Our Song (17 page)

Chapter 26

We’d barely even made it into my apartment when I got Colton’s shirt off and he’d unzipped the back of my dress. I stepped out of it, revealing the lacy black underwear and matching strapless bra I had on.

He just stood there for a moment, staring at me with a lustful look in those striking blue eyes. Then he was all over me again, pressing his lips to my neck and planting a trail of kisses down it.

He reached behind me and unsnapped my bra hook. As it fell to the floor, he just stared down at me, taking in the sight of my breasts.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered as he leaned in and ran his tongue over one my nipples, which hardened at his touch.

“So are you.” Leaning against the front door, I titled my head back as a breathy moan escaped my throat. Just his touch sent a tingly feeling down my spine and a warm feeling that radiated through me, stopping just between my thighs.

He moved his mouth away from my breasts. His lips drifted back up to meet mine again, and somehow, we made our way over to the couch.

As I lay down and he settled into a position on top of me, he stared into my eyes and slipped one finger underneath my panties.

My heart pounded as his thumb pressed against my most sensitive spot. It felt like he hit every nerve in my entire body.

“Oh, god,” I whispered, just as he slipped his fingers inside of me.

I moaned again, louder this time. I think the sound must’ve turned him on, because he covered my mouth with lips again, kissing me with a newfound urgency.

A moment later, he tore his lips away from mine and began to plant a trail of kisses down the length of my torso. His mouth lingered just below my belly button as he pulled my panties off.

“I think it’s time you got the King treatment.” He shot me a cocky grin.

Before I had time to think of a sarcastic comeback, he’d already pushed my legs apart and lowered his head.

His tongue flicked against me and then ran over the length of me as his fingers continued to work their magic.

My hips rocked back and forth against him as all of the tension began to build up within me. I moaned and groaned and made noises I was pretty sure I’d
never
made before—noises that seemed to encourage him to go faster and deeper.

I completely unraveled at the core, my body trembling as I came down from my high.

Colton pulled away then, lowering his mouth on mine as he kissed me deeply. I reached beneath his boxers, feeling the bulge that had formed beneath them. He was already dripping with his excitement.

“I want you so bad right now.” Pulling his boxers off, I stared into his eyes. “Give it to me.”

His eyes locked on mine. “This time you want my dick and not my phone, huh?” 

“Shut up,” I whispered, pulling him in for a kiss.

Staring deep into my eyes, he pushed himself into me with one slow thrust. I let out a little gasp.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he whispered.

Wrapping my legs around hips, I pulled him deeper into me. Colton began to thrust his hips, moving in and out.

We moved together in a rhythm of our own. My hips rose to meet his until we built up to a faster pace. The tension began to build up inside of me as his hips slammed into mine. We kissed frantically, and I drug my fingernails across his back.  

“Viola, I’m in love with you,” Colton said just as he hit the spot; it was the spot that sent an explosive feeling through my entire body and caused me to come undone. Tilting my head back, I exploded all around him. 

Seconds later, his breathing became ragged and he began to move quicker inside of me. Then his body stiffened as he thrust himself into me one final time, covering my lips with his mouth and groaning into them.

We both lay there for what felt like an eternity. I couldn’t even begin to put into words how that had felt. It was just…amazing. The most amazing thing I’d ever experience.

Glancing over at him, I said, “So, are you really in love with me or is that just something you say to try to get girls to come harder?”

“Why, did it work?” Colton asked, shooting me a cocky grin.

I couldn’t suppress my smile. “Maybe, but that’s completely irrelevant.”

“I meant it, Viola.” He pressed his lips against mine, kissing me hard again. “I’m in love with you.”

His blue eyes stared back at mine. I knew that he hadn’t asked if I felt the same way, but it was clear that he was waiting to see if I did.

“I love you, too,” I told him, knowing that there was no point in denying it at this point, not to him or to myself. I was more in love with him than I’d ever been with
anyone
.

For the first time in my life, everything felt perfect.

Chapter 27

Jake was the last guy I’d spent the night with, and he’d always created a wall of pillows between the two of us, forming a barrier that I didn’t dare try to cross. But sleeping with Colton was completely different. The boy was a cuddler and a damn good one, at that.

He slept with his arm draped around my waist and his chin resting on my pillow, his warm breath hitting against the back of my neck. As I stared at the clock on my nightstand, I couldn’t help but smile. Last night had been… well, it had been amazing. There was no other way to put it. In fact, it had been the most amazing night of my life, except for maybe the night I’d been offered my record deal.

If sex came in ice cream flavors, sex with Jake and pretty much every other guy I’d ever been with would’ve been vanilla. But sex with Colton would’ve been dulce de leche. See how much sexier that just
sounds
?

As I tried to come down off my Colton high, he stirred next to me, pulling me closer to him.

“Good morning,” I said quietly.

“Morning, babe,” he said, kissing my forehead. “How did you sleep?”

“Not bad.” My stomach let out a growl, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since before the party. “I’m hungry. Do you want pancakes?”

“Wow, this is a first,” he noted.

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “The first time I’m making you breakfast?”  

“No, just the first time I’m not the one feeding
you
.”

We both laughed.

“Pancakes sound amazing,” he added.

Untangling myself from him, I climbed out of bed. Walking across the room to grab a robe, I heard the sound of a camera going off and saw the flash.

Whirling around, I gaped at him. “Did you just take another picture of my ass?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry. This is just for my own personal viewing, because that ass is
mine
.” He shot me that cocky grin of his.

“Oh, it is, is it?” As I spoke the words, I realized that there was a tone of implication behind his voice. “If this ass is
yours
, what does that make us?”

“A couple?” Those striking blue eyes had taken on a hopeful look from behind the curtain of dark eyelashes.

As I slipped on a fluffy pink bathrobe, I smiled. “Only under one condition.”

“I should have figured it wouldn’t be that easy. You
never
make things easy,” Colton said. “You’re such a difficult person.”

I put my hands on my hips. “I am not.”

“Yes, you are, babe. But let’s hear what your condition is. What do I need to do to make you my girlfriend?”

The butterflies swirled around in my stomach then. Just hearing him mention making me his girlfriend put me on cloud nine. I tried not to swoon.

“It’s pretty easy. Buy me dinner,” I said with a grin. “A
real
date.”

“Okay.” He grabbed his phone from my nightstand. “Giovanni’s, it is.”

“We don’t have to go to Giovanni’s. It’s so expensive.” I knew money wasn’t really a problem for him, but…still. I didn’t want anyone to feel like they needed to spend $400 on me when we could just go to a chain restaurant or something.

“It
is
expensive,” Colton agreed. “But you’re worth every penny. I’ll make reservations for Monday night if you’re free.”

“Monday works.” I didn’t even try to hide the grin that took over my face. “I’m gonna go get started on those pancakes.”

Once I was in the kitchen, I grabbed the pancake mix from the cabinet and the eggs and milk from the fridge. As I began to mix all of the ingredients into a big bowl, I allowed what had just happened to sink in.

I was Colton’s
girlfriend
. He was my
boyfriend
. We were a
couple
. It all just felt so unreal.

As I poured some of the pancake batter into a frying pan, I thought about how we would break the news to the media. I mean, everyone already
thought
we were a couple, anyway. At this point, it was really just a matter of confirming it. I wondered if Colton would want to come out with the news right away, or if he would want to wait awhile, the way Jake had.

None of that even mattered, I realized. I didn’t care what the public thought or when they found out. All that
did
matter was that Colton felt the same way about me as I did about him.

Just as started to stack pancakes onto a plate, he stepped out into the kitchen. He was wearing a red t-shirt I could see the ripple of his ab muscles through. “Those look delicious, Viola, but unfortunately, I’m going to need to take a raincheck on breakfast.”

My face fell. “Oh.”

He moved in closer to me and kissed my forehead. “I’m sorry, babe. I thought we could spend the whole day together, but something came up.”

Unsure of what to say, I just nodded.

“It looks like it’s going to take the entire day, but do you want to make good on that ice cream date tomorrow afternoon before we celebrate with Jimmy?” Colton stared down into my eyes and pushed a lock of hair away from my face.

“Yeah, sure.” The doubt had to be obvious in my voice. As much as I wanted to believe he was going to hold true to his word, this was the third time he’d randomly just bailed on me without any real explanation. It was beginning to get really frustrating.

Every other time he’d taken off in the past, I knew I couldn’t ask him where he was going without seeming like I had my head up his ass, but he’d just asked me to be his girlfriend. I didn’t believe in keeping secrets when you were in a relationship
period
, but for him to keep them so early on was, well…alarming.

“I’ll call you later, babe,” Colton said, swiftly moving in for a kiss.

As his lips pressed against mine, my current annoyance at him just seemed to fade away into the distance of my mind. It didn’t seem to matter that he was leaving unexpectedly, or that there was a huge stack of pancakes that were going to go uneaten. I was standing there in my kitchen kissing the guy I loved… the guy who loved me. That was all that mattered...
right
?

Chapter 28

“You’re sort of quiet today,” I said to Colton the following day. Actually, he was more than just quiet. He also had this distant look in his eyes, like his brain was in a million other places in the world except for there with me at Sprinkles, an ice cream shop a block away from my apartment.

“I’m sorry. There’s just been a lot on my mind lately.” He sighed.

“Does this have to do with Rosalynn?” I blurted the question that had been on my mind since the day before.

He glanced over at me with a surprised look in his eyes. “No, why would you think it has anything to do with Rosalynn?”

“I just wondered.”

“How do you even know about her? I thought you didn’t follow the tabloids,” he said pointedly.

“I don’t, but your mom sort of mentioned her at your sister’s birthday party,” I admitted quietly.

“I should have figured she would say something to you.” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, but can I ask what happened with her? Your mom made it sound like she hurt you.”

“She
did
hurt me,” he replied.

Deciding not to let any questions I had go unanswered, I asked, “Was she your first love?”

He shook his head. “No, she wasn’t my first love.” He paused and then added, “You should probably know Tessa was my first love.”

“Oh.” I swallowed hard. “Is she the one who your songs are about?”

He nodded.

“I see.” I darted away from him, unable to find it in me to look at him. If I met his gaze, he would know just how jealous that made me—if he didn’t already.

Seeming to sense my unease, he went on. “Like I said before, it was when I was a lot younger. I was sixteen or seventeen. See, our history goes way back. We first met when—” Colton was saying when his cell phone went off. He checked to see who it was and then muttered, “I have to take this.”

As he walked away from our table, I glanced down at my chocolate shake, no longer in the mood for ice cream.  

I knew Colton and Tessa had a history, but I’d suspected she was just someone who he hooked up with or who he was maybe casually seeing. I didn’t expect to find out she’d been his
first love
. Just the idea of that made my heart squeeze.

I knew that, when it came down to it, it was your last love that really mattered and not your first love, but…
still
. It felt like Tessa had a piece of him that I would never get, even if the two of us did end up working things out. And suddenly, as much as I hated to admit it, I was beginning to doubt that we would.

When Colton came back to the table a moment later, there was an apologetic look on his face. I knew what he was going to say before he did.

“I’m sorry, Viola, but I have somewhere I need to be. I’m going to head over there right now, but I’ll still be there tonight to celebrate with Jimmy, okay?”

“Okay,” I said with a sigh, knowing I had no other choice than to be okay with it at this point. Apparently, if I wanted to be with Colton, this was something I was going to need to get used to, because it was a regular occurrence for him.

Swooping down, he kissed me on the lips. It was short and sweet, so of course it left me wanting more.

“See you later,” he whispered.

As he walked away from me, I tried not to get overly excited about the fact that we’d just had our first kiss in public. Apparently that meant Colton didn’t care who knew about our relationship and, judging from the photographers who I could see across the street, I was pretty sure people were only going to be more convinced that the two of us were together, whether we made a public statement about it or not.

*

“Where’s Colton?” I asked Jimmy as I sat across from him in his limo later that night.

“He said he’s going to meet us tonight,” Jimmy replied. “It’s sort of perfect, really. I wanted the opportunity to talk to you in private.”

“About what?” I asked nervously. This was the first time I’d ever really spoken to him without Mads present, and I wasn’t sure why, but it was sort of terrifying. I was still worried about my failing career, even if we were technically out celebrating. I didn’t think he was going to deliver bad news, but I wasn’t sure
what
he was going to say.

“Well, I’ve put a lot of thought into this… What do you think about releasing your album a few weeks early?”

“I-I don’t know,” I admitted. “I mean, Colton and I only have
one
song written for it. I’ve been so focused on working with him that I haven’t even thought about the songs I’m supposed to be writing on my own.”

“That’s the other thing. What do you think about writing an album
entirely
with Colton?” Jimmy asked. “The fans are so in love with your first song that I think they’d respond to an album made up entirely of Colton King and Viola Pierce songs. Think of it along the lines of the album Paul McDonald and Nikki Reed put out together.”

“I don’t know… I need some time to think about it,” I replied.

“What’s there to think about? It would be a win-win situation for everyone involved.”

I hesitated. “Isn’t there a chance I could end up
losing
fans or need to work on an entirely new direction for myself if my fans get so used to my songs with Colton that they don’t want to listen to me by myself anymore?”

“I suppose that
can
happen,” Jimmy admitted. “But I feel that right now, we need to think about the present. We need to make sure you’re able to stay relevant right now. We can come up with a new strategy in the future, if need be.”

A new strategy like what? Suggesting that I work with someone else… someone besides Colton? I didn’t
want
to work with anyone else. It was crazy, but there wasn’t even a part of me that thought working with Justin Timberlake would be as fun as working with Colton at this point. It just felt like it was
our
thing.

Jimmy stared at me evenly. “All I ask is that you consider it, Viola. I believe it could really help.”

“I’ll think about it,” I agreed, just as the limo came to a stop at Bartulluci’s, the restaurant, bar, and inn we were going to be celebrating at. As I climbed out of the car, I spotted Colton standing outside the restaurant. He was wearing a tux and a gray tie.

As we approached him, I smiled and tried to forget about how abruptly he’d left me earlier. “You clean up well,” I said, leaning in for a kiss.

Colton backed away from me, completely dodging my lips, and held me at arm’s length. “So do you.”

I stared into his blue eyes for a moment, suddenly confused by his sudden coldness. He’d kissed me in public earlier, but he didn’t want to now? What the fuck?

“Come on, you two. I’ve reserved my favorite table,” Jimmy said, leading the way into the restaurant.

Deciding not to let Colton know it bothered me, I walked a few feet ahead of him, deciding not to even look at him. If I looked at him, he’d know just how hurt I was, and I wasn’t about to let him see that.

I didn’t want him to have the satisfaction.