All In

by JD Hawkins

  I hang on the phrase, smiling a little to see how she takes it, waiting for her to pull back, react a little to the innuendo.

  “Let’s go then,” she says, smiling as if relishing the challenge and pulling on her helmet.

  She swings her leg over to settle down behind me, carefully threading her arms through mine to rest her palms on the front of my leather jacket gently.

  “You’ll have to hold on tighter,” I say, turning my head back.

  She squeezes against me a little more.

  “Tighter,” I say, and she wraps her arms fully around me, hugging tight, her hot body pressed hard against my back.

  “A little more,” I say.

  “How fast are you planning to go?”

  “It ain’t that,” I say, revving the bike. “I just like it.”

  She shrieks a little as I lean forward and the bike springs into motion like it’s been fired from a gun. Within a few minutes we’re weaving through traffic on the freeway, Frankie’s fingers clutching tightly against my torso as we overtake cars rapidly. After twenty minutes, Frankie’s screaming with joy as I guide the bike through the curves of the canyons at breakneck speed. After another hour or so of riding, we’re in the desert.

  “Where are we going?” Frankie shouts against the wind.

  I answer by swinging the bike out from the tarmac onto the sandy, brush-ridden ground, sending huge clouds of dust up in our wake as I guide the bike toward a rocky formation in the distance. I feel Frankie’s anxious anticipation as she digs her fingers into my jacket, pressing against my back, and I smile underneath my helmet.

  I slow the bike down and bring it to a stop in front of the rocks. Frankie steps off the back of the bike, pulls off her helmet and coughs a little in the falling dust.

  “I see what you meant about getting dirty,” she says, squinting against the dust.

  I kick the stand down and step off the bike myself, then take the helmet from her and hang both of them on the bars.

  “I haven’t shown you the wet part yet,” I say, holding out my hand.

  She takes it with a wry smile, and I lead her carefully up onto the rocks. She climbs easily, and I see all that yoga paying off in the way she manages to keep her balance as some of the loose stones slide away beneath her. When we reach the top she gasps. I watch her face, the awe in those eyes, the story of overwhelming beauty being written in her expression.

  “Wow…” she says, looking down the other side of the rock structure into a mini valley, like the mouth of a volcano. At the bottom is a stretch of glistening, still water, with a small waterfall rushing down into the pool from a cavernous hole in the rock.

  “What the hell is this place?” Frankie asks, her voice hushed with awe.

  “This,” I say, as I start to lead her down to the water’s edge, “is my secret spot.”

  When we reach the bottom I whip off my leather jacket and put it on the ground for her, sitting beside it. Frankie shoots me that knowing grin again and sits down as if indulging me.

  “Your secret spot, huh?” she says.

  “Yep.”

  “And how many girls have you taken to your ‘secret spot’?” Frankie prods.

  I look at her.

  “None. You’re the first.”

  She shoves me playfully. “Come on!”

  “I’m serious.”

  Frankie pauses for a second to study my face.

  “Not even your last girlfriend?”

  “Tara? Especially not her,” I groan, almost spitting out her name it brings so much to the surface. “She’d probably complain about getting dust in her shoes, dismiss this as just a puddle of water, and get bored after five minutes.” I shoot Frankie a look. “You don’t think this is a waste of time, do you?”

  Frankie laughs a little. “I think this is…amazing. It’s so peaceful here, it’s like another world.”

  I smile, and almost feel guilty for asking the question. Of course she gets it.

  “But why take me?” she asks. “Now I know your secret.”

  I look out over the water, so clean you can see the outline of the sky, the top of the rocks, in its perfect reflection.

  “I don’t know why,” I say honestly. “I trust you. Maybe ‘cause I don’t know you well enough. Or maybe ‘cause I feel like I know you better than I actually do.”

  Frankie brushes some hair behind her ear and looks out at the water.

  “I don’t get something…” she says after a while. “How does an ‘alpha male’ get so burnt out by a woman that he talks about the way you talk about Tara?”

  I laugh a little as I pick up a pebble and toss it into the water, waiting for the small splash and the ripples to settle before I speak.

  “Do you know what judo is…fundamentally?”

  She shrugs.

  I go on, “It’s the art of using an opponent’s weight against himself. Doesn’t matter how small you are, or how big your opponent is—the bigger the better, in fact. You take a three-hundred pound guy who swings like a motherfucker, and you unbalance him in such a way that he’s not even fighting you anymore—he’s fighting gravity. That’s what a woman can do to a man—no offense.”

  “None taken,” Frankie laughs.

  “You take a guy like me, a guy who can’t hold back—won’t hold back—a guy who doesn’t do anything half-assed, a guy who doesn’t know when to stop something, even when it’s killing him…and a girl like Tara will have you throwing punches at your own shadow.”

  Frankie clears her throat and hesitates a moment before saying, “Maybe you’re too loyal…or too sensitive.”

  I look for mockery in Frankie’s eyes, but it’s hard to see past their nonjudgmental inquisitiveness.

  “No shit.”

  “That’s not very alpha of you.”

  “What, feeling stuff? Sure it is. Not hurting, not feeling anything is inhuman. Alpha just means you deal with it, don’t waste your life wearing that hurt, and get your ass back in the ring—‘cause there’s always another round, no matter how beat up you are.” I shift my gaze back onto her. “How about you? I don’t know anything about your past. Any ex-boyfriends? Husbands?”

  “Husbands?” Frankie laughs and rolls her eyes. “God no. I…I guess there’s not much to tell there. My relationships have always been pretty casual.”

  My jaw actually drops. “You think I believe that? You’re the total package—the smile, the big heart, the brains. The body.”

  Frankie’s face goes a little red, and she turns away so I can see her perfect profile against the red-orange of the desert walls behind her.

  “I guess I’ve just always had other things on my mind. Studying spirituality takes up so much energy and thought. Then the business…I’ve had some boyfriends, of course. But like I said, all short term. Nothing that really lasted, nothing really major…”

  “That explains a lot,” I say, absently picking up a small stone and tossing it easily out onto the water, as if unable to keep my muscles still.

  She glances my way, and I can see her defenses go up. “What do you mean?”

  “How you are the way you are. Proud. Independent. How you believe in yourself so much. You’ve never relied on a man, or anyone else, to validate you.”

  “Maybe…I guess…” Frankie frowns, the thought stuck in her head, unable to push it into words. “I guess I just…”

  “Never opened up enough to get hurt,” I say, knowing her thoughts as clearly as if reading her mind.

  Frankie looks at me again, unable to keep her eyes on mine for more than a second. She takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly, as if releasing tension from a place deep inside. She scratches the heels of her sneakers in the dirt a little, watching her feet, as if it’s some important task, but I know her face well enough now to know she’s pouting a little, that there’s some hurt behind those eyes.

  Every protective, honorable urge inside of me stirs at the sight of her so vulnerable. Seeing those eyes downturn, as if too f
ragile to expose themselves to the world. In that instant I wanna throw myself between her and anything that could cause her pain. I feel the spirit that led knights to swear oaths to their queen, to give their lives so that she would never lose that grace. For maybe the first time in my life, I don’t just feel the urge to fight, I feel the urge to fight for something. And that ‘something’ might be her.

  I move to take her in my arms but she flicks her head back up, all sorrow gone from her face.

  “How deep is that water?” she says, with no trace of what we were just talking about.

  I look at her for a few seconds, the time it takes for me to shift back into the present moment.

  “I don’t know.”

  Frankie raises a brow, a mischievous smile crossing her face. “You never swam in it? I thought you said you came here a lot?”

  “I do. I just sit usually. Watch and think.”

  “Sometimes thinking’s overrated.”

  Without another word she jumps to her feet and pulls off her tank top—then her sports bra. Her breasts finally unleashed, free, and magnificent. I clench my teeth to hold back fiery impulses, heart thumping harder like encroaching thunder cracks, manic lust filling every inch of my body, almost getting me drunk.

  Then she kicks off her shoes and socks, and pulls down her yoga pants and black thong. She glances at me for a second, completely naked, smiling like a renaissance painting. As my eyes take in her stunning perfection, there’s no doubt in my mind: in this moment, she’s the hottest woman in the world. Then she spins towards the water, giving me a flash of that gorgeous firm ass before she runs into the water.

  She squeals at the cold as she splashes in, bounding a few more steps out before the water’s up to her waist. My throat goes dry as she turns back to look at me, a challenge in her eyes. She doesn’t say anything—the time for words is over. I study her with the growing intensity of a hunter before standing up and pulling off my shirt, then boots, then pants. Naked as she is, I make for the water. She laughs and starts swimming away from the rocks.

  When I hit the water and see how deep it is I dive, cutting through it with powerful strokes, keeping myself under the surface. I guide myself by the muffled sound of Frankie’s shrieks and laughs until I come up against her legs, wrapping my arms around them, planting my feet, and lifting her high up in the air as I emerge from the water.

  “Connor!”

  I hold her there as she continues to squeal with surprise, clutching her legs to my chest, feasting on the sight of her naked flesh, glorious against the saturated-blue sky. Her laughter echoes in the surrounding rocks, sounding almost ethereal, larger than life, as if she’s in my head. For a second I feel like this could be a dream, too much for real life, but the smoothness of her skin against mine, the spontaneous joy in her voice, the perfect shape of her breasts is way more than a mind like mine could ever imagine.

  I loosen my grip and let her body slide down through my arms until her face is level with mine, and there’s no hesitation, no more time for appreciation. I press my lips against hers like the pounce of a jungle cat, tongue thrusting between those peachy lips with the ferocity of a killing blow, and she melts into my arms. Tits softening against my chest, legs wrapping themselves around my waist, tongue tangling against mine with the uncontrolled release of something that’s been a long time coming.

  She moans softly, the only sound against the silence of the desert, and pulls her head away, our foreheads together—the same as last time, before we were interrupted. She smiles and pants through wet locks of hair, our eyes locked on to each other, searching. I feel like I can see her desire, something in her that’s needed this for a long time. Needed me.

  “This feels too great to be a good idea,” she says.

  “Maybe,” I say, my tone a low rumble, “but we’re in too deep now.”

  She gasps a little, wet lips parted. “Why do I feel so nervous?”

  “Because I’m gonna fuck you so hard it’ll change you as person, leave a mark on your soul that nothing else can remove. Because I’ll fill your body with so much pleasure there won’t be room for any of the doubts, the fears, the pride you wrap yourself in. Because you wanted to know what an alpha male is, and I’m done telling you—now I’m going to show you.”

  Our mouths catch again in a brief clinch, I snarl and pull at her lip, almost angry with lust. She pulls back, swimming away from me, not breaking eye contact for a second. Then she smiles at me for a second, roguish and dirty, a smile I didn’t expect a face that pretty to be capable of, and then submerges herself.

  I watch a while, the rock chamber suddenly seeming deathly quiet, until she pops her head up in the distance, swimming toward the opposite shore. I lick my lips at the prospect of the chase and glide quickly after her. After a few strokes I look up again and see her lie back on a clean rock beside the waterfall, the lush curves of her naked body shimmering with wetness. She looks so good I can almost taste her already, and my mouth waters at the thought of what I’m gonna do to her. Frankie watches as I reach the shallows, standing up and walking toward her, water dripping from my shoulders and hair, devouring her with my eyes as she bites her lip and brushes her thighs together with heated anticipation.

  “We don’t have a condom,” she says, her voice a little desperate.

  “Then I guess it’s your lucky day,” I say, kneeling down in front of her and taking her foot.

  I kiss it softly and watch the tickles shiver up her legs, ending with her putting her finger in her mouth coquettishly. I suppress every instinct to ravage her like an animal and keep my focus on the delicate lines of her legs, tracing the back of her calves softly with my fingers, planting kisses higher and higher to the sound of her musical moans.

  At her thighs I start to get rough, palming the toned muscle as her top half writhes, one hand around the deliciousness of her breast, pinching at the nipple. I grab fistfuls of her ass and watch her clench her beautiful teeth in the agony of being on the edge, a purgatory of sensation. I finally part her legs with ritualistic slowness, her pleading eyes fixed on mine.

  “Tell me what you want, Frankie,” I say, dipping a finger into her slick pussy and pumping slowly back and forth. She gasps, and her eyelids flutter.

  “You. I want you…” she breaks off into a low moan as I curl my middle finger up to hit her G-spot. “I want you to eat me.”

  “Good girl. I’m gonna fuck you with my mouth now,” I growl.

  “Mmm,” she groans, spreading her legs wider.

  A small breeze comes into the cavern, cool against the water running down our bodies, hot sun reflected a thousand times in the droplets and trails. She writhes a little more under my hands and I smile darkly with the pleasure of being in control, looking down at a pussy I’ve thought about for a long time, a pussy more beautiful than even I expected, clit throbbing and lips wet. I bury my face in it with the fervor of a man possessed, arranging lips around her clit with the finesse of a skill well-mastered. The only time I kiss delicately, the only intoxication I can’t resist. Hot clit against my mouth, her juices like sustenance for a hungry soul.

  I knead her thighs, move my thumb down to press against the edge of her asshole, provoking her toward me, trapping her between pleasure enjoyed and pleasure insisted. Her hips buck as she thrusts herself against my tongue, her hands in my hair, her breaths coming faster and more strained. I pull away just for a moment, looking down at her perfect body, her legs wide open to me, her chest heaving with her soft moans.

  “Fuck, you taste good.”

  I slide my fingers in and out of her, stroking hard and deep as I watch her squeeze her breasts and let them fall with bouncing grace, as if even here, beyond boundaries, beyond self-control, she still can’t help being beautiful. I lean down to her again and move from clit to lips, lips to clit, searching out her weak spots, evading the predictable. Wrangling for the position where I’ll finally submit her with sensuality, choke her with unbearable pleasure.

/>   When she’s ready for the killer blow it’s clear, her back arches and stiffens, as if she’s suspending herself in the moment of closeness. As I eat her I trail my finger along the crack of her ass until I find that tight, puckered ring of flesh. When I press against it, pulsing hard with my finger, she moans so deeply I can feel it in my mouth.

  “Connor,” she groans, breathless, digging her fingers into my hair. “Fuck.”

  My long tongue strokes deep within her walls, curling back slightly to hit the dimpled spot inside again, the one I’ve been dancing around, the one I made her think I forgot about. Her fingers rake through my hair as I fuck her with my fingers and my mouth, her moans getting louder. Suddenly her body tenses one last time as she cries my name out loud, shaking like ten thousand volts are going through her. I ease up a little as the violent spasms of carnal bliss explode in her, then go hard with my mouth again just as she starts to relax.

  Her fist in her mouth doesn’t help, and she screams until the echoes reverberate back to us. I finally pull back and sit up, feeling the glory of victory as I watch her gasp for air.

  In the clear light of the desert, her body falls back against the stone, an aura of clarity and supreme contentment emanating from her smooth, sculpted skin. She opens her eyes slowly, sees me, and smiles.

  “I spent years studying transcendent meditation, Buddhist philosophy, concentration techniques…but I never felt anything like that.”

  I move up alongside her, where I can look at her face to face. She looks down at my hard-on, then back at me.

  “What about you?”

  I smile a little. “Let’s say the first class is free.”

  10

  Frankie

  “I’m gonna head off now,” Jim says, poking his head into the office, “you staying?”

  I turn my head away from the laptop screen.

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “I’m working on the bookkeeping.”

  Jim frowns sympathetically.