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“This is so sweet,” I say. “Where did you get all this?”

“At the dollar store. I didn’t want to leave real candles burning in here. I don’t want to burn the fuckin’ place down.”

I laugh and nod. “I like them. We can keep them.”

“I thought maybe you could take one home with you and put it by your bed. So you know I’m thinking about you.”

I tighten my hands around his. “I’d love that.”

He slips his fingers from mine and slowly pulls my blouse over my head, laying it on the floor before circling my waist with his hands. “You…” he says, leaning down to kiss my neck. “You don’t know how you wreck me.”

My eyes close and my head falls back in bliss as he sucks the flesh of my neck between his lips and gently bites.

“My head is fucked with you. Every note, every word I write is haunted by you…” He unclasps my bra and whisks it off to cup my breasts in his palms. “All I can hear is your voice. All I see is your eyes. All I can feel is your body…”

His lips leave my neck and come down on my mouth, hard at first, then gradually softer. I can tell he’s struggling to be slow and gentle as his breathing grows ragged and deep.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper against his lips.

“Don’t be. I need it. I need you.”

Fueled by his words, I push his leather jacket from his shoulders. It falls with a thud to the floor when he shrugs it off. The new black cable-knit sweater comes off him next, and I run my hands up his toned, inked torso, reveling in how beautiful every inch of him is. He helps me step out of my high heels and skirt, and I briefly recall my torn stockings on the floor of my car.

He backs us up to the sleeping bag as we kiss. He kneels in front of me and my body trembles when he kisses a path from an amazingly sensitive spot behind my knee all the way up to my inner thigh. I grab his head in surprise when he lifts my leg over his shoulder and starts to devour my pussy with his lips and tongue. I clench at his long hair as he fucks me with his mouth and flicks the metal piercing over my clit. Just as I’m on the verge of climaxing, he pulls his mouth away and looks up at me with a lusty grin.

“You don’t get to come yet,” he scolds in a raspy voice. “I want this little pussy to come all over my cock.”

I almost have an orgasm just hearing him talk dirty to me, and those burning eyes of his aren’t helping. I run my fingers through his hair and tighten my leg around him.

“Tell me what you want, Piper.”

“Just you,” I reply, pulling him closer. “Any way I can have you.”

Kisses all over my stomach and breasts lull and excite me, my body humming with desire and love and feelings I have no way to describe.

He gently pushes me down on my back and then kneels between my legs, riveting his eyes onto mine as he takes his jeans and boots off. He moves slowly, deliberately teasing—and I love every second of it. Tattoos illustrate almost every inch of his rock-hard body like a map of dreams and visions coming to life. Jet-black hair falls in silky waves down his chest, and I ache to run my fingers through it and feel it brush against my skin. I reach for him eagerly as he leans his arms on the sleeping bag on either side of my head, and I run my hands up the length of his spine to clasp my hands behind his neck.

“Always feels like I’m crushing you.” He strokes his finger across my cheek.

“You’re not going to crush me. I like you on top of me.”

Taking a deep breath, he brings his face closer and kisses the tip of my nose. “I like being on top of you. And in you. I just don’t want to hurt you.”

Smiling, I wrap one of my legs around his and rub my foot languidly up and down his leg.

“You’re not hurting me.”

“I don’t just mean like this.”

A feeling of doom creeps into my gut, giving me emotional whiplash with the feelings of love and desire I was lost in just mere seconds ago.

I swallow hard before answering. “Then don’t.” That seems easy to me. If you don’t want to hurt someone, then just don’t let it happen.

“Things with you are so easy but so fuckin’ hard, Piper.”

“I don’t really know what that means.”

“Shh… Let’s not talk.”

“You scare me sometimes. I’m always afraid I’m going to wake up tomorrow and you’ll be gone.”