Chapter Five
As I watch him lick my tear, I make a decision.
Tell me what hurts.
If the rescuing me from a torrential downpour didn’t do it, if the wide set of his shoulders and the hardness of his lean, muscular body didn’t do it, if his thick hair didn’t do it or the shape of his mouth, those words finally did. It’s even written on his fingers, like he’s already been stamped and selected.
Either that or you’re reading way too much into a chance encounter with a random ultra-hot guy. Seriously.
He’s a different kind of man than the ones I’m used to. I’ve grown up with academic types. Preppies and scholars, who’ve spent their lives in quiet libraries and cavernous university lecture halls. This guy has just as much intelligence beaming out of his blue eyes than all those so-called intellectuals, or much more. Kade’s is an intelligence that’s freakishly perceptive and laser focused. On me. I don’t know if anyone has ever looked at me with the kind of intensity he’s giving me. Like he’s ... starstruck, almost. Like he genuinely cares about the things I’m telling him.
Only a few days ago, I admitted to myself that I wanted to know what it felt like. I remember thinking it: I’ll even settle for a lusty, horny AF one night stand, just to experience that I-don’t-care-about-anything-but-this-moment craving for once in my life.
Here it is.
A big, roughed-up alpha musician with magical charisma beaming out of his eyes, feverish lust radiating off his rock-hard warmth and, even worse, a genuine carefulness that feels more protective and sheltering than ... well, than anything ever has.
I’m going to take him up on his offer. I’m going to go home with him and stay in his apartment with the balcony attached to his own. And if he offers to enlighten me—because there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind he could do exactly that on at least a dozen levels—I’m going to go with it.
Are you crazy? You just met him! What if he’s a psycho killer?
I don’t care.
Okay, I care , but I don’t think he is a psycho killer. Psycho killers can’t possibly have the effect he’s having on me right now. The very first time I looked into his eyes, I felt it. My panties went wet , for god’s sakes. That’s never happened to me before. Not even when it was supposed to.
And his effect is only getting stronger, and deeper. My body wants to lean in, like all the little strands of my DNA are tuning in to the raw male magnetism he’s emitting. His biologically A-list pheromones are roughly equivalent to crack for my romantic soul. I can smell his scent, of rain and smoke and animal heat. His nearness is feeding me a sweet warmth that’s igniting little sparks along my bloodstream, gathering in my nipples, which feel insanely sensitive. Damp heat pools between my legs, where I can feel a warm, blooming pulse taking hold.
Wow.
“Why did you break up with your girlfriend?” I ask him. It’s too personal, maybe. “I mean, don’t tell me if you don’t want to.” But he licked my tear. It’s inside him now. We’re already connected.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know, darlin’.” The southern-sounding endearment has a crazy effect on me. Fresh heat coats my pussy.
Holy hell.
I almost feel like ... I’m close . Like if he touched me where that soft pulse has taken hold, I might finally be able to get there.
So this is what white-hot lust feels like. Right here.
There’s a beautiful honesty somewhere behind his unflinching, manly staunchness. “I wasn’t in love with her. In fact I didn’t even like her anymore so I figured it was the right thing to do.”
I take a bite of a French fry. “Had you been together for very long?”
“It was around five or six months. It felt like longer.”
“So, you fell out of love with her?”
“I never loved her to begin with.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“At all?”
“Not at all.”
I ask it carefully, because I really want to know. “Why did you go out with her if you knew you didn’t love her?”
“Because I hoped I would fall in love with her. I wanted to fall in love.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I always do, but it never happens.”
“It doesn’t?”
Kade smiles at my curiosity. “No. It doesn’t.”
“Not ever?” I want to know more about the guy I’m going to have a wild one night stand with.
What the hell, Stella? You’ve known him for an hour. There’s no way you’d be that reckless.
Wrong. Because when the universe delivers this much hotness into your evening, sometimes you just have to go with it. I’ve run away to a city I’ve never been to just so I can have a new experience that will rock my world. This beautiful stranger feels like he’s been put here just for me, to do exactly that.
Behind his eyes there’s a depth and a compassion I think I might already be a little bit in love with. He’s a hero, you can just tell: that rare phenomenon where sexual prowess and a moral compass converge in perfect symbiosis. Not to mention the six-foot-something, beefed-up male beauty on steroids. And he’s a bass player, no less. It would be a crime not to have sex with this guy. I feel practically obligated at this point at least to try. He might as well have stepped straight out of the pages of my most wishful Kindle fantasies.
“No,” he confirms. “I’ve never been in love. Not once.”
I absent-mindedly bite my bottom lip as I watch his face. He brushes his thumb against my mouth, disengaging my lip from the soft hold of my teeth, as though he’s protecting it. His gaze seems almost mesmerized, like he’s thinking about kissing me.
Do it , the new wanton and crazed wild side in me is urging.
“How about you, little unicorn girl. Have you ever been in love?”
Unicorn girl. “No. I’ve tried. But it didn’t take.”
“I guess we have something in common, then.”
Maybe it’s the champagne, which he’s now topping up, because I hear myself confessing something I’ve never actually confessed to anyone. “I’ve never even been in lust, if you can believe that.” Until right now.
His blond-edged eyebrows lift. “No?” It’s a strange thing to consider but I love the colors of him. The rosewood hue of his suntanned skin and the lightly bleached ends of his hair, like he’s absorbed sunlight, even in the darkness of this room.
“One day I’d like to find out what all the fuss is about.” Oops. I probably shouldn’t go there, but the comment is open enough to interpretation.
Hot, dreamy Kade is contemplating me, his eyes narrowing. Getting my drift. “Which fuss, exactly, are we talking about?”
I feel myself blush. “Nothing.”
His smile deepens as he reads my thoughts. “Never?”
My cheeks blaze.
He laughs softly and ... okay, to hell with it. His laughter is the sexiest thing that has ever happened to me. Ever. “Interesting,” he comments lazily.
“What’s interesting?”
He’s still smiling, sort of smugly. “I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I think what you’re telling me is that either you’ve never had an orgasm or you’ve never had sex. Or both.”
God. He hardly needs to spell out my inadequacies in black and white like that. I’m about to protest. To brush it off and deny it. But something stops me. His interest. His ability to decipher my off-hand comment with such perceptive accuracy. “I just ... no, I mean, I ... I’ve never ... neither.” Damn it. What the hell, Stella? This is so awkward. I’m about to die of embarrassment.
“Really?” he asks, like something about my dismal love life is wildly fascinating to him.
“No.” I twirl an end strand of my hair, wishing I could take back my confession.
“No wonder you didn’t want to marry the guy.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, feeling sort of sad because it is sad, to be so in the dark when what you actually want is to bask in full sunlight.
He contemplates my face with such careful interest, I find myself gazing into his blue eyes like he’s the answer to all my hopes and dreams. This man is crazily magnetic. “It’s actually incredibly easy to do,” he says, a glint of mischief simmering behind his smug allure.
I try to hold my question, but I’m wildly curious. “What do you ... mean?”
Kade sits back, cocky as hell, knees apart. There’s something so outrageously male about the way he moves, like a big jungle cat on the prowl, my lust sort of ramps up another notch. I want to jump his bones, is what it boils down to. New territory for me but I’m feeling it hard .
He says it slowly, his voice low and deep, “I could show you some of what all the fuss is about right here and now, darlin’, if you want me to.”
I stare at him for a few seconds. “What ... ?”
His beautiful mouth quirks. “Up to you.”
I shouldn’t even ask, but come on . I can’t really leave this one up in the air. I whisper it, not that anyone could hear us above the music and up here in our little secluded candlelit cove. “Here?” Are we talking about the same thing?
“If you’re curious. Your call, either way.”
“But ...” I glance around, but no one can see us. “... how?”
He takes my hand, weaving his warm, strong fingers through mine. “Just put my hand where you want it and I’ll do the rest.” The look in his eyes is hot and playful and ... there it is. Not just a spark but a bonfire. The one I was starting to doubt is an actual thing. It’s shining out of this almost-stranger’s hypnotic intensity.
And he’s doing it again, making me wet with the dark glint in his jewel-blue eyes .
His hand, which is holding mine, moves to rest on my thigh. Its warmth leeches into my body to center on that secret, wet, pulsing place and the tiny nub that’s become so hyper-sensitive I know it’s going to happen. His promise is fueling my fire, his touch stoking it. “You sure you’re ready for this?” He’s teasing me. He’s hardly going to deliver on a promise like that here , in a public place, fully clothed, to someone like me. Clueless and totally inexperienced, that is.
Of course I should refuse—if that’s even what’s going on here. But I can’t. Because I am ready. I’m so freaking ready I’ll do anything he asks.
“What’s your last name?” I ask him. If he’s about to do what I think he might be about to do, I need to know.
“Tucker. Kade Tucker.” Why does that sound so familiar? “What about you, unicorn girl?”
“Why do you call me that?”
“Because I think you might be magic.”
This makes me smile. It’s a good line. “My name is Stella Juliet Bell.”
“Stella Juliet Bell. It’s a beautiful name. It definitely has a ring to it.”
I give him an ironic look, despite the fact that my body feels like it’s made of molten heat. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”
He laughs at his own joke. I love his laughter and the way his blue eyes get those yummy little crinkles at the edges when he smiles. “Very nice to meet you, Stella Juliet Bell. Where are you from?”
“New Jersey. I was born in upstate New York but my family moved to Princeton eight years ago.”
“Princeton,” he comments.
“I’m a student there. My dad’s a professor.”
He’s still grinning at me. “What are you studying?”
“English. What about you? Are you from Nashville?”
“Born and bred.”
“Have you lived here your whole life?”
“Yes, but I travel a lot. I spend time in Austin. And New Orleans. They both like to think their music scenes are better than ours, but they’re wrong. And occasionally New York, mainly for the jazz.”
“My dad listens to a lot of jazz.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s his favorite kind of music. I never quite get it.”
“It’s all about spontaneity, vision, improvisation. Inventing meaning while letting loose. They call it musician’s music.”
“Maybe you can teach me.” Not that I’m implying that what’s going on here will last more than an hour, or a day, or a night. I just ... if anyone can teach me things, I have a feeling he’s the one.
His voice and his scent are ridiculously appealing. His effect is galvanizing. I want to breathe him in. I have this stunningly intense craving to take him inside . My body leans in without me meaning to and he smiles. “You ready?” he murmurs. “You want it now?”
“I ... ” What to say? Yes. Yes. I’m ready.
“Give me your mouth, baby.”
Baby. Darlin’. Unicorn girl. Why does it already feel like I belong to him?
He leans closer and my lips part because I can hardly breathe. Without a doubt, I have never had a more intense experience than the one I’m having right now. The anticipation becomes everything about me. The heat of his promise infuses me with a feverish need that engulfs every reservation, every doubt, every inhibition I’ve ever had. I want him. More than that, I need him.
Very gently, one of his hands slides around the nape of my neck as the other releases the weave of my fingers. He eases my knees wider. His hand slides further up my thigh. He’s big and ridiculously strong and this sends a thrill of quivering excitement to the slippery depths of my body. I can feel that my panties are saturated.
Holy hell.
His scratchy jaw brushes against my cheek. Then his lips settle over mine and exert a gentle pressure, opening me with the warm wetness of his tongue. With his other hand, his fingers glide over the seam of my leggings— there —sliding back and forth with extreme gentleness and absolute insistence.
Pings of electricity are blooming inside me. His tongue is warm and velvety, sliding deeper. Long, slow drags of his tongue against mine. He opens my mouth with his, hungry for more. I take him willingly, lust-drugged. God, he tastes good. Like mint and whiskey, like dreams and magic. His fingers press and swirl with expert precision, finding the exact rhythm to tease the heat in one forward direction.
Oh my God, it’s happening.
His tongue pushes into my mouth as the curl of pleasure he’s working with his fingers reaches an almost unbearably high peak, then breaks into tight, shattering waves of pure, vivid ecstasy. He catches the moan that escapes me, whispering between kisses. “Gorgeous Stella. That’s my girl. You’re so damn sweet.”
Kade works my pleasure unhurriedly, his mouth and his hands playing me like a goddamn virtuoso plays his instrument.
I’m drunk on him. I think I might be in love with him. My body is still spasming, the ripples long and lush. As the rapture slowly starts to calm, I let my fingers wander across the rough surface of his jaw. He kisses me with a tender need that feels almost like adoration, for a long time, like he’s as drugged as I am.
“Kade,” I say softly.
“Yeah?” His voice is deep and rasped.
“That was ... ” I can’t even speak. I’m still riding the intense, lingering rushes.
“... a small taste of what all the fuss is about. It gets a lot better.”
“It does?” I manage to gasp.
“Of course it does. We still have our clothes on.”
Okay, wow, that’s true. But with the ripples of my very first orgasm still surging through my body, I can’t imagine that anything could feel better than what just happened to me.
Kade does that thing again where he reads my mind. “Trust me, it can,” he says.
The band is coming back on stage, I notice, after taking a short break. The lead singer tunes his guitar.
Kade pulls his phone out of his back pocket. “It’s really filling up in here. I’m going to call my driver and make sure he’s out back, ready to pick us up once I’m done.”
His driver? Maybe he means an Uber. And I guess that means it’s settled. I’m going home with him.
He powers his phone on and after the little apple glows on the screen for a few seconds, a barrage of message bubbles pop up. Carmen. Carmen. Carmen. Carmen. Carmen. “Fuck,” Kade seethes.
“Is that ... her?”
“Yeah.”
I’m still reeling with sensation. My brain isn’t fully functioning. And I sort of wish she wasn’t crashing onto the scene when I’m still in the middle of this extreme endorphin rush. It’s hard to get my bearings. “Is she upset about the break-up?”
“You could say that.” He suddenly seems tense. His laid-back vibe feels twisted up.
“Kade?”
When he looks into my eyes, I see it then: the tension fades out by a degree. His expression softens and ... he really is the most physically beautiful person I’ve ever met. It’s hard to get used to how outrageously hot he is.
“Are you sure you want me to stay in your spare apartment? Because if you have things you need to talk about with her—”
“There’s nothing I need to talk about with her. Our pathetic excuse for a relationship is over. Done. I made that very clear. I don’t need to see her again or talk to her about it ever again.”
“All right.” Yikes. He’s in a mood. Over her. “Are you sad that it ended?”
“Honey, I’m sad it ever started in the first place. Being with her was the worst decision I’ve made in a long time. My family tried to warn me but I didn’t listen. I wish I had. I should have.”
“You can’t always know. There’s nothing wrong with trying. There must have been something about her you liked in the beginning.” I don’t know why I’m even talking about this. I guess ... I want to know how he feels. Especially if I’m going home with him, which I’m now wondering if I should. I don’t want him to spend the night pining for her or wishing I was someone else.
“I wanted her to be something she wasn’t. I wanted her to be the love of my life. But she was a million miles from that. I’m a fool. For hoping my feelings would change.”
“I was always hoping for the same thing.”
Kade stares into my eyes. “Yeah?”
“It’s okay if you need some time to get over her. I mean, you only just—”
“Darlin’, forget about her. The person I want to talk to tonight is you. We’re going to forget about everything that came before we ran into each other on the street in the rain. I’m going to go down to that stage and play a couple of songs, then I’m going to take you home and we’re going to talk about the reason you came to Nashville. Even if it hurts. Because sometimes when you talk about things with a person who’s a good listener and who cares, the things that used to hurt don’t hurt quite so much anymore. Okay?”
I’m starting to realize I don’t have it in me to refuse Kade Tucker a damn thing, especially when he puts it like that. “Okay.”