Chapter 62
MELODY
Iwas curled up on my couch in my favorite oversized sleep shirt and soft pajama pants, a mug of chamomile tea cooling in my hands.
The TV played some mindless show I wasn’t really watching.
My mind was too full, spinning with contracts and screenshots and Summer’s calculated smile and Austin’s face this morning when he’d left.
The envelope was still in my desk drawer.
I’d looked at it three more times since getting back from the tapas bar, trying to reconcile what Summer had told me with what I knew about Austin.
I thought about what he told me about his family.
I knew things were strained between them.
He told me some of the things that had been done in the past, but would they really do this?
Did they convince him to get back together with me just for show?
My heart and brain were in an all-out war. I tried to think back through every moment we shared, searching for cracks in the facade. Any hint that he’d been performing rather than feeling.
But I couldn’t find them.
The way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention? That wasn’t acting. The tenderness in his touch when he massaged my feet last night, the protectiveness when he pulled me close in crowds, and those random sexy smiles? Those were real.
I knew Austin wasn’t perfect. He had baggage and family drama and a history of making impulsive decisions.
But he’d been honest with me from the start about all of it.
He’d laid out the fake dating arrangement plainly, given me an out multiple times, never pressured me into anything I wasn’t comfortable with.
And when things shifted between us, I had felt it. I felt it in his kisses and the way he made love to me. He was a generous lover to begin with, but the way he held me and took care of me felt real.
No one was that good of an actor. Not even a Bancroft.
I thought about this morning, the confusion and concern on his face when he sensed something was wrong. If he’d been playing me this whole time, wouldn’t he have been relieved I was pulling away? Wouldn’t that make his job easier?
I sipped my tea and thought about texting Austin.
It was kind of weird to be sitting alone.
After the week in Tahiti and then the few days apart and then back together again, I definitely liked having him with me.
Even if we were doing nothing more than watching TV.
I missed him, which was ridiculous. I was a strong, independent woman.
I had never lived with a man. Being alone was part of who I was.
So why in the hell was I longing for his presence?
I missed his scent. His occasional burst of laughter when Joey and Chandler did something ridiculous.
When I learned he had never seen the series, it made me giddy.
I couldn’t wait to share it with him. I wanted to see it for the first time through his eyes.
The knocking startled me so badly I nearly dropped my mug. Hard, insistent knocking. Not the casual tap of a neighbor or delivery person. “What the hell?”
I set my tea down and went to the door, peering through the peephole.
Austin.
He looked disheveled. His hair was a mess. His eyes had that look I had come to learn meant he was stressed or angry. Even through the distorted lens, I could see the tension in his shoulders, the tight set of his jaw.
My heart lurched. Something was obviously wrong.
I opened the door, and he didn’t wait for an invitation. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. I had the sudden thought he was hiding from someone. Was he on the run?
No, that was ridiculous.
“Austin, what—”
He crashed into me.
His hands cupped my face and his mouth found mine in a kiss that stole my breath.
It wasn’t gentle or tentative. It was fierce, frantic, like he was drowning and I was air.
I could feel the urgency. I didn’t understand what had happened to make him feel so desperate, but oddly enough, I understood it.
I knew I should push him back. Demand answers about Summer and everything else. But the moment his lips touched mine, something inside me broke open. I didn’t care about any of that. I needed him.
I kissed him back with equal desperation, my hands reaching up and pulling his face against mine. All the questions could wait. Right now, I just needed to feel.
He walked me backward until my spine hit the wall, never breaking the kiss. His body pressed against mine. One hand slid into my hair while the other gripped my hip, pulling me closer.
“Melody,” he breathed against my lips.
“I know,” I whispered, not even sure what I was acknowledging. I just knew I needed this. His hands found the hem of my sleep shirt and pulled it over my head in one smooth motion. I hadn’t bothered with a bra. Why would I? It was just me and tea and my couch.
And now him.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, his voice rough.
I reached for his shirt, fumbling with buttons that suddenly seemed impossibly complicated. He helped me, shrugging out of it and tossing it aside, and then we were skin to skin and I couldn’t think about anything except the feel of him.
His mouth found my neck, my collarbone, the curve of my shoulder. Each kiss felt like he was marking me as his. Claiming me.
And I was perfectly okay with that.
He pulled back just long enough to shove his jeans and boxer briefs down. I watched him kick them off, my pulse jumping in my throat. Then he was back, lowering himself over me again.
His mouth closed over my breast. My fingers dug into his shoulders. He groaned against my skin, the vibration shooting straight through me. Then he was moving lower, kissing down my stomach, his stubble rasping over my sensitive skin until I shivered.
He settled between my thighs and pressed a kiss to the inside of my knee, then higher, and higher, until his breath ghosted over where I ached most.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, locking his gaze to mine. “Let me take care of you.”
The first slow swipe of his tongue made my hips buck. He hummed, licked again—long, deliberate strokes that turned my muscles liquid. My head fell back, a moan tearing from my throat when he circled my clit, teasing until I was writhing.
I let out a long, languid groan. He answered by sliding a finger inside me, curling just right while his tongue kept that perfect rhythm.
Tension coiled tighter, my heels digging into the couch as he added another finger, pumping slowly, worshipping me with his mouth until bright sparks flashed behind my eyes.
Heat surged, overwhelming and bright. I clenched around him, crying out as the orgasm ripped through me. He stayed right there, drawing it out until I trembled. I tugged weakly at his hair because I couldn’t take any more.
He kissed his way back up my body, pausing to taste the hollow beneath my ear. “Still okay?” he whispered.
“More than okay.” I hooked a leg around his hips, guiding him closer. I could feel how hard he was, the heat of him brushing my inner thigh. “I need you inside me, Austin. Now.”
“Bedroom,” he murmured. “I think I’ve taken the edge off.”
I laughed. “For me. Not you.”
“You getting off is my main goal.”
We scrambled upstairs. Austin went straight for the drawer where the box of condoms was stashed. He quickly rolled one on while I pulled back the blankets and dropped on the bed.
He settled between my legs. I could feel how badly he needed this, every breath shuddering out of him.
His body was trembling under my touch. He lined himself up and looked into my eyes with something feral flashing through them.
I felt the stretch of him entering me in one slow thrust—full, almost overwhelming.
A broken noise slipped out of him. “Fuck, you feel perfect.”
My eyes closed and I dragged my nails down his back. He pulled out and drove back in, deep enough to make my thighs shake. One of my legs slid up around his waist, trying to take more of him. Every time he thrust, the bed squeaked beneath us. The desperate sound of our breathing filled the room.
My hips rolled up to meet him. I whimpered against his shoulder, teeth grazing his skin. He shuddered and went still for one heartbeat, then suddenly started moving faster, harder, hitting a spot that made white light flash behind my eyes. Every time we had sex, he gave me multiple orgasms.
I clenched around him and moaned his name.
He swallowed the sound with a kiss, sloppy and urgent.
His palm flattened against the wall above my head, needing leverage.
Every thrust pushed me deeper into the mattress.
The friction, the weight of him, the scent of his skin—everything blurred into pure heat.
“Oh God,” I groaned. “Don’t stop.”
He kissed a hot trail across my jaw, voice rough in my ear. “I won’t. I swear.”
His hips snapped forward. The orgasm I thought was subsiding picked up steam once again. I clung to him. He buried a groan in the curve of my neck as my body pulsed around him. His rhythm faltered, grew erratic. I felt him stiffen, his entire frame shaking with the effort to make it last.
I cried out. He slammed into me one final time, burying his face against my throat as he shuddered through an orgasm.
For a moment neither of us moved. Our bodies were slick with sweat. I stroked slow circles across the small of his back, down his shoulder blades, feeling him tremble under the touch.
Eventually he pressed up on his elbows, eyes soft and searching mine. He brushed my hair off my forehead. “I needed you.”
I cupped his face and whispered, “I know. I needed you too.”
He eased out carefully and got up to dispose of the condom. He crawled straight back into my arms as if drawn by magnetism. We adjusted our bodies until my face was resting against his chest.
His heartbeat under my ear was starting to slow. I pressed a kiss just above his nipple and felt his fingers thread softly into my hair.
“I didn’t come here to… just do that,” he said quietly.
“But you wanted to.”
“I did.”
“What’s wrong, Austin?”
“We need to talk,” he muttered.