by Aubrey Irons
“What story?”
I drop my head against the back of the sofa before looking back at her. “The story about him bragging to his buddies that you were back with him and that he’d get to screw you again before you left for school.”
Her face goes bright red with rage. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No, I’m not. It’s why I knocked him in the mouth.”
Her mouth goes small as she eyes me.
“Hadn’t heard that part, had you?”
There's a minute, but then she shakes her head slowly. “No. And I did not date Mark again. And I certainly never slept with him again.”
Her eyes narrow at me. “But let's talk about you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah, you. You want to talk about freaking out and doing what comes natural instead of dealing with anything? How about you, the guy that immediately went out and started banging the class slut the second I turned you down?”
“Turned me - what the hell are you-” I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”
“Leah Crawford.”
“I bark out a laugh. “Leah? Uh, no.”
“Cole, I know you started seeing her.”
“I promise you I did not. I never touched Leah Crawford.”
“I have ears, you know,” Addy spits back at me. “She was in the locker room after volleyball one day blabbing all about it.”
I stare at her. “You heard a high school rumor from the sluttiest girl in school that she was dating me? And you believed it?”
She purses her lips.
“You actually believed-”
“Yeah, I did, Cole. Is it that hard to believe that?”
Fuck this.
I stand. “What the hell happened that night, Addy?”
“What night?”
“You know what night,” I growl, taking a step toward her.
“Nothing. I don’t remember.”
“Stop it.”
I step around the chaise and step closer to her, still standing there by the door.
“We’ve been over this, and you know you do. I know you remember kissing me.”
“I don’t,” she says quietly, defiantly, her eyes darting across my face.
“Bullshit.” I take another step toward her, but she doesn’t move.
“Why’d you freak, Addy?” I say quietly. “Why’d you panic after that?”
“Because…” She trails off and looks away.
“Addy, just-”
“Because it was too big to think about, okay!”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “What was?”
“You and me, and what might have happened that night.”
I frown. “What might have happened?”
“Yeah, I mean,” she says and drops her eyes, bringing her hands together in front of her and picking at her nails.
“You had all this experience, and I know what you taking a girl home meant.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head. “What? That’s what you think?”
She looks up, those baby blue eyes of hers big and wide and so close to shattering. “Am I wrong?”
“Yes.” I move even closer then, so close I can smell the scent of her - so close that I can see the flush in her cheeks, the freckle she’s got on her neck.
“Then explain to me why-”
I cut her off with a groan. I push my hand into my hair, turning around and squeezing my eyes shut again before I whirl back to her. “You know, for a smart girl, I can’t believe how wrong you were.”
“Well what was I-”
“You were dead wrong, Addy, and you know why?”
She swallows and shakes her head.
“Because it was always about you,” I say fiercely. “Because I’ve known you since we were kids. Because I knew you before you were on campaign tours with your dad, before the private lessons, before the fucking political science degree.”
“Cole, what are you talking-”
“Because I knew you before you knew yourself, Addy, and I still know you more than you know.”
“You do not,” she says softly.
“The hell I don’t,” I shoot back. “I know about the scar on your left knee from the jungle gym in second grade. I know how hard you cried when your nana died. I know the name of your turtle from when we were eleven.”
“Bullshit, you do not remember-”
“Herman.”
She closes her mouth.
“I know you want more for yourself. I know you want something different than all this, but that you let your dad dictate more of your life than you should.”
“Cole-”
“I know you’d rather be at art school painting than studying the Geneva Convention or the history of the Senate.”
“That’s not-”
“True? Yeah, it is, and you know it!”
I’m almost yelling now. I’m almost mad at her, because for the first time ever I need her to shut the fuck up and listen. For the first time ever, I need her to hear this or I’ll lose it completely.
“I know you like peanut butter, but not with jelly. I know that you can’t drive stick for shit. I know you favorite movie is Good Will Hunting, and I know you hate when people misuse the word literally.”
She blinks, her chest heaving and her pulse beating fast in the hollow of her neck. Her eyes dart across to mine, holding my gaze with her own big blue eyes as silence descends over the room.
Finally, she parts those soft pink lips.
“You done yet?”
“Not a fucking chance.”
And then I kiss her.
I kiss her with everything I have, and everything else fades to nothing.
Chapter 15
Addison
I’m kissing Cole Grady.
I’m kissing Cole, and I want to be kissing him.
I feel a pulse of heat shudder through me, taking a hold of something deep inside. Our mouths press hotly together, and I open my lips for his tongue as I melt against him. One of his hands holds my cheek, the other tightening on my waist and drawing me closer until I find myself moaning softly in those utterly irresistible, utterly perfect lips of his.
He pulls away at the sound.
“No,” I say quickly.
He furrows his brow, his eyes searching mine. “No what?”
“No I don’t want you to stop this time.”
The corners of his mouth turn up slightly. “Not going to slam a door in my face this time?”
I smile as his lips brush against mine. “Maybe if we could get this one open.”
He laughs before crushing his lips against me again. I gasp as his hands hold me tighter this time, my own moving to his arms and sliding up to his broad shoulders as he kisses me fiercely.
I’m falling. I’m falling and I never want to stop falling as I lose myself completely in that kiss. I let myself get swept away in those arms, kissing him hard in the way I’ve wanted to kiss him since before I knew what it meant.
I gasp as he pushes us back, my back hitting the locked door behind me. He draws my bottom lip between his teeth for a second before letting go and dipping lower to the hollow of my neck. Lips trace over the skin there as my heart races a thousand beats a second, lips that move to my ear and make me shiver.
I’m spinning, and gasping, and more wet than I can ever even remember being. My skin feels like it’s on fire, so much so that Cole’s hands moving down to pull the blouse from my skirt sends a shiver from my core up to my lips, which open in a moan.
His hands move to the top button, and it’s there they freeze as he stops and looks into my eyes.
I nod. “I want you to.”
The first one pops, my breath hitching as he moves to the next and pauses.
I nod again, and that button follows suit. I can feel my heart beating faster and faster, blood racing through my veins as he slowly takes one button and then the next, his lips on my neck the whole time.
The shirt fall
s away, goosebumps prickling across my skin in the climate-controlled room. Cole pushes it off my shoulders, kissing his way down the exposed skin, lips brushing against the strap of my bra. He slips his hands behind me and unsnaps it before letting it drop as well.
It’s then that he steps back, his eyes hungrily drinking me in. My nipples pucker to rosy points under his gaze, my face flushing with desire.
“Damn, Tanner,” he growls, his jaw tightening.
I swallow. “What?” I say quietly, frowning slightly.
He looks up into my eyes. “Damn you’re fucking gorgeous, is what.”
And then I’m kissing him again, drinking in his lips and tugging at his jacket. He shrugs it off, followed by the plaid shirt - our mouths glued together. He pulls away to tug the waffle-knit shirt up, yanking it off his head and tossing it aside.
Desire spikes through me, sending a pulse through my core and pooling heat between my legs. Jesus he’s gorgeous. I bite my lip as my eyes dance over his skin. He’s ripped, and my eyes trace over the hard defined muscles of his chest and abs, the ink swirling over one shoulder and across his bicep. And then our eyes meet, and we come crashing together again.
He spins me around this time, moving us towards the chaise lounge. He pushes me down onto it and crawls over me, his arms bunching as he leans in to kiss me. His lips move lower, down over my collarbone and across the soft slopes of my breasts. Goosebumps trail in their wake as he slips down to a nipple, sucking it between his lips and making me moan out loud.
He moves lower, and I can feel my mind racing.
This is happening. This is really happening.
Hands push at my skirt, pushing it higher, and I whimper as his breath moves across the front of my panties.
“Here, let me take this off,” I manage to get out as I reach for the snap of my skirt before I start to giggle.
“What?”
“I seriously almost asked you if the door was locked.”
He laughs deeply as he crawls back up to claim my mouth again.
“I have a feeling we won’t be missed for a while.”
Our eyes meet, and we freeze for a moment.
“Cole, this-” I stop.
“What?”
“I need to tell you why I slammed the door in your face that day.”
He nods.
“It was too much, kissing you.”
Cole’s brow crumples. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Because kissing you was something I think I’d been building up inside my head for years, never thinking we actually would. And when I did, it made all that come flooding out. I knew what kissing you meant, to me, and to you.”
“What does that mean?”
I shrug. “C’mon, Cole, I knew about your history.”
“Addy,” he says tightly. “None of that means any-“
“No, no I know, that's not what I mean. What I mean is that I knew kissing you meant going there with you, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that.”
He shakes his head as he kisses me, softer this time.
“You know I never would have-”
“No,” I shake my head. “I don’t mean I wasn’t sure if I was ready for sex, I mean I wasn’t sure if I was ready for sex with you.”
I bite my lip again, trying to find the right words.
“I wasn’t sure if I was ready for sex with you because of me, not you. I wasn’t sure what going there with you would do to me, and with us leaving for school, where it would go, and if you even, I mean, because-” I’m babbling, but I just keep going. “I mean because I- I mean, with you, I didn’t know how to tell you that-”
“Addy.”
His voice is forceful, and my lips snap shut as I look up into his dark brown eyes.
“You love me.”
I swallow quickly as my heart does a flip-flop. “What?”
“You love me. It’s okay, you can say it.”
I roll my eyes, looking away. “Cole-”
“Addy, you can say it because I’m going to say it right back.”
I snap my eyes back to him.
“Addison”, he says as he looks me right in the eye, his lips right against mine. “I’ve loved you ever since we were kids, since before I even knew how to say it or what it meant. I loved you while we weren’t talking and when we drifted apart. It’s why I looked for empty versions of you for years and hated myself every time, knowing it was only driving you further away.”
“Cole, you-”
“Addy I loved you then, and I love you right now.” He shakes his head. “I don’t really see how in the world that could ever change.”
And then he’s kissing me, and I’m falling all over again.
Chapter 16
Cole
Addy moans into my lips as I kiss her.
This is everything I’ve wanted for longer than I even knew I wanted it. It feels complete, like a final puzzle piece you find under a rug you thought you lost years ago.
I drop my mouth to her neck, kissing my way down between the valley of her breasts. I wrap my lips around one pink, pebbled nipple and then the other, leaving them puckered and wet as I trail farther down across her soft belly. The blood pounds in my ears as I move farther south, my hands skimming up her smooth thighs.
Addy finishes popping the catch on her wraparound skirt before slowly peeling it away, lifting her butt, and dropping it to the floor.
I was wrong.
I was very wrong.
She’s not wearing old lady underwear. She’s wearing these tiny, white lacy panties, and right there in the center of them between her legs, is a wet spot.
I growl hungrily.
My fingers slip to the laced edge, pulling at them, peeling them down like I’ve been waiting to do for years. She shivers at my breath across her skin, my lips teasing down the crease of her leg before I’m even done pulling the panties off.
I slip them down her legs, moving up between her thighs. She shivers, her hips arching as if she’s dying to feel my tongue. I can smell how turned on she is, and my cock gets harder than it's ever been at the scent of her. I slide between her thighs, and I drag my tongue up her seam in one slow stroke as she groans in pleasure.
Fucking yes.
She’s sweet, and I’m fucking addicted to her taste the second it hits my lips. I hungrily slide my tongue deep, curling it and tasting more of her as I move up. My lips fasten around her clit as my tongue drags lazy circles around it, making her hips arch and buck against my mouth.
Part of me wants to take my time with her. Part of me wants to drag this all out all damn night. But the other part knows I’ve waited too long for this.
We’ve waited too long for this.
I push a finger inside her pussy, curling it up as I fasten my lips around her clit and start to stroke it with my tongue. My finger slides wetly in and out of her as I drink in her honey and let her moans and her gasps wash over me.
“Shit, Cole-”
She’s thrashing, her fingers sliding into my hair and her thighs getting tight around my head as she gasps for air.
“I’m- oh my God, what are you-”
Her hands pull tighter at my hair and her hips push right up off the chaise lounge against my mouth as I swirl my tongue around and around her clit, pushing my finger right up against the spot I know is driving her crazy.
“Cole, I think I’m going to-”
The scream catches in her throat as her whole body arches like a livewire. And then she’s moaning - loudly - sucking in breaths of air as she cries out again and again as I bring her back down.
Slowly, I start to kiss my way up her belly again, her body shivering with every touch of my lips.
“What. Oh my God, what was that?” she mumbles. Her eyes are closed as her chest heaves, but that big grin on her face brings a smile to mine.
“That’s-” Addy shakes her head side to side. “That’s never happened before,” she murmurs, opening her big blue eyes and staring up at me i
n shock.
“Wait, what? You’ve never come before?”
She rolls her eyes as her cheeks get flushed. “Well, not like that before, Jesus.”
“That, Ms. Tanner, is a fucking crime.”
“I seriously fucking agree,” she says, nodding quickly.
“I think being around me is giving you a dirty mouth.”
Addy bites her lip, dragging her teeth over it as her eyes flash something hungry at me.
“What, because I’m saying the word fuck now?”
I don’t think my cock could get any harder than it is right now.
Addy grins wickedly. She slips a hand up my back, up into my hair, and before I know it, she’s pulling me down, her lips by my ear.
“What if I told you I wanted you to fuck me, Cole?”
Yeah, no, I lied. Now my cock is as hard as fucking possible.
I stand, quickly pulling at my belt. Addy sits up, her hands tearing at my zipper as I yank my jeans and my boxers down at once.
“Holy shit.”
She says it quietly, her eyes glued to my cock. I grin as she drags her eyes up to mine.
She licks her lips.
Something tells me Mark Atwood and I have very little in common.
Addy glances back to my cock, biting her lip. “I though I’d heard you were pierced?”
“Yeah, well, welcome to high school rumors. The day I stick a fucking pin through my dick is the day hell freezes over. Sorry to disappoint.”
“Um, believe me, you’re not,” she says, eyeing my cock again with a wide-eyed, hungry look. “Actually I think the piercing would’ve freaked me out.”
“Could we, uh, not talk about sharp things in my cock?”
Addy laughs before suddenly leaning forward. I groan, feeling her breath hot again on the tip of my dick.
“I could kiss it all better,” she says quietly with this sultry husk I've never ever heard from her before.
“I think I’ve created a monster.”
She looks up at me once more, grins, licks those soft pink lips and leans forward.
Fucking. Hell.
Her mouth is heaven, those sweet pink lips wrapping tight around my girth as she slowly takes me in. Her tongue is furtive, dancing over the underside as she starts to bob her head, and I groan as I just stare at this like I’m dreaming.
