He shrugged and started up there. I walked much more slowly in the darkness that was only lit up by the large TV screen.
Bypassing the people sitting on the stairs, I hurried behind Tobias as fast as I could with the boat rocking underneath my feet.
When he came to the spot where there were two seats, he dropped down to his knee on the first one, and then froze.
“Gonna have to share one, honey,” Tobias said, standing right back up.
“Why?” I questioned.
He looked over at the couple on the other side of him, and shook his head.
“Best guess?” he asked. “I think this one fell asleep and spilled his beer. It’s soaked.”
My belly started to tighten.
Chapter 8
Do you ever want to go up to someone and flip them off, then slap their face? No, just me?
-Text from Finley to Tobias
Tobias
There are three things that I could look back on and see were the tipping points for Audrey.
One, she was sitting practically on top of me in the middle of the crowd. The crowd somehow made her bold when otherwise she would’ve been silent.
Two, it was cold. Meaning I’d gone and gotten two blankets—having to sell my soul to the devil, or better known as the deck hand, to get them—and six towels.
Three, we were both tipsy.
Me more so than her. She’d stopped after only one beer, and by the time we were three hours into the Super Bowl, I was well on my way to a good buzz after my sixth bottle of beer.
The deck hands were amazing. They were there, never letting my beer bucket run empty. They were passing out popcorn and offering to bring cookies. Literally, if there was one thing I’d recommend to anybody that loves football, it was to go on a cruise while it was showing. That way you are waited on hand and foot, and you don’t have to move from your spot.
Which I was already reluctant to do seeing as there was a warm woman in between my thighs, leaning her head against my chest.
My balls were slightly squished due to the position, but there wasn’t a single thing I would change about how we’d spent the last couple of hours.
“I think they’re going to win,” Audrey declared.
I snorted.
“They’re down by three touchdowns, darlin’,” I said. “There’s no way they’re going to win.”
Her smile was sweet and filled with menace all at the same time. “I like rooting for the underdogs.”
“The underdogs are not the Patriots,” I informed her. “The underdogs are the other team. The Patriots won last year’s Super Bowl. Trust me, they’re not a crowd favorite.”
Which she’d heard all night. Seemed like the entire boat were not Patriots fans. Whenever the other team scored, the whole boat would cheer, me included.
But as I watched, the game started to take a downhill turn. One second Atlanta was winning, and the next…they weren’t.
“How…” I shook my head. “How?”
The confusion must’ve been evident in my voice, because she laughed, her head thrown back, and she wiggled all at once.
And right then and there, I knew that I loved this woman.
I’d almost said it earlier in the pool, but I hadn’t actually allowed myself to realize the extent of my feelings. She was starting to mean the world to me, and I couldn’t seem care.
I didn’t care that I loved this woman.
And let me explain before my words get taken out of context.
I’d made a promise to myself, after my sisters had died, that I would never love anyone again. Love equaled heartache, and I didn’t have the time, nor the inclination, for that.
Pain was debilitating, and I didn’t want to have to deal with the same pain that my sister had put me through when she’d taken herself so cruelly from my life.
My sister, Abby, had died in a home invasion. Though it had broken my heart that she died, I wasn’t nearly as close to her as I had been to Amy. She was older than me, had moved out of our house by the time I was in high school, and honestly, didn’t have much to do with our family once she’d married.
Though her death had sucked, it hadn’t broken me like my Amy’s had.
I’d lost two sisters, and my heart just couldn’t take anymore. Couldn’t do it anymore.
Or, at least, I thought I couldn’t do this again. I was learning that the heart’s capacity for love was never-ending. It also seems that the heart wants what it wants and doesn’t pay any attention to what the mind says.
The realization was enough to stun me, and I shivered.
“I have to pee,” I found myself saying to her. “Scooch up a smidge so I can run and do that before they go into overtime.”
She looked at me oddly over one shoulder, but shrugged her shoulders and moved, taking all of the blankets, and the one thing that was covering my hard cock, with her. She didn’t seem to notice, though…or at least I thought she hadn’t.
So as I walked down the stairs, barefoot, I tried to keep my hand in front of my body to keep the damn thing from taking on a mind of its own.
I nodded at two other cops that I knew, both heading out, and snorted a laugh when I heard them say ‘fucking Patriots’ as they went.
Finally finding the bathroom, I headed inside and locked the door, then leaned my head against the cool white tiles while I tried to get my dick under control.
I couldn’t pee in this condition. Couldn’t do a goddamn thing but think about how good she’d felt between my legs all night.
Shit!
I looked down at my cock, mentally yelling at it to control itself, and finally realized that the battle was lost.
I couldn’t get it to calm down. I couldn’t even tell myself that this was a bad idea.
Ghost would kick my fucking ass when I got back. He would literally beat the shit out of me, and I’d allow him to do it. Because had I been in his position, and I’d told him to stay away from my sister, I’d be doing the exact same thing.
I knew this was going to go further than I’d thought when I’d originally made the promise. I knew that, maybe not tonight, but someday soon, we’d take things further than the confines of friendship, and I’d then have to tell him that it’d happened.
Finally doing the only thing I could do, I sat down and did my business the old-fashioned way, and made it back out to the game just in time to see the Patriots score one final time, evening it up and forcing the game into overtime.
“Shit,” was what I said when I finally made it to the top.
Audrey’s smile was unrepentant. “Told you.”
I rolled my eyes and eyed the chair that’d had beer spilled on it earlier.
Surely by now it was dry…right?
Except, the next moment, Audrey lifted the beer bucket, sloshing water onto the seat cushion as she said, “We’re out of beer. Do you want some more?”
I shook my head.
My inhibitions were already lowered, otherwise I surely wouldn’t be happy about being forced back into the same position I’d been in all night…right?
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself as Audrey leaned up and patted the seat behind her.
When I sat down, I reached for one of the towels to place in between me and her, but she leaned back too fast, trapping the towel almost behind her head.
“Thanks,” she grinned at me like I’d meant to do it.
I hadn’t.
As she pressed her body back against my hardened cock, I couldn’t help the frustrated groan that left me.
She didn’t even seem to notice, though, and just continued to laugh, squeal, giggle and wiggle between my legs as she watched the Patriots take the win in overtime.
“That was exciting!” she declared loudly, making the few people left around us look over.
They couldn’t see us, though.
We were tucked into a hidey-hole on the side of the deck. T
he only way they would be able to see us was if they got up and came over here, which none of them did.
“If you’ll stay, we’re going to have a celebratory showing of Dr. Strange,” came a disembodied voice from the loudspeaker that was somewhere behind us.
I reached for the blankets, desperate to get away, when Audrey turned.
“I’ll go get us ice cream,” she said. “You go grab us beer.”
My brows rose in question.
“Ohh!” she said excitedly, turning her head up. “You do want to stay for the movie, don’t you?”
I gritted my teeth.
No, I did not.
But at least up here, I could possibly control myself. If we went back to our room, we’d be in the same damn bed, and then a whole new slew of problems would be upon us.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to see Dr. Strange.”
LIES. All fucking lies. I didn’t have time, nor the inclination, to watch TV. In fact, I’d never once thought, ‘Oh, look! Dr. Strange! Let’s watch it!’
Her grin was nothing less than marvelous, though, and it hurt my heart to see.
God, if watching a movie could make her that happy, make her smile at me like that, then I’d fucking watch eight goddamn movies in a row.
Even with her sitting between my legs making me forget that I knew how to breathe.
“Good!” She bounced up, grinding herself against my thick cock on her way.
Which she didn’t even notice.
“I’ll be back,” she yelled over her shoulder.
I gritted my teeth and ordered three more beers, thankful when the deck hands stopped by me and picked up my order instead of forcing me to go down there with my dick tenting my pathetic excuse for shorts again.
The deckhand was back with my beer, and then apologized for the inconvenience of having to say goodnight and not take any more orders.
“But the bartender will be available until the movie is over with,” the deckhand explained as he placed my beers into my bucket and then walked away.
“Here you go!” Audrey crowed. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I went ahead and got chocolate and vanilla swirl.”
I looked down at the ice cream she handed me, and grinned at the pink sprinkles on top.
“I’m more of a butterscotch kind of man,” I told her. “But this’ll do in a pinch.”
She snickered and sat on the end of the chair, and I quickly looked away as she started to lick her cone.
I was sure she wasn’t doing it as suggestively as it looked, but each swirl and lick of her tongue had my stomach clenching with need.
“Fuck me,” I muttered under my breath.
“What?” she asked.
I looked up to find her lips surrounding the cone.
“Nothing,” I said, eyes transfixed. “That good?”
She nodded, taking one long lick. “Pretty good.”
A small drop of vanilla dotted her lip, and it looked so much like a small drop of come that desire exploded inside of me.
Jesus Christ.
She was killing me. Literally killing me.
I leaned forward, unable to help it, and swiped the stray droplet off of her lip and brought the thumb I’d used to my mouth, licking it off.
“Yours is good, too,” I said, not realizing what I’d done until I’d already done it.
She shivered, and went back to eating her ice cream, but the whole time she kept her eyes on me while she did it.
From what little light that was cast at the shadows we were drenched in, I could see her eyes dilate. And when she finally started to crawl to me, her ice cream cone up high in the air, I felt my knees get weak.
It was a good thing I was already sitting down, because the way she crawled up to me was enough to bring me to them.
“Audrey…” I hesitated.
She stared, completely transfixed, until she came up to straddle my thighs.
The blankets were now in the way, but that didn’t make much of a difference. I could feel the softness of her backside as it rested fully on my lap. My cock was pinned in between our two bodies, and there was no hiding it now, even if I had still wanted to.
Which I didn’t.
Not with the way she was looking at me and making me feel.
“Audrey,” I tried again.
She was leaning in closer, her face only inches from mine.
“What?” she whispered back.
Then she lifted her melting ice cream cone to her lips, and rubbed them against it, creating a sweet, milky pool of the liquid on her mouth.
The first drop never even left the sweet plush bottom lip before I swiped it away with my tongue.
And that, my friends, was all it took for everything to change.
One single moment in time, and everything was different.
And this Audrey, the one who was on my lap on the deck of a cruise ship with people all around us but not able to see us, was different.
She was less inhibited. Less controlled. Less scared.
Which gave her the strength to make the move that both of us wanted, but neither one of us was able to do since she was still cautious of everything when it came to a man.
But right now, with her attacking my mouth, you wouldn’t know that anything bad had ever happened to her. She was assertive, confident, and so goddamn sexy that I found it hard to breathe.
But I had to make sure that this is what she wanted.
“Baby,” I whispered. “You need to stop before this goes too far.”
She growled against my mouth, and if my dick could’ve gotten any harder, it would’ve in that moment.
She started to rock her hips, and then tug on the blankets that were between us.
I helped her, yanking the blankets out between us with a ferociousness that would’ve sent her sprawling on her back had I not had hold of her hips with my arm hooked around her waist.
Her hands went to my neck when I took over control of moving our obstacles, and she started to stroke me from collarbone to jaw.
“I love your beard,” she whispered, leaning forward to nibble lightly with her lips against the tips of my beard.
My hands were clenched tightly on her hips now, the blankets and towels sprawled all around us in my haste to get her flat against me.
“Take off your pants,” she ordered.
I pulled back, breathing heavily, and stared.
“Are you sure?”
Her eyes smiled, crinkling in the corners.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. I’m ready to live again. Ready to feel…and you’re going to help me do that.”
I shook my head at the wonder in her tone. It almost sounded like it was surprising to her that I would be able to offer that to her.
“I’ve never been able to let go long enough to feel like this…not since…”
She didn’t need to finish. I knew what she meant.
Her rape. Not since her rape had she been able to get this close to another man.
It humbled me that she would choose me to be her first after the darkness of her past. After somebody had taken something so personal from her that she was still scared of men, even over six years later.
“You don’t have to explain,” I brushed my lips against hers. “You tell me to stop, at any point in time—it doesn’t matter if I’m inside of you or about to come—if you want me to stop, I will. No hesitation. Tell me. Immediately, do you understand?”
She grinned, and then brought her hand up to my mouth.
“Lick me clean,” she whispered, revealing the melted ice cream that now coated her hand and fingers.
I didn’t even hesitate. The second that her finger was close to my mouth, I licked it clean by pulling it completely into my mouth up to the webbing, and running my tongue hungrily over her skin.
Her hips jerked, and I knew in that moment that she w
as just as affected by what we were doing as I was.
She didn’t show one single sign of fear clogging her moves as she brought another finger up for me to lick.
When she thought I’d done a good enough job, she’d slowly withdraw it. At the same time I’d hold onto the suction, letting her pull her finger out with a small ‘pop’ each time she did it.
And when I finally got to her thumb, and then her hand, she was a shaking mass of energy in my lap.
“I’ve never wanted anyone so much in my life,” I breathed, taking one final swipe of her skin, tasting not a single drop of sweetness as I did.
“You know,” I said, looking down at where the ice cream I’d been holding earlier had spilled on the floor. “Two can play this game.”
I swept up the now half-filled cup, and removed the spoon, pressing it, dripping with ice cream and sprinkles, against the length of her collarbone.
She shivered, but I didn’t even give the melted cream a second to run down her honey-colored skin before I pressed my open mouth over the sticky mess.
“You taste…sweet,” I growled, this time scooping up a larger portion of the cream and pouring it down the middle of her shirt.
She gasped, looking down between her breasts, and then up at my face.
“You better lick this completely clean,” she growled. “I have to wear this bra again tomorrow, you know.”
I continued to grin at her as I slowly reached forward and tugged the snapped buttons free of their clasp, revealing those beautiful breasts, still in the simple black, low-cut bathing suit that she’d been in earlier.
“You’re not wearing a bra,” I informed her. “So your argument is rendered invalid.”
“I meant bathing suit,” she gasped when I dropped my mouth to her chest.
I let my beard trail along the length of her swimsuit where it came to a rest just above the swell of her breasts, and cursed myself once again.
“We should really stop,” I tried again. “This is illegal.”
She laughed breathily, and then pulled my head so that my mouth was once again resting against her skin.
“You have a job to do,” she whispered, tugging lightly on the top of her bathing suit, telling me with no words exactly where she wanted me to be.
So I did what she wanted.
For the Love of Beard Page 8
