He pulled his tee up, exposing his chest. He was ready to come but he needed to make sure she was there. “Areyouclose now?”
“Yes. Hold me, Alex. I’m going to fly apart unless…you…hold…me.”
“I’ve got you, baby. My body’s over yours, my cock sinking into you while you writhe under me. Come for me, baby. Come around my cock. Come for me right fuckingnow.”
“Yes!” she moaned. “Now, Alex. Nooowww!”
With that, he stroked himself fast and hard until felt the first jet of hot come hit his stomach. “Sylvie. Oh, fuck, baby!” he roared.
He listened to her moans as she rode out her orgasm, matching his pleasure to hers. The spasms that started in his toes and rode up his spine to his skull finally subsided and he sank into the mattress, spent.
He’d just experienced one of the hottest orgasms he’d ever had. And yet, he felt a hollowness open in his chest that threatened to spread. He needed Sylvie there with him. He needed to wrap his body around hers and hold her all night. Smell her hair, the coconut scent of her skin, feel her breaths lengthen and smooth out as she fell asleep. Press his lips against her forehead and taste the sex-salt there.
“Sylvie,” he whispered reverently. “Sylvie, thank you.”
He listened as she caught her breath. She didn’t say anything back and he started to worry.
“Sylvie, I’ve never done what we just talked about with a woman. I need to know that you’re okay with it. That you don’t regret anything.”
More breathing. “Alex. I never knew I needed something like that. I…don’t know if I could have ever asked for it…in person. But this…you let me play it out. And Ilovedit. So, thankyou.”
Relief flooded him. It wasn’t enough to close the hole in his chest, but it helped.
He heard her pick up the phone and take it off speaker. Her breath was right in his ear when she said, “I think I want to do it for real, next time we’re together.”
“Whatever you want, baby, it’s yours. It’s all yours.”
I’m all yours.
* * *
The second dayof the pre-festival workshop and already things were going south.
Kyle was on edge and a lot of it had to do with Brock, that much Alex knew. At least the Pup wasn’t asking veiled questions about Sylvie anymore, which was a relief. Alex had wanted so badly to spend last night with her, but after dodging Stan’s suspicions, then Kyle getting him away from the other guys on a bogus beer run to the kitchen and trying to talk about Sylvie, there was no way he was going to take the chance and ruin things for her this close to the finish line. It didn’t help that she’d acted strangely while he and Kyle were talking—running out to her car like that, then messing around with something on the passenger’s side—until she explained to him on the phone after they’d made love that she’d been helping out Carla. Her partner sounded like a riot, and he couldn’t wait to actually meet her.
Alex watched the Pup as he trained Buster, getting the dog ready for his forever home with Flint and Harper. He showed tremendous patience and care with the abused dog he’d rescued from a previous mission, and watching him, no one would guess that anything was wrong. But when he stepped out of Buster’s enclosure, Alex recognized the tell-tale signs he’d noticed ever since Kyle was training under Alex to become a canine handler. His shoulders rode up, and his hand went constantly to the back of his neck.
“What’s up, Pup? You’re scratching those fleas again,” Alex joked.
That got him a vague smile. “You do know me, don’t you, Chief?” Kyle set the Kong he’d been using with Buster down on the counter across from the kennels. “Badger’s about to step into the shit and I can’t stop him. Don’t know if I should even try.” He shook his head.
“This about the festival?”
Kyle pinned him with a sharp look. “Whatcha heard?”
“Rumor is, Badger’s become friendly with one of the locals at the workshop.”
Kyle swore under his breath. “Like a goddamn gossip mill around here.” Then he smiled. “Not unlike Watchdog in Los Angeles. Which one talked last night?”
Alex wasn’t about to give Sylvie away—that was one of the many roads their conversation had wandered down last night. “It was one of the ladies, but a gentleman never tells.”
Now Kyle did laugh.
“So what’s up?”
“Well, you’re right about the local. A woman named Brianna who works down at the Riversong coffee shop. She’s also a fiddle player who entered the festival’s music contest—and she’s already run afoul of one of the other contestants today.”
“And Brock’s smitten.”
