Refrain (Soul Series Book 3) (4 page)

“Kai’s not girls, and she was pretty irritated with me last night.”

“Well, you go to a strip club, tell her you’re coming home a day late and don’t tell her why.” Gep’s mountainous shoulders lift and fall. “Go figure.”

“It’ll work out.” I smile just a little despite the traffic slowing us down. “She’ll see tomorrow. The flowers are for tonight.”

Because tonight, I’m sleeping with my girl. Exhaustion tugs my shoulders down. The motion of the car practically lulls me to sleep. No world tour, however grueling, could prepare me for the nonstop demand of building a record label from the ground up. But I don’t care how tired I am, before I give in to sleep I’ll satisfy this itch, this agitation that’s been burning just beneath my skin for days. Yes, to be inside of Kai, but it’s deeper than that. It means more than that. She has become my constant urge, and being away from her this long makes me physically ache.

I absently massage the small, but persistent pain in my right hand. The experts keep telling me it should be fine and pain-free, and that I won’t be able to tell the difference once I start playing again. Only it hasn’t stopped hurting and I haven’t played. Not in public at least. Even when I play alone, I’m afraid it sounds . . . different than before. If I hear it, won’t everyone else?

“We’re here.” Gep twists from the front seat to scan my face in the light from my driveway floodlights.

I drag both hands over my face and nod, grabbing the wild flowers that seemed perfect at the airport but now seem silly. At the rear of the SUV, I pull my bag out and wave off Gep’s offer to take it inside.

“I’m good.” I offer a weary salute and a wearier smile. “See you tomorrow.”

“Morning?” Gep’s eyebrows scoot up his forehead to the edge of his buzz cut.

“Nah.” I start toward the house, flipping my suitcase to its wheels and dragging it behind me. “We’ll sleep in. I have one appointment, but I’d prefer to handle that alone.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine in the morning. Tomorrow night, you and the rest of the team should be enough. I think you already have the details.”

“Good enough.” He climbs back in and gives me one final nod. “She’ll love the flowers.”

I roll my eyes and haul the bag inside, the sound of the SUV pulling off the last I hear of Gep. The house is completely still like an undrawn breath, the wide foyer floor spotless. The faint scent of the cleaner Sarita uses lingers in the air. I’m too tired to drag my heavy bag up the staircase so I leave it at the bottom step. I’ll get it before Sarita arrives and takes it upon herself to move it, but right now, I just can’t.

The first thing I notice when I enter our room is the lingerie laid out on the bed. One of the vibrantly colored sets I brought home for Kai a few weeks ago. Alternatives to her footed Jackson Five pajamas. She’s never worn the flimsy piece, but my dick stiffens behind my zipper as I imagine Kai’s tight, curvy body caged in the decadent cups and strips of silk.

“Kai?”

I glance around the empty room, knowing I’m not overlooking her, but needing to call her name. I step into the spacious closet, the sight of her things still populating one half of it diffusing my mild and irrational panic. I’m just about to head downstairs and check the music room when the smell of pear and cinnamon invades the air around me, wafting from the bathroom.

I lean against the bathroom doorjamb and savor the sight of Kai stretched out in the bathtub, candles lit around its edge. Most of the bubbles have dissolved, and her nipples peekaboo through the skimpy suds. A thick, bound manuscript of some sort is propped on her stomach, submerged in the water. Her head rests on a bath pillow behind her, and her small feet don’t even reach the other end of the tub but disappear under a delicate mound of leftover bubbles.

I just take her in. After more than a week apart, this first moment all I want to do is look at her. Reassure myself that she’s real. That we’ve weathered all the storms so far, mostly of our own making, and she really does live here with me. She really does sleep in my bed. She really is mine.

Wet hair slicks back from her face, exposing the curve of her cheekbones and the dark slash of her thick eyebrows. Her chest lifts almost imperceptibly with slumbered breaths.

My practical mind tells me that I’m as tired as she probably is after Marlon’s shoot. I should just scoop her up, dress her in one of her vintage nightshirts, cuddle, and call it a night. My heart softens at the picture of exhaustion she makes. But my mind and my heart aren’t the only ones with a vote. It’s a decision by committee, and apparently my dick is the chairman of the board because I’m toeing off my shoes, dropping my jeans and peeling my t-shirt over my head before I can guilt myself out of having what I’ve been craving for days.

I told her I’d fuck her where I found her. I’m nothing if not a man of my word. I flick the lever to drain the water. The sound causes Kai’s eyelids to flutter, the arc of sooty lashes casting shadows under her eyes.

“Rhys?” Her eyes widen a little before a smile blossoms on her face.

“Hey, honey.” I pull down my boxers and free my erection. “I’m home.”

She glances between my face and my dick like she’s not sure which she should kiss first. Her breath quickens. The slow drag of her tongue across her lips mesmerizes me. I step into the tub, naked and hard.

“What are you doing?” She sits up, plucking the soggy script from the water and dropping it to the bath rug.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I told you I was fucking you where I found you.”

“Rhyson, not in here. I actually have lingerie this time.” Kai puts her elbow on the tub, leveraging herself to stand. “Let me—”

“Nope. This is where I found you.”

I lift her so I can slide into the space she occupied, and then settle her over my legs. Her thighs slide across me, wet and firm and slick, as she adjusts herself more comfortably.

“Just let me look at you for a minute, Pep.”

She stops squirming, going still above me, resting her forearms against my chest and shaping her hands to either side of my neck, her thumbs wandering over my eyebrows and lips. I press a hand between her shoulder blades until her breasts rest against me and her heart trebles into my chest. Our eyes lock, and for the first time, the agitation eases. That burning urge that’s had me jerking off three times a day quiets even though we’re still not fucking. Of course, I’ve missed making love to my girl, but this is what I really needed. The mere physical wasn’t what my body, my heart was calling out for. It was this. The closeness of her breath misting my lips. Of her forehead resting against mine. I haven’t pierced her flesh, but I’m already inside of her in the way that truly counts, already occupying her soul. There is no greater intimacy than this moment we’ve wrapped each other inside of, unable, unwilling to look away. I barely breathe I’m so afraid I’ll shatter this rare, fragile bubble we’ve blown for ourselves. In so many ways, beyond these walls, I have the world at my feet, but the sum of my desires is in this bathtub. Naked and content and just the two of us.

“Let’s not ever lose this, okay?” she whispers, rubbing our noses together and brushing her lips across mine. “Promise me.”

“I’m going to spend the rest of my life loving you.” I reach up to caress the fullness of her mouth, stained red from the heat and steam of her bath. “That’s a promise.”

Something flicks across her face. Uncertainty? A question?

“What is it?” I lift her chin to study her face straight on, to see if I can catch that expression again. Get to the bottom of it.

“Nothing.” She glances down at the space between our bodies and then up at me, a bit of humor bending her lips into a smile. “You just promised to fuck me where you found me, and so far, you’re not doing a very good job of it.”

I push the heavy wet hair back so I can see the golden skin of her shoulders and breasts. My hands curve at her hips, lifting her until her nipples hover at my mouth.

“Where do you want me to start?” I breathe the words over the tight, raspberry tips of her breasts.

Her throat works in a convulsive swallow before the words tumble past her lips in a heavy rasp.

“My breasts.” She closes her eyes. “Please, Rhys.”

“Look at me.” I wait until her eyes open and fix on me again. “I will, but you have to watch.”

My eyes sear into hers as I pull one nipple into my mouth. Damn, it’s good. I pull it deeper, capturing as much of her breast as my mouth can hold. I’m not gentle. She doesn’t want me to be. Hearing the rough suction of my lips around her only makes me harder. I could come from this. Just from suckling her breasts and from the motion of her hips moving restlessly against me and seeking the same relief in me that I seek in her. She’s spread over me, her wet thighs splayed across mine, but I still haven’t entered her. Her eyes never leave my lips latched around first one breast and then the other, arousal lengthening her nipples. Her mouth falls open, a moan wrenching from her throat, and her fingers dissolve into my hair.

“Oh, God, Rhyson. I’m so ready. Right now. Please.”

I ignore her pleas, leaning into her so my lips brush the pillowed flesh of her earlobe.

“Now where do you want my fingers, Pep?”

She shudders against me, rising up as if she plans to connect us, like she’ll take it if I won’t give it to her. I push her gently back.

“Not yet, baby. Tell me where I should put my fingers.”

“Touch me.” She briefly squeezes her eyes shut before looking back to me, passion swallowing the irises into a dark pool. “Just touch me.”

“Where?” My hands tremble with the promise of bathing my fingers in her body’s juices. “Where should I touch you?”

She swallows again, lowering her lashes before looking back to me, desire boldly shining from her eyes.

“My pussy. I want your fingers in my pussy.”

“Fuck yes,” I choke out, slipping two fingers between the thick, slick lips, sliding them up and down until she’s dripping for me. My thumb searches out her clit, wet with longing, while my two fingers thrust relentlessly inside of her. “Like that?”

She nods jerkily, her breath stuttering. My fingers fuck her until they’re lost in the slippery flesh. Her hips become frantic over my hand.

“Can you take another?” I don’t wait for her response before pushing a third finger inside.

“Ahh, yes.” Her back concaves, breasts thrusting into my chest. I bend to recapture a nipple, suckling and biting until I know she’ll wear my marks the next day, but she doesn’t complain. She pleads for more. For me to never stop. She reaches between us, wrapping her small hand around my cock, tugging gently, rubbing her thumb over the head until it’s damp and swollen.

“Is this mine, Rhyson?”

I jerk in her hands, heat crawling up my legs and seething in my balls. I don’t know what arouses me more. The sure, firm motion of her hand, or the possession of her words. The way her eyes claim me.

“You know it is, Pep. Every inch is yours.” I don’t just mean every inch of my cock. I mean every inch of my body. Every acre of my heart. Every ounce of my soul, poured out like an offering for her to do with as she pleases.

“If it’s mine, then I can have it whenever I want, right?” She tightens her thighs around mine, suspends herself over me. “Am I right, Rhys?”

“Whenever you want, Pep.” I groan into the satiny scented skin of her neck, biting gently. “Dammit, take it now.”

And she does. She slides onto me, a scalding clasp of flesh. That first thrust steals our breath at the same time, pounds our hearts together, twines our souls into one accord. Rising, falling, she milks me with tight, shallow pumps, her movements barely perceptible, but rippling through me. She captivates me with the tiniest undulation of her hips and takes me so deep I’m sure I’ll come out on the other side of her.

Her nails claw into my scalp, stirring a sharp pain into the bliss. She digs her fingers into my shoulders, gripping to hold on as I thrust into this tight, slick fantasy. I piston up and into her with enough force to break her, but she clutches me. Clings to me.

I don’t want to come. I want to fuck her infinitely. If I could seal us in this moment, preserve it in amber, I would. I’m not just inside her body. We inhabit each other’s souls. And this thing watering her eyes, clogging my throat, clamping my chest, it’s more than emotion, more than a feeling that could fail or flee. It’s the most precious thing I’ve ever had. If this is light, it’s blinding until she is all I see. If this is sound, it’s music. We are the verse, we are the chorus. And as we come together, her cries harmonizing with mine, this love resounds. It’s loud; so deafeningly loud that all I hear is her. And all she hears is me. We are our own refrain.