Craving You (TBX #2)

by Ashley Christin

  “So, y’all are pretty much like my sisters now. That’s cool.” She takes a sip of her water that the waitress just brought over to us.

  “That was intense, last night, with you and Parker. I bet y’all had some hot sex.”

  “Mel! That’s my brother you’re talking about!”

  “He’s hot, Jamie! You should’ve seen the way he picked her up and carried her off all caveman-fuck-me-right-now style. Mmmmm, I want someone to do that to me!”

  “I wouldn’t hate it either,” Candis adds.

  “Ew. I don’t need the details!” Jamie grimaces covering her ears.

  “It was hot.” I sigh, thinking about last night and lost in my head. Brealynn nudges my arm. “I mean, uh- change the subject.” I’m going to get hot and bothered thinking about last night.

  “So what’s up with you and Tim? You guys sure are seen together a lot,” Brealynn asks Jamie.

  “We’re just friends.” The fact that Jamie can’t or won’t make eye contact with that statement has me thinking they are more than friends.

  “You sure don’t act like just friends,” Brealynn assesses.

  “She likes him,” Candis chimes in, and Jamie glares at her.

  “So why don’t you go for it?” I ask.

  “Have you met my brothers? Plus, Tim is one of their best friends.” Poor girl, she looks torn.

  “That didn’t stop you over spring break. I believe I saw you exiting the bathroom after a feel up.” A deep red blush covers her face.

  “I do like him. He’s good for me- my brothers would have his head.” She’s rushing through the sentence.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure, Jamie. They just want what’s best for you and for you to be happy.” Brealynn’s right. Those boys worry so much about Jamie.

  Our waitress comes over depositing the queso and tortillas on our table. Once she takes our orders, it’s back to our conversation.

  “Tell that to Tim. He’s scared shitless for them to find out anything.”

  “You can’t spend your whole life pleasing everyone else, girl. You need to do what makes you happy. You’ve already had to deal with so much grief, so young. Life’s short.” Melanie’s words ring true, even to my ears.

  “If you want to date Tim, you should,” Candis agrees.

  “If Colt freaks, I’ll talk him down. Just do what makes you happy,” Brealynn adds.

  “Maybe.” At Jamie’s comment, my phone buzzes.

  I’m hot and sweaty and you aren’t here to enjoy it. - Parker

  Damn. I do love seeing him during or after he rides. Seriously, nothing else is sexier. I chance a quick glance up and see four sets of eyes focused on me.

  “What?”

  “Damn. You’ve got it bad,” Melanie assumes. I don’t have anything.

  “It’s just a text.”

  “Girl, don’t make me get crazy. If the smile that’s on your face is just from a text, I can’t imagine what it’s like after a night in the sheets with that man.”

  Brealynn has a blinding smile plastered on her face. She loves the fact that I’m finally in, well, I guess this is a relationship. I ignore them and text Parker back.

  How dare you.

  This is so weird to me. For the longest time, Parker and I fought against our attraction, and I’m scared to find out what happens when we don’t. There is no twisted idea of how this will go in my head. I know it’s strictly physical, and I’m okay with that, but what happens when our passion collides?

  My phone alerts again.

  Babe, there’s so many things I’m goin’ to dare to do to you tonight.

  Holy hell, is it hot in here?

  “You’re flushed,” Candis points out and the girls all laugh.

  They’d be flushed too if he did the naughty things to them that he does to me. At that thought, my stomach dips and possessiveness coils in my stomach.

  This feeling is for sure not keeping it surface level. Get it together, Kelsey, I try to convince myself.

  Just hang on for the ride.

  Come to the box. - Parker

  Speaking of rides … I do love to watch him ride. Nothing beats seeing the freedom written all over his face and the happiness that drips from his voice when he mentions TBX.

  “I can’t wait to see how Parker is with you. He’s never really done the girlfriend thing. However, I’m glad he picked you.” Jamie’s beaming at me from across the booth.

  “Yeah-uh- me either. It’ll be new for both of us.” I nervously run my hand over my bicep.

  “It’ll be good for both of you,” Brealynn adds, stilling my hand and squeezing it.

  Parker

  Today, I woke up feeling refreshed with Kelsey in my arms. I feel like I could run a marathon, twice.

  “What’s with all the smiles today? Last night work to your advantage, finally?” Colt teases coming to a sudden stop on his bike and causing it to fishtail out behind him. Cocky grin in place, it doesn’t faze him.

  “Yeah, she’s mine.” Mine? Yeah, I just said that. What. The. Fuck. The scary thing? I fuckin’ meant it. It’s like my mind knew before I could catch up to nix it.

  “Whoa, really?” Colt looks shocked. Hell, I’m shocked.

  “We’re seeing how it goes. She’s not fighting me anymore. So that’s a plus.” Trying to shrug off my comment as if it wasn’t screaming in high volumes.

  “I’m happy for you. Who knows, maybe she’ll be the one.” I laugh at Colt’s remark.

  “She’s the one, right now.”

  “So you’re tellin’ me, in I don’t know let’s say a year, you wouldn’t mind seein’ her with another man?” Colt’s head is slightly tilted to the side assessing me.

  “No.” The lie burns my throat before it’s even out of my mouth.

  “No, you wouldn’t mind or no, you would mind.” Of course, he wants me to clarify my response. Asshole.

  “Fuck! Yeah, I’d mind.” The thought sets my blood vessels simmering with rage.

  “I knew it. Stop lyin’ to yourself and just let her in.”

  “Look …” My voice is rough with frustration toward myself and my brother. “I’m fucked up. We both know that. If she gets in …” There are things Colt doesn’t even know, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to break the news to him. He took our mom's death so hard. I don’t want to lose him again. I’ll carry the burden of my knowledge for the both of us.

  “Then she will know you. That’s okay.” His hand on my right shoulder, eyes fixed on mine. He means it. Every bit of it.

  “You say that now because you have Brealynn.”

  “You’re right. My eyes are open now, brother. I wish you’d open yours.”

  “Let’s get back to practicing,” I say, changing the topic. Colt shakes his head turning to go back up to the top of the ramp and I shoot a text off to Kelsey before getting back to our tricks.

  Dust is twirling in the wind, covering the view of Brealynn’s Jeep by the time she parks. The woman drives like a maniac. Lowering my hat bill to shield my eyes from the sun, the tan legs that I can’t get off my mind extend down from the passenger side of the vehicle. Colt slides up next to me on the ramp, skidding his bike to a stop beside me.

  “We are two lucky son-of-a-bitches.” Disbelief clear in his voice, I nod in agreement as we watch the girls make their way toward us. Kelsey’s hair tangles in the wind, whipping around her sun-kissed face. A piece finds its way between her lips before she promptly removes it as she tilts her head back and laughs at something Brealynn said.

  She’s breathtaking.

  She’s mine.

  “Hey, Par-“ Rushing her into my arms, my face falls between her shoulder and her jaw, and I inhale her. Fuck. Could I have really missed her this much? She wraps her arms around my neck with a giggle.

  “You’re so beautiful.” I tangle my hand in the hair at the nape of her neck, bringing her lips to mine. Once we meet, everything makes sense in life.

  At this one moment, we are all th
at matters.

  Her warmth against me with my pulse beating in rhythm with hers centers us.

  We pull apart, but not before I savor one last nibble to her bottom lip. Her gray eyes snap open to mine, lit with a fire only I can feed.

  “I didn’t get a welcome like that,” Brealynn tells Colt.

  “I’ll welcome you in my own way, B. Don’t you worry that pretty head.” She sighs and falls into his embrace.

  “It’s my pretty vagina I’m worried about being offended.” She pouts with a playful smirk.

  “Well, we can’t have that now, can we?” Colt tugs on her hand, pulling her from the ramp. “Let me welcome you properly. See you guys later!” Colt calls out after picking Brealynn up and carrying her toward the house.

  I look down to mine and Kelsey’s intertwined hands and a jolt runs through me. When did we start holding hands? Did I subconsciously reach out to her? Either way, it feels right. I pull her closer to me.

  “Hey.” A smile spreading across her pretty face.

  “Sweetness.” Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear and a light shade of pink crosses her face at my endearment. The way she’s looking up at me right now—her big gray eyes wide and searching—for once doesn’t scare the shit out of me. Maybe that fact should scare the shit out of me? I’m fucked. I lean down till we are a breath apart. “I’ve missed you.” The way she lights up hits me right in the chest.

  I feel a soft push from her lips against mine before she pulls away. “I may have missed you a little bit.” Holding her forefinger and thumb close together in front of us, she taunts me.

  “Just that much?” Jutting my bottom lip out and creasing my eyebrows, I mock pout.

  With a laugh, she cradles my sad face in her small hands. “Okay, okay, I missed you a lot.”

  “That’s more like it. You want to take a spin on my bike?” Raising my brow, I challenge her.

  “Is that code for your dick?” She accepts my challenge.

  “If it were, you’d be riding me right now, Kelsey. I want to teach you how to ride this.” Grabbing my bike, I push it between us.

  “I know how to ride a bike.” She crosses her arms across her chest, causing her tits to push up in her red tank top. My tongue swipes across my bottom lip, a movement she catches and rewards me with her sex kitten smile. The one where I can see all the dirty thoughts running through that mind of hers.

  “I know that, babe. You want to ride the ramp?”

  “Yes!”

  “Hop on and just pedal to the middle of the ramp and then back and forth to gain speed. Each turn you’ll get higher and higher up the ramp.”

  She follows my directions with a toothy grin firmly in place. Seeing her on my bike does crazy things to me. That bike’s my livelihood, and I just handed it over to her like it was an everyday thing for me to give her what means most to me.

  After watching her for a few minutes, I grab Colt’s bike and begin pedaling with her.

  Back and forth, turn.

  Back and forth, turn.

  Once I gain my speed and catch her, she’s laughing. “This is so fun! I feel like I’m flying!” It’s so nice to share this moment with her. Enjoying what I love most.

  I keep pace with her for a few minutes, just enjoying the view of her as the Texas sun beats down on us. Her hands are steady on the handlebars as she works the ramp. She doesn’t have the strength to get fully up the ramp, so I’m not worried about her injuring herself. I take the next down with force to pick up speed and gain height.

  “Now that’s flying!” she shouts out to me as I hit my landing after flipping off the ramp airborne. She’s still pedaling, so when I go to repeat my trick on the opposite side of the ramp, my eyes leave her. As I’m whipping around and steadying myself to land, she loses balance and slides down to the wood floor.

  Fuck!

  I’m off Colt’s bike before I can register the sound of it sliding against the wood from my sudden departure. “It’s okay. Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here.” Bending down next to her, she looks up at me with tears trapped in her eyes. She hurriedly wraps around my neck as she crawls up into my body, bandaging herself with my arms.

  “The brakes don’t work on your bike.” I squeeze her to my body.

  “These bikes don’t have brakes, Kels. I’m sorry. I should have remembered to tell you.”

  A minute or two passes before she whispers, “Thank you.”

  “For what?” Her brows wrinkle at my question.

  “For sharing your passion with me. I loved it,” she says like it’s obvious.

  There’s that fuckin’ tug in my chest again.

  Kelsey

  Hearing him talk about the high from riding and experiencing it are two different things. Wow. I can feel the excitement vibrating through him, and it’s fueling me. Looking into his brown eyes, I see flecks of gold from the heart I know he has.

  “Yeah, anytime.” He’s looking at me like I’m some foreign object that’s landed in his lap.

  “I’m okay.” Assuring him, I scoot out of his grasp and to my feet as he does the same and grabs my hand without a second thought, pulling us in the direction of the pond. Once we clear the wooden floor and make our way across the grass, finally, we reach the wood planks of the dock.

  Sitting together on the dock, our silence is comforting. His arms around my body ground me.

  “It’s so nice out here.” I keep my voice low for fear of breaking the moment.

  “You know, Colt and I had to deal with a lot growing up. We’ve always found refuge in riding, so when we found this place … once we saw this, we knew it was the land we wanted.” I look at Parker and his gaze is following a few ducks as they paddle through the water.

  “Do you guys plan to always live together?”

  “If you would have asked me that question a few months ago, I’d have said yes. But, now … I assume one day one of us will build our own house out here. We’ll always stay close to each other. I doubt we could ever really live that far apart from one another. “

  “What’s changed now?”

  “He has Brealynn.” Of course, the hopeful little girl in me who used to believe in love wants to be that for him, but reality likes to interject. Sooner or later the fairy tale ends, so what’s the point in reading it?

  “Have you guys always been close?” I’m trying to dig deeper; trying to figure out this man my body is obsessed with. That my heart is trying to thaw itself out for.

  “As far back as I can remember.” He starts rubbing soft circles onto my forearm. “Our parents started fighting pretty bad when we were in middle school. Dad would be gone for weeks at a time, and our mom would lock herself away in the bedroom. When that happened, Colt took over as the role model in my life. He’d make sure we ate three meals a day and showered for school, along with everything that goes along with running a household. Our mom couldn’t or wouldn’t. She suffered from depression.” He lets out a big sigh with the admission from his past. I relax further against him, the vibration of his voice flowing from his body through mine.

  “One Christmas, our parents got us bikes. Dad was home from a business trip and they were fighting, yet again. He locked us outside and this wasn’t the first or the last time he’d do it. We got creative. Built jumps out of anything we could find and started riding. We had no idea it was actually a thing, a sport. Dad happened to look out the window to see Colt mid-air. He came stormin’ out of the house bitchin’ at us about safety. Like he fuckin’ cared. It didn’t stop us, though, and once Colt started researching new bikes, we came across BMX and our minds were blown. I mean, we were like eight and ten. We had no idea.” We pull away from each other, so I can make eye contact with him. I want him to know I’m invested in his story, and in him, it seems too. “Soon, Dad decided what we were doing wasn’t dangerous enough to keep us from making money or making him money. Long story short, TBX was born. Dad was home more then, and the fighting just increased. Nothing he did
could make our mom happy.” What do I say to that—I’m sorry? No. That’s too cliché.

  So instead, I pull my shirt over my head as I stand. “You ever skinny dipped in this water before?” I want him back to the here and now, where I am. Not in the past - or the future where I can’t be found.

  “I can’t say I have.” Head tilted up, his brown eyes rake in my braless chest and torso. His attention to every curve and dip of my body causes lust to lick up my stomach. When he stops at my cut-off blue jean shorts, the rumble of his voice sends my arousal into overdrive. “You’re overdressed for the task, Kels.” That panty-dropping half-smile in place, he lifts one cheek and displays his all-American boy dimple.

  So I drop my panties. They may have well disintegrated for all I care. I won’t need them anytime soon.

  That smile, ladies. Damn, it’ll make you want to do illegal things just so you will see it on his handsome face again. So you’re the one putting it there.

  Parker stands and then startles me by charging at me full speed tackle style into the water below.

  “What the fu-” Water enters through my nose burning its way down my throat before I’m able to breathe in the sweet taste of oxygen. Don’t you for one minute say it doesn’t have a taste; it fills my lungs with the flavor of life.

  Gasping for air, I swat at Parker, who’s fully dressed in the water. “Are you tryin’ to kill me?”

  “Shit, ouch, stop.” His chuckle echoes around us. “Now, why would I go and do somethin’ like that? I just thought my firecracker could use a little water to simmer down.”

  “You’d have been better off lightin’ my fuse. Now, I’m waterlogged, you ass.”

  “Oh, I’ll get it to light.” Soft lips crash onto mine with a point to prove while Parker kneads his fingers into the soft curve of my ass. My legs tight around his waist, and we begin to move out of the water. Lips parting long enough to test another angle. Parker stumbles only for a split second, and I think we’re going down, but he recovers. Once we’re back on land, it’s another few feet before I’m dipped and my wet back hits the warm wood beneath me.