by Penny Wylder
I bite the inside of my lip to keep from reacting. Because if I let too much of what I’m feeling show right now, I’m worried I’ll never be able to do what I need to do in a couple week’s time… Leave. “That’s when they caught up with you?” I ask, and I’m proud that my voice hardly wavers with feeling at all.
He nods again. “That day I disappeared… They cornered me in the store. Talked about dragging you into things too, so I figured… Best just to go with them.”
I press my lips together hard. “Bronson, I had no idea…”
“Which was exactly the way I wanted it,” he says, bending to kiss my temple. “I didn’t want you involved, Daisy. If I couldn’t protect myself, then at least I could protect you from the moment all my years of terrible decisions finally caught up with me.”
“But you said they beat you?”
“Something awful.” He laughs, shaking his head. “They broke three ribs, fractured my arm—”
“Jesus, Bronson.” I pull away from him to stare in shock.
“It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.” He flashes me a smile tinged with regret. “It’s all in the past now. My father paid off my debts with interest, and then some. But it’s why I can’t disappoint him now, or just blow off this job. You can understand that, right? This is about more than just my inheritance. I owe him. No matter how I feel about the way my family controlled my life from day one… I can’t deny that I owe my father everything now. He saved my life.”
“That doesn’t mean he owns it,” I whisper.
Bronson shakes his head, but not like he’s denying it. He steps close to me, and bends to kiss my forehead. The tip of my nose. I tilt my face toward his, but he hesitates, his lips inches from mine. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Daisy. You always have your own view of things.”
“The right view,” I whisper back, smiling hard.
“And you never give up on it.” He tilts his head to one side, considering me. “That’s one of the things I love about you.”
The word sinks like a weight straight to my belly. Love. Does he…? Can he really mean…? I don’t have time to think about it, because his lips brush mine, and I part them, automatically, even as my arms lift of their own accord to wrap tightly around his neck.
I sink into his kiss. Lose myself, the way I always do with him. He pulls me against him, and I lift one leg to wrap it around his waist, eager for nothing more than to be pressed as close to him as possible. But then I remember where I am, who I’m with, and I jerk away with a gasp, feeling like I just ripped my own heart out.
“We can’t.” I stumble away from him, only a few inches, yet it feels like a million miles. “Bronson… Look, our deal… I shouldn’t have shaken on it.” I force myself to meet his gaze. “It wasn’t an honest deal on my side. I really do think you’re helping the company now, that you’re going to rebuild, but… I can’t stay. No matter what.”
“Why?” He steps closer again. Forces my head back, makes me meet his eye. “You don’t have to leave, Daisy. What did you just tell me? Nobody else owns your life. There’s no one forcing you to go.”
“But I still have to,” I insist.
He kisses me again, harder this time. When we part this time, we’re both breathing faster. “I don’t want to hear that,” he whispers, his lips moving against mine.
I smirk, lifting an eyebrow at him. “Well then. How do you intend to shut me up, Mr. Burke?”
“Mm…” He sizes me up. “I have a few ideas, Ms. Rider.” Then, without warning, he catches me in his arms, so quickly it makes me squeal in surprise, and carries me a few steps to a broad, flat rock nearby. He lays me along it, and lies down on top of me, his weight heavy, the hot press of his body reassuring and steady. I might need to leave soon, but for now, right now, I don’t have anywhere to be except here in his arms.
Which is good, because I couldn’t even think about walking away right now. Not when he dips one hand down to part my thighs, his palm hot against my skin.
I hesitate, glancing around us. “Anyone could walk up here right now,” I whisper, half-laughing, half-serious as I study the path behind us. But we haven’t passed anyone else on the trail today—considering how beautiful an afternoon it is, I’m surprised. But maybe everyone else is busy doing what Bronson did as a kid, and what I’ve been doing the other months I’ve lived here… Being too distracted by city life to escape out here to the countryside.
“They could,” Bronson is saying, a smirk on his face that tells me he doesn’t care. “But that just makes it hotter, doesn’t it, Ms. Rider? Anyone could discover us at any moment…” His hand slides up my thigh, under my skirt, which he inches farther up my legs. I take a deep breath, almost a gasp.
“You are bad, Mr. Burke.”
“Very.” His voice dips low again, and with that, he bends to kiss my neck, down to my collarbone, his tongue dipping into the hollow at the base of my throat, like he’s tasting me.
At the same time, he slides down my body, kissing his way along, but he leaves my shirt on, my skirt too. It’s torturous, to feel his mouth so close to me, pressing against me, but separated by that thin stretch of fabric still. I arch my back up, pressing toward him, and he tugs my shirt up a little, just high enough to kiss my belly, nipping gently at the edge of my hip bone, and then dipping his tongue into my navel, swirling it against me like he’s savoring the taste of my skin, salty and sweet at the same time.
“Fuck, Bronson,” I whisper, my eyes fluttering half-shut, fixated on the bright blue sky overhead, cheery and beautiful. The ocean breeze drifts across us as he inches lower, following the line of my navel down toward the edge of my skirt. He undoes the clasp, and the wind picks up, cool enough to make me shiver, carrying a hint of salt in it, though the sun beats down warm enough that I don’t feel cold. Just alight, like every nerve ending in my body is extra sensitive right now.
He peels my skirt off, pulls it down, and I arch my hips up against him to allow him to yank it off, giving him access to do whatever he wants to me now.
He leans in to kiss my pussy through my panties, his tongue pressing into the fabric hard enough that I can feel it against my clit, which is already swollen with want, throbbing, aching for him the way I always do. “God, you taste amazing, Daisy.” He leans back to smirk up at me, across the flat expanse of my belly, my body stretched out on this rock out in the open air. Out where anyone could stumble across us at any moment.
He’s right, though. It does make it hotter.
“And I love how wet you get for me, every damn time.” He chuckles softly, reaching a hand up to stroke the length of my slit, still through the fabric of my panties, but even with the fabric between us, I can feel how wet I am, how soaked my panties have gotten.
His eyes catch mine. Sear into them.
“I want to taste you,” I say, gazing down at him. “You always get to go first.”
“Ladies should always come first,” he replies with a wink. But his eyes light up with desire, and he leans back a little, considering me. “I suppose we could come to a compromise, though.” He turns his body, rotates slowly over me, until he’s crouched above me on all fours, his mouth lowered once more to me, but with the hem of his jeans right above my face.
I don’t need any prompting. I reach up and undo the clasp of his belt, eager for him. I push his jeans down, and grip his cock through his boxers with both hands, tracing the outline, my fingertips wandering from his base up to his tip.
He pauses to tilt his head and smile up—or down?—at me. “Let’s see who loses control first,” he says, and then he leans down to catch my panties in his teeth and with a jerk of his head, peels them down my thighs.
I reach up to catch his boxers with both hands and draw them down his legs. I push them far enough down for them to slide off his legs. He steps out of them, kicks them aside, but I don’t wait for him to finish situating himself. I’m already reaching up to grip the base of his cock with both hands, drawing him down towa
rd my mouth, eager.
I kiss the tip of him, and flick my tongue across the little bead of precum that gathered there, and my eyes flutter shut as I let out a low moan of pleasure. He tastes so fucking good. Better than I’d ever imagined a guy’s cock could—but there’s just something about his particular scent, his flavor. He drives me wild every time.
“Right there, dirty girl,” Bronson whispers against my skin. Meanwhile, he’s parting my thighs, kissing my mound, his lips soft against my freshly-shaved skin. He tilts his head back, his tongue searing hot as he inches his way toward my clit, an inch at a time. With the cool ocean breeze drifting across us, it makes my skin feel cooler wherever his tongue has been, leaving me wet. But where his tongue still is, feels searing hot, and the contrast makes my nerves more sensitive than ever.
He draws my legs apart at the same time that I suck the tip of his cock between my lips. He moans, and the vibration makes me inhale sharply, as his mouth closes around my pussy lips, his tongue parting them, flicking along my slit. I moan too, and his cock jumps between my lips, which makes me smile and reach around to grip his ass, pulling him closer to me, pressing him inch by inch into my mouth. At the same time I press my tongue up against the underside of his cock, clenching my lips tightly around his shaft. He’s so thick, he fills my mouth, and I love that, love the way he fills my mouth.
He presses his hips down toward my face, and I tense for a moment, not used to this angle, to the way the tip of his cock digs into the base of my tongue. He pauses, pulls his face away from my pussy just far enough to glance along his body at me.
“Relax,” he murmurs. “Just trust me.”
I let my jaw go slack, and he thrusts deeper into my mouth. I take a deep breath, and feel the tip of his shaft press straight to the back of my throat. I dig my hands into his ass, pulling him closer.
“Mm, that’s right, dirty girl. Take my cock in your throat,” he groans, his voice low and distracted, especially as he presses a little closer again and his tip inches down the back of my throat. For a moment, my gag reflex rises up, and I clench my fingers, digging them into his ass cheeks for balance. “Relax,” he says again. “Take it all, Daisy, I know you can. Fuck,” he finishes with a louder groan, as my lips kiss against the base of his shaft, his cock fully inside my mouth.
Only then does he draw back, and I can breathe again, sharp and fast before I pull him back down into me.
He starts to rock over me, finding a rhythm, and I bob my head in time with him. But then he parts my pussy with both hands, and his tongue delves between my lips, straight into my entrance, curling inside me, and I hesitate, losing track of what I’m doing, forgetting to suck his cock because his tongue feels so fucking good inside me.
I clamp my lips around him, trying to hang on, as his tongue delves in and out of me in time with his thrusts. He plunders my mouth and my pussy at the same time, his cock fucking my throat as his tongue thrusts into my pussy over and over.
Before long, I can feel the pressure building deep inside me, behind my navel, rising toward a peak as he thrusts his tongue faster and faster.
I try to keep sucking him, try to remember to lick my tongue across the underside of his cock with each thrust, and reach one hand between his legs to toy with his balls. But his mouth is so damn distracting, and he feels so fucking good, that before long I start to shake, my breath coming hard and fast.
The orgasm hits me without warning, making me cry out with pleasure. I can feel his mouth curve into a sharp smile against me, as his tongue continues to lap across my clit, flattened like a blade now, grazing over me again and again. The orgasm almost doesn’t even stop before it starts to build toward another one, and I forget all about sucking his cock, too distracted by the waves of pleasure shooting through my nerve endings.
When the second orgasm hits, I scream out this time, forgetting where we are, too lost in pleasure to even worry about the way my voice echoes across the valley we’re above, through the forest path behind us.
When I stop shaking from the orgasm, Bronson has drawn away, spun around to kneel over me, smirking down at me in triumph. “Good to know I can distract you the most,” he says, grinning.
In response, I push myself up onto my knees, still quivering from the aftershocks of the orgasm, my pussy dripping wet, though it’s quickly cooling in feeling chilly in the breezy ocean air. I kneel there on the rock in front of Bronson, half naked and out in public, not even caring, as I grab his cock and eagerly suck him back into my mouth again.
He doesn’t hold back this time. His hands dig into my hair, holding on for balance as he drives into my throat. He fucks my mouth, his cock plunging into me, and I relax my whole jaw, let him seize control. Before long, I can hear him breathing faster, in sharp little gasps. I reach my hand up between his legs to gently encircle his balls, tugging them down and away from his body just a little, enough to add to the sensation, while I brace my other hand around his hips for balance as he digs both of his hands into my hair and drives into my mouth.
With a guttural, desperate groan, he comes straight into my throat, his cum coating the inside of my mouth. Eagerly, I lick and suck at his cock, lapping up every last drop, swallowing it all, because I still can’t get enough of the taste of him, the hot, slick, salty scent that drives me wild.
When we pull apart, we’re both breathless, catching one another’s eyes and then bursting into laughter again. He leans down along me and I wrap him in my arms, pull him against me. We lie back against the slick, sun-heated stone in a tangle of limbs, and I rest my head against his chest, savoring the sound of his breath, the steady beat of his heart a reassuring echo against my ear.
“See?” he whispers, just as I’m starting to drift off into a contented, easy nap. “I know how to make you shut up,” he says, a sly grin in his voice.
I punch his chest with a fist, weakly, and that just makes him laugh harder, the sound making my head bounce against his chest. “You cheated,” I murmur, smirking into his chest.
“Maybe,” he agrees. “But all’s fair in love and war.”
And there it is again. That word. Love. I fall asleep with it echoing in my mind.
12
Bronson
“So she won’t tell you why she needs to leave?”
Across the dinner table, Sammy arches a skeptical eyebrow at me, as we both pick at our pasta plates. Our parents strong-armed us into coming to this benefit, insisting that they both needed their “heirs” in attendance. We decided to sit together because we’re both the only people either of us can stand in this overpriced, over decorated ballroom. That, and it makes these things move a little faster when you have someone not completely horrible to converse with.
“I didn’t really press her on it,” I admit, flashing back to the other afternoon when Daisy and I went hiking. In fact, the opposite. I distracted her into being quiet. And we spent the rest of the night in equal amounts of distraction—me carrying her across the floor of my living room, only to get distracted before we even made it to the bedroom. We wound up in the bathroom, under the hot shower, soaping one another’s bodies.
“Aren’t you curious?” Sammy tilts her head, staring at me like I’m nuts, as she reaches down to pluck her martini from the table. She swirls it, squinting balefully at the liquid inside. “Ugh. They never make them dirty enough for me at these things.” But she takes a long gulp of the drink anyway, because let’s face it, there’s no surviving the kind of ridiculous, posturing fundraisers our parents frequent without some kind of alcoholic assistance, even if that alcohol isn’t the best.
“Of course I’m curious,” I reply, scowling. “But I don’t want to make her tell me anything she doesn’t want to share. After all, she has no reason to trust me. Not after what I did.”
By now, halfway through the dinner and more than halfway through tasting all the cocktails they have on offer, I’ve already caved in and told Sammy the entire story. Or almost the whole story. I left out the
debt collectors beating me senseless. But I told her about meeting Daisy back in Georgia, and having real feelings for her, but needing to leave without warning to come back here and work under Dad, follow his bidding once more.
I explained how Daisy wound up here too, in a crazy twist of fate that feels like someone up above reaching down and shoving the two of us back together. But I understand why she’s reluctant to give me another chance, I really do. I can’t blame her, either. In her shoes, I’d probably do the same.
“Well.” Sammy purses her lips. “Without knowing why she’s so adamant about leaving LA, it’s hard to determine what would be the best way to convince her to stay,” she points out.
“I know.” I sigh, and my shoulders sag. “I just… I don’t know. You don’t have any womanly insider information?”
Sammy bursts into laughter. Then she shakes her head, turning to gaze away from me, up at the stage where a presenter is rambling on about new investment opportunities in the entertainment and design industries. I don’t even remember what kind of charity we’re here to benefit. All I know is my parents made me swear I’d attend, and Sammy’s extracted the same oath. “Trust me,” Sammy’s saying, “I have the same girl problems you do. If I had some kind of secret insight, I’d be rolling in pussy right now, instead of trying to salvage the one relationship I actually want to fucking make work, but which I’ve totally wrecked any chance of making long-term…”
I grimace in sympathy. “Lyra will come around.”
