, not even Piper herself.
Six years ago, I hadn’t realized she was unique. A firefly among mosquitos.
I groaned, deepening our kiss, tightening my hold. Fighting against the memories, the sentimentality, the intrusive emotions.
Whatever this was, it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t last. Piper deserved a great guy—and that wasn’t me. I could give her a great night, maybe more than one. I could give her kick-ass orgasms, plural. But I couldn’t give her a future. Not the kind that ended well.
I needed a condom. Now.
With one last taste of her breasts, I walked us back to the steps and carried her straight out of the water, silencing what might have been the start of a protest with another kiss. Keying a code into the panel at the side door, I stepped inside, heading straight for my bedroom.
Depositing Piper gently in the middle of the mattress, I stepped back to admire the way the moonlight slanted through the windows and lit her porcelain skin like a statue carved by one of the masters. Rodin, maybe. Someone who knew his way around the female form. A man that saw beauty in their curves and hollows.
Piper lifted onto her elbows, looking at me with questions shining from her eyes. “What?”
“Can’t a man look at a gift before unwrapping it?”
Her soft laugh hung in the air like mist. “I’m not quite unwrapped yet.”
My eyes fell to the lace triangle that sat between her thighs. The most ineffective barrier I’d ever seen. Damp from the pool, it was entirely see-through.
I reached down, curving my fingers around the edge to stroke gently between her folds. Her eyes widened when she realized what I was doing, then fluttered shut as she practically bowed off the bed, a gasp rushing into her open mouth.
Piper wasn’t just damp from the pool. Inside she was hot and wet. I pushed a little farther. She was so, so fucking tight. Her muscles clenched around me, pulling me deeper.
With a flick of my wrist, her panties snapped apart and I rubbed a thumb over her clit. Again and again, I slowly fucked her with my fingers. As I watched, Piper’s breaths became pants, her hips lifting off the bed to meet my thrusts, her breasts shaking as tremors rocked her lithe frame.
I was completely enraptured. There was no other word for it.
My cock was a goddamn arrow, pointing straight toward Piper. Pulsing in frustration. My chest squeezed, tightening around my lungs as I absorbed the beauty and bliss that was Piper Hastings at the edge of an orgasm.
She was close, so close. I was tempted to pull back. To slide a condom on and finish the job myself. But I couldn’t do that to her. And I wanted to watch her come apart without being distracted by my own release.
“Landon,” she breathed my name. Cried it out again. The third time it was more like a shriek. My hand slowed as I watched her writhe and shake, her wet hair strewn around her head like brushstrokes on canvas. All the while her inner muscles were seizing, pulsing with aftershocks.
Her eyes opened at the same time as her thighs closed. One trapping my heart, the other trapping my hand. And then she grinned. Soft and sweet. Full of sinful temptation.
It fucking slayed me.
“I forgot what that felt like,” she said, not a single trace of calculation in her voice.
I quirked a brow. “Getting off?”
Piper blushed, looking away. I pulled my hand from between her thighs, sliding my fingers across the tender skin above her hip bone. “Tell me.”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
I sat down on the bed beside her. “It’s not nothing.”
She huffed a sigh. “Maybe I’ll tell you later. If you can do that again.”
I leaned over her to pull open the drawer of my nightstand, retrieving a foil square, shaking it over her head. “Oh, I can do that again. After you tell me what’s on your mind.”
The minx swiped the condom from my hand and opened it with her teeth, sliding off the bed and crouching down in front of me. “I’m your guest. I get to choose.”
And for a moment I was right back in her college dorm room, hiding from her resident adviser and praying her roommate would stay out all night.
Her soft curse brought me back to the present. “This isn’t— Oh. Wrong way.” Piper’s tongue was poking out from between her pressed lips. Her face a mask of concentration as she turned it over and slid the plastic sheath down.
I sucked in a quick breath, her hands tight over me. Normally, I would have grabbed a fresh one, but that would have meant delaying ecstasy. Couldn’t do that.
I grabbed Piper, lifting her up and sliding her beneath me in one smooth movement. “You drive a hard bargain.”
Piper
On stage, Landon was laser-focused, rigid in his precision. Creating perfectly timed explosions of power and energy. The undeniable backbone of Nothing but Trouble.
In bed, he wasn’t much different. If I took the condom from him, it was because he let me. Because he wanted me as badly as I wanted him. And that power imbued me with an unexpectedly erotic confidence.
Even lying beneath Landon, caged between his powerful thighs, his muscular forearms on either side of my head, I didn’t feel weak. I felt strong and desirable.
“What I did before, that was just a starter.”
“A starter?” My legs were still quivering from the bonfire Landon had ignited, and the flames were already rising again, dancing and licking at my skin.
A smile slanted across his face as he nodded. “Just you watch, Pippa. My skills have improved with time.”
That last sentence both broke my heart and mended it at the same time. How many women had he practiced on over the years? Had any of them meant more to him than just a physical release?
Did I?
Yet Landon was here with me now, not anyone else. Even after I admitted to purposely avoiding him for the past few years. Even after I made it clear I wasn’t going to chase him like all the others vying for his attention.
And tonight, those skills were mine.
My vision blurred for a moment, tears threatening. I blinked them away, digging my fingers into the heavy muscles curving above Landon’s shoulder blades, breathing in
air saturated with the scent of our mutual desire.
He edged my legs wider, and I complied. My hips lifting automatically, desperate to be filled by him. But even knowing what was coming, I was still taken aback by the weight of the broad head of his cock pushing against me. Nerves tangled in my stomach, afraid of the unknown.
Because this new, older rock legend was not the same Landon I’d laid with in my freshman dorm. What if I wasn’t good enough? Landon had dated Hollywood stars and Victoria’s Secret models. Rock chick groupies that probably had better skills than high-priced escorts.
“Hey,” Landon said, running his finger along the curve of my jaw. I focused my attention back on him. “You still with me?”
I nodded my head, clearing the groupies and ghosts of Landon’s past from it. The only woman with Landon right now was me. And I was damn well going to make the most of every minute.
I didn’t expect to have very many.
Lifting my hands, I cupped Landon’s face and brought it down to mine, hooking my legs over his hips and clasping my ankles at his back. “You’ve got a lot to prove, rock star. Better get started.”
His gruff chuckle vibrated against my lips, his tongue entering my mouth at the same time as his cock drove through my slit.
Landon was bigger than I remembered. He kept sinking farther and farther, deeper and deeper, until I was so filled I started to squirm within his arms. “So tight,” he whispered. “Fuck, Pippa.” The raw need in his voice was achingly familiar.
Once upon a time, I thought Landon needed me.
Thought we were the stuff of fairy tales.
We’d been all too real. A love story cut short. No happily ever after ending for us.
But we had tonight.
This was Landon. My first love. My finest lover. The man who was a legend in my own mind before his fans had anything to say about it.
Tonight wasn’t about making sense of this, of him, of us. It didn’t have to make sense at all. Whatever this was—I deserved it.
The broken shards of my bleeding heart deserved it.
And so did the pitiful state of my current sex life.
Landon bottomed out inside me, dragging his pelvis against the slippery cluster of nerve endings just above where we were joined. I shuddered as he worked himself over me, the whole universe a brilliant show playing behind my lids—planets and comets and shooting stars. And when I thought I would die from the overwhelming enormity of it all—electric rays of color burning bright, light eviscerating dark—I opened my eyes and saw only Landon.
And the beauty of his face was even more overwhelming. There was a nobility to his sharp features, hinting at ancestors that had gone to war for love and country…and won. Conquered.
If Landon wanted my heart back, he was going to have one hell of a fight on his hands. I would not surrender it so easily this time. But my body…the look on his face told me he knew I was entrusting it to him tonight—no battle required.
With a cocky wink, he ground into me, his breath hot against my lips.
Then he stopped, and for a second I thought I’d done something wrong, said something to make him realize we were making a mistake.
But no, Landon merely picked me up like I weighed nothing, scooting to the edge of the bed so that I was on top of his lap, my legs still crossed behind him. Holding me by my upper arms, he arched me away from his chest, practically growling as he bent his head and swept a straining nipple into his mouth. I gasped as he rolled his tongue over the needy peak, my hips jackknifing into his.
“Ah, Pippa. You don’t know what you do to me.” His voice was gravel mixed with honey. Decadently abrasive.
Ink colored much of Landon’s skin, but the marks he’d left on me were just as bright, just as symbolic. Some beautiful, some ugly. Most painful. They had been etched deep below the surface of my skin, invisible to the naked eye.
As if to remind me of them, a cruel whisper unfurled from inside my mind, taunting me.
What do you think you’re doing—asking for one night of pleasure? Willing to pay for it with a lifetime of pain. Haven’t you had enough? Hasn’t this man—the same one doling out delicious swells of ecstasy—hurt you enough?
How much hurt can one person take?
Oblivious to the war raging within my body, Landon moved from one breast to the other, my nipples becoming impossibly tight, desperate for his attention. He swirled his tongue over one, licking and sucking as he palmed the other, pinching and squeezing. The pull of a climax tugged at me from deep within my core.
My hips undulated with each flick of Landon’s tongue, waves of bliss crashing over me. I was drowning in ecstasy, my breaths reduced to sharp, broken gasps that didn’t fill me with nearly enough oxygen.
“I can’t, I can’t—” I stuttered, frantic.
“You can, Pippa. You can with me. Always with me. Only with me,” Landon growled, just before swallowing my escalating panic with a kiss. Giving me his confidence, his conviction that we were on the right path. Shifting me so that my chest was pressed to his, I could feel Landon’s heartbeat thudding through my skin. My pulse found his rhythm, matching it.
And somehow that pure panic turned into something else. The pleasure came back. Rather than attempt to outrun it, I raced it instead. Going faster and faster, higher and higher.
Until I was floating within the circle of Landon’s arms.
Airborne and cradled.
Softly swaying.
Wild.
Safe.
I came back to earth just in time to hear Landon’s hoarse, breathy grunt as he found his own release, a sound that made my toes curl and heart shudder. A mix of vulnerability and strength, it was such an intimate, unguarded noise that I savored it, pressing tiny kisses to the pulsing artery of his neck.
I might have sought Landon out tonight, intending to take what I wanted from him. A night of pleasure. A litany of orgasms. The thrill of walking away from him this time.
But I wasn’t prepared for the sudden rush of fear that what I really wanted wasn’t merely the temporary high of a night well spent.
What if what I really wanted was him?
Chapter Seven
Landon
I woke up to an empty bed.
That wasn’t unusual, not in my own house. I didn’t bring women back here, ever.
And yet, I hadn’t blinked an eye at inviting Piper over. Bringing her into my bed even though I had plenty of others to choose from. The condoms in my nightstand—they were there out of habit, not convenience.
When Piper cried out my name, why had it meant so much more than when it was screamed by a crowd of thousands? Was it because she hadn’t hesitated to kick me out of her apartment when so many others would have done anything to lure me into theirs? Was it because she had haunted my dreams for years?
Maybe. Or maybe it was just the sense I had that Piper knew me, wanted me. Not the rock star or the manwhore or the fucking legend. She knew the lonely soul who was most comfortable hiding behind his drum kit, who loved making music and fought for every gig. Six years ago, I’d been no one with nothing. A guy with no home, no family, no cash, no cachet. The drummer of a band no one outside the gritty West Coast music scene had ever heard of. And yet, every night, Piper had looked at me as if I hung the moon.
She didn’t look at me that same way anymore. Not quite. There was a wariness to her gaze that hadn’t been there before. A wariness I’d put there.
We had sex three more times during the night. Our bodies restless and needy, resisting the pull of sleep. How could I sleep with Piper’s soft breaths ghosting across my skin, her warm hand resting on my chest, her small, smooth calf tucked between my legs? In the semi-dark room, I could barely close my eyes. They were too busy memorizing Piper’s curves, studying all her delicious hollows, staring at the sweep of her eyelashes across sculpted cheekbones, the hair cascading over my arm like a blonde waterfall.
And I’d gotten an answer to my question.
I forgot what that felt like.
“Getting off,” as I’d so crudely put it, wasn’t what Piper had meant. No, she’d clarified her offhand statement somewhere between round two and three. Knowing something couldn’t possibly be any better. That it was perfect, as is.
I could have said the same about last night—all of it. Every minute we’d spent together had been fucking perfect.
Goddamn it. Had she left me already?
I sat up, automatically counting the condom wrappers on the floor just to be sure we’d played it safe. Four.
I heaved a sigh and roughed agitated fingers through my hair.
“Piper,” I called, loudly. Only silence answered me back.
Dread and disappointment swirled within in my gut as I got up and stalked to the bathroom, splashing water on my face. For the first time in a long while, I actually met my own eyes in the mirror. Had I done something to make her leave? I didn’t drink anything after leaving the bar. Didn’t take any drugs. Physically, I felt great. No gaping holes in my memory, no chemically induced nausea.
Throwing on a pair of track pants—my housekeeper would show up soon and I didn’t want to lose her by parading my nutsack out in the open—I headed for the stairs, spotting something unexpected as I passed a window. A bright blue something. Piper’s car.
My spirits lifted as if they’d been shoved onto a high-speed elevator. “Pippa,” I called again.
“In here.” Her voice floated down the hall. Familiar and welcoming.
Rounding the corner, I saw Piper standing in my kitchen, wearing my shirt and, from what I could tell, nothing underneath. Might be time to add another condom wrapper to the collection littering my bedroom floor.
“Thought you’d run away,” I said, coming up behind her and fitting her against me, Piper’s sweet ass the perfect cushion for my dick that, despite his hardworking night, felt fresh as a damn daisy.
“That’s your specialty, not mine,” she mumbled.
Ouch. My arms dropped for a second, until I caught a whiff of her scent, a natural sweetness liberally mixed with sex. Then I wrapped my arms around her even tighter. “That was a long time ago.”