Chapter 7

Melody

It's nearly three in the afternoon before Hayes comes back to our hotel suite. He looks pretty haggard and while I'm still hurt that he couldn't just tell me he'd changed his mind about us, I'm immediately concerned.

"You look like hell. Are you okay?"

His eyes dart to Zeke, sitting on the couch cushion where Hayes normally sits.

Hayes points at him. "You! Out!"

Zeke chuckles and shakes his head. "Thanks for lunch and introducing me to that show," he says to me. Then he walks out of his way to avoid getting close to Hayes. "Grumpy fucker," he mutters as he walks out the door.

My beleaguered body guard comes over to the sofa and drops down beside me. "It was a long night."

I eye him suspiciously. He's still wearing what he had on last night when he left me.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" he asks.

"I was just thinking this has got to be the weirdest walk of shame." I want to yell at him and pound on his chest and demand he tell me where he was all night. But I don't have the right. Just yesterday I told him he needed to take some time off.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Mel? Where do you think I went after I left you?"

I shrug and do my best to appear nonchalant. "I have no idea."

"The police station."

I suck in a breath and nearly choke on my own saliva. "Did you get arrested? Why didn't you call me? I would have come with bail money."

He stares at me, those sultry brown eyes of his locked on my face. Then he laughs.

Like the kind of deep belly laugh that makes you feel like you've done sit-ups the next day. I poke him in his side. "What is so funny?"

He wipes at his eyes. "You, beautiful. You're funny. And talented and gorgeous and so incredibly sexy and you have one hell of an imagination on you."

I feel like I might have emotional whiplash. Is that a thing? Because the unending question of what Hayes and I are to each other is still left in the air.

"Okay, I take it you weren't arrested," I say, crossing my arms over my chest.

"No, I wasn't arrested. But that creep from the concert last night was. He has a history of sexual assault and stalking and he'd been one of your most frequent visitor to your DM's. Once the cops figured out that he was messaging you from more than one account."

"Wow. I guess I shouldn't be that upset you've been hiding those things from me." I roll my eyes. "I was being ridiculous last night, whining about not getting enough attention from admirers."

"Had I known that's what you'd end up thinking—that you're undesirable—I never would have started deleting them. I didn't mean to make you doubt yourself."

"So you were at the police station all night, for me? Working for me?"

He nods. "Come here." He wraps an arm around me, pulling me into an embrace. "You have no idea how much I hated leaving you last night. Especially last night."

My heart is thundering, and maybe I don't want to know the real answer, but I can't NOT know. "Guess our moment passed, huh?"

He leans back. "What?"

Okay, I didn't actually ask before so now I've got to pull up my big girl panties and rip off the band aid. Yeah, that's a mixed up metaphor but whatever. "Last night. I don't want to assume it meant anything more than what it was."

I don't even realize I'm crying until he swipes a thumb across my cheek. "Hey, sweetheart, what is it?"

"You left and said you were coming back. Then you didn't and Zeke was here and I guess my mind went to all the negative places."

"You thought I didn't want you?"

I shrug, giving him a watery smile.

"Nothing could be further from the truth." He leans over and kisses my cheeks, effectively kissing away my tears. "The entire time I've known you, I've fought my attraction to you. I told myself that as long as I was close to you, that it would be enough. Last night proved to me, nothing will ever be enough with you. I'm sorry that I hid all those things from you and made you doubt yourself. But I want to be the one to write love notes to you. I want to be the one that gives you flowers, and I want to be the one that's in your bed. Not just one night. All of the nights. Melody, you're it for me."

"I want all of your nights too. I always have."

He stands and grabs my hand, pulling me to him. "Can we pick up where we left off last night?"

I nod enthusiastically.

He stops once we get to my bedroom. "I should probably shower first."

"No. I don't want to wait any longer. I want us to be together, Hayes. I want to belong to you."

We kiss, standing at the foot of the bed. How he manages to soak my panties with a single swipe of his tongue is a mystery.

He pulls back. "Before we continue, you need to know something," he says.

"Okay."

"I want to make sure you understand me one-hundred percent so we don't have any more miscommunications or doubts."

I nod.

"Once we do this, once you let me have you, that's it. We're stuck together for life. I'm an all-in kind of guy, and Mel, I've been all in with you from day one."

I guess Hollywood didn't lie after all. "I understand and I want that very much."

"Excellent. Get naked and get on the bed."

"Bossy," I say.

But I still follow his instructions, shimmying out of my PJ shorts and panties and toss them, but he catches them. He lets the shorts fall to the floor, then he's bringing my simple cotton panties to his nose and inhaling.

"W-w-why is that so hot?"

"Because we've wanted each other for so long and we fucking belong together."

Once I'm naked, I crawl up on the bed and lay down completely exposed to him. I'm not hiding one curve, one dimple, one lump or pooch or roll or anything. I believe Hayes, he wants me. Just the way I am.

I lean up on my elbows and watch him as he does that man thing–pulling off his shirt by reaching behind his neck. Up and over it goes, and then holy juice boxes, he's shirtless.

And gorgeous.

Which, of course, I knew he would be. But the muscular torso he just revealed is any woman's fantasy. I'm trying to decide which I like best, the chest hair that tapers into a thin line that points downward, or the neat little boxes of his ab muscles, but then he unbuttons his jeans. He hisses when he lowers his zipper, then kicks off the offending fabric.

His tight boxer briefs highlight the size of his tree trunk-sized thighs. Yet they do nothing to hide his hard length.

"You keep looking at me like that and this is going to be over a lot faster than I'd like," he says. He reaches into his boxers and grips his dick. "Spread those creamy thighs, beautiful. Let me look at you."

His boxers come all the way off and then he's gloriously naked in front of me, fisting his erection.

"Now spread those legs like a good girl and let me see what's mine."

His dirty mouth and bossy words are working overtime on my arousal. I'm pretty sure I'm leaking on the bed at this point. But I do what I'm told and spread my thighs.

"So pretty and pink. And you're glistening with need for me." He comes closer to the bed, that hand of his casually jacking his dick.

This is a side of Hayes I've never seen before, but the abandon with which he wants me loosens any remaining inhibitions. I open my arms to him too, and he braces one knee on the bed.

"I want to lick you. Taste you as you come on my tongue."

"That sounds amazing. But I want you right now. Here with me, eye to eye, as you make love to me for the first time."

His smile is tender and so full of love my heart nearly bursts. Then he climbs on top of me, his hips notching between my thighs.

"I meant what I said. You're it. I'm so wildly in love with you."

"I'm in love with you too." I lift my legs, wrapping them around the lower half of his body. The heavy weight of his dick presses against my folds. "Please, I need you inside of me."

"Fuck, beautiful girl, you undo me." He positions himself at my entrance and then surges all the way into the hilt.

We both moan at the connection.

His eyes lock with mine. I wrap my arms around his back.

Then he starts to move.

Everything inside me lights up as he hits all the right places.

"Oh wow," I say.

"You feel so damn good it's a miracle I didn't come immediately. You're so hot and slick and tight. This pussy belongs to me."

"Yes. All of me, take all of me."

And he does, thrusting in and out of me at a pace that is perfect for my building orgasm.

"Hayes," I breathe.

"Yeah, baby, I know. I feel it too."

With every pump of his hips, the root of his dick presses against my clit. Then the head of his cock rubs over my G-spot. This man lights me up like a Christmas tree.

"You're better than all of my toys combined."

He barks out a short laugh. "I did not need to know about your toys right now. I'm trying to wait for you to come."

Then it's there, I'm so close, I can taste it.

"Come with me," I say.

My orgasm rocks through me and he follows me over the edge, chanting my name again and again.

"I love you," he says. Then he pulls out and disappears into the bathroom. A few seconds later, he's walking toward me looking like my wildest fantasy. He cleans me up with a warm, damp cloth, then crawls into the bed next to me.

He pulls me to him, and I snuggle in, my head on his chest. He smells so good here. I press my nose against his skin and breathe in.

"Are you sniffing me?"

"Yes I am."

He chuckles. "Carry on." He kisses the top of my head. "You know what this means, don't you?"

"What's that?"

"Now all the songs you write have to be about me."

"They always have been."