Page 12

?

?

SADIE

The heat of his lips glances across mine. Floating outside my body, I dare to run my finger under his jaw and strain my head back for a kiss.

“What was that?”

I go from being surrounded by a man to cold night air.

Blinking in shock at the lack of him roving down my dress, I twist in my seat.

Aubry’s perched on the edge of the water staring down into the valley.

The easy tenderness of his body has snapped into a brittle bar of iron.

He looks about to challenge the whole of the earth to a fight.

Another howl cuts the air. He yanks his head up, hunting for it. “There it is again. Sounds like someone’s nails are being ripped out.”

Weirdly specific analogy, but I know exactly what it is. And he doesn’t. I walk across the lawn, doing my best in the grass with my heels, but it’s not easy going. He’s resumed his pacing, his hand clenching as if he expects to put something in it. “Aubry…”

Damn it. I kick off my heels and reach him just as he stops pacing.

“If this is their idea of a—”

I brush his shoulder, and he spins around. His dark eyes burn in the shadows, the glow of the pool light reflecting a purple haze deep within. The arms of his shirt strain, molding with his hard biceps and the buttons look about to break.

In my calmest voice, I tell him, “It’s coyotes.”

“Coyotes?” He gulps as if he really feared someone was being tortured out there. And he was going to rush to her aid, dangerous men be damned.

“Every autumn they hang out in the valley. You can hear them howling from miles away.”

Aubry takes a deep breath. His fists open and he stares back into the speckled lights of Loomis. “Coyotes.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard them.”

“I spend most of my nights…” He gulps then glances my way. Fiddling with his fingers, he hunches his shoulders and stops talking.

“Most of your nights what?”

Fucking so hard you can’t hear the howls over her screams?

“Oh, you know… Doing things.”

My god, is he blushing? Did this gigantic bull of a man go from ‘I will thrash a dozen men’ to ‘awkward nerd’ in two point five seconds?

I cannot let this go.

“What kind of things?” I ask, damn near purring while I trace my finger down his forearm. As I go, the terrain hardens, veins rising in his hand until they look purple under his soft brown skin. “Fun things?”

His lips part, a slow breath tumbling out. “Very much so.”

“Do you use this hand…?” I ask, skirting my nail off of his sleeve and down his pointer finger.

A deep chuckle rises from him. “Sometimes, I use both.”

Holy shit. I hoped when he was pressing against me before he wasn’t hiding a bottle of banana sauce in his pants.

Aubry fans his fingers out then takes mine. Extending my arm down, he leans over me, his lips almost on my ear. “Every night, in bed. Alone. I sit back on my pillows, open my phone, and…”

Yes. Tell me every dirty thing you do to yourself. Let me soak in the tub for years remembering you stroking yourself until I’m eighty.

“Watch The Office until one in the morning.”

What?

He’s snickering, proud of himself for that joke. Oh yeah, well…

My hands move before my brain realizes what they’re up to. I’m maybe three-quarters of his size, but when my palms slap onto his side and push—he gives.

He doesn’t just give, he tumbles…into the river moat.

Serves him right for stringing me along like that. I start to smile when the falling Aubry cries out, “I can’t swim.”

What!

He stumbles backward into the water, his face plummeting below the blue surface. I don’t think at all. One-second I’m standing on the grass, the next I’m leaping feet-first into the river. Cold shocks my bare legs. The water snatches my dress and balloons it out as I sink down to save Aubry.

“I’m coming!” I shout, chest in and prepared to go under.

Wait a second.

I bounce my knees realizing my feet are on solid ground.

“Ah ha!”

The water bursts, Aubry emerging like a vengeful sea monster.

I grit my teeth, ready to be angry at him.

Light catches on his body. His shirt is soaked to abs, pecs, and other muscles I can’t name but want to lick.

He’s torn open two buttons, exposing more of his chest that glitters from water droplets.

With a shake, he slicks his hands back through his hair, his eyes closed as he bathes in the moonlight.

If that’s a sea monster, throw me in the ocean.

Aubry drops his arm, his hip cocked so he looks like a swimsuit model in a wetsuit contest. “You jumped in to save me.”

“You said you can’t swim. You lied.”

He smiles at that, as if he loves being called out. “You did push me.”

“Because you didn’t… You made me think—”

“What?” he asks so innocently, I question everything. Not just if he was leading me on, but the whole night. Was every innuendo just a misunderstanding? Am I really only here for dinner?

Aubry’s gaze lowers from my burning and babbling face. As he traces down my chest heaving with a mess of goosebumps, my nipples straining in the cold, and my dress plastered to my skin—he licks the edge of his lips.

“Did I make you think…?” He wades closer, and I’m spellbound.

A butterfly pinned to a board, a nail hammered into a wall, a horny moth about to go up in flames.

Aubry pauses just before touching me, the waves of our bodies stilling until I can see my toes in the water. And the rising bulge in his pants.

His body eclipses the lights of the valley, the moon, the stars. I’m swallowed in his darkness, and I start to tremble. “…that I spend my nights in bed or the shower...?”

A glimmer catches on his lips as he smirks. “…cock in hand?”

Only a strangled yelp slips from me. Yes, that’s what I thought and what I want to think about, but now that he’s said it I’m burning inside out.

Aubry leans down, a tower folding around me. I gaze up into his eyes, watching them gleam as he holds me without a touch. “Do you want to know what I think about as I stroke myself?”

I swallow deep, trying to not vibrate into another plane of existence from panicking horniness. “Yes?”

“Girls with thick thighs squeezing my head. Breasts flowing out of my hand as she rides on top of me. Soft bellies that sway as I fuck her on all fours.”

Fingers brush against my shoulder. I barely glance away from his eyes, terrified that this is all a dream that’s about to end. Aubry teases with my strap, running his finger under it. He presses his forehead to mine and whispers. “You in a white dress…soaked to your luscious body.”

Leaping onto my toes, I grab him by his thick hair, and pull his lips to mine.

Heat zaps down my body turning the cold river into a Jacuzzi.

The taste of something both familiar and forbidden dances not on my tongue but in my brain.

I shouldn’t have him, but I do, and I won’t let him escape.

I chase after his soft lips, begging for more.

More, more, more.

A craving beats through my skull. I want to devour him. I must have him.

All of him.

Now.

Hands take me by the waist, and I fly through the air. “Sadie,” he moans, catching me by my ass. One hand palms the whole cheek before gliding up my thigh, clenching both my legs around his hips.

Panting, Aubry pulls back from the kiss. His eyes burn in the starlight. “I want to fuck you hard, then soft, then as hard as you can take…all night long.”

Damn.

I open my mouth, struggling to form a word. Any word. Even a head bob will do. He’s staring at me, his bulge pressing into my drenched panties, every second agonizing the both of us.

A single, guttural sound slips out.

“Is that what you want?” he asks as if he’s about to swipe all he offered off the table.

I’m overwhelmed, my overstimulated brain locking up as it keeps playing through every option but the way forward. I twist the button on his shirt, gazing into his eyes as I pant for air.

A breathy, nearly soundless, “Yes,” casts on the wind.

“What was that?” he demands, the voice as rigid as the cock trying to fuck me through two sets of clothing.

His button hits the water with a splat. Rather than stare at what I accidentally tore off, I rake my nails down his exposed skin. “Please,” I whimper.

A single, low chuckle is his answer.

We emerge from the water like the sea monster with his bride.

No, not the coquette one who faints. The one that pulls on his tentacles and demands to feel the flutter of his gills on her pussy.

Cold burns into my skin through the dress drenched to my body, but it’s only for a second.

Aubry’s lips meet the goosebumps, kissing them away as he nuzzles down my neck.

I pull on his shirt, worrying it partly off of his shoulders. My ride is rather unsteady, swerving back and forth as he hunts for somewhere to fuck me. “Where’s the bedroom in this place?” I ask.

He doesn’t even glance back to the mansion with a dozen bedrooms. A grunt ripples his lips, exposing his canines. “Too far,” Aubry declares and he takes off.

I’m drowning myself in him. His scent is so green it makes me feel like a fairy princess wandering in a meadow. And the taste is… I keep going back for more, sucking on his earlobe and nipping down his jaw. A hint of scruff catches on my tongue as I bite my way toward his chin.

Fabric crinkles around me. I fall back onto the outdoor couch, prepared to give my best bedroom eyes.

“Ah!” I gasp. My wet, frozen dress presses into my skin. The shivering is instant.

“Are you cold?” he asks. Before I can answer, he presses a button and blue fire bursts to life in the center of the square coffee table. The light catches on Aubry’s skin, flicking him with an indigo glow.

Bending down to me, he brushes his palm over my chest. First across the bare part, fingers gliding around my skin. Then he reaches the little bow that does nothing to contain me and gives it a pull.