COLE

Vegas Skies - The Cab

There are many moments in life that don’t seem all that monumental while you’re in them.

Take the new girl walking into your form room on a random Thursday morning. Or a reckless teenager, squealing Bon Jovi entirely off key and out of time.

The sound of an acoustic guitar, crooning a melody, as its owner works through their newest masterpiece. Even a sarcastic quip, followed by the prettiest sound I've ever heard when the joke lands.

All minuscule moments that seem so inconsequential, and yet somehow become the moments you miss most when they're no longer yours.

But then, when you find them again, there’s nothing but wonder.

The wonder of walking down the halls of the home you built in their absence but now share with them. Of peering around your studio door and hearing that beautiful laughter, that crooning guitar, and that god-awful off-key singing you once claimed made your ears bleed. 

The true wonder, though, is the woman on the floor.

Legs crossed, Hummingbird nestled in her lap, she wears nothing but a stolen hoodie and her favourite fluffy socks.

I was sixteen years old the first time I saw a scene exactly like this.

It was one of those inconsequential moments.

But it changed everything.

***

I lean against the doorframe and fold my arms over my chest.

Hendrix is lost in a world of her own. She nibbles at her lower lip while running a pencil over the sheet music spread around her. Can’t say I’m surprised this is where she slipped off to after tiptoeing out of our bed.

She’s down here more often than not these days. And I won’t lie, watching my wife work her arse off to stake her claim on the music industry after ten years of hiding behind a pseudonym is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

Second only to the golden glint in her glorious green eyes when I said I do on the day she claimed me as hers forever.

Hendrix brushes her fringe off her forehead and the black diamond on her finger glitters when it catches the soft light.

My heart thrums.

I’ve never considered myself a possessive person, but there’s just something about seeing that ring on her finger and knowing I put it there.

The corner of her mouth curls up. “I can hear you thinking over there, you know.”

“I didn’t realise you’d heard me coming in over the cat screaming your new song.” I push off the door and amble over to her as it closes behind me with a soft snick. “That was a cat screaming, right?”

“Ha. Very funny.”

“I thought so.” I twist her plait around my fist and tug her back until she’s looking up at me. “Hi, baby.”

She pushes herself up and presses the sweetest kiss to my lips. “Hi.”

“I missed you.”

“It’s been a couple hours, dude.” She rolls her eyes, but her smile remains when she readjusts her guitar and starts strumming again.

I loosen the bobble from her hair and tug the strands free until they fall in waves down her back. She melts into my touch, practically mewling when I massage her roots.

I slink down to the floor and bracket her with my legs. “What are you working on?”

“Not sure yet,” she says, leaning back into me. “I have all these new melodies in my head and I can’t quite figure out where they go or what they belong to.” A whimper escapes her as my fingers dance down her nape and onto her back. “I love your fingers.”

“I know.”

“They’re distracting.”

“I know that too.” I skirt the edges of her ribs and revel in the quickening of her breath. “Will you play me a song?”

“Now?”

“Mm. Now, Rixie Moore.” My hoodie loosens around her as I ease down the zipper. “I want to see just how very distracting these fingers of mine can be.”

She twists around and drapes her legs either side of mine.

My gaze drops to the lace barely covering her.

She pulls the Hummingbird up and nestles it in the gap between us. “And what should I play for you, rock star?”

“I’ve had a recurring dream since I was sixteen years old.”  I pull at one of her sleeves. It slides down her shoulder and she shivers. “See, I met this girl in school a year before, and she never told me she could play the guitar.”

Hendrix’s lashes flutter closed, a flush crawling up her cheeks.

“But then, I figured her out,” I tell her. “And one day, she came to my house, and with her eyes closed she played me a song…”

I bite down on my lip, holding in my moan as she settles deeper onto my lap. 

“Eruption,” she breathes.

I trail my fingers along her collarbone. “The soundtrack to every one of my dirty dreams since that day.”

The opening notes trickle into the air and my breath stutters.

Then she settles in, a smile on her lips, eyes closed.

Hendrix moves through the song as easily as she did sixteen years ago in my childhood bedroom.

We were dreamers back then. Just a girl with her guitar and a boy with his band, dreaming dreams bigger than themselves.

I doubt either of us really believed we’d do it all.

But here we are.

A man and his wife, with a universe of possibilities waiting for us.

I trail my hand along Hendrix’s arm, taking the hoodie with it. My thumb brushes the ink on her pulse point, tracing over the aging lines of the microphone she got for me.

Her heated eyes follow my caress.

I don’t linger long on her wrist.

I can’t.

Not when she rolls her hips and brings herself down on my hardening length. I work my hands under and around her guitar until I’ve got them wrapped around her hips. 

A teasing smile curves her lips. She strums the final notes of Eruption, then transitions into another, all-too-familiar four-chord melody. Laughter bubbles up my throat. “Who’s distracting who now, Rixie?”

“Did you ever figure this song out?” she asks, humming along with the song she’s playing. “Or do you need another lesson to really nail it dow–?”

Her breath catches when I dip my hand into her waistband.

The guitar starts to slip from her hold, her usually flawless chords a beat out of time when I find her slick, pulsing bud waiting for me.

“Don’t.”

She arches her back as I stroke her.

“Stop.”

She answers my touch with a breathy moan.

“Playing.”

I lift her with my free hand, my thumb a steady presence on her clit.

She skews one note, then another, but her hands never stray from the strings of her guitar. Not when I rock her back and forth over me, giving her the friction we both desperately need.

Not even when I slide two fingers inside her and find that one spot that will have her forgetting her own name.

She cries out when I hold her still and let her feel every throbbing inch of me, but she keeps on playing.

“That’s my girl.” I twist my wrist and circle my thumb. “Such a good wife, playing music for your man.”

She trembles, eyes alight and pleading when they meet mine. As if I’ve ever been able to deny her anything. I work her harder, thrusting my fingers in time with the music filling the live room.

The light flickers across her face when she tips her head back. Flushed cheeks, mouth open on a gasp, my hoodie still dangling from her lace-covered body while she struggles to keep playing the song she taught me all those years ago.

Has there ever been a prettier sight?

I find her G-spot and keep the pressure there, my wrist taut and my thumb pressed against her. Her thighs tighten around me.

“Please.” She rocks back and forth, riding my lap as I draw her up to the edge. Her expression shifts, awe lighting her entire face when I circle her clit a final time and throw her right over it.

The sound of her climax drowns out the melody and has me thrusting up my hips to join her. It doesn’t matter that I can’t feel her heat, or drive myself inside of her. I don’t need to.

Just the vision of her on top of me. The sound of her cries as I pull her into another orgasm with nothing more than the pulse of my hips.

They’re all I need to meet her in oblivion.

***

Hendrix slides the guitar onto the floor and drapes herself over me with a breathy laugh. “That was…” She glances up at me through hooded lashes. “Did you just—”

“Come in my pants like a sixteen year old?” I lie back, bringing her down to the floor with me. “Yep. Absolutely did.”

“Was that a part of your dreams?”

“That was what always came after the dreams.”

“Cole Hayes, rock star extraordinaire—” She brushes her hand over me, feeling the slick patch on my cotton shorts. I draw in a slow shuddering breath as she licks her lips. “—coming in his pants all because of me. What a lucky girl I am.”

“The luckiest.”

“There’s the ego I love so much.”

“I was talking about me.” I grip her chin and tip her head back until our eyes meet. “I’m the luckiest son of a bitch in the world because you found your way into my form room all those years ago.”

And I’ll thank my lucky stars every day for that one inconsequential moment in time that led me to the woman who changed my life forever.