High Reward

by Brenna Aubrey

  I pressed my hand to her head again to slow her pace. “Yeah,” I ground out between gasps as her tongue slid down my length and I lost all sense of my surroundings, sinking into the warmth of her delicious mouth. “Just like that, baby girl.”

  Oh man. Gratification and heat spread out from where her mouth was holding and sucking me. My eyelids drooped closed, and I could only feel the suction of her mouth, her lips and her tongue. Pure pleasure. I began to feel the familiar build to climax and for a moment considered how amazing it would feel to come in her mouth.

  When she pulled away and stood quickly, I was jolted back to reality but not surprised. It figured that she’d try to get me back for my stunt. Her mouth trembled, and a small smile appeared, though I could read in her eyes that the hurts of earlier were not forgotten. She reached out and raked her nails down my chest. I gasped and grabbed her wrist to stop her.

  The other hand repeated the action. And the pain and pleasure mingled, stirring my body to even greater arousal. If I didn’t get inside her soon, I was going to explode from the tension.

  “If I’m a tigress, I better act like one.” I grabbed her other wrist and looked down across my chest. She’d left two sets of dark red tracks. How? Her nails weren’t even that long.

  Still holding her wrists, I flipped her away from me and pressed her front to the window. She moaned and gasped and wriggled back against me, complaining that it was cold. I closed my eyes and relished every second of it.

  I took the top of her ear into my mouth and this time it was my turn to use my teeth. She tilted her head away, catching her breath suddenly, and I hooked my hand around her hips pulling them back against me. Returning my mouth to her ear, I murmured the question, “What do you want?”

  “I want your cock inside me,” she said without hesitation.

  And without hesitation, I gave it to her. In one smooth, firm, satisfying stroke I sank into her heat with no barrier between us for the very first time.

  Holy fuck, it felt…amazing. To feel her heat, her wetness wrapped around me naked and soft, like silk. Snug-fitting silk.

  Was there any part of this woman that wasn’t exquisite?

  And it wasn’t just her body, no. It was her voice, her laugh, her brilliance.

  It was the fact that she made me laugh. She made me think.

  I moved inside her, and she whimpered and writhed, her ass pressing against my pelvis, making me insane with desire. I pushed myself into her over and over again, not sparing the pace or the force I used. She gasped and grunted, her face pressed against the window, my mouth pressed against her temple, I closed my eyes and fantasized that I was speaking to her…

  That with my body I was telling her the things I wished I could say with words—

  That she held my heart in her hands.

  And she could crush it at any time.

  That there wasn’t a day or even an hour that passed when we weren’t together that I didn’t think about her, want to talk to her, ask her an opinion, share a joke with her. That I didn’t want to feel her skin, her body, her hands on mine.

  I pushed faster, feeling that coveted climb to release. She moved backwards against me, matching her movements perfectly to mine. My hand came around her front to rub her clit while I moved into her from behind.

  The sound of her moans told me she was close to climax. I slowed my pace so that she’d get there first. Despite her little hellcat act, she deserved it. And I loved feeling her tighten and convulse around me when I was still inside her.

  Just a few more seconds, and there it was. Her head fell back against my shoulder and her back arched as she tensed, the orgasm ripping through her body. During those minutes, I stopped my movements and just concentrated on her, her pleasure, her moment.

  She started breathing again when her orgasm faded away, and I pushed myself into her again, this time harder. Her hands found the window sill and she pushed back against me. I took her by the hips and worked my way to the finish doing as I’d promised—riding her hard and enjoying her moans as I did.

  I stilled, the orgasm washing over me like a crashing wave on the beach, pulling me with the force of the sea and pounding down on me, stealing my breath. Tension washed from my muscles as I emptied into her, pushing in as deep as possible.

  When I finally came back to the real world, I almost lost my balance, but pulled her up against me. We turned and collapsed on the couch and I lay back for a moment. She settled against the other arm of the couch. It was only two feet away, but it may as well have been miles.

  Without a word, I stood once I’d regained my bearings and gently pulled her to her feet in front of me. Planting a kiss on her forehead, I swung to pick her up.

  Her head lolled against my shoulder, and I carried her down the stairs to the bathroom. After we cleaned up, I took her hand in mine and led her to the bed. Without a word, she sank down beside me, and I pulled her flush against me.

  I have no idea how long we stayed like that until we dozed off, wrapped up in each other. But I remember thinking that this was how I would love to go to bed every night. Wrapped up in her after we’d exhausted ourselves with sex.

  But I knew it was not to be.

  We had today and that was it. Once we went home, everything would change again.

  Chapter 19

  Gray

  When I woke up from my cat nap, he was nibbling on the back of my neck. Of course, the feeling was evoking the most pleasant tingles all down my spine, down my legs, down to that warm place between my thighs.

  My eyes closed again almost as quickly as they’d cracked open. It was about noon on Sunday. We didn’t have much time left. His mouth slid to devour my ear, which reminded me that I was utterly famished.

  I leaned back against him. “Are you hungry? I sure am.”

  His mouth slipped lower onto my neck and he spoke in between placing his mouth in all the right spots that he knew made me crazy. “I could—eat a—bite or two. Before…”

  “Before what? Before we leave?” I teased, knowing exactly what he meant by ‘before.’

  He grinned. “That, too.”

  “Mmm. I haven’t eaten a bite since…well we never ate last night so I haven’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday. Then you decided to get me drunk on vodka.”

  His head came up and he looked into my face. “Wait, hold the phone, what? I didn’t get you drunk on vodka. You got yourself drunk.”

  I raised my eyebrow. “Who brought the vodka down here, hmm? You’re a bad influence.”

  Ryan pulled away and fell against his pillow, staring straight up at the ceiling, thinking. I rolled over to plant a kiss on his cheek, surreptitiously examining the dark red and purple bite marks on his neck. Wow, I’d been savage in my rage.

  Well in truth, he deserved every one of those bite marks and scratches and slaps. Okay, so maybe I’d gone a little bit overboard.

  I pushed my way out of bed, guilty at the thought. I never lost my cool like that. Ever. But hearing those things from him—his plan to not only continue with the test flight but to also pursue Karen.

  I’d called out his tendency to live his life for everyone else—becoming a SEAL for his dad, becoming an astronaut on a bet, flying again for Xander—and he’d then doubled down on it. Now he was going to marry Xander’s widow and take care of his son. The thought of it still made me sick inside. I hoped, rather than knew, that I’d get through to him and make him realize the big mistake he was making.

  “I’ll warm us up something for lunch, if you want,” I said.

  After using the bathroom, I did just that. We sat at the table and stared out over the lake and ate in silence. Thick, meaningful silence. A silence that meant there were numerous conversations we needed to have, but in that moment, we didn’t possess the desire or wherewithal to have them.

  Finally, once our plates were empty, I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine. “I’m sorry I, um, bit you.”

  An eyebrow shot
up, and a cocky smile curled on his lip. “I’m not.” He laughed. “It was really hot.”

  My eyes darted away, and my hand retreated only a few inches before he reached out and caught it, squeezing it inside his strong fingers. Our eyes met and held.

  He swallowed and shook his head. “How can such a sweet and calm person like you have a gaze like that?”

  I frowned. “Like what?”

  He sobered, his focus dropping to the table. “Sometimes it feels like you can burn a hole right through me with your eyes. Like a magnifying glass in the sun zeroing in on a dried leaf.”

  I raised a brow. “Like Cyclops from the X-Men?”

  He laughed. “I meant on a figurative level. And I think you perfectly understood that.”

  I laughed. “Pari calls it my look. That night before I first went to your house she told me ‘don’t do the look.’”

  He frowned. “Did she think you’d scare me away?”

  I shrugged, remembering that night, remembering how simple and uncomplicated my life had been before I fell for him. Swallowing what felt like a mountain inside my throat, I took our plates to the sink, filling it partway with warm, soapy water.

  After a few minutes of being lost in his own world, staring at the glass table top, he also got up and followed me into the kitchen where I was cleaning off the plates with a sponge.

  He came up behind me, pressing his solid body against mine and reaching around me to take hold of my wrists. Instant desire flared in every corner of my body that I was aware of. My eyes drifted closed and I savored his touch. His fingers, as they lightly caressed the sensitive skin inside my wrist, the feel of his lips against my ear as he murmured to me.

  “Can’t risk you having another accident. It’s a pain to get you to stop bleeding.”

  My heart jumped at the feel of him against me, the sound of his hoarse whisper, the light touch of his hands as they cupped mine and guided them through the motions of washing the dishes and rinsing them. The feel of his warm skin against mine.

  This commonplace task that I did every day was now turned into something more. Something sensual and connected. My back shifted against him and my shoulder blades pressed into his hard pecs. I could’ve spent the rest of my days washing dishes if it was like this.

  I leaned my head against his shoulder and let out a contented sigh. “I just want to enjoy this moment. Be in this moment with you and not think about anything that happened before or what’s going to happen next.”

  There was a long pause as his hands on mine slowed. Then he turned off the faucet, grabbed the towel and slowly, attentively wiped my hands dry with the soft cloth as I relaxed against him and relied on his sturdy form to hold me up.

  Then his arms came around me, wrapping around my torso, holding me fast against him. His lips skimmed against my neck. “There’s only this moment, Gray. There’s only you and me.”

  He held me tight, and I kept my mind firmly grounded in the way it felt to be wrapped up by him.

  I hated him because he was giving himself to someone else instead of me. I hated him because of the hold he had over me when he touched me, when I smelled him. I hated him because he was so screwed up he didn’t know what he deserved and pushed away any chance at happiness.

  I hated him.

  And I loved him.

  Tears came. Leaking from my eyes silently. They came so easily now despite the old habits rising up in the back of my mind to try to suppress them. I fought to ignore those voices and let the tears flow. It was tougher than it should have been.

  He was kissing my neck and holding me tenderly, and I put those thoughts out of my head. I didn’t fret over yesterday, and I didn’t stress out about tomorrow.

  It was only today. It was only right now.

  Slowly, he turned me, still in his arms and I had no time to wipe those tears away. Two thin, salty streams cut paths down my cheeks and clung to my jaw. He dried them with his hands and kissed a trail down each cheek.

  I shivered in his arms, and a small sob sounded at the back of my throat.

  “Shh.” He kissed my temple and rocked me against him. We swayed in unison as if dancing to unheard music. As if dancing…

  To the persistent click of my heart.

  I buried my face in his shirt and inhaled. Soap and him. His smell. Warm awareness sluiced down my back like the spray of a comforting shower.

  We stood like that for a long time, just holding each other, swaying. And as I’d hoped, my thoughts narrowed down to this moment, to the awareness of only him and me. I was warm and melting against him. Every inch of my skin burned for him.

  And judging from the hard feel of his arousal pressed against my stomach, I knew he felt the same. I didn’t even have to ask.

  His arms tightened, and I pulled my head back to look into his face. “I want you,” I whispered.

  He smiled. “You want me? You want to ride on my Saturn V rocket all the way to the Moon?”

  I laughed—not just a little. Maybe it wasn’t the funniest joke, but it came at a moment when I needed to be reminded why we had so much fun together. He could always make me laugh. And I could do the same for him.

  “Yet another cheesy one-liner to add to the collection. Only a man like you would compare his equipment to the largest rocket ever to launch into space.”

  Now it was his turn to laugh and his arms gave another instinctive squeeze, as if his entire body was laughing, not just his eyes, not just his mouth or his throat.

  “Only a woman like you would get the joke.”

  Suddenly his mouth was on mine, and I wasn’t laughing anymore. He hitched me against him and I jumped, wrapping my legs around him and crossing my ankles at the small of his back.

  We kissed while he walked us into the living room, our tongues tangling desperately, speaking in a language that we couldn’t express any other way. A language that didn’t need words but communicated all the things we needed to say at that moment.

  He stopped walking when we hit the couch, releasing me so that I slid slowly down his body. He groaned roughly when I rubbed up against his prominent erection, and without hesitation, he reached out, snatched the bottom of my t-shirt and pulled it off of me in one swift move.

  So I returned the favor and pulled off his shirt—with a little help from him, given his height advantage over me. Next, he pushed down my yoga pants with no small urgency, then I pushed him onto the couch before he could do anything else. His eyes flew wide open when he landed, sitting on the couch, and I climbed into his lap, straddling him.

  He grabbed my butt and scooted me forward so that I was resting right on top of his erection with only the layer of his sweat pants between us. I ground my hips against him and his eyes glazed over.

  He cupped my breasts, rubbing his thumbs over my nipples until they stood, taut and peaked. Then he put them in his mouth, in turn, making me crazy with the attentions of his hot tongue. When he straightened, we sat for a long, tense moment imbued with anticipation. Nose to nose, we stared into each other’s eyes.

  “I don’t know how to make a moment last longer than it takes to pass,” he said. “But I know what a big memory is when I see it. And these moments will be a future beautiful memory for both of us.”

  I bent forward and kissed him, then pulled back. “There’s no future. Just now.”

  Pulling the waistband of his sweats down, I freed his cock, then carefully lowered myself onto him, with his large hands on my hips, guiding me.

  My movements were frantic, urgent at first. I couldn’t get enough of him, marveled at the feeling, every thrust, the sensation of him filling me up. The way we seemed to fit so perfectly. His hands tightened on my hips, slowing me down. And each of us jockeyed in that way for control.

  We were both breathing fast and with that slower pace, fell into a natural, intuitive rhythm. I hooked my fingers around the frame of the couch behind his shoulders to brace myself to move faster.

  It was a continuous struggle,
me wanting to move faster, to reach that relief, and him wanting it to last. But I took his advice and concentrated on the moment to make it a memory that I could savor later.

  When I came, he pulled me forward, locked his lips on mine and pressed a hand to the small of my back to hold me still. And it was mere moments before he came, too. I leaned forward, and he squeezed me tight in his arms as the skin of our chests, clammy with our mingled sweat, adhered to one another.

  For a long time, we just held each other like that. Fused together. Perhaps we were searching for more moments to collect and preserve and store away. If only we could keep them, like a snow globe we could shake to evoke this bubble in our own little world whenever we wanted to. Or maybe we were just procrastinating against the inevitable.

  Later, we caught our ride—a limo with all the windows blacked out—to the airport. I quietly held Ryan’s hand the entire way, but we didn’t talk. He was texting someone, presumably answering Karen from earlier in the weekend. I tried to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach and the burning curiosity about what he was saying to her.

  I had a few texts from my Dad’s assistant and some missed calls from the man himself. I’d been putting him off with claims of being sick or working. I knew I’d have to respond to these new inquiries soon.

  A text from Keely lit up my phone a few minutes later. She told me that that she’d made it clear to the press that she was nowhere near Tahoe by showing up on a very public shopping trip in Beverly Hills that morning with no ring on her finger. We were all off the hook.

  Our seats were a row away from each other on the short flight home, so we had no chance to speak. During the flight, Ryan had his head turned away from me and he barely moved, which told me he was likely napping.

  We returned to Long Beach—the airport from which we’d left on just the Friday before. But if felt like weeks had passed. So much had happened this weekend that my sense of time had folded in on itself. And the moment I’d been dreading was there before I knew it.

  Keely had sent a car to take me home, but Ryan had parked his car in the long-term parking lot, so we would not be traveling together from that point on. Generally, the paparazzi did not stalk this smaller airport looking for celebrities like they did LAX, but to be safe, Ryan pulled me toward a corner shrouded in shadow while the driver loaded my bag into the car and waited.