Out Of Bounds (Brit Boys Sports Romance Book 3)

by J. H. Croix

  I eased my grip on her hips and pushed her jacket off her shoulders, sliding my palm up her spine to thread my hand in her hair. “Don’t start thinking on me, Harper. That’s not what this is about,” I whispered fiercely just before slamming my mouth to hers again and pouring everything I felt into our kiss.

  I lost all sense of time. A tangled jumble of clothes being torn off in the midst of hot kisses, Harper’s hands roving everywhere and pushing me to the edge of sanity. I clung to the thinnest thread, determined to make sure she found the pinnacle of pleasure before this was over. Trust me, it wasn’t easy. I liked sex just about any way—soft and slow, fast and hard, rough and wild. Harper hit me so hard, I wanted to pound into her, desperate for release. Yet, I didn’t want to push her too far. Bloody hell, she didn’t make it easy. She was all over me, her hands everywhere while she kissed, licked and nipped at me.

  Somehow, I untangled myself and stood. Our clothes were strewn in a messy montage on the bed and floor. Harper rested on her elbows and looked up at me. Damn, she was gorgeous. She had an athletic build, softened only by her lush curves. Her breasts were damp from where I’d mapped my way over them with my mouth, her nipples taut and deep pink.

  Her breath came in short pants, and her eyes locked to me. “What…?”

  I ignored her and leaned over to hook my hands under her knees, tugging her roughly to the end of the bed. Without waiting to see how she might react, I pushed her knees apart. She was so wet, her folds slick with her need. I dragged a finger through them, but didn’t wait anymore and brought my mouth against her. She tensed for a flash, and I wondered if I’d taken this the wrong direction. Then, she moaned and her knees relaxed when her hands threaded into my hair. I settled in to taste her and drive her mad. My only goal: nothing but pure pleasure for her.

  I slid a finger into her channel as I explored her with my tongue. Another finger joined the first, and I savored the feel of her clenching around me and her hips bucking against my mouth. Far faster than I expected, I could feel her quickening and she cried out, her hands tightening their grip on my hair as she pulsed around my fingers. I slowly eased away. As I stood and leaned across the bed to snatch a condom out of the nightstand, I experienced a flash of concern. Harper was no virgin and certainly didn’t act like a woman who needed to be handled with care. But hell. She’d been raped and as far as I knew, this might be the first time she’d had sex since then.

  I looked down at her and promptly forgot that train of thought. She was leaning up on her elbows, watching and waiting. Her skin glistened in the dim light filtering from the living room, her hair was a rumpled mess and her eyes were dark. I rolled the condom on and stretched out over her. Holy hell. It felt so good to feel her against me. Her skin was damp, her sweat mingling with mine. She was a mix of soft and firm, her muscles flexing as she curled her legs around my hips. I told myself I should go slow, but what I said in my head and how my body responded to her were two entirely different things. When I felt her slick heat against my cock, I was gone.

  I brushed her tangled hair away from her face. I needed to look at her. “Harper.”

  Her eyes flew open, and I traced her brows with a fingertip. My heart was pounding so hard, it reverberated through my body. Her breath came in soft gusts. She tightened her legs and arched into me. “Alex, don’t make me wait.”

  Her rough whisper was like an arrow. Straight to the heart—its hit almost painful. My body answered her, arching and sinking into her wet, velvet clench. Her eyes fell closed and her breath came out in a low moan, while I forced myself to hold still. She was tight. Whether she was aware or not, she tensed. After a few beats, I could feel her easing around me.

  Chapter 10

  Harper

  Finally.

  I sighed and bit back another moan. Alex felt so good—all of him, inside me and against me. I was tight, tighter than I’d have imagined, and he was, well, no one would ever claim he wasn’t well-endowed. I hadn’t meant to tense, but I did. Out of reflex, or something else. After a minute, it passed, and I relaxed. He was all muscle and sensual power surrounding me. I could feel him nearly vibrating against me and sensed him holding back. I slid a palm down his back, savoring every muscled inch of it and arched into him. If he meant to be gentle, I wasn’t having it.

  “Alex,” I whispered fiercely.

  His head had fallen into the dip of my neck, and he lifted it. His dark brown gaze met mine. I could see the immense control he was exerting, and I wanted him to stop. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Hold back.”

  “Harper…”

  I spurred my heels and flexed against him, unable to hide the rush of satisfaction when he reflexively arched into me.

  He moved swiftly, gripping my hands in his and stretching them above my head. I wanted hard, fast and rough—something I could lose myself in. He didn’t give me that. He settled into a rhythm—maddeningly slow, yet every stroke just deep enough he drove me higher and higher inside.

  I lost myself, but not in the way I’d imagined. I tumbled into a slow, hot dance of longing and need, the pressure building inside so intensely, I thought I might explode. Every stroke of him filling me, the slow pull and drag in my channel spun me tighter and tighter. All the while, his eyes were on me, his hands gripping mine, and I felt vulnerable, raw and exposed. Because I trusted him completely, so completely it almost frightened me. He eased his grip and dragged his hand down between us. A flick of his thumb against my clit and pleasure spun loose, whipping through me in a rush.

  One more deep stroke and he went rigid against me before a guttural cry broke loose. His head fell into my shoulder again, and he immediately eased his weight to one side.

  We lay still, our breath coming in heaves. After a few moments, my pulse slowed enough I could think. Reality started to sink in. I was warring inside—torn between wanting to dance with joy because I’d finally had sex and a reflexive need to withdraw from the depth of intimacy I felt with Alex. My brain turned on, rarely a good sign, and I opened my eyes to find Alex’s warm brown gaze waiting.

  I suddenly worried he’d want to talk, but he didn’t say a word. He simply brushed my tangled hair off my forehead. Okay. That felt good. I could do this.

  Hours later, I woke in the darkness. For a moment, I was disoriented and muddled panic rose inside. I started to roll over when my consciousness flickered enough to remind me the warm body beside me was Alex. He was spooned behind me, his breathing even and steady. Even in sleep, his body felt strong. His muscled arm was hooked over my hip, his palm resting on my belly. I lay still and took a slow breath, feeling silly at my initial panic.

  I’d had nightmares off and on for years after Joe raped me. At first, they’d visited me almost nightly. My doctor had gently suggested I try something to help me sleep after seeing me ragged and weary after too many nights of bad sleep. When I’d refused, she’d handed me a card for a therapist. After weeks of fighting against myself, I’d gone to see the therapist mostly out of desperation because trying to live without sleep was nearly impossible when it went on too long. It was like being kicked into a ditch every night, each day afterwards a slow crawl out. With some help, I’d managed to get a handle on my sleep and on my panic attacks. Those old nightmares rarely visited me anymore, and I hadn’t had an actual panic attack in almost two years. I supposed waking in the night with a man beside me for the first time in over four years might be disconcerting.

  I hadn’t thought past what my body had been craving for the last few weeks. Finally breaking through a barrier I’d worried might exist for the rest of my life and actually having sex was such an immense relief. I’d known the chemistry with Alex was bordering on singe-worthy. Yet, I couldn’t have known he’d proceed to drive me mad with pleasure. I couldn’t have known the intimacy that would bind me to him and the intense vulnerability I’d feel. My mind spun to Daisy’s observation that I wasn’t a fling type, but a nester. A flash of panic ro
se within, an entirely different kind of panic. What the hell had I done?

  I started to carefully move away from Alex, but my subtle motion nudged him out of sleep. His hand slid across my belly and sloped over the curve of my hip in a lazy caress. The calloused skin of his palm sent a shiver through me.

  I couldn’t have moved away if my life depended on it now. It felt too good to be there. He murmured in my hair. I rolled my head. “Hm?”

  His eyes opened. There was a glimmer of light cast by a nightlight by his bed. In that tiny bit of light, his eyes caught mine. His palm stroked along my side and down again. “Go back to sleep,” he murmured.

  Instead of my mind spinning its wheels, I fell asleep—too relaxed, too warm and feeling too safe to do anything else.

  ***

  That afternoon, I settled in to clean like crazy. What better time to clean like a madwoman than after my world had been knocked on its axis—in a frighteningly good way—by one night with Alex? I scrubbed the kitchen spotless and vacuumed my entire apartment. Stanley laid down for a nap with an aggrieved sigh after dodging the vacuum a few too many times. My mind had been spinning its wheels ever since I’d closed the door behind Alex after he walked me home early this morning. He’d offered to walk with me when I took Stanley out, but I’d declined. Usually we’d be running, but the morning was, well, weird for me. I’d needed some way to create some space for myself. In part because I’d so desperately wanted to latch myself to Alex and be with him all the time.

  Aside from the enormity of finally—finally!—having sex again, I felt like flotsam in the rough seas of my emotions. Elation, desire, anger, sadness, longing and, above all, confusion rolled through me in wave after wave. Last night with Alex had been so far beyond anything I’d expected, I couldn’t even compute what to do about it. All I’d wanted was to experience the deep desire I felt for him. I couldn’t have anticipated it would be so much more than simply that. I’d gotten everything I could have ever hoped for in terms of the whole sex part of it. For so long, I’d worried I’d never even manage to get through the act itself that I’d figured it would be luck if I felt desire and had sex without incidence.

  Alex had blown the hinges off any doors on my expectations. Hell, I couldn’t recall sex even coming close to what we’d had…ever. On the level of the physical experience, it was out of this world. Then there was the emotional part. That’s what had me rocking in the waves inside. I wasn’t prepared to feel as if the shadow cast over my heart had dissipated into nothing under the blinding brightness of how it felt to be with him. I felt as if my heart had tripped and landed on its ass this morning, knocked down by the force of so much unexpected emotion. I was scared shitless and needed time to regroup.

  I was in the midst of cleaning the bathroom when my doorbell rang. I initially ignored it. Then it rang two more times, rather insistently. I tossed the sponge in the tub and rinsed my hands before walking to answer the door. Opening it, I found Daisy and Olivia there.

  Daisy held a bag of pastries aloft and swept past me. “We’re here for brunch,” she announced as she aimed straight for the kitchen.

  Olivia held up two cups of coffee from Desert Isle Café, handing me one. “Hi,” she said with a soft grin. “Daisy insisted we drop in. Hope it’s okay.”

  I waved her inside. “Come on in.” I knew Daisy was there to get the scoop on Alex. I could seriously use some girl-talk, but I felt odd, almost as if talking about what happened with Alex wasn’t right. It had been so intimate, I was so shaken I didn’t know what to do, or to even ask.

  Daisy promptly started opening cabinets until she found the plates. I’d only moved in here a few months ago, so she wasn’t familiar with what went where. We tended to treat each other’s apartments as if we lived there. Olivia plunked down on the couch and patted the spot beside her. “Come sit. Let’s enjoy our coffee while Daisy waits on us,” she said with a wink.

  “Please do,” Daisy called with a laugh.

  I settled on the couch beside Olivia, tucking a foot under me and taking a welcome sip of coffee. Seconds later, Daisy walked over, balancing two plates on one arm with her coffee and another plate barely balanced in the other. I reached up and took a tipsy plate off her forearm. “You could’ve asked for help.”

  “I like a challenge,” she said as she set the remaining plates on the coffee table and sat down on the other side of the sectional.

  I took a bite of a flaky spinach and cheese roll. “So good,” I managed after another bite. I glanced between them. “So what’s up?”

  Daisy’s round brown eyes scanned my face. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

  Sometimes I hated how hard it was to hide my feelings. I wasn’t too good at acting like everything was fine when it wasn’t.

  I glanced to Olivia, as if she might rescue me from Daisy’s directness. All I found in her eyes was searching concern.

  “Nothing,” I finally replied, trying and failing to keep the hint of defensiveness out of my tone.

  Daisy didn’t say a word and simply took a sip of coffee.

  Olivia cleared her throat, and I thought for a beat she might save me from this conversation. Then she spoke. “Are you okay?”

  Fighting the flush on my cheeks, I sighed. “Of course I’m okay! Why wouldn’t I be? What is it with this anyway?”

  Daisy lasered me with her direct and way too perceptive gaze. “Cut the shit. As far as we could see, you were about to climb in Alex’s lap and screw his brains out last night. Which is fine with me, by the way. But you look pretty damn upset right now. That’s not fine with me.”

  Emotion knotted my throat and tears pushed at the backs of my eyes. I took a breath and a gulp of coffee. “Do I look that bad?” I asked, glancing between them.

  Daisy nodded emphatically, while Olivia was quiet. After a moment, she shrugged. “I wouldn’t say you look bad, but you look…stressed,” she finally said.

  I took another gulp of coffee, savoring its bitterness. “I guess I am. Um,” I paused and looked to Daisy. “Did you..?”

  “Tell her about your crazy idea to have a sex fling with Alex? I kinda had to after last night. It was pretty damn obvious. I thought you two were going to burst into flames on sight.”

  I sighed and leaned back into the cushions. Looking between them, I flushed. “I didn’t realize we were that obvious.”

  “Oh, you were,” Daisy said with a sharp laugh. “It was almost funny, but now I’m worried about what happened.”

  When I looked to Olivia, her eyes narrowed. “Are you okay?” she asked, circling back to Daisy’s earlier question.

  Realizing they were starting to head in the worst possible direction about why I might be stressed, I figured I’d better nip that in the bud. “I might be stressed, but don’t start thinking it’s because I tried to have sex and fell apart.”

  “Okaaay… Care to explain?” Daisy asked slowly.

  “We had sex, and it was amazing,” I replied, almost angrily. I wasn’t angry at Daisy for being this pushy. I knew if I’d been the friend of someone in my situation, I’d probably have worried. Daisy was, of course, naturally nosy and didn’t care to hide it, but she didn’t feel nosy now. Just concerned.

  Daisy cocked her head to the side. “Amazing?”

  “Uh huh. And that’s the whole problem.”

  Olivia eyed me. “Why is that a problem?”

  “Because…because it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”

  “What was it supposed to be like?” Olivia asked.

  I threw a hand up, letting it fall to the couch with a thump. “I just wanted to, well, to have sex. I didn’t want any complications. Just something neat and tidy.”

  Daisy, remarkably, stayed quiet. She’d warned me of this very issue when she shared her concern I wasn’t a fling type of person.

  When Olivia spoke, her tone was cautious. “When did you start hunting around for sex? Last I knew, you’d sworn off relationships.” She paused for a sip of coffee, angling h
er head to the side. “Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think it was the best idea to permanently put yourself on the sidelines, and Alex is awesome, but…”

  Her words ran out, and I knew she was trying to avoid bumping into the topic that was always the elephant in the room when it came to discussing me and anything to do with sex and relationships. An incredibly annoying side effect of getting raped was how everyone tiptoed around certain topics. I took a gulp of coffee and looked back at Olivia. “How many times have I said I’m sick of people tiptoeing around the obvious? I’ll say it for you. You didn’t think it was a great idea for me to avoid men for the rest of my life just because some guy raped me.”

  Olivia’s breath drew in sharply, and she looked hurt. I glanced to Daisy who was quiet, but her face held a studied calm, as if she was doing her damnedest not to let anything show on her face. I suddenly felt horrible. I shook my head sharply. “I’m sorry. I know it’s weird. I just get tired of how weird it is.”

  Olivia tilted sideways on the couch and hugged me hard before leaning back. “Don’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s weird and awful, and I wish I could make it all go away.”

  I swallowed against the emotion rising inside and nodded. “Me too.” In an endeavor to get the conversation onto lighter territory, I continued, “You, of all people, should understand the idea of not wanting to bother with relationships. Your only excuse was working too much.”

  Olivia laughed softly. “True.”

  “Yeah, that lasted about five minutes when she met Liam,” Daisy said with a sly grin.

  “It was more than five minutes,” Olivia protested, her cheeks turning pink.