CHAPTER 72 (2)

I've been telling myself everything will be fine after my conversation with Zeke, but the nerves won't go away.

At first, I was drawn into conversations with friends and strangers as Jacob introduced me around, deciding I should screen-test for his show. Now I wander through the house, looking for the bathroom.

One door I find is closed with a light under it. There must be another on this floor.

On the other side of the kitchen and down a hall, I spot a second closed door. A yapping at my feet has me looking down to find Ernie, who paws at the door.

"What's wrong?" I ask, bending to pat him, hoping his smooth fur will ease the knot in my stomach. It doesn't. "Where's Jacob?"

He trots off with a sigh, and I straighten, reaching for the handle and turning it slowly.

I pull it open to reveal a surprisingly occupied coat closet.

"Timothy?!"

"Shut the door." He reaches past me to do it for me, pulling me into the closet with him and drowning us in darkness except for the light from his phone screen.

He's hunched so his head doesn't hit the bar in the middle, and I have to duck a little in my heels too.

"Wait for it," he says, his face still handsome in the ghostly light.

Then the dog is back, scratching at the door.

My lips twitch. "You're hiding from Ernie?"

"Not hiding. Avoiding." But Timothy smiles too, and the tightness in my stomach eases. I can't help laughing, and he leans in, resting his forehead against mine. "It's not that funny."

"Yeah, it is."

We're close, our breaths mingling in the tiny closet. Timothy looms over me, his strong body filling the width of the space, his subtle scent flooding my nostrils.

"How are you enjoying the party?"

"I hate it," he says under his breath.

My mouth parts in surprise. "Jacob did a great job."

"I don't want Jacob and our friends right now." He threads his tattoo-covered hand through my hair, and I swallow.

"I thought you wanted three musicians from your future label." Even though we agreed to invite them, I can't resist prodding him.

Timothy shifts closer, and my heart picks up as it always does when he's near me, as if there's no other option but to sync up with his rhythm.

Our rhythm.

"Does it feel like I want them?" He presses my hand against the ridge in his pants, and I suck in a startled breath.

I meant to tell him what happened with Zeke, but I don't want to worry him. Plus, in Timothy's presence, everything beyond that door melts away.

The distance between us narrows as he bends closer, my pulse skittering.

"If you haven't noticed," I toss back in a whisper, "we're in a-"

He cuts off the word "closet" with his firm lips.

His kiss is claiming, and I grab his shoulders for balance as he presses me back against the end of the closet. The phone falls to the floor, the light extinguishing and leaving us in blackness. Coats and fabric tangle around me, and he shoves at them, impatient.

Since I returned to LA, the sex has been insane, but I'm still hungry for more. The scorching physical connection isn't enough to fill the emotional ache inside me. I need the kind of closeness we've always had, the kind that's eluding us now.

He tears his mouth away from mine and leaves me gasping.

"Someone could walk in," I pant.

His answer is to drag his teeth down my neck, making me moan and arch toward him for more.

He's always been the reasonable one. Now he's not.

Those hands stroke up my legs, making me wet from his confident touch even before they plunge beneath my lace panties.

"Fucking need you," he rasps against my ear before pressing two fingers where I'm wettest.

Blind, I reach for his abs, running my hands up his beautiful chest through the shirt.

Every sensation is amplified in the dark, our need turned into a fine point of desperation.

My hands reach for his belt, stroking the hard ridge of him beneath. He grinds against my hand, rubbing against my fingers.

I try to step back and trip on something. Timothy's there to hold me up, grabbing me before I fall.

If I ever thought it would be possible to get tired of him, I was wrong. His passion changes with his mood, with the day, with the weather.

His fingers work inside me, stroking a spot that makes me hiccup breaths against his mouth.

I reach for his belt, but his free hand drags my hand over my head, slamming my wrist against the wall and pinning me with his body. He withdraws, and I could moan in complaint, but he hitches my skirt up my hips, the delicate fabric threatening to tear.

This is vintage. I think it but don't say it, because what's between us is old and new and priceless.

My thong is pushed aside, and he's between my hips, rubbing where I'm slick.

Jesus, Timothy. He's a fire, consuming me, and I can't see through the flames. I want them to engulf me.

I get my arms free and wrap them around his neck, dragging his mouth back to mine. Pinned between him and the wall, I lift my other leg too, and he lifts me higher so he can rub against me, tantalizing and teasing.

Our shared exhale is need and frustration, our lips bumping and sliding.

Until he drops to his knees and I stop breathing.

I feel his eyes on me in the dark. I can't see him, or me, or the contents of this closet, but I sense him.

The second his tongue finds me, I die.

"Timothy."

His groan against my slickness makes me tremble-with strength and vulnerability.

"You." His whispered word is a curse, a prayer.

Timothy licks a trail where I'm burning up for him. Again. This time lingering on the tight bud of feeling at the top.

I grab past his hair for the railing to get more leverage. Every breath I suck in has my ribs fighting with the tight beaded fabric of my dress. It's a beautiful cage.

This man knows how to make me scream. And from the way he's devouring me, he's dead set on making me do it.

"Again." He's reading my mind, and I can't even resent it.

His name is a tortured whisper on my lips, and I feel his response in the way his fingers dig into my trembling thighs, the way his mouth vibrates as he groans against my skin.

Timothy's head between my thighs, worshipping and demanding at once. I hear what he's doing to me not only in my sounds, but my body's sounds. I can hear from the wetness how much I want this, how much he knows it.

My body bends toward him, responding like one of the instruments he's charmed over the years. He builds me up until every inhale is a shallow rasp, every exhale a shuddering sigh.

"Come on, Six. Tell me how much you missed me." He adds another finger, stretching me to the point of discomfort.

But it's the meaning of it that's so sexy I can't bear it-that I'm his like he's mine-and the man I love is just desperate enough to need to prove it to us both.

I come like that, in a moaning pile of limbs and pulsing need. He sucks on my skin, stroking the spot deep inside that makes me shudder. I fall, my head hitting the wall.

Something crashes down on him.

"Did you hear something?" Jacob's voice calls outside.

No. No, fucking no.

I'm tugging down my dress before the door opens.

"There you are." Jacob looks between us, taking in us and the fallen closet railing. He claps Timothy on the back. "Bar in the bedroom closet's sturdier. All you had to do was ask."

But as he shuts the door, I spot Zeke in the kitchen and my nerves return.

I pray that misstep won't come back to haunt me or Timothy.