by Maisey Yates
“Big man steps. The way I see it, Connor, it’s pretty easy to judge you from the outside looking in. But nobody else is in your boots.”
“Sure. But even though there is no handbook for stuff like this, common sense says that if you don’t keep moving, you’re just going to die where you’re at. And I haven’t been moving.”
Admitting that felt like a step forward. And steps forward were, after all, what he was aiming for.
“You have been lately,” she said. She took a deep breath and looked away from him, staring out across the water. Connor examined her profile, the elegant line of her nose, the faint sprinkling of freckles across her skin. They weren’t very prominent, only visible if you were up close.
His breath caught on the sudden thought that he was not up close to her often enough. He missed things, keeping his distance. Little details that he was soaking in now. Little details that suddenly seemed essential.
As if sensing his careful study of her profile, Liss shifted, setting her plate down on the blanket beside them, moving away from him. Then she stood slowly. Then her hands went to the buttons on her dress, undoing the first four, letting the top fall down past her shoulders, then letting the garment fall down to her feet.
“Liss?” A whole riot of questions went through his brain, so many that they got bottlenecked at his mouth, and he couldn’t say another word.
She bent at the waist and untied her boots, slipping them off and throwing them into the sand. Then she made quick work of her bra, pushing her panties down her hips, her legs, and leaving them on the ground with her dress. Then she reached up and took a couple of pins out of her hair, letting it fall loose down her back.
And he still couldn’t say anything. All he could do was sit there transfixed. Looking at the way her copper curls contrasted with her creamy skin. Admiring the easy slope of her waist that dipped first, then flared out to form the rounded curve of her hip, the dimples, low on her back, just above her perfect ass.
She turned her head, her hair rippling with the motion, and looked at him, her eyes meeting his, her expression both fierce and timid at the same time. Then she looked back at the river, her eyes fixed straight ahead as she walked down to the bank and stepped into the water.
She lifted one foot up fast, a reflexive response to the cold, he imagined. Then she put it back down, straightening her shoulders and wading in deeper, the water closing over her body. A slight shiver racked her frame, but she kept going. And he just watched.
He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he didn’t want to break the silence. For some reason, the idea of it seemed tantamount to swearing in church. And even he knew better than that.
She raised her hands up over her head then slipped entirely beneath the surface, leaving nothing but a ripple where she’d been standing. Connor stood, his eyes glued to the water. His heart pounding fast.
Only a couple of seconds later she resurfaced on a shriek, shattering the air around them, just like she’d shattered the surface of the water a moment before. She pushed her hair and droplets of water off her face. She was facing him now, smiling. “I think you should join me,” she called.
“You are insane.”
“Maybe,” she shouted.
“I told you I do not want to freeze my balls off today.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Suit yourself.”
She went under the water again, and when she resurfaced she was farther away from shore, treading water.
He hadn’t paid all that much attention in school, but she brought to mind that story about sirens who lured men to their deaths.
It hit him then that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And he was standing on the shore, watching her, when he could be out there with her. He was holding himself back, as an observer, when he could touch all that beauty, taste it. Get out in that water and sink down deep in it.
Along with that realization came the crushing weight of time. That it was passing. That he wasn’t guaranteed a set amount.
He was guaranteed this moment. If he wasn’t too afraid to take it.
And who knew exactly what shape it would take. Maybe it would just be a moment to recapture something he hadn’t done since he was a teenager. Swimming naked, not caring if anyone saw. A last grasp at the kind of freedom age, grief and too much hard work had stolen from him.
Maybe it would become something more.
But he would never find out if he stood there on the bank, not moving.
One thing he was sure of now more than ever: if he didn’t move forward, he would die where he sat.
He gripped the hem of his shirt and wrenched it over his head, his hands going to his belt buckle, working it through the loop as quickly as possible, then undoing his jeans.
He shrugged them and his underwear down, kicking them to the side.
Liss was watching him from out in the middle of the river. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t already seen. Still, he felt a little bit self-conscious. Bare-ass naked out in the broad daylight.
He stepped into the water and bit back a curse. “This is cold,” he called.
“Yes, it is. But I don’t think you have to worry about freezing your balls off, Connor Garrett.”
“You don’t?” He crossed his arms over his chest, going in a little bit deeper.
“No, because I’m not convinced you have any.”
He snorted and picked up the pace, sliding into swimming when he reached chest-high water, gritting his teeth against the bone-aching chill. He closed the distance between himself and Liss quickly.
“What are you, twelve?”
She looked at him, her expression impish. “Do I look twelve?”
No. No, she did not. “Okay, I’m out here. Now what?”
“Do I have to make all your decisions for you?” she asked, a note of teasing in her voice, but a thread of truth winding through it.
That wasn’t fair, though. He had made a decision yesterday. A decision about not touching her again and getting their friendship back on neutral ground.
But then, he supposed changing your mind came with the territory of making decisions. And if not, that was just too damn bad. He would claim inexperience on that score, since he’d made so few in recent years.
He moved closer to her, and her smile faded. “No,” he said, “you don’t have to make my decisions for me.”
He reached out and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her close to him, their legs tangling. She gasped, the shocked look on her face so satisfying it almost overrode the feel of her bare, slick body against his. Almost.
He kicked a few times, bringing them closer to the opposite shore to where their picnic was set, bringing them to a point where he could touch ground again.
He planted his feet as firmly as he could, avoiding any algae-covered rock, tightening his hold on her. Her breasts were pressed firmly against his chest, and he was pretty sure he could stay like this for the next hour, and in spite of the cold be completely happy.
“What are we doing here?” he asked. Because he felt like he needed to do the responsible thing and try to figure out just what she was expecting. If all she was expecting was for them to have some fun swimming naked together, he needed to know. Because his brain had shot straight past that and gone on to something else entirely. Damn open-ended. Damn the torpedoes and everything else.
He’d been open to a vague set of possibilities while standing there on the shore, but now that they were up close and personal, the options he was willing to consider had narrowed. A hell of a lot.
“Not nearly enough,” she said, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his neck, just beneath his jaw.
The brief contact of her lips against his skin sent a shock wave of needs through his body. And he wondered how he had ever thought he w
ould just go back to seeing her as a friend. To forgetting what had passed between them.
To forgetting what it felt like to be naked with her, to be inside her.
His intentions had been valiant. Or maybe they hadn’t been. Maybe they had just been more self-protection. Because this was... He didn’t know what the hell this was. He knew what it couldn’t be. He knew what it might mess up.
But he was still here. With her.
He moved his hands slowly up the line of her spine, the drag from the water keeping his movements slow, measured. They broke the surface of the water, and he moved his palms over her shoulders then up to cup her face, sliding his thumbs over her cheekbones, brushing away the droplets of water that clung to her skin, skimming over her freckles. He had never paid much attention to them before today, and now he found he wanted to count them, match the number of kisses to freckles.
He leaned in, kissing her lightly on one cheek then on the other.
“Connor,” she said, her voice thin, shaky.
“Liss,” he said, because he didn’t want there to be any question that he knew whom he was with. When he looked at her, she was all he saw.
He tilted her face upward, leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips. She wrapped her arms around him, holding on to him tightly, and she tilted her head backward, keeping her face just out of the water, watching her hair flow up around her like a copper halo. He could see her breasts just beneath the surface, pale, rosy-tipped. He bent down and licked a drop of water from her neck, mimicking what he had wanted to do earlier with the peach juice.
He turned his head and kissed her jaw, following the line until he came to her chin, then he moved to her mouth, deepening the kiss, tasting her. She parted her lips for him, sliding her tongue against his. And it didn’t matter that the water was cold as freaking glacier melt; shrinkage was not a problem. He was so hard he thought he might explode the next time she flicked the tip of her tongue over his lips.
He abandoned her mouth and straightened slightly, taking in the view of her body. He covered her breast with his palm, moving his thumb over her tightened nipple. She shivered beneath his touch. Or maybe it wasn’t his touch so much as the water.
“Cold, baby?” he asked.
“No,” she said, her teeth chattering.
“Liar,” he said.
He slipped his hand behind her knees and lifted her, holding her close to his chest and walking until he couldn’t touch bottom anymore. He swam across the short distance where the waterline went over his head, Liss kicking along with him. When his feet connected with solid ground again, he picked her up again, walking them both out of the river and onto dry land. He didn’t set her down again until they got to the blanket. Then he knelt down next to her, watching the water drops roll over her skin.
“I want...” He bent his head down and captured a drop with his tongue, following the trail over her breast, to one tightened peak. He drew it deep into his mouth, sucking hard. Liss arched against him, a hoarse cry escaping her lips.
“Are you going to finish your sentence?” she asked, gasping for breath.
“I thought I would just lead by example,” he said, his lips brushing against her skin as he spoke. He sipped more water from her body, moving to her other breast, tracing the outline of the tightened bud with the tip of his tongue. “You’re beautiful, do you know that?”
“It’s never mattered to me that much. But I’m happy to know that you think I’m beautiful,” she said, her voice trembling.
He moved away from her slightly, giving himself a better view of her body. “I do. I’m not good with...poetry and shit. I never have been. I can show you.” He leaned in and kissed her inner thigh, moving closer to where he really wanted to be, to the part of her he really wanted to taste.
He liked this. He really liked it, and he had a lot of catching up to do.
She said his name again, like a prayer, half a sob. Oh, yes, he liked this a lot.
He put his hand between her thighs, her flesh hot beneath the cool water that clung to the curls that covered her sex. He slipped his fingers through her slick heat, pressing one deep inside her body. Then he leaned in, moving his tongue over her clit in time with the movement of his finger.
She tasted like heaven. And he’d been stuck in hell for far too long.
He reached down and wrapped his hand around his cock, squeezing tight. He didn’t have any protection with him, which meant this was not going to end quite the way he wanted it to.
He tasted her deeper, urged on by the sounds of pleasure she was making.
“Connor... Connor, I need you. I need you inside me.”
He raised his head, breathing hard. “No. Can’t.” It took every ounce of self-control he possessed to refuse. He didn’t want to refuse. But he wouldn’t put them at risk for pregnancy.
That was something he just couldn’t deal with.
“Can,” she said. “I brought condoms.”
That brought him up short. “Later. Later I will question you about that.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” she said.
He moved up her body and kissed her deeply on the lips. “It might not be. But right now it doesn’t matter. Right now? I just need to be inside you.”
“They’re in the picnic basket,” she said.
“The picnic basket?”
“It was dessert.”
He snorted, surprised that he could find anything amusing when he was this close to spontaneously combusting. He reached out and put his hand in the picnic basket, coming up victoriously with a handful of protection. “Ambitious,” he said.
“I have a healthy fantasy life,” she said, her tone innocent.
He tore open one of the packets and positioned the latex sheath at the head of his cock, drawing it down slowly over his length.
“I will never get tired of watching you do that,” Liss said, her eyes on him with rapt attention.
“This? Really?”
“So hot,” she said.
He watched her face, watched the way she looked at him, appraised him. No one had ever looked at him like that. Like he just might be the beautiful one.
It made his chest feel strange. Tight.
He positioned himself at the entrance of her body, leaning in and kissing her lips, testing her before thrusting deep inside her.
“Not as hot as this,” he said, sliding his hand beneath her ass and drawing her hard against him.
“No,” she said, holding tightly on to his shoulders, her fingernails digging into his skin. But he didn’t mind. If anything, he welcomed it. Welcomed the little bit of pain to help defuse the intense pleasure that was threatening to overtake him. He wanted to make this good for her. He didn’t want to make this a forgettable five minutes.
He wanted it to be a lot more minutes than that. And he wanted them to be memorable.
It would be for him. He knew it without a doubt.
He flexed his hips, beginning to move inside her, establishing a steady rhythm that kept him on edge, without putting him over. She arched against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. The feeling of her, tight and hot around him, was too good. Too much.
He looked down at her, their eyes clashing, a sharp shock of pleasure traveling down his spine and settling heart of the base of it. Looking at her like this, while buried deep inside her, in the light of day, made him feel more present than he had in years. Everything felt sharper, brighter, pleasure cutting into him like a knife. Liss arched up beneath him, her hold on him tightening, her name on his lips as she gave herself up to her own release. Her internal muscles tightened around him, and he couldn’t hold back anymore.
He buried his face in her neck and let go. Of everything around him, of everything in the past, of any worry in the future.
And when he
came back to himself, the only thing he was still holding on to was Liss.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WELL, SHE HAD done it. And she hadn’t even said a word. She’d been planning an entire speech in her head. She’d intended to list all of the reasons why she wanted to continue sleeping with him. She’d planned to tell him that she deserved to have what she wanted.
In the end, staying silent and taking her clothes off had been a lot easier. And a hell of a lot more effective, she imagined.
Go figure.
She closed her eyes, relishing the warm weight of Connor’s body on hers. She was soaking wet from her time in the river, and they had managed to crumple the blanket so that she was half in the sand now, some of the grains sticking to her arms, but she didn’t care.
Because she felt too good everywhere else to worry about a little bit of sand. Sand was the least of her concerns. Sand was worth it.
She was starting to think just about anything was worth it for sex with Connor. It was unaccountably satisfying just how well he lived up to the hype that her brain had built up around him.
She felt...justified. Vindicated. Something. She felt like giving the part of herself that had been devoted to a secret Connor obsession for years a cookie and a pat on the back.
You did well, little obsessive part of me. Obviously, you knew just how good it could be.
The discovery that years of fantasy had been useless because he couldn’t live up to her fictional imaginings would have been a hard one to swallow. Fortunately, that was not the case.
Connor moved away from her, the sudden loss of his body heat leaving her shivering.
He didn’t look at her while he moved around the riverbank, collecting clothes. He dumped hers in a heap in front of her while hurrying to put on his own.
“Where’s the fire, Garrett?”
“Hopefully not in my new barn,” he said, his tone dry.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not too fond of the idea of getting caught out here bare-ass naked,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be the best,” she said, pushing herself into a sitting position and digging through the clothes pile for her bra. “Does anyone come out here?”
