Gabe knew a man wasn’t supposed to feel gloriously happy when a chick he’d met less than two weeks before declared her love. He was supposed to run. But Gabe wasn’t running. He wasn’t even considering it. He’d already decided Mel was his one, and knowing that she felt the same way gave him no choice but to be ecstatic. He’d wanted to tell her how he felt again a thousand times over the past week, but she’d never said the words after that one time backstage in New Orleans, so he’d decided it best to keep his own words locked inside. And now that she’d said them again—each utterance a moment of pure joy for him—he felt it would be a bit canned to repeat them to her like a fucking parrot. But he would tell her how he felt. Soon.

Unfortunately, the nearest decent hotel was about seventy miles away. If he committed to doing the speed limit, it would take them over an hour to get there. Even though he’d just gotten a speeding ticket—not his first, but his first in Oklahoma—he was having one hell of a time not slamming the gas pedal to the floor. Because he wanted her body, yes, but his urgency to be alone and naked with her was more than just sexual. He wanted to bare his heart to her. He trusted her to treasure it.

“Are we there yet?” he asked. Melanie laughed.

He loved the sound of her laugh. Every time he heard it, he couldn’t help but smile.

“We’re about two minutes closer than we were the last time you asked.”

“You have got to keep me distracted. I’m dying over here.”

“What kind of distraction did you have in mind?”

The kind he had in mind would likely get him that public indecency charge. Besides, he doubted he could drive at all with her gorgeous mouth sucking at his cock. And if they pulled over . . . He shook his head to clear his thoughts. He felt like a teenager around her. Horny, confused, emotional, fixated, yet at the same time distracted and a bit giddy. But yeah, mostly fucking horny.

“Tell me about your parents,” he said. “That ought to keep me from discovering how well I can drive while you suck my cock.”

“Parents?” She crinkled up her nose. “I prefer that second distraction for sure.”

She unfastened her seat belt and reached for the top button of his fly. He caught her hand. His heart was thundering so hard in his chest, he thought someone might need to call the paramedics. Having such an intense response before she even touched him did not bode well for his ability to be sucked and to drive simultaneously.

“You don’t want me to?” she asked, looking up at him from where she was partially leaning across his lap.

His cock jerked in his jeans. Her looking up at him like that, with a naughty question in her hazel eyes, had him out of his mind with lust. Christ, she had to be the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“Of course I want you to,” he began, his voice husky to his own ears. “But—”

She didn’t let him finish. Instead, she unfastened his pants and gently pulled his cock free. His seated position didn’t allow for much maneuvering of his underwear, so his length was pressed up against his belly. He knew he should have gone commando that morning despite the discomfort of sitting in a car all day.

“If you don’t think you can drive while I suck you off, then I’ll just lick it a little. Okay?”

Her cool hand gently pressed against the underside of his cock, and her thumb brushed the throbbing head.

“Mel,” he gasped.

“Okay?” she asked again.

“Please.” He wasn’t sure if it was a plea for her to stop—surely not—or a plea for her to begin, but she took it for the latter.

When her tongue caressed him so gently his balls ached and his belly tied itself in knots, he praised genetics that he was gifted with long legs so that there was plenty of room between his lap and the steering wheel. He also praised the engineer who’d invented cruise control as he set his speed exactly on the posted limit. He concentrated on keeping his eyes open and focused on the straight stretch of road before him, but it was damned hard when Mel’s tongue was teasing him beguilingly.

“That feels so good,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut for a heartbeat, allowing himself the tiniest moment of pure bliss before he forced his attention back on the road. There was something about trying to squelch the pleasure rippling through him that intensified it.

Melanie’s hand slid against his belly and pushed his cock away from his body so she could lick the neglected top of his cockhead. She drew an inch of him into her mouth and sucked, her tongue teasing his rim, and then pulled back to blow cooling breaths over his wet tip.

He shuddered in torment. Worried that he’d hit the ditch running along the highway if he took a hand off the steering wheel to burrow into her thick hair, he tightened his grip until his fingers ached. She repeated the motions—lick, suck, blow—and his eyes rolled back. He swerved just enough to hit the warning rumbles on the edge of the pavement, which caused him to jerk out of his lust-induced stupor and right the car again.

“Fuck, woman,” he growled. “You’re going to have to stop. I can’t see straight.”

“You can’t drive straight either,” she said with a chuckle.

The huffs of air her soft laugh produced tickled his highly sensitive and still-wet tip.

“Of course I can’t drive straight. You give great head.”

He chanced touching her sleek curls, but only for a second, as that increased the tenderness he felt for her and completely shattered him.

She’d said she loved him. She’d said it. Without prompting. Not as some sort of apology or to make amends, but just because.

And she really did give great head.

She smiled up at him and seemed determined to prove his compliment correct when she took the tip of him into her mouth once more.

Just stay on the road, Gabe. Stay on the goddamned road. He groaned when her free hand, which had been resting on his thigh, brushed up against his balls. Her other hand was curled gently—unmoving—around his shaft.

“Do you want to come?” she asked.

His belly clenched at the sound of her sexy voice, and his cock jerked in her hand. “Yeah. Inside you. In about thirty minutes.”

“Should I stop? Are you close?”

Probably and definitely, but he said, “Keep doing that just a little longer.”

She kept him on the brink of orgasm for miles. He fought to stay focused on the road, fought to keep from filling her mouth with the heaviness pooling in his balls, fought not to shove her head down and fuck the back of her throat.

When the hotel-directed GPS on Melanie’s phone announced prepare to turn right in two miles, he was sure the robotic voice belonged to an angel of mercy.

Melanie sat straight in her seat, her face flushed, lips swollen from working him over. She wiped a bit of saliva from the corner of her mouth, and he groaned, his overexcited body unable to take the added visual stimulation of the sexiest mouth he’d ever seen or felt. Or tasted.

When they got to that hotel room, he planned to devour that sweet, dirty mouth of hers while he pounded her pussy raw. He knew he wouldn’t be able to take her slow, to show her care or how much he loved her. Not this time. But he would countless times in the future. Because he wanted her in his life permanently, and he wasn’t afraid to let her know it.

Melanie tried rearranging his cock in his jeans, which made him double over in agony.

“God, you’re hard,” she said.

“I wonder why,” he snapped, but he wasn’t angry. Far from it. He was, however, going to die if he didn’t fuck her within the next five minutes.

“You know, I heard that cars will be driving themselves in the next ten to twenty years,” Melanie said.

“Normally I’d enthusiastically discuss the particulars of self-driven cars, but I think I need to concentrate on breathing until we get to the hotel.”

“I wonder how people will keep themselves entertained on long road trips if they don’t have to pay attention to the road.”

He immediately caught on to her implication. “I’m liking the idea of a computer being in charge of my vehicular safety more and more.”

She laughed and tried forcing his rigid length back into his pants again. “Still too hard. Are you going to make it to the hotel?”

He spotted the hotel’s sign and imagined it was pointing the way to nirvana. He was more than ready to find his way there with Mel.

It was a typical chain hotel, but newer and nicer than he’d expected. Melanie had to go inside to check in because Gabe was still at the whim of the hardest dick he’d ever owned. By the time she exited to stand beneath the portico where he was waiting in the car, he’d managed to get himself to a state of semi-hardness by forcing himself to think of post office lines and filing taxes. Yet the second she smiled and brandished a room card at him, he was hard as stone again.

“Calm the fuck down,” he pep-talked his dick. “It isn’t as if you’ve never been laid before.”

But with Melanie, every time carried the excitement, the longing, the curiosity and wonder of his first time. The main difference was he had a few more skills now than he’d had when he’d gratefully lost his virginity in college.

Melanie climbed back into the passenger seat. “The entrance we want is around back. Unfortunately, check-in time isn’t until four.”

A spike of panic thrust through his chest. He couldn’t wait two hours. “What?”

“I convinced them to let us check in early.” She grinned. “I told them you aren’t feeling well—probably have a case of food poisoning—and that you really needed to use the bathroom before you lie down for a nap, so no one will be suspicious if you have to walk in all doubled over.”

“Now, Miss Anderson, why would I have to walk in doubled over?”

Her hand slid to his lap, and he groaned when she discovered he was as hard as ever.

“I don’t know, Banner. Why would you?”

“You’re evil.”

“Get used to it.”

Luckily, the back parking lot was empty except for a single semi-truck parked far off to the side. Gabe snagged the parking spot next to the alternate entrance and shut off the car. He glanced up at the nondescript beige multi-floor box of a hotel, hoping their room wasn’t far from the door.

“We’re on the first floor,” she said as if they shared a brain. “So you won’t have to hobble up stairs or wait for an elevator.”

She was enjoying his misery far too much. Though elevators had possibilities, he was grateful the room wasn’t too far away. He silently pledged that after he filled her with his cum—and probably took a long nap—he’d make her want him as much as he currently wanted her.

“Give me a minute, and I think I’ll be able to stand,” he said.

Melanie leaned over and nibbled on his ear. “I sure hope so. I was hoping you’d take me up against the wall.”

His face tightened in agony. Was she trying to kill him? “You like this power you have over me, don’t you?”

She grinned. “You have it over me too. That’s why I wanted you to drive today.”

He closed his eyes and laughed. Yeah, if she’d been driving, he’d have had no choice but to put her in a similar state of arousal.

“You’re driving the rest of the way, then,” he said.

“I plan on it.”

She kissed him—rather chastely—and opened her door. She looked at him over her shoulder, the question in her eyes turning him into a smoldering kettle of lust. What was it about that look that reached deep inside him and pushed all of his triggers? He watched her pass in front of the car like he was some sort of creepy stalker rather than her boyfriend, but he could not for the life of him get his body to move from the driver’s seat.

“Are you coming?” she called when he just sat there in the stupid car, staring at her through the windshield.

“Almost,” he whispered to himself.

He was pretty sure he was drooling, but couldn’t help it. She was everything he wanted. Not just physically, though that was at the forefront of his mind at that particular moment, but everything he wanted and needed in his life. He knew he’d never love another woman as much as he loved her. Until Melanie, he’d never known he could be completely sure of anything. Having a keenly scientific mind, he automatically questioned everything—fact or theory—extensively. But not his feelings for Mel. With her, he just knew. Was this what it felt like to have absolute faith? If so, he envied those that faith came to naturally.

“If you don’t hurry, I’m going to have to take care of myself,” she said. “My panties are uncomfortably damp and—”

He threw open his door, jerked against his still fastened seat belt, cursed the infernal device as he fumbled with the clasp, and finally unfolded his long body from the confines of the Bug. He slammed the door and met Melanie at the hotel entrance. She was moving as swiftly as he was. Expecting the card reader to waylay their plans, he actually said, “Fuck, yes,” when the light turned green and the mechanism unlocked on her first attempt.

He followed her into a small foyer, and she glanced from the number written on the cardboard folder of her keycard to the small plaque on the corridor wall. “This way,” she said.

Gabe couldn’t keep his hands off of her for another second. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her up against his side, leaning in to steal a kiss. And once he tasted her sweet lips, he couldn’t stop. He was only vaguely aware that they were still moving down the hall toward their little sanctuary. Melanie’s soft lips had his full attention.

She turned her head and eyed the number next to a door before turning back to his kiss and luring him past the next few rooms. By the time they reached the end of the corridor, his hand had developed a mind of its own and was massaging her soft breast. Her nipple was distractingly hard against his palm. He needed his lips on it, his tongue on it, his teeth . . . 

“Just let me open the door,” Melanie said.

Her voice was husky, but she could still form words. She wasn’t nearly as turned on as he was if she could speak a complete sentence. He planned to take that ability from her at once. She turned toward the door, and he moved to stand directly behind her, his dick pressed into the soft swell of her ass, one hand roughly rubbing her tit, the other seeking the heat between her legs. She gasped when his mouth found the point where her neck met her shoulder.

“Gabe,” she said, his name a breathless whisper. “I can’t open . . . door . . . You . . .”

She shifted her hips, rubbing her sweet ass against his aching, throbbing cock. She could still speak in recognizable words, so she wasn’t at his level of desire just yet. He pinched her nipple, and she shuddered, flattening herself against the door, her legs spreading for him as if she was perfectly okay with him taking her right there in the hotel corridor. Satisfied that she’d be ready for him the instant her panties hit the floor, he slipped the keycard from between her fingers and stuck it into the slot. It blinked mercifully green, and when he pushed the handle down, the door sprung open. Melanie stumbled forward, and he allowed the few inches of separation between them, but only until they were both inside the room and the door clicked shut behind them. He yanked off her shirt while she kicked aside her shoes. He jerked open his fly while she shimmied out of her shorts. Jeans around his ankles, he caught her around the waist and turned her so that her face was pressed against the wall and her gorgeous bare ass was tilted upward. He grabbed his cock, rubbing the tip through the wetness he knew he’d find. He slipped into her swollen pussy with a groan of part triumph, part agony and pushed forward until he was buried to the root. She whimpered, her hands curling into the wall on either side of her face.

He pulled back and pounded into her again and again. He held her hips in a solid grip as he pulled her into him while he thrust forward. Her flesh rippled with each forceful invasion.

“When you tease me like that,” he growled, “I have no choice but to punish your naughty pussy.”

“Deserves good pounding,” she slurred.

Her hand moved down to where their bodies were joined, and her fingertips brushed his length every time he moved within her. Enjoying the sensation, he slowed his thrusts, pushing back his mindless need to attain release. When his instincts retreated and he located a sliver of reason in his lust-clouded thoughts, he gently slid his hands around Melanie’s body and cupped her soft breasts. He kissed her sweat-damp shoulder and brushed her hair back with the side of his face as he kissed his way to her neck.

She moaned, churning her hips to meet his much slower but still deep thrusts.

“Kind of lost myself there for a moment,” he whispered, fingers tugging at her nipples. “I almost forgot it’s better to give than to receive.”

“You’re always . . . Oh!”

He grinned at her reaction to his rough treatment of her stiff nipples. “What were you saying?” he asked.

Jeans around his calves, his shuffled toward the bed, still joined with Melanie.

“You’re always giving, Gabe. It’s okay to take. I want you to take. Take all of me.”

So he bent her over the bed and took and took and took until he exploded inside her. When he collapsed onto her back, breathing hard, his balls quivering from the merciful release, he had no idea if she’d enjoyed it, if she’d reached orgasm, or if she wanted to do nothing more energetic than sleep for the next few hours. But he knew all those things were true in regard to himself.

“You okay?” he asked, face squashed against the middle of her back.

“Never better.”

He hoped she wasn’t just saying that. He wanted their relationship to be built on trust and no lies. If his bedroom skills lacked in any way, he wanted her to tell him so that he could improve. Even if that meant they had to accessorize with new devices.

“Did you come?” he asked.

“Twice.” Her hand, resting on the bedspread beside her head, curled, and she extended two fingers. They were shaking.

So it hadn’t been a total failure on his part.

After a moment, he found the will to stand. He gently caressed her back with both hands and watched his softened cock slip from her pussy. If he hadn’t just come, the sight of their combined cum dripping down her thighs would have made him instantly hard for a second round, but he was completely spent. He kicked off his cumbersome jeans, pulled back the covers and climbed between them.

“There’s a spot right here for you, baby,” he said, holding the covers up in invitation.

A look of longing on her face, she glanced toward the suite’s bathroom. “Hold that thought.”

He did until she returned a few moments later with a warm, wet washcloth.

“I want you to sleep comfortably too,” she said, and handed the cloth to him.

He wiped the stickiness from his dick, overwhelmingly touched by her completely unembarrassed meeting of his needs. The simplicity of the gesture reminded him of her earlier confession. He dropped the cloth to the floor and wrapped the covers around her when she slipped between them. Spooning up against her back, he brushed her hair aside with one hand and kissed the delicate curve of her jaw.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you every time I look at you,” he said, his heart now thudding a rapid staccato. “Or even think of you.”

She turned her head, that questioning look that laid waste to all rational thought on her beautiful face. “What’s that?”

“I love you.” He half-expected a comet to strike the planet and end the world at that moment, but the only thing that happened was the room air conditioner kicked on.

“Are you sure?” she asked, the question clear in her eyes. “You don’t have to say it again just because I said it.”

“Trust me.”

She rolled over in his arms and palmed his cheek in one hand. “I do.”

Two words even scarier than the three he’d just said, but he smiled at hearing them. He planned to hear them again from her in a more formal setting in the future. “Good,” he said. “Because it’s true. I love you.”

All the questions left her face, to be replaced by a radiant smile. “I love you too, Gabe. Crazy as it sounds.”

“Didn’t think you’d ever fall for a tattooed metal drummer?” He lifted a teasing eyebrow.

“Well, no, but that’s not the crazy part. What’s crazy is how fast it happened.”

“Mass remaining stable, the faster the acceleration, the greater the force.”

“And Force is with me on this?”

He laughed at her use of his nickname and kissed her. “Force will always be with you.” He kissed her again. “But please leave the corny Star Wars references to me.”

She shook her head. “I want to share everything with you,” she said, her fingers sliding through the strip of hair at the center of his scalp.

He had no idea what had happened to his ball cap, but was glad they were completely bare to each other—inside and out—at that moment.

“I want to share my body, my heart, corny Star Wars references.” She blinked, but then held his gaze. He could feel her heart thudding against his. “My life.”

“I guess if corny Star Wars references come with the rest of those amazing perks, I’ll allow them.”

She scowled at him. “Perks?”

“I said they were amazing.”

“But do you want the same thing?” she asked, her hand now moving to his cheek.

He melted into her palm, sorry he’d made her doubt his intentions. “I want to marry you, Melanie Anderson. Is that what you had in mind?”

The blood drained from her face. “It’s much too soon for that. I was talking about moving in together. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m ready.”

He caught her wrist and drew her hand to his mouth, tenderly kissing her palm. “I’m glad. But . . .”

“But? I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“It is. But . . .”

She stared at him, waiting for him to continue. Moving in together just wasn’t enough.

“I know I don’t look it, but I’m rather traditional.”

She snorted.

“I mean that,” he said. “I might move in with a woman I wasn’t sure about, but I’m sure about you, Mel. You’re my one. My forever. My only. I want you to be my wife.”

Her eyes widened, and she stared at him for a full minute before she blinked. “Do you really mean that?”

His kiss moved from her palm to her wrist, where her pulse beat rapidly against his lips. “I’ve never meant anything more in my life.”

She grinned. “Your acceleration is a force to be reckoned with, Force.”

He laughed. He actually liked that she teased him about his nickname. “Is that a yes? You’ll marry me?”

Her smile brightened, and she cupped his cheek in one hand. “Yes.”

The air conditioner kicked off. A comet didn’t strike the planet. But he was pretty sure his world had just ended. It had brightened into a new one with the promise of this woman by his side. Always.