Author: Bella Andre

Chapter Thirty-one

In the middle of the night, when the tower grew too cold for their pile of blankets to keep them warm enough, Ford had carried a sleeping Mia down to the master bedroom.

“My prince,” she’d murmured against his chest. “Just like I always knew you were.”

His heart had been so full, he’d nearly had to wake her to tell her, again, just how much he loved her. But he’d kept her up late enough as it was, and considering his last show was in less than twenty-four hours, he’d known it was a good idea for him to get some sleep, too.

Now, as he lay with Mia soft and warm against him in his bed, he was glad they’d slept, and not just because they’d both needed the rest. Having her breathing softly and steadily in his arms was nearly as good as the way he was planning on waking her up.

Letting the fingers of one hand play through her soft hair over the pillow, he slowly splayed the fingers of his other hand across her stomach. Even if he hadn’t felt her breathing change pace immediately, he would have known she was awake from the little wiggle of her bottom into his erection.

He’d loved everything about their fast, fierce lovemaking so far, but now he wanted sleepy and slow. Pressing his lips to the curve of her shoulder, he slid his hand up from her stomach to cup the soft underside of one breast.

The little sound of pleasure she made shot right through him, making him even harder than he already was.

“Good morning,” she murmured as she put her hand on his hip, scoring his skin lightly with her fingernails.

From the first moment she’d ever touched him backstage in Seattle all those years ago, he’d been rocked by the intensity of their connection. To have gone without her for so long—and then to come back together in a full week of endless, erotic foreplay—had built up an unquenchable hunger in Ford. Finally making love with Mia last night hadn’t doused the madness, the obsession...

No, the more he had of her, the more he needed to have of her.

“Every day, Mia,” he growled between the kisses he ran up the side of her neck. His fingertips found her nipples hard and waiting for his touch. “I want to wake up with you like this every single day.”

“Yes,” she said as he squeezed the taut tip of her breast. “God, yes. Just like this. Every day.”

He’d never been a morning person, and his years on the road had only solidified his nocturnal habits. But with Mia naked and warm against him beneath the thick bedcovers, he could suddenly see the beauty of the early sunrise hours. He loved the way her skin heated up even further with every kiss, every caress over her curves. There were so many fantasies he wanted to live out with her, and he was impatient to experience every one of them.

“Last night, you showed me how you played with yourself, how you made yourself come. And I loved it.” He shifted his hand to her other breast and the achingly hard nipple that was begging for his touch, and as she shuddered against him, he asked, “But do you know what I want this morning, baby?”

Lord, she was responsive, her hips moving even closer to his erection and her thighs opening as if to take him inside even before he told her what he was planning to do. “Please,” she said in a voice still husky with sleep, but also drenched with desire, “just take me, Ford.”

He’d never been more tempted by a woman, but after the way he’d taken her the previous night, he needed to savor. To linger. To adore.

And, he thought with a slow grin, to tease.

“Soon,” he promised her. But not until he’d given her another taste of the wicked and naughty future they were going to have together.

“Tell me what you want,” she urged him as she moved her hand from his hip to surround his erection. “Tell me and I’ll give it to you.”

“I know you will,” he said on a low, dark chuckle against her soft hair. Just as he would always give her anything she wanted. He moved his hand away from her breast, and she made a soft sound of protest, one he intended to quickly turn into a gasp of pleasure. “Roll over onto your back.”

Moving with innate sensuality, she slowly shifted her weight on the bed so that she was lying flat on her back, her hands gripping the sheets at her sides, her eyes big and full of anticipation as she waited for him to say what he wanted next.

But instead of speaking, he simply took her hands in his and lifted them up above her body, so that she could reach the headboard. He curled her fingers over the cool iron bars.

“No matter what I do to you, I want you to keep holding on.”

He loved the way her eyes dilated even further and her chest rose and fell in faster and faster beats. Her skin flushed a deeper rose as he let his gaze slowly roam over her perfect breasts to her waist and then back out to the gorgeous flare of her hips. He pushed the covers completely out of the way so that he could admire the damp, already aroused flesh between her thighs.

“What are you going to do to me?”

Her breathless question had him nearly giving in to the urge to kiss her full lips, shiny and wet where she was licking them in heady anticipation. But he knew what that one kiss would lead to...way the hell faster than he wanted it to.

“I’m going to make you feel good.”

“How good?” He loved the challenge in her eyes just as much as he knew he was going to enjoy rising to meet it.

“Better than you’ve ever felt before.”

She shivered at his promise, her fingers tightening on the iron bars as if to show him just how closely she was planning on following instructions.

“Close your eyes, baby.”

This time she didn’t hesitate, didn’t question him. She simply trusted him...and it meant the entire goddamned world to him that she did. Every minute of every day that they’d been together this past week, his goal had been to earn her trust. Now that he had it, he vowed never, ever to break it. No matter what he had to do to prove himself worthy of her.

Every last inch of her body was so beautiful that he could hardly decide where to start. As if in answer to his silent question, she shimmied her upper body, and watching her full, natural breasts move made his mouth water. And yet, while he wanted nothing more than to cup the oh-so-soft flesh in his hands and lave her nipples with his tongue, he knew it would be even better for her if he took his time to get there.

Leaning forward, he slowly licked between her two lowest ribs, first on one side of her chest and then the other. “You taste so good,” he told her before he moved up her ribcage. He wanted to savor every inch of her, but he was enough of a realist to know he wouldn’t last nearly that long this morning. Not when being this close to her naked, gorgeous body already had him hovering on the verge of madness.

At least, he thought as he pressed a kiss to the sweet patch of skin directly below her left breast, he wasn’t the only one having a hard time restraining his need. Because from nothing more than a few wet swipes of his tongue, Mia was already gripping the iron bedpost so hard her knuckles were turning white.

Especially, he noted a moment later, when instead of moving all the way up over her breasts to take the taut peaks into his mouth, he shifted his attention down from her ribcage to her hip bones. He came closer and closer with each flick of his tongue and brush of his lips to the parts of her that were begging for his attention...but deliberately never quite made it all the way there. But though she continued to hold on to the bed frame, that didn’t stop her from shifting her torso and lower body to try to get his mouth to go where she wanted it to.

Another time, he’d take the game to the next level by making her stay still, too, but this morning he knew that wouldn’t be fair to either of them. Not when they’d both waited so long to be together again like this. In fact, Ford suddenly decided, it was long past time to reward them both.

Without giving her any warning, he slid his hands up and over her breasts at the exact moment that he covered her sex with his mouth. His name erupted from her lips on a scream of pleasure as he opened her wide for his tongue and slid inside her clenching heat. Her skin was damp beneath his palms, her nipples hard beneath his fingertips, her arousal sweet against his tongue.

No doubt about it, lifting his mouth and hands from her a moment later was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Even harder than it had been for him to stop at goodnight kisses all week.

“Ford?” His name was more gasp than word. “Why did you stop?”

“Shh,” he whispered as he moved up over her to press a soft kiss against her neck. Her mouth was still a no-go zone if he wanted to have even the slightest prayer of prolonging their pleasure. “We’re almost there.”

With her eyes still closed, she didn’t see that his hands were shaking as he sat up to slip on a condom. Or that it took every last ounce of his self-control to position himself between her legs without thrusting into her gorgeously slick heat.

“Open for me, baby.” She was so turned on, so ready for him to love her, that his heart nearly stopped as she did what he asked. “Wider,” he urged, barely above a whisper, needing more even as he knew that he’d never get enough of her.

As she shifted her thighs apart even farther, a little moan fell from her lips, and he had to reach up to rub his thumb across them as if to soothe her. Her tongue sneaked out to lick at him. She sucked his thumb all the way into her mouth, scraping her teeth over it in a way that made him pulse inside the condom without his erection even touching her yet.

Taking his hand away from her mouth, he put it on her hip to hold her still. Seeing that her eyes were about to flicker open, he said, “Remember, hands on the bars and eyes shut.”

He could see her warring with herself for a few moments, but then, she obviously decided it was in her best interests to keep following his sensual orders. And he damn well planned to make sure that she didn’t regret it as he curved his hands around to cup her hips and lift her slightly off the bed so that she was even more open to him. He used his other hand to prop himself up on the bed beside her...and then he slid the full length of his erection against her sex.

Her gasp of surprised pleasure tore at him, making him want to give up the sexy game and slam all the way into her in the next breath. Only, knowing he could make Mia feel this good, and that she trusted him to take her to exactly the place she needed to go, gave him the strength to hold on to his original intention.

To make her feel better than she ever had before.

Again and again, he slid back, then forward, and she moved with him, lifting her hips from the bed so that they were as close as two people could be without actually making love.

“I have to look,” she pleaded. “Please let me look.”

She was right, it wasn’t fair that only he had the pleasure of watching their bodies slip and slide against each other like this. “Open your eyes.”

On a deeply relieved exhale, she lifted her lids and immediately locked her gaze on his erection as he slid once again up against the slickly aroused vee between her legs. “Oh God, Ford. You’re so beautiful.”

“So are you,” he told her. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever known.”

He held out for as long as he could, teasing both of them just like that until her abdominal muscles began to tighten and he knew she was right on the edge of release. Ford wrapped his hands around Mia’s and together they held onto each other and the bed frame as he finally slid hard and deep inside her.

With both of them racing together toward ecstasy, just as her body began to pulse and pull at his, he lowered his mouth to hers to tell her how much he loved her in every possible way he could.

* * *

A little while later, Mia sat on a stool at Ford’s kitchen island sipping the coffee she’d made and wearing one of his long-sleeved shirts with nothing on underneath it. He’d pulled on a pair of boxers, which rode low across his hips. With nearly every last inch of skin and muscle and tattoo on display, she was definitely hungry. Only, not nearly as hungry for the yummy smelling breakfast he was making her as she was for him.