by Amelia Wilde
“You got it. But I don’t just want to get in your pants.”
“No, you do, and that’s okay.” Valentine’s green eyes are locked on mine. “A summer fling, right? Listen, I think we both know that we’ve got a connection.” She drops her voice, her eyes crinkling with her smile. “But we don’t have to pretend we’re falling in love.” She lifts a taco from her plate and holds it up like she’s toasting me. “To tacos and sex!”
I didn’t order tacos, but I hoist my burrito off of my plate, the sauce dripping onto my fingers. “Tacos and sex!”
But even as we both dissolve into laughter, I can’t escape a tiny, sinking feeling.
“...so I came back here, and Sharon gave me my old job back. It’s definitely...” Valentine pauses and eats another bite of taco while she thinks. “It’s not terrible, but it’s not what I had in mind for a post-college gig.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Which part?” She’s been telling me about what brought her to Lakewood. We’re racing against time for our date, and even though we toasted to tacos and sex and no commitments, Valentine still wants to play the dating game. I want to know about her, too. I’ve wanted to know more about her since the moment I saw her. “You have to believe she gave me my job back. We met at the Short Stack.”
The more she tells me, the less I’ll have to tell her about myself.
“I’ll never forget meeting you at the Short Stack.” I watch the color rise to her cheeks again. Valentine loves it when I drop my voice into that ever-so-slightly deeper tone. Her tell is her bright red cheeks. “But I don’t believe that you, Valentine Carr, couldn’t get a job at a marketing firm.”
“Oh, I got a job.” She eats some Spanish rice, and then a long drink of Diet Coke. “It’s just that after the breakup, it was hard to find another one.”
“Why would breaking up with that douchebag affect your job?” The second the words are out of my mouth, I feel like a complete dick. Who knows? Maybe she was such a wreck that she couldn’t work. If it weren’t for Minnie, I’d be a wreck right now, just from the stress. “I mean—”
Valentine grimaces. “It was owned by Conrad’s dad, and he didn’t...paint a very flattering picture of me. And somehow that information got to my manager, and then—” She rolls her eyes even harder. “The details aren’t so important.”
“Couldn’t you sue the fuck out of them for that?”
“Probably, but who has time when there are pancakes to serve?” The nervous smile flashing across her face tells me that she’s not thinking about that now, that she’s still smarting from the wound. “Anyway, I put in for a few other jobs before I left the city, but I only have college references now. I can’t use my manager at that firm.” Her expression darkens. “Conrad really fucked things up for me. I just need a little while to regroup, and then I’m sure it’ll be different.”
It’s already different for me. She’s like a seismic shift, something that changes the world forever, even if we can’t go in for more than a summer fling. “I’m sure.”
“So why are you in Lakewood?”
“My brother’s here.”
“That’s the only reason?”
“Wouldn’t you move to live near your sister?”
“No!” Valentine laughs. “I love her, but she does her own thing. And California is too far away.”
“From what?”
“From you, for one thing.” Valentine has to be joking, and she follows it up with a laugh. “I don’t know. From the city?”
“I know how much you’d miss the city,” I say meaningfully, raising one eyebrow. “You can admit that you have an enormous crush on me, Valentine. We’ve already kissed twice.”
She straightens her back, trying to look prim. “Yes, and that was a mistake. We should be taking things slow.”
I’m out of my seat in an instant, sliding into the booth next to her again. “Taking things slow?” Valentine’s eyes go wide, and she draws in a big breath. “You just toasted me with a taco and told me this was about sex and Mexican food. A summer fling is what you said. Summer flings aren’t slow. Summer flings are fast and hot and spicy. Almost too spicy. So spicy they burn your mouth.” Valentine bites her lip, and I lean down and kiss her just once, a glancing heat against my own lips. I lower my voice like this is the most important thing I’ll ever say. And fuck, maybe it is. “If you don’t want a summer fling, you can say so right now, Valentine. But if you do? It’ll be so hot you’ll never be the same. The things I want to do to you—” My cock pulses against my pants. Valentine’s breathing hard. “We can have something that’s too hot to last. Do you want that?” I run my fingers down the line of her jaw. “Tell me.”
“I want that.” Her voice is a sultry whisper. “When can we start?”
I lean down until my lips are barely an inch from her mouth and whisper, “As soon as you’re finished with your tacos.”
Valentine laughs, slapping at my shoulder. “Deal.” Then she signals for the waitress. Jennifer scurries over. “I’m going to need a couple of boxes, Jennifer,” Valentine says with a big smile. “We have to go.”
19
Valentine
I’m torn between laughing forever at the fact that we’ve both just agreed to a summer fling so spicy it burns your mouth and wanting to straddle Ryder in the front of his car.
I’d settle for holding his hand. Is that too relationship-y? Is that not appropriate summer fling behavior?
“What are you staring at? Do you not trust my driving skills?”
You know, if there’s ever a time for radical honesty, it’s during a summer fling. Time is short. I’m just going to tell him the damn truth. “I was looking at your hands.”
“These sexy hands?” He takes them both off the wheel and holds them up.
“You’re driving the car, Ryder! Get your hands back on the wheel!”
“I’d rather have my hands elsewhere.”
“I will hold one of them, I guess.” I pretend to be considering this for the first time. “Unless holding hands isn’t what you do during a summer fling. I’m not an expert at this.”
“I’ve only had one other fling,” Ryder says, and something dark flits across his expression. “But I say, the fuck with the rules.”
“The fuck with them.”
“The only rule is that it’s a fling.” His tone is light, but he glances across at me, his gaze lingering just a second.
“Just a fling,” I echo, and then I reach across, take his hand, and thread my fingers through it. It just feels so right. And if his hand feels good, then his cock....
Well, there’s only one way to find out about that.
We fly through downtown Lakewood and take the highway back toward our places. My heart pounds. My place or his? My bed or his? Or not even a bed? Maybe just the floor? I’d fuck him on the floor. Honestly, I’m not even sure I can make it inside. The grass on the front lawn might have to do. I don’t know who this version of me is, but I feel wild and reckless and gorgeous, and I never want it to end.
Ryder pulls into his driveway and hops out of the driver’s seat, coming around to the passenger side and opening my door. I just have enough time to get my seatbelt off before he’s pulling me out, wrapping his arms around my waist and covering my mouth with his. My entire body relaxes into him. God, I want him. I want him all over me. I want him everywhere he can possibly—
He breaks off the kiss, then plants another one on my cheek. “I’ll be back.”
I swear, I actually hear a record scratch. “What? We’re not going to—”
“Time’s up for tonight.” He runs his fingers down my jaw, down my neck, and traces a path over my shoulder.
“Shit.” Here I am, nipples hard against my bra, panties practically off already, and he has to go. “I mean—”
“Don’t worry, Valentine,” he says, giving me a squeeze that’s not enough, that’s just not enough. “There’ll be time later for our too-spicy fling.” He
heads back around the car, his grin melting through my core.
“That’s not sexy,” I call after him.
“Yes, it is,” he calls back, shutting the door. “And so are you.”
Then he drives away, leaving me frustrated and squirming in his own front yard.
There are no streetlights on this road, not here by the lake, so it’s almost total darkness once I turn off the lights in the cottage and lay down in my bed.
In my empty bed, without Ryder, a fact that seems almost too cruel. My body has been buzzing with him since the moment he dropped me off in his driveway across the street. I walked home feeling my own juices between my legs, and even now my nipples are still hard against the oversized t-shirt I threw on after the coldest shower imaginable.
It hasn’t done anything.
A fling.
We agreed to a fling, and now all bets are off. This is exactly what Sharon meant when she said I should get out of the rut I was in about Conrad, right? It is slightly unfair to call it a rut, considering I’ve barely been in town three weeks, but...
...but who cares about Conrad when Ryder is so close, right now, that I could be at his front door in thirty seconds?
The fuck with the rules. He said it himself on the way back here, and it’s pretty clear that a fling is going to mean something explosively hot. All I really have to do is pull the trigger.
I don’t have his number.
I sit up in bed. I might have come back to Lakewood feeling like a small, diminished version of myself, but that doesn’t mean I have to keep acting like that forever. And what’s the risk? That I look stupid in front of Ryder? That’s already happened more than once.
Plus, I have the perfect excuse to knock on his door.
I’m not waiting for the next time I bump into him for this to go on.
It’s now or never.
I throw my legs over the side of the bed, grab my phone from the bedside table, and head for the door. I’m absolutely right. It’s not thirty seconds before I’m standing in front of the Culvers’ cottage.
It looks dark.
A shiver runs down my spine. This burst of courage was clearly a mistake. I should have at least put on regular clothes. I thought this would be sexy, but it’s past midnight. There’s no way that Ryder is—
“Valentine.”
His voice, coming from the open front window, startles me so badly I let out a shriek that I have to stop with my hands. “Jesus, Ryder! What are you doing?”
He laughs out loud, his face coming into view in a sliver of moonlight. “What are you doing? You’re standing outside my house in what looks like your pajamas in the middle of the night.”
My cheeks burn. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Was it something that could wait until morning?”
I’m realizing now that if anyone drives by at this moment, they’re going to see me standing in Ryder’s yard without any pants on. At least I stopped for flip-flops.
“Not really.”
“No?” Ryder’s voice rises a little. “What’s so pressing, then?” His voice curls into my gut. I’m wet just at the sound of him.
Now or never. “I wanted to keep our fling going. And I didn’t have your number. Could I—” I hold up my phone like maybe I’m not being totally clear. “Could I get your number?”
He grins, his teeth flashing in the dark. “I’ll give you more than that.”
20
Ryder
Valentine standing in the moonlight in a t-shirt that just barely covers her ass, no pants, and her hair falling around her shoulders, catching the light, is the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
My cock strains against my shorts.
I’ve been sitting here for an hour. Minnie had a rough time falling asleep, and the silence is almost too fucking precious to waste on sleep. I never thought I’d see Valentine making her way across her yard, then mine, with her head held high and shoulders back.
She hesitated at the front door, though, and I couldn’t help myself. Her nipples went hard when I scared her, and they’re still hard. She’s not wearing a bra beneath the t-shirt.
A part of me wants to stay in the house. I shouldn’t touch her. I shouldn’t go any further than we’ve already gone, because if I do that—if I do anything more—I’m not going to be able to stop myself. A hot, fast, reckless fling sounds like heaven, but if I get in too deep, it’s going to be hell. And I can’t take any more of that right now.
But I also can’t leave her out there. My hands ache to touch her.
“More than that?” She bites her lip, then grins. “Should I come in?” She shifts her weight toward the door.
“No.”
Valentine stops dead at the word, eyes wide.
“No?”
“Stay right where you are.” I see the shiver that runs through her. “Don’t move.”
“Okay,” she says softly, but by the time the word is out of her mouth, I’m moving to the front door.
The air is humid and sultry as fuck, running over my skin the moment I step outside. Lakewood is quiet in a way that New York City never will be. It’s so quiet that sometimes it hurts my ears. But tonight, for the first time, I notice the whisper of the wind through the trees. Over that, I can hear Valentine breathing. Her hard nipples press against her shirt with every single breath. She’s trembling, even though the air is warm, her hand tight around her phone.
I’m almost to her when she crosses her arms over her chest and cocks her head to the side. “Ryder, what kind of game—”
I close the gap between us and wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her to me, pressing the length of her body against mine. I’m a little rougher than I intended, but Valentine gasps, and I look down into her eyes, colorless in the light of the moon, for any hint that she’s not into this.
There is no such hint. Her entire body is leaning into me, and her free hand is on my bicep, her grip hard.
“Not a game,” I say firmly. “A fling.” I reach up to the wide collar of her shirt and yank it to the side, lowering my head to her collarbone. She gasps when I flick my tongue over the smooth skin there. The low almost-moans begin when I work my way up her neck, punctuating the kisses with words that have her pressing against me, somehow even closer than before. “A too-spicy fling. You’re going to be on fire for me, Valentine.”
She tilts her head back, giving me easier access to the side of her neck, and groans. “Shouldn’t we take this inside?”
“And burn down my rental house? I don’t think so.” She feels so damn good in my hands, even when she makes a little show of pulling away.
“We’re in the front yard...” Her voice is low and sexy near my ear.
I tighten my grip around her waist, and she doesn’t resist a second time. “Haven’t you ever had an orgasm in your front yard?”
Valentine sucks in a breath, and I kiss her neck slowly, moving upward one inch at a time until I reach her jawline. Her little gasps come quicker when I wrap one hand around the base of her jaw, holding her in place. A shiver that looks a hell of a lot like pleasure runs through her at my touch.
She hasn’t seen anything yet.
“You can go if you want to,” I murmur into her ear. “If you’re worried about someone seeing—”
“I am.” She’s practically breathless, and it strikes me that she’s telling me the absolute truth in this moment. There’s no pretense, no bullshit, no hesitation—not real hesitation, anyway, not in this moonlight, which is so bright you could mistake it for a streetlight if you were half drunk.
I’m stone cold sober unless you count how intoxicated I feel being this close to Valentine. The urge to lower her to the ground and take her right the fuck now is so strong that every muscle aches with it. The only thing stopping me is the possibility that this hotter-than-hellfire fling might burn out too quickly if I make that move tonight. No part of me wants to risk that. I want this to last every moment that it can.
Valentine might be worried, but she’s not so worried that she’s willing to walk away from me. There’s a spark in her eyes, just barely visible. I lean down and kiss her, deeper and harder, her tongue dueling with mine the moment I press past her lips. Jesus, she tastes good. She raises her hands to hold onto my arm like a drowning woman would hold a life preserver. I can feel her legs shaking.
I take that as a challenge.
I can make them shake harder.
I’ve got one hand on the back of her head, pulling her in, and she moans into my mouth, pressing herself against me, hard nipples brushing my chest through both of our shirts. That’s all I need to lower my hand, grazing her waist, her hips, the front of her shirt, and the hem, low, low down.
When I hook a finger into the waistband of her panties, she makes a kind of animal noise that has my cock standing out so hard it hurts.
“Let me in,” I growl into her ear, feeling that first bit of control snap into pieces and fall to the ground. I’m yanking her panties down, and her mouth is back on mine. “Let me in.”
Valentine whimpers just a little as she spreads her legs, feet planted firmly on the ground, and finally, finally, I’ve got my fingers diving into her wet folds. She makes a sound like I’ve never heard any woman make before, and it turns electric and deep when I press my thumb against her clit.
I’m stroking her, playing her like a fucking violin, and Valentine loves it. Her hips rock against my hand, back and forth, back and forth, and she’s getting slicker by the second. The kiss slips into moans against my mouth, and after a minute I realize she’s saying something. I pull back.
“Please,” she begs, and I feel like I’ve been struck by lightning. “Please make me come.”
“Right here in the front yard?” I’m not teasing her anymore. I can tell how much this turns her on. “Right here, where anyone can see?”
“Yes.”
“You love being dirty like this, don’t you?”
