He doesn’t stop until I’m gasping, oversensitive, and so desperate for his cock, the need in my voice is scary as I demand, “Pants off. You need to get your pants off. Now.”
He rises to his feet, the sight of his lips wet with my come and the hunger filling his dark eyes, the sexiest things I’ve ever seen.
I reach for the close of his jeans, but I’ve barely managed to free the top button when he catches my wrists and gently, but firmly, guides my hands away.
I jerk my chin up, searching his face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” His voice is rough, but his gaze is steady. “I just want you sober the next time I’m inside you. Sober and clear on the fact that this isn’t a ‘just one more time’ kind of thing.”
The words land heavy.
A declaration.
A demand.
His thumb strokes over the inside of my wrist, even that innocent attention enough to make me throb. “I want to be the man in your bed, Charlotte. For real.”
I exhale and think about trying to convince him that this conversation should wait.
Think about telling him that I’ve never wanted any man as much as I want him.
Think about dropping to my knees and returning the favor, just to keep my mouth too full to say things I might regret when I sober up.
He steps back, fastening his jeans before adjusting himself with a slight wince. “Come on. We should get back before they send a search party.”
“Are you sure you don’t need something to take the edge off?” I ask, casting a pointed glance at the thick ridge behind his fly.
He exhales a shaky laugh. “Nah, I’ll be okay. I’ll think sad thoughts on the way down the hall.”
“I don’t want you to think sad thoughts,” I confess, my voice husky and wobbly at the same time.
I sound like a woman torn, but that isn’t really true anymore.
I’m not torn. I want Nix. I want him in my life and in my bed and wrecking my plans for the foreseeable future.
No, this isn’t about being torn anymore.
It’s about being scared.
All this time, I thought I was brave. I thought I was the kind of woman who was whole, grounded, and ready to claim the love that’s meant to be hers the moment it came her way.
But maybe there’s a reason I picked a man like Teddy the first time around. Maybe there’s a reason I haven’t been looking too hard for someone to replace him. Maybe the thought of being truly, deeply, wildly, vulnerably in love scares the shit out of me.
My inner control freak is certainly spiraling as we slip out of the storage room and make our way back down the hall.
When we reach the main part of the bar, there’s none of the familiar noise or chaos to lose myself in. There’s just the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard, floating above awed silence, singing mournfully about “eyes that have never seen what mattered.”
My gaze finds the small stage, where Beatrice stands beside Blue, gazing up at him as she finishes a verse of one of my dad’s favorite duets. He always said the song reminded him of Mom, of how loving her always made sense, no matter how crazy or hard things got.
As a kid, I didn’t get it.
And I’ve never liked this song.
I told myself it was because it was cheesy and old-fashioned, but as Blue’s rich baritone wraps around Beatrice’s crystalline soprano like a lover, I suspect that I was lying to myself about that, too.
Maybe I didn’t like this song because, deep down, I didn’t think I’d ever find a love like this.
A love that feels like the only thing I’ll ever need…
