CHAPTER 68

ALICIA

Jared kissed me like he was pouring his very essence into me. His lips were hungry and demanding yet tender and loving at the same time. His stubble scraped my skin from the force of his passionate kisses. He was devouring me, consuming me, and I let him. Because how could I not? I was doing the same to him.

Our limbs tangled, hands reaching and tugging and exploring. His scent enveloped me, familiar, comforting, and exhilarating all at the same time.

We stumbled back, and Jared hit the couch, pulling me down with him until I was straddling his lap. Our mouths remained fused together as our hands started getting rid of the layers of fabric between us.

Heart slamming against my chest, I pressed myself up against his warm skin after our shirts hit the floor. Body like marble cased in velvet, he felt like heaven as he held me close to him. My fingers wound into his hair, his skating up and down my sides.

He cupped my breasts and ran his thumbs along the sensitive skin underneath before bringing a nipple to his hot, wet mouth and kissing me there. My head rolled back, my eyes closed. It would never cease to amaze me what pleasure this man could evoke in my body.

Groaning against my chest, he licked and kissed his way back to my mouth. My nails dragged from his scalp to his back, eliciting a low growl from the back of his throat. Hands working on the zipper of my skirt, he tried rolling it off, but the position I was in made it difficult.

Clumsily, I lifted myself off him, and together we got the darn thing out of the way. Jared rolled my soaked panties down with it, baring me to him completely.

He shifted and lay me on my back on the couch, eyes roaming along every inch of my exposed skin. Not the first time he saw me totally buck naked, but it was the first time my body wasn’t the only thing bared to him.

As I lay there, my heart and mind were exposed to him too. When his eyes met mine, it felt like he could see every fiber of my being all the way to my soul. A silent moment passed between us, a moment in which our confessed feelings were almost as tangible as our sweat glistening bodies.

Our eyes locked together. He reached for my hands as I reached for his. Lowering himself over my body, he kept our hands clasped tightly together.

I had a feeling this was the way it would be from now on. Us. Together. As one. And I’d never been happier.

The only way this could get better was if I could get him closer to me somehow. I wrapped my legs around his jean-clad hips, moaning at the friction of the rough material on my aching clit and his erection it encased.

“Jared.” His name fell from my lips softly. Reverently. A whisper almost, a plea.

Letting go of my hands, he rolled his hips to the side and flicked the button on his jeans, kicking them off. I pushed his briefs down with them.

Every inch of his beautifully inked skin on display, I drank him in. Every dark sworl of ink on his arms and ripped abdomen, the intricate designs and the carefully scripted words, I cataloged them all in my mind. Because they were mine now too. He was mine, and I was his. Plain, simple, impossible, but still somehow true.

He caught me staring, but there was no smirk. Not this time. This time, there was only pure, absolute love staring back at me. He crawled over me again, resting with his knees between my legs as he claimed my lips for a long, slow kiss.

As frenzied as we were when we first started kissing, he was taking his time now. He moved his lips down my body. Over my neck. Kissing my breasts. My stomach. I gasped, wrapping my arms around him to pull him closer to me.

Brushing a lock of my hair behind from my face, he kept his eyes on mine as he lowered his hips. In one smooth stroke that made us both moan, he slid all the way into me, watching my face as his hands found mine and our fingers linked together.

For all the sex we’d had, it’d never been quite like this before. This was intimacy in a way I’d never experienced before. He plunged into me, my hips meeting his at every thrust. All the while, our gazes were glued together.

Moving together in a rhythm that hypnotized me, we climbed higher and higher, together every step of the way until my back arched and my sex clenched around me. My fingers dug into his hands as I shuddered and moaned beneath him.

Surge after surge of pleasure erupted in me, flowing out through my body as it took over and the best kind of sparks of ecstasy shot through me. Some women described their orgasms as rendering them capable of hearing choirs of angels sing. I didn’t hear the choir of angels, but what I heard was better. My climax triggered Jared’s, and he tensed above me as he came on an epic groan.

Jared kissed me deeply as we both came down from our euphoric highs. Our hearts thumped together as our mouths moved in time with our slowing breaths. Lazily, Jared pulled away from me with a slow grin spreading on his face as he turned my fingers over in his hand. “I think I finally get the difference between fucking and making love.”

Bringing my head down to his shoulder to place small kisses there, I nuzzled his neck. “You have a preference?”

“Only about the person it’s with,” he mumbled, his fingers drawing patterns on the bare skin of my back.

The sun had dipped almost all the way down on the horizon by now, its fading light faint and disappearing fast. Ambient light from outside lit up the room enough for me to see our clothes scattered around on the floor when I turned my head away from the crook of Jared’s neck.

I should get dressed. There was a lot left to do before tomorrow, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. Jared was still buried deep inside me, and it didn’t look like he planned on moving anytime soon either.

Dragging the tip of his nose over my skin, his lips placed the softest of kisses in its wake. Goosebumps lifted the fine hairs on my arms and shoulders under his ministrations, and I shivered, cuddling back up against him.

Screw work for tonight, I decided then and there. It wasn’t in my nature to move work down a rung on my priority ladder, but I was going to cut myself a break this once. Jared and I had both been through a lot this week, and it’d been a long day.

He needed me. I could feel it. To be honest, I needed to just be with him too. Plus, the hottest guy on the face of the planet who also happened to be the man I was desperately, madly in love with because somehow his soul was more beautiful than his body, finally told me he loved me.

I was going to savor this moment.

Sebastian, the asshat of a coordinator, could clean up his own mess. He was a grown man. I was sure he could deal with it by himself. And if he couldn’t, tomorrow was another day. Tonight, however, I wasn’t going to feel guilty for making myself the priority. And Jared. He was right there at the top with me.

Planting a kiss at the underside of his jaw, I asked, “Yeah? Who do you prefer it being with then?”

He chuckled, and I felt it inside me. A soft moan fell from my lips at the feeling just as Jared lifted his head. “Seriously? Are you just fishing for compliments now?”

“No.” I continued placing kisses up his jaw and sucked his earlobe into my mouth. “I just want to hear you say it.”

Feeling the deep groan in his chest rattle against mine, I nibbled softly on his lobe until he said. “You. I love you. You’re the only girl I want to be inside of. Making love, fucking, don’t care. As long as it’s with you.”

“You say the most romantic things to me,” I teased, my lips brushing his cheekbone as I made my way to his mouth. “But I love you too.”

Sighing contentedly, his lips parted for me, and I kissed them, soft and pliant against mine. “Wanna know the best part?”

“What’s that?” I asked between kisses. He was starting to harden again, and the muscles in my core fluttered in response.

“I get to be with you every day for the next six months.”

Joy bloomed in my chest, warming my heart and bringing a smile I couldn’t contain with it. “I’m really excited about the tour. It’s going to change everything for the band, and the new album is going to skyrocket on the charts. I can’t wait to be there to watch it happen with you. How does it feel to have all your dreams come true?”

His arms tightened around me as his hips started to move again. Slowly. Deliciously. Capturing my mouth for another kiss, he looked right into my eyes when he broke away to tell me. “The best part of those dreams coming true is the part where you’re there with me.”