Page 52 of The Heartbreaker Next Door

“Yes, I want you in control. I just don’t want to think.” I could see the glimmer in her eyes. The same need I felt mirrored back at me.

My cock hardened at her admission. I’d never had any complaints about my control issues in bed, if anything, it was what kept the few relationships I’d had together.

I leaned down and pressed my mouth to her throat, her jaw, the hollow behind her ear. I kissed her everywhere I could reach, learning the taste of her skin. She trembled beneath me, her legs tightening around my hips. When I shifted, my cock nestled against her sex. I could feel how wet she was. Her heat slick against my shaft.

She tilted her hips, trying to pull me inside, but I held back, just barely. I wanted her to need it as much as I did. She was whimpering now, tiny desperate sounds coming from the back of her throat that made it impossible to think straight.

Her greedy insistence shattered my need to take things slow. I couldn’t handle the tension another second. I lined myself up and pushed just the tip in. She gasped, eyes rolling back, then bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. Her body clenched around me like a vise, hot and pulsing. I let her adjust, every muscle in my body locked down, before I pressed in further.

I sank into her gently, inch by inch, stretching her, filling her. She was so tight I wondered if I’d ever be able to pull out again. When I was finally buried, I forced myself to stop. I rested my weight on one elbow, my forehead against hers as I tried to regain the control that was slipping away like trying to hold water in my hands.

Slowly, at first, I drew out and then drove forward, savoring the friction, the impossible tightness. She met every thrust, matching my rhythm, her body arching off the blankets to meet mine. We found a pace that felt like dancing, all give and take, push and pull. I lost track of time, lost track of everything except the feeling of her wrapped around me, the sound of her voice in my ear, the way she clung to me as if I was the only thing anchoring her to this world.

I set an unhurried pace, each stroke long and deep, feeling everything—every flutter, every pulse, every slick, impossible squeeze. She kept up, moving with me, matching every motion until we found a rhythm that felt as old as time itself, a perfect, wild fit. My fingers tightened around her wrists, pinned above her head, not out of control or dominance but because it was the only way I could keep from falling apart. Whatever the reason, she loved it. Her eyes went glassy, her chest rising and falling fast, her lips parted around my name.

Hearing that, I lowered my head and kissed her hard, desperate, trying to tell her everything I was feeling with my mouth because words had abandoned me. I kissed her until it hurt, until my teeth grazed her lip and she moaned, grinding herself against me. It felt like we were melting together, her body sucking at me, every clench and release pulling me deeper, making me forget where she ended and I began. It didn’t just feel like sex. It felt like something breaking open inside me, something I’d sealed away for so long I’d stopped believing it existed.

The world narrowed to the shape of her body, the hot squeeze around my cock, the little choked noises she made every time I bottomed out. I was so close I could barely breathe, but I wanted her there with me. I reached down between us, fingers finding the swollen spot that made her eyes roll back, and I rubbed her, gently at first, then more insistent, faster as she started to shake and tense beneath me. She let out a wild, helpless sound, her head thrown back, her hair spread out like a halo. She bucked against my hand, hips jerking, her velvet tunnel clenching so tight around me I saw actual stars behind my eyes.

I lost it then. Her orgasm hit, her walls fluttering and milking my cock, and it pushed me over the edge. I slammed into her, three more hard, deliberate thrusts, and then I was coming, white-hot explosions of ecstasy as my muscles locked up as everything inside me poured out. I groaned her name as my release ricocheted through me. I felt her hands on my back then, her legs wrapping me up, holding me there as if she could keep me from floating away.

When I finally came back to myself, I was still inside her, still shuddering, my whole body trembled with aftershocks. Her arms were around my neck, pulling me down, her mouth pressed to my hair, my cheek, kissing me anywhere she could reach. I realized I was lying with my full weight on her, but before I could move, she increased her grip on me, legs locking around my hips like she never wanted to let go.

I tried to roll off, so I didn’t crush her, but she made a noise—a little whimper in the back of her throat—and held on tighter. “No, not yet,” she whispered, her breath warm against my ear. “I just want to feel you, all of you, for a little longer, if that’s okay?”

I nodded into her neck, unable to trust my voice, and just held her. I knew right then and there that if she wanted the moon, I’d find a way to give it to her. There wasn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for this woman, not anymore.

18

FAMOUS LAST RULES

Felicity

The morning after the blackout was one of those days that required a complex, ongoing negotiation between pretending to be normal and keeping my mind from replaying every single vivid detail of last night in a continuous, mortifying loop. For most people, Monday mornings were a struggle. Mine involved hosting a two-hour strategic planning session with the entire special events team, followed by an impromptu drop-in from Selma Lockhart—who happened to be the single most intimidating woman in all of coastal Oregon.

She swept in, smelling vaguely of strong coffee and the salty ocean breeze, and parked herself on the edge of my desk with her usual effortless confidence. Selma was five feet of kinetic maternal energy, always with a hand on your shoulder and an arch in her brow that told you she already knew the punchline of your story and was waiting for you to catch up. Today, she wore a navy blouse that made her olive skin seem to glow, and her shiny dark hair was pulled back in a low ponytail that could have been described as “severe” if she hadn’t paired it with her sweetheart shaped face.

Two of her four dogs trailed behind her. Her yellow labs Lady and Duchess both came to greet me with wet noses and wagging tails before settling on the floor next to the desk.

Earlier today, I woke in a state of anxiety so profound I half convinced myself I’d invented the entire night with Dean Lockhart. Surely, my brain reasoned, it was a stress-induced hallucination, a narrative cobbled together out of equal parts sleep deprivation and unrequited thirst. The only evidence to the contrary was the persistent memory of his hands on my skin playing in my mind on an endless loop, and the fact that even after my shower, I could still smell him, somehow—his laundry detergent, his aftershave, and that unnameable masculine inevitability that seemed to have wormed its way into my bloodstream, clogging all my neural pathways.

Neither caffeine nor urgent emails could erase the memory. Even a two-hour special events team meeting—usually the kind of all-consuming, PowerPoint-fueled hellscape that could dissolve any romantic fantasy—did nothing to dull the edge. I barely remembered what we discussed. I only knew that every time someone said “crisis management,” my mind detoured to last night’s blackout, to the soft cadence of Dean’s voice in total darkness, to the momentary loss of boundaries so thorough it felt like I’d stepped out of my own life and into a fever dream. Then to the lights flickering back on thirty minutes after we’d done the deed. We both dressed, and Dean walked me to my SUV. We didn’t say anything other than goodnight, it was surreal.

I didn’t know what last night meant, if anything. I hadn’t been able to process what happened or speak to Dean in the light of day. So when Selma Lockhart materialized in my office at exactly 11:06 a.m., I wanted to hide beneath my desk.

If Valentine Bay had a saint, it was Selma Montez-Lockhart. She was the kind of matriarch who could end bar fights with a single look, organize a meal train for three different families simultaneously, and rock a pair of Levi’s like a woman half her age. Her love was encyclopedic and sometimes terrifying. From the second day of my relocation, when she hired me, she’d made it clear that my son and I were Lockhart Ranch family now and therefore under the umbrella of her protection and love.

“So,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning in like a confessor, “how are you holding up after last night’s little adventure?”

My face went hot so fast I felt like I’d been hit with a steam wand. “Adventure?” I repeated, desperate to sound casual, as if I routinely spent my evenings getting accidentally locked in with men who could hypnotize me by the light of a cell phone and then undo me with a single, devastating kiss.

Selma gave a noncommittal hum. “The blackout. I heard you got stuck in the storage building with my Dean.” She said “my Dean” not like a possessive mother, but like a world leader remarking on the strategic positioning of her favorite general. Her eyes glinted with enough maternal curiosity to fuel rumors the size of the Grand Canyon.

I scrambled for a plausible narrative. “It wasn’t a big deal, really. I mean, I hate the dark, so at first, I thought I was going to have a panic attack, but you know Dean was there and he, um, yeah, he distracted me…” I trailed off, realizing that I’d just walked tee’d up her being able to question how had he distracted me.

She smiled as she reached out, straightened the edge of a Post-it note on my desk, and fixed me with a look of such ruthless affection that I felt my entire life was laid bare. “Well, I’m glad he was able to help you through that, and you weren’t stranded alone. And it’s nice to have an adventure sometimes.”

Adventure?