Xander
THIRTY-EIGHT
The city twinkles beneath our hotel windows in streaks of white and gold, traffic moving endlessly below. The entire place is wired directly into an electrical socket and nobody remembered how to turn it off.
I used to love that feeling. Now, it just makes me tired.
The suite is quiet behind me.
Too quiet.
Julian crashed an hour ago after opening an expensive bottle of whiskey and declaring himself “emotionally exhausted from accidental career resurrection.”
Gabe is still awake somewhere, probably in the other suite on the phone trying to manage the absolute catastrophe I detonated twelve hours ago.
The Lonely Ones are trending worldwide.
Every major music outlet is running the story. Streaming numbers are climbing by the second. Our old songs are flooding playlists again. And somewhere inside all that noise, I can still hear Josiah laughing at how badly this spiraled.
I rest my forearms against the balcony railing and stare out over the skyline. Cities blur into one another when you’ve toured in most of them, but this feeling never goes away. The missing of… something.
Although now I know what I want.
Home.
The balcony door slides open softly behind me. Willow moves quietly, but she’s not invisible. I’ve become too aware of her for that.
Always aware.
She steps outside wearing leggings and one of my hoodies, sleeves hanging over her hands. Her dark hair falls loose around her shoulders, still messy from the long day.
She looks tired and beautifully overwhelmed.
My chest tightens.
“You’re brooding again,” she says softly.
“I don’t brood.”
She snorts. “You literally came out onto a balcony overlooking LA to brood, right after announcing a surprise reunion on live radio.”
I glance sideways at her. “Fair point.”
“Thank you.”
She moves to stand beside me at the railing, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. “You scared Gabe half to death today.”
“He’ll survive.”
“He looked like he wanted to strangle you with a phone charger.”
“He’s had worse ideas.”
That earns a laugh from her. The sound settles somewhere deep in my chest in a way I don’t examine too closely.
I look out over the skyline again. “You’re angry with me, too.”
She leans against the railing, considering it. “I don’t know if angry is the right word.” I wait. “That was… a lot,” she admits. “Everything’s already so huge right now, and then you drop this massive music bomb in the middle of it, and now the internet’s exploding again.”
“It shifted attention away from you.”
“Not completely.”
No. Not completely.
Because people still want to understand her. The woman somehow standing in the center of all this. The woman standing beside me now.
My jaw tightens. “I know.”
She glances over at me then, studying my face carefully. “You really didn’t plan that, did you?”
“No.”
“Then why did you do it?”
The honest answer arrives.
Because of you.
Because she made me want things again. Music. Feeling. Connection. Life. Things I buried with Josiah.
I grip the railing harder instead of saying any of that out loud. “You have any idea how dangerous you are?”
Her brows pull together faintly. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No,” I say. “What’s ridiculous is the fact that I can’t seem to go more than ten goddamn minutes without thinking about you.”
The atmosphere changes between us.
Her lips part. I keep going anyway because I’ve clearly already destroyed my own self-control today.
“You get under my skin in ways I don’t know how to explain,” I admit roughly. “I’ve spent years making sure nothing touches me deeply enough to matter.”
“Xander—”
“No.” I shake my head once. “You should hear this.”
Because I don’t say these things. I don’t hand people weapons capable of hurting me. But standing here with her, I’m exhausted from holding everything back all the time.
“I’ve had women around me constantly for most of my adult life,” I continue. “Models, actresses, fans. People who wanted the version of me they saw onstage.”
My gaze drags over her face.
“But you…” My voice lowers. “You want me to keep coming back, no matter what. It’s different with you,” I say. “It’s always been different.”
“How different?”
I stare at her. At this woman who walked into my life carrying coffee stains and sarcasm and somehow dismantled every wall I built without even trying.
The truth rises before I can stop it. “I’ve never felt this close to anyone before.”
Then her hand lifts. Touches my chest. Right over my heartbeat.
“You scare me, too,” she whispers.
My entire body tightens. “Yeah?”
She nods once. “Because I think…” She swallows. “I think I’m falling for you. All of you.”
Pain cracks open inside my chest. I lower my forehead briefly against hers before I can stop myself.
I haven’t wanted to belong to anyone in years. But somehow, she makes me want impossible things.
My hand slides along her jaw, thumb brushing her cheek. “You already have me.”
Her breath catches again.
Then, she kisses me.
I kiss her back, one hand gripping her waist and pulling her flush against me while the other tangles into her hair.
My hands find her jaw and her hip, thumb sliding under the hem of the hoodie, skin meeting skin. She feels hot and electric under my palms, alive in a way that sends a spike of need straight to my fucking center.
Her pulse flutters against my lips as I drag my mouth down her throat, tongue tracing the edge of her collarbone exposed by the drooping neckline. She arches into my grip, making a throaty sound I want to hear on repeat, and I catch her wrists and pin her arms above her head.
She shudders. “Xander—”
“I need you,” I rasp.
She jerks her head in a desperate little nod. I kiss her so hard she moans into me, her body weightless against the glass as I bend her back with my grip.
She feels so fucking small in my hands, the perfect leverage for roughness and care, both at once.
My fingers slide down, wedge beneath the waistband of her leggings, and she shivers when skin meets skin. She gasps, a high, pleading sound, as I draw tight circles dipping into heat.
She’s wet already, legs parting for me with zero hesitation, face bold and open beneath city light. I want to devour every inch of her, but I force myself to go slow.
“You ever been fucked overlooking the city before?” I whisper it against her lips, but my hand climbs farther in, cupping her through damp cotton while the world blurs around us.
Nothing left but her heat and the city and the pulse under my tongue as I bite her lip. She shakes and arches, her wrists twisting in my grip but never trying to pull away. Instead she presses closer, hungry for more.
She blinks up at me, pupils wide, the twist of her lips a dare and an invocation both.
“People could see us,” she says, but it’s almost a question.
“Let them.” I press my mouth to the hollow of her throat, sucking a bruise into the delicate skin.
Her hips buck into my hand and I rub her clit harder, wet through my palm now. She moans, and I clamp one hand over her mouth just enough to muffle the noise that would otherwise have the entire floor listening in.
She grinds against my fingers, frantic and needy, and I catch her gaze and hold it. Pinned wide, nothing between us but raw need and the pulse of everything we never said out loud.
Every muscle in her vibrates. I can feel the tension coiling, about to snap, and I want it. I want to see her break apart with the city burning around us, to know I pushed her to that edge.
She comes fast and hard, legs trembling so much I have to press her into the window to keep her standing.
The orgasm tears through her, silent at first, lips parted, eyes squeezed shut, then the aftershocks hit, her whole body writhing and desperate, and she whimpers into my palm, confessing some deep, animal secret.
I stroke her slower, then harder, pushing it out of her in ragged pulses, until she sags in my arms, boneless and dazed.
Her body melts into mine, forehead falling against my collarbone, breath dampening my chest through the fabric of her hoodie.
She’s perfect. She’s an absolute disaster. I want to fuck her until sunrise and then see if I can get her to stay for breakfast.
I pin her gently to the window, unzip my jeans, shove them down just enough. She’s still shuddering, her hands latching around my neck, nails biting skin.
Her legs wrap around my hips. “Don’t you dare take it slow.”
I don’t.
I line up and push into her in one deep, reckless thrust.
The pressure is blinding, her heat burning every inch of me. She cries out, and this time I have to cover her mouth with my own, swallowing the sound whole.
She’s so fucking tight, her body still clenching down, fighting to drag the soul out of me with each thrust.
I slam her into the glass again, the city spinning below us, the entire galaxy reduced to the pressure and friction between two people who can’t get enough, who never will.
My hand fists in her hair, yanking her head back just enough so I can see her face. Her eyes are glassy, pupils blown, lips bitten open with need.
I want to carve this image into my brain, wear it around my neck as a relic. She claws at me, desperate, and I fuck her harder, faster, until the only thing I can hear is the frantic slap of bodies and the helpless whimpering from somewhere deep in her throat.
I crush her wrists above her head, and she gasps my name, over and over, a litany and a warning and a plea. I hit my peak and the pleasure spikes so bright I almost black out, the sound of her breaking open muffled under my lips, body spiraling in time with mine.
It’s a goddamn holy experience, the kind of perfection that destroys all memory of pain.
When I finish, it’s pure annihilation.
She’s still pulsing around me, every muscle locked and shaking, and I hold her there until my vision clears and the city comes back into focus. We’re both a mess, sweat and need and bruises that will show up tomorrow, but I’ve never felt more fucking alive.
I’ve never felt more sure of what’s to come.