Nate huffed a laugh. “Right? Boozing with WASPs is serious business. But aside from epic hangovers, I hope you’re having fun?”
The Nate she knew was bordering on cocky, and the guy lying next to her was seeking approval like a puppy. Tell me you like me, tell me I’m good enough, tell me I’m making you happy. That was easy enough.
She turned onto her own side, scooted closer. Though she’d been surprised by his abrupt departure the night before, she hadn’t minded it exactly. She’d been beat and had suspected—rightly so it turned out—that today would be even more tiring. Sleep had been a good idea last night, and no way would she have gotten as much if she’d been sharing a bed with Nate.
Now, though, he was here, and while she was tired, she wasn’t as exhausted as she’d been last night, and sleep was no longer the first thing on her mind either.
She reached over, threaded her fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck, and leaned forward to kiss him. Softly, at first, a brush of her lips over his, and then with more pressure. More…intention.
When she backed off with one last press of her mouth to his, his lids fluttered open and he looked a little dazed. Sounded a bit out of breath.
“Was that your way of saying yes or no? I can’t quite tell.”
“Perhaps I need to communicate more clearly.”
Gripping his shoulder, she pushed him onto his back and found the energy to straddle him and strip off her shirt. She’d packed her best underwear and bra for the weekend, and she knew her breasts looked phenomenal in this one. A pinky-lavender satin with matching lace at the top of the cups made it by far the prettiest thing she owned.
Nate clearly thought it was okay too, given how he was practically drooling already. His mouth dropped open, and he was either stunned by her or he was getting ready to say something. Either way, she’d rather kiss him, so she did. Leaned down and put her elbows to either side of his head so she could get her hands back into his hair while they made out. It was short but not too short to sink her fingers into, and she tightened her grip and tugged a little. Not to hurt, but to create a pleasant tension in his scalp. She liked it when he did it, maybe he’d like it, too?
A low groan indicated he sure did.
She pressed her lips against his again, but much of the sweetness had been replaced with hunger. They hadn’t had much time alone while they’d been here, and while she hadn’t minded, it was nice to be here like this with him. Close, with their chests pressed together, their breath mingling and their tongues tangling. This was how they’d started; this was something she knew well. This was where she was most comfortable with Nate. For all Georgina and Graham had done their best to make her and Chloe feel welcome—and she truly did—there was an element of performance to being with them. She didn’t have to act here, not at all. This was easy.
***
Goddamn did he love kissing Ruby. She wasn’t shy or coy or hesitant. He liked how her tongue worked its way into his mouth to play with his and how her breasts pressed against him and, hell, how she tugged at his hair. Didn’t hurt that with how she was straddling him, her perfectly round ass was nestled around his hardening dick. Rapidly hardening. God, she was sexy.
When she’d peeled off her shirt, holy hell. He liked her tits free so he could look at them, caress and squeeze them, toy with her nipples, suck on them, but the bra she had on was a close second. And she’d done it with no self-consciousness at all. Her confidence knocked him on his ass. Or would, if he weren’t already flat on his back.
He reached back to cup her ass, and she ground into his grip, creating friction against his cock and making him suck in a breath. Given how badly he wanted her—how badly he always wanted her, but especially after watching her and Chloe with his parents all weekend and how easily they fit together—he’d be overwhelmed with lust and spill in her in less than a minute. That was nowhere near fair. Maybe it was time to do something he’d been aching for since the first time he’d been with her.
With some reluctance, he sat up and then, with much more enjoyment, wrapped an arm around her hips and rolled Ruby to her back. When she opened her mouth to protest, he silenced her with a finger which she, of course, bit.
“Hey! Give me a second, I’m trying to do something you’ll like. But I have to take your pants off first, and I can’t do that when you’re straddling me.”
Her mouth pulled to the side, and her nose wrinkled. “I guess pants off does seem like a good start. I’ll allow it.”
Nate rolled his eyes, but fondly. He didn’t revel in it, though—he wanted those jeans off of her quick, fast, and in a hurry. Button, zipper, and then tugging the denim over her legs along with her underwear. Couldn’t do his best work with a layer of fabric between them. When he was done, he flopped onto his back again and used a hand at her flank to encourage her to straddle him again, this time farther up.
“Grab the headboard, I want to eat you.”
Ruby’s dark eyes went wide, and he wondered if he’d miscalculated. Maybe she didn’t like this, maybe she didn’t want to, maybe she’d rather be on her back, maybe he should’ve fucking asked instead of giving her directions. Maybe, maybe, maybe…
But then she was rising from sitting back on her heels and lowering herself until she was hovering over him, her most intimate parts spread wide for him to enjoy. And he did. Women were beautiful, all pink and lush and slick. Not as obvious or blatant as men, but just as indicative of arousal if you knew what to look for. And how and where to touch, taste, and dear god, smell. The smell of her above him, so close, made his mouth water. Her scent wasn’t subtle. It was musky and human and salty with a hint of sweetness. A lot like Ruby herself: strong with an attitude that covered up how generous and kind and considerate she was.
She grabbed the headboard, but before she lowered down completely so he could lick her, she looked down at him.
“I want you to jerk yourself while you do.”
His stomach twisted, equal parts turned on and overtaxed. “Ruby, I don’t know if I can—”
“You can. I want to think about you, stroking yourself while you’re tongue-fucking me. And after you’ve sucked my clit long enough that I’m grinding against your face, I want you inside me. I’m going to slide down your cock and ride you until we both come like whoa. I brought condoms.”
Who was he to argue with that?
While she was reaching into the bedside table to grab a condom, he psyched himself up as he unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, pushed the waistband of his boxer briefs down until it was under his hard-as-rock dick. You can do this, Carter. A beautiful woman who turns you on like no one else, who has just spent the weekend with your well-meaning but overbearing parents and handled it with grace and humor—she’s asking you for this one thing that you too will enjoy very, very much. Don’t fuck it up.
He used the hand he wasn’t going to jerk himself with to part her wider. “I will do my very best.”
“Good enough.”
And then she was on him, his lips meeting her core. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth so he could taste her for real.
***
If you had asked Ruby three months ago if she would’ve found herself sitting on a wonderful and ridiculously attractive man’s face at his parents’ house anytime in the near future, she would’ve scoffed. None of that sounded anything like what was near her reality. But here she was, bracing herself against the headboard of a huge bed in Nate’s parents’ guest bedroom and receiving some truly excellent cunnilingus—head-dropping-back, hips-writhing excellent. The man knew how to use his mouth for more than just talking.
Nate licked her clit with precise strokes, the pressure perfectly in between too light to do anything but make her squirm and too heavy to get her off. And sometimes he’d slick his tongue around the sensitive bundle of nerves, making her crave contact even more. She wanted more. She wanted more, so she asked for it. Mmm, perhaps demanded was a better word.
“Suck
me, Nate, please.”
Which he did, closing his lips around her clit and creating suction, while still providing friction with his tongue, and hell. Motherfucking hell, that was good. She wasn’t sure how much he could hear with her thighs clamped around his head, nor was she in a hurry to have the elder Carters know what was going on—though surely they suspected—but she let her breath get heavy and fast, moans and gasps escaping her as Nate worked his oral magic.
Her body was wound up tight, and she felt as though she were a top that had been primed and was ready to be spun off on its merry way. She wasn’t ready for that yet, though. Wanted to see how much enjoyment she could squeeze out of this moment. Wanted to know how many times she could stave off the waves of ecstasy while being assaulted with pleasure.
She was so very close, but she wanted to get fucked. Wanted Nate inside her, wanted them face to face. But before that, she wanted to feel his tongue in her. It was one of her favorite things—dicks were wonderful, but they lacked dexterity.
Thighs shaking with strain from not wanting to suffocate her lover, she levered up enough to reposition slightly.
“Come on, Nate, fuck me. I want to see what else your tongue can do.”
She didn’t have to ask twice or hardly ask at all. Nate was on it. Or rather, in it, his tongue sliding into her cunt, slickly spearing inside of her while rubbing against her interior walls, his nose now rubbing against her sensitized clit. He made a desperate-sounding moan, and she remembered that he was jerking himself while he was also playing her like a symphony. Dragging her attention from the center of her own pleasure, she could feel his arm flexing and releasing with the rhythm of his pulls, and they matched up with the thrusts of his tongue.
“God, that feels so good. Are you thinking about fucking me? I want you to think about fucking me while I ride your face.”
Her dirty talk made his movements falter, getting a little sloppy. He was practically frantic, and it made her feel powerful. Like a queen who’d driven a man not to his knees, but onto his back to service and pleasure her. It shouldn’t have been so profound, but being in control, dictating what she wanted and receiving it without having to do any more than issue an edict or a request was a relief in some ways.
Ruby spent so much of her life working so hard, fighting and scraping for everything she and Chloe had, and for these few stolen moments of pleasure, she could have everything she wanted with barely a word. It wasn’t a struggle. The only craving she felt was for a climax, and Nate was going to deliver, of that she had absolutely no doubt.
She rocked her hips, urging his tongue deeper inside of her, and when it was no longer enough—plus, poor Nate seemed to be nearly out of his mind—she pulled off for good, crawling backward over him. He was still sliding a hand up and down his dick, and oh, that was a pretty picture, with her wetness glistening on his face. She could watch that for a while, but she didn’t want to watch him take his pleasure—she wanted to share it between them.
She grabbed the condom and, from her place hovering over his thighs, wrapped her hand around him and pumped a few times. Nate groaned and bit his lip, hands fisted at his sides. That was enough torture for both of them. Soon it would veer off hot and sexy into frustration and resentment, and she didn’t want to spoil the moment since it wasn’t at all clear how many more moments there would be.
The foil ripped easily, and then she rolled the latex down Nate’s length, which was thick, hot, and throbbing in her hand. When she’d covered him, she scooted forward, practically tore his button-down shirt open, put her hands on his chest, the coarse hair curling beneath her eager fingertips, and sank down, filling herself.
Even though she was copiously wet from Nate’s earlier ministrations, there was still a beat of delicious friction before he was fully seated inside her. She raised her hips and lowered them a few times, enjoying how it made Nate’s breath catch and his eyes shut tight.
He shifted his hands to grab her ass, and she let him dictate the speed of her movements until she couldn’t take it any longer. She sank down on him until she could rub her clit against his pelvic bone, and oh, that hit the spot.
Ruby ground down on him, shoving back so she felt as full as possible. She was so greedy, wanted more, and in this context she could damn well have as much as she liked. She would take it.
Bending over Nate, she took his mouth—still slick from eating her—in a kiss, tasting herself on his tongue and his lips. Something about the two of them melded together made her brain spark, crackly beginnings of a flame lighting up in the pleasure centers of her mind, and then it hit her. The whoosh and heat of a flame taking her over, and to feed it the oxygen it needed to go on and on, she broke their kiss.
“Nate. Jesus Christ, Nate…”
She couldn’t say much more than that because everything was on fire, and she was being consumed by it, by him. It didn’t feel bad, though—not like how she felt after a long day when she was burnt out and brittle after doing things for other people with so little in return. Their fires fed each other, and she felt another pulse of orgasm as he rocked up hard into her and found his own climax, gritting out her name between lust-clenched teeth.
Chapter Fifteen
Chloe was snoring in the back of Nate’s Volvo on the way back to Briarsted from the Carter estate. Not surprising. Georgie and Grahamburger had run her ragged, and she’d gotten to go riding again this morning at the Kendalls’ farm. No wonder the kid was exhausted.
Heck, Ruby would be dead on her feet tonight, but she couldn’t ditch out on the catering job she’d managed to score with Anya in a nearby town, especially after Chloe’s friend Amanda had invited her for dinner and a sleepover. The girls went to the same day camp, and Amanda’s mom had said she could drop both girls off as easily as one, even said she’d make Chloe a lunch. Ruby would normally turn her down on that last part, but she wasn’t going to have time to put one together between when they got home and running Chloe to her friend’s and getting to the retirement party on time. So Ruby had given in with grateful but awkward thanks.
And now she got to be more awkward, this time with Nate.
“Hey, would you mind stopping by Chloe’s horse camp on our way home? It’s not far off the highway.”
“Sure, no problem.”
Nate set a hand just above her knee and squeezed, not taking his eyes off the road. Well, that had been easy. Not that she expected him to be a dick about it, but it still surprised her sometimes, how unquestioningly generous he was. Of course, he could afford to be. But still, she’d known other people who could afford to be and hadn’t been half as open-handed as Nate. It wasn’t just about the money, either, although that made some things easier.
“You need to get something there?”
Right. Nate liked to make conversation. And how could he know that this was an uncomfortable question? She’d pass it off like it wasn’t, and he’d never be the wiser.
“I need to drop off the final check, that’s all.”
Her tone had been light, but Nate’s blond head still swiveled toward her with an incredulous expression on his face. “You haven’t paid yet? Wow, you’re super lucky they haven’t given away her spot. I remember my mom filling out camp paperwork for me and Willa in February so we wouldn’t get stuck on the waitlist. That’s half of what Chloe’s talked about since I met her—she would’ve been devastated if they’d given her spot away to someone else.”
Ruby ground her molars together and tried to contain the scream that was threatening. Did he think that hadn’t occurred to her? Did he think that if she’d had that money just hanging out in her bank account she wouldn’t have written that check ages ago? She hadn’t sent the check yet because she got paid on Fridays and she needed that last check from Landry’s to close the gap. She’d thought of mailing a check on Friday, but her pay wouldn’t clear until Monday and what if they tried to deposit it on Saturday? Humiliation city, not to mention overdraft fees that would mean she’d be cutting
her already meager budget even closer. But if she dropped it off in person tonight, not only would it not get processed until tomorrow, she wouldn’t have to worry about it getting lost in the mail. That was the excuse she went with.
She tried to keep the tears and the anger in check while she answered because Nate wasn’t a bad person. He was just really goddamn lucky, which had made him occasionally really fucking clueless. She was glad he’d thought of Chloe’s feelings, but god, would it have killed him to maybe think about why she hadn’t paid for camp yet instead of letting his concern spew out of his mouth?
“Yes, I’m cutting it close, but I wanted to drop the check off in person.” She shrugged tightly at his side-eye. “I’ve had too many things go missing in the mail, and I can’t afford to write another check.”
Which was also true. Maybe Nate didn’t think anything of the twenty-five-dollar check cancellation fee, or hell, he probably had one of those fancy-ass accounts that got all the fees waived, but twenty-five dollars wasn’t nothing to her. Nor could she afford to just lose a check and have some asshole try to cash it because then she’d have no money and an overdraft charge. It was so fucking expensive to be poor.
“Okay. Can you put the address in the GPS?”
She used futzing with Nate’s phone as an excuse not to say anything for a few minutes, and after replacing the phone in its dock, she sat back with her arms across her chest. They rode in relative silence the rest of the way, and when they finally pulled off onto the dirt drive that led up to the camp, Ruby couldn’t decide if she was more angry or more mortified. Hell, why should she have to pick just one? She had room for both.
Even though there were still light snores coming from the backseat, she turned to see if Chloe was asleep. Yep. A darkening puddle of drool on the shoulder of her shirt and the neck-cricking flop looked the same in Nate’s SUV as it did in the back of Clementine.
Love, All (Camp Firefly Falls Book 19) Page 11