by Bethany-Kris
Rolling her hips again gained her the sweetest view of his mouth falling open, his eyes rolling back. If she thought Gage was gorgeous before, seeing him like this was something else entirely. Summer took her time finding a comfortable position on his lap, one that didn’t hurt her or tire her legs. Gage let her experiment, a heady groan tumbling from his full lips every time she lifted or lowered on his length.
“Okay, okay … give me a goddamn minute to think, or something.”
“Why?” Summer asked teasingly.
“You’re driving me crazy,” Gage bit out through his teeth. “Sore?”
“A little,” she admitted. “It’s not so bad.”
Gage nodded, his gaze zoning in on her naked body. “Good, take it slow. I’m fine with that.”
She loved how he watched her, like she was the only thing in the world that could possibly hold his attention. Summer didn’t like feeling as if she was the only one exposed, so she tugged his shirt up under her hands, pulling it over his head and tossing it behind her.
While Gage was tall and lean, he certainly didn’t lack in the definition department. His body was roped with bands of muscle, all taut and strained as if he was holding himself back from snapping. He was warm and smooth under her palms, a dark dusting of hair trailing from his navel down to his cock.
Since he told her to take it slow, she did. It was so much easier. The wetness between her thighs and the drag of slapping skin echoed in the quiet truck, mixing in with heavy pants and low moans. With every lift of her body, the burn lessened and turned into something tantalizing edging around her senses.
Learning a rhythm that worked for her, and gained the best reactions from him, it wasn’t long before she could feel that familiar heat and coil twisting inside her womb. Gage held tight to her hips, steadying her body as she rode him.
“Fuck,” Gage hissed when she sped up, taking him harder. Sweat slicked up her skin, though the air had turned colder from the rain outside. With her body burning hot and the coolness closing in, goosebumps pebbled over her skin from top to toe. “That’s … God. So beautiful. You okay?”
All Summer could do was nod. Her orgasm was fast approaching. It was the simplest flick of Gage’s hand down to her sex, his fingers stroking her throbbing clit that did it. All he did was roll the little nub under his thumb and Summer’s body broke. With a high cry of his name that Gage leaned up to catch with his own lips, everything released from her body, all the tension and lingering tenderness.
So good.
Absolute bliss sang through her blood.
“There we go,” she heard Gage whisper softly against her mouth. Another kiss was pressed to her trembling lips. “Tell me if it hurts, okay?”
Summer felt too relaxed to catch up to speed. “Hmm?”
Gage didn’t reply, only lifted them both from the seat, his hands wrapping around her waist. Summer found her back pressing into the seat, his cock still buried deep. There was no pain as he loomed above her, taking her in long, deep strokes, his back shuddering with each one.
Summer’s nails dug into his shoulders, her legs wrapping his waist. Quickly enough, she managed to catch on to his rhythm, rolling her body up to meet his thrusts. Gage leaned down to kiss her jaw, her neck, and anywhere else he could reach. It wasn’t a minute later that he followed her path with his own orgasm, his cock pulsing deep in her core. Gage moaned her name into her neck.
Attempting to catch his breath, Gage raked his eyes down her form. “You still should have told me.”
Summer grinned and winked. “Oh, well. Can we do that again?”
Gage groaned. “Fuck yes.”
Chapter Eleven
Gage scratched the charcoal stick along the sketchpad in quick succession, lines taking a fast form under his hand. The curve of the blanket between her thighs, the bloom of her hip in the sea of white. Summer’s waist came next, up to the swell of her breasts where her hair had fallen and tangled in waves during her sleep.
The sketch was only a rough draft, but it was enough to occupy his mind and satisfy his itching hands that wanted to wake her up.
She slept so well, he found.
While Gage’s mind was running a million miles an hour, his muse thrumming deep with the urge to draw, paint, or do anything, Summer slept. Even with the rain pounding outside and the wind whistling, she didn’t hear a thing.
When she offered her motel room, Gage hadn’t said no. There was no way in hell he was going to refuse her, now. Problem was, Gage didn’t know how to tell her he didn’t want to refuse her at all. Meaning, he didn’t want her to leave, or rather, he didn’t want to let go.
That shouldn’t even have been possible, only knowing her a short time like he did.
“Mmm.” Summer’s clear blue eyes blinked open, immediately focusing in on Gage at the other side of the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Sketching.”
“Me?”
Gage tilted his head in answer. “And the blankets, bed, and whatever else is around you.”
Summer’s slow smile grew as she turned into the blankets. “Crazy artist.”
“Won’t deny it, sweetheart.”
The room went silent while Gage went back to work on his drawing, barely noticing the black smudges of charcoal had practically smeared up his arm to his elbow. He might have preferred spray paint, but he enjoyed sketching to get the ideas out of his mind and on to something, just to look at and consider. Not everything that was inside his head looked the same when it was put down, after all.
“Sore?” Gage asked quietly.
He couldn’t help but be concerned. Even though Gage understood her reasoning for not telling him about being a virgin the other night, he was still a bit freaked out by it. Especially considering by the time they arrived back at her hotel room that night, they were in bed together again.
It rained the entire day after, too, keeping Gage away from his mural and with Summer instead. Between the bathroom and the bed, they really didn’t do a great deal but get undressed and stay that way. He only left the hotel long enough to make a trip to the local store to pick up a box of condoms and to buy whatever unhealthy snacks Summer wanted. However, he did take her to his friend’s home to meet Dean, his wife, and their little girl. After, Summer asked about his father, so Gage didn’t deny her that visit, as awkward as it was.
“Are you?” Gage asked again.
Summer raised a brow over the blankets. “Should I be?”
Maybe, he wasn’t quite sure.
She’d teased him into the shower late the night before. The encounter had been a great deal rougher than the ones before. He’d taken her fast and hard from behind, every thrust sending her up to her toes. Summer didn’t seem to mind, but Gage couldn’t help his worry. Oddly, he found himself worrying a fucking ton about her.
“I’m just curious,” Gage murmured, roughly penning her features to the page.
“You worry too much.”
“Maybe you worry too little,” he retorted.
“Touché.” She rolled over on the bed to look towards the window. “No rain today.”
“Nope. It should be dry enough for me to finish the mural, anyway.”
Gage really needed to get back to work on that and get it done. A call from the teen center yesterday in Saint John reminded him he had some things to take care of there, too. The last thing he wanted to do was leave Summer’s sexy, naked side.
Speaking of which …
“Stop staring at me,” Summer murmured, her back still turned. “Gives me chills, country boy.”
“You can’t even see me.”
“I feel it.”
Huh. Gage smirked, going back to the sketchpad for the last time. “I need to look at the object I’m drawing, Summer.”
“Oh, I think you’ve pretty well got me memorized, Gage. Besides, I’m not an object, I’m technically your model.”
True.
“Know-it-all,” Gage muttered under his breath.
“Hey!” Summer’s hand reached over and tipped his sketchbook before he blinked, knocking it out of his grasp. A back line of charcoal slipped against the paper, marring his beautiful work with a stain. Gage growled as the pad fell to the floor. “Oops.”
“Summer …”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” Gage replied. “But, you’re going to be.”
Summer attempted to lunge off the bed, but Gage grabbed her round the waist and pulled her back into his chest before she could. Relentlessly, he tickled her sides, thoroughly enjoying her squeals and pleas for him to stop.
It was only when her silken, warm lips pressed to the underside of his jaw did he quit.
Gage shuddered when her mouth touched down to his skin again, her tongue flicking out to strike his scratchy cheek peppered with two days’ worth of stubble. His charcoal stained hand rolled over her hip, leaving behind a trail of grey. Summer sighed a pleased and pleasured breath of air when his fingers slipped between her fleshy folds to find her slick and hot.
“Wet for me already.”
“Condom,” Summer gasped when Gage spread her thighs, fitting his knee between her legs.
“In a minute, crazy girl. Patience.”
He worked her up with his fingers until she was sweating, begging, and shaking. Just when her orgasm was close enough that her walls began their pulsing clenches, Gage pulled away, chuckling as Summer groaned.
“No,” she whined. “That wasn’t fair!”
“I told you, have some patience. Like not hitting my sketchpad out of my hands when I’m busy drawing your perfection.”
Gage rolled over to search out the box of condoms, finding it quickly enough. Not wasting any time, he kicked off his boxers and rolled the latex over his already pounding erection. With her back to his chest again, Gage lifted her leg up and hooked it around his, giving him just enough access to take her while they spooned.
“Hmm,” Summer hummed a happy sound as Gage filled her soft and slow.
He loved that she was innocent in so many ways with enough sin and desire mixed in that she couldn’t bother to find it in herself to be embarrassed or unwilling to learn. That was the best thing about Summer. Her noises and groans, it was so easy to find what she liked and what she didn’t. The way she moved was natural, her body always leaning towards a rhythm that would take her high and fast before pushing them both off a ledge.
Gage had his fair share of women, sure. There was a certain draw for the bad boy image females seemed to think he had, too, given his lifestyle and choice in career. However, with Summer, it was nothing like he’d ever felt before. Certainly not like he’d already fucked her, as it sometimes seemed with others.
Unfortunately, he was well aware he and Summer weren’t just fucking, now.
Turning her head back, Summer kissed his jaw up to his mouth, melding their lips together in a searing kiss. Using her one hand, she wrapped it in his hair, keeping him close to her face as her eyes opened wide, panted his name against his cheek, and begged for more. Gage lost himself to her mouth and sex, intertwining their fingers and giving her just what he knew she wanted.
“Come watch me paint today,” he murmured through thrusts.
Summer laughed breathlessly. “Later, I will, promise.”
That was enough for him.
Chapter Twelve
“Looks great, man,” Dean said from behind Gage.
“Thanks.”
“That’s her, isn’t it?” Dean asked, nodding at a particular piece of the mural.
Gage cleared his throat, nodding. “Yeah, sure.”
“You’re inspired.”
“I always was,” Gage replied dully.
Dean shot him a pointed look. “Maybe, but not like this. I’m so fucking glad I skipped the last couple of hours of work to come see this before it got too dark. Are they doing some kind of reveal tomorrow?”
“Nah, I just figured the kids would see it. That’s enough for me. I think the paper is going to stop by, take a picture, and write up a piece. I didn’t want a show.”
“Makes sense,” Dean said. “But won’t they want some kind of interview for the paper?”
Gage didn’t really care about the press part of his job. “To what, ask me what my inspiration was? I’m not about to tell them it was some wandering girl I hooked up with and fell in lo—”
Clamping his mouth shut, Gage refused to finish that statement. He wasn’t going to admit that little fact to anyone other than Summer, even though he knew it was true. It would have been impossible not to fall in some kind of love with her.
“Well, whatever, it’s still awesome.”
Gage smiled. “Thanks.”
It had taken most of the day—it was nearly suppertime—to finish the mural. Little pieces he decided to add afterwards had popped into his mind and there was no damned way Gage couldn’t put them in somehow.
Like the blue of their skies, or the profile of a young woman with golden hair shadowing her features. And at the bottom, in his signature graffiti style were the words, “Just passing through …”
Because they all were, Gage realized.
It didn’t matter at what point in life someone was, it was just a time that they were passing through. Eventually it would get better if things were bad, or it would get really great if things were just good. Everything in life was a lesson, a time to learn. Summer had taught him that in only three and a half days.
Just passing through.
If nothing else, it was something for the kids to look at and learn from, anyhow.
That’s all Gage could hope they took from the mural of bright colors.
“Has Summer seen this, yet?” Dean asked.
For the first time all day, Gage frowned. “No.”
That was the oddest thing about the entire day. Summer promised earlier in the morning to come around and watch him paint, but she hadn’t shown. It didn’t concern him in a worrying sort of way, but it was irking the fuck out of him personally.
“Well, shit,” Dean said, turning on his friend. “Go get her and show her before it gets too dark, man.”
“I should. Then go to your place and grab some dinner. I’m starving.”
He hadn’t eaten all day. Getting in his zone could do that to him.
“Hell yeah, you should. She’ll love this.”
It took Gage less than ten minutes to pack up his supplies, toss them into the box of his truck, and drive down the road to the motel. Immediately, Gage felt something was off when he pulled into the small parking lot.
Summer’s Mazda wasn’t parked in front of her room.
The door to the motel room was wide open. A tied up garbage bag was outside and the sheets he’d slept in with Summer the night before, still stained with charcoal from their excursion that morning, sat in a laundry basket, along with a couple of towels.
Gage’s engine hadn’t even stopped turning over before he was out of his truck. A dreadful feeling climbed up his spine with punishing steps the closer he came to the room. Even though he felt stupid to do it, given her car wasn’t there, Gage still called out Summer’s name. Instead of Summer, the motel’s owner, Cathy, popped her head out of the opened doorway.
“Oh, Gage. Hey, how’s your father?”
“Fine. Busy, as usual. Where’s Summer?”
Cathy waved at the stuff on the floor like it was obvious. To Gage, it certainly wasn’t.
“Checked out a little before noon. Decided to go home, as far as I know.”
Gage felt like his tongue had swelled up three times its normal size. “What?”
“She checked out,” Cathy repeated slowly.
“But …”
Gage didn’t even know what to say. He didn’t have a cell number to contact Summer, as he expected to see her again, so he hadn’t asked for her number. She didn’t ask for his, and he didn’t have an address for her, other than the fact that her hometown was in Saskatchewan, but hell, the girl c
ould be fucking anywhere.
She was a gypsy soul, after all.
Why did she just up and leave like that?
Fuck, he should have known better than to think she would stay.
Just passing through, he’d said it himself.
Gage turned to leave without another word to Cathy, but she had a different idea.
“Wait a sec, I’ve got something for you,” Cathy said.
He didn’t want whatever she had. The only goddamned thing Gage wanted to do was get as far away from the motel as he could so maybe the ache in his chest would go away. There hadn’t been nearly enough time, he realized. Gage had lost his chance to tell the one girl he might actually want to have a future with that that’s exactly what he needed and wanted from her.
That he wanted her to fucking stay.
With him.
He just couldn’t figure out why she didn’t even give him the chance to.
“What is it?” Gage managed to ask.
Cathy disappeared back into the room, coming out with Gage’s backpack. Shit, he’d forgotten about leaving that in Summer’s room. Cathy passed it over. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem. She said you had to have it, or something. Nice girl.”
Yeah, that was one way to describe Summer.
Gage didn’t waste any more time talking. Once he was inside his truck, he tossed the backpack to the passenger seat, not caring a bit that the zipper was open. All the items inside, which weren’t much, fell out onto the truck’s floor. Frustration filled up his insides. Nothing about this goddamned day was turning out well at all.
“Fuck,” Gage growled, bending down to pick up his sketchpad.
Something caught his attention straightaway. The previous night after Summer fell asleep, Gage finished the sketch of his mural inside the pad, wanting to make sure it would look as it did in his head. Apparently Summer had opened his book to check out his drawings. In the corner of the page, below where his graffiti words of, “Just passing through …” were scrawled, messy script was written, now.
It wasn’t his handwriting. At least she hadn’t marked over his drawing.
