Starting Forever Read online

  With a long baritone hum, Adam kissed her. Warm lips, the hint of a beard on his chin, the faint taste of after-dinner mint, all combined to make her head spin. She held on—trying not to dig her nails into his back—and suckled his tongue.

  He set a slow and steady rhythm, gripping her ass cheek with one hand and her scalp with the other. Her breasts flattened against his chest, her nipples reacting to the friction and her arousal by stiffening. Each brush against the hard-muscled wall of his pecs sent tickling twinges from each point down to her core.

  His long thrusts were evenly measured as though the man had some internal metronome. As stimulating as it was to know just when the next slide in would be, the steadiness grew maddening. She bumped her hips against his, searching for the friction she needed to go over the edge, but Adam wasn’t swayed. He simply tightened his hold on her ass and continued his restrained pace.

  “Adam, please.”

  “I want this to last. I’ve missed you.”

  “I need to come.”

  “Oh you’ll come.” He nuzzled her cheek before licking her earlobe. “And it’s gonna feel so. Fucking. Good.”

  She whimpered. Her hands scaled his back, now covered in a thin sheen of perspiration. She slipped one hand between them to find his nipples. It wasn’t long into their relationship when she discovered them to be almost as sensitive as her own, and he loved it when she played with them. Adam angled away from her now, just to give her a little more room.

  Jade licked her thumb and forefinger and rubbed one already taut peak. At his grunt she tugged and rolled, but he didn’t lose his steady rhythm until she moved to his other nipple.

  “Yeah…Jade. Damn it.” He picked up speed. “You drive me fucking crazy.”

  “Good…only…fair…”

  He kissed her, his tongue searching frantically for hers, his lips rubbing and sliding against her mouth, enticing every nerve ending in her body to perk up. He smoothed the skin of her bottom and hip. His rough fingers slipped down along the crease of her thigh to touch where they were joined. Though neither of them could see, the image of his thick cock stretching her open to fill her was clear in her mind. He played with their connection, his fingertips glancing along the lips of her pussy with each of his movements.

  Jade broke free of his kiss and held her breath. It seemed to take him forever, but he finally slid the pads of two fingers over her clit.

  “Oh yeah.” She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and concentrated on the hot tingles Adam’s stroking fingers induced.

  “Do it.” He dropped a kiss on the end of her nose. “Let me see.”

  She released his nipple to pinch hers, twisting it away from her body. Her toes tingled. The room seemed to darken, and the sound of desire rushed through her head.

  Adam didn’t let up. He knew the precise amount of pressure she needed to complete, and with his steady—but now faster—thrusting, she rolled over the edge, her orgasm creeping up only to slam through her with an intensity that lifted her head from the pillow. She released her lip from her bite to let loose with a barking cry. She grabbed his chest and held on as wave after wave of pure pleasure racked her body.

  “Ah, Jade. I love you. So beautiful.”

  She peeled her eyes open as the last twinge left her breathless. His pupils almost filled the blue in his eyes. The skin on his cheekbones had stretched taut and shimmered with sweat. He always rode out her orgasm with gentle movements inside her, no matter the strain on his own needs.

  “I love you too, my Adam.”

  He grunted and then pulled his hand from between their bodies to brace it on the bed behind her. Panting, his breath hot against her ear and neck, he thrust, only half a dozen more strokes before he tensed and she felt his cock swell and spit warmth inside her.

  She held on, curling her leg again over his, and nibbled the salty skin of his neck and shoulder. He sighed, and after a few long minutes, pulled out.

  They cuddled just where they were, neither willing to move and disrupt the sense of perfection that had cocooned them, each murmuring words of love between kisses.

  “That was so much better than the webcam.”

  Adam chuckled. “I would hope so. Too fast though. I didn’t get to do all the things I thought about on the way here. Give me some time to recover and we’ll try it again, but slower.”

  Curled against his side with her cheek resting against his heart, she stroked his chest and stomach, lightly enough to leave goose bumps behind. Half-tempted to just close her eyes and slip into sleep, she also missed Adam so much over the past few weeks that she wanted to stay up all night to catch up. She pulled his hand close, stroking his fingers and pecking tiny kisses on the tips. “How was your recording session yesterday?”

  “It went well. Jason broke another stick. I swear he goes through more than any other drummer in the business.” He shook his head. “And they still want to cut the third love song.”

  “Tennessee Highway? Aww, I like that one.”

  “Me too. Danny says our sound is turning sappy.”

  She smiled. Always, the song he wrote on the boat during their first weekend together had at least made the cut.

  “So how is Lance really doing? Better?” Adam threaded his fingers between hers.

  “Physically, he’s doing better than expected. His broken rib gave him more trouble than his…amputation.”

  Adam squeezed her hand as she stumbled over the word. She took a deep breath and continued.

  “The phantom pains are still pretty bad. The other day they put a mirror next to his good leg and had him look at the image, which actually helped.” She shivered. “It must be so weird.”

  “I bet.”

  “He’s just sure his career is over. He doesn’t want to be a desk cop.” She took a deep breath and then held his hand against her cheek. “But when he walked through the hallways with crutches…I could just see the flicker of light that reminded me of the old Lance.”

  “He’s gonna be fine.” Adam kissed the top of her head. “He’s a fighter.”

  “Yeah. That’s what we keep telling him. He took J. Edgar’s death pretty hard though. I don’t think people realize how close a K-9 cop and his dog are. Those two were inseparable.”

  “I remember him sitting right by Lance’s chair during Easter dinner. Did the police give J. Edgar an official funeral?”

  “They had him cremated. They’ll do the service when Lance gets out of the hospital.”

  “That’ll be tough on him.”

  She sighed. “Mom wants him to move back home for a while, but Lance is insisting on going back to his place. I just hope his landlord—”

  “I’m sure it will work out.”

  Jade grunted in agreement, but her mind was back on Lance’s landlord-slash-friend. She couldn’t pinpoint what made her feel like something was off between them. Maybe it was Lance’s guilty expression, though Jade couldn’t imagine what he would be hiding. If only she were eight years old again, she could snoop through his bedroom.

  She fell asleep with a smile on her face and Adam’s heartbeat in her ear.

  ****

  “You can quit treating me like a damn baby.” Lance scowled from the back seat of his parents’ sedan. “I can fasten my own seat belt.”

  Jade straightened, not quite believing the fact that she had actually stooped to buckle her big brother in. “We just want you comfortable. It’s a long ride home.”

  “It’s not even two hours. I used to drive that before my first break on patrol.” Lance narrowed his eyes. Several pillows had been tucked around him and under his injury. Most with the pillowcases Jade and Lance’s great grandmother had embroidered for the family years ago.

  Jade took a purely objective look at the sight, and had to admit he looked pretty ridiculous. She shook her head sadly. “You’re gonna miss me so much when I go back to L.A.”

  “Yeah, right. How could I miss the way you cheer for Manchester United when Liverpool is
clearly the better team?”

  “What about our card games?” She stuck her tongue out, a completely childish gesture she somehow couldn’t stop doing around her brothers. “You’ll miss the way I win every game we play.”

  He sneered. “My laptop can play card games. And the computer doesn’t cheat.”

  “What? I don’t—”

  “Oh…kay!” Jade’s father shut the back door with a flourish, muting the rest of the argument. “Let’s head out. We’ll follow you.” He nodded to Adam, already in the driver’s seat of her rental.

  With one last dirty look at Lance through the window, Jade joined Adam and they pulled out of the hospital parking lot. About thirty minutes into the ride, Jade leaned over the center console to lay her head on his shoulder.

  “Keep your head up where your mom can see.” Adam squeezed her leg. “I’m still trying to impress them.”

  “If you impressed them any more, they’d adopt you.”

  He laughed. “That would make our relationship a bit kinkier then, wouldn’t it?”

  “Well maybe.” She giggled. “But it would make a great country music song.”

  “Oh, you’re gonna pay for that one.”

  She loved to tease Adam about hillbilly tropes in country music. He’d even written a song spoofing the stereotypes that made her laugh every time he sang it for her, usually after a few glasses of wine.

  “Not sure if that would be a type one or a type four…”

  “Heh, they’d have to make a new type for that one.” Adam had told her once that every country music song falls into four types: Lovin’, Livin’, Leavin’ and Cryin’. Jade had made it a project to find a song that didn’t fit someway into one of the four, so far to no avail.

  Type ones were her favorites.

  Jade would keep her head at a respectable level, but she couldn’t resist touching him. Loving the warm skin of his stomach and chest, the way his nipples stiffened with each pluck of her fingers.

  “I’d hate to get in an accident because all my focus has left my big head.” Adam pinned her hand against his chest.

  “Yet another type four country music song. A car accident on a lonely Texas highway…”

  “We’re in New Mexico now.”

  “Whatever.”

  Adam laughed. “Two weeks with your brother and you turn into a little pest.”

  “Oh yeah? What will two weeks home with you turn me into?” She took a drink from her water bottle.

  “Illegal in most states.”

  She laughed, spraying water onto the dashboard. He tapped her back as she coughed. “You’ll pay for that.”

  “Promise?”

  He grabbed her hand and tugged her back across the console. Jade snuggled in, her heart swelling with love for this man. Each breath he took that whispered through her hair. Each squeeze from his masculine hand. Each vibration that rumbled through her as he hummed along to the radio with his Grammy Award-winning voice.

  Sometimes Jade had to pinch herself.

  Before Adam walked through the door of Earth Scents that early summer day, the last thing she could have imagined was a love affair with her favorite recording artist. For the first few months after he revealed his identity to her, she’d spent each day wondering when she’d wake from her dream—when Adam Nash would realize he could have any one of the camera-ready women in the show business industry and kiss Jade goodbye.

  But every day Adam would prove his fidelity and love with all the little things he did. Voice mails where he’d sing the latest pop hit in falsetto, little love notes and texts with ridiculous emoticons, and even having a chocolate truffle hand-delivered every hour of her birthday. And of course, flying to Amarillo to surprise her.

  Jade no longer worried what he was up to when he left town with his band. Even when he couldn’t call or text, she didn’t let her insecurities get the better of her. She knew trust was a difficult rung on the ladder, but Dean had put it succinctly one day when he said, “If you spoil every good day with fears of the worst, you’re depriving yourself of a lot of happiness.”

  Jade smiled. Dean was the best. Even when he put his boyfriend Marco on a plane back to Italy, Dean stayed positive.

  “Your home town cracks me up.”

  Jade sat up just in time to catch the big billboard right on the outskirts of Logan. Welcome to Logan, New Mexico: The Best Little Village by a Dam Site. Jade’s smile faltered when she thought of the dam, or more accurately Lake Ute, where Lance had lost his leg. Though Lance swears he wasn’t in much pain due to adrenalin and shock, the mental image of her big brother being run over by a boat and then treading bloody water until he was pulled out and flown to Amarillo was almost unbearable.

  She couldn’t see the lake, but she wondered if the water would forever be red in her mind.

  She shuddered. Lance had survived. No use dwelling on that day.

  Adam slowed the car to a crawl, and eventually stopped at one of Logan’s few stop lights.

  Adam shut the radio off and grinned her way. “Do you ever miss small-town life?”

  Jade considered his question. Time had marched right past Logan. In fact Dean had even joked that the whole area should be in black-and-white with a whistling sheriff fishing with his son. “You know, growing up I hated it. Everyone knew my business almost before I did. I couldn’t wait to get out of Logan and stretch my legs. There were times when I thought if I never saw Main Street again I’d be just fine with that. Now?” She glanced around, recalling a separate memory for every street corner. “Now I think it’s nice to visit.”

  “Hm.” Adam’s lips thinned.

  When he didn’t continue, she nudged him. “What?”

  He sighed. “It’s just a little sad that you grew up hating the fact that you had no privacy, and now you’re back to being front-page material.”

  He was right. And she had no response. Adam had protected her from the hounding media for the most part, and together they avoided reading the gossip magazines. The biggest annoyances were when reporters would shout out questions with surprisingly accurate details. Jade had no idea where they got such specific information, but Adam would never let her dwell on it.

  “I’m sure you had some adjusting to do when you got all big and famous.”

  Adam grunted. Obviously still ruminating. “My fame didn’t come overnight. And don’t forget I’m living the life I set out to. Of course I had no idea just how much I’d lose my former self in sacrifice to this new Adam Nash.” He tightened his hold on her hand. “Until I met you. You’re my link to the real world, Jade. Don’t ever change.”

  Adam turned down the road toward Jade’s parents’ house, returning each friendly wave from families out walking. “When I was just starting out, I’d go out of my way to play in places like this. Though the crowds weren’t anything to write home about, we could get a true feel for the music with a more intimate audience. Heh, I think I wrote some of my best songs after a few hours in hole-in-the-wall bars. The energy and enthusiasm of these kinds of places was like a drug.”

  “Is that why you brought your guitar along? Hoping to waltz down memory lane while we’re here?”

  His toothy grin answered her question before she’d even finished voicing it. “You know I don’t go anywhere without my guitar. Think we could organize an impromptu gig?”

  Jade snorted. “You walk into the Road Runner Bar with your guitar in hand, I guarantee news will flood to every living thing with a cell phone, and within fifteen minutes you’ll have a packed house, front page on the weekly newspaper, and maybe even a parade.” In fact, by the quivering curtains in the neighbors’ windows, news was already spreading that Adam Nash had returned to Logan. They parked, leaving the driveway clear for her parents while they gathered their luggage.

  “Hello, Marcie!” Mrs. Jackson waved from over the fence that separated the Graham’s driveway from hers. “Lance, so good to see you, you look great.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Jackson.” Lance us
ed crutches to make his way to the porch, his duffle bag hanging from one shoulder.

  Marcie smiled. “We appreciate everything everyone in Logan’s done for us while we were away. I’ll be sending out thank you cards later this week.”

  Marsha waved in dismissal. “We don’t help out for a greeting card you know. Hi, Jade. And…Mr. Nash.” The neighbor blushed to the roots of her curly grey hair.

  Adam gave one of his trademark winks and toothy grin. “Afternoon, ma’am.”

  Jade smothered a smile. “Hi, Mrs. Jackson. Thanks so much for the tray of cookies. Even though Lance ate most of them.”

  “They were sent to me, brat.” Lance glared over his shoulder.

  “I’ll just have to make you some more. Oh, and don’t any of you worry about meals for the next few days. You’ve got lunch and dinner in your fridge, and the neighborhood’s worked out a schedule for the rest of the week.”

  For an unincorporated town, Logan residents had a penchant for scheduling just about everything. In fact Marcia Jackson probably won some sort of lottery to be the first one to speak to the Grahams upon their return. With another round of thank-yous, they were able to get their luggage and Lance’s equipment into the house before the rest of the neighborhood had a chance to swarm.

  “I warrant a schedule?” Lance rolled his eyes. “I’m not dead. Is the whole village going to treat me like a fragile old man now?”

  “Oh come on. Your accident was the most tragic thing to happen to a Logan resident since poor Tyler Gregory died in that airplane crash. They want to feel like they’re doing something to help.” Marcie patted Lance on the arm. “Once you’re out and about they’ll calm down.”

  Lance eased himself into the recliner. “I’m not staying here.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “Mom—”

  “There’s just no hurry. I mean, why go back to your apartment to be all alone?”

  “I won’t be—” Lance took a deep breath. “I need to get back to normal.”

  Jade snorted. “You weren’t normal to begin with.” She hid behind Adam when Lance swung his crutch at her.