If You Need Me: The Ashford Legacy, Book 1

by Cassi Carver

  His chest rumbled with a deep murmur, and one hand left her breast to move lower. He lifted her sundress and plunged his hand between her legs, penetrated her with two fingers and used the slick wetness to rub her clit with heavy strokes, his movements rough and raw. Did he know he was almost hurting her? Her pussy, as though trying to help, released a flood of slick fluid. “Gentle, baby,” she whispered.

  The pressure of his hand eased, but when he took hold of her arm and turned her to face him, she didn’t see anything gentle in his red-rimmed eyes. “Do you need me, Rayna?”

  She was a little confused by the question. She’d expect “do you want me” or maybe “can I fuck you”, because that was clearly what he had in mind. But he looked so vulnerable that she didn’t think this was the right time to clarify. “Of course I need you.”

  That seemed to be the right answer because he took both her cheeks in his hands and crushed his lips to hers. His tongue invaded her mouth, conquering until she submitted to the demands of his kiss.

  With a sweep of his hand behind her, he sent everything from the counter clattering into the sink. The next thing she knew, he’d gripped her hips and lifted her, setting her bare ass on the cold white tile then stepping into the V of her legs. Hands still on her hips, he scooted her forward until her wet pussy rubbed the bulge in his jeans. “I’m healthy. I’ve been tested. And I know you’re on the pill…”

  “Yeah…” She wrapped her legs around his hips and moaned when he yanked her straps down and sucked a pebbled nipple into his mouth. The back of her head rested on the edge of the cabinet. Adrenaline coursed through her, her body trying to catch up to this man’s plans. She’d been tested in the past year, and it had been longer than that since she’d slept with a man before Kyle. “I’m clean.”

  “Good, because I don’t want anything between us this time. I want to feel you when I come in you. Do you want that?”

  Her fingers sank into his hair when he took the other neglected nipple into his mouth and suckled. “God yes.”

  She pulled at his T-shirt, sliding it up his back and watching the play of the muscles along his abdomen. When she got it up under his arms, he broke away from her breasts and allowed her to pull the shirt over his head. He hadn’t showered yet this morning, so she could smell the faint musky scent of his skin. It was better than any cologne in existence.

  He undid his belt and dropped his jeans and boxers. She looked down and caught her breath. In the bright morning light, he was a spectacle to behold. All hard, angled planes of muscle and soft skin with a light smattering of sandy brown hair. And his cock. How could she be this lucky? She didn’t need to touch him to know how hard he was for her. She could see it in the way his shaft stood away from his body, stretching his skin so tight it looked like one touch might make him burst.

  She reached down and took him in her hand. There were so many things she wanted to do to him. Suck him. Rub him. Get him off between her breasts. She would never get enough of him. But after a few firm strokes of her fist down his length, he grabbed her hand and lifted it above her head, pressing it against the cabinet door. With his other hand he grasped her hips and yanked her forward, impaling her on his rigid shaft.

  She moaned and her head fell forward, meeting his shoulder. She gave in to the urge to bite him, just hard enough to feel his skin against her teeth. He released her hand and clawed his fingers into both her hips, using his grip to drive her onto him with every hard thrust. He kissed her cheeks as he took from her, his breath hot against her skin.

  Her hands now free, she brought them to his head, using her legs to hold on to him. “Kyle…” she gasped. She didn’t need to say more or instruct him. He was bringing her body straight over the precipice all on his own.

  He pulled back and watched as his cock plunged into her, reemerging again, slick and glistening. “You feel so good. I’ve never—”

  “Never…what?” she panted, her words punctuated by the jarring of her body as he thrust.

  “Never ridden a woman bare like this. I was raised to be careful, to wait.” He cupped her chin between his palm and his thumb, staring into her eyes. “You are who I was waiting for.”

  Kyle Ford melted her, body and soul. How could she tell him everything she was feeling for him? How could she admit that the way she loved him terrified her?

  She tilted her pelvis higher, wanting as much of him inside her as she could get. Her pussy was greedy for him. She’d never wanted someone else’s release even more than hers, but she wanted Kyle’s. She reveled in the fact that even now, the first dewy drops of his essence were moistening her channel.

  “Come in me, Kyle. I need you.”

  His breath was coming in rough pants now, like a man wrestling with a beast, caught in a fight to the death. “God, I love you, Rayna. Don’t say anything. Just hear it, because I have to say it. I love you.”

  The cords of his neck strained and his cheeks went splotchy as he drove into her. She hoped he was close—thought he was—because she was losing it. She wanted to stay in control, at least enough to witness him coming undone inside her, but she was lost. Kyle loved her, and she loved him so much it was a dull ache in her chest.

  “Please…” she whimpered. The slide of his bare cock against her heated flesh was utter bliss. Her pussy began to tighten around him, clutching at his shaft as her whole belly clenched in waves of fiery ecstasy.

  “I’m coming,” he told her, pounding impossibly harder into her core.

  “Yes,” she answered. Take me. Fill me. Love me.

  And a moment later, he clutched her so tightly against him her breasts flattened and her lungs couldn’t draw a full breath. But she didn’t care. She could drown in him. Was drowning. And for once she wanted to give up the fight and simply let it pull her under.

  Chapter Nine

  Kyle didn’t let go of her for a long while, and she didn’t mind. She clutched his head against her breast, holding him tight, until lust faded and thought returned and she started to wonder at the change in him. He’d said he loved her like he meant it. Should she say something or wait to see if he brought it up again? And what had happened on the way to the market that had him so upset? He went to call his boss and came back almost broken.

  “Oh my God.” Her sudden outburst had his head snapping up. “You were fired. They fired you! I knew you shouldn’t have jumped on a plane and traveled across the country on a whim like this.”

  He chuckled and kissed the tops of her breasts before taking hold of her hips again and setting her on her feet. “I’m not fired. You need to stop worrying about that. You think I’m plotting to move in here and live off my sugar mama?”

  She repositioned the straps of her dress, but there wasn’t much she could do about the cool tickle of his fluid on her thighs. “Maybe. You could be here auditioning for the part of my sex slave, for all I know.”

  “How am I doing on that?” he murmured, drawing her close again like he couldn’t get enough.

  She kissed him, loving how natural it felt when her mouth was on his. “You’re hired.”

  He laughed out loud and squeezed her once more before stepping back and pouring a cup of water from the sink. “I have a question…”

  “Thank you, kind sir,” she said when he handed the first cup of water to her. “What’s the question?”

  “I was wondering if you might consider—no pressure, okay?—walking with me to the beach.”

  The water went down her throat like a lead weight. “The w-what? The beach? My God, Kyle, it’s like…four-fifths of a mile away.”

  She set her cup down, suddenly feeling sick, and went to put the groceries in the fridge so she wouldn’t have to look at him. She was going to lose Kyle Ford. She knew it now. This was how it was going to play out: he’d make her fall in love with him and then when he saw her agoraphobia was real, he’d drop her like a bad habit.

  “That’s not so bad, right? You’ve gone two blocks just on your own.”


  Her cheeks were hot, her heart pounding. She scrubbed her hands over her face. “Why are you doing this? I thought you understood.”

  “You were doing so good, Ray. You beat every challenge. Help me understand.”

  “What do you mean help you understand? Look it up in the DSM-5 under ‘Panic Disorders’. Reading about it didn’t do crap for me, but if you’re so curious—go for it.”

  Kyle put his hands palms-up. “I’m not trying to upset you, sweetheart. I won’t force you to do anything you aren’t ready for, okay?”

  She breathed for a minute, trying to get control of the panic—panic that he’d leave her if she couldn’t go outside…panic over the hell that awaited her if she tried to change to keep him. “Okay.”

  “I know there are some subjects we’ve steered clear of. My family. Your agoraphobia. But I was wondering if you could tell me when it started.”

  “Sure. I was fifteen.”

  He nodded. “So it wasn’t like you were born this way—you can actually remember the year you started feeling it?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “I guess some people are born this way. I mean, it’s not like I was a major extrovert at fourteen. But no, I remember it.”

  “Can you share what happened?”

  She squeezed her arms tighter around her middle. Only people from her past knew what had happened, and most of those people she’d left far behind. And now here was Kyle, acting like he wanted to understand her, like he wanted to be part of her life in some long-term way. It was hard to say no to him after how vulnerable he’d been with her in their lovemaking.

  “It’s really simple, actually. I was fifteen. It was toward the end of my sophomore year in high school. I’d been absent because I was sick, and I needed to make up some lab work in chemistry. I planned to ride my bike to school super early, before most of the other classes even opened.”

  Kyle leaned back against the countertop, his knuckles going white at his sides. “And you never made it.”

  She shook her head, but the rest of her was shaking now, too. “No, I made it. I locked up the bike and was walking down an empty hall toward the science building, and the next thing I knew, my head hurt so bad and I was being dragged into the boys’ bathroom.”

  He swallowed, his face pale. “You don’t have to go on.”

  “That’s it, Kyle! That’s the whole story! Some senior boy hit me in the back of my head with the butt of a hunting knife and dragged me into the bathroom. Carter was just coming out of the last stall, and I remember staring up at him from the floor—he had toilet paper sticking to his bloody lip. When he saw me, he went ballistic. The other boy didn’t even get a jab in with his knife before Carter was punching him. When the guy finally fell, Carter came to check on me. He said later that he saw the blood in my hair and he was scared. But the guy who attacked me got away. As soon as Carter turned toward me, he took off.”

  She was crying now. She felt so stupid. So fucking stupid. “I wasn’t raped. I didn’t have to go to the hospital. The guy never returned to school—and neither did I. I couldn’t. My mom homeschooled me for the final two years of high school. My bachelor’s degree in English is from an online university.”

  She sucked in a huge breath, and let it out again as a sob. “I’m pathetic, right? You know how many people get mugged in America every year? Thousands. And most of them go on with their lives just fine.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Brody Martin. Though I imagine he’s probably using his middle name now, too. I asked my parents not too long back, but thankfully, nobody’s seen him around.”

  “And Carter? Why was he there that morning? Why the bloody lip?”

  “The split lip was courtesy of his father, and I hate to say that wasn’t the first time Tuck Halston hit him. You know what’s horrible? All I can think about is if Carter hadn’t been there that morning…hadn’t had that busted lip or if he’d left the bathroom just a few minutes sooner…I don’t know if I’d even be here today. How selfish is it to be thankful my friend got hurt?”

  “How could you call that selfish? You don’t think any man who has the privilege of calling you friend wouldn’t gladly endure more than a fucking bloody lip for you?”

  “I’m not a very good friend. I didn’t even know his dad was sick.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Carter was a senior that year, and he joined the military right after graduation. I bet he was the only person who wanted out of that town even worse than I did.”

  Kyle came to her and wrapped her in his arms so tight, she knew that for the moment she was safe—he wasn’t going anywhere. “You’re too hard on yourself,” he said. “Jesus, Rayna, you don’t know what that boy might have had planned. I can’t even consider what could have happened to you.”

  “You know the worst part?” she continued, stuck somewhere between this world with Kyle and the one back in high school. “I never heard Brody coming. I didn’t get a prickle on the back of my neck. I didn’t hear the scrape of his shoes before he struck. I didn’t wake up that morning and think anything was going to be different about that day. And now I can’t walk outside without feeling like someone’s going to sneak up behind me and my life will be over before I even know I’m gone.”

  “I’m no doctor,” he said, “but it almost sounds like you have post-traumatic stress.”

  She pressed her face against his bare chest, and her breathing started to slow. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. To tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit what people label it—I just know how it feels. Being outside is like waiting for the invisible guillotine to drop.”

  “What if—”

  “Kyle.” She cut him off and lifted her head to stare up at him. “Stop trying to fix me. You’ve done so much already, but it’s been hard for me—harder than I let on.”

  “The challenges are making it worse?”

  “No, not worse. But do you have any idea how flipping proud I am of that penny I found? It may as well be gold bullion. Don’t take that victory away from me by pushing me to the next step as though that one wasn’t good enough.”

  “I swear that’s not what I’m trying to do, Ray. Or—hell, I don’t know. Maybe it is. I just want to try one more thing. That’s it—one. I promise. And after that I’m just going to enjoy you indoors for the rest of our days.”

  She didn’t believe that one more challenge would be enough for him or that he could really love her if she stayed like this forever, but hope was a seductive bitch.

  Her hands felt numb, and she was losing the feeling in her toes altogether. “One.”

  His arms around her shoulders jerked a little like he was surprised or maybe excited. “Really? Okay. Do you own a swimsuit?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t get out enough to need a suit.”

  “That’s okay. Go change into shorts and a tank top. I have some board shorts in my bag.” At her look, he laughed. “Come on, I couldn’t come to California without trunks, right? Just in case.”

  “It’s four-fifths of a mile, Kyle. You’re just setting us up to fail.”

  He squeezed her shoulder and steered her in the direction of her room. “Get changed and I’ll fry us up some eggs. At the very least, I’m going to strut down the hall and back with the prettiest girl in Santa Barbara on my arm.”

  Twenty minutes later, they were standing on the ground floor of the apartment building, and Rayna was oozing sweat from every pore. Wearing her trench coat might have helped her feel more tucked in, but it was almost ninety degrees outside, and there was no way she could get away with a heavy coat on a day like this.

  When they stepped onto the street, Rayna’s feet involuntarily dug into the sidewalk. Kyle grasped her shoulders and stepped in close. “Okay, are you ready to give this a try?”

  “No,” she mumbled, looking around for the nearest trash can in the event that she puked.

  “This is what’s gonna happen—I’m going to be glued t
o you the entire time, like this.” He hugged her from behind, and she leaned into him, loving the feel of his thighs snug against her rump and his chest pressing into her shoulders.

  “My hand isn’t going to leave this spot.” When he cupped the back of her head, she flinched. But after a moment, it felt right. It felt safe. “No one can touch you with my body here, right? That’s six feet two inches of possessive male behind you who’s not gonna let anything happen to his girl, okay?”

  When she nodded, leaning more of her weight against him, he continued. “Let’s do this. Ready? Go.”

  And when he stepped forward with left arm secured over her rib cage and his right hand cupping her nape, Rayna laughed. “Oh jeez, you can’t be serious. We look ridiculous!”

  “No, you look hot in those little shorts and every guy on this street wants to be me.” The hand that was protecting her head slipped lower and gave her ass a pat before returning to its station. “Anyway, people will just think we’re in love. And people in love are allowed to look silly.”

  And she did look silly, with a big goofy smile plastered across her face and Kyle plastered to her back as they struck out, heading west down the street.

  She blinked the sweat out of her eyes and tried to relax into Kyle’s grip. After a few minutes, the sights became clearer, the little details of the city streets that she’d missed when she’d ventured out alone for a challenge. Her favorite Chinese food place wasn’t really that far away, was it? She saw the young man who usually delivered her food behind the counter like he was just getting set up for the day.

  He caught her staring and waved. “Good morning, Rayna! Out for a walk today?”

  “Good morning,” she replied, feeling Kyle’s warm hand against her hair and forcing herself to draw a deep, cleansing breath. Her feet were moving. They’d gone four blocks now—her personal record—and her feet were still moving toward the ocean.