Page 40 of Tangled Up In You

“You know very well that the choice was for you to stay and for us to get married.”

Sophie mirrored the reaction she had given him the first time he suggested this two years earlier. It was a quick dismissal of the idea.

“I was sixteen?—”

“Nearly seventeen.”

“Gavin, it was romantic and amazing for you to even consider such a thing. But we both knew it was impossible.”

“I knew no such thing. I was willing to remake my life for you, Sophie.”

“But—”

“And you walked away. Youwalkedaway.”

The silence stretched out between them as she watched him, and he did everything he could to not look away. He wanted to hide the hurt and fear he knew was naked in his eyes. And yet she was the only one he had ever been able to be this honest with. There was enormous relief in that. In letting go.

He thought she might tell him she had never meant to provoke that sense of desertion in him. Or that it wasn’t fair to compare her going home to finish high school to the same thing as the abandonment he’d known as a child.

Instead, she surprised him by going to him, taking his face in both her hands, and kissing him with a tenderness and longing he gratefully surrendered to.

Wrapping his arm around her slim waist and holding her close, they quickly found the rhythm they had perfected in all those make-out sessions during school. Her lips were soft but her kiss was insistent. He thought fleetingly about the fact that she still knew exactly how to manage him. She still knew him well enough to sense that he hated to even vaguely admit that her leaving had brought up tortured memories from his childhood.

But at the same time, a part of him had known his confession would trigger her desire to drop her own needs to instead take care of his. He’d known she was wired this way since the day he walked her home from school and she’d admitted she was a person who wanted to be needed. And Jesus, was he ever in need. They’d been fiercely connected in this way, to a level that was well beyond what a simple teenage relationship should have been.

And here she was again, providing the warmth and familiarity he had craved these past few years. The scent on her skin was the same light floral one she had always worn. He smiled at the comforting pleasure of it, breaking their kiss.

She met his eyes, silently questioning the interruption, and he shook his head to dismiss her concern. Now he took her face into his hands and brought his mouth to hers, oblivious to everything else. His bandmates down at the bar didn’t register in his thoughts, the world outside of their room didn’t exist.

He had all he wanted and needed at the moment.

Sophie was everything.

21

SOPHIE

Though his mouth tasted like alcohol, his instant familiarity was what she surrendered to. The pressure of his lips against hers, the searching movement of his tongue, and the rhythm of their kisses was so easy, so right, that she sighed from the pleasure of it.

Their chemistry was unlike anything she had ever experienced with anyone else. He was handsome and confident with an undeniable sensuality that was magnetic. All of this was transported to the stage when he performed, as she saw at that Palladium gig. The screaming girls had almost drowned out the music.

If they only knew that their fantasies about him were her current reality.

As if reading her thoughts, he pulled away just enough to assess her back.

The way he leveled his eyes upon her now thrilled her to her core.

He looked at her as if he wanted toconsumeher.

And she was willing.

She was willing to be taken by him body and soul. He’d always had that power over her, ever since that first moment in the hallway at school. And even more so once she realized that he wasn’t just the popular kid everyone looked to but was, in fact, damaged.In need. It made her want to be the one to fix him. To be the one who could soothe his rough, tortured edges.

This, between them now, was a need of a more physical kind. And she didn’t hesitate to pursue it, despite the fact that she knew in the back of her mind that he’d soon be leaving town with the band. She craved the connection that only the two of them could create, even if it was only fleeting.

Sliding her fingers into his hair, she playfully tugged his wavy locks and elicited a happy moan from him. The moan he made when she then grasped him over his jeans was of a more tortured nature.

“I’m so fucking happy to see you, darlin’,” he told her in between the kisses he trailed along her neck.

---