Page 117 of Songbird: Black Kite
“To thank you,” I muttered, my voice barely audible in the quiet house. “I wanted to thank you.”
Without letting go of my wrist, Hawk stood, rising to his full height, and part of me wanted to swoon. He was so big. Just solid and strong. It was a heady feeling, knowing that he could so easily overpower me, but at the same time, trusting that he never would.
Seeing him now, looking down at me with fire in his eyes and his jaw clenched while at the same time, his thumb traced gentle circles on the inside of my wrist, my pulse dancing beneath his touch, I knew that whatever my intentions had been in coming over here tonight, there was no way I was walking out the door.
Not again.
“I wanted,” I said, my eyes dropping to his lips, watching as his breath rushed past in rapid puffs. He was breathing so hard, like the act of holding himself back was physically straining.
Feeling my resolve strengthen, I raised my gaze, meeting his as boldly as I had the night we’d met, and I spoke the words I’d always felt, but never admitted, not even to myself.
“I wantedyou.”
Chapter sixty-seven
Wren
Present
Hewasonmein a flash, his mouth covering mine as he kissed me with a fervor that bordered on desperation. He tasted like heat, the spice of the whiskey invading my senses as his tongue invaded my mouth. Needing to touch him, I brought up my free hand, wrapping it around his broad shoulders and roughly pulled him against me. I couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t connect us in enough ways to satisfy the insane need that was clawing at my insides.
Hawk must have felt the same, because he released my wrist only long enough to reach down with both hands and grip my ass, hauling me up and against him, groaning deep in his throat when my body dragged up the front of his, my sex brushing against the bulge in his jeans. Not wasting a second, Hawk started moving, carrying me down the hall in into what I knew to be the master bedroom, the layout of this house as familiar as my own. Once we were inside, Hawk kicked the door shut and then made for the bed, kneeling on it and moving us to the center before laying me down gently, my head on the pillow as he finally broke our kiss to gaze down at me.
“The number of times I’ve pictured this, Bird,” he said softly, his fingers stroking my hair where it fanned out around me. “You, laid out on my bed, your hair across my pillow. It’s like you’re a literal dream come true right now.”
Blinking, I did my best to hold back the rush of tears his words caused as my emotions swelled in my chest.
I couldn’t believe it; the things he was saying all seemed too good to be true. The idea that he’d spent just as many sleepless nights as I had, dreaming about what could have been if only things had been different. If only we’d met at a different time, under different circumstances.
I’d built up a million scenarios in my mind, each one as fantastical as the last, but none had ever involved Hawk looking at me the way he was now.
I’d imagined him cocky, yes, and even a bit arrogant, the way he always seemed on stage. But in the intervening years, I’d somehow convinced myself that the Hawk I’d met that night—the one who had shared music and stories and personal details with me—was just a figment of my imagination. I couldn’t let myself hope that he was real.
Because if he was real, then that made my situation even harder to bear.
No, it was much easier to imagine that I had had a one-night stand with an arrogant rock star and gotten a beautiful baby girl out of the deal.
Anything else was just too much to contemplate.
“I’ve dreamed about you, too,” I said, and the smile on his face lit up the room.
“Baby.” He leaned down to kiss me, the emotion pouring out of him feeling like a wave I was going to drown under. “Wren, I—I just—” Each word was punctuated with another kiss, over my cheeks and forehead, then down my neck where he started unbuttoning my blouse.
It wasn’t until he froze that I remembered the secret I’d hidden there earlier.
“Wren?” Hawk looked up at me, a confused frown on his face as he held the guitar pick up between us. “Baby, what is this?”
“It’s from that night,” I replied, rolling my lips together where they still tingled from his kisses. “It’s the one I played guitar with on the bus. After—um, after I left, Charlie followed me outside and gave it to me. Said that you’d want me to have it. He’d been pretty insistent, actually. So in exchange, I gave him my bracelet to give to you.” Bringing up my hand, I let my fingers tangle in the strands of leather he wore around his wrist, the carved pewter beads I’d placed on it looking softer with age. “I had something to remember you by.” I gestured to the pick with my chin. “So I wanted to make sure you had something, too.”
For a moment, he said nothing, only stared at me like he couldn’t figure me out, before wrapping his fist around the pick and pulling, the light tug on the leather causing me to lift my head off the pillow a little until our lips met in a tender kiss.
“I don’t deserve you,” he said, his breath fanning over my lips as he spoke. “Either of you. Or Charlie.” Releasing the necklace, he guided my head back down before he pressed his palm to my chest, right over my heart, trapping the guitar pick between us. “I truly don’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m not keeping you all.” He let a wicked smirk grow on his face before he continued. “I’m greedy like that.”
With those words, he pressed another kiss to my lips, then again over my heart before he continued farther down, his deft fingers unbuttoning my jeans and peeling them off, my panties too, until I was laying on his bed in nothing but my bra, glad I’d at least worn something cute. When Hawk stood and discarded his own jeans and shirt, I lifted up onto my elbows, once again struck by the sheer beauty of him.
His broad chest and thick arms looked so much more...manlythan the last time I’d seen him naked. He was fully a man now, mature and grown—the realization of the man his body had hinted at when I’d first met him—and the idea of having him this way had me rubbing my thighs together in anticipation.
“I see you, Bird,” he said, one hand trailing up the outside of my leg as he joined me again on the bed, his cock hard and proud before him. “And I know, baby, because I feel it, too.”
