He huffs a laugh, but it’s humorless. “You’re impossible.”
And then I don’t know who moves first. Him, me, both at once. His mouth is on mine before I can think, hot and insistent, nothing polite about it. I gasp, and he swallows the sound like it belongs to him.
The tree shade offers no privacy, not really—other guests of the resort are scattered along the shoreline a ways off, towels sprawled, laughter drifting faintly across the water—but I stop caring. My hand fists in his shirt, dragging him closer until we’re pressed together, sweat and heat and all. He kisses like he’s been holding back for days—maybe weeks—and I feel myself unraveling under it. Almost like a silent goodbye.
His hand slides down my side, rough palm against overheated skin, tugging at the edge of my bikini bottoms. My legs part without permission, the towel sliding away from me, forgotten. He groans against my mouth, low and guttural, like the sound has been trapped in him.
“Connor,” I moan, breaking just enough to say it.
He pulls back a fraction, forehead against mine, chest heaving. His thumb brushes the inside of my thigh, and my whole body jolts. “Not on the shore,” he mutters, voice raw. “The water. Shade of the tree. Now.”
The command shouldn’t thrill me, but it does. My pulse hammers as he grabs my hand and tugs me toward the shallows, half stumbling across the hot stones. The lake laps cool water around my calves, then my thighs, shock cutting through the heat. The shade from the leaning tree cloaks us in a thin pocket of privacy, branches low, water rippling dark.
I gasp as his hands find my waist, lifting me just enough to press me against the slick trunk at the edge, water swirling around our hips. “Connor—” My protest dissolves when his mouth crushes mine again, rougher, hungrier. His body pins me against bark and water, urgency vibrating through every movement.
Cold seeps into my skin, but he’s all heat. His fingers hook my bikini bottoms, sliding them aside beneath the surface, knuckles grazing my thigh. I arch into him instinctively, water rocking, the sound of our breaths too loud in this hidden pocket of lake.
“Fuck,” he groans, his forehead dropping to my shoulder. “How are you so wet already?”
I clutch at his wet hair, my laugh breaking into a moan as his hand moves lower and softly circles my clit, claiming me beneath the waterline where no one can see. The lake hides everything, but the way my body reacts to him is impossible to conceal. My nails scrape his back, and he swallows every sound I make with his mouth, desperate and consuming.
“Connor,” I whisper, shaky, clinging to him as the pressure builds. “Please.”
“Always,” he says before pushing deeper with his fingers, the rhythm steady, relentless. My hips buck against his hand, water splashing quietly around us, branches creaking above like they’re the only witnesses.
“You drive me insane,” he mutters, voice ragged. His mouth drags across my jaw, down my throat. “You don’t even see it, do you?”
“See what?” My voice breaks on the question.
His hand fists in my hair, tilting my head back so I have to look at him. His eyes are dark, burning, nothing like the smooth surface he shows the rest of the world. “The way I can’t stop fucking watching you.”
The words hit me harder than the heat ever could. My breath stutters, and my pulse thrums everywhere at once.
I kiss him again because I can’t not, because anything else feels impossible. His teeth catch my bottom lip, his tongue slides against mine, and the only things anchoring me to this planet are the solid press of his hands and the rough bark of the tree at my back.
“Can I fuck you like this? Right here? I don’t think I can wait.”
The question splinters through me, hot and terrifying and everything I want at once. His words, his eyes, the raw need in them—that’s what pins me in place
“Yes,” I whisper, and it feels like stepping off a cliff. “I’m on birth control.”
He curses under his breath as he lowers his swim trunks. The water ripples around us, cool and deceptive, hiding the urgency that crackles between our bodies. My hands are shaking when I touch his shoulders, his jaw, anything I can reach, really, like I need proof this is real.
“Jesus,” he says as he pushes inside me, deep and all at once, and my gasp echoes against his mouth. He holds me steady, one arm banded tight around my back, keeping me anchored against the tree as he sinks all the way in.
“Jesus,” he groans again, head dropping to my shoulder. “You feel—fuck, this feels—” His voice fractures, lost in the rush of water against our skin.
He keeps his thrusts steady but urgent, his mouth finding mine again like he can’t bear to be anywhere else. Each push drives me harder into the tree, rough bark and cool water and the burn of him inside me fusing into something that feels like it’ll undo me.
He pulls back just far enough to look at me. His eyes are wild, searching, like he’s trying to memorize my face, like he’s afraidI’ll vanish if he blinks. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?”
“Yes,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “Because you’re doing the same to me.”
His pace falters for a moment at that. And then he moves faster, rougher, the rhythm impossible to mistake for anything but desperation. My moans are muffled into his shoulder, the world narrowed down to the pulse of water, the scrape of bark, the drag of his body inside mine.
When I come, it’s sharp and sudden, my whole body tightening around him, water splashing higher as I cling to his shoulders. He groans, low and guttural, burying his face against my neck as his own release follows, his body shaking with it.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. The lake rocks gently around us, cooling everything except the heat still coursing through my chest. He keeps me pinned against him, breathing hard, his hands refusing to let me drift even an inch away.
