Beautiful Dark (Beautiful Rivers Book 3)

by J. L. White

  “Hi again,” he says softly.

  I exhale slowly. Oh, man. Of all the moments I’ve collected in the time I’ve been given, the ones with Mason have to be the best.

  Mason

  I’m done thinking about this. I can’t think straight around her anyway. I’ve spent the last several hours in agony, torn between my sense of family loyalty and the woman standing right in front of me. Hell, I’ve been torn for days. Weeks.

  If she were just another woman, it’d be different. But I can’t seem to walk away from this one. Corrine is special. I have to find out why.

  I’m chastising myself for taking her the way I did: hard, fast, and right out in the open. I did it even though I know she doesn’t have a lot of experience. She deserves more consideration than that. But damn it was hot.

  She was intoxicating. Delirium inducing. And so fucking good.

  Just thinking about it gets me hard as steel. I could take her again right now, and judging by the heat simmering in her eyes, she’d let me. But I’m determined to show her the difference between being with a college boy and being with a man. Between a meaningless screw and the kind of thing that counts.

  I pull her to me again, my fingers slipping between the soft hair at the back of her neck. I kiss her deeply, the hold on my own restraint slipping as her arms tighten around me and she presses her soft curves against me from shoulders to knees.

  My embrace grows more demanding, my kiss more insistent, and she’s right there with me, wanting me too. She kisses like a fucking pro.

  We break, staying close, breaths coming thick and deep. She looks up at me with those beautiful, wide blue eyes. So open. So trusting.

  Why her?

  It’s a small voice, at the back of my head, and is the only thing keeping me from free-falling right into her.

  Why did this have to happen with her?

  I’ve asked myself that question a million times, but I’m not going to torture myself with questions right now. She’s here, in my arms, which is the one thing I’ve wanted most, for weeks.

  Let’s just see where this goes.

  “Where’s your suitcase?” she whispers, eyes molten on my lips.

  “In the trunk.”

  “Get it.”

  Corrine

  We’re not even all the way into the living room when he drops his suitcase on the floor and we fold into each other’s arms again. Unlike the frenzied passion that overtook us on the resort grounds, we’re kissing and caressing in a slow, deliberate burn, but it’s so intense it’s making me dizzy. The scent of our kisses. The gentle rustling of my skirt. The blazing trail of his hand running down the curve of my neck. Everywhere he touches me stirs me up more than I think I can stand, but still I want more.

  I slide his jacket off his broad shoulders, reveling in the feel of him through the thin fabric of his shirt, but still needing more. As we kiss eagerly, I fumble with one button on his shirt, then another. With no patience for the rest, I hurriedly slip my hand into the small opening and moan when I feel his bare skin at last.

  I hastily tug at his shirt, wanting it off, then return to the cursed buttons. He moves to help, and we break our kisses, panting as we tackle his shirt together. When he pulls the fabric apart, revealing himself at last, I’m momentarily frozen. Breath halted. Eyes on him.

  His muscles flex as he shrugs out of his shirt. My hands are drawn to his hot skin like magnets. He’s perfectly formed, and I run my hands hungrily over the ridges of his abs and across the broad mounds of his pecs. His left pec is covered with a bold, black tattoo. It looks to be tribal, upon first glance, but then I see the name carved into the design. His father’s name.

  The sight of this does nothing to cool me. It opens my heart to him even more, and makes me want him even more strongly. It’s appropriate and right that the man I know would have a tattoo like this, and seeing it only brings me more fully into him.

  I rub my hands over his chest again—the artfully designed skin under one hand, bare skin under another—then over his small, tight nipples and down the ridges and valleys of his stomach.

  “You’re beautiful,” I breathe.

  “Men aren’t beautiful,” he manages to tease, his voice thick with desire.

  “But you are,” I say truthfully.

  He takes my face in his hands, and I look up at him, still stunned. He truly is Adonis. I go up on tiptoe, wrapping my arms around his chest and kissing him urgently. I press myself against him, needing to feel every inch that I can. His chest, his full hard length. I need it all.

  The bodice of my skirt gives way, and I realize he’s lowering the zipper. I pull away enough to slip my arms out of the sleeves, kicking my heels to the side at the same time. My loosened dress slips off my body, and I step out of it, now only in a bra and panties. I’ve been wet and aching for him this whole time, but exposing myself to him, and watching his heated gaze skip over my body sends a fresh surge of wetness between my legs.

  His trousers are tented in front, stretched by his massive erection. I kick my dress aside and reach for his belt buckle, but he takes over and his pants are off in seconds. His briefs too. I’m still in my bra and panties, but he’s in front of me in all his glory.

  God, feeling it was one thing. Seeing it is something else. I can’t believe that fit inside me, but as I remember what he felt like, I ache even stronger for him.

  He pulls me into a firm embrace and a molten kiss. I go weak with the feel of our bare bodies pressed together. He lowers his mouth and starts to suck on the tender skin below my jaw. “Mason,” I whisper.

  He’s slowly walking me back toward the couch, his hands staking their claim on every inch of my bare skin. He moves from my face, to the curve of my lower back. He dips his hand underneath the band of my panties to squeeze my bare ass, skillfully slips under my bra to cup my bare breasts, then goes back to eagerly caressing my face.

  I’m drunk with all of it: the taste of him, the feel of his hard body against me, the way my own wandering hands seem to have a mind of their own. I’m claiming him like he’s mine, like there’s nothing else I could do but say, This back is mine, and these shoulders are mine, and this chest is mine, and every inch of this cock belongs to me.

  The times I’d been with that boy last year, it was nothing like this. It was almost like playing pretend. Like we were kids acting at being adults.

  But this.

  This is something on a whole new level. I’ve never known desire like this. I’ve never experienced my body taking over everything and demanding to claim what I want. My body’s never responded so instinctively to another person.

  It’s like God created me with Mason in mind.

  The couch brushes lightly against the back of my calves, and the elastic gives on my bra as he releases the clasp. He slides my bra off, and I keep a slight distance so he can see me fully.

  “My turn to admire you,” he says thickly. I watch him, my skin tingling everywhere his eyes take me in. Something about his open admiration, and my allowing it, makes me feel more like a woman than I ever have.

  I lower myself to the couch, slip my damp panties down my legs, and lie back. Looking up at him towering over me, I let my knees go soft. His bulging cock twitches and he exhales hotly, eyes lingering on me. His gaze locks hard on mine, and he comes down to me, his body hovering just above me. I arch my back slightly, brushing the tips of my breasts against his hard chest. I wrap my arms around him, pulling hard, wanting his weight on me. But he doesn’t budge.

  “I want you to take me.”

  He nuzzles against the crook of my neck, my hold on him softening as I tilt my head back. “Not until I taste you,” he whispers. A thrill runs through me, from my spine to my crotch. Does he mean what I think he means? I’ve only had that once, and it ranged from slightly pleasurable to slightly painful and wasn’t anything I necessarily wanted to repeat. But the thought of Mason’s tongue on me...

  He sucks on the tender skin at the base of m
y neck and I let out a soft moan. His hand draws up my bare stomach to the underside of my breast. I angle myself again, wanting him to cup me. My hands and arms travel up and down his hard back. He lowers his mouth to my collar bone, then lower almost to the top of my breast.

  I whimper, wanting him to hurry. My nipples are aching in anticipation. His thumb rubs firmly along the underside of my breast, just missing my nipple. I whimper again.

  His mouth goes lower, down the top of my breast. I draw my knees up slowly, his hard sides brushing against the tender skin of my inner thigh. He’s holding himself slightly above me. I’m spread and bare beneath him, throbbing against nothing but air.

  His wet mouth goes lower, sucking just above my nipple. I encircle my arms around his shoulders, one hand snaking into the soft hair on the back of his head, pushing slightly and it doing no good. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts his mouth slightly, hovering just over my nipple. His hot breath caresses one nipple, his thumb finally sweeps over the other, and his wet mouth lowers and sucks on me at last.

  I exhale with relief, momentarily satisfied until the peak of pleasure in my nipple grows and spikes, wanting more and more. He’s sucking and licking and flicking, and my entire body is squirming beneath him. My hand is gripping his hair and my head is falling back, then coming forward, the falling back again.

  “Oh my god. God, yes.”

  His free hand rubs down the length of my stomach, over my pelvic bone, then around to cup my full ass. If he was trying to remind me where he’s going next, it worked. My hips are rolling, seeking him. My pussy is spread and aching, finding no relief. But he’s working my breasts so well, I don’t want him to leave off of those either.

  “Fuck me,” I say, thinking I’ve found the solution. Fuck me and suck me and I’ll be fine.

  “I have to taste you,” he says, looking up at me and planting his open mouth firmly around my breast.

  I angle my hips up impatiently. “Touch me. Please.”

  A fresh fire ignites in his eyes, and he comes to my mouth, holding the back of my head, and kissing me into delirium. Then he’s traveling down my body again: neck, collar bone, nipples, stomach, hip, then finally, finally hovering over me there.

  “Yes, please.”

  I’m gripping at his biceps desperately, watching him in agony, but still he’s lingering, looking at my spread pussy like he’s never seen anything so beautiful.

  Put your tongue on me.

  “You’re glistening, babe.”

  I can only give him a whimper-plea. He lowers himself and the aching in me spikes to an almost unbearable amount as I watch him, until at last his tongue is on my folds and I’m undone. I fall back, eyes closed and mouth gaping open as his wet tongue just barely penetrates me before swiping all the way up to my clit.

  “Oh my god. Fuck.”

  He does it again, then lingers on my clit, which is pulsing with pleasure. He’s flicking it back and forth with the tip of his tongue, then rubbing over it smoothly with the flat side, then doing I don’t even know what as my body becomes ruler once again.

  I’m gripping the back of his head and spreading myself wider and grinding myself against his face and making the most wanton sounds. “Fuck. Oh my god. Fuck.”

  I feel myself hardening and growing against him. He’s eating me so eagerly, his chin is massaging my entrance. I’m gasping and panting and struggling to breathe as he draws the most intense pleasure out of me, like it’s what he was born to do.

  “I’m gonna come,” I warn.

  But he doesn’t let up. He grips my thighs harder in his hands, licks me more firmly, and sends me racing up and over the edge in an orgasm that violently seizes my entire body. I’m thrashing and crying out loudly, too in the grips of such previously-unknown pleasure to be self-conscious about my sounds. Pleasure explodes from my clit again and again and still he keeps going, like he’s in full command and demands that my body gives more and more.

  It goes on and on, my heart pounding hard against my chest, which is flushed hot. The blood is rushing in my ears. My climax pulses through me so hard and so long, I think it’s never going to end. Eventually, it comes down in powerful, crashing waves. The grip on my heart and lungs lessen, and I gasp with slightly more ease as the pleasure continues to wash through me in gentler swells.

  At last I’m receding more completely, and he lets up on the pressure until it’s over. When I’m spent and panting, he comes up on one elbow, grinning at me and wiping his chin.

  I’m too weak to move or talk or do anything but try to catch my breath. He climbs off the couch, reaches for his pants, extracts his wallet, then stands up, giving me a clear view of his raging erection. Still too weak to move, my eyes lock on it hungrily, and I feel a surge of wetness between my still-pulsing folds.

  “Come ’ere, baby.” He scoops me off the couch and I rest heavily in his arms, my cheek against his shoulder. As he carries me up the stairs, I take in his intoxicating smell: a mixture of his masculine sweat, sex, and my own sweet scent.

  “Straight ahead,” I say, though he could probably guess which bedroom is the master since it’s the only one with double doors. We go into the mostly dark room, softly lit from the open curtains and nearly-full moon.

  He lays me gently on the bed, and I adjust slightly, sinking in, watching him. He takes a condom from his wallet and watches me as he rolls it on, and on, and on.

  “You ready?” he asks, his voice thick and hot.

  “So ready.”

  He climbs on, and I open to him, exhaling deeply and closing my arms around his wide chest as he slowly sinks into me. “You feel so good,” he whispers, his hot breath on my ear.

  I can only whimper in response, overwhelmed with the sensation of his thick cock sliding deeper and deeper into me. The sensations in my channel are heightened in a post-orgasmic glow, and every ridge of his cock is an intense pulse of pleasure. He rocks back, then sinks into me again, harder and deeper.

  He groans like he’s in pain. Then suddenly gives me a hard, deep thrust that sends such a strong spike of pleasure through me I cry out, sounding in pain myself.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asks urgently.

  I shake my head desperately, wanting more. “It’s so good,” I say, then gasp when he thrusts me hard again. “God, yes.”

  He props up on one elbow, tucks one hand under my ass to change our angle, then kisses me deeply as he thrusts me again. This time, he’s hitting bottom and I’m drowning in pleasure, moaning in his mouth and spreading wider. A new sort of orgasm is building, from a different place in my body as the tip of his hard cock hits an apex of pleasure I didn’t know I had.

  Our mouths break apart and I’m gasping, my hands clawing at his back. “Yes, Mason, oh my god.”

  “You feel so good, Corrine.”

  He comes at me faster and harder, and I slowly arch back like a puppet on a string, my fingernails dragging slowly up his back. He groans in pleasure, long and slow with the movement of my fingernails biting his skin.

  I curl my arms around his shoulders, pressing my forehead against him as he pounds me. “Sweet Corrine,” he whispers, his breath hot on my neck. “So beautiful. So amazing.”

  The combination of those tender words and his body’s desperate claiming of mine is almost more than I can bear. The pressure inside me builds, the pleasure so intense I can’t believe I haven’t come, but I’m still climbing higher.

  “You’re so tight,” he says thickly. “So fucking wet.”

  I want to talk dirty to him too, tell him how fucking hard he’s getting inside me, tell him how I can feel his orgasm building as his entire body stiffens, but all I can say is, “Oh my god, oh fuck, oh my god.”

  Then we rush higher and harder and so fast, and burst into climax together. Gasping and thrashing, I think it’s going to tear me into bits. My heart is trying to bust out of my chest. His hard cock is still rubbing every inch of me and driving pleasure deep inside me and I’m crying out and contracti
ng around him, utterly helpless and loving every second of it.

  God yes.

  He groans in my ear, pushing hard into me as he empties out. I cry out again and again, as my orgasm tears repeatedly through me. When I come down, it’s in hard, abrupt waves, causing me to tremble and contract helplessly. Finally, it recedes, long and slow like a lover’s tender hand caressing me from breast to foot.

  “Good lord,” I gasp as he comes out of me and collapses on the mattress next to me.

  We pant in silence for a moment, then he says he’ll be right back and disappears into the bathroom. I lay there with my eyes closed, my blood thumping, my body heavy and buzzing.

  I take a slow, deep breath that reaches into the most hidden parts of me. I exhale slowly, overcome with a satisfaction I didn’t know I needed. It’s like something inside me has been tense and wanting ever since he walked out that door Thanksgiving Day, and I’m only just now gratified.

  He emerges from the bathroom, and the sight of him knocks against my heart. Watching him, I roll onto my side, tucking my hands under my cheek and smiling at him.

  He smiles too and lies down next to me, propped up on one arm. He gently tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Hopefully that was better. Sorry our first time was so...”

  He lets his words trail off and I furrow my brows at his hesitation. What in the hell is he apologizing for? Because our first time was fucking amazing.

  He rests his hand warmly on my shoulder. “I was kind of an animal,” he finishes simply.

  “Yeah,” I breathe, remembering, a broad smile spreading on my lips.

  He laughs softly. “Okay. Maybe I don’t need to be sorry.”

  “Uh uh,” I say, shaking my head and coming up onto one arm too. His hand slides down my arm and rests on the crook of my hip. “It was bucket list worthy, baby. I got more than a New Year’s Eve kiss. You fucked me from one year right into the next.”

  He laughs, and my chest lightens at the sound of it.