Page 10 of Heart Beats

Her eyes widen with recognition. “You played this when I was onstage with you.”

“And that was the first time I’ve ever played it. That music didn’t exist until I met you. The rest of it is what I was thinking last night.”

Her gaze stays locked with mine as I play the notes that flowed out of me in that hotel suite. No words leave her lips, even when they part and close. Note by note, she moves closer. By the time I reach the end, her warm, sexy body is as close to mine as possible, and her hand is curled over my leg, high enough to feel her fingers graze my cock when I work the foot pedals. And her eyes… Fuck. Her beautiful eyes shine, reflecting every emotion I poured into the song. Her song.

“It’s incredible,” she says after the last note fades. “You wrote that last night? The entire thing?”

“I’ve written a lot of songs—some easy, most really fucking hard. Everything about this one was different. It just… came out. It doesn’t feel like I wrote it. More like it’d always been in me, full and complete, waiting to be unlocked.” I angle toward her, cup her face in my palms as my heart pounds faster than any hard-rock beat I could lay down. “Then I met you. You’re the key. Youarethe song, Maria.”

“You’re very good with words.”

“I hope you feel that way after I write lyrics.”

“It doesn’t need lyrics,” she says, tracing the lines of my face, and launching a riot of sparks that light up every cell in my body. “I heard everything you wanted to say in the music.”

“Then you know I’m crazy about you. Completely. Obsessively.” We’re so close, I can’t see her nod. But I feel it as her hair ghosts its silky threads against my face. “I came here because I couldn’t stay away. Because I need you to know I’m coming back as soon as I can. That I’m going to be with you even when I’m far away.”

“Okay.”

“Okay’s not good enough. Tell me you believe me. That you feel it too.”

“I feel it. You’re already inside me.”

Every perfect, dirty thing I want to do to her floods my mind. Control—gone. I push my fingers into her hair and fuse my lips to hers.

She opens for me, inviting me in. And I fucking take the invitation. I kiss her until she’s breathless, then I still don’t give her air. She’s mine now, and I’m too hungry for her to stop. I slide my tongue against hers, groaning when she sucks it deeper into her mouth. I want her mouth on my cock. I fucking need it, like I need every other inch of her, inside and out.

I hook my hand under her bare leg and pull her onto my lap. She laughs into my mouth as her ass presses against the ivory keys, sending harsh, crisp notes into the air. Then she slides closer.

There’s no space between her and the piano. No space between her and me. Tits mashed against my chest, she grinds down on my lap, rocking against the steel beneath my zipper, until she breaks the kiss.

“Jagger.”My name is a plea against my lips.

Only it’s not my name. Not really. “Call me Marshall. That’s my real name.”

“Marshall,” she whispers, then her breath hitches, and her raspy moan vibrates through me, straight to my cock.

I clench my jaw so tight it feels as if my teeth might crumble. But do anything other than let her ride my lap until she comes? Not a fucking chance. Another thing I don’t do? Stop her when she lifts herself off me enough to undo my pants, then takes out my cock.

I bite back a groan when her fist closes around me. This is where I should tell her I don’t expect anything tonight. I’m not a bad man, but I’m not a good enough one to tell her to stop.

Instead, I run my hands up the insides of her supple thighs. I pull her panties to one side, watching her drag her bottom lip between her teeth as I roll my fingers over her clit. I part her soft lips with two fingers, teasing the tip of one inside her pussy. “Fuck, you’re so warm. So soft and wet.”

“I just came,” she says, so matter-of-factly, I can’t help smiling.

“Oh, I’m aware. Hottest thing ever to happen on a piano bench.” I slide my finger in deeper, my hips jerking upward involuntarily as she arches to take the full length. “Until this.” I groan again as she pumps her fist up and down, paying extra attention to the Jacob’s Ladder piercings along my shaft. “Okay, until that.”

“You’ve been with a lot of people, haven’t you?”

Not the question I want to answer right now, but I’ll never lie to her. “Yeah, I have.”

“Am I going to catch something if we have sex?”

“No, beautiful.” I slip free of her sweet tightness to focus on her clit. “If I could hurt you in any way, I would’ve stayed away. I would’ve forced myself to leave you alone.” I can’t take my eyes off her face as her eyelids flutter closed, and her body rocks to meet my touch. “I promise you’re safe with me,” I say, gripping her hip and guiding her down.

I always wear a condom. But I don’t want anything between Maria and me. She’s the one and only. I’m not inside her yet and I already know she’s the last woman I’m going to be with.

Her head falls forward, her hair curtaining her face as my cock parts her folds.

---