“Looks like I’ll have to go get that.” One of Dean’s eyebrows crooks up. 

I can feel the pick land softly in between the cups of my bra, and as it hits the skin of my cleavage, my nipples instantly go hard. I’d meant to come in here to address the reason we got ourselves to this point, and now we were about to engage in the exact act that had my feeling so mixed up and I was absolutely helpless to stop it.

Dean rounds on me, backing me into the wall of the doorway. I let my hands go slack at my sides, unable to tell him to stop when everything south of my waist is tingling to start. His big, but nimble, fingers trace the skin on my chest, as if he’s leaving behind tattoos seen only to his eyes. I suck in a breath, trembling at the thought of having to wait for him to undress me.

It’s pure insanity the way this man can turn me from frigid to scalding in mere seconds flat.

He doesn’t stick his hand down the front of my blouse the way I thought he might, but instead begins to slowly pull it free from the pencil skirt it’s tucked into.

“Do you know how much I love this fuck-me doctor look on you? So professional, but with every step I can see the curve of your hip.” The last material of the shirt floats free from my waist.

Dean starts on the buttons, flicking them effortlessly open one at a time. I have to lick my lips, my mouth completely dry as he works me over. He isn’t even physically touching a part of me, yet I feel him everywhere.

“There it is.” Dean’s blue eyes tease me, smirking, as the last button of my shirt falls open.

The material hangs off my shoulders, revealing the white bra encasing my breasts. I don’t move, my stomach dipping with every breath, my eyes glued to his next move. But instead of plucking it out of the middle of my bra, he bends forward, his eyes not leaving mine until he bites down, grabbing the pick in between his teeth.

It’s then that I reach out, having to steady myself even on bare feet by grabbing Dean’s bare bicep. It flexes at my touch, the skin hot and smattered with masculine hair. Dean’s hand reaches my hip, steadying me but also pulling me away from the wall. Hypnotized, I follow his lead, moving with him as he leads me and pushes me gently down onto the couch.

My back arches as he plants a knee between my open thighs, my toes curling into the carpet where they plant on the floor.

“You’re so beautiful.” Dean breathes with the pick still in his mouth, and then he’s sliding the cups of my bra down, a hiss leaving my throat as my nipples hit the air.

“Oh my God …” I can’t help but moan as the guitar pick traces my peaked bud, Dean’s saliva following and making it slick.

“It was a mistake to leave without saying anything. But it was an even bigger mistake not laying you down properly, not undressing you and looking at your gorgeous body before I took you for the first time in years.”

The dirty talk was new, we’d both been too timid and inexperienced as teenagers. But this Dean, the one who was using that hoarse voice of his to say such dirty things, I was totally incapable of doing anything but lying back and arching into his touch.

He worked my breasts over, using that instrumental tool to make my nipples so hard that I was to the point of orgasm. I didn’t even know that was possible, but apparently, he could bring that out in me. My hands roamed his chest haphazardly, like an afterthought, like something my body wasn’t consciously doing. Touching him was akin to breathing, seeing.

We were exploring, tasting. My skirt came off, and then his belt. Soon his jeans lay somewhere discarded on the floor, as we stoked the fire in each other. His hands molded my skin, my hips, my breasts, the slick spot between my thighs. He began to play me, tuning my climax like a well-practiced song, an instrument in need of love.

And when I whimpered into his mouth, the first orgasm wracking my body, he pulled me up and sheathed my core over himself. My legs straddled his without thought, the earthquake shattering me from the inside out as Dean gripped my hair, bouncing me softly up and down on his cock.

It was an encore, a continuation of one orgasm into the next as he growled into my neck, biting the sensitive skin of my earlobe.

“No lyric, no spoken word, can ever compare to you like this.”

At his voice, I meekly picked my head up from where it had lolled as he made love to me. Looking down into his eyes, a bright blue blaze the hottest color of a flame, I knew that we were in trouble.

I was in trouble.

Dean Jacobs wasn’t just a high school love. A first-time puppy lust, dream about prom kind of situation. All of those years ago, it had been real. It was still real. I was in love with this man in the deepest way possible. A soul-crushing, axis-tilting kind of love that makes you want to laugh and weep at the same time.

“Kara …”

My name is a plea, a promise, a pledge. His hand falls directly over my heart as he pulls me down to his lips, coming undone in the exact moment that our mouths meet.

After we’re finished, silence pouring over our naked bodies, he scoops me into his arms. There is no discussion as he carries me upstairs, bypassing my room and tucking me under the covers of his own bed.

For the first time in seven years, I fall asleep in the safest place I’ve ever known. And also, the most dangerous location for my heart.