Page 26 of Stick Break (Boston Bucks #8)
He lifts his gaze, a grin tugging at his mouth. “I haven’t thought straight since I found Goldilocks in my bed.”
I let out a surprised, throaty laugh and reach down between us, wrapping my fingers around his thick cock. He groans the moment I stroke him, my thumb gliding through the bead of pre-cum at the tip.
“I’ve been a mess,” I whisper, “Ever since I realized the name Big Bear had more than one meaning.”
That grin turns downright wicked. But there’s heat behind it. He shifts, moving his body between my thighs. With a hand on my hip, he inches a finger inside me, his voice gone low and rough. “You need this?”
“No,” I say softly. “I need you .”
And something in him changes. The cocky smirk fades, replaced by something infinitely more tender. Vulnerable. Real.
“I need you too, Charley,” he says, the words thick with meaning, no teasing in sight.
Then he lowers himself onto the bed, flattening out beside me. His hand curls around my thigh and he gives a firm tug, pulling me until I’m flat on my back and spread for him. My breath catches, and then?—
His mouth is onme.
His tongue finds my clit with practiced ease, with heat and…hunger. I cry out, my body arching. My hands dive into his wet hair, fingers threading through the strands as I hold him to me like a lifeline.
Because somehow, somewhere along the way, this man became exactly that.
How did this happen so fast?
His head moves in slow, devastating rhythms, his tongue drawing circles and his fingers slipping inside me like he was made for it. I can’t think. I can barely breathe. All I can do is feel.
“Yes,” I cry out, lost in the sensation, in the way his mouth works me like a symphony he’s been dying to play. I give myself over completely. To him. To this. To everything I thought I’d lost—the chance to trust someone, towant someone, without fear.
Because with Rip, it’s there. That invisible tether. Trust. Maybe it’s because we’re both hiding, and somehow in our hiding from the world, we don’t have to hide from each other.
In no time at all, my body breaks. Using his mouth, his fingers, Rip wrings an orgasm from me so powerful it feels like he’s tapping into something deeper than nerves and flesh. It’s soul deep. Bone-deep. I cry out, unable to hold it in, as every muscle in my body goes taut.
“Rip…yes…God, that?—”
The words tumble out, fractured and unfiltered, until I realize I’m not even making sense. I shut my mouth, but not my eyes. I keep them open, locked on his, needing him to see what he’s doing to me.
His lips are glistening, his face flushed with hunger and satisfaction, and he looks like he’s on the edge of unraveling just from watching me fall apart. Like my pleasure is his own. And somehow, I believe it is.
As the last tremors fade and my body slumps into the mattress, he shifts beside me. I reach for him instinctively, my palm sliding over the warm plane of his back, needing the contact. Needing him.
He leans forward, opens the nightstand drawer, and pulls out a box of condoms. I watch as he tears it open, focused and determined, and that’s when I reach out and gently take the foil packet from his hand.
He pauses. “What are you doing?”
I meet his eyes, heart pounding, not from fear, but from this. From trust, and risk, and the truth of what we’re about to share.
“Trust is hard for me, Rip.”
His brow softens. His voice follows. “Yeah, babe. I get that. Trust is hard for me too. But I’m still going to suit up. You can trust me on that.”
God, the way he says it. Soft but strong. Like a promise. My chest aches.
“Trust is hard for you too, isn’t it,” I whisper.
He runs his hand through his wet hair, the motion rough, like he's trying to scrub the truth out of himself. “Yeah.” And somehow, I feel it. His pain. Just like I think he feels mine. The invisible thread between us tugs tighter.
“I’m on the pill,” I say, voice soft but sure.
He blinks. Once. Twice. “Wait. You mean… we could’ve done this last night?”
That earns a small, laugh from me, even as something tender unfurls in my chest. “Do you usually have sex without a condom?”
“Never. You?”
“I was in a long-term relationship.”
He nods. And something shifts in his expression. The reminder of someone else touching me clearly doesn’t sit well. And I get it. I don’t want to picture anyone before me, either. Not when this feels like more than just sex. Like something we're building, even if we know it won’t last.
“I’m not saying that to make it weird,” I say, reaching out to lay a hand on his arm. His muscles twitch beneath my touch. “I’m saying it because… I want to feel you. All of you.”
His eyes meet mine, the intensity in them nearly knocking the air from my lungs. “I want that too.”
“Without a condom.”
Rip draws in a ragged breath and drags his hand through his hair again. His chest rises and falls in a rhythm that’s all nerves and desire. His eyes darken with heat and something else I can’t quite name.
“Are you sure, Char?” he asks, voice rough, shaky. “You trust…”
His words fall off as I run my hand along his arm, slow and deliberate, feeling every inch of him. But I know what he’s asking. He cups my cheek with one hand, eyes searching mine for doubt.
“I never thought I’d get on a boat again,” I whisper, the words thick with meaning. A confession wrapped in metaphor. And he knows it. His hand tightens on my face, thumb brushing my cheek.
“Charley…” he murmurs, voice raw. “I really like you.”
I smile, my heart blooming. “I really like you too, Rip.”
In return, I don’t ask if he trusts me. He doesn’t need to say it. His body says it for him—he's staying. He’s moving between my legs, without the barrier. We’re both doing something completely uncharacteristic, and there’s not a man on earth I’d rather do it with than Ripley Hart.
It’s reckless, yes. But it’s also honest. Real.
We both know this can’t last, but right now, I want to wring everything out of this… everything but his heart. Because that belongs to another. But for now, I want to lose myself in him.
I want him to lose himself in me.
That can be our gift to each other—our secret indulgence while the real world waits outside, oblivious.
I toss the condom aside.
He blinks, surprised. “This is crazy, right?”
“If you need to hear me say it,” I murmur, lips tilting up, “Then yes. But so was me running away and climbing in through your kitchen window.”
That makes his grin flash, but it disappears quickly as he shifts forward, the tip of him pressing against me. He grunts, eyes fluttering closed. “Actually, your body seems to think this is the most fabulous of fabulous ideas in the entire universe.”
I gasp, clenching around the first inch of him. “My body would be right.”
And with that, he sinks into me.
He fills me beautifully and every part of me stretches around him like he was made to fit. Like my body knew him before I did. He holds himself up, giving me all of him without crushing me, and I wrap my arms around his back, drinking in the flex of muscle, the way he moves just for me.
“So good, Rip,” I breathe, my voice wrecked and raw.
“So good,” he growls back, and when I drag my nails down his back, he shudders, then starts to move faster, harder, like he’s chasing something only I can give him. We’re tangled, eyes locked, rising and falling in perfect sync. His jaw tightens, his control hanging by a thread.
And then he grinds just right, sending sparks through me like wildfire. My whole body clenches, pleasure tearing through me as I fall apart around him.
“Rip,” I scream, not caring who can hear us.
“Yes, babe,” he groans, thrusts stuttering. “Take what you need.”
He pushes deep, wringing my orgasm out, prolonging it with every thrust and then he throws his head back and groan.
I feel him lose it too, feel everything pour into me as he kisses me deep and hard, like he can’t let go of anything—not the moment, not me.
“I feel you,” I whisper, and I do. Every pulse, as he pours into me and kisses me deep, hard, like he can’t let go of the moment…of me. I kiss him back and when our bodies come back down, he shifts to the side, pulling me close to him, instead of pushing me away.
“I take it back,” I say, giggling now, high on everything.
His brow lifts. “Take what back?”
“That it was false advertising. You gave it to me.” I cup his cheek, drunk on affection. “You gave it to me good.”
He kisses me, his voice rough against my lips. “There’s more where that came from…”
God help me.
More might justruin me.