Page 152 of Before You Fell

His forehead presses against mine for half a second before he rolls his hips again, practically fucking me through our clothes.

My nails dig into his shoulders.

His mouth moves to my throat, biting, sucking, breathing hard against my skin as one hand slides up my ribs and closes over my tit.

“Feel what you do to me?” he mutters, dragging his cock against me again. “Fucking impossible to hide this shit around you.”

He pulls back before I can come apart against the wall and walks me the rest of the way down the hallway to my bedroom.

Before we step inside, he pauses. His eyes hold mine, dark and hungry, cocky enough to know I am already halfway gone.

“Last chance,” he says.

For one second, I actually try to make the smart decision.

The one where I remember how unpredictable Phoenix gets once he has what he wants. How easily he can fuck me senseless and walk away, leaving me to sort through the damage with shaking hands, no dignity, and three new songs I never asked to write.

I know exactly what he is capable of doing.

That is the fucking problem.

I know how his cock feels inside me. How hard he fucks when he stops pretending he has control. How good he is at turning every warning in my head into useless noise until there is nothing left but him, the dark, and the sound of my own voice saying things I will think about for months afterward.

Every single warning alarm I have is going off. And every single part of my body wants him more than it wants to protect itself from what comes after this.

I step in front of him and tilt my face up toward his. “Shut the fuck up, Phoenix.”

His mouth curves into a satisfied grin as he walks me inside and kicks the door shut behind him.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Phoenix

I’m not nervous.

I don’t get nervous. I’ve fucked women who scream my name in stadiums, hotel rooms, green rooms, bathrooms, tour buses, hallways, and against walls in cities I can’t remember the names of. I know what wanting looks like. I know what lust smells like when it hits the air. I know how to make a woman forget her own name if she’s stupid enough to give me the chance.

I know exactly what my cock is doing and why.

But this is Willow and that changes everything.

Willow stands there without her shirt on, her beautiful tits out, in the dim light of her bedroom. Her hair is a mess, her mouth swollen from mine, and her eyes are full of want.

It makes every cheap, easy fuck I have ever walked away from feel exactly like that. Cheap and easy. Nothing at all like this.

She watches me watching her, and I’m pretty sure she has no fucking idea about the power she has over me.

My cock is hard and my chest feels too tight.

For once in my life, I want to tell her I fucking love her. Not the way I love a good whiskey, a sold-out show, or the sound of my own name in a crowd. The other kind.

The kind that has been sitting in my chest since we were seventeen and I have been drinking, fucking, and performing on top of it ever since because it scared the shit out of me.

My eyes move over her, and I take my time because I’m an asshole, not an idiot. Bare shoulders. Beautiful tits begging for my fucking mouth. Soft skin. The rise and fall of her chest telling me she is not as steady as she pretends to be.

My hands clench at my sides. If I touch her right now, I’m going to tell her everything. And she deserves better than a confession that comes with my hands on her tits.

She notices. Of course she fucking notices.