They were always princes—they were always princes.
But what happens when they’re not princes? What if they’re a rock star—just one rock star—and we both want him for ourselves?
Chapter 48
It’s late when the bed stirs, and my mind is fuzzy from sleep when comforting arms wrap around me—big, strong arms that snake around my waist and pull me close.
“Mike?” I rasp as he nuzzles his nose into the crook of my shoulder, his stubble abrading my skin. I’m sure I must be dreaming . . . but I can feel him—his rough jeans against my bare legs, his hard chest molding against my back. I can smell him too—a familiar scent that makes my heart slam against my ribs as I turn in his arms. In the soft glow of a nightlight I brought from home, I find his warm brown eyes, and my breath catches in my lungs.
Mike smiles and tucks a long curl behind my ear.
“How are you here?” I whisper, a flood of emotion washing away my voice as my eyes begin to water.
“I told you I was coming home, didn’t I?”
At the warmth in his eyes and the soft curve of his smile, a sob escapes me, and Mike pulls me tighter against his chest. I grip the back of his T-shirt, terrified he’s going to disappear. “I told you not to,” I cry, holding him tight enough that I can feel his heart pounding against my cheek.
“Nothing you could have said would have kept me from you,” he promises, his chest rumbling against my ear, and quiet sobs escape me as I tremble in his arms. My body still aches from the crying I’ve done all day, and now a new wave of emotion racks me from the inside out.
Mike rubs my back. He kisses my hair. He hushes me as he picks up all of my broken pieces and tries to put them back together. It’s like he took my heart with him when he left, and now he’s put it back in my chest. In his arms, it can finally beat again.
It took him all day to fly here—I know, because I’ve spent countless hours these past few weeks looking up flights to wherever in the world he was, and I’ve daydreamed about being able to afford visiting him. Twenty hours to South Korea. Twenty-seven hours to Indonesia. Twenty-four hours to Australia.
Ten hours from London, not counting the time it must have taken him to purchase tickets, get through security, wait for his flight, drive home.
“How’d you know I was here?” I ask with my ear still pressed against his heartbeat.
“I didn’t,” he admits, trailing his fingers over my back. “I came home to change clothes, and then I was going to throw little rocks against your window or climb your lattice or something romantic.”
I smile against his shirt. “My room is on the ground floor.”
“Then I’m glad I found you in my bed,” Mike says, combing his fingers gently through my hair.
“What about your tour?” I ask as I let his closeness make the past five and a half weeks disappear. In this moment, nothing else matters—only that he’s here. That he’s holding me. That I can touch him. That I can feel him.
“I have to fly back in a few hours.”
I pull away far enough to look up at him, and he gazes down at me like he would have flown around the world a thousand times just to hold me like this. “You flew all day just to spend a few hours with me?”
Mike brushes another stray curl away from my face, his fingers threading into the hair behind my ear. “I would have flown all day just to spend a few minutes with you, Hailey.”
He brushes his thumb over my cheek, like he’s memorizing the softness of my skin, and his eyes scan my lips, my nose, my forehead, my chin—as though he’s checking to make sure I’m exactly as he remembers.
I don’t wait for him to finish searching my face before I kiss him. I shift on his mattress and touch my lips to his, and Mike’s fingers in my hair immediately pull me closer. My lips part, and my body melts against him as he unleashes five weeks’ worth of wanting into one slow, consuming, bone-melting kiss.
We should be talking. I should be making the most of the short time he has here. But instead, his leg is wedging between my thighs and I’m tugging him with me as I roll onto my back. I kiss him desperately, not letting either of us up for air, and the unguarded moan that escapes his mouth as I scratch my fingers over his scalp makes my whole body tremble with need. My hips lift to tempt him, and Mike’s hand slides down to catch the underside of my knee, hiking it up so that my leg is wrapped behind his back. He grips my ass, tugging me against the erection I’ve created, and I moan against his mouth as my core turns to molten lava. His lips drop to my neck, and he lavishes the column of my throat with satin kisses that threaten to make me erupt. All I want is for my clothes to disappear, for my skin to blaze against the heat of his body.
Mike’s hand is greedy against my silk shorts, kneading my ass as he makes my panties wet for him. I’m falling apart, and all he’s done is touch me over my clothes.
“Mike,” I beg, and he doesn’t hesitate to give me what I want. His fingers slide up to hook in the waistbands of my shorts and panties, and he tugs them off in one easy movement. His finger slides down through my slick heat, and his mouth claims the gasp that bursts from my lips.
“Is this what you need, baby?” Mike asks as he traces circles around my tight bundle of nerves. It feels like every one of my cells is reaching out to him, begging for his attention, begging to be touched. “Tell me, Hailey,” he gently demands. “I flew across an ocean to take care of you, but you need to tell me what you need.”
“Yes,” I groan, my fingers sinking into the firm muscles of his back. My entire body feels wound too tight, and with every circle Mike draws around my pulsing bud, I wind tighter and tighter and tighter.
“Say it,” he whispers in my ear, and my toes curl beneath his sheets.
“I need you. I need you to touch me.”
Mike gently pinches me between his wet fingertips, stroking me delicately with every slick pinch. My knees begin to quake, and he settles beside me, using his heavy jean-clad leg to pin my right knee to the bed, leaving me open and exposed. “What else?” he says, his warm breath fanning over my ear as he touches and strokes and teases, readying me for him.
“I need you inside me,” I whimper as he drives my body to the edge. I’m teetering on a cliff, clinging to him even as I beg him to push me off it.
Mike presses soft, warm kisses below my ear as he continues priming me, and I can’t help the sounds I make for him. Desperate moans, tiny whimpers, sharp gasps of pleasure. His tongue traces down to the hollow of my collarbone, and my eyes roll back in my head, my muscles aching with tension.