by Parker, Ali
“I just told him I’d have laid him if you hadn’t seen him first.” Valerie was saying to Heidi. “Laying off him, though, that’s not going to happen. He needs to be properly inducted into our little group if he’s going to be hanging around.”
Her hazel eyes were slightly glassy when she turned her gaze to me, but somehow still managed to sear a hole in my soul. It was obvious that she was protective of her friends, looking at me like she would cut my dick off if I thought about hurting Heidi.
I knew that look, it was the same one Rayce and I got when either of us felt that protective instinct kicking in.
“So how about it, Will. Are you going to be hanging around?” The question was asked casually, but there was an edge to her voice that told me it was a warning too.
I glanced at Heidi before folding my arms on the table and leaning toward Valerie. “I’d love to, but I don’t think that’s up to me.”
“Well then,” Olive’s dark-blue eyes swung from her friends’ eyes to mine before she lit up with a radiant smile. “I think you’ve passed that test. Now that we’ve established that, can we move on?”
Valerie nodded, launching into a joke I’d heard before. Heidi leaned into my side, her lips brushing my ear when she spoke. “I’d love for you to hang around too.”
The feel of her lips against my skin was just enough to heat my blood, tighten my pants, and make me wish that we weren’t surrounded by so many people. My hand shot out and landed on her leg, squeezing as I turned my head to plant a soft kiss on her forehead. If I got anywhere near her mouth, it would be way too hard to stop.
Heidi and I focused our attention back on her friends after that, but we kept touching for the rest of the night. It drove me fucking insane, but in the best possible way.
I stopped drinking, realizing that there was no way these girls were going to be in any state to drive themselves home. When they were ready to leave, though Valerie kept protesting that she wasn’t, I drove them home.
Olive got Valerie out of the truck, dragging her up the stairs and turning to wave goodbye before they went inside. Heidi was sitting in the passenger seat and stayed there, angling herself to face me. “Can I come back to your place with you?”
I had noticed she’d slowed down with the drinking earlier on in the night, so she wasn’t quite as hammered as her friends were. Still, whatever happened I didn’t want to feel like I was taking advantage of her. “How drunk are you right now?”
She shrugged. “I’m still a bit buzzed, but not so much anymore. So can I? Come home with you, I mean.”
“Let’s get a hotel nearby instead. My apartment is too far away from here.”
Giving me a disappointed kind of look, she nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry, you don’t have to stay with me, I just—”
“I want to. I would have asked you earlier, but it’s kind of seedy asking a girl to spend the night at a hotel with you.” I offered her a grin, hoping she could look past the fact that again we wouldn’t be going to my place, and see my sincerity about wanting to stay with her. I should have just bought the fucking house.
“Okay. I guess it makes sense that you don’t want to drive too far now. It’s late and we’ve been drinking. Do you know of anywhere in the area?”
“Leave it to me.”
A little boutique hotel nearby had a room available, and Heidi and I went through the check-in process quickly. Our room was on the second story and opened with an actual metal key instead of a key card.
I looked back at Heidi, ready with a quip about how old school the place was, but it died on my tongue as soon as I caught sight of her. She had dropped her dress right there in the hallway, clad in only pale-pink underwear.
The key turned in the lock, but I wasn’t really aware of having done it. All my attention was on Heidi, standing close to naked right in front of me. I opened the door, grabbed her by the wrist, and pulled her inside to keep other guests from seeing her.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that’s why you had to get her inside so fast. The door had hardly closed behind us when my mouth and hands were on her, finally touching her the way I’d been dying to do all night.
Chapter 22
Heidi
For some reason, the intro to “Thunderstruck” started playing in my mind as soon as we crossed the threshold into the hotel room. I couldn’t imagine why, since the song was so old and I hadn’t heard it in forever, but the echo of the guitar riffs was loud and clear in my mind.
Will kissed me fervently, in a choppy rhythm that made me wonder if he could hear it too. It was like he was releasing years of pent-up frustration when at most, it might have been a few hours.
One of his hands curled around the nape of my neck, his fingers digging into my skin with a pressure that was pure need. It was just on the right side of painful, sending little shivers of pleasure down my spine.
Without breaking our kiss, Will walked us backward until I hit the wall with a muted thud. The fingers of his free hand curved around my hip, holding me still as he devoured my mouth.
Our kisses were hot and heavy, fast and hard. My body reacted instantly to his touch, goosebumps lifting on my skin while my nipples hardened to peaks and my core turned molten.
I gasped against his mouth when he ran his hand from my hip to the underside of my breast, running his thumb along the swell of it. “Will.”
My voice was hoarse, like the desire pumping through my veins had constricted my throat. Pulling away from me just enough to be able to look into my eyes, he ran his hand from my neck to my cheek. “We should move this to the bed. Take it slower this time.”
I nodded, bringing my hand up to take his. We hadn’t switched a light on yet, but the hotel staff had left a bedside lamp on. The room was basked in its soft glow, muted by the red lampshade over it.
Heavy cream-colored curtains were already drawn over a wide bank of windows. Situated next to the curtains was a small sitting area comprised of a couch, a wooden coffee table, and a television mounted on the far wall.
A dresser stood off to the side of that area next to a door that I assumed led to a bathroom. There was a big mirror mounted above the dresser, giving me a glimpse of my flushed cheeks and swollen lips.
The only other furniture in the room was our destination: a queen-size four-poster bed with crisp white sheets on it. Since I was already mostly naked—I still didn’t really know what had come over me to have stripped down in the freaking hall—I sat down on the bed and looked up at Will.
“My turn to strip, huh?” A slow smirk spread across his lips, his hands going to the top button of his black shirt. He unbuttoned it, keeping his gaze on mine as his fingers swept down to the next one.
My mouth went dry as I watched him, my thighs clenching to curb the need building between them. God, he really is sexy.
Slowly but surely, he kept working on his buttons until his shirt parted to reveal inked and carved abdominal muscles that laddered their way down to a deliciously sexy V between his hips. My tongue darted out to swipe at my lips as I imagined licking a path down between all those ridged edges to where I already knew there was a very talented cock.
Will caught the movement of my tongue, following it with heated eyes before letting out a low groan. “Fuck stripping.”
He was on me the next second, sliding the button on his pants free with one hand while crawling onto the bed and pushing me down with the other. His fingers on my chest burned my skin, lighting up my nerve endings and wanting to feel those hands all over me.
Will kicked his pants free just after his shoes dropped to the thick carpet with heavy thumps. His skin was warm against mine, his body weight pressing me into the mattress. I took full advantage of my first opportunity to properly run my hands over all those muscles that I’d been ogling from the first time I’d seen him.
They were strong and hard, roping from his shoulders to his hands, his firm ass, and into his thighs. Regardless of how hard they were, I was still surprisingly
comfortable underneath him. He smelled like cedar and spice, an alluring scent that was different from the first time we’d been together and somehow still familiar.
His lips pressed to my neck, his hands exploring my body in the same way as I had just done to him. When his fingers reached my thighs, I arched my back and let out a quiet, totally uncharacteristic mewl. I wanted him so badly that I wasn’t even a little embarrassed by it.
Releasing a soft chuckle that feathered over my sensitive skin, his hand crept between our tightly mashed bodies. A sharp hiss escaped him when he brushed his erection against me in the process, his hips jerking before he lifted them a little and readjusted his position.
Continuing with increasingly rapid breaths, he cupped my soaked pussy and let out a low almost growl. “Jesus. I thought we were taking it slow this time.”
“Yeah.” The word came out as a moan. “Let’s do that later. Right now, I just want you inside me.”
“I want that, too, but I want to see you come for me first.” As if he was trying to prove his point, his fingers rubbed along my seam. They were still outside of my panties, but the lace was so wet by now they might just as well not have been there.
Obviously deciding to use the flimsy barrier to his advantage, he pulled the material taut across my core, sending skitters of pleasure bursting through me. All the while, his fingers kept rubbing, stroking, tapping until I was just about mindless with need.
“Will, please.” Panting now, I gazed up into his eyes and saw that they were as desperate and hooded as my own probably looked.
He didn’t answer me, yanking my panties down my legs with one smooth tug instead. I thought he might go back to what he had been doing, craved for him to go back to it. But he didn’t.
On the way back up after flinging my underwear clear across the room, he stopped with his head between my legs. Spreading them apart roughly to make space for his broad shoulders, he dug into me like a man who had been deprived of something he was addicted to.
His tongue lit me on fire and when his fingers joined in on the crusade, I was lost in a sea of blissful sensation. He got his wish to see me come apart at the seams only a few minutes later, my orgasm tearing through me like the goddamn big bang.
I trembled underneath him, writhing and moaning my release. Once he’d seen me through it, he positioned himself on top of me. I didn’t know when he’d had time to get a condom on, but I could feel the latex covering the broad head of his cock as it nudged against me.
Bringing a hand up to my cheek, he waited for our eyes to meet. “Still okay?”
“Yes.” I wrapped my legs around him and bent my knees to bring him closer. Will followed my lead, sinking into me slowly until he was buried to the hilt. Moaning, I slid my hands into his soft hair and brought his mouth to mine again.
Will let out a soft groan, parting my lips with his tongue as he started moving. It was slow at first, our bodies melding together again and again until even I didn’t know where I started and he ended.
Our kisses were deep and lazy, until they weren’t. Tingles ran from my core to my toes, curling them as the promise of intense pleasure tightened my muscles.
Will’s thrusts became deeper, more deliberate. Low sounds emanated from the back of his throat as he worked us both into a frenzy. Just when I was about to break our kiss to ask for more, his hand snaked between us and he gave me what I hadn’t even asked for yet.
My second orgasm for the night hit fast and hard. White light exploded behind my eyelids and my muscles went on lockdown.
Will held me tighter, his body chasing a release of its own. When he finally found it, I felt him pulsing deep inside me. His kisses stopped as his head rolled back and his hips jerked against mine.
I had come down enough from my own high to watch him riding his out, and it was the hottest, most erotic sight I’d ever seen. Licking my lips, I clung to him and burned every second of him like this into my memory.
Dropping his forehead to mine once his body stilled, he pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose and grinned. “I didn’t think that could get any better, but it just did.”
“I totally agree.” I smiled and admired how much softer the blue in his eyes were when he was sated, twisting my fingers into his hair and pulling him back to me for one last kiss before he rolled away to take care of the condom.
Breathing heavily, I lay back with my head on the soft pillow and turned toward Will. He mirrored my pose, but only after lifting the blankets and asking me to scoot underneath them. In the pale moonlight shining in through the window, he looked like a model.
Shit, if he did decide to do a photoshoot in the buff, I would be first in line to buy the magazine. His dark hair was mussed from having had my fingers in it so recently, blue eyes gorgeous and shining, almost colorless in the low light.
The tattoos decorating his body were on full display to me for the first time now that I was back in my right mind and not desperate for him. A part of me didn’t want to go to sleep, I just wanted to spend hours examining every single one of them, from the unique crest on the inside of his wrist to the bats on his hip and the words on his ribs.
Unfortunately, my body had other ideas. The force with which my orgasms had ripped through me, the partying and getting up for an early shift at the restaurant that morning had all taken their toll, and I was exhausted.
My eyelids were closing even as I tried fighting to keep them open. The opportunity to examine every inch of Will’s skin was too good to pass up, but I was going to have to.
Before I drifted off, though, there was a niggling thought at the back of my mind that kept knocking to be let out. “You know, I don’t care what your apartment looks like. I like you, that’s not going to change because of where you live.”
As if it had been only that thought keeping me awake, I started drifting away as soon as the words were out. I didn’t even stay awake long enough to hear his reply. I was, however, vaguely aware of the fact that he pulled me close and stroked my hair when I laid my head on his chest.
When I fell asleep, the last thought I remembered having was how impossible it was that I could be that comfortable on a chest that hard. But I was. I really, really was.
Chapter 23
Will
Heidi was still lying on my chest when I woke up, a sliver of morning light coming through the heavy curtains. The hotel room was bathed in that soft light, the only sound was that of our breathing.
It was like a perfect little bubble in there. The drawn curtains blocked out not only most of the light, but also the outside world. It was warm, quiet, and way too damn comfortable.
The bed was bigger than my bedroom and there was definitely no chipping paint on these walls. Even the bedding was fucking luxurious.
It was easy to understand why rich people were usually willing to do just about anything to hang on to their money if this was what it bought them. A guy could get used to this.
I’d spent more on this room for the night than I had made in the last few days, but it had been totally worth it. Despite what Heidi had said about not caring about what my apartment looked like, I couldn’t let her see it.
That side of me: the poor side, the real me, would have to remain hidden. If she saw it, she would leave me. I wasn’t ready for that to happen.
Usually, I didn’t give a flying fuck about anything like that. I figured if a woman didn’t like me for me, she wasn’t the one for me anyway. Not that I was looking for the one, which was another reason why I didn’t have two shits to give about letting women come to my apartment. They’d only be there for the night anyway, so it didn’t really matter.
With Heidi, however, it mattered. It really fucking mattered.
Hell, if I could have, I’d have woken up with her head on my chest and naked body next to mine every morning for a week. Maybe even a month.
It hadn’t happened to me in the longest time, but I actually liked this girl whose warm skin was pressed against mine. I li
ked her enough to want her to stick around, which she wouldn’t do if—
“Morning,” she said on a yawn, interrupting my revelation about how much I had come to care about her. “What were you thinking about? It looked serious. People shouldn’t frown that hard this early in the morning.”
“This is just what I look like when I wake up.” I leaned over and kissed her forehead, my fingers stroking her back.
She propped herself up on her elbow so that our eyes were on the same level. Her green eyes bore into mine, surprisingly alert for having just opened a few seconds ago. “I call bullshit. What’s bothering you?”
“Fine.” I wrapped my arm around her waist and hauled her on top of me, punctuating my words with kisses to her collarbones and shoulders. “I think we should go get breakfast because if we stay in this bed, we’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
Heidi narrowed her eyes, tilting her head to the side as if she were assessing the truth of my statement. “That wasn’t what you were thinking about, but I’ll let it go for now. You sure you want breakfast?”
As she asked the question, she wiggled a little in my lap. Her pussy was hot and already getting slick again, her eyes heated and locked on mine. My cock reacted to her, waking up and quickly standing at attention.
Grabbing her hips, I groaned and lifted her to roll us over, so I was on top of her. The tip of my cock was enveloped in her heat, my body suddenly aching to be joined with hers again. “Maybe we won’t starve if we don’t go to breakfast immediately.”
In the end, we made it to breakfast just before the cutoff time. The buffet had obviously been replenished since there was a mountain of bacon and sausages, pancakes, eggs, cereal, fruit, and every other choice of breakfast food anyone could want.
My mouth watered just looking at it. Heidi let out a low whistle beside me, lifting our entwined hands to point at the bacon. “I call dibs on the entire stack of bacon.”
