The Only Song (Only You)

31. Jaxon

Chapter 31

Jaxon

I roll my wrist as I stare out toward downtown LA’s skyline. Sadie’s tucked into my shoulder, her damp red hair a dark shade of auburn and cool against my skin. I sigh. It’s been years since I’ve felt this content, this whole. I always looked to music as the answer. If I were upset, I’d find an angsty twentieth century piece to play filled with dissonant tones and wild techniques. If I were sad, I’d find an adagio to pour my heart out through the long notes and slow tempo. If I were anxious, I’d play the fastest piece I could find so my mind would focus more on bow technique and intonation than whatever had my heart racing.

I don’t know a life without music.

And then Sadie came along, all fierce, sassy, and up for a challenge. I spent all our college years feeling like I was chasing her fire. Yet, she felt like she spent all of hers in the shadow of my spotlight.

All I’ve ever wanted is to share it. She deserves it as much as I do and as she tucks herself into me tighter, all I want to do is cradle her. Tell her she was worth waiting for. Tell her she’s good enough. Tell her I, without a doubt, wholeheartedly love her.

Because after all this time, even with the slight pain in my wrist or the stiffness of my shoulders, her steady breaths soothe me everywhere I ache, as if the antidote to my pain was simply her.

The bedsheets rustle softly, long fingers snaking over my skin, then soft lips press gently over the blade of the wrist I was rolling. When I look down, I see Sadie smiling softly.

“Hey,” I whisper, pressing a kiss on her forehead.

“Hi,” she whispers back. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

I look back over at the city lights and try to figure out what is keeping me up. It’s our last night in LA. I made it through another month of rehearsals and concerts, but I’m starting to really feel it. The fatigue in my muscles, the soreness taking longer to dissipate and when Sadie’s not around, it’s like the magic of her presence disappears and I’m replaced with sharp, aching pain. There’s only one month left and even though I’ve survived thus far, I’m not sure I’m going to make it.

“I’m just thinking about New York,” I murmur distantly.

She hums, her fingers gliding over my jaw to turn it back towards her hazel eyes, warm for me. She leans in to kiss me softly and I have to remind myself to not lose my focus—something important is digging a hole in my chest and I have to figure out what. Even with the redheaded mouthpiece beside me, who I want to pull up to sit on my face while I make her sing for all the hotel to hear. I pull away reluctantly but shift on my side to face her in the bed.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been home,” I say, a finger playing with a damp strand of hair.

“I forgot you live there.” Her voice sounds a little hollow, like the ache in my chest I’m still trying to comprehend. “Are you excited to go home?”

Her hazels have dropped to follow the line her fingers trace down my shoulder to my wrist.

“I don’t know. New York never felt like home. Just a place I lived in.”

“I can see that. I grew up in San Francisco but… sometimes I felt like home could be someplace else or something or some one , even.” Her voice trails off like the softest decrescendo. I tilt her chin up to me and kiss the tip of her nose.

She brightens and fire stokes within me. I feel my cock twitch even after we’d just fucked on the kitchen counter and in the shower, as if my body doesn’t need rest when it comes to Sadie.

“I always thought music was my home.” My hand cups her face, her cheek warm in my palm .

She turns to kiss it and smiles. “Me too. It’s like I could always turn to it if I felt alone. Play something like my own secret language.”

“The ones you play in stairwells?”

She chuckles and the sound feels like effervescent bubbles popping all around me. “Yes. My stairwell songs. Do you play them, too?”

“I feel like I memorized the repertoire of an entire music library. I usually just filter through one of those. They’re usually less haunting as well.”

Her smile widens. “Ah, yes. Mr. Memorized Everything By Heart.”

“I thought I was Mr. Change of Heart.”

“That, too.” She pokes a finger into my shoulder and I capture her hand with mine, lacing my fingers with hers. “You still haven’t told me why you left that night.”

I press a kiss atop her knuckles, glints of gold sparkling in her hazel eyes distracting me from her question.

It’s hard to believe that just moments ago her voice was ringing out in this hotel room, in the kitchen, in the shower, sweet and soft, as she came all over my mouth, my fingers, then my cock again and again.

“You’re perfect,” I murmur.

“You’re avoiding the question,” she sings, pressing my shoulder gently into the mattress, careful to not hurt me even though I don’t feel the pain when I’m with her. She sighs when she comes to rest on top of my hips, looking down at me with a playful smirk.

She’s beyond mesmerizing, this beautiful, sassy woman who makes conversation in bed very difficult.

“You’re distracting me,” I contest. My hands crawl up her thighs and she gasps when they wrap around the globes of her ass and squeeze.

“Am I?” The tease that she is pushes aside a strap of the lace camisole she’s wearing to bare her shoulder and the tip of her breast.

My cock twitches again. “Now, you’re just plain teasing.”

“Are you tired?” she asks with a hint of concern. So, I sit up to mouth over her nipple, dampening the material of her shirt with my tongue as I suck.

“Of you? Never,” I murmur and she moans, that sweet tune that fills my chest, the ache that was there closing and I realize what I’m worried about.

I pull back, hands at her hips, looking up at her in the faint moonlight, my red-headed angel.

“What?” she asks. Her brow pinches from the abrupt movement.

“You.”

She snorts. “What about me?”

“Stay with me,” I say, my tone serious.

“What?” Her brows fly up to her hair now.

“In New York. I want you to stay with me.”

“Are you serious?” She laughs and when she shakes her head, I feel my chest crumble, that deep ache between it widening like a black hole of emptiness. “Jaxon, I have a hotel. If you want, we can stay there. I don’t want to intrude in?—”

“Cancel your booking.”

“Jaxon.”

“Sadie, I want you to stay. Please,” I whisper, pressing my forehead in the gap between her breasts. Her chest heaves with excitement, anxiety, shock, or fear—I don’t know, but I don’t regret asking. I want her to stay. I want her.

Sadie’s hands snake into my hair and tilt my head up to hers, my chin on her chest.

“Are you sure?” she asks, a golden glimmer in her eye.

I nod. “Stay with me.”

“Why?” she asks again, but she smiles as if the more I say it, the more real it becomes, this happiness between us we can’t ignore.

“Because,” I say as my hand on her hip slides down her thigh. “With you I finally feel...” my hand slides up, over her shorts, until they rest over her sweet, warm pussy. My finger slides under the fabric to find her wet for me already, and I spread it over her clit. She moans, her voice pure melody and I know any sound she makes is what I want to wake up to in the morning and fall asleep to at night. This isn’t ending here in LA. We aren’t going to shuffle between her hotel or my apartment. I’m taking her home because maybe that’s what was missing all along. Someone to share it with, a person to fill all the empty crevices to transform a place into a home.

But even then, I feel it here now, the stitching over my chest as she closes the gap with soft whispers of my name. The melody from her violin in my left ear when we sit beside each other in orchestra. Her smile that warms the darkest parts of me that ache for freedom from the pain I live in.

“Home. You’re my home, Sadie,” I whisper to her, pulling my hand out from between her thighs and back to her hip.

“ Jaxon, ” she whines in protest, but I want her to know I’m being serious.

“I’m not asking because I want to fuck you 24/7. Even though I do,” I add. “But I mean it. I care about you. New York can be dangerous. Perhaps it’s best for you to stay somewhere safe.” With me.

Her smile cracks at the last word. I didn’t forget what she had so bravely told me earlier tonight. The other half of what happened the night I left. Hearing her voice tremble over the words cracked my chest open in ways I didn’t know possible with a person. It makes me want to shield her, to protect her, but the reality of it is, you can’t keep someone from living their life. No matter the precautions you take, bad things still happen, but they can be prevented.

“I live in a safe neighborhood close to the concert hall. It’s your choice, but know that you’re safe with me. ”

“I know. I feel safe with you.”

Her fingers trace the edge of my smile. “I’m glad.”

She ponders, as if it never occurred to her outside of sex that I’d want her to simply be safe.

Her palm flips and I press a kiss in the center of it as she leans in, showering me with a curtain of red hair, then her lips slide into a grin.

“I’ll stay,” she whispers.

I try to hide my excitement with a nod, but she sees right through it and pokes at the dimple in my cheek.

“I’ll stay with you,” she sighs then catches my lips with hers in a deep kiss, her tongue swirling over my lips, coaxing my mouth open to slide and tangle with mine.

“Thank god,” I sigh. “Thought you were going to make me work for that one.”

“Well, I won’t stop you if you still wanted t—” The end of her sentence is lost in a yelp as I pull her hip up over my shoulders and slide down the bed. She gasps when my tongue laps at her entrance and looks down at me with a mischievous grin, her bottom lip wedged between her teeth. I drag the pointed tip of my tongue over her clit and she bucks, her back arching as her hot breaths transform into moans.

It’s a melody I want to hear all day and night ever since I heard it for the first time.

The only song I want to listen to on repeat. And I don’t want to think of what happens when this tour comes to an end.