Author: Bella Andre

His hands tightened around her. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

Knowing she could keep saying the words in an infinite loop and he’d never get tired of hearing them, he said, “Again.”

“Oh, Ford.” She slid her hands from his neck to frame his face. “I love you so much. More than I even know how to tell you. More than I’ll ever be able to show you.”

The kiss she gave him was so sweet he actually felt an ache from the sensation of his heart expanding inside his ribs.

“You already have,” he swore to her, and it was touch and go for a moment as to whether or not he would simply lower her to the floor and take her. But then, he barely, just barely, managed to corral the absolute last bit of his self-control to make himself move up the stairs with her in his arms.

From the first moment he’d seen the house, he’d wanted to make love to Mia in the tower. Upon moving in on Monday night, he’d found a cupboard hidden in the stone walls that was filled with soft blankets and pillows.

He could hardly bear to let her go long enough to make a bed, but as soon as he opened the door to the linens, she made a happy sound. Pulling out a colorful quilt, she spread it out on the tiled floor so he could drop the blankets and pillows over it.

Barefoot, Mia stood in the middle of the soft makeshift bed and held out her hands to him. “Come here, rock star, and let me love you.”

He went to her, and she threaded her fingers through his before lifting her mouth to his. It could have been minutes, or maybe it was hours, that they stood like that, kissing with the bright moonlight streaming in over them through the tower windows.

“I need you naked,” she said in a breathless voice, when their lips finally drew apart.

“Anything for you,” he told her as he grabbed a condom out of his back pocket to drop onto the blankets, then worked on his belt buckle and the zipper of his jeans while she pushed his shirt off his shoulders. By the time he shoved his pants down, she was on her knees undoing the laces on his boots.

When she finished slipping them off, she looked up at him with a very wicked gleam in her beautiful eyes. Before he could stop her, she had one hand wrapped around his shaft and her mouth on him.

Ford was too close to the edge to let her love him like this for too much longer, but, Lord, the way she licked and sucked at him as if she’d never tasted anything so good—

He barely shifted away in time, and when he saw how flushed with pleasure her cheeks were, and how darkly dilated her eyes had become as she’d gone down on him, it almost didn’t make any difference that she wasn’t touching him anymore. He was that far gone.

With a growl, he kicked his jeans and boxers away. He bent down and gripped her dress in a hard fist to bring her back to her feet right before he ripped it off her. But she’d always known how to up the ante as she plucked the condom from his other hand and, seconds later, slid it over him.

“Now, Ford,” she demanded. “I can’t wait another second for you.”

They’d made a bed of pillows and blankets, but as she leapt up into his arms and wrapped her arms and legs around him the same way she had backstage at the stadium Wednesday night in Oregon, they didn’t need a bed yet. Thank God, this time there were no clothes in the way as Ford instinctively moved them against the wall.

Their tongues slipped and slid together as he entered her, her slick flesh stretching, then tightening around him. Unable to remember a pleasure more intense, Ford had to give in to the urge to thrust into her to the hilt.

And all the while, I love you was the chorus not only to the most beautiful song Ford had ever heard...but also the most inspired one he’d ever been fortunate enough to play. Over and over the melody played on repeat with their bodies, with gasps of pleasure, with roving hands and, finally, with exquisite release that spiraled, hard and desperate, through them both.

Chapter Thirty

Mia lay sprawled across Ford’s chest on the bed they’d made in the tower room, his heart beating strong and fast beneath her ear. Their legs hadn’t been steady after they’d made love against the wall, and she loved recovering her strength with him like this.

There were no secrets between them anymore, no anger, no bitterness. Only love...and endless pleasures to be shared.

The evening was cool and clear and from where they were lying, they could easily have seen the sparkling lights and the moon over the water through the large windows. That is, if either of them cared to look at anything but each other.

“Your parents are great,” Ford said suddenly, and she propped herself up on his chest so that she could more clearly see his face. “Your brothers aren’t so bad, either. Especially after you got Adam to stop giving me those death glares.”

She loved that they’d been having frantic sex just minutes ago and now it was just as natural to speak of family. Especially since five years ago, that hadn’t been the case at all.

Finally, she knew for sure that their sex life would be as hot as their friendship was sweet.

“He couldn’t help but like you when you started talking about the historic houses you’ve seen all over the world. And offering to leave tickets waiting at the box office for them tomorrow night so that they could come with me to your show wasn’t a bad touch, either.”

“Who knew dinner with my girl’s family would be such an aphrodisiac?” he said with a sexy grin as he pulled her higher up his body so that he could kiss her.

His kisses made her weak. His hands roaming over her curves made her ache. But though Ford now knew just how much she loved him, there were other things she wanted him to know, too. Important things.

Forever things.

“I’ve been thinking a lot this week about why people fall in love.”

“So have I,” he said as he gently brushed the hair away from her forehead. “Chemistry is definitely part of it.” He slid one fingertip down the side of her ribs to her waist and made her shiver with the best kind of goose bumps to further make his point.

“Yes. And respect,” she said, knowing she could stare into his dark eyes forever and never need to look anywhere else.

“And trust.” The five-letter word from his lips was pure emotion.

She laid her hand flat over his heart as she added, “And a real, solid friendship.”

One that she prayed would grow stronger through all the right times, and withstand all the wrong ones, too...especially since she was barely able to keep silent the voice in her head that told her a friend would never hold back another friend from what he was born to do.

“I have an idea,” Mia murmured as she stretched to enjoy the scratch of the hair on Ford’s chest across her breasts. They’d just made the most incredible love, but instead of sating her, she hadn’t even begun to get enough of him. “Want to hear it?”

His erection instantly grew another couple of inches, and his heart rate sped up beneath her. She knew better now than to let sex overtake everything else, but she couldn’t bear to ruin their perfect night with her concerns that Ford was making the wrong decision about giving up touring to settle down in Seattle. Besides, tomorrow night at his show, she’d finally be able to see if he was giving up the stage for her, or if he was actually ready to retire from performing anyway.

Until then, she wouldn’t allow herself to feel guilty about drowning in the decadent, all-consuming pleasure that only Ford had ever been able to give her.

“Hell, yes,” he confirmed, “I want to hear your idea.”

“Well...you know that list of fantasies you’ve come up with this week?” He was already shifting them on the blankets, so that she was on her back beneath his deliciously hard muscles by the time she said, “I want you to pick one for us to bring to life tonight.”

He’d threaded one hand through her hair and his hand tightened down in the sexiest way as he asked, “Just one?”

She lifted her head to whisper against his lips, “At least one.”

He crushed her mouth against his, and she met his tongue stroke for stroke, his teeth bite for bite, his throat growl for growl. Finally, he said, “Ever since you told me that you touched yourself this week and made yourself come, I’ve hardly been able to think of anything else. Show me how you were touching yourself. I need to see it. I need to see you.”

She would give him anything he wanted, but she’d waited so long to have his hands on her again that even as she nodded her assent she was saying, “Help me show you, Ford. Help me come again for you.”

He kissed her again, hard and fast. “Where do you want me?”

“Behind me, with my back to your chest and your legs on either side of mine.”

Moving quickly, he propped himself up against the pillows, then pulled her against him. His erection was huge and throbbing against the small of her back as she relaxed into him.

“Now what?” His two words were barely more than a whisper of need.

“Now put your hands on my thighs and open them wide.”

He swallowed loudly as he slowly ran his fingertips down from her waist to her thighs. She loved how big his hands looked on her, and warmth and wetness pooled between her legs as he gently gripped the soft skin of her inner thighs and drew her legs apart.

“Mmm,” she encouraged him, “that’s perfect.”

“So damned perfect,” he agreed in his deep, resonant voice that had captured her from the very first moment she’d seen him on stage. “Tell me what you need now, Mia.”

“You,” she said before turning her face to his for a kiss. “And for you to know, to see, to feel just how much I want you. Just how much I need you, Ford.”

She put her hands over his and took them both on a slow slide over her skin, from thighs to hips, from hips to stomach, until they were cupping the undersides of her breasts together.

“God, I love that you’re a guitar player,” she told him in a shaky voice as his calloused fingertips scratched and scraped over both of her nipples at the same time.

She arched into their combined touch, letting him know with her own hands that she wanted more, that she wanted everything he needed to give her.

Where whispered endearments had once fallen from his lips, all he needed to say to her now was, “I love you, baby. So damned much. And I need you to show me how you want me to make you come. Now.”

Her hips were already lifted for his touch by the time she drew his right hand back down from her breasts to the damp and needy flesh between her thighs. And when he touched her exactly where she needed to be touched—his calloused fingertips sliding in the most deliciously dirty way over, and then inside, of her—Mia instantly shattered.

His fingers played in a perfect rhythm of pleasure over her damp flesh until she stopped trembling. And though the force of her climax should have drained every last ounce of energy from her, she’d never felt more powerful as she quickly shifted on the blankets so that she was straddling his hips.

She had no idea where he’d gotten this second condom from, but was beyond thankful that he already had one on as she lowered herself down over him, one glorious inch at a time.

“How’d you know this was going to be the next fantasy on my list?”

She loved the way he teased her even as they passionately loved each other. Five years ago, there had been no laughter during sex. Yes, they’d had incredible heat, but back then, they were quickly kindled flames rather than a slow and steady burn that could be trusted not to go out.

“Something tells me pretty much everything is on your fantasy list,” she teased back.

“Only one way to find out,” he said as he flipped them back around so that he was levered over her. “We’ll have to bring every one of my fantasies to life at least once.”

“Well,” she said as she lifted her hips to take him even deeper, “if you absolutely insist...”