by Melody Grace
“Amen to that.”
We eat out on the deck in the morning sun. My pancakes are a hit, as are the fruit smoothies I whipped up in one of the gleaming contraptions Dex has filling his cabinets.
“I can’t get over this view…” I sigh with pleasure, curling back in my chair. The ocean sparkles like a sapphire, and the cloudless sky is cornflower blue. “It’s heaven.”
Dex smiles. His hair is wet from the shower, and he’s wearing his trademark black T-shirt and jeans. “I always thought LA had beaches down, but this is something else. Wilder, more remote. No crowds of people cluttering up the place or sitting in an hour of traffic every weekend.”
“You must really want the privacy.” I look around thoughtfully. I didn’t see it before, but Dex has created a fortress here. No other house in sight, a private stretch of beach, groceries delivered straight to his door. He could go days without seeing another human being if he wanted —no crazy fans chasing after him to sign their chests. “Is that why you left LA?”
He nods slowly. “It was all too much. After I quit the band, it was madness. Paparazzi, fans camped out. The more I tried to stay out of the spotlight, the more everyone wanted a piece of me.”
I have to bite my lip not to ask what happened—why he suddenly walked away. It’s clear, music means the world to him, and the way he talks about the band, I know they’re like brothers to him, too.
What made him turn his back on his one true passion, music? And why does even mentioning the past bring those terrible shadows back into his dark eyes?
I hold back my curiosity. It’s been a perfect morning, lazing here together in the sun. I don’t want to ruin it now with intrusive questions, and a part of me feels like I don’t have any right to ask in the first place.
He has his heartache, and I have mine. What matters right now is forgetting it all.
“So, what’s in store for me today?” I ask instead. “Want to get your ass kicked again on the pool table?”
“I’m open to doing all kinds of things on that table,” Dex replies with a smoldering look.
I giggle. “Garrett might have a few things to say about that.”
“Screw Garrett,” Dex drawls. “I’m going to hold you to that rematch—but not today. I’ve got something else lined up.” He doesn’t explain any further, but his expression has a mischievous edge.
“Do I get a hint?” I ask, wondering what he’s planning. “What should I wear?”
“Something that’s easy to take off.” Dex gives me another wolfish look, and I feel my pulse kick.
“That doesn’t narrow it down,” I tell him, mock-scolding. “Something tells me you could get me out of a corset in five seconds flat if you put your mind to it.”
“Good theory,” Dex throws back. “Wanna test it?”
I laugh. “Come on, seriously.”
He grins at me. “Wear something comfortable, and bring your bathing suit too. We leave in ten minutes. Unless you need to make some calls?” His expression turns quizzical, and I realize he saw me on my phone before, texting Hunter.
“No, I’m good,” I reply quickly, feeling that twist of guilt. “I told my office I’m on vacation,” I add. “Everything can wait.”
I head back to the bedroom and dress quickly, slipping on my bikini under a cotton shirt and cut-offs and tying my hair back in a loose braid. I still don’t know what Dex has planned, so I err on the side of caution: packing my tote bag with sunblock, a spare sweater, makeup and a hat. When he sees the size of the bag I’m hauling around, he laughs.
“I knew you were a pack-rat,” he teases. “But we’re only going out for the day—not a month!” He takes the tote and swinging it into the back of the car.
“I like to be prepared!” I protest.
“That makes two of us.” He winks at me, and I remember the scene at the drugstore with a blush.
“You still won’t tell me where we’re going?” I change the subject as I climb in the car. Dex settles in the driver’s seat, giving me an affectionate eye-roll.
“Don’t you want to be surprised?”
As a rule, no. I like to know exactly what’s coming down the road—so I can research, and schedule, and make sure everything’s going according to plan. But as Dex starts the engine and turns out of the driveway, I’m surprised to feel a bubble of excitement in my chest.
It’s fun not knowing what to expect. I’ve always been the organizer of whatever group of friends I’ve found myself in—even back in grade school, I was the one throwing sleepovers and deciding who was going to do what in class projects. It’s not that I’m a control freak, I just like getting all the details straight, but I have to admit, I’m enjoying being unburdened of responsibility here. Dex knows exactly what’s happening, and there’s nothing for me to do but relax into the passenger seat, feeling the warm summer breeze dance on my skin, sunshine bright overhead.
He’s in control, and I like it. Whatever that says about me, I won’t worry about it now—I’m just going to sit back and let the day unfold, whatever he has in store.
16.
Dex follows the road back into Beachwood Bay, and pulls in to park at the marina.
“We’re going sailing?” I exclaim, happy. “My college roommate was on the sailing team, she taught me my way around a topsail.”
I realize it’s ironic that heading out on the ocean might give me my first taste of solid ground since arriving in Beachwood Bay, but I’m just excited to show I’m capable of something after twenty-four hours feeling like I’m spinning off-balance every time I so much as glance at Dex.
He grins, still not saying a word. “You’ll see.” Dex grabs my bag and a cooler I didn’t see him pack and leads me down the wooden dock, to where sailboats are moored, bobbing gently on the tide.
“Which one is ours?” I follow him to the end of the dock, excited.
“This beauty.” Dex turns to me with a devilish grin. I look past him, and stop dead.
It’s a speedboat. A gorgeous, sleek model, all elegant lines and luxury power—and not a topsail in sight. There goes my shot at capable.
“C’mon.” Dex holds out his hand to me, looking like a kid in a candy store. “The guy says she can hit eighty out on the open seas.”
“Eighty miles an hour?” I echo with a tremor of nerves, but Dex is beckoning me, so I take his hand. He helps me into the open-air cabin, and I set my beach bag down, looking around at the luxurious cream leather seats and brass accents. Dex takes his place behind the dashboard of hi-tech looking controls and turns the ignition. A loud rumbling sound vibrates through the boat, shaking me from the inside out.
“Don’t worry,” Dex grins. “I’ll hold on tight.”
In one swift move, he pulls me against him, locking one arm around my waist as the other hand grips the wheel. I catch my breath, melting against his solid frame as he slowly backs the boat out of the dock, then steers a wide circle to take us out of the marina and into the bay.
My nerves settle. We’re chugging smoothly through the blue water; the sun shining bright above us in a cloudless sky. With Dex holding me steady against him, I begin to relax, savoring the cool sea breeze whipping around my face, and the gentle lap of waves against the boat.
“This isn’t so bad.” I smile in relief.
“Baby, just wait.” Dex chuckles. As the marina falls further behind us, and we’re alone on the water, he pushes the throttle up a level, and then higher again. The boat surges forward, cutting through the waves in a surge of power that leaves me breathless. I gasp, clutching onto Dex’s shirt as we speed faster across the bay, the speed needle climbing steadily past forty, fifty, sixty miles an hour.
“Dex,” I gulp back a tremor of fear, my heart racing in my chest.
“You steer a second,” he says casually, releasing his hold on me—and the steering wheel.
“What?” I grab the wheel in shock, looking back at him. “Dex! I can’t drive this thing!”
“Sure you c
an.” Dex grabs a beer from the cooler. “Just point and steer.”
I glance ahead of us in panic, but there’s nothing save the vast, empty ocean.
“Dex? I don’t know what I’m doing!” My voice trembles, and in an instant, he’s behind me again, wrapping his arms around my waist, leaning to rest him chin on my shoulder.
“Relax,” he soothes me. “It’s easy, there’s nobody here to hit. Stay parallel to the shore, see, like this. You’re doing great.”
I catch my breath, reassured by the solid warmth enveloping me, and the feel of his tattooed arms holding me tight.
“Can you feel it?” Dex’s voice is a low rumble in my ear above the sound of the engine and the waves crashing around us. “That speed, the power. You’ll love it, I promise, you just have to relax.”
I shift my stance, planting myself more firmly on the deck, and relax my grip on the wheel. He’s right, once the panic fades, it is easy—nothing but the throttle and wheel to worry about. I carefully adjust the steering, following Dex’s instructions to keep a parallel line with the distant shore as we speed across the bay.
“See? You’re a natural,” Dex cheers me.
I find myself relaxing into a grin. Now that I know I’m not about to crash us, the speed pulses become a thrill, every new bump and surge through the waves sending a jolt of excitement through me.
“Can we go faster?” I twist my head to look at him. Dex laughs, dropping a kiss on my lips.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
He reaches past me, pushing the throttle even higher. Now, we’re really flying, speeding across the bay so fast the waves are a blur of blue and white. My heart pounds in my chest, the wind whipping my hair into a tangle, adrenaline racing in my veins. I feel on the edge of the world, safe in Dex’s arms, but somehow infused with danger.
Reckless.
“How do you feel?” Dex dips his mouth to my neck, slowly tracing a line of kisses along my throat as I shiver.
“Alive,” I whisper, sinking back against him. I feel Dex catch his breath, and then his hands are circling around to my stomach, lazily skimming across me as his lips continue teasing the delicate skin of my neck and collarbone.
I melt, shivering under his touch as the boat speeds faster across the bay. Dex slides one hand under my shirt, grazing my skin, higher, tracing across me with his fingertips, exploring every inch of my stomach in a shimmer of light sensation until my nipples are tight, aching, and my thighs shake with desire.
Oh…
I clutch the wheel, holding tight as Dex’s hands continue their slow, torturous exploration. Then, gently, he edges his fingers under the triangle of my bikini top to caress my breast.
I gasp.
Dex closes his hand around me, stroking, teasing, in a delirious pressure that makes me loll my head back against his shoulder and moan. The sound is swallowed by the engine, but Dex lets out a chuckle.
“Eyes on the ocean, sweetheart,” he murmurs, as he closes his thumb and forefinger over my aching nipple and gently tweaks it. Pleasure shudders through me, and I have to fight to keep control.
“Stop,” I gasp, even as he brings his other hand up under my shirt, pushing the other triangle aside. And now there’s twice the sensation flooding my body, twice the soft caress, and agonizingly sweet pressure, driving me crazy, making my body weak with wanting. “Dex…” I struggle to get the words out, already slipping into the delicious haze. Still, logic pulls at me, the voice of reason screaming for dear life. “We have to pull over,” I insist. “I can’t keep driving, not like this.”
“Sure you can,” he murmurs, a new note of dark determination in his voice. He strokes across my nipples, rolling, pinching gently, and God, I let out a shuddering cry of pleasure at the sensation. I twist in his arms, trying to make him see sense, but he holds me tight, taking my hands and placing them firmly back on the wheel.
“If we stop moving, I stop touching you, how about that?”
The challenge sends a fresh rush of desire through me. My heart is pounding, my body on fire as we cut through the waves, a thrill like I’ve never felt before.
I don’t want it to stop.
“Fine,” I gasp, reaching for the throttle. “At least let me slow down.”
“No dice, sugar.” Dex moves my hand back to the wheel. “You’re in the fast lane now. We drop below forty, and I won’t do this…”
He plucks at my nipple again, sending shards of electricity spiraling through my body. I moan, gasping as his other hand trails down my stomach, toying with the button on my denim cutoffs.
“You’re evil.” I swallow another moan as his hand slips under my waistband. “Holding me hostage, like in that movie, Speed.”
Dex laughs against me. “What do you say, sweetheart? Think you can hold on long enough?”
I take another shaking breath, the panic in my bloodstream dissolving. Somehow, I trust this man, and that’s all I need to know.
I twist my head to kiss him, a fevered, hungry kiss.
“Try me.”
I turn back to face the front, gripping the wheel tightly and bracing my legs, but nothing can prepare me for Dex’s touch, his wonderful, wicked hands. He slides his hands back under my shirt, roving with confidence, caressing my nipples into aching buds as he bends to lick and kiss along my neck.
I fall back against him, dizzy in his hands. I can feel the hard bulge of his desire pressing into me, and I arch back into him, bolder now.
Dex growls against my neck. His touch turns hungry, until I’m whimpering in his arms, my body alight with lust.
He slides one hand down my stomach.
My pulse kicks. Oh Lord. I can’t believe we’re really doing this, out in broad daylight, still speeding across the bay. But there’s nobody to see us, nothing but the glare of sunlight reflecting off the water, burning into my retinas as Dex unbuttons my shorts, easing them lower over my hips as I fight to keep in control of the boat and not surrender completely to the pleasure rolling through my body.
He slips a hand down, lower, brushing lightly over my bikini bottoms as the other massages at my breast. He circles my clit lightly through the fabric and I moan, bucking against the delicious pressure, needing more. Harder. Right now.
“God, Alicia…” Dex groans against me. I’m liquid in his arms, pinned in place by his strong arms wrapped tight around me.
I answer with another moan, grinding back against his hardness, and I’m rewarded with another stroke, stronger this time, sending shudders of pleasure spiraling through my body; a rush of heat pooling between my thighs.
Dex rubs me slowly, in a maddeningly slow rhythm, until I’m writhing. My blood is on fire, my heartbeat pounding a desperate cry, my need blossoming into a sharp ache. Then, when I think I can’t take anymore, he nudges the damp fabric aside and slowly sinks two fingers deep inside me.
I cry out in pleasure, the sound lost under the hum of the engine. Dex grips me tighter, holding me up with one arm while the other curls against me, pressing his palm against my clit as his fingers fuck me deeper, pulsing inside me until I think I might lose my mind.
Oh God.
I buck desperately against his hand, needing to increase the pressure, desperate to feel him deeper inside, but Dex holds me back, controlling the pace, making me beg and whimper for more.
“That’s right,” he growls, panting in my ear. “You want it hard, don’t you? You need me inside you, filling you up.”
His dirty words send a fresh wave of desire rolling through me. I cling to the steering wheel for dear life, stars dancing in my eyes.
“Feel my fingers, baby. Sliding deep, just the way you like it.” Dex’s voice is hypnotic, sending me spinning higher, closer to the edge. His fingers pulse harder, curling high against my walls as his palm rubs my clit into a desperate knot of sensation. “Can you feel me?” Dex demands, thrusting against my ass. “Do you want more?”
“Yes!” I gasp, totally undone. “Please, Dex…”<
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He bites down on my bare shoulder as he sinks another finger into me, all the way up to the knuckles, and God, it’s too much. Pleasure and pain, like nothing I’ve felt before. So tight, so full, so unbelievably good. He pinches my nipple and thrusts deeper and I come apart with a scream, drowning in the rush of pleasure that slams through me, breaking my body apart and scattering me into a sharp haze of ecstasy as the waves crash against the boat and the gulls circle overhead, and I wonder how I ever got by without a pleasure like this.
17.
I come back down to earth, reeling in his arms. I feel like the world should have stopped for that, but we’re still speeding through the waves, parallel to the shore.
That was incredible.
It was pure insanity.
Dex drops a kiss on my shoulder, over the tender spot he just bit. “Hey,” he murmurs.
“Hey,” I whisper back, breathless.
“See?” Dex’s voice turns teasing. “I knew I’d make a speed freak of you yet.”
I laugh, twisting to look at him. “You’re lucky I’m an excellent driver,” I quip, feeling a surge of adrenaline, the reckless afterglow. “Perfect score on my test.”
Dex chuckles, reaching on either side of my body to take the steering wheel. “Baby, if they made you practice that, I might have words with your instructor.”
“Relax,” I grin, smoothing my hands across his chest. “Mrs. Donovan kept her hands to herself.”
Unlike me. I relish the feel of his muscles under the thin fabric of his T-shirt, chiseled and rock hard. I feel another shiver. “Aren’t you kind of hot under there?” I ask with a flirty grin, tugging the fabric up around his stomach.
Dex laughs. “You know, now that I think about it…”
In one swift motion, he yanks his shirt over his head and tosses it aside before grabbing the wheel again.
That’s better.
