It Must Be Your Love (The Sullivans #11)(70)

“Are we almost there?” she murmured in a heavy voice without bothering to open her eyes.

“Keep doing that with your hand, and I sure as hell will be,” he warned her.

Of course, instead of moving her hand away, her beautiful lips curved up into a smile and she shifted in her seat so that she could feel him up even more.

Sweet Lord, if her fingers came one inch closer to his erection, they were going to be in danger of his crashing the car into a utility pole. Thankfully, he pulled onto his street and through his security gate before he could get them into an accident.

Seconds later, he was scooping her up into his arms and making a dash for the tower. She wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled him, soft and trusting for whatever he had planned for them now that they were home.

Home. At the base of the tower stairs, he faltered, and she finally opened her eyes to look at him. “Ford?”

Her beauty, and her goodness, humbled him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Though she’d told him how she felt about him in the car, it was the first time she’d said those three words, simple and pure, in five years.

His hands tightened around her. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

Knowing she could keep saying the words in an infinite loop and he’d never get tired of hearing them, he said, “Again.”

“Oh, Ford.” She slid her hands from his neck to frame his face. “I love you so much. More than I even know how to tell you. More than I’ll ever be able to show you.”

The kiss she gave him was so sweet he actually felt an ache from the sensation of his heart expanding inside his ribs.

“You already have,” he swore to her, and it was touch and go for a moment as to whether or not he would simply lower her to the floor and take her. But then, he barely, just barely, managed to corral the absolute last bit of his self-control to make himself move up the stairs with her in his arms.

From the first moment he’d seen the house, he’d wanted to make love to Mia in the tower. Upon moving in on Monday night, he’d found a cupboard hidden in the stone walls that was filled with soft blankets and pillows.

He could hardly bear to let her go long enough to make a bed, but as soon as he opened the door to the linens, she made a happy sound. Pulling out a colorful quilt, she spread it out on the tiled floor so he could drop the blankets and pillows over it.

Barefoot, Mia stood in the middle of the soft makeshift bed and held out her hands to him. “Come here, rock star, and let me love you.”

He went to her, and she threaded her fingers through his before lifting her mouth to his. It could have been minutes, or maybe it was hours, that they stood like that, kissing with the bright moonlight streaming in over them through the tower windows.

“I need you naked,” she said in a breathless voice, when their lips finally drew apart.

“Anything for you,” he told her as he grabbed a condom out of his back pocket to drop onto the blankets, then worked on his belt buckle and the zipper of his jeans while she pushed his shirt off his shoulders. By the time he shoved his pants down, she was on her knees undoing the laces on his boots.

When she finished slipping them off, she looked up at him with a very wicked gleam in her beautiful eyes. Before he could stop her, she had one hand wrapped around his shaft and her mouth on him.

Ford was too close to the edge to let her love him like this for too much longer, but, Lord, the way she licked and sucked at him as if she’d never tasted anything so good—

He barely shifted away in time, and when he saw how flushed with pleasure her cheeks were, and how darkly dilated her eyes had become as she’d gone down on him, it almost didn’t make any difference that she wasn’t touching him anymore. He was that far gone.

With a growl, he kicked his jeans and boxers away. He bent down and gripped her dress in a hard fist to bring her back to her feet right before he ripped it off her. But she’d always known how to up the ante as she plucked the condom from his other hand and, seconds later, slid it over him.

“Now, Ford,” she demanded. “I can’t wait another second for you.”

They’d made a bed of pillows and blankets, but as she leapt up into his arms and wrapped her arms and legs around him the same way she had backstage at the stadium Wednesday night in Oregon, they didn’t need a bed yet. Thank God, this time there were no clothes in the way as Ford instinctively moved them against the wall.

Their tongues slipped and slid together as he entered her, her slick flesh stretching, then tightening around him. Unable to remember a pleasure more intense, Ford had to give in to the urge to thrust into her to the hilt.

And all the while, I love you was the chorus not only to the most beautiful song Ford had ever heard...but also the most inspired one he’d ever been fortunate enough to play. Over and over the melody played on repeat with their bodies, with gasps of pleasure, with roving hands and, finally, with exquisite release that spiraled, hard and desperate, through them both.

Chapter Thirty

Mia lay sprawled across Ford’s chest on the bed they’d made in the tower room, his heart beating strong and fast beneath her ear. Their legs hadn’t been steady after they’d made love against the wall, and she loved recovering her strength with him like this.

There were no secrets between them anymore, no anger, no bitterness. Only love...and endless pleasures to be shared.