Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Ashley’s heart had been pounding so hard when Drew burst onto the bus that she’d barely been able to hear him say her name through the rush of blood in her ears.
And then when he’d tried to get her to stop ripping off the dress, it had only pounded harder.
Louder. So hard and loud that she’d felt as though her head were going to explode.
He’d kissed her before that could happen, before she could get any more wound up, before her insides could twist into any more knots. And though her heartbeat was still racing, it wasn’t because she was upset. It wasn’t because she was nervous either.
Amazingly, now that she’d made the decision to be with Drew, nearly all of her fears about her first time disappeared.
The two kisses they’d shared had been full of so many sexy promises that she couldn’t wait one more second to be with him.
Because if someone from his crew or the label knocked on their door tonight needing Drew, as had happened so many times before, her head really would explode.
The past week had been nothing but one tempting moment after another.
“Give me your phone,” he said.
She pulled her phone out of her bag, and he put it next to his on the kitchen counter. “I don’t want any interruptions either,” she said with a smile she couldn’t contain. As he reached for her hand, she asked, “Does James know where you are?”
He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “He does.”
“With me?”
He looked into her eyes. “With you.”
Of course they couldn’t keep this from James.
Not when his job was to know exactly where Drew was at all times while on tour.
“Your whole life is so open, so public.” Her words were halting, and though she didn’t want them to come out the wrong way, she still needed Drew to hear them.
“Do you think we can keep this private?”
“I want to tell the whole damned world that you’re mine, Ash.” He paused for a moment. “But I’ll do anything you want. Anything you need me to do.”
She wouldn’t let herself think about the future right now, wouldn’t let herself get twisted up in worries. Not tonight. So she lifted her mouth to his and told him exactly what she needed. “Kiss me again.”
His lips curved up into a sexy smile even as he lowered them to cover hers. Just minutes ago, his kiss had been rough, and oh so raw. Now his kiss was barely more than a whisper of breath and heat.
A low moan sounded from her throat at the stunningly sweet kiss. She’d never known there were so many ways to kiss or to be kissed.
The next thing she knew, he was saying, “Hold on to me, Ash,” and then he was lifting her up as if she weighed nothing, with one arm under her knees and the other around her rib cage.
“Drew!” His name bubbled out along with her surprised laughter. “What are you doing?”
His eyes were so dark and full of heat that she nearly lost her breath when he looked down at her and said, “Taking you to my bed.” With nothing but those five words, even though he was simply holding her in his arms, she nearly came apart right then and there. “Is that where you want to be?”
“Yes.” Instinctively, she knew why he was asking her again—because he didn’t want her to regret one single moment with him.
But Ashley needed him to know that no matter what happened after tonight, she would never regret it.
Never. “It’s the only place I want to be tonight.
And you’re the only person I want to be with. ”
He lowered his mouth to hers as he walked toward the back of the bus and laid her down on his bed. Somehow, somewhere, she must have done something really right to get to be here tonight with the most incredible man on the planet.
He traced one of her eyebrows and then the other with the tip of one callused finger. “What are you thinking, Ash?”
She didn’t want to hide anything from him, so she told him, “How lucky I am.”
“I’m the lucky one.” He crawled over her on the bed, then took her hands in his and lifted them so that he was holding them on either side of her head. “So damned lucky I can hardly believe it.”
He was a master lyricist, knew exactly how to bend words to tug at people’s heartstrings. But every word he spoke while she lay beneath him on his bed rang pure and sweet, straight to the center of her heart.
He lowered his head so that the tips of his hair tickled her skin, and he began to run more of those impossibly soft, heady kisses down from her lips and over her jaw.
She arched her head back to give him better access to swipe his tongue into the hollow of her throat and lightly scrape his teeth over her collarbone.
Her breath came faster and faster, making her breasts swell up from the top of the pink sleeveless dress. She was dying for him to touch her there, but he didn’t just touch. Didn’t just kiss. Instead, he said, “I need to see you, Ash.”
“I need it, too.” So badly that she was trembling with anticipation.
He moved his hands from hers and slipped them under the thin straps holding up her dress and slowly slid the fabric down, kissing first one shoulder and then the next as he bared them to his hungry gaze.
His hands were warm and strong as they slid behind her back to unstick her zipper and open it all the way.
And then, finally, he was drawing the fabric down, and she was holding her breath waiting, waiting, waiting for—
Oh God, the way it felt when he put his lips, his tongue, on her.
She’d never felt anything like the sensations currently rocking through her, never knew any part of her body could be so wonderfully sensitive.
The dress had slid up her thighs when he’d laid her down on the bed and now she wrapped her legs around him to bring him closer.
He cupped her breasts in his big hands, and she marveled at how pale her naked flesh looked against his tanned skin. How right in a way she’d never been able to see her body before. Somehow, when Drew was touching her, the curves she’d never known what to do with finally made sense.
With every swipe of his tongue over her nipples, his groans vibrated through her.
He’d told her that her voice was the prettiest melody he’d ever heard, and now the sounds of his pleasure, and his excitement at being with her, were easily the best song she’d ever heard.
A song she wanted to play over and over and over again until she’d memorized every tone, every dimension, every subtly changing pitch.
“You’re so pretty.” His dark eyes were wild with need as he lifted his head from her chest, and she couldn’t stop herself from falling even deeper as she reached out to run her fingers through his hair.
“All I want is to make you feel good.” He pressed another hot kiss to the pulse jumping at the side of her neck.
“You do. You are. Better than I knew it was even possible to feel. Especially when you…”
“Especially when I…?” he prompted her.
They’d already gone further than she had with any other guy, and it was difficult not to be shy.
It would have been easier not to say the words aloud, but she refused to let herself hold anything back tonight, no matter how scary it was to put herself out there like this.
“When you’re kissing my breasts. Please, do it again. ”
“I could do it for hours and hours,” he told her, but instead of going straight back to her breasts, his mouth captured hers.
Every time they kissed he poured even more passion into it, into her, and she wondered how she’d lived twenty-two years without ever feeling this way.
By the time he finally pulled back from her lips to kiss his way back down her naked skin, she should have been ready to feel the wet heat of his mouth over her breasts again.
But when he took one taut peak against his tongue and rolled the other between his thumb and forefinger—oh God, the things he could do with his hands and mouth—she cried out so loudly that anyone standing outside the bus surely would have been able to hear it.
“All of you.” He moved his hands to the fabric pooled around her waist. “I need to see all of you.”
The desperate need on his face stole her words, so she lifted her hips to show him that it was what she wanted, too. He wasn’t moving slowly anymore, the way he had with her shoulder straps. Instead, the silky pink fabric came down in one hard yank.
He stilled as she lay before him in nothing but a pair of simple pink polka-dot panties. “Forever.” He wrapped his hands around her hips as he said, “That’s how long I’m going to remember seeing you like this.”
The smile he gave her just then made her feel as good as his kisses and his caresses did.
What was between them wasn’t just physical—it was so much more than that.
Because for every moment of sensual pleasure he gave her with his mouth and hands, his sweet words and smiles gave her just as many moments of joy.
And then he was bending forward to press more incredible kisses over her stomach and hip bones at the same time as he slid the final piece of fabric down, pressing his lips over each new tiny patch of skin that he revealed. She’d never been so open for anyone else, never been so naked, so exposed.
And she loved it. Loved knowing that Drew was her first.
Her only.
“Ash.” Her name was an awestruck breath against the part of her that was so wet, so hot, so needy. For him. All for him.
“Please,” she begged, the same word she’d been saying over and over since he’d brought her to his bed. “Touch me. Kiss me.”
“God, yes.”
Just those six little letters against her aroused flesh were nearly enough to send her spinning out over the edge.
So when she felt the first sweet brush of his tongue over her sex, she couldn’t contain her moan of pleasure or keep her hips from arching up even closer to his mouth.
His hands slid beneath her hips to hold her steady as he continued to give her the naughtiest, most incredible open-mouthed kiss in the world.
His name spilled feverishly from her lips, and her hands tightened on his forearms as she exploded into a million beautiful pieces. And then, just when she didn’t think she could take any more pleasure, he slowly slipped a finger into her, lighting up nerve endings that she’d yet to discover.
She’d been stunned breathless when he’d thrown her into that glorious climax.
But now as he continued to play over her sex with his fingers at the same time as he ran damp kisses over the insides of her thighs, her belly, her breasts, she couldn’t catch her breath.
Couldn’t stop begging him for more. Couldn’t keep from lifting her hips to try to take more of him.
Couldn’t get enough of his mouth on her breasts, or the way he was pushing her way past her comfort zones.
Ashley had always been inclined to play it safe, but with Drew, she’d never been able to hide in the background or behind her computer.
His music made her dance. His smiles made hers so much bigger.
And his beautiful, passionate, heartfelt kisses made all the walls she thought she’d needed around her heart fall away.
So when he came face-to-face with her again and looked down into her eyes with such dark, deep intensity, everything went perfectly still.
So still that she could not only feel his heart beating against hers, she swore she could hear it, too.
Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. And then hers joining in, in perfect sync. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.
Two hearts playing in unison until they sounded like one.
“You’re so far beyond everything, everyone I’ve ever known,” he whispered into the silence, each word dancing seamlessly over the rhythm section of their hearts. “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. The most beautiful song I’ve ever heard.”
The stillness shattered then, as the bliss he’d built up with his mouth, and then his hands, began radiating out from somewhere deep inside, growing bigger and bigger. So big that her bones, her skin—her very soul—couldn’t possibly contain all the joy.
Couldn’t do anything but let him play over her body until she truly felt as if she actually was the most beautiful song he’d ever heard.