Page 52 of Until the Stars Fall

He opened the door at my knock, hair wet, white T-shirt and blue plaid pajama bottoms, and stood back to let me pass. “Hi.”

He was smiling the smile he reserved for me, the one that made pure desire shiver through all my sacred places. Despite last night—and this morning—my stomach fluttered, and I didn’t know how to act. Would we pick up where we left off this morning? Or did having time to think change his mind?

He closed the door and took me into his arms, kissed the top of my head. “I missed you today,” he said, his deep voice and sweet presence calming me.

I wrapped my arms around his waist and sighed. “I missed you too.” He was warm and smelled like soap. Again, that intense belonging washed over me from just being near him.

“Hey,” he said, pulling away to look at me. “I’m sorry if I was weird today, around everybody else. I didn’t know if you were okay with everybody knowing we’re a thing, annnd...I wasn’t sure if we were a thing. I mean, if we’re a thing, I want to shout it from the rooftops. I hope we’re a thing,” he said quickly. “I really want to be a thing.”

I beamed, mesmerized by his eyes and his arms around me. “I really want to be a thing too.”

His face lit up with delight as he leaned down to kiss me sweetly. “And where are my manners? Come on in.” He led me, arm around my shoulder, to the sofa. His room was smaller than mine, painted gray and stuffed with furniture, rows of bookshelves overflowing with books and records, and a stack of guitar cases in the corner.

We snuggled up on the couch, not far from another hammock hanging from his ceiling. “Do you have a hammock everywhere?”

“I don’t have one in my bedroom,” he said, raising and lowering his eyebrows at me.

“Maybe you should.”

“Well if my Gemma wants a hammock in the bedroom, I’ll put a hammock in the bedroom, if you know what I’m sayin’.” He chuckled, nuzzling my neck.

“I’m your Gemma?” I teased.

His eyes went wide. “I didn’t mean— I’m sorry. I meant I want to be your Beck, but I didn’t mean to be presumptuous or, gods! To suggest ownership or—”

I pulled his head closer to me. “Would you kiss me already?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, leaning down to bless my lips with a sweet, long kiss, his hand slipping along my jaw. He hmmmed and pulled me closer, deepening his kisses, then dropping them in a line down my neck.

He was too good to be true. I’d been looking for the deal breaker, the undesirable traits that I worried would break through and be insurmountable. But I hadn’t found them yet. I wasn’t sure they existed. It was inconceivable that I’d wasted time with any other man when this one was here.

“Where did you come from?” How could he have existed all this time in my hometown, and I hadn’t known?

He smiled big. “Same as you, Gem. We’re all stardust down to every spinning atom.” He placed a warm kiss on my forehead, right over where my old witchy books placed the third eye. Warmth, security, and contentment flooded me.

“Every beautiful cell of your body was forged in the heart of stars,” he murmured, tracing my eyebrows with his fingertips, “and it took billions of years for the finest of them all to come together and make you.”

“You talk sweeter than sugar cane.” I smiled into those mischievous, twinkling green eyes. “But if you think flattery will get me into your bed—” I kissed him. “You’re right.”

He smiled. “In that case, did I tell you how fine your ass looked in those leggings today?” His hand slid up my thigh, squeezing my backside as he kissed the base of my neck.

“Mmm, no, why don’t you tell me about it?” I tangled my hand into his hair to bring his kisses closer.

He pulled me to straddle him and stood up with me in his arms. “It looked so fine that I wanted to bite it,” he teased. I giggled and sampled the delicious, warm skin of his neck as he brought me up a few steps and into his darkened bedroom. He squeezed my bottom and put me down. “So fucking fine.”

I slipped my hands under his shirt to caress his gratuitous muscles and pulled it off over his head. His hands tucked under the hem of my tank top, his palms warm across my stomach, my breasts, pulling it off, trailing his fingertips down my sides, tucking them into the waistband of my leggings and my panties, pulling them off as I undid my bra and threw it aside.

He led me to his bed and lay down over me, capturing my mouth in passionate kisses. “My Gemma,” he murmured.

“My Beck,” I sighed, wrapping my legs around him. I reached down to grasp him, desperate to get him inside me, but in one smooth motion, he burrowed his hands beneath me and crushed me gently to him, rolling us over so I was on top.

I lay down the length of him, kissing him, enjoying his hands caressing my skin, exploring the canvas of his body. He was big and solid as a mountain beneath me, and I was desperate to climb him. He cupped my face, kissing me with gentle ferocity. He moaned as I grabbed him with both hands, sank down on the hard length of him, taking him in all the way to the hilt. He gently ground his hips up against me, moving so deeply inside me, our moans intertwining.

He sat up, bringing us face to face, eye to eye, soul to soul, and he kissed me devoutly, like I was the air he breathed. We moved against each other like the motion of the tides, my breasts sticking to his chest, my hands gripping and caressing his broad shoulders, the back of his neck. I ground against him, slower, harder, pulling him deeper, my mouth latched to his, his kisses swallowing my soft moans and cries. I felt him deep in the places I’d never been touched, physically, magically, spiritually, his every kiss a benediction, his every sigh and throaty moan a prayer.

I don’t know how long we feasted in our holy union, worshiping at the altar of consummation, living, savoring, blooming. I could live the rest of my life this blissed-out, sacredly joined, magic melding, surrounded by his thick, muscled arms, sticking to his skin, enveloped in his scent, the roaring of his blood and heartbeat, drowning in his kisses.

Our magic mingled, coursing through my body, an interplay that stoked pleasure higher here, drew it out longer there. His body and magic brought me to the peak over and over, sent me spiraling in climax after climax, always leaving me wanting more in the best possible way.

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