by Stacey Lynn
His hand slid up my back and cupped the back of my head. He pulled me toward him and brushed his lips against mine. I barely had time to open my mouth before his tongue slid inside. Morning breath be damned, he always tasted masculine, and even the morning scent of him turned me on.
I pulled back, my body already warming from a simple taste of him.
“I want to play with you,” I said.
He smirked. “Then by all means, go for it. My body is your playground.”
I chuckled, fighting down the apprehension and forcing myself to be confident, to be sexy, to be uninhibited
Before I could second-guess myself, before I could talk myself out of it, I pushed the sheets off his waist and climbed on top of him, straddling him at the hips, and felt his already hardened cock press against my backside.
My eyes rolled, pleasure sparking in ways that continued to surprise me.
With my hands on his chest, I leaned down, my hair falling in thick waves, blanketing us in so all we saw was each other. “I want to taste you, like you did to me. Everywhere.”
His hand came up and threaded through my hair, making me shiver.
“I’m not stopping you, Cam. Every part of me is yours.”
It was a declaration, one he’d started making last night. I also knew it was true. He was giving me everything and, God, I wanted to return that. I would. Soon. I made a silent promise to force myself to do it, to step out of the fear that always kept me boxed in and do it.
After I pleased him like he did me.
I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his, inhaling another taste of him and his scent before I slid down his body. My hands led the way, dancing over his skin in soft brushes. My lips followed until I was at his hips, my hand around his cock and my mouth at his tip.
I took him into my mouth and slid my tongue around his tip.
He pushed himself farther into my mouth as his hands pushed back my hair.
I pleasured him, sucked him and tasted him. Keeping my eyes on him, every move he made, every groan that fell from his lips, spurred me on.
His glazed eyes never left mine even as his lips parted and his breath quickened.
“Fuck, Cam. That’s so good.”
I hummed around him, taking him as deep as I could, and dropped a hand to his balls, playing with the tightened, sensitive flesh.
The first time I’d given him a blow job, I’d been scared and nervous. I’d been embarrassed at my inexperience, and he didn’t let me finish.
As my saliva slickened his cock so he slid easily into my mouth, I wanted to draw him over the edge, slowly…passionately…the way he always did for me.
I gave myself over to him, to his tightly controlled thrusts, to the taste of him and the feel of him and the growing desire, when he suddenly pressed his hands to my shoulders, stilling me.
“Stop,” he groaned, need heavy in his voice.
I pulled off him slowly, pumping him with my hand. “I want to finish.”
He grinned. “And I want your pussy on my mouth when I finish in yours.”
Oh. God. Yes.
Desire at the thought pooled deep inside me and I moved before he had to ask me again. When I was centered over him, his hands on my thighs, he pulled me to him.
To his mouth. “Oh!” I gasped as he slid his tongue through my slit.
“Suck me, Cam. Hurry.”
I forced myself to focus on his hard cock jutting in the air and lowered myself.
“That’s it,” he encouraged me, his voice gruff and needy. “Take me as deep as you can, and be prepared for it to go quick.”
I didn’t have to give him the same reminder. As I bent over him, licking his shaft and taking him deep like he’d demanded, my thighs were always burning with the need to release.
I whimpered around his shaft, hard and thick and veined in my mouth, while he ate me out in the beautiful way only David could do to me. And as my orgasm spiraled down my back, to my inner thighs and my center, I whimpered around him, wrapped a hand around his cock, and pumped him faster while he took me there quicker than I would have thought possible.
I moaned and my eyes squeezed closed, the pleasure too much.
And when he pressed his fingers into me, I was done…falling over the edge and soaring to the highest heights I’d ever dreamed possible.
He groaned against me and his cock flared in my mouth. I swallowed him deep as he came, releasing into me while continuing to draw out every tremor of my orgasm.
It was beautiful. It was free.
Tears sprang to my eyes as I drank him down, releasing him when he stopped twitching in my mouth, and then I climbed back over him, my smile lazy and my eyes still wet.
I grinned before he could be concerned about my tears. “Wow…you’re really good at that.”
He pulled me to him, his chest vibrating and his laughter ringing in my ears.
When we caught our breath, I pushed my hair off my face and propped my elbows onto his chest.
“I want to do something today. Something wild and crazy.”
“I thought what we just did was wild and crazy. But what did you have in mind?”
I frowned. “Do you have to work today?”
“Nope. Already called Declan this morning and told him I wouldn’t be available all weekend.”
“You were awake already?” He’d been beneath me when I woke up. I’d assumed I woke him.
He slid a finger along my cheekbone to my jaw. His eyes followed his every movement and I watched him, unable to pull my eyes away. “I’m used to not getting much sleep. I was up early, but after I called Declan and made coffee, you were still sleeping, so I climbed back into bed with you.”
“And just…held me?”
“Is that weird?” He arched a brow.
“No…it’s nice. I like it.”
His returning grin was brilliant. “And I like you. Plus, you think I can give you wild and crazy, which is even better.”
I saw something spark in his eyes, something that shined excitement and ideas. I pushed down the fear. I’d asked for this. I wanted it. “I think you give great wild and crazy, and based on that sexy little smirk on your face, you know just the place.”
—
All the blood rushed to my toes. Through the thick suit, heavy straps holding me close and pressed to David’s chest, I longed to be able to feel him.
“I said wild and crazy, not deadly and stupid!” I shouted through the rush of the wind pummeling my cheeks. As the door opened before us, I resisted the undeniable urge to look down.
Don’t look down. Don’t do it.
I squeezed my eyes closed.
Behind me, David nudged my head with his chin. “You got past your fear of heights on the cliff.”
“Forty feet’s a lot different than three thousand.”
“Yeah, but now you have a parachute…and me, strapped to your back.”
Skydiving. When he’d grinned, sated from an orgasm and all relaxed beneath me, and I suggested we do something crazy, skydiving had never entered my mind. Apparently David had taken my willingness to jump off a cliff to mean I wanted to kill myself.
Yet somehow I’d gone through the preliminary classes, spent almost an hour jumping off padded walls in the plane’s hangar and learning how to roll to the ground. I had squeezed his hand so harshly while the instructor went over jumping and landing techniques, I’d almost feared I’d broken his hand.
Then I learned that David loved to skydive. He did it several times a year, claiming that the rush of free-falling through the sky at thirty-five hundred feet in the air could put life into perspective when it felt like it was running away from him faster than a speeding train. He’d done it so much, he was actually capable of jumping with me instead of an instructor like the other jumpers in the plane.
It was official.
David was crazy.
My hands wrapped around the straps at my chest and I tugged to ensure they were as tight as possible. T
he taste of vomit bubbled in my throat and I choked it back. “Oh my God,” I whispered on a chant.
With each rush of my breath, I chanted faster, my heart rate skyrocketing inside me and making my veins boil.
We were next in line; the tandem pair in front of us had already flung themselves out of the door and opened their parachute.
Behind me, David nudged me forward. I focused on looking straight out, at only skyline and thin, hazy clouds. I concentrated on the weight of him behind me, the way one of his hands had been holding onto my hip since we stood for our turn.
“Ready?” he asked, but there wasn’t really time to answer.
“On three!” the instructor called to us.
I closed my eyes, loosened my limbs. There was no backing out now. I’d become as insane as David. I’d surrendered to this craziness hours ago when I agreed to it. He’d barely had to coax me. Just cupped my cheek and whispered and smiled that stupid, sexy grin and promised, “I would never let anything hurt you.”
Through the ringing in my ears, I heard the instructor call out, “One!”
David inched me forward until my toes were at the edge of the plane. I extended my arms and held on to the edges of the doorway like I’d been taught.
“Two!”
“I’ve got you,” David promised.
My grip tightened to the doorway. My other hand clung to my harness.
“Three!”
“Jump!”
I barely felt the movement. I bent my knees, let go of the doorway, and the weight at my back propelled me forward.
David launched me out of the plane.
Screams shattered my ears, and it took me moments to realize they were my own.
The ground rushed up; browns and greens and black circles I knew were ponds seemed to move at lightning speed.
My arms flung out and my legs were straight behind us, bent like they were supposed to be.
“Hold on!” David shouted near my ear. “We need to pull the cord in five.”
He counted down, his voice ringing in my ear.
I prayed the chute would open and moved my hand to the handle on my chest straps.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes!” I hoped like hell I was. Please open. Please open. Please—
“Now!”
I tugged the cord, yanked it as hard as I could, and we were suddenly jerked to what felt like an immediate stop. “Holy crap!”
“It’s amazing!” David’s voice rang in my ears but I barely heard him. There was too much to see, too much to feel as we floated at a slower pace. Everything around me was serene and completely quiet, and I finally managed to scan the horizon, to look below us to the ground that was climbing closer to us with every breath I took.
“Wow.” I breathed out the word on a sigh, expelling all the breath that had felt clamped inside of me. “This is incredible.”
It was. Absolutely. The ponds turned from black to blue. The browns turned green. The sky turned a brighter blue as the clouds disappeared and through it all, I couldn’t believe I was doing this.
Skydiving, hooked to a parachute and to the man who held not only my safety…but my heart.
Chapter 29
David
If perfect weekends could be designed, I couldn’t have thought up a better one.
Before skydiving that Saturday, we’d swung by Camden’s house, where I’d told her to pack a bag for the weekend. At her insistence, she’d gone next door to check on Sal Lorenz. The stocky elderly man had given me a disapproving glare when she’d shown up, overnight bag in hand, to let him know she was going to be gone.
He was sweet and harmless, though, and obviously desired to protect her and care for her. While Camden might not admit she felt the same, I liked that she had him looking out for her.
It had been three weeks now and we’d spent the rest of the time together, at my place or hers, mostly mine because I wanted to take her on every surface. The couch, the kitchen table, the counter…the floor. I’d had her everywhere, and even in that moment, with her curled up next to me on the couch, dressed only in my T-shirt with nothing underneath, I still wanted more of her.
I wanted to know the secrets I knew she still held behind a veil I felt thinning every day.
I wanted to know she felt the same about me as I did about her.
I wanted everything.
I ran my hand through her hair and down to her shoulder. I liked that every time she was close to me, she didn’t keep any distance between us, at least not physically. She never hesitated to rest against me, or drape her arm over my stomach and slide her hand beneath my shirt, so we were pressed close, skin-to-skin, even when clothed. “Doing anything tomorrow?”
“I have a few more interviews this week.”
I hated that she hadn’t found anything yet, but the market was picking up and she’d been busy interviewing. Plus, it had only been a few weeks. Once she quit, she received a glowing recommendation letter from Shelly, her former boss. I’d thought her being forced out of a job was a pussy move. Camden was trying to put it behind her.
“You?” she asked.
I relaxed back into the couch and held her closer. “I have that meeting with Grant tomorrow.”
We’d talked weeks ago. It had taken me fourteen days to gather my courage to consider stepping back into McGregor Motors. Grant’s words still rang clear in my mind. There’s always a place for you. What if I went to the office, spent the day with Grant and the board and whoever the hell else he wanted me to talk to, and then decided I still didn’t want it?
The uncertainty had been building for days. Weeks. Months, if I was willing to be honest.
“To tour the company? See your new office?” The lilt in her voice was teasing.
The way I tensed beneath her wasn’t. “I don’t know, Cam.” My lips brushed against the top of her head. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. Any advice?”
Some days, I missed the scrubs and I missed the victories that came from a successful surgery. But could I handle being burdened by the losses? Some doctors—probably most—had an ego the size of Texas. They didn’t just act like they were God in a surgical room, they believed they were God. I’d never felt that kind of certainty.
But did I want to sit behind a desk all day? Eventually, behind the desk where my father had breathed his last breath?
Slinging drinks and living off a trust fund seemed like a hell of a good time. Work, laugh, talk, and leave it all when the lights turned off. But that wasn’t me, either.
I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. My other hand fell from her shoulder to her waist and settled on her hip. I knew I’d touched the scar when she flinched before relaxing.
That damn scar. I wanted to ask her about it every time I touched it or kissed it or saw it and she tried to hide it from me.
“I’m not the best person to give anyone advice.” The reluctance in her voice sent a pain to my chest.
“Why is that?”
She shook her head, buried her face into my chest, and shuddered. Sitting back and waiting for her to open up stopped being important.
I wanted to rip down the veil, tear down her walls. I wanted her to be as honest with me as I’d been with her, and it hurt that she wouldn’t.
“Don’t hide from me,” I whispered, and held her tight to me. “Don’t you know that I want to know everything about you? That I want all of you?”
“I’m giving you all I have.”
Even she didn’t sound like she believed the lie.
“How’d you get the scar, Camden?”
She jerked in my hold like I’d been the one to give it to her, but I squeezed her tighter against me, held her in place with my hand on her hip and her scar, silently begging her to give me everything she had.
“I told you.” Pain laced her strained voice. “It was an accident.”
“What kind of accident? And how could it be so bad that you won’t tell me?”
Her hands hit my chest and she shoved herself up, launching off my body and out of my grasp. Jumping to my feet, I followed her, standing close by while she paced.
She forced her hands through her hair and stared at me, and her tormented expression made me want to stop.
I couldn’t.
I loved her too much to allow her to be in so much pain, even when I was currently the one causing it.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?” I asked innocently. “Trying to get to know you?”
“You know me better than anyone.”
“Not anyone.” I stepped forward slowly. My chest ached when she jumped two steps back. Away from me. “The person who knows where you got that scar and how you got it knows you more.”
Her face crumpled and she shook her head violently. Her hands began trembling as she wrapped them around her waist. “Why? Why are you doing this?” She repeated the question, dazed. Her eyes barely focused on me as she built her walls back up, brick by brick.
“Why won’t you tell me?” My words were a hammer, pummeling through her walls as she tried to erect them.
“Stop!” She buried her face in her hands as she cried. Her shoulders shook as she fought through the pain, or succumbed to it. “I don’t understand. You said you’d be patient. It was an accident, and I don’t like talking about it. Can’t you see that?”
I saw it clearly.
Throwing myself on the altar, knowing I was about to get burned, I did it anyway. I closed the distance between us, three quick strides, until she’d backed herself against a wall. My hands settled next to her head, boxing her in.
“It’s difficult to be patient when the woman I love is in so much pain, Camden.”
Her chest heaved and her eyes snapped up to mine. “What?”
“You heard me.” I licked my lips, leaned forward, and brushed my mouth over her cheek to her ear. I’d revel in the way her body shivered at my touch another time. In the fact that even when hiding from me, she was still so easily affected by me. “I love you.”
Chapter 30
Camden
“I love you.”
