“If you’re trying to get a reaction, you’re doing everything right,” he growled, looking down at where his board shorts were tented over his growing erection.
She followed his eyes down, and when she looked up at him again, he realized that she was promising to follow through on that sultry look of hers.
“Closest person is miles away, so don’t need to worry about offending anyone,” she said, and leaning back against the tree, she pulled at the knot on one side of her bikini briefs. “And I’m sure you could manage to be discreet.”
Yep. Full. Follow. Through. Seemed there were two types of erections in the world. Ones that came from ordinary girls, and then ones that Summer twisted out of him. He hadn’t thought it was possible to get harder, but seeing the strip of bare flesh, out here in the open, ratcheted up his desire as if she’d dug into his brain and flipped the bring it on, baby switch.
“You know I’ll have you up against that tree if you don’t watch yourself.”
She didn’t drop eye contact with him and nodded.
He didn’t dare touch her body, not yet. “Everyone tells me I’m the one with the bad reputation. They obviously haven’t met you.”
“I’m not normally like this,” she said, quietly. “It’s just with you. With us.”
She’d said that earlier. Us. She’d dragged him in for a hug that had grounded and reassured him when he thought he might spiral into guilt-laden darkness, so he could feel them, us.
Us. He rolled the word around in his imagination. Was there an us? Did he want there to be?
“If you’re playing hard to get, it’s working,” she said, a sassy little lilt to her voice. Then she slid her hands down the other side of her bikini and slowly, devilishly slowly, untied the string that was holding it on her hip. As the scrap of fabric fell away, Ashton’s breath caught in his throat. Sweet Jeeezus. He closed the space between them in less than a second, and his lips were on hers, greedily, hungrily seeking out her tongue and dancing it with his.
As his body pushed hers against the smooth tree trunk, everything dropped away. All thought and reason. There was nothing except this. Her. Their bodies connecting.
His hand slid down her flat stomach to where her bikini had dropped away, and he trailed his fingers over her smooth, soft hip, till he reached the groove at the top of her thigh. Breaking the kiss, he looked down. “You like elbows, I like this bit. Especially on you. Wanna know why?”
“Tell me,” she breathed in his ear.
“Because it’s the gateway to this.” His hand slid further across, and Summer gave a little gasp as he traced the line of her sex, fingers slicking instantly with her juices. “Seems you really are ready for me.” His thumb found the small pearl of her clit and circled it gently, one, twice, three times till he felt it swell further.
Ashton closed his eyes a moment. God, but he wanted to be inside her. The look she’d given him, the way she undid her bikini, she couldn’t have been clearer that she wanted him, too. But he wanted more now. He wanted to own her.
Gently, he pushed the cup of her bikini top aside and bent his head to her breast, taking the whole thing into his mouth and sucking and licking greedily. She dropped her head back against the tree even as she pressed herself closer to him.
“I want you,” she gasped, her voice broken, barely audible.
“How do you want me?” He knew exactly how. How much. How bad. How soon. It was written all over her face. He pulled at the waist of his board shorts.
“Yes. Now,” she said, and her hands slid down the back of his shorts to cup his butt and pull it towards her. He looked around again. Still no one. It seemed impossible that they were so alone, that the world had conspired to give them this moment. But it has, so you going to take it?
“It’s risky.”
“Says the man who told me my whole life is risk.” She kissed him, and any other arguments melted away. If anyone was around, they were hiding it well. And all they would see was the back of his board shorts and her leg wrapped around him. Mostly.
He felt in his back pocket for his wallet. “Shit.”
“What?” She was instantly on the alert.
“No condom.”
“Shit is right.” She paused, and he looked into her eyes.
“I’ve been tested. I’m clean.”
She held his gaze, and he watched her pupils, wide and dark, expand further. He saw the moment she made her decision. “I am too. And I’m on birth control.” She pulled his face to hers and kissed him again.
“Really?” They both knew his past. Knew the long list of women who had been in his bed.
“If you say you’re clean, I trust you.”
Digging her nails into his butt, she pulled him closer, and at the same time hitched her leg up the tree. His whole body aching for her, he picked her up, lay her on the soft grass at the base of the tree and looked into her eyes. She nodded, and not needing any further invitation, he yanked down his shorts before pushing himself balls-deep in one long thrust.
Deep inside her, he rested just a second, letting his throbbing cock catch a breath. Man, it had been years since he’d felt a woman like this. Felt her velvet center skin-on-skin with his cock. He took a breath. Summer was perfect. A perfect fit, a perfect athlete, a perfect woman. Then she pulled on his ass, and his body took over from his head. He stroked into her, steady at first, then less of a stroke, more vigorous, till he was pounding into her and she was egging him on, pulling him deeper, grinding her pelvis against his. At every thrust, she met him with equal passion. When he pulled back, each time it was if she was afraid he’d withdraw completely, and she tugged him into her anew.
Any thought he had of taking it slow disintegrated under her attention. A deep stirring in his balls started up, and his climax started its ascent. Grabbing fistfuls of grass just above her head, he let himself go with the sensation and ground hard into her while he took her mouth in a long, urgent kiss before he groaned against her throat, “Ohhh, yeah.”
Lost for a moment, he just let the throb of his seed pumping into her wash over him. Then felt her slip her hand between them.
“Summer—”
“Don’t. Move.”
A moment later she shuddered around him, her muscles clamping on his still sensitive cock and milking the last of his cum from him, just like he’d asked.
Breathing hard, he let the wash of sensation steady itself, his head against hers.
“That was crazy,” she whispered.
“Indeed.” Her words reminded him where they were, and he glanced around and behind them before withdrawing and tucking himself back into his board shorts. His body surged with a mixture of relief and disquiet. No one had seen them. But they might have. The pull of his body was too strong; he needed to get it back under control. He pulled a sarong from Summer’s bag and handed it to her to clean up a little. “Well. There’s a first time for everything, I guess. Middle of a field sex definitely gets a tick from me.”
The sound of a car in the distance started up.
“Time to go,” Ashton said. “And quickly.”
“Sure. You’ve got your waterproof case? Local boys out the back this morning said the break down the road here is bitching when the tide turns.” She looked at her watch. “Which is in about twenty minutes.”
He saluted. “Yes, ma’am. Let’s go.” But when they got back to the road, his relief dwindled as the car they had heard came around the corner.
“Hey, it’s Summer Roberts.” The car pulled to a stop, and three young guys with the perpetual sun-bleached hair and chapped lips of dedicated surfers practically hung out the window. “You pumped for the event?”
The guys were young, excited, and for a moment, the relief started trickling back and relaxing Ashton’s muscles. But then one of them noticed him. “You’re Ashton, aren’t you? Evans? I thought you were out of the circuit?” The young surfer looked around, and Ashton watched his eyes rove up and down Summer’s body, now only wr
apped in a sarong. As if he were looking through the young guy’s eyes, he saw Summer’s flushed chest, the rush of blood from her orgasm pinking her skin. He saw her mussed hair, her full lips, and he waited for the penny to drop.
“What are you two doing together?”
The breath caught in Ashton’s throat, but he needn’t have worried.
“Doing a photoshoot. Ashton thought it would a good idea to get me in the middle of nowhere,” Summer said, giving the young guy the benefit of an inside joke as she rolled her eyes. “I mean, surfer goes with sand, right? Not trees. And not trees in the middle of nowhere.”
“Oh, right,” the guy looked appeased but still not convinced.
Summer walked a little closer to the young guy’s car and slid her butt onto the hood. “You heading to the break? I hear it’s bitching when the tide turns.”
The young guy grinned, Summer’s dark, deep voice doing its job of making him forget any suspicions he might or might not have had.
“Yeah. Want to come with us?” the driver called to her.
“Thanks, but I’ve got my gear in his car. See you there?”
The three boys nodded and revved the car before speeding off.
Ashton let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “I thought he was going to keep asking questions for a moment there.”
Summer nodded. “Let’s get to the beach. Better make sure they see you getting some shots in.”
He nodded. The woman was a powerhouse. Calm under pressure, in and out of the water. There was no chance of them being together—T.J.’s contract had made sure of that. And after the accident, he’d promised himself and the women of the world he wouldn’t do relationships. He was too much of a liability to get involved with. But if he’d been willing to take a chance, if could let himself see past the darkness of his past mistakes and convince her it wasn’t too late, Summer Roberts would be his perfect match.
Chapter Twelve
Summer’s whole body sang as she hit the water. The combination of the ocean on her hot skin and the muscle memory of having Ashton take her in broad daylight where anyone could have seen thrilled through every pore, every nerve ending. And you totally started it.
She smiled. It was something she would have never done with T.J.
She duck-dived a wave and when she was back in the calm, sighed contentedly. She wouldn’t have done half the things she’d done over the last week with T.J. She thought of the first day she’d got here. Watching Ashton in the old documentary on her tablet, seeing him talk about women so dismissively, seeing him full of the plumped-up pride of youth and ego. She shook her head. When he’d said back in Brazil that he’d changed, she hadn’t believed him. Why should she have? He’d been nothing but a jackass to her and a litany of women on the circuit. But spending time with him, watching him let down his defenses, watching him trust her, hearing him apologize, she knew he had changed. Changed into something she couldn’t get enough of.
Summer shook a piece of wet hair from her face. She needed to be more careful. First the guy in the cave had recognized them back at Uluwatu, and then…she didn’t even want to think about what might have happened if the carful of grommets had driven past any earlier. If anything got back to T.J. and his lawyers, she was as good as sued, and who knew what her newly inked fruit-juice sponsor would think about her apparent infidelity and breach of contract. The tree had given them protection from a casual glance, but if anyone had looked harder…
“Light’s perfect!” Ashton yelled from behind her, and she looked back at him over her shoulder. He’d put his camera in its waterproof casing and followed her out into the surf. The break here wasn’t dependent on a vicious coral reef, and he could get in amongst it with less danger of getting himself or his gear smashed. The tide was rising, filling in the beach and starting to cover everything with its silver, shuddering water-blanket. But they’d got here early enough to see that while there was no reef, one end of the beach did have a good solid crop of volcanic rocks visible. They’d been piled up by a giant, apparently, dropping a bundle of them on his way out to sea. Or at least that was the locals’ reason for why there weren’t any anywhere else in the vicinity.
“Take this next one if you can.” Ashton yelled out again, and Summer checked the wave he was referring to. Yep. Perfect. She paddled hard to the foot of it then turned and pushed her arms through the water just as hard till she felt herself buoyed up by the rolling surge of ocean. The familiar spiral of emotions started through her. When she was paddling, her mind had time to dawdle, think through all manner of ideas, but once the wave caught her, her focus narrowed, the world was the wave. It was hope she had timed it right, then satisfaction when she popped up on her board and started down the water’s flank, followed by a tremendous surge of joy. This was why she surfed. The sensation of sailing on top of the world, of flying, of being in control yet totally at the mercy of the ocean. It was… Her mind faltered. It was like being with Ashton.
Had it really only been a week that he had been back in her life? The boy she’d had a teenage crush on was gone. Ashton was a man now. One hardened by what life had thrown at him and the mistakes he’d made of it. But he owned up to them, and maybe…maybe he was past making quite so many? If she was honest with herself, he’d more than apologized for his teenage stupidity, he didn’t really owe her anything anymore. But she wasn’t close to being ready to give him up yet. Not now she’d discovered what being with him was like.
With the thought of him, she let her eyes flick out to search for his face and found him over to her left, his eye glued to his camera.
Shit. She sucked in her stomach, tried to put a pleasant look on her face. But her shift in focus changed everything: as if the wave knew it, the water stopped holding her board up with a graceful hand and started to pound at it with white licking fingers of foam. She got the speed wobbles. Summer tried to carve back up into the face of the wave, but it started to barrel behind her and she pumped her board instead to avoid getting stuck inside.
Too late, she realized she needed out, but the wave was having none of it, sucking her in, then pounding down on the back of her board, sending it and her up before sucking them under the water. Up, down, sideways. The world turned to water. Summer held her breath till her lungs were aching and then, when the washing machine effect eased, kicked towards the surface. The air burned just as much going in as it had getting pummeled out of her. But treading water in between big waves was no place to dwell on a little lack of oxygen.
Her leash had snapped, and she looked about for her board.
Nothing. Looking behind her, she saw another big wave coming and struck out for shore, swimming with strong strokes and duck-diving the waves that came up to try and take her down again.
Back on the beach, she sat and caught her breath.
“Summer. You okay?” Ashton was beside her, water dripping from his hair and fear lodged in bright sparks in his eyes.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just got tumbled.”
“What happened? You had that wave in such a sweet spot, then you were off it. I’ve never seen you wipeout like that.”
“No big deal. Lucky it was a beach break huh?”
“Lucky is an understatement.”
Summer caught a glimpse of something white and pink in the water and switched her focus away from Ashton. “Shit.”
“What? You’re hurt?”
Summer flapped him off and stood up as one half of her board washed up at her feet. “Damn. That was my favorite board.”
She looked out and saw the other half not far away. Striding out, she grabbed it and hauled the thing back into the beach. It was toast. Damn and shitballs. It wasn’t just her favorite board, it was her absolute fave. The one she’d nailed all her tricks on. The others weren’t half as nippy, and she hadn’t tried them out in Bali at all.
Guess you’re gonna have to now.
She sighed. Her heart, so light only a moment before, was now heavier, a
s the possibility of showing the world’s surf cameras that she was more than just an accessory to T.J. seemed to slip further from her grasp.
“Guess we might as well head back,” she said and started up the beach. Only she realized Ashton wasn’t behind her.
His face had flattened. The spark and dance in his eyes dulled like water on a dark and cloudy day.
“You coming?”
“That was the one you used in Brazil, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. But I do have other boards.”
“Not that you’ve pulled all those tricks on. Shit.”
Summer’s lips tightened, aware from his tight body language that somehow he’d decided this was his fault. “You didn’t break my board.”
“But I did distract you. I saw you see me. Saw your posture change. You lost it out there because of me.” He shook his head. “This is what happens.” He overtook her and headed back to the car.
Summer watched his back disappear up the beach. Man, the dude needed to cut himself some slack. Picking up her pieces of board she started up after him but faltered. Out there in the water, before she’d lost it, the realization had snuck up on her unheralded: she was falling for him. Hell, she’d fallen about as hard as a grommet on his first wipeout. It had felt like he might be feeling the same way. But now…this dark, flat version of Ashton didn’t seem able to feel anything except self-loathing.
Is this the real Ashton? Or was it the man who only hours ago had held her down in an open field after stepping over the demons that had held him hostage for years? She’d thought bringing him back to the crash site had been a revelation—that he had made a real breakthrough in seeing it through the lens of his camera.
Maybe not.
#
The trip back to the hotel was silent. Ashton’s face was set in a grim line, and Summer didn’t feel like probing. He inhaled some food then went to have a swim, and she was left alone. Grabbing her phone, she texted Maya.
Broke my fav board. ☹
Another Shot with Summer (Hot Tide Book 1) Page 13
