Page 38 of Unlocked Dive

“I’m good.”Understatement. I’m completely, fabulously wrecked. I’m planning to sleep naked on the mat for a week. I drag my hand up to touch a tangled lock falling over his eyes. “I really like your hair.”

He laughs softly, leaning in.

“You’re fucking perfect,” he whispers, sweet against my lips.

“I—” My breath catches. My heart is on the tip of my tongue, his for the taking, and he swallows it whole.

17

Echo

Byrd’s sister is seriously cock-blocking me.

I thought I’d won the battle when Byrd let me ditch the couch and crawl into his bed, but unfortunately, all we’ve done in it so far is snuggle.

“I’ll be quiet,” I promise, throwing a leg across his thigh and trailing my fingers down his happy trail to the waistband of his sleep shorts. We’re finally alone after a second full day of following Elke around Mendo while she takes pictures of restored churches and explores every single kitschy tourist shop in town.

“You’re incapable of being quiet.” His hand finds its way down the back of my briefs and squeezes my ass. When a finger teases my crease, I arch into his touch with a groan. “See? And this house is basically one open room split across three levels.” Capturing my wandering hand, he sucks my middle and ring fingers into his mouth and swirls his tongue between them, then bites down when I can’t stifle another moan. “I heard everything you ever did in your bed downstairs.”

“Everything?” I swear this man has the self-control of a saint, and he gets off on torturing me.

“Everything. It was torture.”

Ha.

“So this is payback, then?” I rock my hips against him, but he only pulls his hand free of my briefs.Stupid saint.“Why couldn’t you be a pervy priest with a thing for altar boys instead?” I mutter.

“What?” He tugs my head back to frown at my face.

“Just cursing your restraint.” When I try to lunge for his mouth, the fist in my hair holds me still. “Ow.”

For another long second, he considers me, then leans in and traces my lips with his tongue, featherlight and devastating.

“Go to sleep, altar boy.” He rolls me over and curls his warm, half-naked body around my back. As if I can sleep with an ignored hard-on and my ass nestled against his dick. “She’ll be gone in a few days.”

A “few days” turn into a week.

A week of Elke sitting in the grass watching Byrd and I train on the rig. A week of trips to the coast for shopping and taking pictures of buildings and cold windy walks on the beach. One afternoon, we drive to a vineyard in Anderson Valley. She and I get wasted on eighty-dollar-a-bottle wine while Byrd laughs at us, and I pass out in the back of the 4-Runner on the way home. After that, I start letting them go on their adventures without me.

Elke, on the other hand, seems to have no interest in leaving Byrd and me alone. She tracks our interactions with calculating eyes until I find myself pushing the boundaries of appropriate PDA to fuck with her. To my surprised delight, Byrd plays along, returning my kisses with all his usual potency, tugging me into his lap while we watch TV, and reaching up to grip theback of my neck when I slip in behind him and wrap my arms around his waist.

And letting me sleep in his bed every night, for all the good it does me.

“You know I’m in my sexual prime, right?” I throw back the sheet to show him the morning wood tenting my boxers. “It’s not healthy for me to go this long without orgasming.”

“Go jack off in the shower.” But he’s not looking at my face.

“Alone?” I give myself a slow, deliberate stroke, and his eyes go molten.

“And quietly.” But he rolls toward me, adjusting himself.

Mirroring his position, I move my hand from my cock to his. “What if I send Elke on a beer run?”

“It’s eight o’clock in the morning.” But he’s hard in my grip, and his voice is rough beneath the shape of his smile.

“A coffee run.”

“Are we out of coffee?” He thrusts into my hand, and I know I’ve won.