Fall Guy (A Youngblood Book)

by Reinhardt, Liz

  "Tell me to touch you."

  I'm surprised by the way his voice sounds, almost like a command. I whip my head up to look at him, but his eyes are still gentle, still Winch, still protecting me, even while we're walking down this unknown path together. Even when he's showing a side of himself I've never seen, because I've never known him to let go like this.

  To let go like I asked him to, because he trusts me.

  "I want your hands on me. Now. I want your fingers in me," I say, my voice barely a whisper. I can feel the hot burn of a blush prickling down my body.

  He rubs his thumbs in slow, steady circles on my thighs. "Open your legs."

  The dark blue of his eyes is barely visible behind the black of his pupil and his mouth is set, straight and tense.

  I let my knees fall apart, and he runs his fingers all the way down my inner thigh and higher, just the slightest tickle of a touch. My skin tingles in response to his fingers' gentle movements, but he increases the pressure and his fingers play against the slick, wet, needy center of me. I arch my back and feel his fingers slide inside, then he pulls out with a quick jerk of his hand that leaves me panting and desperate before he slides back in.

  "Do you like it?" His voice is low and cracked with the effort of trying to keep calm.

  "Yes." My voice hisses between my clenched teeth.

  His free hand roams all over my skin, and its rough press leaves a trail of goosebumps in its wake. His hand curls around the back of my neck and pulls my face close, kissing me with almost bruising force as his fingers slide against me in a rhythm that follows the cues of my panting breathing and bucking hips. That persistent rhythm uncoils a tight need burrowed deep in me.

  "Winch," I moan, my body so close to the shaking, shuddery release I've wanted for weeks every time I looked his way.

  I clamp a hand around his wrist, and he slows down, drawing all the perfect, tremors out until they’re teasing me right to the edge of torture.

  He presses his mouth close to my ear, kissing the outer edge. I squeeze my eyes shut, and all my senses hone in on the touch of his fingers and the rough grate of his voice.

  "Come for me," he orders.

  I shake right at the edge of where I need to be.

  The next few words out of his mouth are the trip and twist of a language I don't know, punctuated by a low, long moan.

  He switches into English, and once I can comprehend what he's saying, his words rush me toward a total, complete, delicious loss.

  "Evan, you are the sexiest girl I've ever been with. I think about you...every day. All day. I can't stop. I've imagined doing this...being with you...doing this to you a thousand times. You're so wet. You're so tight. Come for me. Come," he coaxes, his voice thready and rough.

  His hand moves against me, fast and insistent, setting the exact rhythm I'm hoping will never end, but is driving me crazy. My back arches, I twist my hips, I grab his biceps and press my face into the salty skin of his chest.

  "Winch! Winch!"

  I can't say anything but his name. I can't think anything but his name and him and the way he touches me. And then the tiny, focused place where he's touching my body and making me spin loose has had all it can take, and I shake with a fierce jerk of my body, once, twice, and a third long, gripping time. Then I go limp against him.

  He pulls his hand away and drags me close, kissing my face, down my neck, sucking and kissing down my shoulders and arms, and moving in to pull at my nipples with his hot mouth and tongue.

  For a few seconds, I feel liquid-boned against him, like I could close my eyes and snuggle into sleep. But the fevered sweep of his hands and the insistent lick of his tongue unleashes the coil of a new build-up, and I find myself ready all over again for him, for whatever he wants and wherever he's going to take this.

  Take us.

  Completely take us both.

  Foreign words slip off his tongue and make my body move against his as if I can actually grasp any of what he's saying. My hands work down to his waist, suddenly irritated beyond words at the clothing still covering him.

  I want him out, I want him naked, I want him exposed and with me and mine. All mine.

  I flick the button open and drag the zipper down, the metallic zip an instant, frenzied turn-on. His hard-on strains against the thin cotton of his boxer briefs, and his jeans are barely hanging on his narrow hips. I push with my hands, and he moves his hands down to help. It's a tangle of rough and soft cloth, rough and soft hands, our frenzied need to get his clothes off, and the distracting, amazing feel of his skin suddenly there for my greedy taking.

  I press his jeans off with my hands, then my feet, and he kicks and peels away until we're both hot and naked, our bodies pressed so close, it's right on the cusp of where we both want to be so badly.

  But there's the amazing, mind-blowing feel of these few moments of skin-to-skin perfection buzzing through us, and it’s something we both slow down and savor for a minute. Winch pulls up and looks down the length of our bodies. I follow his gaze, and feel the dizzying, possessive pleasure of seeing his tan skin pressed against mine, the two of us alone and nothing to interrupt us, nothing to worry us, for at least this one magic night.

  He shakes his head, still looking down, and loosens a litany of flowing, liquid words that could just as easily be a prayer or a string of curses.

  Then his mouth gets busy kissing me, hard, nipping at my lips, catching the skin on my neck between his teeth with gentle bites, grazing down my arm, and sucking in at my breast. His teeth edge on my nipples, and every experience I've ever had with any other guy dissolve as if those memories had been dipped in acid.

  It's only Winch. It will only ever be Winch for me, from now on.

  I feel the polarizing twist of total euphoria over the fact that I got a chance to know him mixed with dread over the true, but unbelievably heart-breaking, reality that I probably won't be able to hold onto him.

  Every wall is down, every stake has been pulled out, and we're both tumbling into something we couldn't even imagine controlling.

  I want to be with him in every way that matters.

  Even if it's impossible.

  And, if I can't, I want to have as much of him as I can while I can.

  But I also want this to never end.

  His racing, pleading words transition into English. "Evan, I want you." His mouth and hands are everywhere, covering me with goosebumps and smoothing them back out, whipping me into a passionate frenzy and massaging me back to baited anticipation. "Say you want me."

  He slides up and I feel the long, hot press of him, so close but not nearly close enough.

  I open my eyes wide and look at his, wild and black with lust for me, and, maybe, love, too.

  But that's too much right now. I've always been happy to take what I can get, and what I have my hands wrapped around right now is Winch; wild, on-the-edge-of-his-control Winch.

  "I want you," I whimper, ready and sure.

  I reach over and find the basket with my iPod and hairbrush, fishing underneath for the condoms that I've always kept ready. They used to be for anyone who I brought here, but I know when I grab the packet that they're only ever going to be for Winch.

  Winch and no one else.

  Because this time with him proved exactly what I was excited about and terrified of; once I was with him, once I fell for him, even the remote possibility of anyone else would just cease to be a reality for me.

  He takes the packet out of my hand, rips it open, and rolls the condom on. We both glance down, and his chest rises and falls with the rapid breaths he's pulling in and out of his lungs.

  "You want this?"

  I swallow hard. I do. I want it all, every single thing he's willing to give me. And I want everything I know he can't give me.

  But I'm willing to take whatever I can get.

  I wrap my hand around the hard length of him and fit him against my body. "I want this. I want you. I want it now."

  He bra
ces his arms on either side of me. He closes his eyes, his bruised face so handsome and so wild all at once. For a split second, everything is still and tense. Then he presses into me, and I suck my breath through my teeth and bite my lower lip.

  He goes perfectly still for one long second, then pulls back slightly and presses against me again.

  I've had sex before. This is nothing new for me. But when I'm with Winch, he fills me in a way that is only partly physical. It's like he's inside my pores, like his taste is imprinted on my tongue, like our bodies forgot to exist as two separate entities and are now one.

  I've had sex before, but it's a completely new experience with Winch.

  I'm stretched around him, and I wrap my legs around his waist, look him in the eyes, and instruct him the way I've fantasized a thousand times. "Faster," I whisper.

  His mouth compresses, and he pumps into me with quicker, sharper thrusts. Unlike the guys I've been with before, Winch watches me, pays attention. He moves my body under his, repositioning my hips until we click in just the right way for his body to jolt mine on a straight slide down to that perfect, crazy, shaking, smashing release.

  I wrap my arms around his neck and bring his mouth close to mine.

  "Winch," I breathe against his lips before I kiss him deep and slow, drawing his wild, unchecked moan from low in his throat until it tumbles into my mouth.

  The sound of it, the feel of it in me, cracks through the eggshell walls of my calm, and urges me to press against him harder and then let go.

  I've always been good at letting go. Free-falling. Opening up and letting everything wash over me.

  The hard part for me has always been holding on after the fact.

  Head back, legs tight around him, arms holding him close, I let myself slide and shake into perfection. But when it's over, I have to resist the urge to pull back.

  I want to. Deep in my gut, I want to kick away from him, be alone with the fill of my own happiness, protected and disconnected. I always knew being with him would eventually hurt me, because it would have to end. But now I've been exposed to the full extent of exactly what it is I'm going to miss.

  And it's going to ache like my heart's been torn from my chest, still beating.

  I can see in his face that he's holding back, slowing down, closing up. Like always, Winch and I are at opposite poles.

  And, like always, we push each other to stand and face the one thing we always run from.

  I free-fell, but now I'll also cling to him, no matter how much this will hurt later.

  He held on, and now he needs to let go.

  "Let go," I whisper, my hand running over his back, down to the curve of his perfect ass. I smile at him, nervous to be this close, this unsexily open during something this intimate.

  The sexy mask of lust is gone, and it's just me and him, too close and too connected for what's probably going to be too short a time. His eyes are wild, panicked, and he's lost any sense of rhythm. I adjust under him, fit my arms on his shoulders, and draw long, smooth strokes down from the rounded muscles of his shoulders to his tensed wrists, leading his body back to the pattern it needs to be in so he can fling himself open and let it all wash over him.

  "It's okay. I'm here. Let go."

  His eyes are wide. His breathing is ragged. His arms snake around me, so tight they almost crush me, and I only hesitate a single beat before I wind my arms around him and crush back. I wrap myself in him, drape him over me, let him closer than I've ever let anyone before. My body shakes, not from lust this time, but from a feeling that wells deep in me. I feel the hot slide of tears dripping out of my clamped eyes. His heartbeat is wild against my chest.

  I feel like my heart is tearing to get out of my body. I take a long drag of air, inhaling the smell of the two of us, his skin and mine, our sweat. I press my lips to his neck, his mouth, and my hands reach to the back of his head and pull him hard against me.

  The pace is frantic now, and we're both lost in this crazed, strange, scary, wonderful moment that's getting bigger and stronger than either one of us can safely manage, like a deep, powerful wave about to pound a previously untouched shore.

  A gasp and a groan stutter out of his throat, and then he gathers my body tight and fits it to his, pulls his mouth just a fraction of an inch from mine, and the strangled words he grits out pulverize any sense of disconnect I could have hidden behind.

  "Evan, I love you. I love you. Evan."

  Then our world eclipses, dark and and strangely new, frightening except for that fact that he's here, with me, protecting my heart, and he loves me.

  He loves me.

  I hold him close and let the tears course out without any shame.

  He loves me.

  Winch 11

  The sex...

  Sex with her...

  Being with Evan...

  My mind is like a strobe, pulsing with a thousand different thoughts and ideas. Her body, naked, hot, sticky with sweat, is pressed along mine, and her breath is panting in quick bursts against my neck, which is moist from her tears. I have no idea why she's crying, but I feel...I feel the overwhelming urge to...? To do something slightly stupid, without analyzing or hyper-focusing.

  I pull her up by the hand. "Let's go."

  Her face is streaked with smudged makeup and leftover tears. And she looks so goddamn beautiful, it grabs at me and shakes me hard.

  "Where?" she asks, blinking uncertainly.

  I've never been big on parading around naked. My parents raised us to be modest, and, if anyone in our family was going to streak, it's Remy, who would feel comfortable enough just letting it all hang out no matter where he was or who he was around.

  Not me. I'm sensible fucking Winchester, the guy who cleans up after everyone else's messes, the guy who keeps his emotions under control and his damn clothes on.

  Except that's not me tonight.

  I roll the condom off and throw it out, not even minding that Evan sees me do it. For the first time in my life, I'm with someone who accepts everything about me, even the things I have to hide from all the other people in my life. She's opened something deep in me, and I'm not ready to put a lid back on it.

  "C'mon, gorgeous." I reach my hand out and she scoots off the bed and takes it. "Feel like a swim?"

  I know this stretch of road her grandparents' house is on pretty well. All older people, vacation homes. It's late on a Sunday night. No one's gonna be out now. Not that I'd care at this minute if there was an entire stadium of people watching.

  "In the ocean?" The look on her face is a mixture of amusement and surprise.

  I love that I'm surprising her. Hell, I'm surprising myself.

  "Are you worried?"

  I pull her close, and the feel of her in my arms makes me want to push her back on the bed and start again, building her up from cool and calm to panting and begging for me.

  "The tide will be strong right now." She trails her finger down my chest, from the center of my collarbones all the way down until I feel the beginnings of a hard-on starting again. "And my grandparents have a really killer pool. And a hot-tub."

  She arches one eyebrow, and, somehow, even with all her naked glory right in front of my face, that eyebrow is what turns me on hardcore.

  It takes every fucking ounce of my self-control to say the next three words.

  "Lead the way."

  My phone is on the floor, in the pocket of my pants, unchecked. My family is probably gathering to watch a movie. The guys are all around the television with beer and pretzels, the women will drift in and out of the kitchen with their glasses of wine and, later, coffee. It's the same thing that's happened in my family's house on a Sunday night for as long as I can remember.

  And I'm not there.

  I don't want to be there. I chose not to be there. I chose this night, alone, private and doing whatever the hell I feel like doing with a girl who drives me wild and makes me question every damn thing I ever thought I knew.

  A girl
I love.

  I love her.

  I check out the sweet sway of her ass, shaped exactly like a plump little upside-down heart. I follow it until she dives, clean and smooth, off the side of the deck and into the pool, not even checking the temperature of the water.

  Usually I'd be the guy standing on the side, fully dressed, arms crossed, attention focused on keeping everything calm. Tonight that guy is put away, and someone careless and wild is standing in his place.

  I dive in, the cold bite of the water such a shock, I come up sputtering. "Damn, girl! You could have warned me it's Arctic temperatures in here."

  I notice now that Evan's teeth are chattering just slightly. "Live a little. And come here to me. I'll keep you warm."

  I swim over to her and hook an arm around her waist, pulling her to me for a damp kiss. Her skin bobs next to mine, like velvet under the water, brushing and rubbing against me in a way that makes my dick stand at attention.

  I've never been a slacker in bed. I've always kept the girls I was with satisfied. But it usually took me longer than ten minutes after sex to go rock hard again and feel this kind of complete, total need to get a girl back in bed.

  The sex was amazing.

  For me.

  I kiss Evan and taste the salty brine of the pool water on her lips, and it occurs to me that maybe I'm the only one who found it all so damn amazing. Maybe she wasn't as turned on, wasn't as impressed.

  I told her before that it didn't matter to me how many guys she'd been with before me, and that stands. But I never considered the fact that I might not measure up.

  It occurs to me that I said the forbidden fucking word when we were done. The one I never got around to saying to Lala. The one I was pretty convinced I'd only truly feel for my family and maybe my wife after years and kids and all the things that grow that feeling in you for someone.

  Evan sure as hell didn't say it back.

  "You had a good time?" I fish.

  Evan's smile is impish. "Beyond good."

  She wraps her long legs around me and I hold her, weightless in the water, her dark hair wet and tangled on my skin and hers.