It Must Be Your Love: The Sullivans (26 page)

“Damn,” he said as he took a long, hot look, “you’re pretty.”

She ogled his shoulders and chest in his wet T-shirt just as he’d been drooling over her. “Right back at you, rock star.”

Their eyes met and both of them instantly understood that they were teetering on the edge of a precipice. Either they both had to agree to jump over it together tonight...or they had to back away completely.

A week ago, he wouldn’t have thought twice about taking advantage of the softness in her eyes or the hot press of her body against him. But now he knew he’d never forgive himself if he pushed her a step further than she was ready to go on her own.

Fortunately, both of their stomachs grumbled at the same time. “How about we go dry off and finally get to that pizza?”

She put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him before saying, “You should probably prepare yourself, because I think my dress has gone completely see-through.” She leaned in to whisper in his ear. “And I’m not wearing anything under it.”

She kicked out of his arms and swam to the edge, the wet, translucent fabric clinging to every inch of her perfect body as she got out and headed inside his house. By the time he’d worked to get his erection to go down at least a teeny tiny bit—to no avail—and followed her wet path upstairs, she was standing in his bedroom wearing one of his T-shirts and a pair of his jeans.

She’d knotted the gray cotton T-shirt at her waist and had his jeans folded over at least two times at the waist and at the hems. She looked like a little girl playing dress-up, and though his T-shirt and jeans hid nearly all of her curves, Ford knew he’d never seen anything more beautiful in all his life.

All he’d been thinking about was winning her back.

He hadn’t realized that she’d help him heal his past, too, by making it stop hurting.

She tossed him a towel, but she wasn’t looking at him, she was staring in dismay at the growing puddle at his feet. “As a seller of fine homes,” she said with a little grimace, “I just can’t stand leaving the floors wet like this. It drives my parents and brothers crazy, but I can’t help it.” She skidded along the floor with a towel beneath each foot and wiped it clean as he dried off and changed out of his wet clothes.

A short while later, he found her sitting on the couch with the TV remote in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. “The pizza’s cold,” she informed him right before shoving the huge slice into her mouth. Around pepperoni and black olives, she said, “Good thing I’ve always liked it better that way.”

And as he settled next to her and they began a spirited debate over which movie they should watch, Ford knew with absolute certainty that playing stadiums and flying around the world in private jets to meet royalty had absolutely nothing on hanging on his couch with his girl to watch the positively terrible movie he was going to let her insist they see.

* * *

Full from the large pizza and the bottles of beer that had been, rather predictably, the only thing in Ford’s enormous state-of-the-art fridge, Mia easily settled into his arms. They were both suffering their way through a movie she’d known was going to be a total joke, but had wanted to see anyway because she couldn’t deal with anything emotional or thought-provoking right now. Fart jokes and characters falling down for no reason whatsoever were her limit tonight.

Ford had obviously thrown the two of them into the pool to try to erase their confrontation with his parents. But even though he made her laugh at his ongoing commentary that was way funnier than anything in the movie—and though having been slippery and wet against him in the pool had made her
want
, just like always—all the while her heart ached for him.

A week ago she’d thought she hated him. But tonight, what she felt for Ford was so far from hate that all she could focus on, as the movie on the large TV screen blurred before her, was what she could possibly do to help heal his wounds.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she was surprised when Ford pressed a kiss to her forehead and said, “I never knew a blank screen could be so riveting.” Startled that she’d missed not only the end of the movie, but also the fact that he’d turned off the TV entirely, she came back to him on the couch.

“Sorry. I—”

God, she couldn’t tell him what she’d actually been thinking. She had four brothers and knew exactly how sensitive their pride could be. The last thing she wanted Ford to think was that she pitied him in any way. On the contrary, she could see just how strong he was now.

Everything she’d achieved had been with the full support of her parents and family.

Everything he’d achieved had been despite his parents’ disappointment.

The ache intensified as she shifted in his arms so that she could put hers around his neck and snuggle closer. “I’m just tired. And your couch is really comfortable.”

It would be so easy to convince Ford to make love with her tonight, to help heal both of them by taking away everything that hurt with pleasure. But even though she was close to grasping at any reason at all to be with him, after waiting this long she knew she wanted their first time together again to be full of love.

And only love.

“I know you have your big show on Saturday night,” she said slowly as he stroked her hair and she let herself sink even more fully into his strength and warmth, “and I know you’re probably going to be really busy until then, but once a month my parents put on a Friday night dinner and—”

“Yes.” He tugged her tighter, so tight her breath caught in her compressed chest. “I’d love to come to dinner at your parents’ house.”

The ache for him was still there inside her heart, but suddenly, so was joy. She smiled as she said, “A couple of my brothers will probably be there, too. They’re both fans of yours. At least, they were. Because after they find out you’re dating their sister...”

He grinned back at her, but she was pretty sure she could see that same ache behind his beautiful smile. “Whatever it takes to win them and your parents over, I’ll do it.”

“No.” Her response was fierce. “You can’t change who you are for anyone. Promise me you’ll just be yourself, egomaniac rock star and all.”

His promise came as the sweetest kiss he’d ever given her, one that spiraled out and out and out into more and more pleasure with every breath they took from one another. She wanted to surrender all of herself to him, and she wanted to demand every part of him. She wanted to completely lose herself in him, in the wild pleasure of naked skin against naked skin, in whispered promises of never-ending pleasure that came true over and over again.

Soon
, she knew deep within herself. Soon, they’d make love. Not just because their bodies would demand it, but because their hearts wouldn’t let them hold back another moment.

Which, amazingly, made the sweetness before the sinning even sweeter.

So even though she knew she’d be aching and desperate for Ford by the time he dropped her off at her condo, she relished every single second of making out on the couch with the friend that she was falling head over heels for...

Chapter Twenty-seven

Walking up the brick path that led to her parents’ front door on Friday night, Mia slipped her hand into Ford’s. He was holding a huge bouquet of roses in his other hand, one she knew her mother was going to go nuts over.

“I’ve never brought anyone to meet my family before,” she told him, her throat tight with emotion.

Just then, her father opened the front door and said, “Pumpkin, you’re here.” He drew her in for a long hug, as though it had been far longer than one week since she’d seen him at the wedding. By the time Mia squeaked, “Daddy,” her mother was wrapping her into a hug, too. As always, she was comforted by the familiar smell of the lemon-scented shampoo her mother had used for as long as she could remember. Mia had always thought of herself as an independent woman, but the truth was that when she went more than a handful of weeks without seeing her parents and brothers, she started to feel a little lost.

“I’d like to introduce you to my friend Ford.” Upon hearing the word
friend
, Ford squeezed her hand. “Actually,” she said, needing them to know, “he’s my friend
and
my boyfriend.”

She almost felt like a teenager again. Somehow, despite everything she and Ford had done already in bed years ago, all their long kisses goodnight this week had given a surprising innocence to their current relationship.

Ford shook her mother’s and father’s hands. “It’s great to finally meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan. You raised an amazing daughter.”

Just as she’d expected, Mia could see that her father was going to take a while to make up his mind about the rock star who was trying to claim his daughter’s heart, but her mother was immediately charmed. “It’s lovely to meet you, too, Ford. And Mia is the best daughter I could ever have hoped for.”

“Right back at you, Mom.”

Her mother went to put the flowers in a vase and her father was heading into the kitchen to grab a beer out of the fridge when her brother Adam walked in the front door.

“Hey, Mia.” He kissed her on the top of her head, but he was looking out the front window to the curb. “Looks like some high roller moved into the neighborhood with his fancy c—”

He cut the word short when he finally realized Ford was standing beside her. Mia nearly giggled at the look of utter surprise as her brother came unexpectedly face to face with his musical hero in his parents’ house...especially when he looked down and saw that Mia was holding Ford’s hand.

“Adam,” Mia said, “I don’t believe you met Ford at Marcus and Nicola’s wedding. Ford, this is my second oldest brother.”

“It’s great to finally meet you,” Ford said in an easy voice.

But instead of reaching out to shake Ford’s hand, Mia could see the wheels in her brother’s head turning as he looked between them, once, then twice. “You two met at the wedding last weekend?”

“Nope,” Mia said with a cheerful smile as she slid her arm around Ford and leaned into him. “We met five years ago. You know the story, young foolish love and all that. But we didn’t see each other again until a couple of days before the wedding, when Ford hired me to find him a house in Seattle.”

Given how freaked out she’d been by being with Ford at the wedding, introducing him to her family a week later was surprisingly fun. It was amazing what a difference a week could make.

Then again, wasn’t a week with Ford all it had taken to change everything inside her heart five years ago, too?

“Five years ago? Young love?”
Poor Adam looked like he was going to pop a vein. “What the hell, Mia? We’ve heard his songs on the radio a thousand times and you never once mentioned that you knew him.”

“I’m sorry that I didn’t. But the past doesn’t matter,” Mia told her brother. And she meant it. “All you need to know is that we’re together now.”

Given the heated—and borderline deadly—glare Adam gave Ford at that point, Mia realized that her brother had completely put aside his appreciation of Ford’s music in favor of protecting her.

Right then, the side door into the kitchen slammed, and she knew Dylan had arrived. He skidded to a halt in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room when he saw Ford standing there. Looking like he’d just come off the water, Dylan looked back and forth between Mia and Ford with a frown that deepened more with every pass.

“Ford, this is my brother Dylan. Dylan, this is my—”

“Boyfriend,” Adam growled from behind her.

Her big, tough sailor brother looked like he was going to swallow his tongue. “
He
is
your
boyfriend?”

“Wow,” she said with a laugh, “glad to know you think I’m such a prize.”

“Jesus, Mia, that’s not it. You’re great. But he’s—”

“A goddamned rock star,” Adam filled in again.

“If either of you want to take a few swings at me to get them out of your system,” Ford offered, “I’m game.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she told Ford before turning her glare on her brothers. “I’m sure my overprotective brothers can find it in themselves to trust their sister to have
some
taste—and to wait to bring home a man until she found one that was worth it. Right, boys?”

Dylan folded first. “I gotta get a beer.” But before he could escape, her father came in with enough cold bottles for everyone.

As Adam downed his first one in a long, clearly irritated gulp, Mia said to Ford, “Let’s go see if my mom needs some help.”

“Mrs. Sullivan,” Ford said as they walked into the kitchen, “everything smells great.”

“Call me Claudia, please.”

Mia couldn’t resist reaching into the salad bowl to pull out a candied walnut. “Here, taste this. She roasts them herself.”

Ford made a sound that told both Mia and her mother just how good he thought the small sugared nut tasted. “Claudia, what can I help with?”

“Why don’t you and Mia finish setting the table?”

One week ago, Mia had called Ford a self-centered egomaniac. Now, she knew there wasn’t one inch of Ford that was a rock star prima donna who expected to sit back and be served. On the contrary, Mia got the sense that he really enjoyed putting the colorful plates and pretty blown-glass tumblers on the table.

Adam scowled as he wandered past, and Mia decided she’d better deal with him before he pushed her so far that she’d have to leap across the dinner table to slug some sense back into him.

“I’ve got that thing in the car for you, Adam.”

“Thing? What thing?” But he followed her out the front door.

“This thing.” She hit his upper arm hard enough that he winced. “That’s for being a jerk to my guest. Up until fifteen minutes ago, you were Ford’s biggest fan.”

“That was before I knew he was screwing around with my sister.”