by Nicole Snow
I start with the tattoo curling over his shoulder, a primal pattern that makes me think of deep tribal drumbeats and the rhythm of the ocean answering a tidal moon's call.
Sea and stone. Harshness. Smoothness. Fire.
That's his entire body, this titan masterwork crafted from the elements themselves, and I lose myself tracing over his beauty. Every time my fingertips skim his shoulders, his chest, the ripples of his abdomen, a shudder rolls tensely over taut hide.
He’s barely holding himself in check, breathing harder and harder, while every part of him I take in makes my body ache deeper and deeper.
Until my fingers stray down to his navel, that trail of tempting dark hair, and lower.
Landon's control snaps.
Suddenly, I’m tumbling on my back, spilled across the grass, fresh green blades licking cool against my overheated skin while he hovers over me. There's a dark god pushing between my legs, taking up my world, framing it in the light from the twinkling stars overhead.
In the darkness he’s this looming, menacing shape. A silhouette cut in hard edges, pinned by the glow of blue – but it’s the warmth and need and softness in those vivid blue eyes that turn him from the monster in the dark into the silent secret lover.
Consumed and all consuming in his intensity. He takes me in with a lethal gaze, an eye-fuck that strips me naked. His splayed fingers skim up my body, pushing the hem of my shirt up, taunting me with the sensuous scrape of calluses against my skin. Every touch comes like a spark kissing, burning out, melting into my flesh.
I suck in a breath as his hands rove higher, as he lifts the tank top over my breasts, baring me save for the barely-there bra cups that are no protection at all.
Not from his gaze. And not from the heavy, heavy touch of a possessive hand curling against my breast, cupping and kneading my flesh against him, until I feel like putty in his hands.
A whimper slips out of me. I can’t help but writhe, lifting myself up, digging my fingers into the ground, eyes slipping half-closed as I bite my tongue on pleasure.
His knee braces against the grass between my thighs. Every time I move, I'm grinding myself against the hardness of his thigh.
Struggling not to completely lose myself in these deep, drawing feelings he pulls out of me with every touch, every kiss, every beastly glance.
I’m so weak for him. A level of undone I thought only existed in my books.
So shamefully weak, he strips what last strength I have as he lowers his body over me, licks his way up my stomach in sizzling trails, catches my bra cup in his teeth, and drags the lace down to bare me to the kiss of night air. And to the kiss of his lips, as his mouth teases me once again with no buffering layer between us, pulling my hardened, tightening, tingling nipple into his mouth.
Desire shoots through me in hot bolts, every last one arrowing straight down. And his huge hand follows them, like he's guided by the invisible arrows of my pulsing need.
I’m so lost, such a mess, digging my dirt-stained fingers into his back, feeling like a little animal myself as I squirm against him...holy hell.
I don’t even realize what he’s doing until my shorts are open and suddenly there’s the heat of hard, thick knuckles against tender skin, slipping down, exploring and brushing over my folds.
I can’t stop my cry this time.
It rips out of me, a sweet hot tremor as everything inside me clenches. His fingers belong to the devil himself. They glide down slow, knowing to find where I’m already wet. So wet.
He had me in the palm of his hand before he even jumped the fence, as if my body sensed him coming and was ready.
He traces every dripping soft bit of me like he’s known even this secret part of me his whole life, a feeling more exposed than any I’ve ever known. I’m going to burn up inside. Going to die of this fever.
Just gasping every time pleasure crashes over me in rushes so raw they're almost painful.
He knows how to make me writhe. Knows how to make me spread my straining thighs and lift myself desperately toward his stroking fingers. Knows how to make me lose my breath when he teases one greedy point and then the next.
And he knows how to completely break any last resistance I had when he lets go of my sore, throbbing nipple with one last loving lick, swirls his fingers through my dripping wetness, and growls huskily against my ear, “...so you did miss me, Reb.”
Oh, God. I want to call him an asshole.
Want to tell him to fuck off. Want to tell him to fuck me, because he’s driving me crazy with this slow foreplay, this languid exploration that seems to strip away the civilized woman bit by bit to make me just as wild as him.
But whatever rises to my lips is silenced, choked off, as those devil’s fingers search deeper. Just two fingertips, sliding inside me, slow and testing – but they’re enough to set me off.
“Landon!” I gasp, arching hard against the grass.
Only the thick, pinning bulk of his body holds me in place. His fingers respond, surging slowly deeper, anchoring me with a rough confidence and certainty that twists me up inside and leaves me feeling so deliciously helpless.
No one else I’ve ever been with has made me so entirely, immensely aware of every sensation. I feel him down to the ridges of his knuckles, caressing inside me.
He conquers my whole world, in this moment; there’s nothing but the heavy rasp of his breaths in my ear, the heat and pressure of his body, the unyielding planes of hard muscle beneath my digging fingers, the sweet violation of his fingers coming deeper and deeper.
Twisting. Pumping. Taking. Pushing.
Thrusting me higher and higher each time he strokes, quickening his delicious pressure against the trigger points on my inner walls.
I can’t take it. My pussy can't.
He’s too damn much. He’s always been too much, but I never thought I’d find myself like this, wrapped around him and pleading with soft, needy keens in the back of my throat.
He’ll destroy me if he doesn’t end this soon. If he doesn't bring me off...
I turn my head, lips against his ear. “Landon,” I whisper.
I want to say please, please stop teasing. Please be with me. Please let me feel you.
But there are no more words. I'm hollowed out, and there's nothing but this twisty-aching-wonderful-awful-beautiful-terrible feeling inside that has to have him. And it won't go anywhere until he's had his fill of me.
It's like the wavelength stretching between us speaks for me. It’s as though he understands me, understands me the way the old Landon used to, the boy who called me Reb and told me I was better than all the people who hurt me. He stops, gently slipping his fingers from my body. That dark, commanding voice murmurs against my ear, my jaw, my throat.
“You want me?”
I nod, struggling to catch my breath as my entire body throbs with the after-impression of his touch. “Please.”
He’s already dragging my shorts, my panties away – peeling them down my legs, stroking over my thighs with his fingertips in the process, until they quiver.
Then I’m bared before him, the last scraps of cloth clinging to me, and his zipper drops with a heavy rasp. I bury my face against his shoulder, feeling hard heat pressing against me, the tip slick and dripping and burning against my flesh, thick and teasing against me until my stomach clenches and my breaths hitch.
“Landon.”
“Say it,” he demands in a low, broken growl. “Say you want me.”
It only feels like torture because it's true.
I feel small inside, when he asks. Vulnerable and fragile, as if he’s asking me not just to bare my body to him, but to open my soul and trust him enough to let him inside after all these years of hurt and pain. As if he’s asking if I truly do see him as someone other than a monster.
As if he's asking if I could ever see redemption, enough to give him my naked heart.
It’s only a breath of hesitation, before I know. Before I find my voice, eve
n if it’s just a shaky whisper. “I want you,” I whisper. “I’ve always wanted you, Landon.”
He lets out a low, almost tortured groan, but doesn’t move.
For half a broken second I’m afraid I said the wrong thing.
Then I hear a condom wrapper crinkling and the brush of his hand between us in practiced movements before that heat is against me again, barely dimmed by the shield of latex, and he’s capturing my lips.
Capturing my body.
Capturing my heart.
“Kenna,” he whispers against my mouth. “Reb. Fuck.”
That last word is a warning. All I get before the full force of his primal, animalistic power hits.
He rolls his hips against mine, a hard surge of muscle bunching under my fingertips, plunging his cock into my trembling, clenching depths.
It’s slow – so slow.
A sweet, delirious eternity I've wanted forever.
I can’t escape the feeling of every inch of him gliding inside me, moving with such perfectly controlled strength and giving me that feeling of fullness I’ve been craving one heavy, gasping moment at a time.
I can’t help rocking toward him, needy and hungry, but he gives no quarter.
One rough hand pins me to the ground with brute force, his fingers digging tight into my hip, forcing me to take him only at his pace. Forcing me to wait for every new burst of fire until I’m a whimpering mess just craving more.
My pussy hurts in the best way it can. Physically aches to take this man so deep, engulfing every inch of him, drawing his thickness halfway to my soul.
And then I feel it.
That fiery moment when our hips crash together, when we lock so perfectly, when he fits inside me just right.
That moment when he's touching all those places that turn me into fireworks and stars. My clit seethes, buried under his pubic bone, gently grinding against me each time we collide.
I'm gone. Bonelessly limp with pleasure, melted underneath him while he kisses me fiercely, delving into me until there’s no part of me he hasn’t touched. I feel the whirling stars overhead in my bones, the grass and earth underneath me, the dark god of primal things inside, this animalistic thing that’s less human and more a force of nature.
It's sex incarnate, and so are we, two old souls locked together in mindless ecstasy. His hips crash harder. Faster. His fucks come insanely deep, driving into parts of me no man has ever touched, a feral growl pouring out his lips every time he makes me gasp a little louder.
Then Landon clutches me to him, wraps my thighs around him, and moves...
And all else falls away.
I remember him as Poseidon in the waves, and he moves me like the tide.
Slow and subtle yet no less cataclysmic, with the strength to change the landscape inside me.
Every thrust hits hard, a barely-caged brute force, restrained just enough to keep me teetering between pleasure and pain.
He draws out one slow fraction at a time, teasing and tormenting me, only to surge in harder and give me everything I need in the sensation of his big cock stretching me, burying me, touching me deeper, deeper, oh sweet hell, deeper.
I’m overflowing with heat. It steams out every pore. I'm tangling my body with his and riding his rhythm until I’m in constant flux, my entire body a heartbeat of pleasure and fire and screaming, mad sensation.
His name on my lips, kissed between us again and again.
His body inside mine.
His weight everywhere, trapping me and keeping me safe. His hands on me, shaping me, molding me, memorizing me as if he’d brand me into his palms.
Then wildness between us, riding higher and higher, until I can’t take it anymore.
I turn my face from his, bite down on his throat like the little animal he’s made me, tasting the salt of his sweat.
Then I'm gone in throbbing white heat.
Sharp convulsions roll through me, seismic and hot, centered on that thick brand of fire moving between my thighs, dragging me under into a drowning sea of sweet darkness, of delicious friction, of shuddering, dick-riding release.
I’m sinking, spinning, barely aware of him shuddering atop me, a faint whisper becoming a snarl in my ear. “Reb, fuck. Look. Give me those eyes, baby. Right here.”
I listen, losing myself in his blue gaze, fierce air storming from my lungs. His own eyes narrow, more like a tiger's than a man's anymore.
Then he says what I've been waiting for. “Want to see your green when I lose it, Reb. Want your eyes on mine when I give it the fuck up, spill every screaming drop I've got into you, woman.”
Holy hell.
My hips start pounding into his, a shrill sound coming in the back of my throat. I just came, but my clit can barely stand how hard he starts to fuck. Landon pushes his forehead against mine, and we're eye-to-eye when our O comes together and the universe spins apart.
So gone.
Just a few sharp jerks of his hips. That moment when his whole body goes rigid and he growls my name. His dick swelling while my pussy pulls at every inch, and then a magma heat I swear I feel, even through the condom.
I scream one long spasm, losing myself in the storm of his body slamming into mine.
All I can do is cling to him, adrift, my heart fluttering loudly and strangely, and my body forever branded with his mark.
* * *
I think I actually passed out.
I think Landon Strauss honest-to-God fucked me into blacking out.
That’s a first.
I’m only gone for a few seconds. I think.
Enough to miss him separating our bodies, which I probably couldn’t have handled anyway when I’m sensitive inside and out, a live wire waiting for a spark.
I come dimly awake as he lifts me into his arms. Through my half-closed eyes I think I see the spent condom falling forgotten under the picnic table bench, before I drift off again.
When my eyes open a second time, struggling, I can’t really see the used rubber anymore and think it must’ve been a dream.
Everything does, no surprise.
“Landon?” I mumble drowsily.
“Shhh,” he murmurs. Okay, and I’m definitely dreaming because that’s tenderness in his voice. “I’m just getting us settled. Sleep, Reb.”
“But...outside...”
He chuckles, a quiet thing that rolls through me, shaking his shoulders and my whole body where he holds me against his chest. It’s a warm sound, a comforting sound, and without even opening my eyes I snuggle against it, pillowing my head to his shoulder.
“Newsflash: people have been sleeping outside since caveman days,” he says gently. “We’ll be fine. It's beautiful out here tonight.”
He’s moving, then, and I manage to pry one tired eye open long enough to see he’s settling us down on one of the lounge chairs by the pool. Then warmth drapes over me as he snags a beach blanket from a stack folded on the patio table and wraps it around us both.
We settle into this dreamy warmth, comfortable against the reclining lounger. I should probably protest being curled up in his lap this way, but my sore, sated, deliciously tired body doesn’t want to move.
Spent is the word I always use after my fictional ladies get fucked into the next universe. Whatever I am right now, it doesn't seem powerful enough to describe how utterly drained I am.
“'Night, Landon.” I manage to slur, already sinking away again, fighting an expansive yawn.
Another chuckle. A kiss to the top of my head. “Sweet dreams, little Reb.”
I want to say something else, ask him what this means, but my head is heavy and my tongue is thick and his arms feel far too good.
Forget it. I don’t want to ask. Not now.
I just want to enjoy this strange, miraculous thing, and drift off to sleep in his arms.
I guess it really is as easy as it is in my books. I should have seen it coming.
Except I’d be lying.
Because there’s nothing easy or p
redictable about Landon Strauss at all.
12
Catchup (Landon)
Clearly, impulse control isn't my strong point.
If it was, I wouldn’t be waking up under the blistering SoCal mid-morning sun with the only things saving me from a sunburn being an overhanging tree, a beach blanket, and Reb’s near-naked body.
Shit!
Is this real life? Did I really get in my car, chase McKenna Burke down, and fuck her on the grass in her brother’s backyard?
Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did, and considering how good she felt wrapped around me and how good she feels against me right now, I can’t really say I’ve got too many regrets.
Even though I know it’s a massive mistake.
It's a life changing fuck-up, even, but the only thing on my mind is how hard I am against her thigh. And how fucking good I bet her pussy would taste on my tongue as a wake-up call.
Then cold reality hits me between the eyes.
Right now, I’ve got enough drama in my life that I don’t need more. While I don’t regret sex with Kenna, I’m gonna regret the fistfight if her brother walks out here and finds us like this.
Guessing by the sunlight, it’s about ten or so, and it’s a miracle Steve hasn't already come outside to water the ficus or something, and wake me up with a ferocious smack across the back of my head.
“Kenna.” I nudge her gently. “Wake up.”
“Mmph.”
That little fucking kitten of a woman just burrows into me deeper. And it’s really not helping things, considering her shirt is still rucked up and her bra is still mangled down. Her pale, soft breasts and those strawberry-pink nipples rub against my naked chest, and if I wasn’t wearing jeans, having her bare skin against me would probably just end up with us doing it all over again instead of me struggling to ignore my growing hard-on.
“Kenna,” I repeat, louder, shifting my body to jostle her a bit more firmly. “Wake the fuck up. We’re half naked and your brother’s home. You want Steve to see us like this?”
She jolts upright at Steve’s name like someone flicked a switch on the Energizer Bunny.
