He was pushing me to the tipping point, and if I tipped, I would regret losing control without him. His fingers dug into the inner softness of my thigh. He was determined to drive me crazy, his way.
I moaned again.
The shutters clanged against the windows.
“I want to be inside you, so damn much,” he groaned. “Fuck you until the sun comes up. Fuck you until you forget every man before me.”
I nodded, unable to utter a syllable.
My hips rose, meeting him as his thick cock plunged deep inside me, bowing me off the counter. The next thrust was more intense. I grasped his back and buried my head in his shoulder, consumed with the blissful swirl of pain and incredible fullness he gave me, stretching me, taking me.
“Oh shit,” I hissed as he hit my inner walls with sudden strokes.
“Fuck, Chelsea.”
I arched against him with every thrust, rocking harder and longer. He moved in and out, throwing my legs over his shoulders.
“You’re mine, baby,” he groaned, his hips dancing wickedly as he pumped in and out of me.
I gripped the side of the counter, desperate for an anchor. Anything to tie me to reality. My body was changing, burning, spiraling.
“I-I can’t…” My head shook from side to side.
“Come for me,” he commanded.
There was no way to stop the raging flames. We were too far gone. I looked in his eyes as we surrendered to the fire we had created. I screamed toward the ceiling as he drove into me one last time, possessing me, claiming me like I had always been his—I just didn’t know it until now. The sensations spiraled through my core until all I could do was hold on to him, and pray I could still breathe when I let go.
His body shook, pumping his release inside me. The sweat dripped from his gorgeous chest, splashing in tiny droplets on my breasts. I’d never seen anything sexier in my life. I gasped for air as I vibrated with the orgasm. An aftershock hit me out of nowhere and I clamped around his shaft.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “You’re incredible, baby.”
I sighed.
I wanted to take it back—none of those other moments made me breathless. This made me breathless. I smiled and ran my fingers along his back.
“I’m glad you didn’t run.”
He kissed me. “Me too.” His eyes softened. “You’re worth going down in a hurricane.” He winked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ben
I rolled my neck to the side. I really did pull something when I tied down the campers. I massaged it with my free hand. Chelsea was tucked under my arm, her auburn hair loose and falling over her shoulder. Damn, she took me by surprise. I watched her exhale shallow breaths. I traced the curve of the small of her back, and over her hips, until my hand rested at her waist.
The last time I woke up on a kitchen floor was when I literally drank myself under the table. This time it was for a whole new reason. A blue-eyed island girl had officially knocked me off my ass. My hand feathered over her skin. I couldn’t stop touching her, wanting her.
The shutters rattled against the windows, letting in cracks of gray light. The wind hadn’t stopped howling, and from the sounds echoing outside, I gathered the rain was pooling on the deck.
I could have caught one of the late-night ferries, but who the fuck was I kidding? This was where I wanted to end up all along. The minute I heard her voice on the other end of the phone, I knew it was all over. I was crazy about her. After last night, I would be crazy not to be.
We had turned a corner—gone past innocent make out sessions and flirty banter. It felt connected. As if she was mine. I liked it—how she felt under me, in my hands, how she tasted. The look in her eyes when she came was enough to bring any man to his knees.
I had a reputation as the Texas cowboy who women couldn’t wait to get their hands on. I wasn’t going to lie—a lot of women did. But it didn’t feel like that with her. She wanted me. She didn’t care about some concocted brand. She wasn’t looking for bragging rights that she woke up in my bed. She didn’t give a shit about Ben Baldwin.
Chelsea sighed and her hand slid across my stomach, stirring my cock to life. I was afraid I might lose my mind if I didn’t wake her up right now, but I remembered the muscles in my back and pain in my knees and knew I couldn’t take another session on the kitchen floor. We had done things to each other last night that—Damn. I closed my eyes. Just thinking about it made me want her even more. My dick was hard as steel.
I propped up on my elbows, careful not to let her head fall to the floor. She wiggled in closer, cuddling up under my chin. I sighed. She wasn’t making it any easier. My hand slid over her backside, rubbing in a line along her back, down to her legs. I kissed the top of her head and waited for her to wake.
Her eyes fluttered open. She turned to me with bright eyes and a smile.
“Good morning.” I winked.
She grinned. “Good morning.”
From the corner of my eye, I could see the bed—the place we should have been sleeping all night with a mattress, and pillows, and a soft comforter. I looked at it now as if it was the promised land. I tangled my fist through her silky hair. She moaned quietly as I brought my mouth down hard on hers, and kissed her while rolling the tips of her breast through my fingers. I smiled, feeling her react under my touch. I broke free and rose from the floor.
Her eyes were wide, and for a split second, I considered taking her again on the kitchen floor, but there was a perfectly soft bed twenty feet away.
Without a word, I motioned to her with a finger. She stood and followed me to the bed. There was one thing I wanted to try last night that hadn’t happened yet.
The sheets were cool. I rolled on my back and raked my eyes over her as she walked toward me. Every part of her was beautiful, from the way her hips fit in my palms, to the tan lines running across the lowest part of her stomach. I could spend hours kissing her right there.
She brought one knee down, then the other, and crawled over me. Her hair sweeping my skin as she preyed on me with kisses.
I fought the urge to be inside her right then, pick her up, and show her how hard she made me. There was a hurricane brewing outside, and we had nothing else to do but take our time with each other. I could practice some restraint. The growling though—that was an involuntary response as she brought her legs to either side of my waist. Seeing her straddle me like this was fucking incredible. She rocked back and forth, her hips rhythmically moving over me, but keeping me from where I wanted to be. She wasn’t making this easy.
“Does that feel good?” she teased.
I laughed, catching her face between my hands and stared straight into those blue eyes. “Yes. Fuck yes, darlin’.”
“Then I’ll just have to keep doing it.” She bit my bottom lip, and I questioned how long I could hold off. She knew exactly what to do to drive me crazy.
She leaned over my shoulder, retrieving a foil packet from the bedside drawer. I yanked it from her and quickly rolled it over my cock.
She sighed, planting a kiss on my chest.
The heat built, and I reached for her hips. It might have been a growl or a groan coming from my throat. I wasn’t in control anymore of what she was doing to me. As soon as she had arched away she came shattering down around me. Shit, it was the hottest sweetest pussy I’d ever known.
I gripped the soft skin on her back and squeezed her to my chest, but she wouldn’t let me hold her. All I wanted was to press her against my body so I could feel every tremble and quiver surging through her, but she was strong and playful. A wicked smile spread across her lips as she pushed off my chest and sank deeper on top of me, tightening around my cock.
“Chelsea.” I watched her as she fucked me. Up. Down. Her breasts moving with the rhythm—it was sexy and hot. I reached out to touch her. I wanted her tits in my hands.
“Don’t stop, baby. Don’t fucking stop,” I commanded.
She leaned across my chest, nipping at my neck. I could
n’t hold back any longer. She was taking me under. I grabbed her waist and pulled her against me as I drove hard into her, filling her with everything I had.
“Oh shit,” she whimpered as I pushed deep.
I liked being in control in bed, I was used to it, but I didn’t know which way was up as she slid along my dick, making everything hot and tight. I was so lost in her that I didn’t care about the storm, or that she kept trying to take the reins.
“I want you to come like this.” I stared at her, coaxing her body to do what I wanted. “Come for me, baby.”
She clenched around my cock, squeezing with vise-like strength.
All the air left my lungs, and I pulled her to my chest.
“Fucking you is amazing,” I whispered in her ear as the first orgasm hit her. She was unstoppable. Unbelievable. She rode me harder and rougher until my spine spasmed. Fuck.
She gripped the headboard as I thrust into her.
“Oh God, Jake,” she screamed.
The twinge of guilt sliced through me. She should be screaming my name. I wanted to hear Ben spilling from her lips. This girl should know who she’s fucking. But I couldn’t concentrate. My cock twitched and I lost all control.
“Fuck, baby. Shit,” I hissed, rolling her onto her back. I sank deep inside her, searching for home. Needing her. Consuming everything she would give me.
She wrapped her arms and legs around me while I unleashed myself, emptying everything I had in a long ragged breath.
I collapsed on her chest, kissing her shoulder.
“Oh my,” she whispered. “Is it ok if I can’t really talk?”
I chuckled. “Yeah. It’s ok.”
My eyes closed and I drifted back to sleep while the storm moved closer to shore. I slept soundly. My body relaxed, knowing I found exactly what I was looking for.
***
“Jake. Jake, wake up.” I heard words, but they didn’t make sense.
“Huh?” I rubbed my eyes and saw Chelsea standing next to the bed. She was wearing my shirt and no pants. I propped up, wondering if there was anything else under the shirt.
“I made breakfast. It’s almost noon. I thought maybe you’d like to eat something.”
“Yeah. Sounds good.” I leaned against the headboard and rubbed my neck. “What’s going on with the storm?” I asked.
“Campbell?”
I grimaced at the name. Reminders of Rebecca weren’t welcome right now. “Still on course?” I questioned. We probably should have checked the updates sooner.
Chelsea smiled. “Good news, she’s downgraded to a category one, and we’re only supposed to get the outer bands. Don’t get me wrong, we’ll still be out of power and I’m sure there will be water in the yard, but I think we dodged anything major.”
“That is good news.” I peeled the sheet back, anxious to make a stop in the restroom and splash some water on my face, maybe even take a shower. I hoped like hell we had hot water.
Chelsea’s eyes raked over me and she flashed a smile. It was cute how it made her blush.
“Um, I’ll see you in a minute.” She spun on her heels, the turn catching the edge of the T-shirt. I saw the lacy edge of her panties, cutting a sharp V along her hip.
“Damn, girl.” I sucked in a gulp of air and hopped off the bed. I smiled. I had a feeling I knew how the rest of this day was going to go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Chelsea
Two days. Two long, blissful, ravishing, surrendering, intimate days alone and uninterrupted. This hurricane went down as the best-timed storm in my life. The water had halfway receded in the yard. Jake and I both knew he could drive his Jeep in the conditions, but he said he couldn’t leave me there with no way to escape if I needed to.
I wanted to think it had nothing to do with transportation and everything to do with how he felt tangled up with me in my bed.
The day after a storm passed through was always the most gorgeous. The beach was littered with whole conch shells, and other treasures washed ashore from the turbulent tides.
I held up a piece of beach blue against the sun. The hue was almost the same color as the sky. “Hey, check this one out.” He probably wouldn’t know how rare it was to find a piece this big, smooth, and blue.
Jake jogged over to where my feet were planted in the wet sand. “That one’s cool. But look at this.” He grinned before revealing a long strand of conch eggs encased in a spiral coating.
“Oh yeah, that’s a mermaid’s necklace.” I took the spiral and held it against my neck. “We always called them that when I was little. Really, it’s full of baby conchs.”
“Hmm, I thought I made a big discovery.”
I giggled at the disappointed look on his face. It was fun exploring the beach with him. It was the first time I remembered seeing it from an outsider’s perspective. Growing up on Brees Island, it seemed like the same old stuff every day. But Jake had a way of turning that around on me.
We were lucky. Hurricane Campbell had made a drastic shift to the east before reaching the island’s latitude. The inland areas around the cove saw the most water, but other than a few broken windows, there weren’t any reports of major damage. Only washed out roads. Given another day or two, the water would recede and life would return to normal. The tourists would be back and the store would reopen.
Jake’s hand rested against my waist as I leaned into his chest. For now, I wanted the water to stay in my yard, keep me stranded, and keep me in his arms. Nothing could convince me to leave this place of contentment.
“You know my neighbor, Alice, should see all these.” He stooped to pick up an olive shell.
“Isn’t she the crazy one?” I couldn’t believe there were sand dollars dotting the beach. You could only find them on low tide days near the sandbar, and even that was a rarity.
“Crazy as hell, but she loves collecting shells. Her yard is full of them—rows and rows.” He scooped up one of the sand dollars. “I think I’ll save a few of these for her.” He walked over to the bucket we had brought and placed the sea discoveries inside.
“Better get them now because between the beach combers and the tide, they will all be gone tomorrow. It will be like none of this ever happened.”
The words hung in the air and my stomach twisted. I meant the shells and the beach treasures, but I realized that maybe I had accidentally created a double meaning in the words. How do you pull words back in that you don’t want to have spoken?
As if he knew exactly what I was thinking, he reached for my chin and held it firmly between his thumb and forefinger. The look in his eyes stole my breath. “I’m going to throw this out there. Ok?”
I nodded, locked on his gaze, dying to know what he was about to say.
“This did happen.” His voice was deep and low. “And it is happening.” He pressed his lips against my mouth. I dropped whatever sandy treasure was in my hand and wrapped her arms around his neck. I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach him. His lips tasted salty. I nipped at his neck, lowering my heels to the ground.
He grasped my shoulders and kissed me on the forehead. “This has been my all-time favorite Sunday.”
I smiled. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who loved Sundays on the island. My hand slipped into his, and I kicked a wave that washed toward me. There were other words I wanted to say. I wanted to talk about what was happening and what it meant. Were we a couple? Were we dating now? But we had never been on an actual date. Did that mean something? I tried to quiet the questions storming my mind. I knew they would shatter the moment, and this Sunday was perfectly shatterproof.
He squeezed my hand. “What are you thinking over there?”
I squinted in the sun. “I think I know what song I want to write next. The whole song just hit me.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Want to hear it?” I couldn’t wait to get to the porch and play out the words.
“Lead the way.” His smile melted all the stress and anxiety away. It warmed me lik
e the sun.
I tugged on his hand, crossing the beach and heading for the dunes. I was ready for him to hear the song that hit my heart like a crashing wave.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ben
I knew everything happened for a reason. I ran my fingers through my hair, rinsing the shampoo down the shower drain. I wanted to be there when she woke up tomorrow, but after three nights together, I thought it best to spend a night in the Sand Dollar alone.
The water felt good, but my decision didn’t. I knew I easily had a chance to tell Chelsea my name, my identity, but I let it slip by.
I closed my eyes, remembering how she whispered my name in my ear last night. But it wasn’t my name. It was someone else’s. It hit me in the chest, and for a minute, I couldn’t breathe, thinking of how I had betrayed her.
I wondered if I could be that someone else. Could I just change my name to Jake Grady and pretend Ben Baldwin didn’t exist? Damn it. I had screwed up.
It was one thing to flirt with her, but during that storm, I had made her mine with my mouth, my hands, and my words. Crazy as it sounded, I wasn’t about to give her back until I absolutely had to.
The longer I waited to tell her, the worse it would be when it came out. I couldn’t help thinking I didn’t have to reveal my name. After the call to Rick this morning, I knew she would get a chance with her music. As passionate and talented as she was, she would snatch it up and chase the opportunity all the way to Austin. Nashville was probably her first choice, but I had some good buddies from my football days that wound up in Austin—easy strings to pull. She could make a name for herself with those lyrics.
I turned the knob on the shower and reached for a towel. Hell, she didn’t even go to the movies; she had never seen one of Rebecca’s films and never mentioned any of mine. It wouldn’t mean anything to her at all. I tightened the towel around my waist and walked a few paces to the mini-fridge. A cold beer might help solve this. I twisted the lid and tossed it into the sink.
The bubbles slid down my throat. I knew I was just coming up with excuses. I had to tell her. Because as much as this might be a summer thing—I knew something about myself that she couldn’t. I had given her control like I never had. It was scary and ignited something, like an unquenchable thirst. Once I turned it over to her, I wanted to get lost in her over again—I couldn’t stop. If that hurricane had lasted all week, I knew I probably would have drowned trying to satisfy and please her in all the ways I knew I could.
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