“I don’t know.” She didn’t wear perfume. “This is some kind of flowery stuff. I like it.”
His hands glided over her skin, across her belly, up to cup her breasts and gently massage them. A moan leaked from between her lips.
“Feel good?” he whispered from behind her, his mouth close to her ear.
“Yes.” She sighed. “I never knew a shower could be so much fun.”
She felt his smile. “Another pleasure.”
“Can I wash you?”
He paused, and when he answered his voice was rough. “Hell yeah.”
He moved them again to rinse suds from her skin, and she took the bottle of body wash from him and poured some in her hands. “You’re always doing things to make me feel good. I want to make you feel good.”
“Have at me—I’m all yours.”
She smiled and began to smooth her palms over him, following them with her eyes to not only explore him with touch but with sight. She slicked her hands over strong shoulders, rounded biceps, sinewy forearms. She coasted over the hard ridges of his collarbones, down over his pecs, then lower over his ridged abs, marveling at the defined muscles there. Her gaze dropped lower still, to the thrust of his thick cock. She longed to touch that too, but cast a quick glace up at him through her eyelashes.
“Touch me,” he said in a husky voice. “Wrap your hands around my cock. I’m dying for you to touch me like that.”
Okay, then. The soap kept her hands slick and she stroked him up and down, watching like it was her own personal porn movie, only better, because she got to feel him too, the heat, the firm, dense flesh, the soft skin.
His groan encouraged her and she dipped lower with her other hand to cup his balls, gently rolling them as she continued to slide her hand up and down his shaft.
He covered that hand with his. At first she thought he meant to stop her, but he said, “Harder.” He squeezed her hand tighter around him. “Like that. Fuck, Hayden. Oh yeah.”
They played longer, learning each other’s bodies, teasing and tormenting until finally Beck said, “Damn, baby, gotta be inside that tight pussy. Like, now.”
She’d certainly never had sex standing up and had no idea how this would go. Again, Beck took charge, turning her to face the wall, bending her over. “Hands on the wall. Legs apart.”
She felt him move away, and glanced over her shoulder to see him leaning out of the tub. When he straightened he had a condom in his hand.
He suited up, bent his knees, and then pushed up into her. She arched her back and cried out at the pinch of pain, then the intense fullness.
“Okay, baby?”
“Yes. God, yes.”
He held her hips, helping her move on his cock as he slid in and out. She flattened her hands on the wet wall, pushing her hips back at him with each stroke, wet hair streaming down her back.
“Oh yeah. Push that hot little ass back against me.” To her shock he gave her ass a little smack. Amazingly, it felt good, an added sensation to the buzzing tension coiling up inside her. “Perfect little ass. Love watching my cock disappear inside you and these sweet cheeks.” His strokes grew harder, faster, nearly lifting her off her feet. His grip tightened; then one hand slid around over her damp curls and between her thighs, finding the spot she desperately needed to be touched.
“Oh yeah,” she cried, almost on a sob.
“Make you come,” he growled in her ear, bending over her. “Wanna feel that pussy come so hard.”
“Close…oh God, that feels good…” Her orgasm exploded, so fast it was almost disappointing because everything he was doing felt so good she wanted it to go on forever. She couldn’t stop the noises that left her throat as her body convulsed around him.
“Beautiful. Goddamn, Hayden…” Then he pounded into her once, twice, and went still, the rough curls of his pubic hair pressed against her ass as his cock spasmed inside her. She tightened around him, deliberately squeezing, and it felt like another orgasm rolled over her.
He slid both arms around her, holding her tight to his heaving chest, both of them wet, dripping, panting. Hayden’s legs felt so weak she was glad he was holding her up.
“Holy fuck,” he muttered. “You just keep amazing me.”
She swallowed thickly, not sure what exactly she’d done to amaze him since he’d been fucking her senseless.
“Getting you all waterlogged,” he said. “We’d better get out of here.”
He stretched a hand to turn off the tap, then helped her straighten. The curtain was whisked open with a scrape of the rings against the rod, and then he was wrapping her in a towel again, this time one of her own, the thick taupe towels Carrie’d given her last year, so much more luxurious than the basic towels she’d buy herself. Now she was grateful for them, her body sensitive to their plush softness, attuned to the sensuality of being dried off. Of course it was even more pleasurable to have Beck doing it, smiling down at her with hot, dark eyes.
“More craziness,” she murmured. “Sex in the shower.”
“Babe. If you think sex in the shower is crazy, we’ve got a lot of dirty sex acts to get to.”
Her face, probably already tomato red from the orgasm and the hot shower, heated even more. “I’m not very experienced. Sorry.”
“Fuck no, don’t apologize.” His expression sobered. “Watching you respond to me, come apart for me like this…it’s fucking hot.”
“Oh.” She was always quick to assume that someone teasing her was doing so because she was weird and different. But Beck kept showing her that teasing could be affectionate.
He bent his head and touched his lips to hers. “Like the night you were tasting tequila for the first time.”
“It wasn’t the first time I’d had tequila.”
He chuckled. “Babe. You know what I mean. Really tasting it.”
“Okay, yeah.”
“You were so sexy, letting your senses take over.” He kissed her again. “That day at the beach. Tonight. And just now…” This time his mouth lingered. “Feeling warmer?”
She hugged out a laugh. “Oh yeah.”
“Good. I think I owe you dinner. I was going to take you for something to eat after. Do you want to get dressed and go out somewhere? Or order something in?”
“Ordering in sounds nice.”
“Great. Because I’d rather you stay naked.” He gave her ass a squeeze.
“I’m not staying naked. Especially if there’s a delivery guy coming.”
Beck grinned. “Okay, but wear as little as possible.”
Eesh. She didn’t have a drawer full of sexy lingerie. As little as possible was going to have to be a pair of shorts and a tank top. Yeah, that was sexy.
While Beck got rid of the condom and dressed in his board shorts and shirt, she found clothes and dressed too. He wandered into the bedroom as she pulled the tank top down over her middle. His gaze immediately went to her braless breasts and his smile was appreciative. “Nice.”
Okay, maybe she could be a little sexy.
They debated food choices, her ruling out sub sandwiches and him raising a hand to veto veggie burgers from EVO. He pulled up an app on his phone and read some other choices until they finally agreed on rice bowls from Lucky Delight, his with steak, hers with shrimp.
She started a playlist on her iPod and they sat on her couch, her sideways and cross-legged with a soft beige throw over her legs.
“Your couch surprises me,” Beck said, lounging back with one long leg crossed over the other.
“Why?”
“You don’t seem like a red leather girl.”
“Basic and boring, right?”
“I never said that. But you’re very…practical.”
“Yes, I am. This couch is practical. Leather is very easy to keep clean and it will last a long time.”
He smiled. “I guess it being bright red doesn’t change that.”
“No. Okay, truthfully, I really hesitated when I was buying this. I loved it but
I did think it was going to be difficult to decorate around it. Carrie convinced me it wouldn’t be that hard. Not that I’m much into decorating.”
“I like your place. Who took the photographs?”
“Carrie.”
Beck’s eyebrows shot up and he studied them again. “Really? They’re fantastic.”
“I know. She’s very talented. She earns her living in front of the camera, but she really prefers to be behind it.” She paused. “And a few of the pictures are ones my parents took. They loved to travel and we used to go somewhere every summer vacation. Until my dad got sick.”
The corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes softened. “I’m sorry.”
Her smile was probably glum, but she tried anyway. “Thanks. I was sixteen. He died of pancreatic cancer.”
“Christ.” He reached for her one of hands. “Is that why you want to find a cure for cancer?”
“I was interested in medicine even before he died, but…yeah. I was sort of thinking about being a doctor, but I discovered I love doing research, and that seemed like a way I could help a lot of people instead of just one at a time.”
He rubbed his chest and dropped his gaze. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.”
“It was really awful,” she continued. “By the time they diagnosed him, the cancer had grown too big to be able to treat, which is often the case with pancreatic cancer. They gave him six months, but it turned into eight. We wanted to keep him at home as long as we could, but eventually I had to convince my mom that he should be in palliative care. She hated that but she was exhausted. We both were.”
“That must have been so difficult.”
“Yes.” She swallowed. “And then about six months after he died, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.”
His gaze shot back up to meet hers. “Jesus! No!”
“Yeah. And we went through it all over again. She had treatment but she ended up dying two years later. I think she just didn’t have the strength to fight it, after losing Dad.”
He stared at her. “No shit.”
“I was about to start college, but it was really hard. I was angry at the world. My aunt and uncle did so much for me, helped me get through that and through my first year of college.”
He gave her a long look, his lips thinning. “If both your parents died of cancer, do you worry…about yourself?”
Chapter 12
He watched Hayden’s face. “Yes,” she said. “I mean, I did.” She dropped her gaze to her hands briefly. “Truthfully? I was terrified. But I’ve had genetic testing to see if I’m carrying the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing his face.
Thinking about Hayden having cancer…Christ.
“Both my parents had the testing done too, after their diagnoses. They wanted it done for me.”
“How did them having the testing done help you?”
“If they had the mutation, then they could pass it on to me. My mother did, but not my father. So when I was tested and I was negative, we knew it was an unequivocal negative.”
He swallowed. “So that’s good.” Relief loosened muscles that had suddenly become tense. His gut still felt tight.
“Yeah. It was actually an amazing gift. I was a bit of a mess after they died, but knowing that at least put that fear to rest. My risk of cancer isn’t much different than the general population. I do the things we should all do—I don’t smoke, I eat healthy, I use sunscreen. I work out…well, I haven’t lately. I’ve just been so busy. But I used to go to the gym before work a few times a week. I need to get back to that.”
“Right.” He pulled in a long breath. He could tell from the way she talked about her parents and the trips they’d taken that she loved them. That fucking sucked, to lose her parents at such a young age.
Unlike him, who’d lost his parents even though they were still alive.
“My brother died.” He closed his eyes briefly. Did he really just say that? He never talked about his brother.
“Oh no.” She covered the hand that was holding hers with her other one. “How?”
“In a skateboarding accident.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah. It was a stupid thing. He’d gone to this old stadium that was being torn down. He was with some friends. They wanted to skate down the ramps…really long, concrete ramps. He just got going so fast, he lost control and crashed. He had a massive head injury.”
“Oh no.” Her fingers tightened on his. “Oh, Beck. How old was he?”
“He was fourteen. I was twelve.”
“That’s awful.” Her voice quivered with emotion.
“Yeah. It was.” For so very many reasons, which he was not going to get into. He wasn’t sure why he’d even told her that. Maybe her story about losing her parents had made him want to share that he’d lost someone too. Aidan was probably the last person he’d cared about. Until he’d become friends with Marco and Cade.
Normally he’d make a joke about something, to cover up how much he still missed Aidan, but right now he had nothin’.
Hayden’s doorbell rang and they both lifted their heads. Their eyes met. He smiled and gave her hand one last squeeze, then rose off the couch. “Sounds like the food’s here.”
He paid the delivery kid with cash, throwing in a good tip, while Hayden carried the bag of food into her kitchen. He joined her there a moment later.
“Everything we need.” She handed him a pair of chopsticks. “Even extra hot sauce.”
He arranged his fingers and expertly waggled the chopsticks. “That’s good,” he said. “I like it hot and spicy.”
She grinned and gave him his bowl. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The flutter of her eyelashes revealed her reaction. Heh. He liked getting a reaction out of her.
They sat on her couch and dug into their meals, eating in companionable silence for a few moments. The song playing from her speakers was “Break on Me.” “You like Keith Urban?”
“Who?”
He grinned. “He’s singing this song. He’s a great guitar player.”
“Oh! I don’t really know much about music.”
“Where’d you get the playlist?”
She shrugged and picked up a shrimp. “It’s a streaming music website. They suggested it.”
“Oh man.” He heaved a dramatic sigh. “More things we need to educate you on.”
She popped the shrimp in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “You’re an expert on music?”
“I like music.” He lifted one shoulder. “My parents made me take piano lessons when I was a kid.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Shut up.”
“No lie. I was actually pretty good, but I really wanted to play guitar. I finally rebelled and quit piano lessons and started guitar. Played in a band in high school and college.”
“No way.”
“Way. Why are you so disbelieving?”
“You totally look like a rock star.” She slammed her mouth shut as if she regretted saying that.
He laughed. “Thank you.”
“You just keep throwing things at me that surprise me.”
“That’s part of my charm.”
“You still play guitar?”
“Yeah.” He hesitated. “Just for myself. It relaxes me.”
“You should start another band. You could play at Conquistadors.”
“Ha. Right.”
“Why not?”
“You’ve never heard me play.”
“Well, now I want to.”
“You’ll have to come over to my place, then.”
His tone was casual, but when their eyes met, once again sparks jumped around them. He could see her mind working, her analytical brain wanting to know exactly what was going on between them. But Beck had no interest in analyzing it. He didn’t want to explore the nature of his feelings. He liked her and he was hot as fuck for her, and that was enough for him. “Don’t worry, Hayden. Just li
ve in the moment.”
“That’s really hard for me to do.” She gazed back at him and he read the anxiety in her eyes. “I like to know everything. I like to plan. I like everything organized and orderly. Not messy and uncertain and in the moment.”
“I get that.” He reached out and stroked down a long strand of still-damp hair, moving it behind one shoulder. “I can make you forget all that.” He set his empty bowl and chopsticks on the low coffee table, removed hers from her hands, and set them there too. He shifted closer, easily sliding over the leather, cupping her face with one hand. Sex had always worked for him, helping him forget the shit he preferred not to think about. It would work for her too.
He tilted his head and dipped it down for a long, soft kiss. He felt her sigh. His thumb rubbed the corner of her mouth, tugging her bottom lip down to open for him, gently sliding across her lip; then he curved his hand gently over her throat as he kissed her deeper. His tongue licked into her mouth.
Her hands landed on his shoulders and held on tight as they made out, lush kisses, sliding lips, stroking tongues, trying to consume each other. He was hungry for this woman, eager to make her feel good and forget all her fears.
What was she afraid of?
He was curious, but he wasn’t going to go there. Making her open up to him would mean he had to do the same, and he’d already told her things he never talked about to other people. Even Cade and Marco didn’t know the full extent of his family’s dysfunction.
His fingertips moved over the soft skin of her neck, stroking her, over her shoulder. He flattened his palm on her upper chest, and pressed it there, as he nipped at her bottom lip. The curve of her breast brushed his forearm and he stayed like that, kissing her again, and again, then slowly dragging his hand lower to cover her breast in a firm caress. She arched into his palm and he fucking loved that, loved how much she liked to be touched there, because, hell, he liked touching her.
Her sweet tit felt amazing in his hand through the thin cotton. “Christ, when I saw you wearing this shirt with no bra…those perfect breasts and stiff little nipples…it made me hard again.” She trembled, and he now used both hands to cup and squeeze and mold her pliant flesh, making her gasp and moan.
Body Shot (Last Shot) Page 12
