Page 6 of When I Should’ve Stayed (Red Bridge #2)

Josie

Out of all the places I could’ve taken Clay, I chose the one place that’s always been a little secret of mine.

A place I ran to when I was a kid, trying to escape the grief of losing my baby sister Jezzy and, later, my father.

A place that’s always given me peace and solace and felt like freedom when I was an eleven-year-old girl who wanted nothing to do with her horrible mother.

A place that I still go to sometimes. Just to think, just to breathe, just to be.

I don’t know why I wanted to bring Clay here, but here we are. At my water tower.

“I kind of thought this perfect place would be at a lower elevation,” Clay complains from behind me, climbing the beige rungs of Red Bridge’s one-hundred-and-thirty-foot-tall water tower like a puppy clinging to its mother.

I clear the edge and go under the bar to the deck, turning back to face him as he scales the last part of the ladder. “Come on, you big baby. You’re almost there.”

“Fear of heights is a real thing,” he says seriously, and it’s a struggle not to laugh in his face. Not because being afraid of heights isn’t real, but because I never imagined his cocky ass would ever look this pathetic.

Instead, I reach out a hand and help him up, and he doesn’t waste any time melding his back to the surface of the sphere. He’s a good five feet from the edge, but it doesn’t matter; his knuckles are white with fear.

“Listen, we can go down if you want,” I offer and honestly mean it. The last thing I want to do is make the man have a panic attack. “I didn’t realize it would be this big of a deal—”

“No, no.” He shakes his head, but his wide eyes don’t match the gesture.

“Clay, it’s fine. We can find somewhere else to—”

“No, now that we’re up here, going down is even worse.” He peers toward the edge for the briefest of moments before finding his safety net against the water tower again. “It’s better to just be here.”

I actually guffaw, I laugh so hard. “Like…forever? We’ll have to go down eventually.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” His eyes are avoiding the edge entirely now, looking everywhere but down. “Maybe if you distract me a little bit, it won’t be as bad.”

I let my eyes run up and down the length of him, his big, muscular frame still towering over mine, despite the fact that his current fear-induced state has him cowering. Clay Harris wants me to distract him, and I’d be a liar if I said my ideas revolved around conversation.

“Oh yeah?” I lick my lips. “What were you thinking?” I push up close to him and onto my toes to touch my lips just barely to his. “Something like this?”

“Okay. Yeah.” His eyes are closed tight, and his lungs move up and down with heavy breaths. “That’s not bad.”

“What about this?” I ask, placing another kiss to the side of his neck. He nods and, emboldened, I keep going. “This?” With my hand to his belt buckle, I grab the front waistband of his pants and pull him against me.

“Yeah.” His words are thick on his tongue. “That works.”

“And this?” I slide my hands around his back and beneath his jeans, grabbing his ass over his cotton boxer briefs.

“Uh-huh,” he says gruffly.

I take his hand in mine then, guiding it up my side and across my chest until the skin of his palm rests hot on the exposed part of my breast. His eyes pop open, and I bite my lip in a smile.

“That work, too?”

“For what? Making me hard? Because yeah, it’s working.” Instantly, a giggle escapes my throat, and his eyes jump from his hand to my eyes. “Fuck, Josie. I love that sound.”

The frankness and grit in his voice catch me off guard, and my breath freezes in my chest. Damn, this man.

He’s making me feel things I don’t think I’ve ever had a man make me feel.

My nipples are hard beneath my bra, and every nerve ending in my body feels like it’s been lit with a match.

I’m so swept up in him, so overwhelmed…I want him.

Actually, I more than want him. I have to have him.

“Take my clothes off, Clay.”

“Up here?” he nearly squeaks.

I smile and nod. “Yeah, baby. I figure fucking me right here is a really good way to distract you. Maybe even get rid of your fear altogether. Don’t you think?”

“You’re serious?” His chuckle is rough and so damn sexy I feel it in the throb between my thighs.

“Never been more serious in my life.”

His movement is fast and stilted, but all the hesitation and clinging to the tower are gone as he strips his shirt over his head and pulls my body against the heat of his bare skin.

I run my hands down the tops of his arms and over the surface of his chest, stopping on the hard feel of his pecs and gasping when he pulls my hips in close to his own.

We both shake now, the adrenaline of what we’re doing far outweighing his fear and my calm of before.

I lick my lips, and he watches for a millisecond, his eyes turning hot and burning in an instant.

Between one moment and the next, our lips are together and our tongues are clashing for supremacy, trying to be the one to get the best taste.

He lowers me down to the surface of the deck, putting his discarded T-shirt behind my head to pad the surface and then pulling my shirt even farther off my shoulder to expose the lace of my bra.

My nipple is pert and completely visible, and he sucks it into his mouth through the thin material. I moan.

“Definitely feeling way better about heights right now,” he says around the flesh, making me laugh and sigh at the same time. “Definitely.”

I thread my hands into the strands of his hair, pulling his mouth up to mine and experimenting in yet another style of kiss. It’s slower but deeper, inquisitive and open, rather than greedy. He’s an expert at it, and I feel the sensation all the way to my toes.

Carefully, I wrap my legs around his hips and cross my feet at the ankles, meshing us together so tightly it’s hard to breathe. He trails his hand down my side and into the top of my jeans, and after a quick fiddle with my belt and the button, he’s got them open for easier access.

Fingertips skim at the delicate lace of my underwear, hypersensitizing the skin underneath and pulling my hips up in an arch of desperation for more. It’s everything and not enough all at once, and I breathe deeply to try to savor the moment instead of rushing it.

He pulls moisture from my center and sweeps it up over my clit, circling lightly and sending my body into the kind of hum that vibrates.

“Clay,” I whisper with all the breath I have left, and he pauses with pressure and sinks into a groan.

“God, baby. My finger on your pussy and my name on your lips might just be the best combination to ever live.”

I would laugh if I weren’t so eager. Instead, my words come out like a beg. “I don’t know, I’m pretty sure it’d be even better with your cock.”

“Fuck,” he damn near groans, pulling his hand from my pants enough to free himself from his own. I glance down at how hard he is in his hand and breathe both a sigh of relief and trepidation.

He’s big. Possibly the biggest I’ve ever seen, and it’s not like I’ve spent the last several years with micropenises.

I need to feel him to know for sure, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion he’s going to make me feel fuller than I’ve ever felt before.

“Please,” I ask as he digs around in the back pocket of his jeans and comes out with a condom. Tearing the wrapper with his teeth, he sheathes himself quickly and efficiently before covering me again and pressing himself in gently but completely.

There’s nothing left outside, just the base of him against my flesh, and I have to close my eyes against the most overwhelming feeling that this moment is going to be one I look back on and dream about.

“Damn, Josie Ellis. You feel just as pretty inside as you look outside, and I can promise you, that’s saying something.”

“Clay,” I whimper.

“I want to make you feel so good,” he tells me. “I want to make you feel so fucking good you go crazy, you understand me?”

I nod, desperate for him to move, my eyes latched on to where we’re connected. “Clay, please .”

“I want to make you come so hard you see stars—and not just the ones in the sky. I want you to feel me in your throat and your toes and everywhere in between.”

“ Clay . Please, I’m begging you, move .”

His stroke is slow but strong, and my head falls back to the soft pad of his T-shirt.

“No, doll,” he says. “I don’t think I’m moving fucking anywhere.” He’s playing with my words, making them out to be something more than they are, and yet, I can’t find it in myself to stop him.

Because being up here on this water tower with Clay Harris feels like something akin to flying in the sky, and I’m not sure I ever want to be anywhere else either.

I hold on tight as he moves in and out of me, digging my fingertips into the bare skin of his shoulders as he bows his face into my neck and groans.

“Fuck, Josie, you feel unreal.”

My heart pounds as my climax approaches, and I dig my teeth into the soft skin of his shoulder to control the volume of my scream.

Out here, everything echoes so loud. And I’m afraid if I let out the sound I could, we’ll be the front page of the Sunday paper tomorrow morning.

Eileen Martin is always so hungry for a damn story.

His grunts intensify as we both sprint toward the finish line, and my whole body shakes with the pinnacle of need for release.

It washes over me in a giant wave—we’re talking tsunami—and he covers my mouth with his own as he tumbles over the cliff right after me. The sound of our mingled breaths is the only thing in the slightly chilly air, and a feeling of overwhelming rightness is all I can think of.

Never in my life has it felt like this.

A hard, grated water tower deck beneath us, and it was still that good?

Never in my life.

“Oh yeah.” He’s still inside me, still filling me up. But his eyes are entirely locked on mine. “I think I’m going to have to convince you to be mine.”

“Clay—”

“No, baby, don’t even try. Water towers are my favorite place, and you’re officially my favorite thing.”

The feeling is surprisingly and completely mutual. After tonight, I have a strong suspicion that I’m going to be seeing a whole hell of a lot of Clay Harris.