“Love you the most,” he said through that giddy grin.
I let my smile bleed free. Nah. Not even close. But I’d give him that. I kissed his forehead again. “Sleep tight. See you in the morning.”
I crossed his room, flipping the light switch, leaving his door open a crack.
Drawn, I headed toward our room. Knowing she was there. She stood just outside the balcony doors, looking out over the city blinking up at us from below. Black hair blowing in the breeze.
This girl so fucking gorgeous, she turned my heart and ripped my gut, brought me to my knees.
Owned.
Should have known it the first time I saw her.
But sometimes those leading lessons are needed.
Required so we get just how important one person can be.
So we understand they were meant to be.
Just thanked my lucky damned stars she’d agreed.
Things with Sunder had gotten…crazy. The band had gotten bigger than we ever could have dreamed. Had known it’d been coming for a long damned time, but Sebastian finally stepped down a little more than a year ago.
Couldn’t hardly blame the guy. The time he wanted with his family was not time he wanted to spend on the road. But he hadn’t left us entirely. He’d purchased Anthony’s place out on Tybee Island, recording studio already intact, and had turned his talent to producing. Mostly he worked with us, but he had a few other bands that wanted to record away from the fast pace of the city.
Nah.
I didn’t step up and take his place. Truth was, I didn’t want to lead. That role? It belonged to someone else. Someone I’d put down bets had belonged there all along.
Blue and I kept a house in Savannah, too.
But we mostly hung in L.A., being closer to her family, closer to mine, and what mattered more than anything was this was Brendon’s home. Of course, Tamar had never minded jumping on a plane and traveling with me, the girl all too eager to get out on the floor and get lost in the music.
Guess this girl was my biggest fan.
She never went anywhere without that camera. Her inspiration found every day. Everywhere. In the way she looked at the world.
With the baby coming in just a few weeks, things had to change. Knew she couldn’t simply up and leave whenever she wanted.
But I’d been wrong.
Faulty in thinking I couldn’t have a family and Sunder, too.
Because this girl had given me it all. My dreams. Playing. Making music. Loving her.
I got them both.
I got it all.
I edged up behind her and gathered her up, her back pressing to my chest, her belly in my hands.
I held them.
Protective.
Possessive.
That baby girl jumped and kicked.
Fuck.
I was so in love. Couldn’t wait to hold her in my arms. To do it right.
I nuzzled my nose into Blue’s hair. “Hey, baby.”
She sighed, a sound so content it wrung me through.
“You know what it does to me? Finding you standing out here like this? Lookin’ like my favorite fantasy?”
She giggled. “Hardly.”
But that’s where this girl was wrong.
She was everything I liked.
Everything I wanted.
Just touching her, my dick was already hard. Needing to touch. Explore. Feel. Take this girl because she was mine.
So damned deliciously hot.
Lust-inducing and heart-inspiring.
She was every single thing I’d had no clue I was going to need.
My lips caressed her temple. “You’re so damned beautiful. So sexy. Wanna spend my life buried in you.”
She giggled again, but this time it was a seductive sound. “What do you mean, want? Pretty sure you’re giving that a good go.”
A soft chuckle rumbled from my chest. “Can you blame me?”
She snuggled deeper into my hold. “How’d we get this life?”
I held her a little closer. God, she smelled so good, all cinnamon and spice with a dash of sweet.
“Think we were just meant to be. From the second I saw you, there was something pulling at me. Everywhere. Not sure I could have ever stayed away. Feel like one way or another, I would have found you.”
Her voice was wistful. “Or I would have found you.”
My lips caressed along the delicate slope of her neck. “Because you would have heard me calling…didn’t even know you, and already you were written in my songs.”
She threaded her fingers through mine, the words stamped across my knuckles on display where our clamped hands were pressed against her chest.
Sing my soul.
I’d thought it a curse.
Loving someone. Just making yourself susceptible to heartache and sorrow and pain.
All the burdened bullshit I could no longer bear.
“And I always would have heard you,” she murmured into the night.
But loving her?
This girl?
She eased all the pain.
Erased that overwhelming sorrow.
Filled up the hollow void.
Showed me how to live.
Once I’d thought her the worst kind of temptation. Destruction and blinding light. The kind of girl who could wreck every last thing I believed.
Blue…
Guess she was.
Temptation.
She’d tempted me to live.
Now, I was gonna spend this life living it for her.