Page 14 of Edge of Ruin (The Edge Trilogy #3)

For a few breathless moments, we were face-to-face, staring at each other. My breasts brushed his chest. He touched my lips. Slid his finger into my hair.

And then he kissed me, deeply, hungrily.

It was an explosion of emotions, sensations, bursting into being from deep inside me.

Achingly sweet, and tinged with desperation, and there was something fierce mixed in too, something like anger, but brighter, hungrier.

Twisting, twining, growing. Demanding. I wound my arms around his neck and hung on, digging my fingers into those thick muscles.

He drew back for a moment, his eyes full of wonder. “You taste like mint,” he said huskily, and then that huge vortex sucked us back into another desperate, twining kiss.

Oh, wow. He was so beautiful this close up. His eyes, the incredible length of his wet black eyelashes. Water drops trickling along the crest of the graceful, angled sweep of his eyebrows.

His lips were hot and soft, as wonderful and kissable as I had imagined, and his breath tasted so sweet. His skin was so supple and beautiful, with that delicate rasp of beard shadow over strong, graceful bones and chiseled manly angles. So fine.

I was charged with emotions I did not recognize, but they impelled me to touch him, clutch him.

I explored his muscular back with my fingers, wound my arms around his neck, and opened to his kiss.

The opening came from somewhere deep inside me, someplace vast and beautiful.

A universe of bright, open space full of flowers.

I barely noticed the shoulder straps of my bathing suit being peeled down. I arched back, abandoning myself to his strong grasp, letting my head fall back and my hair float out in the water like a lily pad. I cried out with pleasure as he hungrily suckled my breasts.

So sweet, so shivering melting hot for him.

My nipples felt like points of glowing light.

My breasts had always felt so deplorably small, insignificant even, but under his hot mouth, they felt plumper, bigger and swollen with eagerness, alive to pleasure.

My whole chest was melting and soft, as if he drank some magic elixir from my body as he licked me, and the more he took, the more I had to give.

The breathless aching pull of wanting between my legs grew keener every moment.

Jack pulled me down onto his lap and slipped his finger under the stretchy fabric of my bathing suit, and made a low, growling sound of pleasure to find me slick and hot beneath it.

He slid the tip of his finger slowly inside me, and I squirmed, clenching around him, making a breathless, broken keening sound.

“Oh, wow,” he muttered as he caressed my mound with delighted fingers. “You’re completely ...”

“Yes,” I said. “No hair. I do a Brazilian wax whenever I get the chance. I tried it once on a dare. Realized that I like the way it feels. To be bare. It feels silky.”

“Yeah. I like it, too,” he said thickly. “Amazing.”

I hid my face against his neck, my breath jerking in short, hard sobs. My bathing suit was sinking to the bottom of the pool, forgotten. I had to slow this down.

“Um, Jack?” I faltered. “Wait. Just wait a second.”

“For what? I’ve never felt anyone so ready in my life.” He bent his head to my chest again, pulling my nipple into a wet, silken vortex of sensation, his hot tongue rasping, swirling.

“But I ... b-b-but I can’t?—”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be amazing.” He thrust a finger inside me, penetrating, pressing and swirling deep inside as he licked and lapped, and ah...

I cried out, arching back in his grasp as a totally unexpected climax flashed violently through me like a lightning storm.

When I opened my eyes, I was floating in his arms, staring up at the sky. My eyes were awash with tears.

Jack rose to his feet. Water sloshed and slopped as he hoisted me up and set me on the smooth rocks by the edge of the pool. The cool air felt delicious on my pink, overheated flesh. Heat steamed off my wet body. I felt poppy red, feverish, weak in the knees. Shockingly exposed.

He pressed my legs apart and stared down at my pussy. “Oh, yeah.” His voice was low and reverent. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

He pushed me gently back, until my back was pressed to the flat, sun-warmed rock, my legs spread wide. Laid out like a sacrifice on the altar of sexual misbehavior. Wide open to the sky. A warning to foolish, unwary girls.

But at least I wasn’t choking up or panicking, like I often had post-Brian, before I gave up on sex. It was magic. I couldn’t resist it. I felt so free.

“I knew that your pussy would be like this.” He kneeled down in the pool to get closer, and kissed the inside of my thigh. “Those dark red folds, bursting out like the petals of some fabulous hothouse flower. Fucking gorgeous.”

I laughed at him, chest jerking shakily. “You’ve got flowers on the brain, Jack.”

“No, actually.” His teeth flashed, in one of his rare, gorgeous grins. “I’ve got your pussy on the brain.” He nuzzled my labia, light kisses that promised and teased. “I was half expecting your clit to be pierced.”

I jerked up onto my elbows. “Hell, no! You wouldn’t ever catch me sticking a metal pin through the most nerve-dense part of my entire body!” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I bet you’re disappointed, right? That I’m not quite as wild and uninhibited as you’d fantasized?”

He played with my inner pussy lips, spreading them tenderly wide like butterfly wings, and the slow, ticklish caresses were driving me mad.

“Actually, no,” he said. “I’m relieved, to tell the truth. We’re on the same page about how we like to treat those nerve-dense parts of our bodies. That bodes well.”

“Yeah? For what?”

“Orgasms,” he said, and leaned down, pressed his lips against my clit, gently swirling his tongue, licking, flicking, and oh, God … he was so good.

I jerked helplessly against his face, overcome by the sensations, the wave of heat lifting me, but I wasn’t ready. It was too intense. I was scared to death as he kissed his way up over my mons, the tiny swatch of decorative red pubic hair, over my belly, my rib cage, my breasts.

“I want to lick your pussy until you’re a lake of lube,” he told me.

“Jack.” I grabbed his hair to hold him still. “Slow down. I don’t know if this is such a good?—”

“Of course it’s a good idea. The idea makes me practically explode. And besides, it’s practical, to make you wet.” He unwound my hands and sank down. “It’s going to be a tight fit.” He slid his tongue boldly between my pussy lips.

The rasp of his plundering tongue, his matter-of-fact words, the thought of him moving inside me, it all nudged me over the top, into a powerful climax.

I cried out as my pussy pulsed and clenched around his thrusting fingers, throbbed against his lashing tongue.

Long, sweet, echoing ripples went through me, on and on.

He pulled me back down into the pool after the spasms died down, and I rested there on his lap, in his arms as if I had no bones. He held me so that I was floating right over the thick, prominent jut of his erect cock against my thigh.

I lifted myself, trying to catch my breath. “Jack. I hate to say it, but we can’t do this now.”

He nuzzled her shoulder. “No?”

“No,” I said. “We have no latex.”

He dragged in a breath between his teeth. “Ah, yes. That.”

“I’m not on the pill. I don’t have a contraception device.

And we haven’t even discussed our sexual histories yet.

I’m sorry. I don’t know how I let things go so far.

” I couldn’t stop myself from apologizing, even though the situation was only halfway my fault.

“For the record, though, I’m fine, when it comes to that,” I offered. “No STDs.”

“Same for me,” he said.

“No lovers, either. For a really long time,” I added.

“I’m not surprised,” he replied. “You’re so tight. Tiny. Like a virgin.”

“But I’m not babyproof,” I said. “And I am not prepared to be a mother.”

He stared at the river. Wiped water off his face, expressionless. “It’s okay. I’ll live.”

His cool, indifferent tone made me feel punished.

“Besides, it’s just too soon for going all the way,” I went on.

“Call me silly and old-fashioned if you want, but I barely know you, and things are weird between us anyway. I just don’t want to give it all up to you if you just want to .

.. ah, I mean, if the relationship has no future. ”

His eyebrow tilted up. “I should think you would be good at those.”

I stiffened, suspicious. “What do you mean? Good at what?”

“Relationships with no future. What other kind could your type possibly have?”

I stared at him, utterly shocked, and then shoved him away from myself, my boneless languor gone. A wave of hot water splashed up into Jack’s chest and face.

“Well, fuck you too, Kendrick,” I said savagely, standing up.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“Oh, didn’t you? Hah! Want to know a fun fact, Kendrick?

A couple of minutes ago, I truly, sincerely wanted to suck your dick.

But you know what? I don’t want to suck your dick anymore.

Not even a little bit. Asshole.” I yanked my jeans up over my bare ass.

I couldn’t seem to make my trembling fingers work.

He got out of the pool and moved toward me, but I kept my red face averted. “Don’t touch me,” I snarled. “Keep your fucking distance.”

“Aw, shit,” he muttered. “What a mess.”

“Yes. Those are my feelings, exactly. I’ve known you for one single goddamn day, and every time you see me, you insult me, Kendrick.

I’m talking big, nasty, mortal insults. And it’s ten times worse when you seduce me first. You get me all worked up and loosey goosey, and bam, that’s when you really let me have it. Fucking sadist.”

“I didn’t mean to insult you. Nor did I succeed in seducing you, evidently.” He got up out of the pool, and I whipped my gaze swiftly away.

“Keep your back turned,” he growled. “I want to take this wet underwear off before I put on my jeans.”

“Do whatever the fuck you like,” I said. “I’m out of here.”

I made my way up the flower-lined, moss-choked streambed, with Edna bounding behind me.

I could barely see where I was going. Slowly, the path came back into focus for me, in reverse.

The cleft of rock I had to clamber past. The thicket of posion oak to walk carefully around, the tunnel of blackberry brambles to slither through.

Then it was back down to the riverbed, for the rock hopping part of the journey.

I was mortified. He melted me down, turned me into hot, syrupy goop, and then ka-pow, he made me feel cheap and easy for giving in to it.

To hell with him. It was a mistake I would not make again. I was swearing a holy vow to myself this time. That guy could go fuck himself.

My knee-jerk instinct was to gather up my stuff and my dog and get the hell out of there, but my van was still stuck, and Haupt and Snake Eyes were still out there, and besides, I had no place to go, except for all the way back to New York, to park on top of my sisters’ lives.

Once I had started planning my hideout in Kendrick’s flower bower, I had ceased to send in registration fees for upcoming crafts fairs, or to churn out new stock, so I couldn’t even do the craft fair circuit, at least not for a while.

Working the fairs took a certain amount of lead time and advance planning.

So even if my van was unstuck, if I left it would just be for aimless, money-draining, gas-guzzling wandering out on the road. And I would be too scared to stop. The gas would run out when the money did. And it wouldn’t take too damn long.

There I’d be, helpless and broke and alone. A sitting duck.

No. I was a grown-up. I’d already been through hell in my life as a kid, and I had come out battered, but okay, thanks to Lucia and my found sisters. I would not be chased away from this haven like a stray cat. My safety was more important than my poor little hurt feelings.

But neither would I play the nympho sex toy for that arrogant prick. Since that was clearly how he saw me. Thank God I hadn’t gone down on him. I’d be feeling ten times worse about everything if I had the taste of his come in my mouth.

I’d come so close, too. My mouth had been watering for it. Bad enough that he’d spent all that time with his face between my legs.

That took all the strength out of my wobbly legs. I sat down heavily on a rock. Clenching my thighs around hot, shuddering pulses of remembered pleasure.

Only the thought of Kendrick finding me there on his way back was scary enough to nudge me up off my ass and get me stumbling home.