Chapter 15 Jane
Jane
My heart nearly explodes as Keeley Cunningham’s lips fall on mine.
Kissing her like this, without pause or restraint, is something I dreamed about for years.
How it could happen. When we could steal a moment.
Just the thought of what it might feel like to be wrapped up in her gave me butterflies.
Ever since the first time we played music together, I’ve longed for this woman.
Those inescapable what-ifs lingering between us have haunted my every fantasy.
But damn, the reality is so much better than I imagined.
She kisses me like she’s been running a marathon and I’m the one waiting at the finish line.
My pulse is rushing, my hands are shaking, and still, I press into the kiss with everything I have.
The brush of lips is soft, but I’m not tentative.
I lean in, determined to make sure, finally, she knows I mean it.
“Oops, sorry to interrupt. Are you two ready to order, or do you need a minute?”
We spring apart, heat flooding my cheeks as the server stares at us. She’s keeping her face carefully neutral, but I know it must have been a surprise. I forgot we were in public.
Crap.
Keeley grins. “Actually, can you just bill the drinks to our room?”
“Of course,” the server says, completely unfazed.
And then Keeley grabs my hand and leads me from the restaurant. As soon as we turn a corner and find ourselves alone, she pulls me in for another kiss, crowding me up against the stone wall with so much tenderness I nearly fall apart.
I find her rhythm in every heartbeat, the way I do onstage, moving in time with her steady pulse. My hands slide into hers, and I feel that same pulse beneath the soft skin of her wrists. It’s as fast as mine, locked into the same desperate, frantic tempo.
I’m lost in the softness of her lips. The warmth of her hands in mine. The shadowy quiet of the alcove as we fall into each other.
This moment is perfect.
I hope she feels the perfection too. But I pull back, just to be sure. The tiniest whimper escapes her lips, and she looks at me with wide, wanting eyes.
“Was that okay?” Keeley asks. “I thought we could just head back because food is the last thing on my mind right now, but fuck, if that’s not where your head is at, I’m so goddamn sorry, and—”
I press my fingers to her lips, charmed by just how nervous I’ve made the most confident person I know. “Keeley Cunningham, stop freaking out and take me somewhere we can be alone already.”
The panic on her face is replaced with a wolfish smirk, and she gently bats my hand away, twining our fingers together and leading me back to the room in a daze.
As soon as the lock clicks behind us, the charge ignites.
Keeley grins at me, and I revel in that grin falling on my mouth as she draws me back to her.
I’ve always felt small and unimpressive around Keeley, who has a good ten inches on me and fills every room she walks into with her bold snark and incredibly sharp mind.
But in this moment, as her hands slip around my waist and gently tug me closer, I don’t feel small.
I feel like the only person in her world.
Every inch of me aches for more, but I draw back, leaning my forehead against hers to savor the moment. “Wow.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve wanted this since camp,” I blurt, because it’s the only thing I can say, with her this close to me.
Keeley laughs, the sound warming me to my core. “Thank fuck I wasn’t the only one.” I reach a hand to her face, and she leans into my touch, closing her eyes. “Shit, Jane.”
I slide my fingers into her hair and pull her close again.
In nothing but a heartbeat, our next kiss turns wild and ravenous. Fireworks burst through me at the brush of her tongue, and I open my mouth to her with a sigh. She tugs my jacket off my shoulders and tosses it on the floor, and that steady touch skating across my bare shoulders nearly undoes me.
Keeley bites my lip in between deep kisses. I can’t help it; I let out a little moan at the tiny spark of pain that fills me with wanting, the shock it sends straight between my thighs.
“Fuck, I love that sound,” Keeley says, chest heaving as she draws back to look at me. Her eyes are dilated, her cheeks flushed, and she already looks debauched even though we’ve barely started. “But…shit…do you want to slow down?”
I blink. “Absolutely not.” Then I clear my throat, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. “But if you do, I can…”
“No. God no. I just wanted to check.” Keeley lets out a long breath. “I’ve wanted you for longer than you can possibly imagine, and I know we should, like, talk about our feelings for five minutes, but…”
“We can talk later,” I say, pulse pounding in my ears. “But I need you. Right. Fucking. Now.”
I feel, rather than hear, Keeley’s sharp intake of breath. “I’ve never heard you curse before and I think I love it.”
Grinning, I settle my hands on her waist. “If I’d known you were into this, I’d have fucking done it before,” I breathe.
“I’m into everything you do,” she murmurs.
And then we’re kissing again. She spins us around, walking me backward to the bed until I sink onto it.
And then she’s crouching over me, hovering with the steadiest care as our momentum carries me onto the downy soft pillows.
She presses hot kisses down my jaw, the column of my neck, the place where my dress strap grazes my collarbone, and I sigh at the decadence of each one.
“Fuck, this dress is killing me,” she says, toying with the hem until she finds the skin of my calf, the careful touch sending a tingling sensation down to my toes. “This okay?”
“More than okay, it’s perfect. You’re perfect,” I say, catching her lips with mine. She kisses me again, deep and exploring, her tongue swiping mine with the grace of an artist.
Her hand slides up my skin, splaying against my thigh. I whine when she pauses.
“What are you waiting for?” I demand.
“Someone is impatient,” she says, laughing softly. To prove the point home, I rise, just enough to shrug my dress over my shoulders. I had to go braless, and by the look on her face, I know taking it all off has the impact I intended.
Her jaw drops. “Oh my fucking god,” she says under her breath as her pupils dilate. “I think I’m dead.”
“You’d better not be, because I have plans for you,” I say, pulling her back to me for another kiss. But she pauses. For one excruciating moment, her eyes rove across my skin, drinking me in like I’m an oasis in the middle of a desert.
And then her gaze falls to my hips.
“What’s this?” she asks. I glance down and look at it with her.
It’s the only tattoo I have, a melody on a lightly sketched music staff.
It’s the lead line to “Midnight Road Trip,” the song that started it all for us.
I practically swoon as her fingers brush across the tattoo, setting my skin on fire all over again.
My mouth goes dry, and I try to remember what words are.
“It’s…”
Her eyes sober with understanding. “It’s perfect,” she says.
“But…I have one too.” She pulls her sweater up just enough for me to see her rib cage, where five tiny bats are silhouetted.
I missed them when she was changing before.
“I got them the winter after Vegas…well, the first Vegas,” she says.
She’s alluding to the concert after which Caleb and Valerie broke up more than seven years ago, causing the original Glitter Bats split.
I gape. “Mine was around then too.” It’s unbelievably perfect, the way we were on the same wavelength even at a time we were hardly speaking.
I wonder if that’s what made this take so long, if we were both so scared of ruining things, the way the relationship between two of our friends put the band at risk. But that worked out in the end.
Maybe we can work this out too.
“I wanted you all to be close to my heart,” she says. Something warm spreads through my body, and I have to resist the urge to giggle. This is one of the things I adore about Keeley—when she decides you’re her family, you’re hers for life.
If I say that, though, she’ll just tell me I’m being sappy. “You’re so sentimental, Cunningham.”
“There’s nothing sentimental about what I want to do with you. Can I touch you? Kiss you?” she asks.
“Yes,” I breathe, even as my mind screams finally.
“God, please, literally wherever you want.” She tugs her sweater back down, and I open my mouth to protest the disappearing skin, reaching for her top, but then her hands are cupping my breasts, and I think I might be the one dying, and I can’t do anything but close my eyes at the sensation of her touch.
“Holy fuck, your tits are perfect,” she says. I reach for her again, desperate to touch her too, but she pushes my hands away. “Nope. This requires focus, and if your hands are on me I won’t be able to think straight,” she says.
“I hope you’re not thinking straight,” I say, winking at her.
Her eyes light up with mischief. “Oh, you’ve got jokes? That means I’m not doing enough to shut you up.”
And then her mouth is on me, kissing the swell of a breast, moving closer and closer to my nipple. When she grazes it with her tongue, a jolt surges to my center.
“Oh my god,” I murmur.
“You like that?” Keeley asks.
“More,” I say, practically begging. Then she sucks my nipple into her mouth and I don’t know how long I’m going to survive this before I combust. I’m already writhing beneath her, chasing the crest of something sweet and delicious and impossible to define.
It’s not quite enough, though, despite the marvel of her mouth as she moves to my other breast, palming the one she abandoned, pinching one nipple into a point as she licks over the other.
“Keeley, I—” I lose my train of thought as one of her thighs presses between my legs, giving me some delicious friction despite the layers of fabric between my skin and hers. It’s so close, but not enough. Not to get me where I’m chasing.