Out of the Blue

by Kathryn Nolan

  “You are a dream come true,” he said hoarsely.

  I was stunned speechless. He kicked off his briefs and wrapped a fist around his thick cock. He stared at me, as vulnerable as he was arrogant, as his arm flexed with motion.

  I gave in to my nightly fantasies. Pushed him hard against the door and fell to my knees. I gazed up at him like he was the burly, bearded god I worshiped.

  The man staring down at me was one who’d ceded all control to his darkest passions. He speared his fingers through my hair and swiped his thumb across my mouth.

  “I want this,” he growled.

  “Then you should have it,” I said, running my tongue from the root of his cock to the tip. His fist hit the door, and his relieved groan reverberated through the room. I opened my mouth wider, taking him deep as I dug my nails into his firm ass.

  “Serena,” he moaned. “I’ve missed this so much.”

  I hummed around his slick skin and slid him to the back of my throat, let his strong fingers in my hair dictate my rhythm and pressure. He flexed his hips and fucked my mouth thoroughly. I kept my eyes lifted to his and watched Cope lose his mind. One hand gripped my head while the other drifted to my breasts, cupping them roughly, pinching my nipples, making me moan around his cock. My head bobbed up and down, urged on by his hand and the sounds he made. Those abs of his flexed and tightened as his jaw dropped and his head fell back, exposing his throat. His breath came harsh as he yanked on my hair.

  “Your mouth is perfect,” he grunted. “Everything about you is perfect.”

  I swirled and fluttered my tongue around the tip in response. He looked down at me almost angrily, fire in his eyes, and I took him as deep as I could, relaxing my throat. Holding him captive there. His thick thighs started shaking. He loved this battle for control we always had, falling apart in my mouth the same way I fell apart beneath his tongue.

  The night we’d gotten married, before he’d licked champagne from my fevered skin, I’d shoved Cope against the hotel wall and sucked him off in the hottest, sloppiest blow job I’d ever given in my life. It was an act of pure joy, and he didn’t seem to mind as his come spilled from my lips and dripped down my body.

  On that night, I had watched him just like this, enthralled. I witnessed him lose all sense of decorum or control. I felt so connected in that moment, the way I did now—it was the ultimate intimacy.

  I slid my lips up and down in a faster rhythm. He twisted the strands of my hair, and I groaned, wrapping my hand around the base of his cock.

  “Nothing should feel this good,” he said with a groan. “This, you, that hot fucking mouth of yours. It should be forbidden. It should be illegal.” His thumb stroked tenderly across my cheek. “You make a man want to risk it all, you know that?”

  I sat back on my heels, letting his cock slip from my mouth with a pop. With his hands gripping my face, I stared up at Cope from on my knees and understood that we shared the same power. “You make me want to risk everything too.”

  With a growl of frustration, he hauled me to my feet then lifted me, wrapping my legs around his hips. We couldn’t stop kissing, hands roaming everywhere—pulling, scratching, remembering. I clung to him tightly as he lowered us onto the bed, wasting no time in dropping his head to my breasts. They were small against his large, strong hands, cupping and worshiping me there. His tongue circled my nipple, lapping it lightly while he pinched the other. My core tightened reflexively, already seeking friction, pressure, to be filled.

  “I’ve missed every inch of you,” he groaned against my skin. “I dream of you every night. Of this body, of the sounds you make for me, of the taste of your cunt on my tongue.”

  My back arched off the bed, and my fingers gripped his hair. He pressed open-mouthed kisses—with teeth—across my ribcage, my stomach, the curve of my thighs. He was feasting on my body with a look of pure astonishment, like I might disappear if he let me out of his sight.

  I writhed beneath his skilled mouth, shivering with sensation. His palm smoothed down my thigh, circled my hip, then squeezed my ass. He began kissing me again as his fingers teased along the seam there, sliding along my back entrance.

  “Oh, yes,” I hissed, digging my nails into his shoulders. He was my husband, after all—he knew every single secret my body held.

  With a low, rumbling groan, he applied the sweetest pressure to the ring of muscle there, not entering me but stroking out sensation. Lazily. Decadently. He licked a path across my collarbone, between my breasts, sucking my nipples between his lips as he worked magic with those fingers.

  It was the most tortuous foreplay, a sustained note of luxurious pleasure. I was suspended in ecstasy, and Cope was enjoying every single inch of my body, remembering my desires.

  He dropped to his knees on the floor and pulled me gently to the end of the bed. I propped up on my elbows to enjoy the view of his trunk-sized shoulders, bare and ripped. His messy hair and beard and that arrogant grin stealing my breath. He slid his palms down my inner thighs before spreading them, dropping them on either side of his face. He sucked two fingers into his mouth, and then slid both inside of me.

  I stretched my arms over my head, feeling indulgent. Then reached down to let my fingers tangle in his hair, tugging lightly when his tongue landed on my clit. With slow, steady movement, Cope fucked me with his fingers and fluttered his tongue across my skin.

  Outside of this room was the distant sound of crashing waves, an endless cycle, the background music of my entire life. They couldn’t match the sounds I made now, as he brought me close again, leading me to the edge of ecstasy. One hand clutched the mattress, the other his hair. I was writhing, rolling my hips, as his tongue danced across my clit with precision.

  His fingers moved quickly—in and out—a constant tease as I rose and rose. A bead of sweat slid between my breasts, my breathing was rapid and shallow. I opened my eyes to look at Cope, startled to find him staring at me with raw intensity. He growled my name but didn’t stop licking my pussy, didn’t stop flexing those fingers in the most delicious way. I held that gaze, refusing to back down as I felt my orgasm beckon.

  “I need you,” I gasped. “All of you, please.”

  That snarl was back. It had goosebumps igniting along my skin. I backed up on the bed as he prowled toward me, crawling until his hands were planted on either side of my head. He gave a slow, easy grind of his cock against my clit, and my eyes fluttered closed. Then I was flipped onto my stomach. His tongue licked up the length of my spine. When he reached the back of my neck, he buried his face in my hair with a shuddering inhale.

  “Serena,” he sighed. “Serena, you have all of me.”

  He notched the head of his cock at my entrance and flexed forward, careful of the tight angle. But he knew, he knew, it was my very favorite. Because of what happened next—every inch of his body pressing to mine, keeping me close, keeping me safe. In this position I felt cherished and debauched and protected and so totally his.

  It was everything I ever wanted but was afraid to ask for, pinned down and ridden hard but liberated with euphoria. He fully seated himself with a raspy moan and entwined his fingers with mine.

  My husband started to move between my legs, a heady, addicting drag of his hard cock against my inner walls. I shuddered and cried out, which had Cope humming against my ear.

  “You remembered,” I sighed, cheek pressed to the bed. His heavy body curled over mine, mouth grazing my temple, my neck.

  “Of course,” he said on a groan. “This is all of me, sunshine.” He pulled back then thrust—harder this time. My fingers squeezed tight to his. “So make me work for it. Make me work for the privilege of fucking you.”

  He rocked in and out in a maddening rhythm. “You want my dedication and focus?” This time, his reentry was an agonizing, inch-by-inch claiming that made me scream in frustration against the bedsheets. He bit down on my ear and whispered, “Then you got it.”

  31

  Cope

 
Time ceased to exist, as did reality and consequences.

  The moment she opened the door to our bedroom, my heart was all the way in. With my body pressed to hers, I recognized that we’d reached a new threshold, one we couldn’t come back from now that we’d crossed it.

  This reunion was different from the sex we’d had this morning. It wasn’t a hot hook-up between two ex-lovers. It wasn’t closure, it wasn’t an ending, and it wasn’t a fun, sexy mistake either.

  If we hadn’t pursued anything further, I would have told myself that exact stream of lies.

  It was just for fun. We were under a lot of stress. Mistakes happen.

  Our bodies moving together on this bed, our frenzied release, the sweat on our skin—this was purposeful. I was her husband, she was my wife, and we had every right to want each other like this.

  This wasn’t closure. It was a turning point.

  I pushed up onto my hands then sat back on my heels, bringing Serena’s hips with me. I took a moment to enjoy the gorgeous curve of her spine, the span of her waist, the freckles, the scars, the tan lines. I smoothed the unruly curls from her face—she was blissed out and biting her bottom lip. She was a fucking vision. My self-control had snapped the second she dropped to her knees in front of me, and it had only gotten worse as she took my cock between those pretty lips and had me seeing stars.

  Having my tongue between her thighs again had been an actual exercise in self-restraint. The urge to fuck my own fist while I licked her clit was overwhelming. A man could only take so much, and Serena was an expert in finding every single button I loved and pushing them.

  “Cope,” she begged, “I need more.”

  As if I could deny this woman anything.

  I moved to my knees, steadying myself, fucking her in the same slow, deliberate rhythm. Then I drove hard. Harder. She fell forward with a gasp and twisted her fingers in the bedsheets.

  I grabbed a mass of her curls and waited for her plaintive “yes” before gently tugging her head back. She had a competition tomorrow, after all, and I was always aware of the impact our sex could have on muscles that needed to be flexible.

  “Perfect,” she sighed. I pulled just a little bit harder, caught her husky moan, and gripped her hip with my other hand. I doubled my speed, driving my cock between her legs in long, deep strokes. She was so wet. She was so familiar. I held her hair and drilled harder, my hips pumping against the curve of her ass, those husky moans of hers transformed into full-blown sobs of pleasure.

  My head tipped back on the ecstasy of it all, the intensity infiltrating every nerve ending, every inch of my body, fracturing my focus.

  “I’m so close,” she said, thrusting back against me, taking me even deeper. My world narrowed down to my fist in her hair, the curve of her back, her pussy gripping me with every thrust. “So close, so close, Cope.”

  I licked the pad of my index finger then slipped it between her legs, catching her clit as I kept up the demanding rhythm. Her fingers tore at the sheets. Her mouth opened in a cry. She was wet, ready, clenching around me. I watched, astonished, as she came and came, shuddering, smiling, chanting my name.

  I gave in to my body’s plea for release. My climax was strong enough to steal my vision and seize my lungs. I groaned Serena’s name on my final, ragged strokes. Pushed the hair from her face and saw her smiling dreamily. Then laughing.

  I pulled out gently and kissed the small of her back—she tasted like salt and sex. I crawled onto my side, still breathing like I’d just gone for a hard run. She was on her stomach, big brown eyes watching me.

  “Are you okay?”

  She grinned. Laughed again. Kissed me, a little sloppily. I joined her, pulling her flush against the front of my body, our faces only a few inches apart. “Do you find my dedication and focus amusing?”

  “That was the best sex I ever had in my life.”

  I kissed her forehead. “Oh, yeah? Better than our honeymoon night? I did drink champagne off of you. I would hate to think my performance in that hotel room was sub-par.”

  “I didn’t think it could get any better.” Her voice was raspy. “But then it did.”

  I smoothed my palm down the slope of her spine and back up again. She sighed, relaxed, and looped her leg over my waist. I took a moment to accept where we were—in our house, in our bed. The sheets and pillows were the same, the rug was the same, even the curtains.

  It was Serena and I that were different now.

  “Was that what you needed tonight?” I asked.

  “I wanted you,” she said. “Sex was a bonus. But I wanted you here, with me. Like this.”

  Emotion gripped my throat and I had to swallow a few times to regain control. “I wanted to be here with you too.”

  She blinked heavily and yawned.

  “You should sleep,” I said. “We have to get up in, holy shit, six hours.”

  “Not yet.” Her fingers traced my lips, down my chin. “Can I talk to you about something? About us?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Nerves fluttered in my chest. Less than twenty-four hours separated us from that first kiss in the kitchen until now. And I was already in too deep.

  “When I was growing up, my parents tried to control my emotions pretty severely,” she said, voice soft and lyrical on this vital night. “If I got worked up or was unladylike, they would shut me down. And they would shut down too. They thought avoiding it and forbidding it helped me get my unseemly emotions under control.”

  Her fingers traced along my jaw, to my ear. “It made me feel very alone. I was lucky I had Caleb. Anytime we were together, he let me rage, or cry about something sad, or be frustrated or pissy or inconvenient with my intense feelings.” She held my gaze but looked worried. “When I think back to those months after your hostage incident, I think I reacted so negatively because I felt like a little girl again. Helpless and angry.”

  Serena had wanted to talk about what happened to me constantly and my resistance to that had scared her. She didn’t sleep, was plagued with night terrors, watched me every day like she suspected I might have a break down.

  I, on the other hand, wanted to go back to normal immediately with funny jokes and silly work anecdotes. Because I’d survived, hadn’t I? Rehashing those two days seemed pointless to me. More importantly, I was supposed to be protecting her, not the other way around. She was the one with the death-defying career.

  But the combination of the late hour and phenomenal sex was tapping at the locked box in my brain marked terrifying shit I never want to think about again.

  I kept up the motion of my hand, smoothing up and down her back. “Did I make you feel alone during those months?”

  She hesitated, going rigid. We were walking across a bridge that was simultaneously being built right in front of our feet. Every reveal, every vulnerability, felt like placing the next board down without knowing if it would stick.

  “I did feel alone,” she said. “But I’m not telling you this for sympathy. I’m trying to explain why I felt like I was falling apart, that we were falling apart during that time. I didn’t feel like I could express myself, so the only thing I ended up doing was begging you to quit your job.”

  I sighed. “And all I did was beg you to quit your job.” I paused. “And your dream.”

  “Hindsight?” she said. “I don’t think either of those requests were productive.”

  I chuckled and kissed her fingers. “Wait. Arguing about the same thing over and over is bad in a relationship?”

  “So I’ve heard.” She brushed the hair from my forehead. “I should have given you more time. As much as you needed. I can’t begin to imagine what you went through.”

  A memory forced its way in—the dull, distracting ache in my shoulders from having my hands tied behind my back. The hollow hunger. The way my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  The gunman giving me a darkly sympathetic look, like I’d pulled the fucking short straw that day. If your boss doesn’t g
ive me what I want, this isn’t ending well for any of you.

  “I’ve held on to my anger at how things ended between us because it was easier to exist with those feelings than to acknowledge the part I played. Easier to acknowledge that I still—”

  Serena trailed off, but my heart surged in my chest at what I thought, what I hoped, she was trying to say.

  Did she feel it too? The inevitability of our once-in-a-lifetime love?

  “What I’m trying to say—” Her voice shook. “—is I’m sorry for forcing you to heal within my timeline and my parameters. It was unfair and immature of me.”

  I slid my palm against her cheek. “I’m sorry I made you feel so alone. That I locked you out, made you feel like you had to censor yourself. You were in so much obvious pain, and I brushed you off and refused to listen every time.” I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I hated when you did that to me because I couldn’t protect you if I didn’t know what was hurting you. It used to make me feel helpless. Inadequate.”

  She nodded. “This is resonating with me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The situation with Aerial scares me. The threats, being followed. Everything Quentin said tonight about what they could do to try and keep their reputation clean. I don’t want them to hurt people anymore and lie about it to make more money. I also don’t want them to hurt anyone I love.”

  “You’re scared?” I repeated.

  “I am, yeah.”

  She was handing me another part of the bridge.

  “I’m scared about you surfing The Wedge tomorrow,” I said. Tentatively. “Not because you can’t do it. I know that you can. But my dad both loved those waves and told us all the time how dangerous they could be.”

  I searched for signs on her face of our many past disagreements. But she kissed me instead, lingering for a while.