And I do. I let him worship me with his mouth and hands until I’m shaking, until I’m begging, until I pull him up and guide him inside me with a desperation that surprises us both.
When he moves inside me, it’s different from before—not the desperate heat of that first time in his apartment, not the intense passion from the venue. This is deliberate, conscious, full of possibility.
“Look at me,” he whispers, and I do, finding his eyes in the darkness, seeing my own want reflected there, doubled and returned.
We move together, slow and deep, finding rhythm without rushing, choosing each other with every movement, every breath, every whispered word that might be my name or his or just sounds that mean yes and more and please.
After, we lie tangled in sheets and each other, my head on his chest, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my spine. The house settles around us with small sounds—the refrigerator humming, the air conditioner clicking on, Nashville existing beyond these walls but feeling very far away.
I prop up on an elbow to look at him properly. “What if I can’t handle it? The leaving?”
“Then we figure out how to make it easier. Shorter tours. You and Lily visiting me sometimes. Video calls every night. Whatever it takes.”
“You’d do that? Adjust your whole career?”
“I’d adjust my whole life.” He traces my jaw, fingers gentle. “That’s what you do when something matters more than everything else.”
“I don’t want to be the reason you give things up.”
“You wouldn’t be. You’d be the reason I have something worth coming back to.”
“I want you to stay,” I whisper against his chest.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
We make love again, slower this time but no less intense. I straddle him, taking control, riding him with a rhythm that makes his hands tighten on my hips hard enough to leave marks I’ll see tomorrow. His eyes watch where we’re joined, mesmerized by the sight of me taking him in, over and over.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he groans, sitting up to capture my breast in his mouth, teeth grazing my nipple in a way that makes everything below my waist clench and throb.
I thread my fingers through his hair, holding him there while I grind against him, the angle perfect, the friction exactly what I need. His hand slides between us again, expert fingers working my clit while I ride him harder, faster, chasing another release that’s building impossibly fast.
“That’s it,” he encourages, voice rough with his own need. “Take what you need. Use me.”
The words push me over again, this orgasm different from the first—deeper, longer, pulsing through me until I can’t tell where I end and he begins. He follows immediately, groaning my name as he pulses inside me, his face buried in my neck, breathing me in like I’m necessary.
When we finally collapse, we’re both trembling, sweat cooling on our skin, bodies still joined like neither of us wants to separate. His softening cock still inside me, my walls still occasionally clenching around him with aftershocks.
“Jesus,” he breathes against my shoulder. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Good way to go though,” I manage, still catching my breath.
He laughs, the movement shifting him inside me, making us both gasp. Slowly, carefully, we separate, and he pulls meagainst his side, my head on his chest where I can hear his heart still racing.
“Now dessert?” he asks, making me laugh against his shoulder.
“Now you want dessert?”
“I want everything. Every normal moment. Every complicated conversation. Every fear you have about this.”
We eat chocolate mousse in bed at midnight, sharing a spoon, not caring about the sheets or the mess. He tells me about life on tour—the loneliness of it, the way cities blur together, how he started dreading the road even before he met us. I tell him about the other side—being the one left behind, watching Jason’s career take off, raising Lily alone, and then meeting and falling for Gage, only to be burned by him.
“Play something,” he says, setting the empty mousse bowl on the nightstand.
“It’s late. The neighbors?—”
“Something quiet. Something just for this room.”
I grab my guitar from the corner. Settling back against the headboard, naked except for the sheet pooled around my waist, I feel exposed in ways that have nothing to do with clothes. My fingers find chords I’ve been working on, a melody no one’s heard, something I’ve been writing in fragments when I can’t sleep.
