by Tessa Bailey
After a too-short time, Rory ended the kiss and Olive realized they’d paused at the very top of the Ferris wheel. Gone was Rory’s earlier concern. It had been replaced by nothing short of lust. For her. With a bunched jaw, shallow breath and the wind throwing his hair in ten directions, he was nothing short of magnificent. The endless sky full of stars spread out behind him, making the moment bottomless, no beginning, no end. His gaze fell to her chest and he uttered a husky curse, the muscle of his thigh flexing alongside hers.
“God, Olive, I just want to get my fucking hands on you.”
Fevered and filled with sudden mischief, Olive arched her back, feeling the neckline of her strapless dress tug low, so low, revealing an indecent amount of her breasts. “Touch me.”
The growl that broke from his throat sent her thighs slapping together in their signature move, and that was before Rory’s right hand swallowed up one of her breasts, squeezing it once, then rubbing his palm in a chafing circle around and around her peaked nipple. Olive let out a cry, turned on by everything at once. Him, mainly, of course. His touch, his hunger for her, his scent, their attraction. Having her breasts exposed at the top of a Ferris wheel turned her wild, reckless, hotter than she ever thought possible.
She leaned up and teased Rory’s mouth into a quick, wet kiss, then leaned back to watch his expression change as she slipped a hand beneath the hem of her dress.
His nostrils flared. “What are you doing?”
Biting down on her bottom lip, she tucked a finger inside her panties, using the gathering moisture to fondle her clit. “Touching myself,” she whispered, her words threading together with the wind. “I did this in your bed yesterday morning. After you left.”
A shudder rocked Rory, shaking Olive, too. “Excuse me?” He leaned in quickly, their foreheads meeting and rolling together. “You played with your pussy in my bed? Is that what you’re telling me, baby?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It smelled like you,” she gasped, grinding the pad of her middle finger against her clit, rubbing it rapidly. Faster, faster. “You were around me, everywhere…the second b-best thing to having you on top of me—”
“Enough. Please,” he begged through clenched teeth, his hands working her breasts, his fingers pinching her nipples and making lights blink in her vision. “Dammit. I came here to be your boyfriend. Buy you cotton candy, hold your hand and treat you like the little sweetheart you are. Now all I can think of is…”
“What?”
Rory caught her right nipple between his knuckles and clamped down hard. “I want to drag you into the shadows and fuck you filthy.”
Oh my God. Yes. Olive felt the bolts tightening in her tummy, her thighs beginning to writhe on the fake leather seat. But before she could climax, the ride jolted, beginning to move again. Rory cursed again and tugged up the top of her dress, hiding her breasts from view once more. As soon as he finished the task, he snagged Olive’s wrist, removing it from the space between her legs, catching her mewl of protest by moving his hot mouth over hers.
“Take me somewhere,” she said, looking him in the eye.
A shadow passed across his face, but he gave a tight nod. And no sooner did the Ferris wheel let them off was Rory guiding her out of the carnival. Hand in hand, they climbed the steps onto the boardwalk, dodging the lively crowds spilling out the beachside bars and restaurants. Olive’s pulse went ninety miles an hour in her ears. Sticky warmth coated the insides of her thighs. Every pulse point in her body hummed like mini generators and they were all pulsing for this man who she trusted to lead her anywhere. So much that when he hopped the boardwalk rail and held his arms up, she had no doubt he would catch her.
Olive jumped, landing in his arms. Up against his hard chest, so reassuring, but so sexual in the way it flexed, inviting her to rub her sensitive breasts on him, twine her legs around his hips as they walked. She didn’t even care where they were going—Rory would keep her safe and he would satisfy her, thank God. Ever since meeting this man, her body was relentless in its need to be satisfied. It was an urgent quest now. She required Rory to survive. The erection wedged, thick and hard, between their bodies told Olive she wasn’t alone.
She was needed, too, and it was glorious.
They’d only been walking for a matter of seconds when Rory walked them beneath the boardwalk, into the darkness, footsteps pounding above their heads. His heart pounded, too. Olive heard it as she slid down his body, his mouth attacking her from above before her toes touched the sand. And Jesus, his hands. They were under her skirt, inside the back of her panties, kneading her bottom with so much potent need, she felt dizzy on the receiving end.
“Tell me to calm down,” he rasped between kisses. “Tell me to bring you home and do this right. It should be right for you every time.”
“I love this. I need it.”
“Olive.”
She went down on her knees, her fingers tangling together in her clumsy attempts to unzip his jeans. The move was unplanned. She’d never gone down on someone before, but the desire to drive him past his breaking point was suddenly so strong, so undeniable, she couldn’t deny it. Rory tried to drag Olive back to her feet, but she wouldn’t go. “Please?” That single word stilled his actions, but his expression was pained. “I want to so bad.”
His hand drifted over the crown of her head. “Let me get on my knees for you instead.”
Olive had managed to drag down his zipper while he spoke and she rubbed her cheek now against his hardness where it strained inside his boxer briefs, making him hiss a breath. “You’ve done it for me every time.”
Strong fingers threaded through her hair, shaking but hesitant. “S’because I’m addicted to the flavor you keep between your thighs,” he said, voice deep, words slurring. “If I could get away with licking it even more, I would.”
Her core throbbed at his words. “My turn,” she murmured, easing down the waistband of his briefs, exhaling in a rush when he sprang free. Huge. Heavy. Long. Knowing Rory would pull her off the ground if she showed the slightest hint of trepidation, Olive wasted no time wrapping both hands around Rory’s wide root and guiding the head of his arousal to her mouth. She licked around the smooth dome and let him slide into her mouth, over her tongue.
“Christ,” Rory grated, his fingers tensing in her hair. “Oh God, baby. S’good. Oh God.”
The praise met her ears like a caress and sent her confidence soaring. She stroked him with eager hands toward her mouth, marveling at the way his flesh swelled with every tight pull of her fists, a hint of saltiness sliding down the back of her throat. So many textures to memorize at once, the abrasive hair of his inner thighs tickling her cheeks, his calloused fingers scraping her scalp, the ridges of his cockhead gliding over the tip of her tongue. The way her throat rebelled when Rory started to flex his hips ever so slightly, introducing his insane hardness deeper than it had gone before.
“Too much? It’s too much. It’s too much.” His words ran together, hips stilling, his stomach shuddering and hollowing inside his T-shirt. “Olive. Sunbeam. I’m so grateful. I’m grateful for every fucking inch you get in that pretty mouth, baby. Swear it.” Another earthquake rumbled through him, more of that salty taste finding the back of her throat. “Fuuuuuck. You have to get up soon. I’m going to lose it.”
If he thought begging would make her stand up, his plan backfired. Watching her boyfriend lose his grip on control was fast becoming her favorite pastime. It turned her nipples to aching spears and amplified the ache between her legs, her wet center quickening and releasing, as if seeking the part of him she eagerly sucked on with her mouth, loosening her lips on the way down and making them tighttightight on the way back up.
“Son of a bitch. Enough.” In conflict with his words, Rory’s hands covered hers, squeezing, stroking, both of them pleasuring him now. “Get up. Get up, turn around and lift your skirt before I blow anywhere but that pussy.”
The sand un
der her knees had nothing on the grit of Rory’s voice. It was biting, new, exciting. She’d snapped his tether and wanted to know what happened next. So much that she stood up too fast and went lightheaded. Rory caught her mid-sway, holding her with one arm wrapped around her middle, the other still busy on his erection. They looked down, watching the desperate tugs of his swollen inches, breathing fast together. As if reading her mind and knowing she’d regained her equilibrium, Rory turned Olive toward a wooden post and intuition had her bracing both hands on the rough wood, whimpers falling from her lips, anticipation running amok through her senses. Her body.
“Please please please,” she said, hoping he would hear her over the foot traffic echoing from above. “I need you. Now. Now.”
Rory’s mouth pushed against her ear from behind, the sounds of a condom wrapper ripping audible among the muted boardwalk roar. “Told you to lift your little skirt.”
A sob caught in her throat, one hand dropping from the post to scramble back to grip the material and drag it up to her waist, the other remaining braced on the wood. Night air kissed her bare backside, and an instant later, Rory was jerking the thin string of her thong to one side and dragging the smooth tip of his arousal through her soaked feminine folds. He didn’t stop, letting it travel over her back entrance, jolting her with surprise, excitement, but she needed him inside her now. Needed that intense joining like she needed her next breath.
“You’re down too low, baby. Stand on my boots,” he said, grazing her neck with his teeth, the swollen length of his hardness continuing to drag up and back through the moisture he’d coaxed, making just enough contact with her clit to frustrate her, drive her lust to a fever pitch.
Needy, hungry, Olive took two quick steps back, boosting herself up onto his boots and elevating herself those crucial few inches. She’d only managed to brace both hands on the post once more when Rory drove into her with a growl. He caught her scream with the palm of his hand—Pumping. Hard. Four. Times—as her cries turned into a strangled plea for more.
“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly, his hips smacking against her backside as he thrust into her again. Again. “I’m sorry I fuck you like a woman when you’re still half girl. I can’t help it.”
“Don’t help it,” she whimpered into his palm. “Don’t stop. Never stop.”
He let out the groan of a suffering man into her shoulder…and then he braced his feet wider in the sand, taking hers along with them. Leaving her legs spread wider. So wide. Leaving her flesh impossibly open and vulnerable to the thrusts he inflicted, one after the other. His forearm wrapped around her hips and jerked them back so he could grind upward, into her constricting wetness, and Olive dug her toes into his boots, pushing higher, tilting her hips so she wouldn’t miss one iota of the incredible impact.
“You’re so deep, Rory.” Olive didn’t recognize her own voice. It was hoarse and gasping and vibrating. “It’s so deep. So deep.”
“I’d get deeper if I could.” He drove into her and held, held, his hand dropping from her mouth to play with her clit. “I’d get deep enough to become a fucking part of you so you don’t ever forget me.”
Her thighs started to tremble, the glow of her climax growing brighter, rendering her incapable of doing anything but fighting for it. Encouraging it. She wanted to pull apart his words, but the urgencies of her body were too much of a distraction. Almost there.
Rory took another sidestep, opening their shared stance even wider, and one thrust later, Olive cried out into the backs of her hands where they gripped the post. “Rory.”
“You almost have me convinced I can be a good guy. Every time,” he rumbled into her neck, his teeth razing her, his mouth sucking until she gasped. “Then you spread your tight, young thighs for me and I show you, don’t I? That I’m always going to fuck you like I’ve already earned a place in hell.” His teeth sank into her neck and he thrust hard, lifting her toes from their perch on his boots. “Might as well enjoy it.”
Olive climaxed with her feet dangling in the air and a scream trapped in her throat. She shook so hard under the force of the pleasure that her teeth chattered and her vision dimmed, before erupting with light. Light so intense she threw her head back on Rory’s shoulder to avoid it. His fingertips still toyed with her clit, extending the bliss, making it never-ending. But the feeling went from life-changing to nirvana when she sensed him getting closer, too. She needed him with her. Experiencing the same exhilaration. Always. Always.
He made a choked sound and she mimicked it as natural as breathing, ordering her inner walls to seize around him, instinctively knowing how to make his peak better. Rory staggered one step to the right, bouncing her in short upward drives of his hips, creating punctuations of Olive’s whimpers—and then heat bloomed inside her, Rory’s broken shout music to her ears. Her feet dug into the sand as he let her down, her arms closing around her, their bodies swaying, mimicking the ebbing and receding of the ocean.
Without turning around, she could already sense the thoughts running through his head. He was worried he’d been too rough, too explicit, too everything. She only needed to turn around and show him her dazed, satisfied expression to ease his fears. But she literally could not move. Never wanted to move. So she leaned to the right and kissed his bicep, whispering, “Stay at my place tonight?”
Tension left him, reminding her of a wave rushing back to the sea. “I have a condition.”
A line formed between her brows, some of the worries from earlier in the evening trying to break through her bubble of contentment. “What is it?”
Before she knew his intention, Rory tossed her up into his arms, righting her askew glasses with a nudge from his nose and carrying her from beneath the boardwalk against his chest. “I want to see the famous matching shower curtain and towels.”
She tucked her face into his shoulder and laughed. “Done.”
Was it possible to fall asleep while being carried by her boyfriend through a sea of people on the boardwalk? Olive was preparing to test the hypothesis when Rory’s muscles turned to concrete. Enough that alarm shivered through Olive, her eyes flying open. She followed his line of sight and found a man staring back at Rory, appearing stunned and uncomfortable. They were roughly the same age, but the man was fair-haired and clean cut, where Rory was a beautiful storm cloud, always ready to throw a bolt of lightning.
“Who is that?” Olive asked.
Rory’s Adam’s apple rose and fell. “That’s him,” he said, turning on a heel and carrying Olive in the opposite direction from the man. “That’s the man I put in a coma.”
Chapter Fifteen
When Rory was seven, his father decided it was time he learned to swim. His mother had already put Andrew and Jamie through swimming lessons, but money was too tight to do the same for Rory. The sun had been blistering that Saturday afternoon and the community pool was packed so tight with locals trying to cool down, you couldn’t see the cracked, concrete bottom through the abundance of bodies. He could still remember standing at the edge, sweat rolling down his spine, wishing Jamie and Andrew weren’t at a birthday party. Wishing they’d come along, so he wouldn’t have to be alone with their father. He hadn’t spoken the entire way to the pool and it was anyone’s guess what mood he was in.
“What are you waiting for?” Rory’s father’s voice came from behind him. “I don’t have all day, kid. Jump in.”
Rory hadn’t bothered reminding the man he couldn’t swim—he already knew. Already knew that he’d only ever waded into the ocean up to his knees. What he didn’t know was that fear of the unknown scared Rory most of all. Would the water weigh him down? What would it be like to float and not be able to find the bottom with his feet? None of these questions could be voiced out loud, though. He’d be called a sissy boy. Or he’d simply be scoffed at. Maybe even pushed in before he was ready. No, he didn’t want that. He wanted to make sure he had time to gather a big breath.
Rory had closed his eyes, inhaled until his
chest hurt and jumped into the pool, hoping his body would know what to do. Wishing his brothers were there. The cool wrapped around him, the soles of his feet touching scratchy concrete, and he’d propelled himself to the top, fighting through the panic in his mind, ordering himself to paddle his hands, the way he’d seen Andrew do. Kick. You’re supposed to kick, too. The first sound he heard upon breaching the surface was his father’s laughter. The outline of him had been shadowed, his stocky body outlined by the summer sun—and he’d been holding back the alarmed teenage lifeguard.
“Well done, kid,” his father had said, clapping slowly. “We might make a man out of you after all.”
Treading water and trying to keep the panic off his face, Rory remembered the unwanted pride that stole through him. He’d pleased his dad. Had that ever happened before? Jumping first and asking questions later had become a theme in his life after that day.
Right now, though? For the first time since the day he’d hurled himself into the community pool…he wasn’t jumping first and asking questions later. Not with Olive. When he found her, he’d wanted nothing more than to devour her. Keep her all to himself. But he’d stepped back, hadn’t he? He’d given her space to make sure he was the right man. He’d started the lifelong journey to improving himself. Staring back at that man on the boardwalk fifteen minutes ago, he hadn’t felt like an escaped animal. Every time he’d imagined running into the person he’d attacked, that’s how he assumed he’d feel. Like he should still be in a locked cell. But he had a new confidence in himself tonight—and it had felt damn good.
So good that he didn’t want to keep the past locked inside anymore. As he helped Olive off his bike and they walked toward her building, his pulse ticked loudly in his ears. What would she say if he told her everything? Already he knew the conversation was inevitable, her silent curiosity speaking volumes, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t nervous as hell to recount the night he acted like an animal. The night he was put away for the safety of the community.