by A. S. Green
“We can stop whenever you want to. Just say the word.”
As self-possessed as he sounds, I can feel the twitch of his cock as I stroke him. He might be the more experienced of the two of us, but I’m affecting him as much as he is me.
I sink back into the featherbed. He slips my thong over my hips, and I wriggle out of it. His hand finally goes to where I want it and, working his magic, he gently slips a finger inside while his mouth moves over every other part of my body. I’m lighting up internally, like one of those superglow LED Christmas trees.
“Christ, D’Arcy, you feel so good. You’re perfect.”
Yeah, he can stop talking.
“So wet. Fucking perfect.”
Just please stop talking. He doesn’t need to tell me how turned on I am by him, I can sense it in every cell.
“I got to know what you taste like.”
“What?” I start to sit up, but then…but then…a rocket of sensation surges through me. Rough cheeks between my thighs and…holy God. My head arches back into the pillow, and Bennet groans, gripping my hips and pulling me closer as his tongue laves my folds, feasting like a man starved.
I groan and writhe and thrash against the pillow, slipping into another dimension—I swear it’s true—and when I finally can’t take any more, I cry out, “Now, Bennet,” and pull him up to me.
In one fluid motion I push his shorts and briefs past his hips. I know this is my first time—and Macie says it’s going to hurt—but he’s driven me to the point of need. I wrap my fingers around his girth again and stroke.
“God, D’Arcy.” His words ignite me and give me confidence. I stroke him a few more times, running my thumb along the ridge, spreading a bead of moisture around the tip.
I don’t know if it’s the growl in his throat or the pulsing sensation between my legs, but something comes over me in that moment. I don’t question myself. I roll him, dip down, and run my tongue over the spot where my thumb had just been.
I don’t get much farther than that. He cries out, grabbing me under the arms and flipping me onto my back. In a flash, he is hovering above me.
“I haven’t done this in a while, D’Arcy, so don’t make this harder for me.”
“Oh? Am I making it too hard?” I ask, giving him an extra meaningful stroke.
“Yes,” he says, and the word is low and guttural. “I’m not getting inside you tonight.”
His words are a slap in the face. Everything he’s doing tells me he wants me, so why is he saying no?
“I’m failing pretty miserably at taking things slow, but we aren’t having sex tonight. I want everything to be perfect for you.”
“I don’t want to go slow,” I say, startling myself with my insistence. “And it is perfect. I need more of you.” And that’s exactly what it is. Pure. Unadulterated. Immediate need.
He murmurs something, and it sounds like he’s chuckling. Then he says, “I understand wanting more.”
When I open my eyes, he has disappeared from view again. The stubble on his jaw scrapes against my inner thighs, and I push up on my elbows so this time I can both watch and feel what he does to me. His thumb circles while his tongue and finger work together doing God knows what. My head falls back as my walls clamp down. My whole body is trembling. I am at the top of the roller coaster and about ready to plummet.
“More,” I say again. “Bennet, more. I want you.”
He climbs back up my body, but his hand stays busy. He buries his head against my shoulder, and his lips pull into a smile. “I told you I’ve never had anyone else in this bed. Forgive me, but it’s not like I have a nightstand stocked with condoms.”
Oh. Well. That’s both frustrating and very nice to hear. I’m about to say something when all sense leaves me. Bennet makes a skilled little flick of his thumb, and my muscles tighten low in my belly. I’m panting now, and his fingers continue to drive me insane. My muscles tighten around his hand. Something fantastic coils tight inside me.
He makes another low sound. “I can feel you building. You’re squeezing me like a fist.”
My eyes flutter closed as each pulse brings me closer to the precipice. Everything inside me is in chaos. My thoughts are disordered—flashes of images with no real connection. I’m back at the top of the roller coaster and ready to plummet again, and my fingers dig into his shoulders like I’m holding on for dear life.
“Don’t try to control it,” he whispers fervently in my ear. “For once, fuck, for once just let go. Let go for me, D’Arcy.”
It’s the permission no one has ever given me before and something I’ve never allowed myself. With a shout, I explode around him, wave after wave after exquisite wave, soaking those beautiful sheets.
When I wake up hours later, still a virgin but decidedly less innocent, it’s the middle of the night, and I’m alone in Bennet’s bed. The room is dark, except for the light from a small lamp.
I sit up and find him in a chair in the corner of the room. He’s leaning over his notebook at the small round table by the window. His guitar is across his lap, and the lamp casts light and shadow over the chiseled muscles of his chest and shoulders. He’s dressed only in his briefs. An Adonis.
And best of all, he’s mine.
Chapter Thirty-Three
BENNET
“What are you doing?” Katherine asks, her voice husky from sleep and sexy as all hell. It pulls me out of my head and, when I glance over at her in the bed, the sheet slips from her shoulders, exposing her. I expect her to be shy and cover herself, but she doesn’t. Her immediate comfort with me is nearly as enticing as her tight little body.
“Working on a story.”
“I thought you wrote songs,” she says, leaning forward slightly. A lock of dark hair falls over her shoulder and curls around the edge of her breast.
I try to breathe normally and stay unaffected, but the image before me is so enticing. “Yeah.” I swallow. Hard. “But before I write the song, sometimes I start with a story.”
“Let me read it.” She moves toward me, but I sit back quickly in my chair. I don’t want her to see what I’m writing. It’s the one thing that holds me back with my music, the fear of sharing it. The fear of rejection. The muscle memory of self-preservation kicks in, and I cover the page with my hand.
“Will you read it to me, then?” she says, taking the hint and settling back against the pillows.
A small smile pulls at the corners of my mouth, but I shake my head. “I don’t share my works in progress.”
“I’ll be the exception,” she says, like she’s certain of her place in my world.
This should scare the shit out of me. Anyone else and I’d be running for the hills, but she’s right. “There is definitely something exceptional about you, D’Arcy.” But still I hesitate.
Her full lips—still swollen from my kisses—part. “So? Are you going to tell me, or not?”
God, she can be demanding. I like it. “Okay, let me just…” I turn my chair to face her and adjust the lamp. When I do, she smiles, and I am momentarily spellbound. Hair wild, face makeup free and flushed with sleep...she is so beautiful that I lose all inhibition. She deserves to hear what I’ve been working on because it wouldn’t exist without her.
I clear my throat and glance up, taking a calming breath before I begin:
“There once was a man who was in search of something. He didn’t know what it was, only that he didn’t have it, and he’d never seen it before. He’d go out every night and walk the beaches looking for it. Some people thought he was hunting for treasure, and they suggested he go out to sea. Eventually he went because whatever he was looking for wasn’t on the beach.”
I pause, wondering if I should keep going. She stays quiet, maybe hoping that that’s all the encouragement I need. Fair enough.
“When he got to sea, he traveled to exotic places and met rich and impressive people, but they weren’t what he was looking for. Eventually the man became sad because he was afraid that
this thing that eluded him didn’t really exist. Maybe it only existed in his imagination.
“Some people told him that he was crazy. They said, ‘Tell us what you’re looking for, and we will help you find it.’ But the man couldn’t describe the thing he sought, so the people laughed at him even more. ‘If you don’t know what it looks like, how will you ever know when you have found it?’
“The man’s family turned away from him. He couldn’t work, he couldn’t laugh; all he did was walk the earth…searching.”
I look up at Katherine, and my throat works to swallow. She is beautiful. And she’s staring at me like she thinks I’m beautiful, too. No one has ever looked at me like she does. It makes me think that—maybe—I could matter. That my work could have meaning to someone other than just me.
“Finally, the man sat down in the forest. And he was quiet. He was still. His hair grew long, and the birds built nests in it. Small animals made homes in his pockets. He was so still that moss grew over him, and he looked more like a mound of earth than a man. The snow fell on him, the sun melted it off, and the snow fell again. Flowers grew between his fingers. Red and yellow. And the flowers told him to stay still. So he did.
“Then one morning…” I turn the page over and stare at the words for a while before continuing. Here goes nothing.
“Then one morning a girl wandered into the woods. She carried an easel in one hand and a box of paints in the other. The man—who at this point was just a mound of earth—felt his heart break in wonder. He knew what it was that he had been searching for. He’d been searching for his home. And he knew his home as soon as he saw her.
“The girl sat on the mound of earth, which was really the man, and painted the flowers. And she was happy there. And the man was happy there.”
I stop talking then, and we are both still.
“The end,” I say, lifting my gaze to hers.
She stares into my eyes, and I into hers. Does she understand that she’s the girl in the story and that I’m the man? Of course she does. There was nothing subtle about it. Do I make her feel like she’s found a home? I don’t dare ask these questions out loud.
“That’s going to make a beautiful song,” she says.
Oh, God. This woman. What she does for me.
“Was she a good painter?” she asks.
I bow my head and hide a smile. “No. Terrible.”
“Ah. A tragic ending.”
“The worst,” I say. I lay my notebook on the table and lean my guitar against the wall. Then, very slowly, I crawl across the bed toward her.
JULY
Chapter Thirty-Four
BENNET
A week goes by. Katherine and I have worn a path on the beach between the lighthouse and my cottage. We could each walk it in our sleep—not that we’ve been getting much of that. Tonight, we lie naked and tangled together on my back deck. Beneath us is the feather comforter from my bed. Above us, the sky explodes in sound and color, great pinwheels of white and gold, green and cobalt. Red.
I move my lips against hers, then work my way down her jaw. She tips her head back to expose her neck to me. We’ve been at it for twenty minutes, and I’m about to come out of my skin.
“It’s hard to imagine any consequences to living like this,” she says, panting, “in the moment and entirely for our own happiness.”
I pause at her breast because I know that isn’t true. Every choice has a consequence. Some good, some bad. And I have firsthand experience with both. But that is not to say I would have lived my life any differently. Especially now.
“You make me happy,” she says. She makes it sound so simple. And it is.
I brush my lips against hers. She surprises me by sucking my bottom lip into her mouth, and I feel her lips pull back in a smile. The fact that I make Katherine as happy as she makes me, well, that knowledge is intoxicating—as are other parts of her.
I slip down her body, and she pulls back her knees. I kiss the insides of her thighs, then lick my way toward her core, breathing in the scent of her, fighting back the groan of satisfaction that’s forever building inside of me.
Before Katherine, this had never been my thing. When I first did this for her, it was strictly for her pleasure. Now, it’s just as much for me. I’m addicted to the honeyed taste of her. Prim and proper Katherine D’Arcy has turned me into a freaking junkie, and getting my fix has my dick straining like a heat-seeking missile.
Her hands comb through my hair, fingertips digging into my skull, nails scraping against the back of my neck. “Enough,” she says. “I can’t take it anymore, just please.”
I know what she’s asking. I’ve tortured her (and myself) with a full week of foreplay. I’ve been hard for days, so hard I could cut diamonds. At her words, my heart beats wildly, though she almost makes me laugh. It should be me begging her.
The sky erupts in sound behind me and, when I climb back up her body, the colored lights are reflected in her eyes. I hesitate. I’ve been delaying because I want this to be perfect for her. I don’t want it to hurt.
I press my palm against her clit and give her another stroke with my fingers. She tightens. She’s so close. I’ve had several previews of what she’s capable of and, this time, I’m going to be inside her when it happens.
“Hold tight, babe. Wait. Don’t go without me.” Reaching toward my discarded jeans, I pull a foil packet from my wallet and rip it open with my teeth. Katherine watches me through hooded lids. Once I’m ready, my body stills, poised at her entrance, not breathing. She gazes into my eyes with wonder.
I look into her trusting face and think, This is her before. And soon it will be her after. And how will this change her? Change us?
She groans at my hesitation and wraps her smooth legs around my waist, pulling me toward her. Lust and wonder flares in her eyes as I enter, oh so slowly, gaining inch by miraculous inch. Her face tenses when I am fully seated. Shit, I’m hurting her.
“Don’t worry,” she says, sucking air through her teeth. “I’m okay. It’s just—”
I lean in and kiss her. First the corner of her mouth, then below her ear. In all other respects I remain perfectly still, waiting for her slick walls to stretch and grow accustomed to me.
After a moment, her hips twitch and press up against mine. I take that as the green light I was waiting for and begin to move.
First slow, setting up a rhythm. Then I pick up speed.
After two years of celibacy, it’s all I can do to hold my shit together. Sex has never felt so good, so right, and it has to be because it’s her. And, Jesus H. Christ, I thought she felt good clamping down around my fingers, but this… This! It’s unbelievable. Earth shattering.
“D’Arcy,” I say, panting against her neck. “You gotta get there, honey, ’cause I can’t hold on much longer.”
She grinds her hips against mine and tips her head back, arching. I pull halfway out, then thrust again, biting down on my lip. She moans, and that sound is my undoing. “D’Arcy!” I cry out, as she whispers my name. And when my orgasm shudders through me, she is there to catch me when I fall.
Chapter Thirty-Five
BENNET
Three amazing, soul-shaking weeks later, a blanket of humidity has descended on Little Bear. As soon as my early shift on the ferry is over, I hike up to what is sure to be a stifling-hot lighthouse. Calloway doesn’t believe in climate control any more than he believes in friendly conversation.
I knock softly and open the door. A bedsheet is draped over the couch, and Katherine is lying on top of it, under the ceiling fan, which is doing little more than stirring the soup. I step farther into the room. A bead of sweat rolls from Katherine’s neck down her chest, and her white sundress clings mercilessly to her skin.
“I think I might be dying,” she says. It’s a joke, but I can’t help thinking, God, I hope not. What would I do without her?
“Nah, you’re looking hot,” I say, enjoying my double entendre. “Up for a swim? Natalie and Ra
chel and maybe Bruce are heading over to the beach off Carnelian Bay. They invited us to join them.”
She doesn’t object, but she doesn’t move, either. I fan her with my towel, but it doesn’t do much good. Sam pants beside me, his giant pink tongue hanging out of his mouth, strands of drool landing on the floor between his feet. “C’mon, D’Arcy. Let’s go.”
“Ugh,” she groans and rolls from the couch onto her knees on the floor before pushing herself to standing. “Give me a sec.”
While a very limp Katherine goes to her room to find her suit, I flip through the junk mail on her kitchen table. “I see you may have won one million dollars!” I call in to her. “You could fix this place up a bit. Get some A/C.”
“This isn’t really my house,” she reminds me, and I frown. Summer is getting dangerously close to its end. “Calloway can get his own damn A/C,” she continues. “Oh, wait…he leaves every summer! I think I see why now.”
The phone rings.
“Can you get that?” she asks. “It’s probably Mrs. Tremblay. Martin’s supposed to be sending up some groceries.”
I pick it up, not sure how to answer. “Hello? Lighthouse.”
There is no response, and I have a sinking feeling that it might be a call from the Twin Cities. A call from her ex? The idea raises the hair on my arms. But then a woman speaks, and a happy relief spreads through me. The about-face of emotions is staggering.
“Is this the Little Bear Lighthouse?” Mrs. Tremblay asks.
“That’s right,” I say.
“And to whom am I speaking?”
“This is Bennet from the ferry.”
“Is Katherine D’Arcy there?” she asks.
“Can I take a message for her? She’s changing her clothes.”
There is a pause. And then her tone turns sharp. “Pardon me. Bennet, is it?”
Now it’s my turn to be irritated. Yes, my name is Bennet. Learn it. Remember it. I’m staying on this island. Sully’s not coming back. Get used to it.