Page 139 of Save Your Breath

“Oh, God.Ian?”

“Don’t say another man’s name when I’m between your legs, Strings.”

I bit down on her neck to hammer that message home, and Mia gasped, arching into me, her hips grinding and trying to line me up at her entrance as I teased and toyed with her.

“I took that as my sign,” I told her, kissing down the flat bone of her sternum before licking each modest swell of her breasts. I circled her nipples with my tongue and savored the whimpering sounds that touch elicited. “I knew I wasn’t your type. I knew you were too good for me.”

Never good enough.

Never good enough.

“So, I stayed away. I watched you shine from afar, wanting everything good for you but hating when your smile was because of someone else. I stopped coming to family holidays because I couldn’t stomach being around you and whatever man had your attention.”

“That Fourth of July…”

“Fucking killed me,” I croaked, remembering how I’d tried and failed to numb myself that night after seeing Austin with her all day. “That was when I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I tortured myself with miles between us but couldn’t man up and see your joy up close. I wanted you happy, Mia. I still do.” I kissed down her stomach, hiking each thigh up over my shoulder before my eyes locked on hers. “But fuck if I’m not the most selfish prick because the truth is I only want you happy with me.”

I licked along her inner thigh as she squirmed and sighed, hands fisting in the sheets and twisting hard.

“When I called you about the publicity stunt,” she breathed, her words strained as she tried to focus through the way I was teasing her.

“I jumped at the chance. Because I didn’t care if it was fake, Mia. I didn’t care if it would all end. I didn’t care that I’d be a fucking wreck when it was over. I wasn’t going to miss the chance to see you, to hold you, to touch you.” I tightened my gripon her thighs, spreading her wide and licking her in one long lash of my tongue from her opening to her clit. I kissed her there as she shook beneath me. “To kiss you.”

“You made it all feel so real.”

“Because it was. It was always real for me.”

“Aleks…”

“It was. I came to so many of your shows and never told you, Mia. I bought every special edition of every album, every magazine with you on the cover. I watched every late-night show and listened to every podcast interview. That Steinway in there?” I nipped at her skin with a nod toward the hall. “Why do you think I have it? I don’t play piano. But you do. I bought it for you. Just in case you ever came to visit. Just in case you ever decided to stay.”

“Aleks,” she repeated, this time my name sounding like an awestruck revelation.

My mouth was on her then, all words gone between us, and I let my tongue and teeth and lips show her everything else I had never said. I kissed and licked and sucked as she writhed and moaned and bucked against my mouth. I longed for her to feel how much I wanted her, how much I’dalwayswanted her. My mission was to erase any shred of doubt she had left hanging on.

“Do you feel it now, Mia?” I asked, swirling her clit with my tongue before I sucked it in tiny pulses that made her gasp and arch and whimper. “Do you feel how my heart beats for you?”

“Aleks—”

“Don’t say my name again. Not yet,” I reminded her. “Make me earn it.”

And then I settled in to do just that.

I took my time exploring her with my hands and tongue, biting and sucking and licking. Her hands moved from the sheets to my head, guiding me, and I let her fuck my face as I held fast to her hips and gave her the friction she needed. I couldhave stayed there for hours tasting her. I could have spent the whole fucking night making her come as many times as I could just like that.

Her first orgasm was quiet and strained, like all the tension I’d felt between us the last time she left my condo had finally released. It was like it pained her as much as it brought her pleasure, and no sooner had she stopped trembling and sank into the sheets, she was grabbing for me, pulling me up so she could taste herself on my tongue.

“Need you,” she whispered against my mouth, reaching between us to position me. “When you’re inside me, everything makes sense. Everything feels right.”

“Fuck,” I groaned, nestling my forehead between her head and shoulder as I wedged myself inside her just an inch. “You told me last time to make you stop thinking. I thought that meant you just wanted to use me. And I didn’t even care. I wanted to be used.”

“You do turn off my thoughts. You turn off everything — the stress, the noise, the expectation. With you, I can just be… me.”

“Always,” I promised her, sliding in more.

“You’ve always been enough for me, Aleks,” she whispered on a long sigh as I withdrew and flexed in deeper. “More. More than enough.”

I closed my eyes on another muttered curse, my heart squeezing painfully in my chest as I pushed all the way inside her. We moaned together at the sensation — me filling her, her being filled. For a moment, I sat just like that, fully seated inside her and feeling how she seemed to relax and melt like she was home.