“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he says, like it’s the last line between control and losing himself.
“I need you,” I answer, certain and soft, and this time when he kisses me it’s completely unrestrained. A reclaiming.
His hands slide down my back, over the curve of my ass, pulling me tighter against him until the swell of his cock is pressing against my belly. My breath hitches and I circle his waist so tight not even a molecule of air could pass between us.
The blanket slips from his grasp and he breaks away long enough to catch it. He shakes out the sand and spreads it flat, then pulls me down onto it with him. The air is cool against my skin but my blood is boiling now, heating me from the inside. I sling my arms around his shoulders as he lays me down beneath him, my back sinking into the fabric. For a moment he just hovers there, taking me in, like he’s trying to fight his need for me before it wins—and then it does.
He crushes his body against mine, grinding the needy ridge of his erection against me as he kisses my lips, my jaw, and then down my throat. The tension that’s kept us apart, that careful distance of not knowing how to find our way back, snaps all at once. It’s like a wall coming down, everything we’ve held back pouring through the break. I arch beneath him, rising to meet his mouth, breath whimpering as he makes his way down to my breasts and circles his tongue around one nipple, making it pucker and harden under his touch.
Then he works his way lower, over the concave hollow of my belly to the velvet skin of my sex. He slides a finger between my folds and groans when he discovers how wet I already am for him, pushing the finger slowly inside of me, lowering his mouth to my clitoris. One soft slide of his tongue and I gasp, knees falling open.
“Oh, Ryder.”
A low growl rises in his throat as he sets himself to softly licking me, his tongue moving with a delicate rhythm. He teases me with small, soft strokes, chuckling at the increasingly urgent whimpers escaping me, and then draws the tender nub of my clit into his mouth and softly sucks on it.
I gasp. It’s exactly what I need. He uses his tongue to make small laps under the head of my clitoris as he sucks it softly into his mouth. My moans start increasing in pitch, and then—I break. My back bows, hips lifting as I cry out in one long, sustained note, pussy pulsing against his tongue as I come.
He waits for a beat, giving me a moment to come down, and then he climbs over me again, bracing himself on his forearms. I smile up at him, flushed and spent. He’s so unbelievably gorgeous, my heart breaks just to look at him.
I can’t believe that he can still look at me like this, with nothing guarded left between us, after everything I told him. He lines himself up against my entrance and pushes in, and I try to hold his gaze back, but my eyes flutter upwards as he threads fingers into my hair and buries himself to the hilt until we both groan.
He keeps his eyes on me as he fucks me, his expression burning, kissing me lightly sometimes until the pleasure is almost unbearable. We break apart, come together, and I’m fighting on every stroke to hold it together, to not come right away, to drag it out.
“Max,” he groans, finally closing his eyes. “Max.”
My breath catches, a hiss as I suck it in, and then my orgasm is breaking through me again, walls squeezing down on Ryder’s cock, pulsing as I come, and then he’s coming too, crying out, a loud, feral shout as he slams into me.
“Oh my God,” he rasps, breathless. And then he collapses, and I grunt before breaking into a giggle. The sound pulls a laugh out of him, too.
“Sorry, baby,” he says, lifting himself up on his arms.
“No!” I protest, wrapping my arms around his torso and pulling him back down. “I want your weight on me.”
He grins and gives in, flattening his body against mine. His cum is slippery inside me, but he doesn’t move, and I’m so glad he doesn’t spoil this moment of closeness. The pulse between us slows, syncing. For a long moment, there’s nothing but his heartbeat against mine.
Then the world starts to return—the air cooling against my skin, the sound of the waves breaking on the sand, a loon calling somewhere beyond the fog. Awareness seeps back in. He eases off of me and reaches back for a corner of the blanket, pulling it around us both. I curl into his chest, breathing him in, and close my eyes.
The world feels still. Just for a moment, I let the past be far away.
CHAPTER TWO
CRACK!
The axe bites deep, the impact rattling up my arms. It lodges a few inches into the wood and sticks. When I lift the handle, the log comes with it.
“Drive it down again,” Damian says, motioning the movement of a hammer.
I sigh, roll my eyes, and then lift up the axe with the log jammed on the blade, and bring it down on the tree stump again with all the strength I can muster. The resistance gives way with a satisfying thunk, and the axe dives through the wood. I straighten, free the blade, and flash him a grin.
“Nice.”
I step back, rolling my shoulders. “Guess I’m a natural.”
“Guess I’m a great teacher.”
It’s Damian as I remember him from the garage. The man I used to work with every day. We stepped back into our roles easily, like muscle memory.
His hazel eyes squint at me with humor, that mischievous glint in them that always hints at something below the surface, the way everything is innuendo with Damian. He’s every bit as beautiful as I remember, and it’s gratifying to realize that my memory didn’t exaggerate him in the least. Sweat darkens his t-shirt, making it cling to carved muscles. His black hair is mussed, falling over one eye, a metaphor for Damian himself—flirtatious but unreadable, half-hidden even when he’s looking right at you.
