Forbidden Fling (Wildwood Book 1)

by Skye Jordan

  One of his big, warm hands combed into her hair, and his fingers closed around the strands, pulling hard enough to make her gasp. But as the pain ebbed, it seemed to blend with and double her pleasure.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asked with a rough, devilish edge. “Because you just gushed all over my cock.”

  “No, no, no.” She didn’t care how desperate she sounded. “Don’t stop.” When he drew out again, she was slick, and when he thrust, dual sensations hit—pleasure when his cock hit that mystical spot inside her, and pain when his hand pulled in her hair. The effect was the most intense sensation she’d ever experienced. A wash that spread through her body and made her moan.

  “Fuuuuck, that’s good.”

  He pressed his forehead against her temple, growled deep in his throat, and muttered, “You are one wicked drug.”

  His thrusts picked up a purposeful rhythm again, and Delaney filled with anticipation. His long, slow strokes ended with an extra crack of power but quickly ramped up to driving, balls-deep thrusts, and Delaney’s climax broke almost immediately, slamming through her in quivering bursts of ecstasy.

  Only this time, Ethan didn’t ease back, didn’t pause. He continued to pound and pound and pound. Delaney covered his arms with hers and held on with an overwhelming sensation that her body was no longer her own but under temporary ownership of a pleasure slave who took his job extremely seriously.

  “Mmm, you’re amazing.” He kissed her shoulder, rested his sweaty forehead against her back. His thrusts grew harder. Faster. “Fucking amazing.”

  Delaney dropped her head back against his shoulder as the orgasm rose, feeling more like a spectator as she watched the climax hit. In the next instant, Ethan’s broke, creating a flurry of wild, fierce thrusts that shot Delaney into another stratosphere. Her body bucked and twisted with the force of the orgasm. The sounds that escaped her were garbled from a strangled throat and drowned by Ethan’s guttural pleasure.

  Both wrung out, they held each other up until the aftershocks subsided. Then Ethan pulled slowly from her body. When Delaney simply curled into a ball on the bed, Ethan wrapped around her. Gathering her close, he pressed the side of his face to her shoulder.

  And he sighed.

  A completely satisfied, wow-that-was-awesome, I-don’t-want-anything-to-ruin-this-moment, I-wish-I-could-make-time-stop sigh.

  She recognized the sound because she felt the same way.

  Delaney closed her eyes and dropped a kiss to his forearm.

  If this was what it felt like to have someone take care of her, she was going to seriously rethink her fierce need for independence.

  TEN

  Delaney’s head rested against the high back of the overstuffed chair in Phoebe’s sunroom as she stared blankly out the bank of windows to the big backyard. Her aunt had left the porch door open when she’d left much earlier that morning, and the sound of birdsong and rustling trees floated in on the midday breeze. The sun played chase among the swaying branches and leaves across the old, scarred wooden floorboards.

  And even though Delaney had a budget to shore up, a timeline to nail down, and a final decision to make based on the outcome of those tasks, she just kept twirling a strand of hair around and around her finger. Her mind wandered and drifted and swayed along with the shadows on the floor, but Ethan always seemed to be at the center of everything. He’d been in her life only a short time, yet he touched everything that involved her, and everything that involved her touched him.

  So strange.

  And, God, she was so tired. She might not have slept that night with Ethan, but she had slept last night—if she didn’t count all her tossing and turning over the guilt churning inside her for dodging him over the last twenty-four hours. Either way, she still felt exhausted—mentally, emotionally, and physically.

  She sighed, let her hair fall from her finger, and rubbed closed lids. But instead of pulling up the renovation’s financial requirements, her mind strayed back to the sweet way Ethan had held her as they drifted in and out of sleep. The way he’d combed his fingers through her hair. The way he’d draped his heavy thigh over hers and wrapped himself around her, brushing sweet whispers across her skin. “You’re so beautiful.” “I knew you were special.” “You amaze me.”

  He was the amazing one. She still couldn’t figure out how he’d escaped the narcissism shown by the other males in the Hayes family. That thought led toward memories of the confrontations with Austin and Jack, creating a confusing tangle of emotions on top of all the other confusion in her life.

  Delaney opened her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to relax.

  “I was beginning to think you were going to stay in bed all day.”

  Phoebe’s voice scared Delaney. She jumped, dumping the catalogs and her project binder on the floor. Papers with her chicken-scratch ideas and the shiny brochures she’d collected scattered.

  “Oh, jeez.” Her heart slammed against her ribs, and she pressed her hand over the pain. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Phoebe crouched and collected the papers, and she glanced up at Delaney with an expression that wavered somewhere between concern and suspicion. “Are you sick? Or did Ethan really wear you out that badly the other night?”

  Delaney didn’t have the will to argue. She didn’t even have the energy to roll her eyes. But she did scowl. “I was thinking.”

  “Uh-huh.” With a handful of brochures, Phoebe turned and dropped her knees to the side, sitting on the floor. “Bet you were.”

  Delaney set everything in her hands on the coffee table and avoided her aunt’s probing eyes by gazing at the porch. “While I’m here, I was thinking about putting some pretty French doors in this room. And these floors would be gorgeous refinished. If I rent a sander for the bar, I’ll bring it over here and clean these up. It’ll be a quick and easy way to brighten up this beautiful porch. What do you think?”

  “I think your evasion skills are as sharp as ever.”

  “How do you feel about granite for a kitchen countertop? Or maybe quartz. Quartz has little sparkles. Bet you’d like that. You don’t have much counter space, so it wouldn’t be too expensive.”

  “You’ve only got one more day.”

  Delaney sighed and glanced down at her flurry of notes. “I know.”

  She had a rough idea of the costs, the risks, and the potential outcomes in her head. No amount of looking at numbers was going to make this decision any easier, because her greatest barriers to taking this on were in her heart.

  “If I promise to hold back all my sarcasm and smart remarks, will you talk to me about it?” Phoebe asked, her voice filled with sincere concern. “I’ve tried my best to let you handle this your way, in your own time, but I have to tell you, Delaney, I’m going a little insane with the way you’re letting time wind down to the last second.”

  Guilt seeped in. She flicked a look at her aunt. “I have an appointment at four.”

  “You do?” Her brows fell. “Are you sure? I’ve heard that Ethan is next to impossible to get an appointment with on short notice.”

  “It wasn’t short notice. I made the appointment after you explained how Avery, Chloe, and I would be held responsible for the cost of the demolition. I know it seems like I’m in denial, but I don’t want this to explode into an even bigger problem for any of us than it already is. We all have enough challenges in our lives.

  “At the same time, I don’t want to throw both money and time and effort away. If it’s a loss, I need to face it, suck it up, and move on, or it becomes an even bigger loss than it needs to be.”

  Phoebe shook her head, covered one of Delaney’s hands with her own, and squeezed. “You never fail to impress me—you know that?”

  “I couldn’t feel any more uninspiring if I tried.”

  The truth was, the only place she felt inspired or relaxed or truly happy was with Ethan.

  And that was a problem.

  A real problem.

  “To f
ace all this while thinking about your sisters and handling angry run-ins with Jack and Austin with grace is truly amazing,” Phoebe said with a shake of her head. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

  Delaney frowned. “How’d you hear about the run-in with Austin?”

  “Gus, the bartender at Patterson’s, is Joe Tilton’s cousin.”

  “Who’s Joe Tilton?”

  “The husband of one of my renters.”

  “Of course, the store.” Delaney tossed her hands in the air. “I swear you could run the CIA out of that place.”

  Phoebe grinned. “Maybe I already do.”

  Delaney huffed a laugh.

  Phoebe piled the papers she’d collected on the coffee table. “I’m sorry this is so hard on you, honey. I like Ethan. I really do. If he was part of almost any other family in town . . .”

  “It’s not serious . . .” While her brain told Delaney the words were true, pain cut through her chest. “It’s just . . . you know . . .”

  “Sex.”

  She shrugged. Nodded.

  A moment of silence stretched, as if Phoebe knew it was a lie, too, and was trying to decide whether or not to call her on it.

  “Heard he stood up for you in the middle of Main Street during the lunch rush,” she said, taking a sidelong approach. “Against his father no less.”

  The memory made Delaney’s mouth lift in a grin. When it was put that way, the act sounded damn near heroic. “He did.”

  “I’ve always known he was different than the rest of his family, but that, that really shows who he’s become. I’m proud of him.”

  “It felt really good, you know? Made me feel, I don’t know . . . sorta safe in a way, I guess. I haven’t had a guy stand up for me since . . .” Her mind drifted back through the men she’d dated. “Wow . . . I don’t even—”

  The memory hit her like a brick to the chest, and she sucked in an audible breath of horror.

  Her boyfriend at the time, Christian “Chip” de la Cruz, a decade older than Delaney and an active drug-running gang member, had been the crème de la crème when it came to pissing off her father. Not that he’d cared that night—he’d been passed out behind the bar when Chip and his buddies rolled in. Delaney could still picture herself stepping over her dad to pull taps of beer.

  She’d been seventeen, working a packed house alone. If she’d been caught, the bar would have been shut down. But if she hadn’t served, they would have lost customers, and the bar would have shut down anyway. Ian and his crew had shown up, high, drunk, belligerent, and handsy as hell.

  Ian had stepped out of line once too often, and Chip had to step between Ian and Delaney one too many times . . .

  “Since Chip?” Phoebe asked gently.

  She released all her air and covered her eyes. “This whole situation is so wrong in so many ways. I swear, if I didn’t need the money I’ve saved, I would just demolish that place and never look back.”

  “Delaney.” Phoebe’s warm hand covered hers. “Let it go. You can’t change the past. You can’t control other people’s actions. You were taking care of your family then, just like you’re taking care of your family now. That’s what families do.”

  “And that’s exactly what Ethan’s trying to do,” she said, pleading with Phoebe to crush her fears. “And what if this time, while I’m trying to help my family, I hurt Ethan? What if I hurt Ethan’s family? Is it okay to hurt another family just to save my own?”

  “You cannot control Ethan. You cannot control what he does or doesn’t do, how he does or doesn’t feel, what decisions he does or doesn’t make. Everything we do every day affects other people. What if I get in the car and I swerve to avoid a pedestrian, and end up hitting another car and killing the driver? What if there’s an earthquake and my store collapses and kills a dozen people?

  “If you lived in fear of affecting other people’s lives, you’d never live. We’re human. That’s what we do—interact with other humans.”

  “An accident is an accident,” Delaney said, shaken by the memory of Ian’s death, so fresh and vivid. “But moving forward knowing you’re going to hurt someone else—”

  “Do you know? Do you know for a fact that renovating that bar is going to hurt Ethan?”

  Delaney opened her mouth to say yes, but Phoebe cut her off. “What if this gets his family talking and brings them closer? What if this is the last straw that allows Ethan to break free of a family that’s holding him back? There are a lot of possible outcomes in this for Ethan and his family. But all you can control is what you do and why you do it.

  “As for you and Ethan—I love the idea in theory. Whether or not it would work out in reality . . . That’s a real stretch, littered with real problems. But I hope he gives you a taste of how it feels to be with a good man. And I hope that makes you realize that you really do deserve that blessing in your life.”

  She may deserve that kind of man in her life, but a guy like that deserved more than Delaney could or would give back. Which got her to thinking about what lay down the road for her. The thought of going back to hookups now was a lot like the thought of going back to drinking cheap wine after tasting straight shots of fine whiskey.

  How would she ever feel satisfied again?

  “I have some good news that might perk you up.” Phoebe tapped Delaney’s hand gently, pressed her back against the nearest wall, pulled her knees into her chest, and wrapped her arms around her legs. When Delaney met Phoebe’s gaze, her aunt said, “Avery called.”

  Excitement sparked in Delaney’s heart. “She did? Is she okay?”

  “She’s . . . struggling, but she’s working her way through. She said she called your cell a couple times but you didn’t answer.” Phoebe got that sly little smile. “Guess you were busy.”

  Delaney sat up, searching for her phone. “She did?”

  “Relax. I told her I’d let you know she called. She’s been fighting a bad case of bronchitis, which has hurt her business. She’s stressed because she lost a few clients, and the divorce will be final any day.”

  Delaney’s excitement fizzled in the face of all Avery’s troubles. “Are they really giving up?”

  “David is. And one person can’t make a marriage work alone.” The sparkle that always lived in Phoebe’s eyes dulled. “I think he just went through too much on his tours overseas, you know? I think he still cares about Avery, but he just doesn’t know how to relate to her. They were kids when they married, and really grew up apart—him in a war zone, her fending for herself with no family, no friends, no husband. And, honestly, no real skills to live out there alone.”

  God, that hurt to hear. Delaney might be only two years older than Avery, but when their mother disappeared, she’d taken over that role for her sisters the best she could. And with it came the burden of guilt. A burden she’d only discovered in hindsight. And one that felt especially heavy when she’d realized too late that when she’d left town after Ian’s death, she’d followed directly in their mother’s footsteps. Something she didn’t ever expect either of her sisters to forgive or forget. But it was a rift she hoped they could mend over time.

  “But her business, you told me she was getting pretty busy. That all the markets and delis where she lives carried her muffins and cookies.”

  Phoebe lifted one shoulder. “She’s a little like you, only gives me half the real information. To be honest, I don’t know exactly how well her business is doing, but I can tell you I send her five hundred dollars every month, and she never sends it back.”

  Delaney exhaled heavily. “And Chloe?”

  “I have no idea where that girl is. Last time I talked to her, she was waiting tables outside Corpus Christi. That was about a year and a half ago.”

  Delaney had never been close with Chloe. Avery and Chloe had always been closer. “What’s Avery going to do now?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Why don’t you ask her when you call her back?” Phoebe smiled and rubbed her hands together as she sat for
ward. “Now, I’m dying to hear the grand plan you’ve dreamed up for the bar, because I know you have one.”

  Ethan leaned into Steve French’s drafting table in his office at his Santa Rosa architecture firm, forty minutes south of Wildwood, looking down at the plans for Ethan’s lifelong dream and Pops’s only retirement—Wildcard Brews pub and brewery.

  And for the first time since he and Pops had hashed out this idea, Ethan’s gut knotted with mixed emotions over the plan. While Steve talked about the changes he’d made in the design, Ethan was counting down the hours until that damn bar wasn’t standing between him and Delaney anymore.

  Yeah? Then what are you gonna do, smart guy?

  The nagging little voice in Ethan’s head piped up, and he crossed his arms and rested his forehead against the fingers of one hand, trying like hell to look as if he were paying attention when his mind was a mess.

  What was he going to do?

  “By making your malt room just three feet smaller”—Steve moved his hand to point out that section of the floor plan, and Ethan forced his mind to the present—“I was able to increase your cold storage on the west side. Then I nudged your reverse osmosis this way, tucked your chemical containment in here, and that made room for one more fermenter in your pilot brew house, leaving all this space for expansion.”

  That was pretty damned brilliant. Almost as brilliant as Delaney’s offhand suggestion for Ethan to move his keg washer and chemical containment at the warehouse. It had been saving him twice as much time as she’d estimated.

  And now he had an almost uncontrollable urge to show these plans to Delaney to get her opinion, her ideas, her suggestions on how they could be better. Watching his dream come to life on paper was thrillingly surreal, and Ethan couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be able to share that dream with someone he . . . someone he what? Liked? Lusted? Was that even a term?

  “Anything rattling around up there?” Pops asked, prodding Ethan out of his uncomfortable thoughts with the harsh tone his grandfather had adopted as of late.