by Lia Riley
“It’s not enough.”
Fear rushes through me. I’m trapped inside myself, clawing walls of flesh and bone.
“The word…” she says with a gentle wonder, like she hasn’t annihilated me. “It’s not big enough to explain what I’ve got going on in here for you.”
My limbs go shaky, uncertain, like I’m a newborn foal. I don’t know where the next seconds go. Her pupils are so dilated that my face reflects back. If I stare harder, maybe her eyes will be reflected in mine and vice versa, and I can follow the chain back to the origin of our universe.
She traces my mouth. “I supernova you.” Her fingers slide over my jaw, down my neck, my chest, lower. I don’t move. Or breathe. Lower. Lower. Is she? Is she?
Fuck.
Her gaze remains locked on mine as she encloses my shaft. Deliberately, rhythmically, she twists both hands in opposite directions while sliding up and down.
“Nice?”
I can’t speak. A single nod must suffice.
She works me like that in the warm, silky water until I’m half-mad. The moment she cups one hand around my balls, glides the heel of her palm along my base, I launch backward, half out of the water.
She crawls after and nudges me to the side. I haul onto the edge of the tub and she kneels between my legs. The sight of her staring at my dick with those heavy-lidded sexy eyes nearly brings me off. She takes me all the way down. Bloody hell. I jerk, impossible to hold still. Her tight mouth is even hotter than the bathwater. She takes me slow and steady, pausing occasionally to swirl her tongue just below my head. Fuck. I’m so close. She offers up a little moan, the urgent vibrations push me closer to the brink.
She pulls back and whispers against my skin, “Come in my mouth.”
“Yeah?” I’ve done it before, in the past, with other girls, but I’m never sure if it’s right.
“I want this.” She takes my hand and rests it on the back of her head. “I want you.”
I knot her hair in a loose fist and she’s everywhere, lips, mouth, eager tongue. The fact she’s so into this, into me, here we go, I can’t keep control. Talia is right, love doesn’t cut it. Together we’re a goddamn supernova.
* * *
Talia drags me across the street to the boardwalk. The sun has properly set, so the place is a surreal mosaic of neon lights. A forty-meter tower rises to our right. People queue to be strapped into the seats, heaved to the top, and dropped.
“Oh, look! The Double Shot. I threw up my cotton candy riding it once.”
“Hot.”
She slaps my chest with a laugh. “Man, I love this place.” She points to the merry-go-round. “My first memory is that carousel.”
“Really? How didn’t I know?”
“My first memory?” She gives me a funny face.
“I want to know everything about you.”
“Women should have their secrets.” Her flirty side eye sends blood rushing below my belt. “I have one now. A place we could go.”
“Do you?”
“Indeed. You have the goods?”
“7-Eleven mission completed. Thanks for being my wingwoman.” The condoms are in my back pocket. Condoms I scored while pretending to buy a drink at the convenience shop after dinner while Talia distracted her dad and Jessie with a desire to watch the sunset.
“I have a vested interest, and the perfect plan.”
“Which is?”
“A secret isn’t a secret if I tell.”
“I have ways of getting you to talk.” I pull her close and our kiss is long and deep. The air is thick with sugary smells, candied nuts, and fried donuts—sweet but fake. Talia tastes like the real deal. She deepens the kiss and for a second I almost forget we’re in a family setting.
“Interrogation by tongue?”
“You disapprove of my methods?”
“Au contraire.”
I tickle her sides. “How about a turn on the Ferris wheel?”
She pokes out her tongue. “I’m afraid of heights, remember?”
“You can sit on my lap. Close your eyes.”
“A regular romantic.”
We wander past the haunted house with its eerie organ music and evil-looking gargoyles.
“They filmed The Lost Boys here.” She’s doing her nervous talk thing.
“Okay.”
“You know that flick, right?”
“Should I?”
“Hang on a sec. I need to process…you’re down with Andrew Lloyd Webber but—”
“Jesus! Quiet, Captain.” I cover her mouth. “Never speak of that.”
“For being an Internet sensation you know nothing.”
“I. Am. Not. A. Sensation.”
“I’m surprised no one has asked you for your autograph yet.”
I don’t smile.
“I’m sorry, okay. No jokes.”
“Not about that.” I’m trying, but that Eco Warriors shit cuts close to the bone.
She runs her hand up my arm. “Hey,” she says quietly. “I get it. Not everything is fair game for comic relief.”
“Thank you.”
“Notice how I refrain from teasing you for not knowing The Lost Boys. It’s an old-school vampire movie, by the way. It starred those two Coreys who were big in the eighties and Kiefer Sutherland. He plays a—”
“I know who Kiefer Sutherland is.”
“You do?”
“Gaby had a poster of him on her wall. I caught her making out with it once.”
“Oh my God, I used to do the same with my NSYNC door poster. I wore off Justin Timberlake’s mouth.”
I grimace.
“TMI?”
“The mental image of you tonsil-licking a photo of a boy band?”
“Suppose you don’t want to hear about my torrid affair with a Harry Potter pillowcase.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I think our definitions differ.”
“Do you want to take a ride?”
I give her a look.
She blushes. “I meant like maybe the swings.”
“I’m good.”
She waggles her brows. “Straight to dirty deeds?”
I extend my hand.
She leads me through the press of bodies. We don’t talk. We don’t even look at each other. My mouth goes dry as I imagine her soft, hot wetness. She twitches because I made a noise, something animalistic, deep in the back of my throat. It’s been five months since I’ve been inside this girl. For the last month I’ve waited.
Waited.
And waited.
I cock my chin toward the beach. The wide strip of sand disappears into the dark. “How about out there?”
“Beach hookups are romantic in theory. The reality is sand in uncomfortable places.”
“What about under the wharf? I could—”
“No!” Her voice raises an octave. “Not there.”
I frown. Wait, this must be the wharf. The one where she lost her virginity with her sister’s ex, a guilt she carried even when she’d done nothing wrong. She stares up at the night sky, her features tight, and I make a decision to let it go. Not push. I don’t want to know everything about her, despite what I said. Just like she doesn’t need to know every last detail of my own past. The important thing is that we know each other’s future.
I lean in and kiss the side of her neck, breathe in the sweet jasmine smell of her shampoo. “How about we go back to the room and—”
“I’ve always had this one little fantasy.”
“Go on…”
She bites the corner of her lip, considering. “It’s better if I show you. We have to cut through the rest of the boardwalk.”
“Lead the way.”
We reach the end of the boardwalk. Water splashes from the log ride overhead as she steers me through an old-fashioned turnstile. I follow her into the tight space. Her ass collides with my pelvis. I do a quick check and don’t see anyone close, so I wrap my fi
ngers around her breasts and grind a little. Let her feel my want. Her head falls back against my shoulder. I nip the top of her ear, soft, even though I’m so hard.
“Not far.” She leads me down the hill. The boardwalk is built right on the beach and alongside a river. There’s enough light to reveal the shallow water and wide sandbars. Is that where she’s taking me?
She stops and starts to kick off her shoes.
“Let me do it, Captain.” I drop to one knee and ease them off.
“It’s low tide. We have to wade across. A bit of a mission but it’ll be worth it.”
She gives me a smile as I run my thumb down the arch of her foot—one that’s all naughty promise.
Bloody oath it will.
Chapter Nine
Talia
I lead Bran to where the San Lorenzo River loses itself at the Pacific. It’s low tide, so the depth is only ankle-deep. He snatches me around the waist and flings me over his shoulder.
“Whoa there, cowboy, my feet are in fine working order, thanks very much.”
“If you walk, I can’t do this.” He gives me a light slap on the ass.
“And here I thought you were being a gentleman.”
“Nope.” His grabby hands slide beneath my miniskirt, flirt with my silky tap shorts. “These are something.”
“Oh yeah?”
“They do things to me.”
“What kind of things?”
“I’d rather show you.” His fingers tease farther up my thigh, near the join.
Sweet Jesus on a tricycle, I’m ready for him to finger me in plain view of the kiddie train ride.
“Hold that thought.”
His frustrated growl drowns out the splashing of his sure-footed stride through the water. “How much further, then?”
“Check it.” The sandstone cliffs are luminous in the bright moonshine.
“I’d rather check you out, thanks.” He settles me above the tidemark on the opposite shore, his hands still locked on my hips.
“Brushing up on your Shakespeare? I’m the sun to your moon?”
“Pretty damn close. I don’t shine if you don’t.” His gruff accent is devoid of sarcasm. He confers on me these words the way some guys give flowers. Except anyone can go buy a bouquet, all it takes is a few bucks. Finding the exact perfect sentence to send a girl swooning takes hella-mad skills.
I scoop my hips against his. His rough denim brushes through the skimpy fabric of my skirt.
“Where to?” He won’t stop staring at my mouth.
“This way.” I take his hands and walk backward.
His gaze flickers over my shoulder. His jaw sets when he sees the cave. The cliffs along the San Lorenzo River are dotted with them, and during low tide they are dry. Since high school, I’ve daydreamed about having my dirty way with a hot guy in one of them.
Time for the fantasy to become reality.
“Sure you don’t prefer to go back to the room? Have a bed?”
“Positive. I want my wild man.”
“Do you now?”
“Yes.” Shit, my voice squeaks. I’m like a field mouse hot for a panther.
Those magnetic eyes hood as he gives me a slow, devious smile. His bare toes flex into the sand. His shorts end just below the knees. The diffuse light from the boardwalk cuts over his muscular, runner-honed legs. I rub my tongue along the top of my mouth fighting an urge to drop to my knees and bite his calf. After making me come yesterday, he flicked my switch. All systems are go. Holy crap, I want this guy so badly my jaw hurts. The BJ in the tub was only the beginning of my master plan.
“Why do you look like that?” His voice is deceptively soft, hypnotic.
“I feel so crazy, like I could eat you.”
“If that’s crazy, Captain, then I’m a goddamn lunatic.”
We pitch ourselves into each other. His fingers snarl my hair while I push off his shoulders, hitch my legs around his waist, and rock my pelvis into his. He returns the grind, hard, against my silky undershorts.
“I’ve bloody starved for you.” He tears his tongue from my tank top strap to the side of my neck, a place directly wired to my sex. His teeth graze my earlobe and I suck in a sharp breath. He’s not gentle, but I don’t want him to be.
I’m not a breakable, weak girl. I’m a woman who wants her man, in every way he can give it.
I’m vaguely aware we are on the move, that Bran gets us inside the cave. I don’t know how he even sees where we’re going because he’s got me hoisted so that my boobs are smack in his face. He draws my nipples with hungry lips through my top’s thin cotton. Oh my God. How does he do that? Make me feel all the feels and not even touch my bare skin?
He lifts me free of him and unzips my skirt. The ground’s dry underfoot. Once I’m naked from the waist, he drops to the loose gravel and pulls me down, settling my thighs on either side of his head. He sucks me hard, right on the clit. Wait, what? He seriously wants me to ride his face? I love what he’s doing, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want to squish him.
“Talia.” He rumbles the word like it’s an order, as if he wants me to do this, to be the kind of girl who fucks her boyfriend’s face. There’s no way he can miss the way my belly trembles. My mind hesitates, but my body is straight up, HELLS TO THE YEAH, HI-HO, SILVER.
“Don’t think,” he whispers. “Feel.” He slides his tongue along my sensitive skin, making his claim, until my eyes roll back to check on my brain. “You feel me, Talia?”
I unleash a soft, shivery moan. Another lick, a little harder. Jiminy Fucking Christmas.
“I asked you a question.”
I manage a faltering nod.
“Can’t hear you.”
“Are you writing your name on me?”
He blows lightly on my skin. “Want me to?”
“Whatever it is you are doing—”
His tongue is across me in five different places. “That?”
“Jesus, yes. That. You can keep it up.”
“Grind on me.”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Do it.”
“What if I break your nose?”
“The doctors will high-five me.”
“What if I suffocate you?”
“I’ll die happy.”
“Bran…”
“Talia, if you knew how hot you look. You’re blowing my mind here.”
“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I sink my weight onto his mouth and do a self-conscious back-and-forth roll. No way, this isn’t going to work. I want to crawl off. Be safer. Less exposed.
Moonlight cuts through the sea fog, and my nipples contract from the chilled air. His fingers lock into the soft flesh in my ass. Fucking fuckity fuck, he devours me and I couldn’t stop moving if I tried. That pace? That pressure? Pure sensation overrides the system.
I let my fingers get lost into his thick, glossy hair and pump hard, ride his clever lips until he takes me to a place past shame, past need. I fight for breath. It’s undiluted taking, but in a way that’s holy—a gift pulled straight from his soul to mine. More. More. When I fall apart he’s already put me back together in a way I can barely explain.
I’m me, but a so much better version.
“That was…” I dismount, sit on the back of my heels, and watch as he undoes his flannel.
“The hottest thing ever?” He tugs too hard. A button ricochets off the wall. “You’re sure you’re okay with this? On the ground?”
“Fantasy cave sex with you? It’s like Christmas combined with Mardi Gras.”
He spreads his shirt across the bare earth. A second later his T-shirt follows. “Come here.” He eases me down, kneels between my spread legs, and opens his shorts. A quick tug of khaki and there it is. The part of him that is so Bran and yet always somewhat of a surprise.
He digs out the foil and goes to tear it with his teeth.
“Ouch, don’t do that.” I snatch the condom wrapper from his hands. “Let me.�
�� He stays on his knees while I sit and remove the latex circle and set it against the head of his dick. “We haven’t had to use one of these in a while.”
He twitches.
“Do you mind?”
“A little.”
“Really?”
“I mind that if you don’t hurry I’m going to come all over your hand.”
I hit the end of his shaft and pass my fingers down over his balls.
“Bloody hell!”
“That close?”
“You have no bloody idea.” He lifts me on top of him. I’m so wet I don’t even think he pushes. He’s just there.
“Bran.”
“I know.”
“I held you at bay for so long.”
“That’s over.” He fists his hands into my hair and tilts my head back. His lips fasten to the thin skin beneath my jaw. “This is now. Be here.”
“I am.”
I brace his shoulders and press until I get the grind exactly how I like it.
“There you go, sweetheart.” His voice is a ragged rasp.
I tighten my legs around him, not wanting any space in our contact. All I can hear is our heavy breathing. I move faster, harder until sweat beads my brow like some sort of baptism.
“You own me.” He doesn’t take his gaze off me, from what I’m doing. “You fucking own me.”
“We own each other.”
My inhibitions disappear so fast I don’t notice them leave. I ride him harder, faster. He hikes me closer, our bellies slam and I can barely move, except what little I manage sends out shivery tentacles to every corner of my body. Each little rub of friction is more intense than the last.
“I’m close.” He sinks his teeth in my shoulder. “You’re too much.”
I brace his head between my hands as pulsing tingles build and build and build. It’s like that roller coaster across the river, inching higher and you know you’re going to fall, but can’t wait. We gasp at the exact same time and hang on through the rush. Wherever this crazy ride takes us, we’re going there together.
Chapter Ten
Talia
I wander the Westside Farmers’ Market with a huge smile on my face. Bran woke before dawn and took me in ways that are probably illegal in some states. He and Dad hit the water after breakfast while Jessie headed downtown to browse Bookshop Santa Cruz. The next few hours are my own. An old-timey band fills the air with fiddle music and washboard rhythms. My coffee is perfectly brewed and the morning is an ideal balance between retreating fog and emerging sun. This is the kind of weather where it’s reasonable to wear a wool sweater and a short skirt, the kind of weather where magic seems possible.
