“I can’t fucking believe it,” he said. “They talked to me for a while and then took me into a studio. They wanted to get something down that day. To test me out, or…I don’t know what.” He gave his head a disbelieving shake, then his gaze softened. “I sang ‘Yellow.’ Our song. Because it was the first song I ever performed in front of someone else. For you, Violet. You are the reason this happened for me.”
I shook my head. “It was Evelyn. Her vlog—”
“No,” he said fiercely, holding my face in his hands. “You believed in me first. You didn’t wait for a thousand views or a hundred comments. You’ve known who I was from the beginning. You accepted me, dirt poor and stinking of the station wagon.” He moved in closer, his gaze boring intently into mine. “I’m going to make this album, and every fucking song is going to be for you. Every one.”
My eyes fell shut, and I leaned into him, my hands on his waist, letting him prop me up. Feeling the solidity of him. He sensed something deeper was happening in me, as he always did.
“Vi?” He pulled back and his expression fell to see my tears. “I know. It’s going to suck being in LA, away from you. But I can jump on a plane and be here in an hour.”
“I want you to kiss me, Miller. Please.” His concerned frown lingered, so I brought my lips to his and kissed him. Softly, then harder. Seeking entry. Needing to lose myself in him.
My ardor woke his and his mouth took over the kiss, devouring mine. Our tongues slid against one another in perfect tandem, perfect rhythm; our heads moving side to side, breathing in sync. In harmony.
Because we just fit.
He pulled away breathlessly. “Jesus, I almost forgot. Happy Birthday, Vi.”
“You know what that means.”
“I do,” he said, his eyes darkening, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “You sure?”
I wasn’t sure of anything anymore except him. He had to know about Baylor, but not yet. We didn’t have to do anything but this.
We breathed together, our eyes locked in the thickness of the moment. Our lips touched and retreated; another look from Miller, checking in. And then we kissed long and deep. Like drinking from each other. Slow kisses that left no room for breath, and I poured myself into every one of them. I filled my hands with his hair, his broad shoulders over his T-shirt, down to the small of his back. But still, I felt his hesitation with desire simmering beneath.
“Touch me, Miller,” I whispered. “Touch me everywhere.”
The certainty in my words set him free. He lifted my shirt over my head, my hair falling around my shoulders. His hooded gaze swept over me, leaving shivers in its wake.
“So beautiful,” he said, his hands full of my breasts, his lips hot against the delicate skin of my neck. “I want this so much.”
A little sound fell from my lips to hear such nakedly vulnerable words in his rough voice. “Me too.”
Then more kissing until we’d come to the end of chaste touches. I lifted his shirt off and drank him in, my hands on him everywhere, down to the CGM implant.
“Will it be safe?”
“I think so,” he said. “I don’t know, actually. I’ve never done this before.”
“I still can’t believe you waited for me.”
He shrugged with a small smile. “You waited for me. We waited for each other, because when you push all the bullshit aside, who else is there? There’s no one for me but you. There never was.”
He kissed me again, our bodies molded together, his body a wall of muscle under warm skin, his hands rough as they slid up and down my back. He’d worked so hard with those hands, carried so much on his shoulders, and pride filled me that I was going to give him this night.
I went to the bed, pulling him with me, and lay back. The weight of him felt so good. So solid and real, anchoring me into the present moment when my thoughts wanted to drift away to a future in which we’d be miles apart.
He kissed me deeply and with such reverence. Our bodies responding to each other without thought. Instinct only. My hips arched up to meet his while his ground down into me, like they did the last time he was here. This time, anticipation of the more that was coming electrified every moment. Unexplored sensations and untouched skin, waiting.
He undid the buttons on his jeans while I slipped off my shorts. He kicked off his underwear while I slid my panties down and tossed them aside.
A flash of heat swept through me along with a tinge of nervous anticipation at the sight of his penis, huge and erect, but he quickly moved to lay over me. My heart was pounding, and it seemed I could feel every part of Miller. I could hear his blood pumping in his veins, feel every slight move and vibration of his body: his bones and flesh and sinew. I felt all of it over me, and I wanted him inside me. I wanted that masculine power, the essence of him, moving and taking.
We kissed and touched until our bodies were both on the brink, crossing the line of hesitation into pure want. He sat up and I sat up with him, naked on my bed. I stared at the size of him, shocked at my own calmness. I felt feminine and womanly in the face of his masculinity. I placed my hand over his heart, felt it beating hard, then moved down his chest, to the magnificent, hard length of him. I wrapped my fingers around its girth, and he made a tight sound in his chest. He seemed to grow bigger in my hand as I stroked him hesitantly.
“Does this feel good?”
He nodded wordlessly. “Everything you do feels good.”