Page 83 of Brazen Defiance (Brazen Boys #4)

Trips

I hear her words, but they don’t make sense through the haze I’m desperately fighting against. “What?” Reaching out, I grab her hand, needing to hold on to something outside of myself.

Her lips twist, something teasing, something challenging in her gaze. “If you catch me, you can fuck me.”

I blink down at her like an idiot. But then I’m nodding, agreeing without thinking about what she’s asking for. “Rules?” I ask, instead of questioning the mud that’s running my brain while my veins fill with flickering excitement.

“Anything goes. If either of us say ‘watermelon,’ the game stops. But otherwise…” She shrugs. “We just see what happens. If it goes well, we both win in the end.”

It’s enough for the haze to retreat a bit, excitement winning out over anger. “Five second head start,” I say, standing, letting go of her hand with reluctance. But her arms wrap around me, tight enough to force me into my body, the last of the anger burning away, want taking its place.

Then she’s gone, sprinting behind the waterfall. Numbers fall out of me as I strain to listen to her feet on the stone walkway, her sandals left beside me.

And when I get to five, I dash after her, taking the path to the right, her footsteps barely audible over the rumble of the waterfall. I sprint over the footbridge toward the orchid garden, knowing that it dead ends by a chaise lounge.

Sure enough, I round the bend and nearly plow into her, her flight stalled out by the end of the road. I snatch her around the middle, but she twists free, the training we did in Mexico leaving her slippery in my arms.

We grapple, her elbow getting me in the gut, her heel slamming into my calf, and I’m harder than I thought possible, her fight taking everything in me to contain. There’s no room for anything besides her warmth spinning out of my grasp and the need to take what she’s offered.

“Goddamn it, Crash,” I grumble as she breaks free again, her swimsuit coverup in my hands as she takes off for the footbridge behind me.

But two steps later I gather her to me, locking her arms down to her sides, and holding her at an awkward angle so her feet can only land glancing blows on my legs.

She yells in frustration, the sound causing the birds that always get stuck in here when we open the windows to chirp and flutter from nearby trees.

Her body goes slack, her arms trembling as I toss her onto the chaise. She yells again, kicking out, and I flip her onto her stomach, and slap her ass, the snap of it just as delicious as I’d always imagined.

She gasps, then squirms, so I take the cover-up and tie her wrists together, then latch them to the leg of the chaise, yanking it taut with a tug of her waist, her feet flying backward, one catching my ribs.

It hurts like a bitch, so I slap her ass again, her gasp this time followed by a slight shift of her hips, silently asking for more.

“You’re caught. No escape.”

A slight shiver follows my words, the weight of my hand on the small of her back, my knees forcing her legs wider than should be comfortable, keeping her from turning to see the way I’m grinning.

“No,” she yells, bucking under me, and I freeze, not sure if this is part of the game, too. She screams again, then goes fully slack beneath me.

Scrambling off her, I reach to untie her hands, only to find her grinning up at me. Rolling from the chaise, her hands still tied, she spins, nipping at my chest as she tries to escape past me.

“You little fucking cheater,” I say, snatching her against me, flopping us both onto the chaise.

She laughs, and it’s been so long since I heard that sound it almost pushes me out of the moment, but the way she shifts against my cock brings me right back to it. “Anything goes, Grumpy,” she says, still struggling.

Instead of answering, I reach down and dig my fingers into the fabric at the crotch of her swimsuit, the material tearing around my knuckles.

A few more tugs and the elastic snaps up her, a thin red line left on one side of her smooth stomach.

She hisses at the sting, and one glance at her half-glazed eyes tells me all I need to know about this girl and a touch of pain.

She said she didn’t like it gentle. It turns out that was her being circumspect.

Shoving my shorts and underwear down, my dick already weeping, she blinks through her arousal, licking her lips.

“I want a taste,” she says, her voice lower than usual.

“No. Good girls get to taste, and you’re anything but good.”

She glares at me, and I grin, raising a brow, wanting to see what she does.

“Fuck you,” she says, squirming against the knots at her wrists, but not fighting, not anymore.

I flip her back to her stomach and give three sharp smacks against her now bare ass, then run my fingers along her slit, finding her so fucking drenched I groan. “Shit, girl.”

“Trips,” she says squirming, a demand in her voice if not her actions.

Two more smacks have her moaning, arms straining against their restraint.

“Trips,” she breathes, more of a panted murmur than a demand.

“What? You think you deserve my cock?”

She gets her knees under herself, and tilts her hips up to me, and it’s my turn to moan. “Shit,” I mutter, my cock straining for her in my hand.

“Please,” she breathes, and I can’t say no to this.

To her.

The first inch is deliciously wet, hot and trembling, whether her or me, I don’t even know. But it makes my ears ring the farther I sink into her. And when I finally slide in that last inch, my balls swinging to bump against her clit, she lets out a whine that has my grip tightening on her hips.

“Fuck me,” she demands when I just stay there, trying to absorb the feeling of her. In response, she gets two more smacks, and she clenches around me, her body begging better than her mouth can.

“You lost, so you have to fucking wait,” I answer.

“I let you win,” she says.

I pull out and slam back in, both of us groaning. “Like hell you did.”

Starting a vicious rhythm, dragging her back as I drive forward, a gasping squeak at every impact urging me faster, harder, we create something so violently perfect I couldn’t imagine a moment like this with anyone else.

Reaching around, I gather some of the wetness that’s practically weeping from her and circle her clit, a chant of ‘shit, shit, shit,’ falling from her lips like a prayer.

Then everything in her grows so goddamn tight that I know I’m not lasting any longer than she is. Sure enough, she comes with a yell that competes with my own, my vision flashing white as pleasure barrels through me, so all-encompassing I’m not even sure I’m still alive.

The thundering of my heart is the only hint I am. That and the way my balls are being sucked dry by her continued clenching spasms. “Fuck,” I mutter, dropping my forehead to her back, the fabric of her swimsuit bunched up by my chin, my shorts still halfway down my legs. “Fuck.”

When I finally slip free, she spins, her arms wrapping around my shoulders, forcing my weight on top of her.

“Wait—” I say, my brain not ready for words, but still with it enough to know she was tied up a moment ago.

“Told you I let you win,” she says, her nails trailing down my spine.

“Brat.”

“Better than the perfect little good girl.”

The bitterness in her voice drags me from my pending post-nut nap. Cradling her face in one palm, her skin so damn soft that I just want to pet her, I wait for her to explain.

“That’s what I thought I was. Or what I wanted. I wanted to be perfect. Good. And I never was, not really.”

“You’re not a bad person, Clara.”

Her lips twist, and I give into the urge to kiss them straight again. “You’re not.”

“I’m not good either.”

“Tell me, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

“You know everything that I’ve done, everything that’s brought me here.”

“And you think that makes you bad?”

She shrugs, and if I were riding less of an orgasm high, I’d shake her.

“What about me?”

The look she gives me would hurt if I didn’t know she’s not judging me, just trying to figure out why I asked. “No, you’re not bad. You’re a good guy who’s been stuck in a world that doesn’t let you be that guy. A good guy who has to do bad things.”

It’s my turn to disagree. “You’re wrong.

I almost killed you, Clara. That was all me.

Fuck, I killed some guy with a wife at home because my father pointed and said ‘go’ just a few weeks ago.

I’m not the good guy you wish I were. The good guy I could have been has been dead for long enough that I can’t even remember what it felt like to be him.

I’m not good. But I’m not all bad either.

You better than anyone should know that shit’s a spectrum, not a dichotomy. ”

“The law would say it’s a dichotomy.”

“Good thing we don’t follow the law.”

This startles a laugh out of her, some of the pain leaving her face. She flings off the remains of her suit, then tugs me back against her, the flowery scent of her surrounding me as I take this tiny respite from the shit we’re currently mired in, the heat of her skin against mine heaven.

We’ve earned it.

And if she wants a rematch, I’m more than game to let her win any day.