Sweet Ache

He leans forward and tempts my mouth, tongue fluttering, our moans expressing the pleasure we both feel. And then he begins to move again, to generate flashes of pleasure with his body that own my every nerve.

Hawke lets out a wild groan as he presses as deep as possible into me, strong hands holding on to my soft curves while he continues to drive us toward the razor-thin edge of desire. I want to close my eyes, succumb to the pleasure dragging me under, but our eyes are fused in an intimate conversation that’s just as intense as the union of our bodies.

“Hawke,” I moan, teeth biting into my lower lip, breath raw and ragged, errant notes filling my ears.

He flashes me a dirty smirk at the call of his name, as if I’m issuing him a challenge to bring me to the cusp quicker, harder, faster. He takes his hand from my hip to hold my neck for a beat before sliding his palm down between my breasts. Every ounce of skin he touches alights with an insatiable fire that I know only he can put out. A small reprieve in the onslaught of sensation—but I know it’s temporary because I can see his muscles tensing, can feel his dick swelling, and his restraint holding on like an unraveling string.

I shift my hips up, milking his cock in my own move that has him calling out my name in a curse the same time I begin to disintegrate, powerful shivers coursing through my body. I buck my hips, hands reaching out to hold him still because the pleasure is too much, too absolute, but I’m a second too late because Hawke’s head falls back as his hips buck wildly, dragging him over the edge with me.

The piano sounds a complaint to the two of us using it to make a different kind of music when Hawkin picks me up and carries me over to the couch in the studio. He sits down and then shifts us so that he’s lying down on it and I’m lying on top of him, my heartbeat trying to jump out of my chest and join his.

“Wow,” he says, blowing out a breath of satisfied exhaustion.

“You can say that again.”

“Piano, check!”

I laugh with him at our endless quest to mark off instruments as sex props. “What are you trying to do, kill me before you leave me?” I say off the cuff and then immediately fall quiet as it hits me that in a few hours he will be gone.

I try to push the sadness away, not wanting it in this moment, not wanting it to overshadow the good mood seeing his mom today put him in, but it still lingers.

“Uh-uh. Don’t be sad. C’mon,” he says, pressing a kiss to the top of my head and pulling me in closer to him.

“I know.” I shift to put my chin on his chest so I can look at his face. “I’m just going to miss you. Besides, I planted sexy panties all over your suitcase to find.”

“You did?” He laughs, eyes lighting up.

“Yep. You have to find them all and show them to me via text … and then once you show me yours, I’ll show you mine,” I explain with a devilish grin, pretty damn proud of myself for thinking up this one.

“Come again?”

“Already? Jeez … I know you’re good but that’s a supernatural recovery time,” I tease. Hawke just rolls eyes at me and begins to speak when I catch a glimpse of something on the inside of his wrist where there was nothing before. “What the …?”

I’m scrambling to sit up astride him, grabbing his wrist and turning it over so I can see his forearm. A freshly inked bright pink heart the size of a quarter looks back at me. I know my mouth is agape and my eyes are wide at the sight. I start to say several things but nothing coherent comes out.

I itch to reach out and trace it, make sure it’s real, but it’s pretty obvious that it is. And of course I suddenly feel horrible because I’m the reason he has it. “But you told me you’d never degrade your other tats by putting something meaningless …”

He looks at me oddly, and as I look back and forth between his eyes and his wrist, it feels like I’m missing something. “Look closer.”

It’s the only explanation he offers and I immediately lean in closer, noting that up close the outline is fuzzy. But then I realize it’s not fuzzy at all, rather it’s letters intricately curved as an outline. “Hawkin? W-what?” I sputter as I connect the letters to form words. My lips fall lax. My heart skips a beat. My soul sighs with hope.

The letters form a single saying: Make it count.

My breath catches as a smug smirk lights up his face. I still can’t speak and the astonished look on my face must be hilarious because he starts laughing at it. “Don’t you get it, Quin?” he asks me and I think that I do, I really do, but I want to hear it from him. Need to hear it from that desire-inducing mouth of his. “This is the next lyric of my life’s song. You’re the bridge, the chorus, the final chord. This heart,” he says, eyes softening and smile widening, “brought you to me. Was the catalyst that forced me to see so many things I probably otherwise wouldn’t have. This heart represents you, represents me, and is my promise to you that I’m going to make it count.”

The silence that echoes around us is deafening. My heart tumbles endlessly as the love I feel for this man surges to new heights. I start to speak and he brings his fingertips to my lips to quiet me so that he can finish.

“I know my life is crazy, unpredictable, and chaotic with tours, endless hours in the studio, crazy groupies, paparazzi, you name it…. I know that with your schoolwork and my music we’ll be apart some, but I don’t care…. I want to make this work any way we can because you’ve helped me find myself. I love the man you’ve brought out in me.” He shakes his head, his words stunning me silent but causing my heart to race. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still fucked up, still have a sick mom and a whacked brother, but being with you makes it all bearable. I’ve done this all alone for so long that I didn’t know how lost I was until I found you…. And I don’t want to be alone anymore. I just want you, with all of your flaws, your mistakes, your smiles and giggles, sarcasm and bad habits, the way you play instruments, singing off key, everything. I just want you.”