In all the fantasies I’ve had about this man, this moment—this exact thing—nope. I hadn’t had this in mind at all.

This man who had become my ideal in so many ways was now kneeling before me like a supplicant. Reverence filled his spectacular blue eyes. And heat. So much heat.

For me.

How was this my life?

I shuddered as his long, ringed fingers slid up my legs. Each inch, he drifted closer to my inner thighs. His fingers were strong and elegant. I could barely drag my gaze away from his eyes, but I wanted to see what he was doing. The rich, tanned hands that caressed the piano like a lover were now on me.

Treating me just the same.

I dragged in another breath as his fingertips brushed lace. He traced the scalloped line of my one pair of ridiculously expensive panties. Had I somehow known we were heading this way?

All he’d needed to do was mention courting me and I’d readied myself for Naked Town. I should be kicking myself, even making him work for it to get me to this point, but really…how long could we make each other wait?

Wasn’t seven years long enough?

Especially since for two of them, I’d had to watch him from afar. On the nights I couldn’t help myself, I’d watch endless videos of him on YouTube. Thank God for the fans who loved him just as much as I did. Especially for the ones who’d kept their cameras trained on Myles instead of the lead singer in his band.

I’d soaked up those videos, followed those people who had Vaughn or Myles in their profile names. I knew those were the ones who would feed the need.

Just the idea of him being here with me again was so preposterous. It felt like a whole lifetime had passed since he’d left me behind.

God, I couldn’t think about that now.

I could still picture the shattered ice of his eyes when he’d taken one step back, then another. As my beautiful, funny, and amazing best friend had literally shut himself off from me.

And now my thighs trembled as he teased the edges of lace and found skin. The softness of his beard and the knowledge in his eyes left me aching and full of anticipation. No one had ever touched me like this.

I’d had boyfriends, of course—a few of them who had made me forget him for a while. But no one who made me feel even a tenth of the intensity wrapped around my feelings for Myles. And eventually, every one of those men drifted out of my life with the complaint that I’d never been really present.

I tried.

So hard.

But no one got me like this man.

I sifted my fingers through his curls, then down to the beard hiding half his face. But it seemed to make his lips seem even more lush, his features even sharper. Those little things somehow made everything more complicated. That he was so very much the same and leagues different from the man I’d loved for so damn long.

He pushed his cheek into my hand and kissed the side of my palm before he leaned forward and flicked his tongue at the center of my panties. He brushed his nose along the lace as his eyes did that heavy-lidded thing that made my knees quake.

“Myles, I—”

“Shh. This is so long overdue. You have to be with me on this.”

I nodded and swallowed. “I want this. I just…”

He rose up on his knees and pressed a kiss to my belly, then traced his tongue down to the dip at the front of my panties. “I can go if you really want me to.”

“No,” I whispered. I wouldn’t survive it this time. And yet, here I was, asking for pain to come at me with a gale force wind instead of the aching emptiness I’d been living with. I tucked a wild curl back away from his face. “Not this time.”

“Good.” He hooked his fingers into the elastic and slowly rolled them over my hips, pausing just before the tiny triangle of hair above my pussy.

The buzz of his beard across skin that hadn’t been touched in way too many months to count—nearly a year, if I was honest—created an ache so fierce, I almost changed my mind.

Surviving Myles a second time was not in my tidy little planner I’d been keeping since the day he’d left me.

Wanting him, loving him, aching for him had been a constant in my life. But the reality of him was staggering.

The tip of his tongue slid between my lips as my rolled-up forty-dollar panties hit my sister’s carpeting.

“Oh, God.”

I clenched my fingers in his hair and the flare of his nostrils matched his pupils. Wide and feral. As if I’d activated something inside him. The sweet, complicated boy I’d loved in my early twenties wasn’t the same man on his knees before me.

He was a man with a skill I didn’t want to think about. He delved deep, taking everything as he poured pleasure inside of me. I had no idea a tongue could do half the things he was doing to me. The sounds.

Sweet mercy, the sounds coming from my body, my mouth…the roaring heartbeat overtaking my brain. All of it was too much. First times were supposed to be bumbling and awkward with a little bit of magic.

Not this.

My head thunked against the wall as my fingers speared into his forest of curls. I wanted to push him away and pull him tighter to me all at the same time. My thighs shook and my breath stalled as he held me at the edge of something.

Hell.

Heaven.

Fire.

Blackness.

“Breathe, love.”

I dragged in great gulps of air as he hooked my leg over his shoulder and slowly tucked two fingers inside me. With the help of a very dexterous thumb and his accompanying tongue, my clit had a no quitting sign hanging off of it.

“Fuck. Myles, please.”

He stared up at me with a sly grin. “Please what?”

“End the damn torture. Make me come already.”

“There’s only one first orgasm with a man, Fee. I want this one to last forever.”

“Then you shouldn’t have started with me standing, you masochist.”

He laughed, and the rumble of it vibrated against my thigh. He tucked my leg tighter to his shoulder and rose slightly. The man was so damn tall. He made me feel small and that was a feat in itself. But here, where just a few minutes ago he’d been in full-on worship mode, now he was a little scary.

That feral light was back.

Wild like his hair, his music, and the light that burned so damn bright inside of him. That had been a beacon for me so many times, in school and after.

One that had left me in the dark when he’d chased his dreams, leaving me behind in this damn town.

I didn’t know I’d been chasing that light for years now.

And here it was, in front of me.

Leaving me on a precipice I wasn’t prepared to face.

I unhooked my leg. I needed to push him back and pull myself together. My shoulders heaved with a sudden need to drag in a huge lungful of breath.

He stood and flipped out his wallet, yanking out a condom before his jeans and wallet hit the floor with my panties.

“Then I’ll help keep you standing.”

The crinkle of plastic was my only warning.

He curled my leg around his hip, arrowing himself up between my thighs into the embarrassing wetness of my pussy. It felt like he was drilling down into my soul with his cock. He stretched me and filled me as his warmth permeated my flesh and made room only for him.

His shirt disappeared over his head and he did the same with mine. The scrap of matching lace fell away from my breasts. For a moment, he cupped them both, sucking on each nipple strongly before there was no air between us.

Skin to skin. My softness to his lightly furred belly and arrow of hair that climbed up his defined chest. Definitely not a boy any longer.

Morning sunshine dappled the room between slatted blinds and filmy curtains. The air was still sharp with coffee and his smoky scent. Underneath it all was me—the undeniable scent of sex and lust. Then that taste was in my mouth as he closed the circle.

Mouth, body, arms, and legs. There was nothing but Myles filling me up, surrounding me and forcing me to accept it all.

There was no hiding from any part of him.

He slowly drew out of me and drove back inside fiercely. His unearthly silver-blue eyes riveted me, the pupils blown wide with the cavernous blackness of perfect pleasure.

I wanted to shut my eyes against it.

I didn’t want to see it.

See him.

The darkness and pleasure he dragged out of me would leave ashes.

Would it leave a new me, or would I just blow away?

He caught me closer, sucking in a huge, growling breath as his hips pounded into me, and my body made all the decisions for me.

I broke.

Pieces falling away as the sun fuzzed at the edges of his wild mane of hair. His hands framed my face as he touched his forehead to mine. Sweat poured off his shoulders as I held onto him.

He buried his face in my neck and his groan was hoarse, matching mine as I cried out his name. I shook with each wrecking heartbeat of release. I was holding myself up with one foot on the floor, one leg around him. I was barely able to function, let alone stand.

Thank God he’d pinned me to the wall with every bit of passion we’d both been denying for years. The gates we’d held up between us were gone.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to put them back up.

No matter the plans I had, I hadn’t been prepared for this.