Crazy for Your Love - Lexi Ryan

by Lexi Ryan

  I want to ask what exactly he saw, what she looks like, and where Carter is now. I want to go over to Jackson Brews and get between him and any woman who dares to get too close. But I can’t reveal those insecurities to Rich, and in truth, I have no right to feel this possessiveness rocking through me.

  “Do you want to see them?” Rich asks, pulling his phone from his pocket.

  At first I think he means Carter and the girl, but then I realize he’s talking about the pictures. “No.” The one he sent me this afternoon was enough. “All I want is for you to delete them.”

  “Why are you acting like you didn’t like it?” He grins at his phone. “Thanks to these, I don’t have to rely on my memory to know you enjoyed yourself.”

  “I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t. You tell yourself you hate me because you don’t want to accept responsibility for how you felt that night. For what Heath could see even when you denied it.”

  I turn to the wall inside the booth. I don’t want to have this conversation, but I refuse to make a scene. I refuse to let him bait me.

  “Maybe while Carter’s busy with his girl, you could teach him a lesson.” He tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear, and I flinch.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  I yank away and look up to see Carter standing at the foot of our table, his angry gaze leveled on Rich. “Not at all,” I say. I want to stand up—to put distance between me and Rich and prove this isn’t what it looks like—but Rich has me trapped inside the booth.

  “I was telling Teagan that you left Liam’s bachelor party with some woman who was all over you,” Rich says. “But I guess you finished with her already.”

  Carter’s jaw is hard, but he keeps his gaze steady on me and extends a hand. “Dance with me,” he says, as if Rich isn’t even there.

  It works. Rich steps out of the booth and out of my way. “You two have fun. Let me know if I can help.” He winks at me, and my stomach churns at the kind of help I know he’s referring to.

  I’m so happy to get away from Rich that I fold myself into Carter’s arms on the dance floor.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, his mouth against my ear.

  I nod. “Fine.”

  “When I found you and saw him so close . . .” He gently grips the base of my neck and guides me back so he can look into my eyes. “I wanted to drag him out of the booth and away from you, but I couldn’t tell if you wanted him there or not.”

  “I’m glad you came.” I stiffen, remembering the girl Rich mentioned. The one Carter didn’t deny leaving with. I step back, putting distance between our bodies. I’ve made a mess of this weekend. Of my relationship with Carter. Of everything.

  “Why do you keep pulling away from me?” Carter asks. He sweeps his knuckles down my jaw, and his throat bobs. “One second I’m touching you and I swear you feel it too, and the next you’re pushing me away. One second you’re on your knees, my fucking fantasy come to life, and the next you won’t look me in the eye.”

  I open my mouth to lie, to give one of the dozens of excuses I have in my resist-Carter-Jackson-at-all-costs arsenal, but instead I drag in a deep breath and push away my insecurities. Carter wouldn’t be bringing this up if he didn’t want me to let him closer. “Did we already screw this up?” I ask softly. “Did we open Pandora’s proverbial box last weekend and irrevocably change things between us?”

  Something I can’t place flashes in his eyes. Worry? Sadness? “I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “I do know that my whole family would be disappointed if our drunken decisions made you disappear from our lives. The girls would be pissed and my brothers irritated that I did something to upset their women. But most of all . . . I’d miss you.” His smile is different than before. Gone is the cocky guy who throws around sexual innuendo, and suddenly I’m face to face with a very vulnerable Carter—perhaps the one side of him I absolutely can’t resist. “I didn’t tell you, but Jake and I fought at Brayden’s on Sunday. He was pissed that I was treating you like an easy lay. For using you as a distraction from my own issues. I don’t know if he was right—if I was treating you like that—but I never meant to.”

  I realize I’ve stopped dancing and wrap my arms behind his neck, but I keep enough distance between us that I can look up into his face. Carter even admitting that he has issues feels immense.

  “Would it be so bad?” he asks, settling his hands on my hips.

  “Would what be so bad?”

  He squeezes my hip. “If things were different between us? If they changed? If maybe this all wasn’t one big lie or another way for me to cope, but the beginning of something real?”

  “I . . . I don’t understand.” I bite my lip. “You just left the other bar with another woman. And now you’re asking me . . . ?”

  “The woman was Myla. She was drunk.” He sighs heavily. “I screwed up there. I thought we were friends. I didn’t realize she’d started imagining we’d become more.”

  “But you two are more. You have been more. You can feed yourself whatever lies you want, but if you’re sleeping together, you’re not just friends. And if you’re still sleeping with her, I can’t . . .” I shake my head. “I can’t be one of several. I don’t work like that.”

  “I didn’t go home with her. I haven’t slept with anyone since before the auction.”

  I laugh, but it’s more hysterical than joyful. “That’s less than a week, Carter. Am I supposed to be proud?”

  “No, of course not. I just . . .” He scans my face, searching for something, and I realize that maybe I’m as closed off as he is. “I didn’t think I wanted more with anyone at all, Teagan. The idea of letting someone in when I’m as fucked up as I’ve been? It scared me to death.” He swallows. “With you, it’s a different kind of scary. It’s not the scary of nightmares. It’s the scary of holding on to something precious and feeling responsible for what happens to it.”

  My breath catches, because I know exactly what he means. The feeling he describes is the exact one I had when he pulled me into his arms in the lake more than a year ago and I pushed him away. It was like having someone place a rare gem in my hands and choosing to put it back in the safe deposit box—protecting it rather than enjoying it.

  “You are precious,” he says, “and a chance with you is something I want enough to be brave. So I’m asking you if it would be so bad if things did change between us.”

  My heart races, and I struggle to keep my footing as I waver between wanting to run from the edge of this cliff and wanting to leap off it. “The idea scares me,” I admit. I let myself step closer and lean my head on his chest.

  He strokes his hand up my side. “Because of my job?”

  “Not just that. I like you,” I say softly.

  “But . . . ?”

  I flick my eyes up to meet his, but there’s no judgment on his face, no hurt or caution. Instead, his eyes are full of open curiosity, caring, and maybe a little sympathy. “But I think that if I let down my guard, it would be a fast fall from lust to love. I already know it would be so easy to fall for you.”

  He gives me a sad smile. “But you don’t know if you can trust me to catch you.” It’s more reluctant observation than question. He pulls me against his chest, and we dance. “I don’t need an answer now. Just to feel you. All I want tonight is to hold you close so that jackass can’t get to you.”

  We dance, letting our bodies rock to the music, letting go of this pretense that neither of us wants more. And it’s enough. For now, it’s enough. On the other side of the dance floor, Liam and Saanvi are doing the same. My sister is so happy when she looks up at her groom—there are stars in her eyes for everything he is to her. And I realize that for all the dating I’ve done since coming to Jackson Harbor, for all my searching for someone, I haven’t been looking for what they have. I’ve been scared of it—scared of what it will mean for me if I give up a piece of myself again. If I let myself love someone so entirely that I might break myself just to prove t
hat love.

  But maybe what I did for Heath—maybe that’s not what love is. Maybe love is the person who reminds you of who you are. Maybe it’s the person who helps you see yourself so clearly that you have the courage to say no when you’re being asked to give too much.

  “We’re getting out of here,” Saanvi says over the music, pulling me away from my spot nestled in Carter’s arms for the first time in many, many songs. Liam’s standing behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist. “Want to share a cab with us?”

  I look to Carter, who gives me a gentle smile. “Whatever you want,” he says softly. I realize he doesn’t only mean the cab. He means us. This. Trying for more.

  I nod, and he lifts my hand and holds my gaze as he presses a kiss to my knuckles.

  Teagan

  We don’t talk to anyone as we exit the taxi, and Saanvi gives me a knowing smile as we head straight to the stairs. To our room.

  When I shut the door behind us and hear the snick that lets me know we’re finally alone, I jump on him, my hands in Carter’s hair as I nudge him toward the wall. I yank his shirt from his pants and unbutton it with shaking fingers. My thighs clench at the memory of the sounds he made earlier—the thrust of his hips as he pressed himself deeper into my mouth and the feel of his hands in my hair as he came.

  He lowers his mouth to mine, and I open for him, tasting him, needing him. He groans into me, and his hands drop to my waist—gripping as if he’s afraid I’m going to disappear. And God, it’s good. His kiss, his heat, the way he pulls me closer and closer even as he unzips my dress, as if he can’t decide between getting me naked and keeping me as near to him as possible.

  “I need to tell you something,” he says breathlessly.

  “What?”

  “I never liked your rules.”

  I smile against his mouth. “But sometimes rules are fun.” I step back, letting my unzipped dress fall off my shoulders and into a puddle on the floor. His shirt’s unbuttoned, revealing the undershirt beneath it. I can almost make out the ridges of his abdominal muscles through the thin cotton.

  His eyes are all over me, taking in every inch of my skin and black lace underwear. I put them on thinking of him. Thinking of this room we share and hoping he’d catch a glimpse. Maybe I knew we’d end up here tonight. Maybe I hoped.

  “I’ve loved the way you look at me since the day we met.” I draw in a ragged breath. “I’ve wanted you since then, too . . .”

  He groans, and then we’re on each other again. I’m peeling his clothes off. His hands are on my hips, my stomach, my back, cupping my breasts. Everywhere all at once. Greedy and demanding in a way that makes my blood blaze. And my hands are on him, unbuttoning his pants and pushing his clothes to the floor.

  He turns our bodies until I’m against the wall, and he pins my arms above my head as he lowers his mouth to mine. He positions a knee between my thighs and grips both of my wrists in one big hand.

  “Not fair,” I say. “I can’t touch you.”

  “You had your turn.” He drags a hand down my side and back up, his knuckles rubbing over the lace covering my breast, and I rock into his thigh, desperate for more of his touch. More of him. I love him holding me like this, even as I ache to pull him into my mouth again. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says into my ear. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to make myself sleep on that couch last night when I wanted to hold you in my arms?”

  “You could have,” I say. “I told you there was enough room for us both to sleep there.”

  “I wasn’t interested in sleeping. I wanted to feel you against me. Naked in my arms. I wanted to hear the sounds you’d make as I slid inside you.” He nips at my neck, then soothes away the sting with his open mouth. I want to tell him that I want him too, that my rules were a pathetic attempt to protect myself—an attempt to protect a heart I know would be so easy to put in his hands. But his mouth on my neck, his teeth scraping across my collarbone, and his hand between our bodies . . . I can’t think through the pleasure, and lose all capability of speech.

  His mouth dips to my breast, and he sucks my nipple through the lace.

  I cry out. “Please.”

  “Please what?” he asks. “Tell me what you want.”

  “I want you,” I murmur.

  He pulls my earlobe between his teeth and slips a hand into my panties. I whimper at the feel of him cupping me and the gentle pressure of his fingers poised between my thighs.

  “Please,” I repeat. “Carter . . .” I part my legs and lift a knee, hooking a leg around his waist to urge his hand where I need it. But he’s too stubborn to give me what I want.

  “What about your rules?”

  “I don’t care about my rules.”

  When he pulls his hand away, I nearly scream in frustration, but then he releases my wrists and wraps his arms around me, picking me up.

  Squealing, I wrap my arms behind his neck and laugh as he carries me to the bed. “I can walk.”

  “What fun would that be?” His voice is husky and his eyes hot on me as he lowers me to the mattress.

  Holding his gaze, I remove my bra. He licks his lips and reaches for me. I lift my hips, helping him peel off my panties. He throws them to the floor, and the rest of his clothes follow in a frantic rush of both our hands. Then he’s nude in front of me, and my mouth goes dry with need as I take in his muscled form, his impressive erection.

  I part my legs and crook my finger, urging him forward, but he doesn’t crawl on top of me. He looks me over. Slowly. Thoroughly.

  “Nice shoes,” he says, his gaze skimming down my legs to where my heels are still strapped to my feet.

  I grab his wrist and tug. “Come here.”

  “Oh, hell no. Not when I have a fantasy right at my fingertips.” He drops to his knees, slides his hands under my ass, and tugs me forward, positioning each of my legs over his shoulders before he lowers his mouth between my thighs and licks me in one long, smooth stroke.

  I gasp, my hands in his hair and tugging. I don’t know what I want. More of this? Him on top of me? More of everything. He splays a hand on my stomach and teases me with his tongue and lips, tasting and sucking on my sensitive flesh.

  When he lifts his head and meets my eyes from between my legs, he asks, “Have you ever thought about this? About me, here?”

  “Yes,” I whimper.

  He licks me again—a reward and a promise. His greedy hands graze my stomach and thighs as he pushes the limits of my pleasure. Yes, I’ve imagined this. More times than I’d ever admit. But I never knew how much the chemistry between us would heighten my body’s physical reactions. I should’ve known. How many times, alone with my hand, did I picture him to get me there? How many times did my fantasies of a faceless lover become Carter?

  When he thrusts a finger inside me and licks my clit, I arch off the bed and bite down on a cry. He pulls back, those fingers moving in and out of me, his eyes smoky and hot as he flicks his gaze from between my legs to my face and back again. “I want to hear you,” he says.

  I shake my head. Had we gone to my house or his house—anywhere else—maybe I could let go, but here there are too many ears beyond these walls.

  “I know, baby.” He chuckles and presses a kiss to the inside of my thigh. “Soon, though. Soon, I need to hear you. I’m going to take you home and make you come so hard you scream.” Then his mouth is on me again, that hand pumping in and out of me, making me bow off the bed and press against his lips, and that sweet, torturous flicking of his tongue. He changes the angle of his hand and, at the same moment, sucks on my clit. It’s like being filled and emptied all at once. Like being destroyed and given life. And I come with the feel of his hair between my fingers and the sound of his hungry groan filling my ears.

  Carter

  I stroke her as she comes down from her orgasm, still kneeling before her, still worshipping her body. I graze the underside of her breasts and her taut nipples, run my fingertips over her stomach, then fl
atten my palms down her sides and her hips. On the insides of her thighs, I press gentle kisses until her breathing steadies.

  Those hands in my hair . . . Christ, I’ve never experienced anything as hot as Teagan tugging on my hair as she came against my mouth.

  “It’s my turn,” she says as I stand. She reaches between our bodies, gripping me. My cock pulses—harder, thicker—into her stroking hand.

  “I want to fuck you,” I say, tracing the line of her wrist and rocking into her touch. “Will you let me, Teagan? Let me break your rules?”

  She draws up her knees and places those sexy fucking shoes on the edge of the bed. “I’d be very disappointed if you didn’t.”

  I grin and open the condom I placed beside her on the bed when I took off my jeans. Keeping my eyes on her, I roll it on. I love the way she looks at me. Makes me feel like fucking Superman and a god all wrapped into one. Add that to the sounds she makes when I touch her, to how hard I made her come? I’m not sure I’ll be able to get my ego back out the door.

  I climb over her, propping myself on my elbows as I position my body over hers. My cock is nestled between her legs, and I ache to get inside her.

  “What are you waiting for?” she asks, those fingers toying with my hair again.

  I scan her face. The flushed cheeks, swollen lips, her dark hair splayed out around her on the bed. “I’m not waiting for anything. Just trying to remember everything in case I wake up.”

  Her eyes widen then soften. She lifts onto her elbows, pressing her mouth to mine and tilting her head. She kisses me with a depth and patience I’m not sure we’ve explored yet—a slow rhythm I could revel in for days . . . weeks . . . years. We’re still kissing when we shift our hips and I sink into her, slowly inching deeper and letting her body adjust.

  She gasps against my mouth, her body coiling tight around my cock. “Carter.” I feel her cry before it comes and muffle it with my mouth. She whimpers against my lips, and I slowly move, pulling out and sliding deeper with each pass.