CHAPTER 29

JARED

“You want another drink?” I asked a nearly comatose Alicia, who was relaxing on the lounger next to mine. Palm trees swayed gently in the breeze behind us, while the bright blue ocean shimmered invitingly from across the narrow, private beach.

“Hmm?” She rolled onto her side to face me, but her eyes were covered with dark sunglasses, and I couldn’t even see whether they were actually open. She looked divine lying next to me, the body I hadn’t been able to keep my hands off of for weeks clad in nothing but a black bikini.

Divine.

“Drink?” I repeated, leaning over to place a kiss on her tan shoulder.

She let out a happy little sigh and shook her head. “I’m fine. The sun’s lulling me to sleep. Want to go inside?”

I wanted to go wherever she was. If that was inside the private beach bungalow I rented for us in Hawaii, so be it. “Sure. Let’s get you out of the sun, kitten.”

Pushing her sunglasses to the bridge of her nose, she gave me a look and asked, “Kitten?”

“What?” I shrugged. “You don’t like it? Cause I thought this one fit.”

“I get it. Cats, sunshine.” She smiled, standing up from her lounger before continuing in a teasing, seductive purr. “Want me to lick myself, too?”

I groaned. “Nope, I can do that.”

Even though I’d woken her up doing just that, my dick twitched at the memory and the thought of doing it again. In the three weeks since Alicia was attacked in her house, my need for her was insatiable. Off the charts.

As were my protective instincts.

Jenny/Madison confessed to the attack and to vandalizing Alicia’s car, and she was in jail, but I still felt the need to protect Alicia something fierce. I’d gone so far as to try moving her in with me, but she’d refused.

Ever the opportunist, I wasn’t going to let this one pass me by. Slinging my arm across her shoulders as we walked back up to the bungalow, she raised her hand to lace our fingers together as I dropped a kiss on her temple.

“You know, if you moved in with me, I could lick you all the time.”

I wasn’t begging her to move in. That wasn’t my style. I was simply pointing out the truth. That was an added benefit for her. For me, the added benefit would be that I could keep her safe.

Alicia wasn’t having it, though. She squeezed my fingers and leaned her head on my shoulder as we walked. “I told you, I’m not moving in with you because of some knee-jerk reaction to what that woman did.”

“That might’ve been what it was at first, but not anymore,” I reasoned. I couldn’t deny that my proposition had been born from the incident, but the more I thought about having her live with me, the more the idea appealed to me.

Fuck knows why.

“Wouldn’t having a live-in girlfriend cramp your style?” she teased as we walked into our bungalow, pausing to dip our feet so that we wouldn’t track in sand. I didn’t give a fuck, but Alicia validly pointed out that if we did track it in, it would eventually make its way to our bed, and that would make things scratchy.

Now I dipped my feet.

“Absolutely,” I admitted. “But I have enough of style that it can afford to be cramped. It should be cramped, even.”

“Right now, maybe. But what happens when your post-production haze wears off, and you wake up to find you’ve moved someone in with you?” She tossed her sunglasses on the square dining table as she passed it.

The bungalow was all open living, except for the bathroom. It was essentially one big room with a big, four-poster bed with crisp white bedding and a mosquito net on one side, a small kitchenette, living room, and a dining area off the other.

Large windows and stackable doors provided unobstructed views of the beach and ocean to wake up to and the jungle out back from the living area. It was a slice of paradise, made even more perfect by Alicia standing in its center, hands on her hips as she turned to face me.

Holy shit.

That bikini was going to be the death of me. I swore that whoever had designed the damn thing had done it specifically to kill me. My sunglasses joined hers on the table as I stalked to her.

“First of all, I’m not in a post-production haze. The album is in post-production. While my band is taking a break before it drops and our lives spin wildly out of control for a couple of months, I brought my girlfriend to Hawaii for a well-deserved break after all her hard work.”

The heat from her skin after being out in the sun all morning warmed me when I circled my arms around her waist, and I tugged her to me, touching my nose to hers and kissing the tip of it. Her eyes sparkled the exact same color as the Pacific Ocean outside.

She raised her nose to bump mine again, smiling. “You didn’t even flinch that time when you said girlfriend.”

“I didn’t get to be the Emperor of Rock by flinching.” I smirked, bending my head to kiss her before she could berate me for breaking her second rule. “You’re my woman. I can admit that.”

“Your woman, huh?”

I nodded once, keeping my eyes locked on hers. “My woman. And I want you to be that for a while. What do you say?”

My heart was beating like a damn drum, harder and louder in my ears than Dom’s kit during one of his legendary solos. I needed her to say yes. More than I needed the sun to rise tomorrow or the album to be a success.

Something changed for me the night Madison, or Jenny, attacked her. Everything changed, in a way.

I’d gotten the text Kelly sent me from Alicia’s phone to let me know what had happened, because my girl claimed that she was fine, and there was no need for her to interrupt our celebration. That was when I knew that I was in deeper than I’d realized.

I was a fucking wreck after I read that message. My head started spinning—and it had nothing to do with the vile shots Nick was concocting for me for being boring by texting my girlfriend while they did the Destitute thing and chased the fuck out of every tail in that club—and my world narrowed.

My lungs constricted like there was a fist around them, and Caleb thought I was having some kind of heart episode. I was. Just not the physical kind. For the first time in my fucking life, it was breaking from the mere thought of losing Alicia.

Caleb and Matt were on me faster than two speeding bullets, and then I was explaining, hailing our driver and hauling ass out of there even faster. I couldn’t breathe properly until I saw with my own two eyes that she was okay.

She’d refused to go to the emergency room. Having been checked out by paramedics on the scene, she declared that it would’ve been a waste of time and was loudly protesting that Kelly was overreacting by the time I got to her house.

To Alicia’s sister’s credit—since I already knew Kelly was our self-proclaimed, number one fan—she didn’t freak out when she swung the door open to find me on the other side. She quietly stepped aside and followed me as I stormed into the house, sank to my knees in front of the couch Alicia was resting on, and kissed the ever-loving shit out of my girl.

After I’d thoroughly satisfied myself that Alicia really was okay, I insisted that I had it from there, and I ushered Kelly out the door. She managed to wait that long to hit me up for an interview. I’d agreed, because I fucking owed her every interview for the rest of my life for letting me know what had happened.

My heart flipped over like a flapjack in a skillet when I thought about what could’ve happened that night, or the alternative text I could’ve gotten from her sister with much worse news.

I crushed Alicia closer to my chest now and relished every one of her heartbeats against mine. She cocked her head, her eyes never leaving mine as she considered the question I’d asked her, and oblivious to my sudden urge to wrap her in bubble wrap and lock her away from anything and anyone who could hurt her.

“How long do you want me to be your girl for?” she asked.

Forever.

Shit. Where the fuck had that come from?

Brushing my nose from side to side over hers, I shrugged. “Just… a while.”

She cuddled deeper into my arms, pressing a soft kiss right over my heart. “Well, okay then.”

Raising a hand to lift her chin with my finger, I looked straight into her beautiful eyes as I sought out the confirmation I needed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said, soft sunlight reflecting the exhilaration in her eyes. I recognized it because it was the same feeling spreading in my chest.

“I’m crazy for you,” I told her honestly.

Her answering smile was brighter than the sun, and it warmed me all the way through, more effectively than spending the entire morning out on the beach had. “Nope, you’re just crazy.”

“Can’t deny that, but now, all my crazy is channeled entirely toward you.”

“Lucky me,” she whispered, not a hint of sarcasm in her eyes for once. “I’m pretty crazy about you, too.”

My hand slid up her side until my palm rested on her cheek, my thumb rubbing across her soft skin. She sighed softly and leaned into my touch, her eyes closed as I ran my fingers over them. Her cheeks. Her lips.

She kissed my fingertips when I did, and my chest squeezed in a weird way. I moved my lips closer to hers and kissed her. Softly at first. Slowly.

My tongue dipped into her mouth again and again. I loved the way her hands were roaming through my hair as I moved my lips to her neck, lingering there.

Walking us the few steps back to the bed, I tugged at the strings of her bikini top, and the knots holding it in place slid free easily, the scrap of material falling to our feet as I laid her down on our bed. God, she was exquisite.

My breathing hitched as I took her in, her hair wavy from having dried naturally after our earlier swim, her skin golden and tanned from the days relaxing in the sun. Blue eyes captivating me, grabbing me, and leaving me with no control.

The mattress dipped under my knees when I crawled onto the bed with her, resting between her legs as I claimed her lips for another long, slow kiss. These kisses were different. Dangerous. Intimate. On an entirely different level than any that came before them.

I fucking loved it. I loved the way she was restlessly running her hands down my bare back and the soft gasps as I moved my lips down her body. Over her neck. Kissing her breasts. Her stomach, pausing at her waist to remove her bikini bottoms. My boardshorts followed. There were so many things I wanted to do to her, but then, her arms came around me, pulling me closer, and all I could think about was being inside her.

Really feeling her.

Under the spell of the magic electricity in the air, I gently brushed a strand of hair out of her face, needing to see her. “I’m clean. Are you still on the pill?”

Her eyes searched mine, a quiet gasp falling from her lips when she realized what I was asking. “I am.”

“You okay with this?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

In one smooth stroke that made us both moan, I slid all the way into her, watching her face as my hands found hers and our fingers linked together.

Fuck, that felt good. Better than good. Better than incredible. There were no fucking words.

“Jared,” she breathed my name reverently. A whisper. A plea. A prayer.

Straightforward, missionary sex had never felt like this. No sex that I’d ever had did. And I’d had a lot of sex.

I plunged into her, her hips meeting mine at every thrust. How had I ever thought of this position as boring?

Moving together in a rhythm that hypnotized me, we climbed higher and higher, together every step of the way until she arched into me, clenching around me. Her fingers dug into my hands as she shuddered beneath me, calling my name over and over again.

Feeling her coming on my cock, nothing between us, triggered my orgasm and made me come harder than I ever had before. A slow surge of pleasure erupted from me, beginning as a well of pressure deep within me that took hold and took over as electricity shot through me.

I tightened my grip on Alicia’s hands and hung on for dear life, emptying myself into her with an epic groan. I was pretty sure my prediction of that bikini causing the death of me was coming true.

As the clenching relaxed and began to subside, I rested my forehead against hers lightly, catching my breath as it hit me: the answer to the question that had popped into my head.

I’d thought of missionary as boring before because as far as fucking went, there were more interesting ways of going about it. But what we’d just done? That hadn’t been fucking. That had been something else entirely.

Something that hit me right in the fucking heart as I realized it was true. Our hands were still linked when Alicia smiled up at me. “I think you just made me see God.”

“Yeah. Me too. I thought I was going to die for a minute there. Ready for something else that’s going to rock your world?” Now that I’d realized it, there was no holding back. It was a grab your balls and hope the fucking parachute opened moment.

“What’s that?” Alicia asked lazily, wiggling underneath me.

I couldn’t move. I didn’t let go of her hands or her eyes. “I love you. I’m fucking done for, gone, follow-you-anywhere, head-over-heels, do-whatever-you-need in love with you.”

She stopped breathing. I stopped breathing. She looked up into my eyes with absolute, consummate shock in hers. Fuck. The parachute wasn’t going to open.

“I love you, too.”

I blinked. Then I noticed that the look in her eyes had changed. The shock had been replaced by a look I hadn’t seen before. Not from anyone. Not aimed toward me, anyway.

It was love.

Plain, simple, and fucking magnificent.