CHAPTER 32

The last time I kissed Emily Carlton in her bed was eighteen months ago. We were different people then. I’m reminded how different as her eyes flash up at me. “What the hell?” Emily demands. She’s naked and beautiful and, apparently, pissed. I roll off her and onto my back. I can still taste her, and the way she fell apart under my hands and mouth left me nowhere near satisfied, but I force out the words I need to say. “Tonight was about you. Giving you what I wanted to give you then.” “You’re overthinking this.” She shifts over me, and I bite back the groan at the feel of her. “Stop thinking. Just be here with me. I know you want to.” She’s killing me—with her voice and her intentions and the way she responds. My cock is swollen and leaking at the thought of making her mine. But the second I make her mine, I’m hers, too. And even though I want her back, I’m grasping for some semblance of control. She’s so fucking sweet, with a new edge I love every bit as much as the sweetness. Unable to resist, I prop myself up on my elbows and tug her lips down to mine. My fingers tangle in her silky hair, wrapping it around my hand like I’ve been thinking about all semester until she opens over me. I used to tease Emily Carlton for wearing her heart on her sleeve, but I feel as if I’m the one who’s exposed. I want to bury myself inside her so deep she can’t get me out. Not now, not ever. Her breasts graze my bare chest, making my impatient dick swell even more. This time when her hands drop to the button on my jeans, I don’t stop her. Not when she works the zipper down, makes a little groan in her throat as she sees the hard ridge of my cock, the wet spot on my boxer briefs. Not when she reaches inside, her aroused gaze meeting mine. My eyes fall shut as her hand wraps around my shaft. Her touch is warm and soft and a cruel tease. I want to be inside her yesterday. “Holy fuck, Six.” I whisper it like a prayer. She helps me work my jeans off. I get up long enough to find a condom from my wallet and roll it on while she watches, breathless. “Wait,” she murmurs when I shift over her again. I laugh softly. “You were the one so anxious to do this.” “But I want to savor it, too.” I can’t speak. So, I kiss her instead as I wedge myself between her soft thighs. I nudge her opening, groaning into her mouth because she’s so hot and wet. Every part of me pulses as I press inside an inch at a time. I watch her face, see her eyes go dark as she gasps when I fill her. There’s my girl. Mine now. Always. “You okay?” I ask when I’m halfway inside her. She nods, swallowing. She’s tight and hot and slick and perfect. “I know. It’s a lot to take in,” I say. Her hand slaps my chest, and I grin as I bend to kiss her again. Her panting breaths mingle with mine as I sink all way in. My head drops back as the feel of what we’re doing overtakes me. When she wraps her legs around me, urging me to move, I shake my head. “We gotta go slow, or I’m going to lose control.” “I don’t want slow, and I don’t want you in control.” She licks lips swollen from my kisses. “I want to free-fall.” Fuck. I can’t hold back when she talks like that. When I sink back inside her, she arches her back to meet me, her face transformed with desire. I want to give her so much pleasure she can’t come without thinking of me. Every stroke is a memory I need to preserve. She’s tight and soft, and I could explore the contradiction forever. Except that tonight we’ve got somewhere to be. I’ve waited for this girl for years, and I’m not waiting another second. I build her up, toeing the line between deliberate and reckless. This might be our first time together, but I know her. I know how she thinks, how she feels, what emotions make her lips tremble and her eyes glow. Tonight, I’m going to learn how to make her scream. My mouth claims hers, swallowing every sound and breath. I’m greedy for all of her, any of her, and I won’t let a single element of her reaction go to waste. Emily’s hips lift to meet mine, and I lift her higher so I’m in control, so I can go deeper. I tear my lips from hers to drag them down her jaw, the long, beautiful neck she’s offering up. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” Her chants spur me on. We’re in this together, Six. You and me. When she squeezes around me, her nails digging into my skin as she moans my name… I die. I swear my heart stops. I never want to spend a moment on this planet without knowing that expression of delirious pleasure on her face, without having it imprinted on my mind, in my soul. I will destroy any man who even thinks about her like this. I can’t hold back. I come. It’s everything I ever dreamed and some things I wouldn’t dare. I pulse for fucking ages, my abs clenching as I try to think of a way I can stay inside her like this forever because nothing will ever be as good as this moment. When we come down, I reluctantly roll us so she’s on top because I don’t want to crush her. We lie like that, me stroking her hair and staring at the faded white ceiling, until something buzzes near my head. Emily twists, moving off me to grab her phone from the nightstand. “It’s Rica. She saw the shoe, but she needs to get into the room.” I force my languid body off the bed, grabbing a box of tissues to clean up. My attention lands on a vase of flowers. “Nice gift. Should I be jealous?” “It’s from Dad and Haley.” “You gotta tell them.” I try for casual, but Emily stiffens anyway as she tugs a long T-shirt over her head. I might not have earned the right to tell her what to do, but she must see how futile keeping her education from him is, how much worse she’s making it with every day she puts it off. “I will when I’m ready.” She narrows her gaze. “I liked your mouth better twenty minutes ago.” “I’m sure you did.” I step closer, watch her eyes darken as I do. I want to kiss her again, but I’m afraid if I start, I’ll never leave. My gaze lands on something—a fishbowl next to the flowers—and I cock my head. “Was he watching us the whole time?” “Heath? Probably, but he’s pretty judgy. You guys would get along great.” I muss her hair in retaliation, and she ducks away, grinning. I cross toward the door, then pull the door open and hold out the shoe. She takes it from me and taps it against her hand. When I don’t move, Emily raises a brow. “You waiting for me to say, ‘Thank you for the orgasms. I’ll study so much better now’?” “My ego would appreciate that.” “Fine. That was very relaxing.” “Relaxing?” I echo, closing in on her. “Don’t pretend you’re not rubbing one out to me in the shower later.” She reaches up to wind her arms around my neck, pressing her body against mine. I’m already getting hard again at the feel of her soft curves. “Feels like you miss me already.” I bite back the groan, my eyes narrowing. “I’m going to make you beg, Six.” Emily’s lips part, her breath mingling with mine. “Promise?” She pulls back before I can decide whether to leave or drag up that T-shirt and fuck the smug smile off her lips. With a last look, I head down the hall, pulling the door closed after me. I do miss her already. But not the way she means. “You’re home late,” Jacob comments from the living room when I unlock the door of our apartment. I kick off my shoes and toss my wallet on the counter. “We’re closing the showcase. Me and Emily. The schedule gets announced publicly tomorrow.” Jacob’s face splits into a grin. He descends on me, clapping me on the back. “You deserve it, Ty. The break. The stage. The girl,” he says meaningfully as he crosses to the couch and flicks on the TV. “You should look happier.” I grab a beer from the fridge. “I am happy, but people say that like you’ve arrived. Like getting what you want is a destination. Those moments don’t last, Jacob.” I think of my dad, what he went through—how entitled he felt, how quickly anything he found slipped through his fingers. “You want certainty, you’re in the wrong business, my friend,” Jacob says. I join my roommate on the couch. “Music.” “Life.” The TV’s on silent but playing some reality show. “Smackdown,” he reminds me. “The contestants put themselves through these insane physical tests to try to win a bunch of money. Mostly they end up with bruises, sometimes broken bones, and nothing to show for it.” “That’s messed up.” “We do exactly the same thing.” He reaches for my beer with a smirk and takes a long drink before passing it back. “When I met you last fall, I knew you were walking around this city with a broken heart. When Emily showed up this year, the pieces clicked into place. But instead of thanking whatever god you pray to for giving you another chance, you’re thinking of all the reasons it won’t work.” “Last time, neither of us knew what we wanted. We were kids, Jacob, playing at being grown-ups. We’ve both changed. We have more than dreams—we have plans. But I lost myself in her, and it took walking away to realize it.” Jacob cocks his head. “Are you in love with her?” “I don’t know if I ever fell out of love with her.” The words settle between us, my abs contracting as my mind takes me back to her dorm room an hour ago. I’d barely finished touching her before I wanted to touch her again. “Seeing her again this fall, it’s like a part of me I thought was dead came back to life. And more of me came with it, a part that helped my music and made me feel more alive than I have in a year. She always got me like no one else, and even when I wouldn’t let her in, she’d find her way. “When I tried to work for Zeke, he said something was missing. She brings something out of me that’s not there when she’s gone.” “One thing I can’t figure out is why she’s here. Why doesn’t she get her dad to set her up with a contract?” “Because she wants to build her own castles. I respect the hell out of that.” Jacob’s eyes gleam. “Girl’s got you thinking about the future, huh?” He’s pushing my buttons on purpose, but the thought of a future with her has me aching. “She’s like a song. She can be across the country, but I hear her name, or see someone who looks like her, or read something that sounds like she wrote it, and in a moment, she’s back. I’m dropped into this world of feeling, trapped in the same place. And I don’t want to leave. “The stakes now are higher than ever. But even if I know there’s a chance of breaking her heart or her breaking mine and ruining both our lives… I want her too much to walk away.” “Then don’t.” We turn back to the TV, where middle-aged contestants are racing through an obstacle course built over a pool to try to win a car. When a balding man slips on a moving disc and tumbles into the water with a massive splash, I say, “I thought we were supposed to get smarter when we get older.” Jacob holds out a hand for my beer again, and I pass it to him. “Propaganda.”