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“Fuck, fuck. Oh, God, Charlee.” The sensations waved through his body, heating him from head to toe. He flexed his hips, panted against her mouth. “I’m going to last about two point two seconds.”

She flung her arms around his neck and rocked against him. “Me too.”

Her lips slid over his, and her fingers dug into his nape. He pulled her in, as close as they could be, and spread his legs to open her wider. He sank into her over and over, grinding against her, speeding up and slowing down.

Energy crackled between their slick bodies, and her pussy clenched around him. Eyes locked on his, she arched her back and found her release. The bedding wadded in his fists as her climax crashed over him, gripping him with quaking shocks.

His thrusts increased in rhythm and intensity, and an inexpressible emotion exploded inside him, a desperate feeling that had nothing to do with his building orgasm. He wanted to crawl inside her so violently, he crushed her body to his. He wanted to meld her to every cell of his being. He fucked her harder, slamming his hips between her thighs. He was buried in his universe, and still, he wanted more of her, wanted her so entangled with him, they could never be unraveled.

The drum of his heart thumped in time with his lunges. Ecstasy frenzied through his mind and body. He powered in and out of her until his release tore from him with a ragged shout.

At length, he lifted his weight from her chest and kissed her deeply, running a hand over her heated face. There was nothing he could say, no words he could utter, to voice the immense relief washing over him. Loathing the idea of separating their joined bodies, he stayed put, softening inside her, relishing the intimacy. “Have you been here the entire two weeks?”

She nodded, her lips curving. “Thomas has been very accommodating.” She whispered, “I don’t think he gets any visitors.”

God, he missed that smile. “Guess I need to talk to Thomas about the hazards of letting strangers move in. How did you know I’d come here?”

She shrugged. “We’d decided our future would be here, and I knew you wouldn’t give up on that.”

Hadn’t he? He must’ve been frowning, because she poked her index and middle fingers in the corners his lips and shoved them upward.

She grinned. “Maybe you didn’t consciously acknowledge the reason, but you boarded that plane and came to me, nonetheless.” She shoved his shoulder. “Now feed me. I’m withering away here.”

He kissed her lips, rolled to his back, and decidedthey—whoevertheywere—didn’t know what they were talking about. The only thing certain in life was Charlee.

96

Six months later…

“Thanks, Fredrick. See you next week.” Charlee waved to the pilot and raced up the dock, the bitter chill in the air biting her nose and stinging her eyes. After a twelve-hour day at her tattoo shop in the only town on the other side of the lake, bent over back-to-back customers, she should’ve been exhausted.

But vigor danced through her limbs. The absence of Roy’s shadow was so fucking liberating, the need to look over her shoulder dwindled with the Canadian temperature.

Breathing in the crisp air, she wrapped her coat tightly around her, bounded to the ice-covered shore, up the path, and burst through the backdoor. “Jay?”

The muffled vibration of his electric guitar floated from the basement. She tossed her coat on the couch and swung into the stairway, heart pounding, her hands slick with sweat.

He’d asked her to marry him. Woke her that morning with his mouth between her legs, his teeth pinching her clit, and said, “Marry me.”

She told him to buy her a ring and brush up on his charm, but neither of those excuses were the reasons for her non-answer. She’d anticipated his proposal for weeks and needed the day in town to accomplish the response she’d planned out.

At the bottom of the stairs, she tugged off her boots and slipped into the music studio.

He squatted on a stool at the center of the room, his shirtless back to her, and a guitar in his lap. “Roll it again. Pick it up from the third verse.”

The rest of the band flickered across the widescreen on the wall, moving in and out of camera shot. The angle showed the L.A. estate’s basement studio, the drum set, and the couch where she’d spent numerous hours watching them practice.

Laz rose from the couch and shuffled to his amp, clicking it off. “We’ve got this. Let’s call it a night.”

Will fidgeted with the tuners on his bass and rubbed his furrowed forehead. Behind him, Rio scooted away from the drums, twirling a stick in his hand, grinning at whatever Laz was doing off camera.

“Let’s take a break, then we’ll roll through it a couple more times.” Jay seated his Les Paul in the guitar stand beside him and straightened his back, flexing his shoulders and thrusting his elbows behind him in an upper-body stretch. “You’re consistently a half beat late into the segue between the chorus and the second stanza.”

His leather pants sagged an inch or more below his narrow hips, exposing a tantalizing panorama of sculpted lines over his lower back and the ridges of his ass. She licked her lips, her nostrils flaring to accommodate her heavy breath.

He bowed forward, forearms on his spread knees. The ambient lighting accentuated his sexiest muscles, the contour of hisV-shaped torso beneath the animation of black, red, and brown ink.

The pads of her fingers tickled to worship him. She covered the few feet between them and rested her palms over his scars.