SURPRISE GUEST
BANKS
Ripley is on me the instant the cottage door opens, and I could not be happier. Or more turned on.
She grabs my face, her hands roaming possessively over my beard, her breasts pressing to my chest. Her lips devour mine with anafter-midnightkind of ferocity.
This is what I want—this kind of connection. This strength in desire—hers matching mine. It’s a goddamn gift when you both want each other the same way. And oh hell, do we ever. I’m pent-up and have been all night. She’s hungry and determined, her hands traveling down my chest, over my stomach, around to my ass.
“Need you right fucking now,” I mutter as I kick the door closed to give us some privacy. I break the kiss, but not for long. I haul her up over my shoulder, carry her to the bed, and toss her onto the mattress. Wasting no time, she kicks off her shoes. I toeoff mine, then crawl up her, settling between her legs. Right where I want to be—with hardly any distance between us.
She murmurs approvingly. “You were hot back there.”
“That turned you on?” I ask, though I fucking know the answer.
Knew it the second we left Prohibition Spirit. She practically pounced on me in the truck. Ran her hands down my arm as I backed up. Murmured dirty wishes as I drove.Fast.
“It did. Can you kick guys out of bars every night?”
“That’s what it takes to turn you on now?”
She raises her hips, then wraps her legs around my waist, nice and tight. “No. It just got me going,” she says, playing with my hair with eager fingers. “Fuck me now. Please.”
My brain fries. It overloads with lust and need and something more. Something intense. A deep and fervent need to make this woman happy in every goddamn way.
I strip her to nothing in seconds, then toss my clothes to the floor, too, turning my phone to Do Not Disturb and setting it on the nightstand. Don’t need a single thing to take my focus away from my woman.
I reach for a condom, but she curls a hand around my shoulder. “I’m on birth control, and I’ve been tested. Negative.”
A hot bolt of pleasure shoots down my spine. “Same.” I draw a staggering breath, knowing the answer, but asking anyway. “You want to feel me bare, sweetheart?”
She shudders beautifully everywhere, her nipples hard, her skin flushed.
Yes, fucking yes.That’s why I asked. To witness the rush of pleasure in her body.
“I do, Banks. Please.”
“Spread your legs nice and wide,” I tell her.
She pushes back on her elbows, lets go of my waist, then parts those beautiful thighs. That done, she looks up at me with big blue eyes full of passion and vulnerability.
And, I’m pretty sure, my future.
Emotion spreads through my chest, a deep sense of rightness. A potent hope for many days to come. I sink inside her, trembling at the feel of her and of us.
We move together in the dark, bodies tangling, skin sweating, hearts thrumming. She hooks her heels around me tight and pulls me deeper, even though I’m already so far gone.
It doesn’t take long for either of us, then we’re tumbling over the edge.
The next morning, I take the dog out, then I’m in and out of the shower in a flash. Ripley is next, the water pattering as I step over Hudson, who’s eagerly waiting for his human. I button my shirt and hunt for my phone. Do Not Disturb is still on from last night, and when I turn it off, a slew of text messages land like coins raining down in a slot machine.
A few from Dean.
A few from my sister asking, What’s going on?
One from Tabitha.
Unease rolls down my chest, but I don’t have a second to open the messages. As Ripley turns off the shower, there’s a knock on the door. With some concern, I head over, peer through the peephole, and tense.
