Page 55 of Pretty When It Burns (When The Lights Go Down #1)

“Don’t,” I tell her. “Don’t ever hide yourself from me. You’re beautiful.”

I turn her so she lays on her back and I hover over her, kissing each scar like they’re sacred—like I can take away her pain with my touch. She gasps when my mouth brushes against her skin and I feel her fingers threading into my hair and her thighs starting to shift restlessly beneath me.

I take my time with her, wanting to savor every moment of this.

I kiss down her stomach, each hip, and then at the top of the waistband of her sweatpants. When I slide them down her legs, I trail kisses across her thighs like I’m trying to memorize them—because I am.

She trembles underneath me, already breathless.

“I’ve dreamt about this,” I confess, my voice hoarse. “So many fucking times since I got you back. Having you shaking underneath me like this. Hearing the sweet sounds you make when I fuck you with my tongue. Watching you lose control.”

I finally bury my face between her thighs and I feel her tense at the connection.

“Grayson,” she whispers, desire dripping from her voice. “I don’t want you to hold back. I want to feel all of you.”

Her words light me up like a match catching fire.

I grip her thighs and spread her open further, her hips immediately lifting to meet my mouth, like her body’s been waiting for me just as long as I’ve been waiting for her.

I groan the second I taste her. It’s like sunshine, honey and everything good in the world all over my tongue.

She cries out my name when I suck her clit between my teeth, and her back arches perfectly as she grips onto the sheets for some form of stability.

“Grayson—oh, my God, don’t stop—”

“I’m not stopping, baby,” I growl, licking into her like it’s the only thing I’m made to do while I use a finger to put pressure on her favorite spot inside her. “Not until you fall apart for me. Come on my tongue, sweetheart. I want to taste you while you come apart.”

My words send her over the edge. With a strangled moan and my name still on her lips, she unravels, shaking against my mouth as I hold her through it, possessive and reverent.

When I finally crawl back up her body and slide into her—slow, deep, and completely consuming her—I feel her tense and pulse around me like a damn heartbeat.

My body stills and I drop my head, trembling a little as I try to breathe through the intensity of being inside her for the first time in so long. Through the way she stretches around me, allowing me to fit perfectly as though I’m made for her. Through the overwhelming rush of finally being home.

She puts her hands on either side of my face and forces me to look her in the eyes.

“You okay?” she whispers, tracing my cheekbone with one of her thumbs.

“I should be asking you that,” I say, letting out a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh. “You have no idea what you do to me, sweetheart.”

I press a shaky kiss to her lips, then her jaw, then her neck as I bury myself even deeper.

“You’re everything,” I murmur, the words falling out of my mouth ragged and low as my hips begin to slowly thrust into her. “You’re fucking everything, Mia.”

I’ll never get tired of hearing her scream my name as she cries out for me again, clinging to my shoulders as I find the perfect rhythm, grinding into her with the kind of purpose fueled by six weeks of built-up need and longing for the one person who makes my whole world turn.

Her legs tighten around my waist, pulling me further into her, ankles locking behind my back—and I give her everything I have. Every ounce of tension. Every beat of my fucking heart.

“I missed this so damn much,” she moans, breath hitching as I shift my angle and hit the one spot that always makes her cry out. “I missed you.”

“I’m right here, baby,” I promise, keeping my body in measured control even though every ounce of me is screaming to let go. “I’m not going anywhere, not ever again. You hear me?”

She nods and pulls my face down until our foreheads are touching and our mouths are brushing as we breathe the same air—gasping, trembling, and unraveling together.

I roll into her as hard and deep as I can, dragging a broken moan from her throat. Her body clenches around me, and I know she’s close now—the way her nails bite into my back and the way she whimpers tells me everything I need to know.

“Grayson—I’m so—”

“I’ve got you,” I whisper next to her ear. “I’ve always got you, sweetheart. Now come for me, right here. I need to feel it.”

She breaks around me with a final cry that echoes through the room as she falls apart beneath me. I don’t stop thrusting into her, chasing my own edge with gritted teeth and her name on repeat like my favorite song.

When my release hits, when I finally spill everything I have into her, it’s with a guttural, helpless moan that causes my vision to blur and my hips to stutter. I surrender myself to her for the hundredth time, and it feels like everything in the world—at least, my world—is right again.

We collapse into each other with tangled limbs, damp skin, and heaving chests. I bury my face in her neck as she traces her fingers along my spine like she never wants to let go.

“I love you,” I breathe, completely spent but satisfied for the first time in months. “More than anything in my life, I love you, Mia Michele Alexander. It scares the hell out of me, but it’s worth it. You will always be worth it.”

She hums, smiling softly against the top of my head. “I love you, too. Forever and ever, and then some.”

I pull my face away from her shoulder and kiss her slowly—no heat, no urgency, just reverence. Just everything I’ve been carrying that I haven’t been able to say.

As we drift into the quiet afterward, still wrapped in each other’s arms, all I can think is: the next time I do this, she’ll have my ring on her finger, and I’m going to make damn sure she’ll never have a reason to ever take it off.

I stand alone in the greenroom because it’s quiet.

But it’s too quiet.

My jacket hangs over the back of the couch. I had bought it new, just for tonight, with a special pocket sewn into the inside just for the ring box. Everything else is ready.

My boots are laced.

My guitar is tuned.

Everyone is in place.

The lights are ready to drop, and the ring box is in my hand.

I place it so it sits open on my knee as I sit on the couch, sparkling even under the dim light of backstage. It’s like the diamond is winking at me—as if it knows what’s coming.

God, I hope I haven’t ruined the surprise.

I close the box and turn it in my palm, just as I had done in the hospital. But this time, I’m not sitting in an uncomfortable chair, begging for the love of my life to wake up. She’s here. Just outside the door, waiting for me. Alive. Healing. Whole.

Yet I’ve never been more terrified in my life.

Not because I think she’ll say no. I don’t think she will.

But because I want this to go perfectly. Because she deserves magic. For this moment to be everything she’s ever wanted.

I want her to feel every second of it deeper than she’s ever felt anything in her life.

I want us to be sitting on our porch swing twenty years from now talking about how this was the best night of our lives.

To be able to remember how the crowd went crazy when she said yes.

How the lights glowed. The way the music swelled.

How she knew—without a single doubt—that she had ruined me for anyone else for the rest of my life.

A knock on the door pulls me out of my reverie.

It cracks open, and Jake leans in, a goofy grin on his face.

“Five minutes,” he calls. “Sound is tight, the lights are set, and your girl? Man, you are so screwed.”

My heart kicks hard.

My girl.

Jake’s stupid grin gets even bigger. “You good?”

“I will be,” I say honestly. “She’s just gotta say yes.”

He steps inside fully and gives my shoulder a quick squeeze—firm, solid.

“She’s going to say yes, Gray,” he says, like a promise. “You’ve come a long way from being the scrawny eighteen-year-old kid who started this whole thing. She’d be a fool to say no—twice. Just try not to black out.”

I let out a breath that sounds way too much like a laugh. “No promises.”

“See you out there,” he says, clapping my shoulder before he’s gone.

I tuck the ring box into the inside of my jacket. Then I stand, hands bracing the couch for one last moment of support. I take one final deep breath, eyes on my reflection in the mirror.

“You’ve got this,” I whisper. “For her. Always for her.”

Then, without another thought, I walk out the door and towards the rest of my life.