Nothing But Trouble (Malibu University Series)

by P. Dangelico

  “This is private property!” I screech very, very quietly when he leads me between two gigantic beach houses with barely a few feet separating them. “They probably have security cameras everywhere!”

  He spins me around and backs me up against the house, caging me in with his body, his hands planted on both sides of my head.

  “I kissed her on purpose.”

  Oh, please. Does he think I’m clueless? “I don’t care.”

  “Yes, you do,” he insists with careful patience. As if speaking to someone who doesn’t have the mental capacity to know her own mind. I am pumped with indignation at this point.

  “No, I really don’t,” I snap. “As a matter of fact, why don’t you go back to eating that chick’s face off. I think you missed a spot, Hannibal Lecter.”

  It’s dark. The dim light of the streetlamp is all I have to go by. And still, I see him tip his face down to hide the grin. “I’m glad you think this is funny. Now let me go.”

  When he doesn’t respond, I push at his pecs and he leans closer, his chest grazing mine. His head dips and he places a soft kiss on my neck. “I wanted to make you jealous the same way you made me jealous.” He kisses the other side of my neck and my chin lifts involuntarily, giving him better access. I’m annoyed at this, my body’s inability to resist him. It’s not even putting up the slightest fight.

  “Going on a date with shady Simon was mean. It hurt my feelings.”

  “Stop trying to be cute. It’s not going to work on me anymore.”

  I have no strength to push him away. The kisses are diabolical, sapping me of all my anger. And my willingness to say no.

  “Not trying to be cute.” He kisses the corner of my mouth. “It did hurt my feelings.” A tiny, little baby pang of guilt hits my heart. He sounds earnest.

  “I needed to know if you want me as much as I want you,” he murmurs into my skin, the vibration making me shiver.

  The declaration does, however, manage to snap me out of the lust-induced daze. Palms to chest, I push him back far enough that I can look into his eyes.

  “You’re the one that friend-zoned me. You’re the one always pushing and teasing me, and then pulling away. And now you want to place the blame at my feet?” My voice rises and falls. The anger bleeds away and a stale, hollow feeling remains. “You know what I just realized about you, Rea…you’re a fucking coward.”

  That finally wipes the amusement from his face and a nameless emotion clouds his eyes.

  “I have an expiration date hanging over my head. It haunts me every day. I’ve had it since I was fifteen and Nancy told me that there’s a chance, somewhere down the road, I’ll get the same thing my mother and grandmother had, and you don’t see me scared to give anything a chance…to give us a chance.”

  He cups my cheek with one hand and I brush it away. I’m on a rant now and I intend to finish it.

  “And I’m so sick of your mixed signals. Will he? Won’t he? Will he? Won’t he? You’re worse than a virgin. I’m done.” I duck under his arm for a quick exit and he stops me.

  “Check you texts.”

  “What?”

  “Check your phone.”

  Huffing, aggravated. Knowing he won’t let me go until I do, I pull my phone out and see the unread text from him.

  ig D al: e wit m

  I hold up the phone. “I don’t know what this means. Are you not even writing in complete words anymore?”

  He stares at the screen and scowls, looking more than a little frustrated. “Your phone is trashed. How do you read anything on this thing?” Fishing his phone out of his shorts, he scrolls through it and hands it to me.

  And while I read, my pulse speeds up as if it intends to win the race.

  “Do you mean it?” I look up into his serious expression. “Or is it only because you thought Simon was stealing away your toy?”

  He leans into me and I can feel his erection. I could probably feel it if I was standing a foot away frankly. “I’ve wanted you from the start. I was just…afraid to lose you, afraid to screw everything up between us…and I did anyway.” He shakes his head. “This has nothing to do with tonight. I thought I made it clear on Thanksgiving how much I want you,” he admits in a low, quiet voice.

  He kisses me gently, then, nips my bottom lip, testing how much I’m willing to allow. Breaking news: I’m allowing everything. Because despite the fact that he’s been an ass tonight, I still want him more than my next breath of air.

  We start kissing in earnest. Our hands get involved. His over my shirt, squeezing my breast. Mine wrap around and palm his butt. His hips drop. He grinds against me and I just about come undone from the friction. It’s been a while. And with all the teasing and touching that’s going on, I am primed to go off at the slightest provocation.

  His hand glides beneath my short skirt and over my underwear. Back and forth, back and forth his knuckles stroke. It’s not enough. My hips buck, chasing the pressure he keeps denying me.

  “This what you want?” His whisper slips into my ear as smoothly as his fingers slip past my panties to play with me.

  I’m close. So, so close. Knees locked. Muscles trembling. God, I’m so close. I’m close to begging him to finish me off. He pinches my nipple over my shirt and I moan. Then he drops to his knees and I’m bracing against the wall for support. His hands work assertively, shoving up my skirt and pushing my underwear aside. Cool air hits me.

  “I’ve dreamed about doing this.” The low, gravelly declaration reaches me despite the blood rushing in my ears. Then I feel the warm puffs of his breath on my privates and it pulls me right out of the moment.

  “No, Rea. No, that’s not my thing.” I try to close my legs and he pushes them wider. I look down. The wide breadth of his powerful shoulders are rounded to fit closer, his dark head wedged between my legs––I’ve never seen anything sexier. Not even in my dreams, and I have a very vivid imagination.

  “This is why you think food is better than sex.” He chuckles, and sweet baby J, I feel it on my clit. Every muscle in my body tenses and quakes. But that was just the beginning. He puts his mouth on me and tugs, his fingers digging into my hips to keep them in place. And then he lavishes me with his tongue. I almost scream.

  “No screaming.”

  “W-what?” is all I have a chance to say because he sucks on my clit and enters me with three fingers and I am gone, shouting as the orgasm blasts through me. An electric current that leaves nothing but euphoria in its wake.

  That’s never happened to me before. I’m usually so much in my head that I have to fake it to get them to stop.

  My legs are shaking when he comes up and kisses me hard. I can taste myself on him. There’s something so primal and sexy and wrong about it. He levels me with a smug, lazy stare.

  “Now it’s your thing.”

  Floodlights come on.

  The cold hard light hits us in the face and we scramble. I don’t get a chance to think. I don’t even get a choice. He simply hauls me up and throws me over his shoulder. A moment later he’s jogging, actually jogging with me over his shoulder, back to the house. Good thing it’s only one block away.

  “I’m going to toss my cookies!”

  “You better not.”

  A bunch of the guys are on the couch, playing video games, when Reagan walks through the door carrying me.

  “Welcome back, Bailey,” one drunk idiot snickers.

  “Long time no see,” adds another.

  As soon as we’re in his bedroom, Reagan kicks the door shut and places me back on my feet. I wobble and fall against his chest. He wraps his arms around me and holds me closer.

  We’re both smiling and breathless. “We’re really doing this? You’re not going to get weird on me tomorrow?”

  He leans down and murmurs in my ear, “Nobody is getting weird. And the only thing I’m doing tomorrow is hiding between your legs.”

  A shiver runs down my back. Backing away from him, I walk over to the bed and strip
my shirt off, sit on the edge in the only cute bra I own.

  “I’m not on the pill.” Best to get the important stuff out right away. “I can’t…” My gaze moves down. His stare is so intense I can’t look him in the eye as I bare my soul. And however unsexy this conversation is, we have to have it. “It messes with my hormones and with my family history it’s too much of a risk.”

  “We’ll use condoms.” His feet walk into my line of sight. He opens the drawer of his nightstand and pulls out a strip. My stomach twists and turns. I won’t deny that seeing them ready to go by his bed bothers me.

  “When was the last time you got tested?” I muster the courage to say.

  “Beginning of the semester. I haven’t been with anyone since.”

  That’s when my eyes finally lift to his. And there, in bottle green, is the indisputable truth. His mouth hooks up in a small smile. “You’re surprised that there’s been no one else?”

  I nod, speechless from shock.

  He shrugs, trying to seem casual and failing. “You’ve taken up all the space in my head.” His smile melts, his tone serious. “You’ve owned it since the day I met you.”

  It downloads all at once, critical information. I’m in love with him. I am madly in love with him.

  Oh, shit. This feels scary. As if I’m out on a limb by myself.

  “What about you?” he says and swallows. Is he nervous? He can’t be. Can he?

  I stand and slowly inch forward, closing the gap between us. A few inches away I stop. Reaching out for me, he grips my hips and pulls me closer. My hands slide up his sculpted chest, muscles honed by years and years of grueling workouts, skate up the column of his corded neck, his skin hot and silky. His Adam’s apple bobs.

  I want to lick him there, taste the heat and the salt, inhale his scent. “You’re asking me if there’s been anyone else? For real?”

  He grins, a face-breaking ear-to-ear one. “My ego needs to hear it.”

  “Your ego needs no such thing.” His smile melts into something more important. His humor turns to reverence. “But if you must know then, no, there hasn’t been anyone. Not for a while. Not since you drove into me––I mean into my life.”

  A slow grin takes over his face. He sighs and leans in, closes his eyes, and places his lips on mine. Sweet, searching, testing. The kiss deepens and a minute later he’s moaning into my mouth. His arms wrap around my waist. His hands palm my ass and squeeze, pressing me against his erection.

  “Why did we wait so long to do this?” he says against my lips. Truer words were never spoken. He’s right. It feels so good I want to cry.

  Gripping my ass, he lifts me up. I wrap my legs around his waist, and his erection, hard and thick and perfect, nestles between us.

  “Bailey, swear to God, I’m going to blow a load in my pants if you keep doing that.”

  “The bed. The bed,” is all I can manage in between the thrill of having his hands on me and the kiss to end all kisses.

  He drops me on the bed and takes my foot in his hands, slowly and deftly unbuckling the delicate straps of the sandals. He chucks the shoe over his shoulder and starts tugging on my toes. Holy triple gasp. I moan, my head falling back in utter erotic ecstasy. “Those aren’t mine. Don’t ruin them.”

  He does the same to the other sandal, the other toes. Then he steps away, grabs a handful of his gray t-shirt, and pulls it off. This view never ever gets tired, or stale. His body is a masterpiece, a perfect example of the sheer beauty of the human form. The result of unrelenting hard work and dedication.

  “Can I ask you something and you can say no.”

  “Yes. My answer is yes to any question you have while you look at me that way.”

  A grin explodes on my face. He hooks his thumbs on the edge of his silky shorts and pushes them down, taking his underwear with them. And holy quadruple sigh, the man is beautiful.

  “Can I photograph you naked?” I chew on the tip of my thumb as I wait for his reaction.

  His eyebrows go up. “Nudy pictures? Didn’t see that as your kink.”

  “Stop it. I just think your body is beautiful…it’s art.”

  The smirk drops, replaced by a tender vulnerability that makes me want to hug him. “Okay. Anything for you.”

  His erection slaps him in the belly as he reaches for the strip of condoms. As soon as he rips one off, the mood shifts. He crawls onto the bed and comes after me. His fingers hook over the edge of my skirt. I barely have enough time to unbutton it before he tugs it down, taking my underwear with it, and pulls it off.

  “The things I’m going to do to you, Bailey––you’re going to pay for every time I had to shoot a load in the shower just to get some relief. Every time I chaffed my dick at night thinking about you.”

  He sounds so genuinely irritated about it that it makes me laugh. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  He retaliates with a nip to my hip bone and a dip of his tongue into my bellybutton. Then he kisses me between my thighs and I become a throbbing, aching, empty ball of need. The Reagan Reynolds is a shameless tease.

  He pushes the cups of my bra down and under my breasts. They feel heavy and neglected. Propped up and on display for him, he spends time worshipping them, sucking on each nipple until they’re hard and sensitive and I’m incoherently begging him for more.

  Up on his knees, he looks down on me with undisguised triumph on his face while he rolls the condom on. My gaze travels to his big hand, gripping his cock.

  Hello, new friend.

  “Alice…”

  It’s the tenderness in his voice that gets my attention. It’s all there, in his naked eyes. Everything I need to know about this moment. His feelings, the friendship, the affection, the sense of relief. All the same reasons I’m here right now, in this bed with him. I open my arms and he comes willingly into them, leveraging his considerable body weight on an elbow.

  “I…” He pauses. His lips part again. As if he’s trying to force the words out.

  “I need you,” I whisper, saving us both from embarrassment, from something neither of us can handle right now.

  Taking his shaft in hand, he rubs the fat head of it against my swollen lips and slowly sinks in, filling up the empty space the same way he already has in my heart. He’s right. It is space, a quantifiable amount of real estate, and there is only so much any one of us can give. And I give it all to him.

  “How’s this?” he says after a deep, lazy thrust.

  “It’ll be great when I’m able to breathe again.” My toes curl and my back arches as I reach for it. The slow friction is making me crazy. My eyes roll into the back of my skull. “Rea––stop torturing us!”

  His forehead hits the bed next to my head and I feel his body shake in laughter. “Then stop squirming, or I’m going to go off before you can finish.”

  He starts moving again. Brows slanted inward, beads of sweat accumulating at his temples, he bites his bottom lip. I laugh at the effort he’s making to go slow. Then I grab his ass and squeeze, and a mask of defeat falls over his face. His rhythm changes, each jack of his hips harder and faster than the last, and my body demands I meet him stroke for stroke. For a moment we are rhythm and breath and scent and touch in perfect harmony, everything else bleeding away. Until I come, bursting into a million pieces.

  The bed starts to move across the wood floor just as I’m hitting another orgasm for the record books, the charge set off as his pubic bone kisses mine over and over again. I tip over the edge laughing, all my muscles contracting and bearing down on him, and the surprised look on his face makes me laugh even harder.

  His eyes squeeze shut, his back arches, and his abs draw so tight I can see each and every delineated band of muscle in contrast to the other. Rocking into me one last time, he bottoms out and stills. A groan so loud and guttural spills out of him, Cole bangs on the adjoining wall. Serves him right after what I had to witness.

  Reagan’s eyes are already beginning to fall shu
t when he collapses next to me in a sweaty heap. I turn my head and catch him watching me through his dark lashes, expression unreadable. “What are you thinking?”

  He smiles tiredly. “Shoulda done this the first time I wanted to,” he rasps.

  “When was that?” I ask as I push the wet hair off his forehead.

  “The day you ran me over,” he mumbles. His eyes fall shut, and the smile I was holding down gets loose. I don’t think he realizes what he said.

  We get only a few restless hours of sleep that night. The rest of the time we spend lips to lips, pelvis to pelvis. One body worshipping the other. Making up for lost time.

  Chapter 25

  Alice

  “Hey, Bailey?” Dallas calls out. I glance up to find him sprawled out on the outdoor bleachers next to some of the other guys who are still hanging around.

  The team just finished their last practice before the semifinal round of the championship tournament this weekend and Coach asked me to meet with him after I finished shooting some extra stills. There’s a lot riding on this meeting and to say I’m more than a little nervous is an understatement.

  “Yes, Dallas?” I intone while I break down the tripod and put it away in my equipment bag.

  “I’m still the most photogenic guy on the team, right? You’re not going to play favorites now, are you? Because that would be unethical.”

  Chuckling, I ask, “What exactly do you mean?”

  He sits up and rips his sunglasses off, his expression one of great resolve. The blond curls falling carelessly around his face kind of kills the fierce blue stare, though. “What I’m getting at here is––am I still the star of your movie?”

  I bite back the urge to laugh at the pout. If he wasn’t such a wild one, Dallas Van Zant would be a total catch. “It’s not a movie, Dall. There are no stars. But you do have a star-making moment in it.”

  “That’s all you had to say.” He slams his sunglasses over his eyes again and gives me a big toothy grin. “Do you need any more shots of me? ’Cause I have some time now.”