by Emma Lyon
“I’ve seen this horror movie before,” Lane murmured, once we’d come up for air.
My chuckle rumbled through our lips. “Just think about how great the sex must have been before the brutal dismembering. I mean, they literally died for it.”
“So this is like end-of-the-world sex?”
My lips found his again. I wanted to crawl into him and stay there forever. My tongue slipped in between his lips at the same time my hand ducked under his shirt to rest on the bare skin of his waist, and just the feel of his skin lit a path straight to my cock.
“You think you can make it that good?” My dick was so hard it pressed up painfully against my pants, thinking about Lane inside me.
Lane pointed out, “We don’t have anything.”
I produced a foil-wrapped condom and small tube of lube from my pocket that I’d taken from the room earlier in the night. “Did you think I was going to trust your boy scout instincts this time?”
Lane grinned and shook his head in wonder. “You really want to have sex in the car?”
I eyed the space around us. “Back seat,” I decided. “And yes, I would love for you to fuck me in the car.”
I wondered if car sex wasn’t Lane’s idea of a good time—if he wanted to go home instead I wasn’t going to insist—but at my words Lane’s eyes went glassy. “Meet you back there.”
I grinned.
Once we’d relocated to the back, I swung my leg over his lap and put my hands on the back seat on either side of his head. His eyes were hungry on me. It was a rush knowing he wanted me as much as I wanted him. I put aside all my worries about our future, about anything other than this moment, and leaned down to press my lips to his, teasing them open. “I knew you were a secret exhibitionist at heart.”
“Hey, it was one boat shed. And we’re practically invisible out here.”
Just as he said it, the blinding light of headlights arced through the back seat. “Fuck,” I said, ducking my head as if we could somehow escape detection. But it was just a car passing on the road behind us. Once it was gone and the back seat was dark again, I realized Lane was laughing at me.
I buried my face in his neck and admitted, “I thought we were caught.”
“This was your idea,” Lane pointed out, still laughing. But his dick was a hard, throbbing thing nestled up against my own through the material of our pants.
“It’s the adrenaline. Blind, naked fear making us horny.”
“Mm,” he agreed. “What was that about naked?”
My breath caught when Lane’s fingers went to the top button of my shirt and flicked it open. The shadow of his tongue snaking out to lick his lips had my pulse spinning crazily. Another button, then another. Lane moved slowly and seemed to gauge his success by the raggedness of my breath. When he’d opened my shirt enough to slide his hand inside to brush the pads of his fingers over my nipple, the strangled noise that came from me had us both shifting together, needing to feel more skin-on-skin contact.
“You like that too, huh.” His eyes glittered in the wan ambient light, and he shifted under me. His cock was like iron against my own.
“Tease.” I gazed down at him. He was beautiful, and right now he was mine. I tugged at the hem of his shirt until he got the hint and pulled it over his head. Maybe we were pushing things too fast, but it didn’t feel too fast. The more I had of him, the more I wanted. And I wanted this. To feel him inside me. To give him that part of myself.
I shifted off his lap to the seat next to him, and got my pants unzipped over my straining dick. I pushed them and my briefs down over my hips and legs to kick them free.
I licked my lips when Lane opened his fly and pushed his pants down far enough that his dick sprang free. God, it was beautiful, and it was going inside me. It was so fucking long. I’d be feeling it a while, that was for sure.
I didn’t mind that at all.
I was about to crack the lube open when his fingers closed around my hand. “Let me.”
I handed it to him wordlessly. He spread some over his fingers, and once I’d straddled him again, I let out a shaky breath at the first touch of his finger at my hole.
Something about being in the car with him like this, the close quarters and air thick with the smell of male body and sex, connected us in a way I’d never felt with anyone before. We were in our own private cocoon, safe from the outside world, and I wanted him inside me more than I’d ever wanted anything before.
One finger turned into two, and his scissoring of them inside me sent shockwaves of pleasure up my spine. I got the condom packet open with my teeth and waited for Lane to stop stretching me so I could get it over his cock. He hissed and grabbed onto my forearm, and I felt how close he was. He was as rock hard as I was.
Shifting forward, I reached behind me to guide the tip of his cock to my entrance, then slowly sank down over his length.
Fuck. For a moment my brain couldn’t process what my body was feeling. Full, stretched, fucking taken. It was a thrill spreading myself open for him.
His eyes went to mine as he rested his hands on my bare hips. Every shift of him under me rolled a new wave of pleasure through me. My eyes had adjusted to the ambient light, and I was caught in the intensity of his expression—he was as affected by this as I was.
“Put your hand on me,” I said, and Lane squeezed some more lube on his hand then stroked down my cock in a move that left me dizzy.
The twin pleasures of Lane’s cock in my ass and his hand on my dick were so intense my vision began to haze over. I closed my eyes to ride the wave of it. There wasn’t much room to move but we found a rhythm, Lane thrusting into me as I rode him, my thighs trembling at the strain but I barely noticed the discomfort. I was overwhelmed by feeling. Feeling him.
I knew I was close when my balls tightened up, and by Lane’s ragged breaths and moans, he was right there with me. I found his mouth just as I started to spill over, wanting to taste him again before my release took over my brain and my vision whited out with pleasure.
Lane’s fingers dug into my hips as he came inside me with a shout. His cock pulsed in my ass and I rode him through it. We clung to one another, sticky with sweat and my come coating Lane’s stomach, the car reeking of the sex we’d just had, and whatever last barriers I had crumbled into a thousand little pieces.
I didn’t know what the future held for us, or how we’d make it work back in the city. But I knew I hadn’t just fallen for him—I was well and truly caught.
When I went downstairs with my packed bag the next morning, the house was awash with soft morning light. We’d planned to get an early start, and I’d left Lane upstairs showering.
I went into the living room to wait for him. The view from the French doors of the pool and bay beyond it displayed a picture as dreamy and unreal as this entire weekend. It was going to be hard going back to the city after this.
“This was my mother’s house.” Lane’s father had come up to stand next to me. We were the same height but I instinctively stood up straighter and hoped my t-shirt wasn’t too wrinkled. “She grew up here, then left when she got married. She didn’t return until my father died.”
I nodded. “Lane told me a little about her.”
William eyed me with an expression I couldn’t read. “Family was always important to her, as it is with me.”
He left that hanging, and I tried to figure out what he was getting at.
After a moment, he continued. “Jessica told me your name after the donor dinner. I’m sure you appreciate that in my position, it’s important to know who, exactly, is making his way into the inner circle of my family.”
The hairs on the back of my neck rose. Lane’s father wasn’t saying it in a friendly, welcome-to-the-family way. “I’m sure Mrs. Garrett filled you in on the details of my life. It’s not that exciting.”
“And what you didn’t tell her? Did you really think I wouldn’t check up on the person my son is supposedly dating?”
At
supposedly, my heart skipped a beat. “I’m not sure what—”
William went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “At first I thought my son didn’t know you were a paid escort. But then I realized he must have hired you for this whole charade in the first place. Why, I can’t fathom, unless it was just a spectacular lack of good judgment.”
I found my voice. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“Then what is it?” I couldn’t begin to try to explain the dating thing to him. Not that it would make much difference. Selling myself for emotional intimacy suddenly didn’t seem much better than selling my body.
“We’re not faking anymore. I really do care for your son.”
He eyed me skeptically a moment. “Let’s say that’s true, or at least you think it is. Do you really believe you’re someone he could be serious about?”
It was like he’d shot an arrow straight into every one of my fears. That once we got back to the city Lane would realize I wasn’t what he wanted after all. That I wasn’t actually good enough for Lane.
“Your son’s a grown man. He can make his own choices.”
“Of course he can. And so can you. I’m just asking you to make the right one. For him.”
He left me there staring out at the view that a few moments ago had felt so welcoming.
Movement by the kitchen caught my eye and I saw Ethan standing in the doorway. I wondered how much he’d heard.
“Zach?” Lane’s voice carried down the stairs, followed by the thump of his footsteps. Like a ghost, Ethan moved away from the doorway and disappeared as Lane came into view. “Do you have your stuff?”
I cleared my throat. “Yep.” I reached down automatically to grab the bag next to me.
“We can stop for bagels again if you can lower yourself to eat them,” Lane said, blissfully unaware as we carried our stuff out to the car. “There’s a pretty good bakery on the way.”
“Sounds good,” I managed, glad that my voice at least sounded normal.
But I couldn’t get William’s words out of my head. I tried to shake off the ominous sense that a door was slamming shut on the weekend and everything that happened here.
It didn’t feel like the start of something new. It felt like everything was broken.
25
Lane
Zach was quiet most of the way home. After my attempts at conversation were returned with mumbles, I gave up and turned the radio on. He was probably just tired from the early morning hour. But I’d gotten so used to Zach’s easy charm that I wasn’t sure what to do with this brooding version.
The closer we got to the city, the more the shine seemed to rub off the weekend and the real world crashed in, unwelcome. My mind filled with the weight of responsibilities—to the campaign, to my studies—and all I wanted to do was turn the car around and go back. Forget about everything else and just be with Zach.
When I pulled into an empty spot in front of Zach’s building, I cut the engine and turned to him. “Everything okay?”
“Sure,” he said, sounding surprised by the question. But his eyes slipped from mine when I tried to catch them, and the knot that had begun to form in my stomach grew.
Throughout all of this, we’d never actually talked about where we would go from here. I’d blithely assumed we’d continue on the way we had over the weekend, but maybe that had been a faulty assumption. Maybe that wasn’t what Zach wanted at all.
“My, uh, mom invited us to dinner at their house next Saturday. If you’re free, that is.”
“Oh.” His obvious lack of enthusiasm twisted the knot in my stomach further. “I’ll have to check my schedule at the bar. Can I let you know?”
“Sure.”
He leaned over the console to peck a kiss on my lips, but it felt perfunctory. He opened the passenger door, and I watched as he keyed into the building and disappeared inside.
I willed my grip to loosen on the steering wheel and pushed away my nagging sense of foreboding. You’re imagining things. He probably has a million things on his mind now that we’re back. Stop being so paranoid.
That was all it was.
Numbers swarmed on the laptop screen in front of me. I was meant to be comparing the campaign’s latest predictive models with the actuals we’d gathered so far, but I’d lost the thread halfway through and would have to start over.
“Lane, are you even listening to me?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Cassie, realizing she’d been talking to me the whole time. “Sorry, what?”
She pushed her chair back until it was even with mine and frowned. “You’ve been out of it all day.”
I ran a hand over my face. Cassie wasn’t wrong. I’d been finding it hard to focus ever since we’d gotten back from the bay a few days ago. I couldn’t focus on the campaign work when half my attention was on my phone waiting for Zach’s response to my text asking if he’d checked his shift schedule yet. He’s just busy. Stop fretting about it. “I’m fine.”
Cassie snorted. “Sure, Scully, you’re fine.”
I was fine. Mostly. But I was starting to think that Zach was avoiding me. We’d spoken once on the phone, which had been cut short by him having to go to work, and my last couple of texts to him had gone unanswered. I knew he’d been wanting to pick up more shifts at the bar, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
I was worried, too, that I’d read the situation all wrong. That all the assumptions I’d built up over the course of the weekend were just that, like my belief that Zach felt the same way I did. Zach had never made me any promises.
I shook the thought out of my head. As odd as Zach had been on the ride home, I knew he felt the same way I did. He couldn’t have faked that.
My phone buzzed. My eyes flew to it, hoping to see Zach’s name. But the text wasn’t from Zach. It was from Bryce.
I blinked. Shielding my phone from Cassie, who was still eyeing me curiously, I checked the message.
I miss you.
I stared down at the words. What the hell?
Dots appeared under the text, and I watched them with a kind of morbid curiosity, waiting for whatever came next. I hadn’t seen Bryce since the wedding. At first he’d been on his honeymoon—they’d gone to Grand Cayman, I’d heard from another volunteer— and once he’d gotten back he’d transferred to the advance team on the campaign while I worked out of headquarters. I was just as happy not to have to run into him.
Another text came through. I know it’s not fair to tell you that.
Delayed anger rushed through me, and my fingers were typing before I could stop them. No, it’s not.
I didn’t know what game Bryce was playing, but I was done with that. I was done with him. Bryce had seen Zach at the wedding, for fuck’s sake—and maybe we’d been fake dating then, but it was real now. Or at least I thought it was.
More words appeared. I just thought you should know. I’m so sorry for how things went down. I didn’t realize I’d miss you this much.
What. The. Fuck.
I put my phone down like it had burned me. I hated that Bryce could still trigger such a strong emotion from me, even if it was anger.
“Isn’t that your little brother?”
I pulled my attention away from Bryce and followed the direction of Cassie’s gaze. My brother had no interest in my father’s campaign activities, and I didn’t think he’d ever actually been to headquarters before. But that was definitely Ethan by the door scanning the room.
His gaze stopped when he saw us and he headed our way. “What are you doing here?” I asked when he got there.
Ethan shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. As per usual he was artfully disheveled, part of his whole look that I knew made him a magnet for both male and female interest. Not for the first time I wondered if he worked at that, or if it was natural. Knowing Ethan, it was probably the latter. “Why, I can’t visit Dad’s campaign headquarters?”
“Sure, you can, but you don’t.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. Cassie swiveled back to her desk to give us privacy, but I could tell she was still listening. “About what?”
Ethan glanced around us. The space wasn’t exactly private, and he’d already attracted a handful of curious stares. “Can we go somewhere?”
I looked at my watch. It was close enough to lunch that I wouldn’t feel guilty taking off. Not that I was getting paid by the campaign, but I’d been roughly keeping a nine-to-five schedule now that school was out. “Sure. There’s a coffee shop with sandwiches down the street.”
I grabbed my keys and wallet from the desk drawer. When we got to the coffee place, I ordered coffee and a sandwich for myself, and Ethan just got coffee. We took our coffees to an empty table to wait for the food.
“What’s up?” I asked, curious why Ethan had come down in person rather than call.
Ethan lowered his coffee cup to the table. “I know about you and Zach.”
I blinked at him. “You know what about me and Zach?”
“That you’re not really together. That you were just faking it.”
Ethan was playing with the seam of the cardboard coffee protector and wasn’t looking at me. “Why do you say that?”
His blue eyes when they shot up glittered with anger. “Seriously? You’re going to lie to me about it? I heard everything Dad said, and Zach didn’t deny it.”
“Wait, hold on.” My heart had started racing at the first mention of my father. “What are you talking about? What did Dad say to him?”
“That you hired Zach to be your boyfriend. That he’s some kind of paid escort.”
I froze. How the hell could my father know something like that? Had he had Zach investigated?
Anger swept away my initial confusion. Of course he had. My father’s need to control everything was equal only to his belief that everything was about him.
