Chapter 69
AUSTIN
“Imissed you,” she breathed against my lips. “God, I missed you so much.”
“I was literally with you an hour ago.”
“An hour too long.” Her hands were already working to pull my shirt off. I took over, pulled it off, and tossed it on the floor. “I had to sit across from that woman and pretend I hated you. Pretend I wanted to destroy you. Do you know how hard that was?”
I caught her hands, stilling them. “You were incredible. So brave. So perfect.”
“I was terrified.” She looked up at me and sighed. “The whole time, I kept thinking—what if this doesn’t work? What if she sees through me? What if I lose you because I mess this up?”
I cupped her face in my hands, making her look at me. “You didn’t mess anything up. You saved me, Melody. Saved my family. Saved us.”
“We saved each other,” she corrected, then pulled me in for another kiss.
The kiss was slow at first, like we had all the time in the world now.
I let my lips linger, tasting the faint note of wine that was still on her breath, and when her tongue tentatively traced the seam of my mouth, I opened for her immediately.
The soft, hungry sound she made spiked straight through my core, and the next thing I knew I was walking her backward toward the hallway.
“I’m so fucking proud of you,” I whispered against her neck when we broke for air. She had been flawless, fearless, and I wanted to crawl inside the warmth of her, disappear after the adrenaline.
Her fingers dropped to the waistband of my jeans, tugging the button loose with that light, mischievous little pop I loved.
“I kept thinking about doing this for the last hour,” she said, sliding the zipper down slowly.
“Sitting across from her, pretending I hated you, and I kept thinking about all the times I’ve seen you naked.
That I’ve made you orgasm.” She bit her lip, gaze flicking up to mine.
“To know I had you and she never had and never would.”
I let out a shaky laugh that felt delirious.
“Baby, I have been dying to get you naked all night.” I yanked her blouse over her head, the silky fabric whispering over her skin.
She had on a pale blue bra with lace fringe.
I dropped to my knees right there at the foot of the stairs and undid her pants.
I slowly peeled them down and watched her step out of them.
I kissed over the blue triangle of fabric that matched her bra before getting back to my feet.
I licked a slow line between her breasts, then upward until I could reach the hollow at the base of her throat. My thumbs circled her nipples that were pushing against the thin fabric of her bra.
“Austin,” she breathed, fingers burying themselves in my hair, tugging gently. “Bedroom. Please.”
I scooped her up, tossed her over my shoulder like I’d been dying to do for too long. She squeaked—half protest, half giggle—as I hauled her upstairs toward the bedroom.
I let her slide down the front of my body, skin against skin, until she landed on her feet in front of the bed.
It took me about two seconds to unhook her bra and pull it away.
And then I slid her panties down and knelt to get them past her ankles.
I looked up at her naked body, her hair falling around her as she looked down at me.
I licked my lips. Seeing her in this way made me feel primitive and possessive.
I kissed my way back up her outer thigh, lifting one leg to drape over my shoulder so I could taste what I loved the most. The first long lick, slow and deliberate, had her knees almost buckling.
I hummed against the silky slick heat of her, branding her with my tongue the way I wanted to brand my name on every inch of her skin.
She was wet, swollen, ready. When I sucked her clit between my lips, she was gone.
She fell backward. Her back hit the mattress.
One of her hands tangled in my hair hard, the other frantically clawing at the sheets like she needed something to anchor her because the pleasure was going to blow her apart.
“Don’t stop,” she moaned, breath hitching.
I didn’t. I shifted my shoulders wider, pushed her thighs open more, drank every broken sound she made as my tongue drew tight circles around her bud then dipped inside her with the slowest thrust. She clenched with tiny pulses I could feel when I slid my fingers in two deep and curled, adding pressure.
I added a third finger until she was so full she sobbed my name into the dark room.
Her orgasm crashed sudden and hard. She came with a gorgeous, throaty cry, her spine arching perfectly. I kept working her through it, dragging out every last shudder until she clawed at my shoulders to stop because it was too much.
I kissed a trail up her trembling stomach, lingered over each nipple until she writhed again, then claimed her mouth.
She tasted herself on my tongue and sighed deeply, licking into my mouth like she wanted more.
The taste of her still on my lips drove me feral.
My hips jerked forward instinctively, and the friction of my cock trapped against my jeans bordered on torture.
She helped me strip in record time. There was nothing elegant about it. Sheer desperation had me naked in seconds. When I pressed up against her, she moaned into my mouth. I rolled on a condom quickly, hands clumsy with the need to be inside her. I had to be as close as physically possible.
We shifted so she lay back among the pillows, thighs parted wide to accommodate me. I fit myself at her entrance and paused, resting my forehead against hers. We were breathing so hard we sounded like we’d just sprinted a mile. Everything in me wanted to surge forward, but I needed to see her eyes.
She looked at me and I was certain I saw love in that gaze. Or maybe it was just my love for her reflecting back at me.
I surged inside in one long, filling thrust, groan ripping from my throat at the tight, wet clasp of her.
God, she felt incredible. Soft and perfect.
I stayed deep, barely thrusting, just rocking my hips so she felt every inch of me hitting that spot inside her that made her legs jerk around my hips.
She cried out my name. I angled my thrusts, savoring the drag and glide inside her body, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t be gentle tonight. I needed to be everywhere at once so there was no part of us left untouched or forgotten.
I hooked her knees up higher, changed the angle and drove in deeper on each thrust. The bed groaned beneath us. The headboard thudded against the wall. She bit my shoulder and scratched my back with her nails. It was such a pleasurable pain.
She undid me with a soft whimper. It sent sparks up my spine so fast I had to grit my teeth to keep control. I pushed in deep and slowly pulled out before going deep again.
“I want you coming with me. Don’t wait. I can feel it.” She raised her hips and ground against my pelvic bone.
We found an instinctive rhythm. It was fast and deep. My orgasm built low and hot at the base of my spine, thrumming like a drumbeat. I dropped my mouth to her breast and sucked one nipple hard.
“Right there, right there.” She shattered around me, pulsing and contracting and dragging me under with her.
I buried a harsh cry in her neck and came apart, hips jerking erratically as I emptied myself in long, shuddering pulses. The pleasure blurred everything.
My weight collapsed onto her gently. She wrapped her arms around me like she didn’t want an inch of space between us ever again. After a while, I rolled carefully to the side to keep from crushing her, but I kept us connected, sliding my arm under her head so she could curl against my chest.
She brushed her lips over the little bite mark she’d left on my collarbone, smiling against it.
I kissed her forehead because words were still trapped behind my tongue. We lay there, both of us lost in our own thoughts.
“What is it?” I asked. “I can hear you thinking.”
“Nothing. Just… processing everything.”
“That’s not nothing.”
“Do you think it’s really over? With Summer?”
“Cash seemed pretty confident. She won’t be able to touch us once the lawyers get involved.”
“But what about public opinion?” Melody propped herself up on her elbow to look at me. “Even if we stop her from going on The Spill Room, the story is still out there. What if people believe her anyway?”
I’d been trying not to think about that. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “There’s no way to predict where public sympathy will land. Some people will believe Summer no matter what we say. Others will believe us. And most people probably won’t care either way after a few days.”
“But I’ll still be caught in the crossfire,” she said quietly. “People will have opinions about me and what really happened. They’ll dissect our relationship.”
It was what I had been afraid of from the beginning, that loving me would expose Melody to the worst parts of being a Bancroft. The scrutiny and judgment along with the complete lack of privacy.
“Are you sure you want to be part of this storm?” I asked, stroking her hair. “Because it’s not too late. We could still stage the breakup for real. You could walk away clean before you get too caught up in the Bancroft bullshit.”
“Don’t you dare suggest pushing me away again.”
“I’m just worried about you and the coming storm.”
“I know. But Austin?” She moved her finger and replaced it with her lips, kissing me softly. “I am the storm.”
The woman was incredible. Fierce.
“You are, aren’t you?” I said, pulling her on top of me.
She straddled my hips, her hair falling around us like a curtain.
“I didn’t come this far to give up now. Summer Auburn thinks she can intimidate me?
Please. I’ve dealt with internet trolls, cancel culture, and brands that tried to erase my body from my own photos.
One bitter con artist doesn’t scare me.”
“You’re sexy when you’re defiant.”
“I’m sexy all the time,” she corrected, rolling her hips in a way that made me groan.
“True. Very true.” My hands found her waist, holding her steady. “But especially when you’re being a badass.”
“Then you should see me during a Twitter feud,” she teased. “I’m absolutely deadly.”
I pulled her down for a kiss, already feeling myself responding to her again. “Show me.”
“Show you what?”
“How deadly you can be.”
She grinned against my lips, that wicked smile that drove me crazy. “Oh, you want to see the storm?”
“Baby girl, I want to be caught in it.”
And she was more than happy to oblige.
The second time was different, playful and intense all at once. Melody took control, setting the pace, driving me absolutely wild with every movement. I let her, content to watch her take what she wanted. I loved to see the confidence radiating from every inch of her.
“Austin?” Melody murmured sleepily against my chest.
“Yeah, baby girl?”
“Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Promise me that no matter what happens tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever the news breaks—we face it together. No more trying to protect me by pushing me away. We’re a team.”
I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “We’re a team. I promise.”
“Good.” She yawned, snuggling closer. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”
“Neither am I.”
She was asleep within minutes. I stayed awake a while longer, holding her, thinking about everything we’d been through and everything still to come.