Page 6 of How Good It Was (Excess All Areas 3)

“What do you know about me?” he asked.

She thought back to his answers. “Your music is important to you. Your favourite memory is your drum kit, and you aren’t selfish, because your bucket list was something for the band to achieve, not just yourself. That feeling is reciprocated by the rest of the band, because Alex would help the others organise your bail, and you know you aren’t on your own. You don’t like reading, which I suggest is because you were always an active child. It takes a brave parent to buy a child a drum kit. And I’m guessing the words that killed you was that someone. Music, love, family, loss, parents are all interconnected. Which is also why you believe friendship isn’t necessary for sex. Because, then, feelings don’t get involved.”

Luke leaned forward and brushed her lips with his, gently at first, then more deeply as his tongued touched hers. “We aren’t strangers anymore.”

“No. We aren’t.”

“Are we friends enough?”

She knew more about what was important to him than anything about the friends she hung out with at home. “Yes.”

“You still want to go to your room with me?”

Her stomach flipped at the very idea. He was so much taller than she was. Rougher than she was. But somehow, his simple questions had made her certain. “Yes.”

“Good.” He led her to the elevator, and she pushed the button. When they stepped inside, he gripped the back of her neck. “You want anything to stop, you just tell me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Tell me three things you like in bed, Will.”

“What I’ve liked so far, or what I’d like to try?”

Luke grinned, his dimples popping. “Both. But I’m defo interested in the latter.”

“I want someone who won’t treat me like glass, someone who pushes me. I want something rough and dirty, not chaste and clinical.” Her cheeks burned with heat as she looked down at the floor.

“Keep talking.”

“I don’t know what else to say. I feel like I’ve never had mind-blowing sex.”

“You want the kind of sex that leaves you breathless and sweaty and hanging halfway off the bed. The kind of sex where you fight to get closer or deeper. No matter how hard you try, you want more. Within minutes of it being over, you can’t wait to do it again. You want to feel stripped down raw, like your soul has been ripped out of your chest.” Luke put his forefinger beneath her chin and tipped her face to his.

“Yes,” she whispered. “For once, I want to feel like that.”

The elevator pinged and the door opened. “What room?”

She held out the key card to him. “Don’t hurt me.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

But she wasn’t sure if she meant in bed, or just in general.

Luke checked out Willow’s waist as she walked ahead of him into her room.

The artificial high he’d been riding at the arena was beginning to fade, but what replaced it was a high unachievable by artificial stimulants. It was created when a woman looked at him like he was a fucking king. When she looked at him with need-filled eyes that told him only he could take the ache away.

It didn’t happen often.

Sure, lust was real. Being a drummer in a rock band riding an unexpected wave of success brought those kinds of opportunities in spades.

But the look in Willow’s eyes?

Yeah. That kind of connection didn’t happen every day.

He let the door click shut behind him, then tugged his still damp T-shirt over his head. “I’m going to shower really quick. I don’t want you to join me ... well, that’s not actually accurate. I’d love for you to shower with me. But you and me and hot water and a whole heap of skin will lead to a pretty quick fuck. And that’s not what you need, is it?”

Willow looked up at him, complete with a soft pink pout. Jesus Christ. Doe-eyed did it to him every fucking time.

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