Once Upon A Sure Thing

by Blakely, Lauren

  Though that’s where I want to go tonight.

  And I want to enjoy every single benefit.

  Chapter 21

  Miller

  To say I'm eager would be an understatement. What I am is fired up.

  It’s not only because I’m going to learn if Ally tastes like cherries, or like honey, or like the woman I’ve wanted to touch for a long time now. Hell, maybe it’s all three, and I’ll take a triple latte of Ally, thank you very much.

  It’s also because I have an idea for a song.

  After I talk to Ally, I meet up with Jackson in the lobby of my building and hand off the birth certificate.

  “Dude, you are the man,” he tells me.

  “How’s Grandpa?”

  He taps his chest. “Ticker works fine, and blood pressure is normal. He’s doing well.”

  “You are the man for taking him to his appointment.” I point at him. “Also, I know you're going to nab that scholarship, and your documentary is going to be awesome.”

  “If you and Honey keep breaking out the hits, it sure will be.” Jackson tilts his head. “Speaking of . . . any more songs up your sleeve?”

  “Actually, I do have a particularly good idea for one.” I tap my skull. “And that means I need to work on it right now while my brain is the Lincoln Center Fountain of ideas.”

  Jackson’s dark eyes sparkle, and he beams. “A brand-new one. Can I record you putting it together?”

  “It’s going to be raw. I haven’t even written anything down yet. You’ll be watching the sausage get made, my friend. You cool with that?”

  He pumps a fist. “It’s sausage time.” He shakes his head like a dog then looks at me sheepishly. “You need to pretend I never said that.”

  I laugh as we head to the elevator. “It’s already been erased from the gray matter.”

  Once we’re upstairs in my place, he's quiet, the unassuming documentarian, as I grab a notebook, pace around my pool table, and jot down some ideas about chemistry, connection, and where it can take you.

  I swear I can taste the song like it’s sugar, like it’s a swirl of sweetness on my tongue. The notes are playing in my head.

  I head straight to my piano and tap out some notes and a few melodies.

  That’s not quite right. But what if I tried this?

  I experiment with a different chord progression. Soon, I lose track of Jackson, and the time, and the camera, and everything but the music. My fingers fly across the keys, and I play with words and lyrics.

  It’s rough. It’s raw. It’s nowhere near a finished song. But it’s coming together.

  “Coming Together.”

  I like the sound of that, so I stop, scratch the words down as a possible title, then meet Jackson’s eyes. “What do you think?”

  Jackson puts down his phone, the video shoot over for now. “This is going to be sick—the song, the doc, all of it. I can’t thank you enough, man. Letting me tag along to shoot videos? You are seriously a rock star. And that’s no lie,” he says with a wink.

  I smile. “It’s nothing.”

  He marches up to me and clasps a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve taught me a lot over the years, Miller. And one of those things is to be straightforward with your feelings. So, let me do the same—it’s not nothing. It’s everything.”

  I practically shuffle my feet. Gee whiz. This kid. Damn. He’s one of the good ones. I knock his shoulder with my fist. “Anything for you, man. Anything for you.”

  When he takes off, I check my phone. Five. Ally is usually done working by now. I’m so jazzed to see her that I can’t even waste time flirting. I need to know what she’s doing and hope that list includes me.

  Miller: Are you off work? What are you up to? I wrote a new song.

  Ally: Just packing up for the day. I need to pick up Chloe from her friend’s house in an hour and a half, then I’m taking her and Hailey out to dinner.

  Miller: Full mom mode tonight, huh?

  Ally: Seems that way. Did you want to talk later? About the song? Can’t wait to hear it!

  Miller: I don’t want to talk about the song right now.

  Ally: You don’t?

  Miller: I want to use my mouth for other things. Can you come over before you pick her up?

  She doesn’t answer right away. I pace, running my hand through my hair, muttering c’mon. A few minutes later, my phone buzzes. She’s in the Lyft, and she’ll be here in ten minutes.

  I head straight for the shower.

  Pretty sure I heard somewhere that women like it when a freshly showered man answers the door.

  Or one woman does.

  Chapter 22

  Ally

  The doorman knows me, and tells me Miller’s expecting my arrival.

  When I step into the elevator, I’m ready to bounce off the walls, to leap out of my skin. Everything in me is tight, coiled, ready to pounce.

  All I can think about is sex.

  And skin.

  And lips.

  As the elevator rises higher, I wonder if I’ve become a nympho in twenty-four hours. How have I spent my whole day trying to stop a reel of wildly erotic images of my best friend?

  At the ninth floor, I ask myself if I felt this way from the night I met him.

  At the tenth, I’m considering if this is the consequence of six years of longing bottled up and finally let loose.

  At the eleventh, I nearly vault out of the lift, sprint down the hall, and rip his door off its hinges.

  Calm down, girl.

  I raise my fist to knock, and I hear the faint rumblings of his voice shouting, “Coming.”

  Make me come, I want to scream.

  When he opens the door, I’m looking at the most delicious benefit of my whole life—Miller, dressed in nothing but a towel. It’s white, slung low and tight on his hips, and reveals those abs and a hint of the V.

  My throat goes dry. My eyes take a leisurely stroll along his carved body. A droplet of water slides down his chest, on a path between the grooves of his abs, stopping at the top of the towel. The wet ends of his hair curl. His face is scrubbed clean, but he hasn’t shaved, and I could get down on my knees and thank him because I love his stubble.

  Love the scratch of it.

  And I love, too, that I’ve now experienced the absolute sensory delight of a man answering the door, freshly showered, sexily clean, wearing only a towel.

  In fact, I like this sight so much that my brain shuts off every thought but one.

  Touch him.

  Stepping inside, I slam the door, drop my coat, hat, and bag to the floor, and push him against the wall. I crush my mouth to his. He groans instantly, and then louder still when I make my intentions clear. Grabbing the towel, I yank it off, then gasp. Half a dozen musical notes are inked on his hip. Small, pristine tattoos. Mesmerized, I run my finger over them, humming.

  Humming “Love Me Like Crazy.”

  “You have your song on your body,” I say, a little amazed.

  His lips curve up. “I like that song. Right now, I’d like your hands on my body.”

  I wrap my hand around his hard-on. He growls.

  I smile. “I believe it’s my turn.”

  “Take it, baby. Take your turn.”

  I do, getting down on my knees as I stroke his steel shaft. I look up at him. His eyes are hooded, his lids falling closed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  “Fuck, baby. Let me feel that luscious mouth on me. Let me feel it now.”

  I squeeze his cock, and a drop of his arousal glistens on the tip like a pearl. A bolt of lust darts down my spine. I’m a woman with a one-track mind, and I flick my tongue across that bead, licking him up.

  I moan.

  He harmonizes with me, and do we ever make beautiful music as I dive right into the heart of the song, taking his gorgeous cock all the way into my mouth.

  “Ally,” he groans, threading his fingers through my hair. “This is what I pictured in the shower this morning.”

&
nbsp; A thrill zips through me. “You thought of me doing this?” I draw him back in, savoring the hitch in his breath as I suck.

  “This. You. On your knees.”

  “What else?” I ask, eager for his dirty words.

  “Licking you. Bending you over the bed. Fucking you on the pool table,” he says, and a pulse beats between my legs as I picture all of the above.

  His eyes start to close, and his jaw twitches. He lets out a feral moan as I work his cock with my mouth and hands, stroking the base and cupping his balls as I suck.

  “I picture tying you up. Don’t know why I want that. I just do.”

  I want that. To be tied up, pinned down, and fucked hard. Fucked raw. Fucked to the ends of my desire. I want to give in to everything I felt for him years ago.

  Every single thing.

  Including this. There’s no weirdness, no awkwardness. We’re just two people burning with lust and giving in to it.

  I drag my tongue along his shaft, taking him to the back of my throat. “Your lips, baby. Your lips are so fucking sexy. So fucking sexy I want to come all over them.”

  His words make me suck faster, tighter. I want him to come and come hard. I give the base of his cock a squeeze, and then one deep suck to the back of my throat, and he grits out an orgasm alert.

  “Coming. Now.” His body thrusts, then jerks to a stop.

  Drinking him down, I let him flood my throat until he pulls me up, cups my cheeks, and stares at me with wild eyes. “How much time?”

  He can barely talk, and I love it.

  I glance at the nearby clock. “I need to leave in ten minutes.”

  He scoops me up and carries me to the piano bench. “This will help me finish the song.”

  My eyes widen in surprise, then I tremble when I see what awaits—a silver and red ribbon is draped over the piano bench.

  “Early Christmas gift to me,” he says wiggling his eyebrows as he tugs off my sweater, tank, and bra, then pulls down my jeans. I kick off my shoes.

  I’m nearly naked in front of a man who’s only ever been my friend, and a dash of nerves spreads over my skin. I want him to like what he sees. The way his breath hitches and his eyes blaze tells me all I need to know.

  We both like the view of each other.

  I hold up my hands in front of me, crossing them at the wrists. “Wrap me up, then.”

  He slides a hand between my legs, and I tremble into his touch. “That’s what I wanted to know, baby. That’s what I needed.”

  “To know I want you so much I can never wear these panties again?”

  He smiles wickedly. When he cups me between my legs, the sound he makes is the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard. “This is my reward,” he rasps out, stroking the obscenely wet panel of my panties.

  My eyelids flutter. “For what?”

  “For waiting six years to touch you.”

  I shake as he peels my panties off, leaving me naked before him. “Have you waited that long?”

  He stares at me with a heat in his eyes. “The night I met you, I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to fuck you and make you come. And now I can.”

  My mind is nothing but a haze of lust as he guides me to the bench. I sit, and he raises my arms, ties my wrists above my head, and then lays my back against the keys. I’m not sure this is the most comfortable position, but I’m positive I’ve never looked sexier, since the floor-to-ceiling windows give me a view of myself—I’m spread out on his piano bench, my spine arched over the keys, a silver and red ribbon tied tightly around my wrists.

  Miller kneels, places his hands on my knees, and spreads me open. I whisper his name in a desperate plea.

  He breathes out roughly. “Look at you, baby.”

  He glides a finger through my wetness.

  One touch.

  And I’m hovering on the edge.

  “You’re so turned on for me, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Another finger joins, sliding through all that slickness, and stars flicker before my eyes. I think I could come in seconds.

  He dips his face to my thigh and licks my skin. The sounds I make shock me. I’ve never whimpered like this in my life. I’ve never wanted anyone like this.

  I never knew my Miller could do this to me—make me quiver. Make me practically sob with longing. Tightness threads through me, a pulsing need to be taken.

  “Have you wanted me too?” His breath is hot on my skin, and already I’m in some other world, some world where truth and desire are unleashed like wild beasts running free. Have I wanted him? Hell, yes. But I’ve denied it. I’ve shoved it away. I’ve hidden it.

  Now, as his lips skate so close to where I want him most, I don’t deny.

  I confess.

  “I’ve wanted you so much.” Words burst from my lips. “I want you to lick me and eat me and make me come on your mouth.”

  A groan seems to rip from his throat as he licks a line up my center like he’s finishing the last taste of the most decadent dish he’s ever had.

  I’m wrecked. Completely wrecked.

  He moans as he kisses me. He growls as he widens my legs farther. And his eyes fall shut in a look of the most intense pleasure I’ve ever imagined on a man. As he licks me, the pleasure electrifying, a truth hits me.

  I’ve imagined him.

  I pictured this that day back at the hobby shop, when he teased me about ribbons. I’ve flirted with it well before then too. But I always found a way to hide it.

  There’s no hiding anymore as Miller covers me with his mouth.I try to lift my hands, but I can’t. “I want to wrap my hands in your hair and pull you close,” I murmur.

  He opens his eyes, winking as he flattens his tongue and licks, flicking the tip of it against my swollen center. I’m keenly aware of the ticking clock, racing perilously close to my exit hour. But I’m aware, too, of every exposed nerve ending, every inch of skin, every rippling wave of heat as Miller goes down on me.

  I can’t grab him like I want, can’t yank him closer, but I can arch my back, lift my hips, and thrust against his face.

  Oh God, I’m fucking Miller’s face.

  And it’s filthy and divine.

  I can’t stop. Won’t stop. I love the stubble scratching me, I love his lips on me, and I love everything about his wild abandon. As I rock up, he grips my thighs tight, devouring me like he promised. Pulses of pleasure ricochet through me until I’m there.

  I chase down bliss, and then I find it. I come undone on his lips, so magnificently that my noises have to be audible across town.

  And I don’t care.

  When I manage to open my eyes, Miller’s standing, stroking his hard cock. It’s like an iron spike.

  “Look what you do to me, baby. When you leave I’m going to take care of this again.”

  “I wish I could stay for that,” I say.

  He bends to me, brushing his lips against my cheek. I murmur contentedly as endorphins wash over me, a beautiful wave cresting endlessly. He reaches my ear and kisses the earlobe. “I meant every word, Ally. I’ve wanted you for so long, and you taste better than cherries.”

  I shiver from the sheer sensuality of his words, but the stark truth scares me. I’m not sure what to do with all this want we’ve unleashed. What happens to it when our friends-with-benefits deal inevitably ends?

  Because arrangements like this always end.

  Maybe that’s why I can speak the truth.

  “I’ve wanted it too,” I admit, since there’s no point holding back. The cat’s out of the bag when it comes to our lust—might as well embrace the truth while we reap the rewards.

  There’s no time to linger though, since I have to be downtown, so I rush to clean up and get dressed. Two minutes later, I’m standing by the door, grabbing my bag and coat. Miller’s towel is back in position, and I want to rip it off again.

  “We didn’t work on the song,” I say playfully.

  “Such a shame.”

  “Send it to me ton
ight? We’re booked for some time in the studio tomorrow afternoon.”

  “It’s an easy arrangement. You’ll have it down in no time,” he says, punctuated by a rumble in his stomach that makes me laugh.

  “Hungry much?”

  He pats his flat abs. “That’s what happens when you have dessert first.”

  I join in the ab-patting party. Because . . . why not? I slide my hand over his belly. “You better eat, hot stuff.”

  He shrugs happily. “Want company picking up Chloe? I can get ready quickly.”

  His request throws me, and I don’t answer right away.

  He furrows his brow.

  “Well, it’s just that I’m taking Chloe and a friend out,” I say.

  “I don’t mind.”

  But the funny thing is . . . I do. And I’m not sure why, but maybe because tonight feels different than last night. Yesterday was an unexpected and fantastic exploration. Today was deliberate. I need to wrap my head around how to balance bandmates, friends with benefits, and the unusual role Miller plays in Chloe’s life.

  I need to do that before the lines blur any more.

  I wince, wringing my hands. “I feel like she’ll know we were doing something.”

  “She’s eleven.”

  “That means she knows basic stuff.”

  He holds up his hands in surrender and fixes on his toothpaste smile. “No worries. I have tons of stuff to do here, actually,” he says, gesturing grandly to his living room.

  “I’m sorry,” I say softly, then raise my chin. “I just need to figure out all this . . . stuff.”

  Yes. Stuff. That’s a euphemism if I’ve ever used one.

  “Go,” Miller says, flashing me his winning grin.

  “Bye,” I whisper, then rise up on tiptoe to cup his cheeks and kiss his lips. He’s tense for a sliver of a second, then I feel him melt against me, sighing into my mouth.