“You’ve been with a lot of women.” The somberness intensified. “But I guarantee you that Max left more of a lasting impression on me than all of them did on you.”
“Because he fooled around on you with the actress he was guarding after you?” I grabbed Hollie by the upper arms before she could flee. There was no way in hell I was letting her retreat from this truth.
“If it were only that simple.” Her eyes flooded with tears.
“Explain.” I stilled, even as she stiffened.
Her chin tipped to a defiant angle. “Max was working for my stepfather the entire time we were together. I only found out about it the day he died. And now I’ll never know if any of what I had with him was real.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
* * *
Hollie
I confessed my deepest fear and waited for Diesel to look at me differently.
“None of it was real. It was all a lie.” He gave me a firm nod. “Move on from it. You can’t hold on to something if it’s not real. Lesson learned. You trusted the wrong person. Don’t let that sweet heart of yours rewrite it any other way.”
More tears sprang into my eyes, and I bobbed my head. My stomach roiled uneasily, like the surf did today.
“Hey, I’m an asshole, but I’m not going to lie to you like he did. You know that. Right?”
“Yes.” I swallowed the bile and resisted dropping my gaze. I knew Diesel was right. But how was I going to love the child I carried when its father had deceived me?
“Give yourself some time. You’re here to process. There’s not a switch to flip to change your feelings.”
“What?” I blinked back the gathered wetness.
“Maybe you sensed all along something was wrong between you. If he hadn’t died, you might have realized your mistake sooner.”
“Doubtful.” After reading Max’s penned confession, I’d been running toward him, giving him a second chance rather than running away.
“You can doubt. But no more running, no more wallowing in the past, okay? You have too much living left to do.”
“I’ll try.”
“Do it. No one can hold you back but you.” Diesel’s gaze was steady, his grip on my upper arms firm. And his confidence in me was unshakable.
I couldn’t run from myself. I accepted that. But could I accept my imperfections and move beyond them?
“If I have to move forward, you have to also,” I said, lifting my chin, and felt the snap of tension rip through him.
“I’ve moved forward.” His eyes narrowed.
“Have you? Why all the hookups?”
“My choice.”
“Your choice gives you no one beside you. You have a lot to offer.”
“I have a failed marriage. An ex-wife who’s a drug addict. And a grave marker instead of a son. How do you figure that’s a lot?”
“Those aren’t evidence that you loved too little. You’re a responsible, caring, sensitive man. If you let the right woman inside the wall you’ve built around your life, she’d guard your heart, not crush it like Lalana did.”
“Holy shit.”
“Do you want me to lie to you?”
“Fuck no.” Diesel grinned.
I gave him a single nod.
“You ready to surf?” He released my arms and tugged on the end of my ponytail.
“In that?” I glanced at the choppy ocean.
“It’s perfect for a grom.”
“What’s that?”
“A grommet. A novice surfer. You.”
“Not many former pro surfers teach pupils at my level.”
“Maybe not. But teaching you has a lot of benefits.”
“Such as?” I arched a brow.
“You know I love having my hands all over your sexy wet body.”
“Surfing with benefits. I thought that might be the case.”
“Quit stalling.” Diesel turned and retrieved his board from the sand. “C’mon.”
“I’m coming.” I had to jog to keep up with his much longer strides.
“You’re not yet, but you will be.” He gave me a heavily lidded look as he tossed his board onto the water.
I stumbled on the sand, and a wave coming in jostled me further. He waded closer.
“Get on.” He held the board in front of me.
“Are you assuming I’m back in your bed again tonight?” I asked. We hadn’t discussed it.
“Don’t need a bed. Probably fuck you out here in the water.”
“You’d have to catch me.” I started to move away.
I didn’t get far. I didn’t want to get far. I wanted Diesel again and again, as long as he wanted me.
“Got you.” His hands on my hips, he tugged me back into him. Feeling his erection against my ass gave me an anticipatory shiver. “Hold on to the board.” He relinquished it to my care.
I threw my arms over it while he tugged down my bikini bottoms. In the distance, I could hear voices from the beach park, but we were in waist-deep water. What we did beneath the waves couldn’t be seen, even if someone had binoculars or a long-distance camera lens.
“Fuck me good like before.” Through my lowered lashes, I glanced over my shoulder at him.
“The only way I know how to be with you.” He lowered his head and took my mouth, his lips a perfect fit to mine, his tongue wet and slippery as he stroked it in and out between my lips.
“Diesel . . .” I breathed out his name, breaking the kiss. “Wait. What about protection?”
He fumbled behind me for a second before answering. “I already have it on.” His hands on my thighs, he removed my bikini bottom, tossing it onto the board along with his shorts.
“Yes.” I moaned when he entered me a moment later, the water lapping against me.
His grip was warm and firm on my hips as he glided his hard cock almost all the way out and then back in deep again. His thrust pressed my breasts into the board. Beneath my wet bikini top, my nipples hardened to points.
“You feel so good, babe. So tight. So hot.” He pumped his length in and out to the languid ebb and flow of the ocean.
“Don’t tease. I’m close.”
“Hold out.” His voice was a rasp that scraped more shivery sensation over my raw nerve endings.
“I can’t.” The drag of the water against my clit matched the pace of his thrusts and felt like his practiced tongue sweeping over it.
“Give me your mouth again.”
“Yes.” I turned my head.
“Love your lips.” He took my mouth hard, his wet tongue spearing deep, even as his hot cock speared deeper.
It spiraled through me. His approval. His praise. Our joining was deeper than physical. He seemed to get me in a way no one else ever had, and I—well, maybe I got him a little better than he thought I did.
I moaned into his mouth. He groaned and thrust into my spasms, spooling my pleasure tighter, higher, hotter.
Again. Again. Again.
My breasts banged into the board. My nipples scraped against the hard surface. So hard. So fast. So erratic. His loss of control as he stiffened, then found his climax, triggered my own.
Words hovered in my consciousness. Words in a universe of only two. Words I would never speak aloud. But I thought them.
Me, Diesel. All of me. Only for you.
Chapter Thirty
* * *
Diesel
“You’re making progress.” My board under my arm, I reached for Hollie’s hand with the other.
“Thank you for saying so. I needed the encouragement. It was frustrating today. I felt like everything I did was wrong.” Stopping on the slope, she glanced down at our hands and wove her fingers together with mine. Her lips framed a soft, satisfied smile.
“Not gonna blow smoke up your ass.”
“I know that.”
“You have a feel for the ocean and a natural rhythm.” I swung our arms together, guiding her up the path, watching her, and liking her by my side.
&nbs
p; She must have felt my gaze. When she lifted her head, our eyes met, and I felt her pleasure. It seemed to mirror mine, and that significant feeling in my chest from earlier intensified.
“If there had been a decent surf, you would’ve had a better ride.”
“I had a ride, all right. Never had better.” Her eyes sparkled like reflective silver.
“Would you like another?” I swept my thumb into her palm.
“Are you legit asking me?”
“Yeah.”
“Not telling?”
“I like you to feel like you have options.”
“So, I’m getting your cock whether I say yes or no.”
“You’ll say yes, oh yes.” I grinned.
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
“Try me tonight. We’ll see.”
“We’ll see now.”
“Here?” Hollie glanced around.
I released her hand to put mine on her slim shoulders and backed her into the outdoor shower half wall.
“Someone might see.”
“Unlikely.” My grin deepened. “You didn’t say no.”
“I think you get that I like your hands on me.”
“You like more than that.”
“I do like more with you.”
No pretense. Her expression trustingly open and her gaze dewy with desire, she lifted her hand and placed it on my cheek. Her looking at me while touching me like that did insane things inside my chest, and even crazier stuff inside my mind. I turned my head to press my mouth into the center of her palm.
She smiled. “I like when you do that.”
“I’m glad. You’re gonna like what I do next better.”
“I imagine I might if it involves less talking and more interactive physical activity.”
She placed the palm I’d kissed on my chest right over my heart. It thumped harder beneath her touch. Spreading her fingers wide, she skimmed the pad of her dainty little pinky over the nub of my nipple.
I felt the sharpness of that in an arrow that shot straight to my dick.
“Okay, fire goddess.” I reached past her and turned on the water. “Let’s see if we can make some steam.”
“What are you doing?” she asked as I worked the elastic from her hair.
“Washing the salt from you.”
I pressed Hollie back under the spray. Rivulets of water streamed over her moonbeam hair, pooling between her lips and spilling over her chin. I wanted to kiss her. My cock bounced eagerly in my shorts. But not yet. I grazed the pad of my thumb over her bottom lip. She opened her mouth, her pink tongue darted out, and she licked me.
“Naughty.” My cock lengthened, the head peeking out of the top of my swim trunks.
“You’re teasing.” She pouted. “Get to the good stuff.”
“Soon, greedy girl.” My lids lowered, shadowing the dark heat in my eyes. I grabbed the shampoo bottle from the shelf and squeezed a liberal amount onto her scalp.
“That feels so good,” she said, her voice husky. Leaning her head back, she held on to my shoulders as I worked the lather through her silky tresses, then rinsed them.
“You feel so good.” Her hair was so satiny soft, and the expression on her face was killing me. I wanted to kiss her, slip my tongue between her slippery lips and my rock-hard cock in her wet cunt. “Let’s get the conditioner worked in.”
“I’d prefer you get something else worked in.”
My lips slowly curved. “I’d prefer that too. But one step at a time, babe.”
I slathered on the thick coconut-scented liquid and finger-combed it through the long length of her hair, leaving extra on the ends and brushing it over her shoulders.
“Leave it on ten minutes. Right?”
“Yes, but how do you know . . .” She bit her lip, her brow creasing while streams of water and conditioner sluiced over her amazing tits.
“In the past, babe. It’s just you and me here in the present. I’m not thinking of anyone else.”
I didn’t know if I would ever be able to think of anyone else. Hollie had been in my head since the first time I met her, when she’d looked at me not as a conquest, like so many did, but with a longing expression that had crumbled the thick layers of concrete around my heart.
Her hands slid down my chest, over the hardened nubs of my nipples, setting fire to my skin everywhere she touched me.
“Huh-uh.” I stopped her at my abs.
“Why not?” She blinked up at me, her gaze heavily lidded and her eyes a dark smoky gray.
“Trust me?” I asked.
“Yes, why?”
“Hands over your head then.”
“All right.”
When she lifted her arms, I took hold of her, my large hands encompassing her tiny waist.
“What?” she asked as I lifted her.
“Grasp the bar above your head.”
“Okay.” Her fingers closed around the metal pipe.
“Is it too hot?”
“No, just warm.”
“Good. It’s going to get hot lower. Are you ready?”
“I’m always ready for you.” Hollie peered at me through her long, wet auburn lashes.
“Babe,” I said. “Fuck.”
“Yes. Please.”
“Already have you saying yes just like I told you.” I released her waist.
She swung from the pipe that led to the showerhead, her frosty-pink-tipped toes dangling several inches above the flagstone. I wanted to be inside her with a desperation that made my hands shake.
Reaching for the bow around her neck, I untied it. The dual triangle top slid off her gorgeous tits. The nipples were dusky rose with primed tips. I lowered my head and fastened my lips around one, sucking hard and swirling my tongue around it.
She moaned. The sound vibrated along the length of my dick.
“Delicious,” I told her before raining kisses over the glorious curves and valleys of her tits on my way to the other nipple.
“Diesel.” She moaned again, but longer and deeper. “Please.” Hanging from the bar, she pleaded with her expressive eyes. “I need you, and I don’t know how long I can hold on.”
“You can do it. Give me a few more minutes to savor you.” I released the other string and removed her top, pressing my mouth into the hollow area beneath her ribs, then glided my tongue into her belly button and flicked it.
“Diesel.” Her voice was a needful rasp that might as well have been her lips around my shaft.
“Right here.” Fingers dipping into her bikini bottom, I whipped it off. The momentum swung her forward. I took advantage, grasping her hips and bringing her pussy up to my mouth so I could taste her.
“No more.” She was shaking in my grip within moments, her sweetness coating my tongue and lips.
“Okay, babe.” I released her and undid the tie on my shorts. They dropped into a soggy heap on the flagstone.
Water rolling down her shoulders and over her breasts, she watched me with a ravenous expression as I rolled a condom on. Then gasped as I grabbed her again, my grip on her ass firm enough to sting her flesh as I brought her forward toward my jutted cock.
She was at the perfect height for me to impale her.
Holding her in my hands, I glided inside and used my grip on her ass to rock her back so I could withdraw until only the head of my cock remained. I repeated the motion, staring down at where we were joined, licking my dry lips, and shuddered as her cunt tightened to try to keep my shaft inside her while the rest of her body vibrated like an overwound bass string in my hands.
“Yes, Diesel!” Hollie tightened even more as I glided inside. Taut about to snap. “Yes!” Her lips parted, and she moaned as I withdrew and glided in again, only faster this time. “Yes! Oh yes! So good!”
“Babe.” My fingers flexing my own urgency into the generous globes of her flesh, I slammed her back into the half wall and thrust inside her to the hilt while taking her mouth in a ruthless kiss. Her pleasure made me crazy.<
br />
Her hands dropping to my shoulders, she went as wild as I did. Writhing, she sucked on my tongue and scratched my skin like she couldn’t control herself. She came apart as I hammered her into the boards with my stiff, ejaculating cock.
Again and again, I thrust and pulsed inside her, her rhythmic spasms wringing every last drop of cum from my body. My mind spun in a crystalline vortex. Brilliant light flooded it and my heart, washing away the silt and revealing with startling clarity a beautiful truth I had been too blind to see before.
Chapter Thirty-One
* * *
Hollie
You’re making a big mistake, I silently told my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
“You ready?” Diesel banged on the closed door.
I turned my head, experiencing a head-to-toe shiver merely from the sound of his deep voice. “In just a minute.” I dropped my gaze to the bottle of prenatal vitamins in my hand.
You should tell him before you fall for him any further. I lifted my head and stared into my eyes.
You can’t hold on to something based on a lie. Diesel had said it, and I knew it was the truth.
But we weren’t something. Not on his side. On mine, I knew it was already too late to turn back. Telling him about the pregnancy wouldn’t miraculously change anything. It would only hasten the inevitable end.
I filled a glass with water and took the vitamin, swallowing the huge pill and the bitter truth in one big gulp. After returning the bottle to my makeup bag, I zipped it and placed it back in the drawer. Pasting on a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes, I smoothed my sundress for another day of wear and opened the door.
Diesel was right outside. “You look nice.” Sweeping an appreciative gaze over me, he uncrossed his arms and pushed away from the wall where he’d been leaning. “What do you want to eat?”
He brushed my loose hair back over my shoulders. I shivered from the warmth and tenderness of his touch.
“Is Paradise open this late for lunch?”
“It’s open from eleven every day until midnight.”
“I like their tacos. I’m pretty hungry.”
(Complete Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances #1-5) Page 129
