Southern Heartbreaker: A Charleston Heat Novel

by Peterson, Jessica

  The next thing I know, the boat rocks, and I turn to see Eva leaping into the water. Arms above her head, knees bent. A huge smile on her face.

  I don’t hesitate. I jump right in after her, careful to land a few feet away. The water is refreshingly—surprisingly—cool. It’s a welcome distraction from the needier sensations ricocheting inside my skin.

  When I come up for air, something catches on my ear.

  A string.

  My eyes flying open, I grab at it. My fingers only find more strings. A patch of fabric.

  Looking down, I see that it’s Eva’s bikini top.

  Her bikini top is in my hand.

  Which means it is not on Eva.

  Desire slices through my core, gathering in the head of my dick.

  Speaking of my dick—it presses against the front of my shorts, needy and huge despite the temperature of the water.

  Looking up, I see Eva treading water two feet away, lips twitching into a mischievous smile.

  “Promise I didn’t do that on purpose,” she says. “I forgot how easily the damn thing comes off.”

  Jesus fuck.

  Jesus fuck, y’all.

  The idea that she’s ninety-seven percent naked underneath the water—

  That she doesn’t seem to mind that she’s ninety-seven percent naked—

  That she actually appears to be enjoying it—

  “You’re not getting it back,” I say definitively, recklessly, balling the fabric up in my fist.

  “Am I gonna have to fight you for it?”

  I hold it up above my head, kicking to stay upright. Praying she takes the bait. “Yup.”

  “Challenge accepted.”

  She launches herself at me, but I’m prepared. I hold my fist high while she loops her arms around my neck, plastering her body against mine while she tries to reach for my hand.

  One thing I’m not prepared for? The feel of her bare tits pressed against my chest. Her nipples are pebbled to fine points, and they glide over my skin with erotic ease. She’s slippery and soft and she’s climbing me like a goddamn tree.

  Lordy. I’m sporting the biggest erection on earth. She’d have to be dead not to feel it.

  “I’m sorry,” I say gruffly, letting my arm fall a bit.

  “For stealing my bikini top?”

  “Not for that. For—well—” I glance down.

  “Oh.” She pauses. Rolls her hips against my pelvis. “Oh.”

  “Look, I don’t mean—I’m not—we don’t—fuck.”

  I growl in frustration at my inability to form a coherent thought or sentence.

  I do not get flustered. Ever. Not while closing multi-million-dollar deals, and not while interacting with women. Yet here I am, sputtering for words. For breath.

  “Ford.”

  I can’t look at her. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

  “Ford—”

  “I promise I can control myself. I just—”

  “Ford.” She grabs my face in her hands. Forces me to meet her eyes. “I don’t need you to control yourself with me.”

  I search her gaze. The thud of heartbeats and the taste of salt water between us. I see need in her eyes. Soft and fiery, all at once.

  Just sex. Sex I can do.

  “You’d better fucking mean that,” I say.

  “I do.”

  “Say it again. I want to hear it.”

  “I don’t want you to control yourself with me, Ford. How much did I like it when you let loose on Friday? I definitely didn’t feel uncomfortable then.”

  She’s curious. Same as I am.

  Curious to know if it’s going to go down. If it’s going to be as good as it was when we were nineteen and everything was new and romantic and impossibly, overwhelmingly sweet.

  Eva wraps her legs around my waist. Her eyes on mine, steady and sure. Pressing her center to my center. The length of my dick pressing up against her warmth, our bodies separated by two flimsy—wet—pieces of fabric.

  My mouth falls open at the shock of sensation.

  It feels so good—I want her so bad—

  “Eva,” I say gruffly. I drop my arm and curl my fingers, still tangled in her bikini top, around the nape of her neck.

  “Yeah?” she replies, breathless. Touching her forehead to mine. Lips half an inch away.

  “You gonna let me touch you? The way I want?”

  She nods. My cock throbs.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Eva

  Don’t don’t don’t.

  Yes yes yes.

  I can’t tell what my heart is saying as it pounds against my breastbone. Filling my ears, my skin, my lips with one relentless rush of blood after another.

  My lips. My God.

  They want this man, same as my body wants him. Craves him.

  Ford’s eyes are on my mouth. My eyes. Back to my mouth.

  He’s huge and he’s holding me up. I trust him to hold me and he does, biceps flexing against my bare back. My nipples are squished against the wall of muscle that is his chest. His cock—gah, no wonder I was addicted to it in college—nudges against my pussy in the most delicious, most maddening way imaginable. It feels so damn good being in his arms again.

  Everything about today feels good.

  This is lust. Sure. But there’s an and floating to the surface too.

  Lust and.

  And what? I don’t know.

  I just know this man makes me feel things I haven’t felt in a very long time.

  Confident. Inspired. Safe.

  Safe, not in the sense that everything is going to be okay. But safe in the sense that I’ll be okay even if everything else isn’t. His steadiness, his quiet confidence, is a much needed reminder of the steadiness I have inside myself.

  I’ve fucked up before. I’ve failed. But I’ve lived to tell the tale.

  Same as I’ll live if I hook up with Ford right now and it doesn’t end well.

  But who’s to say that will happen? He isn’t asking anything of me, except to let him touch me the way he wants. That I can do. Easily.

  Gladly. I wouldn’t say I’m starved for sex, but I haven’t felt electricity like this—attraction like this—in years. The kind that makes you ache everywhere. An ache that wraps around your bones, that you feel inside your skin.

  And I told Ford on the ride to the marina exactly why this could never be a long term thing. We want different things. We lead completely different lives. Which means that, like my cookbook, this fling has a deadline. Maybe I’ll disappoint him a little, maybe he’ll disappoint me. But hearts won’t get broken.

  Our hearts will be safe. His heart will be safe. Because even after all this time, and even after the way he hurt me, I hate the thought of hurting this beautiful, tender, insanely excellent boy.

  I go in for the kill.

  I nudge my nose against his and then I kiss him. He groans, his mouth immediately, hungrily opening to mine. His lips and tongue are a deliciously warm counterpoint to the temperature of the water around us. He tastes like salt. Heat.

  He licks inside my mouth with his tongue. Slow and languid. He tightens the arm he’s got curled around my waist and gently begins to guide me up, then down, then side to side, so that I’m grinding against his dick while he tugs my bottom lip between his teeth.

  Friction builds between my legs. The head of his dick hits my clit, once, twice, three times, and I bite down on his tongue, rolling my hips, seeking more.

  I want more. Always.

  I try to move faster—lust, let’s keep it at lust—but he tightens his grip on me, controlling our motion. Forcing me to slow down.

  Forcing me to savor him. Which is terrifying. And wonderful.

  So wonderful I allow it.

  We kiss, long and slow. The fire in my core building with every lick, every groan. He pulls at me, pulls and asks and takes, and I give. I want to tear these bikini bottoms off so I can feel him.

  So he can fuck me.

 
I want to be underneath him. Crushed by his weight. The heaviness between my legs is starting to hurt, and I need relief.

  The water moves around us. We rise on the crest of the wave, fall back down. Sprays of salty water land on my face. I feel my skin growing hot beneath the glare of the sun; the backs of my closed lids burn red to pink.

  Ford must sense my rising need, because he breaks the kiss. Trails his mouth down my jaw to my throat. He presses a lingering kiss there, nipping at my skin with his teeth. I inhale sharply, the firm points of my nipples ringing with a new shock of sensation.

  “Let’s get back on the boat,” he murmurs, his thumb working a lazy circle on the back of my neck. “I want to see you. Then I wanna make you come.”

  I’m so turned on—my brain so muddled—I can barely form a coherent reply. So I go with something lame.

  “I’m cool with that.” My voice shakes. Not with fear but with need.

  My legs shake, too, as I breast-stroke to the boat. Ford stays half a length behind me. Ever the protector.

  He pulls down the ladder, and I feel his eyes on me as I hoist myself up onto the boat.

  I keep my eyes on him as he pulls himself up, the boat ducking beneath his weight. He never was a small guy.

  I just stare.

  Arm muscles that bulge against tattooed skin. I notice an especially appealing vein that snakes up his forearm to his bicep.

  Water sluicing down the barrel of his chest, the flat, firm slope of his belly.

  The way he runs a hand through his wet hair, slicking it back.

  The very obvious erection tenting his board shorts. The fabric is plastered to his considerable length, leaving little to the imagination.

  My mouth waters.

  My pussy throbs.

  He looks up from shaking the water off his legs and drinks me in. This heated, appreciative, downright worshipful perusal from head to toe and back again. Eyes catching on my tits. Then my face.

  His Adam’s apple bobs.

  “You’re just right,” he says roughly. “Eva, you are so damn right, baby.”

  My hand moves to the tie at my hip holding my bottoms together. “Dare me?”

  He glances out over the water. “What if someone passes by? Sees us? Let’s go below deck—there’s a bed down there—”

  “What if they do? See us? So what?”

  Ford’s eyes move to my tits again. “What if I want you all to myself?”

  I give the string a tug. I move to the other hip and tug the knot loose there, too.

  My bathing suit falls in a stringy pile at my feet.

  “I’m all yours, Ford.”

  His gaze rakes down my body to land on my pussy. I don’t wax, but I do trim and shave. Today I chose a fun little landing strip, just in case something like this went down.

  Judging by Ford’s reaction, he does not mind it. Not one bit. His nostrils flare. Eyes wild, a little unfocused.

  He looks back up. Looks at me for a long beat. Chest rising and falling as he gulps for air.

  “You said you needed to have more fun.” I reach down and nudge my lips open with my first finger. “So let’s have some fun. I promise it will be okay.”

  “Jesus Christ, Eva.” He spears a hand through his hair. Then: “Fuck it.”

  He lunges toward me.

  Literally lunges. The sinews in his neck and shoulders pulled taut as he comes for me. I laugh. A laugh that catches when my finger meets with my clit.

  Without preamble, he grabs the backs of my thighs in his enormous hands and lifts me, tossing me onto—I don’t know what it is, some kind of raised platform, a sunbathing deck maybe. This boat is even more ridiculous than I thought.

  We’re in direct sun, which Ford blocks with the bulk of his body when he moves to stand between my legs. I’m lying flat on my back, helpless, while he towers over me. Drops of water drip from his torso onto my legs.

  The vinyl is hot against my skin. A burn that heightens the one in my core.

  Ford runs his hands up my sides, sensation rippling through me at his touch. Gathering my breasts in his hands, he gives them a firm caress. Gathers my nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and rolls them. Plucks them. Plays with them just the way I like, making my clit pulse.

  “Ford,” I breathe, reaching for him. “Yeah. Yes. This, all day long.”

  His lips twitch as he flicks the pads of his thumbs over my nipples. Eyes on mine, witness to my rising need.

  “You hold nothing back,” he says. “Ever. I like that about you, baby. So much.”

  I run my fingers up his arm. He’s hard everywhere. Strength and certainty mixed with this cocky calm I find incredibly arousing.

  Leaning down, he kisses my mouth. Then he trails his lips down my throat, nicking me with his teeth along the way, until he takes one nipple, then the other, into his mouth. Patiently sipping each one to an aching point. His scruff catching on my skin.

  I arch against him. Fingers gliding into his wet hair.

  He reaches for my knees and bends them, guiding them up to my chest. Spreading me open.

  When he moves his mouth to my belly, my arousal spikes, spearing me straight through my core. He moves farther south. Farther.

  Ford is going to eat me out.

  He was always really, really fucking good at oral. To the point that I may have gotten the teensiest bit addicted to it. No one I’ve ever been with since holds a candle to Ford’s skill. A lot of guys seem to want to rush it. Get it over with.

  Not Ford. He took his time. Got to know my pussy. My sighs. What I liked and what I didn’t. He was adventurous and generous.

  The idea that I’m about to experience that all again makes me so happy and so turned on I could cry.

  “Oh, God,” I moan. Loud and shameless. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” he says with a smile. He looks at me. Looks at my pussy. His smile contracts. “Baby. Baby. I don’t even need to touch you to know that you’re wet.”

  “I think,” I manage, “I think I’ve been this way since Friday night. I’ve tried to take care of it myself. But, as you like to say, more hands are better when it comes to boxes, so…”

  “Hands.” He ducks his head and gives my pussy a long, lingering lick, deep and patient and ohmigod so good. Back to front. “Tongues. Gracious, I almost forgot how fun it is to play with you.”

  He reaches down and runs his thumbs down the insides of my lips. Back up again. “Oh yeah. Wet. So fucking wet, Eva. I love it. Everything about your body—how responsive you are. The feel of you. How unafraid you are. Unapologetic. I have so much to learn from you, sweet girl.”

  Something inside my chest lifts. This man—the guy who runs a company and a family and is clearly successful at both—wants to learn from me? A writer-slash-pit-master who’s feeling all kinds of lost right now?

  Strangely enough, though, I believe him. I believe he wants to learn. Back in college, our relationship was very much one of equals. Talking with him, being with him, always made me feel competent. Capable. He was competence porn: Exhibit A, but so was I.

  In his eyes, I could do no wrong. When we first started dating, at least.

  And that’s how I feel right now. Laid out by his touch, his faith. I am fucked up, I am struggling, but I am going to be okay.

  I’m doing better than I think.

  I want to bask in this feeling forever.

  I’m rolling my hips against his touch now. He’s ducking down again, tasting me. Dipping the tip of one thumb inside me while he runs his tongue over my clit. He reaches up and rubs the moisture of that thumb over my nipple. It’s hot and it’s lewd and he’s got this wolfish look in his eyes when it does it.

  I’m blinded. By the sun. By him. By the spiraling heaviness building between my legs.

  He kisses my pussy. Just the right amount of lips and tongue and movement. He circles my clit with his tongue, nice and slow, and my eyes flutter shut, the muscles in my stomach contracting a
s I struggle to catch my breath.

  I’m on fire. Everywhere.

  And I surrender to it. No hesitation.

  My feet find his shoulders. He glides his hands up my shins, his grip firm. Familiar.

  He’s touching me everywhere. He’s got me pinned, he’s got me helpless and writhing and smiling.

  Ford looks up at me from between my legs. He smiles, too, playful and sweet. I tug on his hair. He tugs on my clit, gently, with his teeth.

  Being adored like this, known like this, is joyful in ways I can’t put into words.

  “Perfect,” I breathe. “I love everything about this.”

  My orgasm is close. When he rolls his thumbs over my clit, his tongue licking inside me, I see stars.

  “Ford—”

  “On your knees,” he growls, giving my pussy one last, quick lick before straightening. My body cries out at the loss of his touch.

  I blink. “What?”

  He’s working at the tie of his bathing suit with swift, sure fingers.

  “You heard me. I want you to get on your knees and put my dick in your mouth.”

  “But I’m—”

  “Remember how good it would be?” He looks at me. “When I’d make you wait?”

  I swallow. I do remember. Edging was one of Ford’s kinks. He loved bringing me to the brink and then pulling back. Teasing. He’d keep me on the precipice for whole minutes until I’d beg for relief.

  When I finally did come, it was always explosive. The orgasms this guy gave me were the stuff of legend.

  I would very much like one now.

  I’m so close to coming that I’m shaking.

  Ford shucks off his shorts, stepping out of them. His cock bobs between his legs. Proud and thick and long. Big enough to satisfy.

  Big enough to hurt.

  “Oh Lord,” I say, and he laughs, taking his length in his hand.

  “Don’t lie to me, E. You want it. And I want it in the back of your throat.”

  His turn to issue a challenge. He looks at me for a beat, eyes flashing.

  “Knees,” he repeats, taking a step back. Dick still in his hand.

  I sit up. Look at him. Letting my legs fall open. Part of me wants to ask him to fuck me.