Making the Move: Mill Street Series #2

by Calla, Jessica

  She wandered around the three rooms with a look of wonder on her face. “Oh, I’m interested.” She touched a glass doorknob for a hallway closet, then ran her hands over the stained wood doors. “I love it so much.”

  “I’m glad,” I said from behind her. Swiping her hair over her shoulder, I bent to kiss her neck. “Because you are going to be here for the next forty-eight hours, naked and at my disposal.”

  “Really?” she asked. “You think I’m a sure thing, huh?”

  When I traced my fingers down her neck, she shivered under my touch. “I do. I won’t stop until you’re completely satisfied and begging me for more.”

  She gasped and spun in my arms. Finding my lips, she kissed me as she pulled my shirt up over my head. “So get to it, lover.”

  Grinning at the title, I pulled her shirt off too. “Won’t be needing that.” I lifted her, carried her to the bedroom, and laid her gently on the bed. “So much nicer than the treehouse, right?”

  She shrugged. “The treehouse was pretty perfect.”

  When she raised her hips, I pulled her jeans off—appreciating the sight of her, in just her panties, on the bed in front of me, waiting. “You’re pretty perfect,” I said. “This is the best week ever.”

  “Certainly is. I hope you’re still powered up.”

  I pointed down at my dick standing at attention. “Always powered up for you.”

  Violet

  In his secret apartment in Charlemagne, Josh rocked my world for next two days. The man was insatiable, and I loved it. Mostly, I loved it because he wanted me.

  I’d never thought of myself as particularly sexy, but to ask Josh, I was a goddess of some sort. He’d tried to convince himself, and me, that everything we were doing was fine because it was “just sex,” but I couldn’t quite believe that. Not with the way he looked at me. The way he touched me.

  But what did I know? Maybe he was living out some fantasy of having his best friend’s ex-girlfriend, or maybe he was just horny. But whatever it was that made him hard at the sight of me, I wasn’t complaining.

  Still, the closer we got, the more scared I was to tell him about Vienna. Scared of either of his reactions. If he was happy for me, it would break my heart. If he was sad for us, then it would break my heart. Either way sucked, given what we’d become over the past few weeks, and I would mourn leaving him more than I’d mourned the loss of Oliver after five years together.

  When we woke up on Thursday morning, our last full day of spring break, it felt like the air had changed around us. We’d pack up the apartment that afternoon, spend the night with his family, and then head back to NJU the next morning.

  As the sun came through the bedroom window, I turned to find the space next to me empty. A note sat on Josh’s pillow. On a mission. Be back soon.

  I smiled, wondering what he was up to. When I sat up on the edge of the bed and stretched, something caught my eye. My violin.

  Standing, I paced in front of it. I gave you everything I have.

  You have more to give, it answered.

  I plopped on the floor, crossed my legs, and gently laid the case flat. I extended a shaky hand to open the latches and lift the top of the case. It was still the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, and like they had after the symphony, my fingers got that tingly feeling. I hadn’t lost the will to play; I’d just buried it under a bunch of personal muck.

  When I was about to lift it out of the case, the front door opened and closed. Josh was back. He rustled in the other room, then gently pushed the bedroom door open. “Pix?” he whispered.

  He opened the door wider, and his eyes lit up at the sight of me on the floor with the violin. Poor guy probably didn’t know what to make of it. But he just smiled. “Good morning, gorgeous.”

  I smiled back, then looked down to the case. “Are you talking to me, or her?”

  “As lovely as your fiddle is, I like your curves a lot better.”

  I scoffed, still not used to the attention and attraction he expressed to me. “It’s a violin.”

  He huffed. “I’m going to go get breakfast ready. I searched high and low and found a French toast bagel for you. I don’t know if it’s any good because all I’ve heard from you and Oliver over the years is how New Jersey bagels are the best, but …”

  As he chattered on, tears formed and blurred my vision. I didn’t know why. Maybe I did know why. Josh King had made me feel like I was the most important person on the planet. I glanced down at the violin as a tear fell onto the case.

  Of course, he noticed. He took the step into the room and sank down next to me. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just…that was really sweet of you.”

  “The bagel?”

  I nodded. “I…I don’t know, Josh. Maybe I’m imagining it all, but since I’ve been here with you, I feel so…loved.”

  He put his arms around me and pulled me close. I wiggled onto his lap and planted my nose into his neck.

  “You are loved, Violet.” His voice shook as I looked into his eyes. “You’re loved.”

  Even though he hadn’t really said it the way it was usually said, I knew what he meant. I knew it not because of the words of it but because of his actions all week. My instinct, that he was lying about us being “just sex,” was right. He was feeling us too.

  I kissed him, loving the taste of his lips, the shape of them between mine. With a little nudge, I had him lying back onto the bedroom floor, with me on top of him. Still kissing him, still wanting to touch every part of him for every minute we had left, I straddled him and tugged at his shirt.

  He lifted it over his head, letting me touch him and run my hands over his chest. Josh knew that this wasn’t about him. This was about what I needed, and what I needed was to make him feel as loved as I had all week.

  Moving lower, I unzipped his jeans, and pulled them down his body. He kicked off his boots, so I could remove them completely, and lay under me, every inch of him beautiful. Kind of like the violin laid out next to him.

  I pressed myself against him so our chests lay flush, my body knowing what to do without me having to figure it out. My breasts were on fire as they rubbed his hard chest, and his pulse beat under my lips as I kissed his neck. When I kissed lower, his hands tangled in my hair. I made a trail over the curves of his muscles, tasting him, wishing I could somehow have more.

  When I made it to his waistband, I felt him against my chest, hard, ready and wanting me. Carefully, I pulled his boxers over his hard-on, then slid them down his long legs and off of his body. I let my gaze drift over him until my eyes met his.

  “I’m yours,” he said.

  His message was clear and exactly what I wanted to hear.

  I ran my hands up his thighs, over his waist, to his shoulders—like a sculptor working her clay—knowing that someday, far into the future, this would be the memory that stuck with me. This apartment. The way the sun shone over us, lighting him up under me. The perfection of his body that I knew was nothing compared to the perfection of his soul. My eyes teared again, grateful that I had him now, that I could experience him this way—wholly with me—even if it was just temporary.

  He held my butt steady over him as I kissed his lips. “Please,” he whispered. “Need you so much.”

  But this morning was about me and my needs. So I continued my journey, exploring him maybe for the last time. Tracing each of his lines with my tongue, my lips, my fingers, to imprint the feel of him into my head, so I could conjure it up when we moved on from here. And, if he was going to live in this apartment, I wanted to dominate his thoughts every time he walked into this room.

  When I sunk even lower and my heart pounded against his thighs, I took him in my mouth without question, without any apprehension. I just wanted to make him feel good.

  In all my years with Oliver, I never gave him oral sex. I didn’t want to feel like I was only doing it because I owed it to him. With Josh, I didn’t feel like I owed him anything, and I wasn’t goin
g to stop. I needed to experience all of him, everything, now. My time with him was running out, and in a lot of ways, he had become my first.

  “Vi,” he groaned, “what are you…”

  I shushed him as I kissed him there the same way I had the rest of his body, my hand around his shaft as I teased him. He was so hard, but his skin was so soft, like velvet around a piece of marble. For a second, I couldn’t believe that it was me making his body react like that. That it was me who made him catch his breath, squirm under my touch. It wasn’t until he moaned my name that I convinced myself it was me.

  The power of it—love, lust, whatever it was—urged me to continue. His size filled me, thrilled me, and I resisted the need to climb on top of him so that he could give me the release I craved. Still, I ended up straddling his thigh, desperate for the friction of him between my legs. When his hands found my hair again, I could have come right there, with his dick in my mouth, my body throbbing with the contact from his leg.

  I pulled my mouth off of him, still holding him in my hand, and moaned something. A cross between a curse and his name maybe. When I opened my eyes, our gazes met, and I could tell he was close, like me.

  He gripped the back of my head with his big hands as he urged me up his body. He watched me the whole time, keeping his eyes open as his mouth devoured mine. I broke the connection and reached over his head to the nightstand and the drawer with the condoms. Pulling one out, I ripped it open with my teeth and stretched it over him.

  He was still watching me as I reached between us and straddled him, slowly sliding my body down over his.

  When I’d taken him as much as I could, as low as I could go, I broke his gaze and sighed his name to the ceiling. There weren’t words to describe how I felt with him inside of me, just that musical symphony that I heard whenever we were connected like this. If there were words, they weren’t coming to me at that moment. Only music. The sweet, complicated, beautiful music of him.

  With my hand on his chest for leverage, I lifted and lowered my hips, trying to get him deeper and deeper into me. He gripped my hips tightly, but the pain of it only caused me to want more from him. I took and took, trying to put off the pleasure building inside. Trying to hold onto this feeling, and to memorize the symphony before it ended.

  “Vi,” he breathed, holding me down against him. “Let it happen.”

  He moved his hand between my legs as I lowered over him, massaging me whenever I’d be as far down on him as I could get, filling me and pleasuring me to the point where my brain stopped functioning.

  Dizzy, reluctantly, I gave into it, shuddering, moaning, gasping as I let my body release in waves of pleasure. I watched him as I came, keeping my eyes open, wanting to show him what he made me feel.

  Tears formed in his eyes until he squeezed them shut. He held my hips down with a strength I couldn’t fight, didn’t want to fight, and he came inside of me. When he released his grip, I collapsed onto him, sweaty, exhausted, satisfied.

  With my chest against his, I could feel our hearts racing together, and then slow as our breath evened. He ran his fingers up and down my spine, the movement lulling me back to a sleepy state. He was still inside of me. I knew I should probably roll off of him, but I didn’t want to.

  He didn’t seem too keen on moving either, so we lay there on the floor. Eventually, I straightened out next to him, between him and the violin case, stretching my legs along his. Holding me tightly against his chest, he kissed my forehead. I hummed in response, still not finding words to convey the overwhelming emotions that absorbed me when we were together.

  Somehow though, he had words.

  “I love you.” His voice was groggy, shaky. “No matter what, I always will.”

  Pushing myself onto my elbow, I looked to his face and found him staring at the ceiling.

  He didn’t give me chance to say it back.

  In a flash, his face changed, and he smiled. “Now, how about that bagel?”

  I lifted my brows as he bounced up in one swift move. I watched him, dumbfounded, as he pulled on his jeans. He stopped at the door to blow me a kiss and then walked out.

  With a huff, I lay back down and stared at the ceiling. A million thoughts muddled through my mind—friends, graduation, jobs, music, independence—that only served to confuse me. My heart tried to shut them off and tell me what I already knew—that I loved him too.

  But my heart was going to have to hate me because I’d followed it before, and now it was time to follow my brain. The next two months were going to suck. We’d go back to being friends. We’d say goodbye. He’d come live here, and I’d go to Vienna. And that would be the end.

  My chest constricted at the thought, as my heart refused to be pushed aside. No matter how easy it was for him to tell me he loved me and then walk away, leaving Josh was going to break me. I could only wish for the strength to not let it destroy the rest of my life.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  If I hadn’t darted out of the room, I was going to do something I’d never done in front of a woman—cry my damn eyes out and beg her not to leave me. I’d told her I loved her and then jumped up like I was on fire. My tears fell as soon as I closed the bedroom door behind me.

  I got a grip though and vowed to be strong for the rest of the day. I didn’t want to leave tomorrow. I didn’t want to go back to a world where Violet Nicholson wasn’t stretched over me, her back arched in ecstasy.

  The toaster dinged, reminding me that I had to keep things light. I couldn’t confuse the issue. We had a deal, and I’d stick to it. The last thing I wanted was to chase her away and out of my life for good.

  As I spread the low-fat cream cheese over her bagel, I wondered if maybe I should fake another blow off. If she freaked out and ran, that would be easier to handle than us going back to being friends. Questions about the practicalities ran through my mind. Would I still be her superhero? Would she call me when she needed something? Would she get drunk at frat parties and try to hook up with other guys?

  I squeezed the handle of the butter knife until my palm started to hurt. There was no way I’d be able to be her friend through that. I had barely been able to manage seeing her talk to guys once Ollie left, and that was before. Now though? The thought made me want to vomit.

  The bedroom door creaked open, but I didn’t look toward the hall, focusing on the bagel instead. In a moment, Violet’s warm body embraced me from behind as she wrapped her arms around my waist.

  I had to get my mind straight. I had to tell Violet that I wanted to be with her. That when I’d told her I loved her, I’d meant that I wanted to work out the details of rest of our lives together. Maybe I could move to New York. City life wouldn’t be miserable if I had Violet. I could handle anything as long as I had her.

  When she let go of me, I took a deep breath and turned around, paper plate and bagel in hand. I placed them on the table, next to her now lukewarm coffee. “Your breakfast, my dear.”

  She followed me to the table in her NJU nightshirt, folding one bare leg under her as she sat. Her pink toenails taunted me, and her smile lit up the damn room. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  I grabbed our mugs and put them in the microwave. For twenty seconds, I tried not to think about how this was our last morning together here. When I finally joined her at the table, with our two steaming cups of coffee, I noticed her buttering my bagel with her fork. “Thanks.”

  She put down the fork and pushed the plate toward me. “You haven’t had any cereal since we’ve been here.”

  “The only thing I miss about school,” I said. At the moment, it was true. “If Sampson ate it, I’ll have to kick his ass.”

  She laughed. “So it’s a college thing? The cereal?”

  “Pretty much. From when Ollie and I had meal plans freshman year. I didn’t like anything, so I ate cereal.”

  “I remember. I think Oliver ate rye toast every morning for the entire year.” He had, I remembered too. She took a bite of her bagel, side-ey
eing me. “When are you going to explain your cereal ranking system?”

  “How about when I hear you play your fiddle?”

  She scrunched her face. “It’s a violin. And there’s something I should probably tell you about that.”

  I’d hoped that Violet had been playing while I’d been out that morning, before all the awesome sex and I-love-you episode. Something, anything, even a screechy version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Now, I choked down the bite of my bagel, nervous that she was going to tell me she was done with it, that she’d given up. “What’s up?”

  “Well.” She sat back and twisted her hands in her lap. “Remember that call I got a few days ago from Dr. Goodson? The night we went to the symphony with Dom and Amelia?”

  I nodded. “You said she wanted to talk to you about your composition.”

  Vi fidgeted, twisting her mouth into a tense line and biting her bottom lip. “I didn’t tell you the entire story.”

  Her strange look wasn’t putting me at ease. “What happened?”

  “She, huh, said I got offered an audition.”

  My heart sped up at the image of her playing her violin and auditioning in the city somewhere. “What? Why didn’t you tell me? That’s great, Pix.” I reached for her hand, but she didn’t take it. She flashed a weird, jaw-clenching look. “Is it not great? You don’t seem happy.”

  “It’s just…it’s in…”

  “New York, right? Isn’t that where you applied?” I waited, knowing that whatever she said wouldn’t matter because the job definitely wasn’t in Virginia, and it certainly wasn’t in Rambling. The way she stalled made me realize it probably wasn’t even in New York, and my gut dropped. “Where?”

  “Vienna.”

  Gulping down the pain that one word caused, I feigned excitement as I imagined her a world away. “I…”

  She pouted, and my heart damn near broke. This was a moment that, if I knew how to do relationships, I’d know what to say. But I didn’t know how to fake this. How could I explain that I wanted her to go, but I didn’t? How selfish would that make me? Instead, I said, “I’m happy for you.”