Power Play (Portland Storm Book 16)

by Catherine Gayle

“And you like that? It doesn’t make me seem…I don’t know, immature? Young and inexperienced? Unsophisticated?” Like a freaking idiot? I kept that last one to myself. No point in my putting thoughts of that nature in his head if they weren’t there already.

  “Are you trying to tell me you’re a virgin?”

  My cheeks suddenly got so hot you could fry an egg on their surface.

  “Hey, it’s all right. That’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Nope. Not at all.”

  “But it means I am all those things I said.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Riley planted a hard, quick peck on my lips. “It makes you seem sweet and innocent and utterly perfect. Or at least perfect for me. Trust me, I don’t want you to be anything other than exactly what you already are.”

  “You’re sure?” I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Riley was a professional athlete. Why would he want to have anything to do with me? Especially considering how out of touch with the world I seemed to be.

  “More sure than I could ever attempt to explain.”

  The way he said it made me think there was something more at play in his response, but it didn’t seem to have anything to do with me. Most likely, it had everything to do with his ex and his brother, the ones he’d mentioned last night before we got married. And while that thought did relieve my anxiety to a degree, it made me curious to know more about this man who was now my husband.

  But then he leaned forward and took my lower lip between his teeth, biting down hard enough that it made me gasp and open to grant him entry but not hard enough that it truly hurt. Apparently, learning more about Riley would have to wait.

  Or at least, learning more about him in that way. He seemed intent on the pair of us getting to know everything possible about one another in an entirely different manner.

  Both his hands on my hips, he dragged me forward until I was straddling him. There was no mistaking the fact that his manhood was very much hard this morning. Tequila dick wouldn’t be a problem today, even if my bladder might be.

  I braced myself with my hands on his shoulders, trying to keep my weight balanced on my knees and calves. He took advantage of our positioning, slipping a hand between us to rub me between my legs again. Riley’s touch set me on fire, especially when he set his mouth to my breast. The suction might as well be connected by a direct line to my sex.

  “You’re so wet,” he murmured, sucking my nipple between his lips. “So sweet.”

  His thumb rubbed over my most sensitive spot, and my legs trembled so hard I feared I might collapse. Riley, apparently catching on to my distress, did some sort of ninja move that flipped us around on the bed until he was hovering over me, his hips pressing me down into the mattress.

  He reached over to the bedside table and brought back a foil wrapper that he ripped open with his teeth. A condom? Must be. Good thing he had thought of it, because I certainly hadn’t, and I wouldn’t have had the first clue what to say otherwise. A moment later, he lifted his hips away from me and rolled the condom into place before settling his weight over me again.

  And then he was pressing against my entrance and gliding inside, filling me to the point I was certain he couldn’t go any farther. But somehow, my body gave way and accepted even more of his invasion.

  “Oh,” I breathed in surprise and a bit of shock at the sharp bite of pain that struck me. It wasn’t awful pain—just startling, I supposed.

  He came to a stop, allowing me a moment to breathe and adjust to the new sensation, then dropped his head onto the pillow next to mine. His raspy breath felt hot against my ear. “Fuck, baby doll, you’re so tight.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said automatically. Apologies were always quick to fall from my lips. If there was a problem, it must be my fault—that was what I’d always believed, and I doubted I could change that for no greater reason than being married now. Having a husband didn’t make me any less of a screw-up and a problem than I’d always been.

  “Don’t you dare apologize for that.”

  “No?” I blinked up at him, confusion drawing my brows together even as the pain gradually receded from my body, slowly replaced by a growing warmth.

  He grinned down at me, his hard, overheated body covering mine in every way. “No. No apologies.”

  “But it means I don’t know what to do. How to…please you.”

  “Then it means I get to be the one you learn with.” His eyes lit up like nothing I’d ever seen before. “And you already please me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “More than sure. You don’t have anything to apologize for. Not to me. Not to anyone.”

  He was wrong about that. Surely, he must be.

  But then, he started to move, retreating somewhat before once again pressing himself deep inside me. His movements were focused, deliberate, stealing my ability to think of all the things I was bound to be doing wrong.

  “Okay,” I murmured, but it sounded almost like a question. I could hardly take a full breath from the startling intensity of what we were doing.

  The friction as he moved in and out of me was powerful and concentrated, but it was nothing compared to the sensation of him filling me. I cried out in surprise when he thrust in harder than before, reaching some unknown depth that felt new and exciting and a little bit terrifying.

  Riley stilled, deep within me. He scanned my face with a worried crease between his brows. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No, I’m not hurt.” It had stung a bit at first, but the sting was already diminishing.

  In all honesty, I couldn’t come up with the right words to describe what I was feeling. Nerves. Magnetic intensity. An anxious need to be whatever Riley needed me to be, to do what he needed me to do. An odd combination of taut, tense muscles and a hot, languid loosening of them as pleasure gradually overtook all the rest.

  For what felt like an eternity, Riley studied my face, not moving even so much as an inch. Gradually, my body stretched and accepted him until, when he started to move within me again, it felt like the most exquisite sort of torture. Not pain, exactly. No, this was a maddening sort of yearning that seemed to skitter just out of my reach every time I got close to it.

  “You’re not breathing,” Riley murmured, his lips hovering just too far away from mine for them to connect. “I need you to breathe for me.” He nipped my lower lip, making me gasp for air, and placed one hand between us, holding himself above me with all his weight braced on the other arm.

  “I’m trying,” I said.

  He winked. “Try harder. You won’t come if you aren’t breathing, you know.”

  As a matter of fact, I didn’t know anything of the sort, but I couldn’t waste the energy to tell him when I had other things demanding my attention.

  Then he started swirling tiny circles around my tight nub with his thumb, making it next to impossible for me to breathe like a normal person. How was I supposed to focus on anything so basic and common as sucking oxygen into my lungs when my body was on the verge of internal combustion?

  “Will I know?” I asked.

  Riley laughed and nipped my lower lip before sucking on the flesh. “Will you know what?” Good heavens, his voice was so deep and husky and sexy right now it made me shiver.

  It took me a moment to remember what I’d been wanting to know. But then it came back to me in a rush. “If I come? When I come, I mean,” I corrected myself when he gave me a disgruntled look. I didn’t want him to think I doubted his abilities, even if I might doubt my own. “How will I know? What does it feel like?” Because I couldn’t imagine anything feeling better than this did, with Riley’s thick length gliding inside me, his strong hands working me into a frenzy, his soft lips and determined tongue tasting me all over with the bit of scruff lining his jaw scratching my skin, the powerful cords of his muscles bunching and releasing as he moved above me and inside me.

  But in lieu of giving me an answer, he slipped his tongue into
my mouth to tangle with my own. He swirled his tongue and angled his hips so that he could thrust more deeply, and I forgot to worry about anything.

  And then, just when I’d finally forgotten to worry any longer, it hit me, the most exquisite and fierce sort of pleasure I could have ever imagined. It curled up from my toes and spread like wildfire through my limbs. The sensation didn’t let me go until I was entirely spent, a flash and a long fizzle, followed by utter and complete bonelessness.

  Was bonelessness even a word? I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter, because this was everything I could ever have imagined and more.

  “You’re squeezing me so tight, baby,” Riley said, his face buried against my neck. “So fucking tight.” Then he thrust into me one more time and let out a muffled shout against the pillow before collapsing on top of me and becoming still.

  My heart and lungs were still struggling to keep up when he rolled off of me and wrapped his arms and legs around me, dragging me up against his side. He tucked my head under his chin. I was just as hot and sweaty as he was, not to mention far more out of breath even though he’d done all the heavy lifting. But somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to feel self-conscious, not even with my nakedness.

  For long minutes, we lay there together, waiting for our breathing to steady and our pulses to slow. I could only wait so long, though, because my bladder was seriously about to burst. That meant I had to disentangle myself from Riley’s grip—which was easier said than done since he seemed to already be falling asleep again.

  I wriggled over somewhat, hoping to get away without disturbing him.

  No luck. His eyes shot open, and he gave me such a sexy grin that I thought I might very well melt on the spot. “That was way better than tequila dick,” he said, grinning at me.

  I blushed. Don’t ask me why I was so embarrassed after everything we’d done together in the last twelve hours or so, but my face felt hotter than the surface of the sun.

  “You are so damn pretty when you blush,” he said. “Makes me want to find all the things I can do to make you blush.”

  “It probably won’t take much.” Even as the words fell from my lips, I felt my cheeks grow even hotter.

  “Sounds like a good plan for how we can spend the next few days.” He winked, and my knees went weak.

  Yeah, cue internal combustion. This man was way too hot for my safety. I was playing with fire. Which meant I was bound to get burned, because no one had ever bothered to teach me how to protect myself around an open flame like Riley Jezek.

  OVER THE COURSE of a few days, while we were still alone together in Cabo before I had to head back to Portland, I decided that marrying Mackenzie was every bit the perfect antidote to being betrayed by my former fiancée and my shitty excuse for a brother. Mackenzie was sweet, and so damned innocent. In seemingly every way, she was all the things that Amanda was not.

  It didn’t take long before I was devising ways to make Mackenzie blush—something I quickly learned was almost second nature to her—because her blushes were sexy and adorable and absolute perfection, and because I didn’t think Amanda had possessed enough common decency to be capable of producing a blush.

  When we walked hand in hand along the beach, letting our toes sink into the wet sand, I leaned over and whispered in Mackenzie’s ear all the things I wanted to do with her as soon as we were alone in the cottage. She turned as pink as the sky surrounding the setting sun. She turned even pinker when I followed through, her skin flushed and damp. I didn’t care that it took a long time to get her to come, either. All the time we spent together in bed only helped us get to know one another, at least sexually, and she seemed to be getting used to me.

  When we ate a late dinner at a busy cantina not far from the cottage one night, I stroked her leg beneath the table, beginning at her knee but gradually working my way up her inner thigh until her eyes turned dark in the dim candlelight and she bit her lower lip. “Not here,” she admonished me. But her muscles quivered and jumped beneath my touch before I took my hand away, and a rosy color overtook her—including the bit of her chest that was visible over the top of her sundress—leaving no doubt how much she was beginning to be affected by my touch.

  When we stopped at one of the tiny tourist shops in town to buy her a swimsuit, I followed her into the changing rooms with the intention of helping her try them on and make a decision. Admittedly, I wasn’t much help on that score, since I kept taking articles of clothing off her so I could lick her skin in all the places her clothes covered. But eventually, she shoved my hands and my face away and got around to trying on the swimsuits. I preferred the skimpy little bikinis that left virtually nothing to the imagination; Mackenzie gravitated toward the one-piece swimsuits that would befit someone’s grandma more than a gorgeous young woman on her honeymoon. Eventually, we compromised on a modest bikini that hid a lot more of her assets than it revealed, but at least it showed off her flat belly and the gentle curve of her hips. Her cheeks turned a bright shade of pink when we walked out of the changing room to find a line of a half dozen people waiting their turn.

  When we sat in the hot tub in the cottage’s garden late at night, I tugged her into my arms and undid the strings to her bikini top with my teeth. With only the moonlight and stars overhead, I couldn’t be sure she was blushing—but all signs pointed that direction. The way she scrambled to catch her top as it fell away from her perfect, round breasts and into the water. The soft hitch of her breath when I dragged her onto my lap and slid a hand inside her bottoms to tease her clit, followed by her gentle, almost inaudible moan.

  Those little sounds she made had me hard enough to pound nails in about two seconds flat.

  “I want to make you come like this,” I said, my mouth hovering next to her ear as I began to knead her breasts with my free hand. They were soft and perky and bouncy, each of them a perfect palmful—or a perfect mouthful, depending. I couldn’t get enough of her breasts.

  “Outside?” Mackenzie’s voice was a squeak of shock. “Anyone could walk by and hear. Or see.”

  We’d already been out in the hot tub for almost hour, and not a soul had come close to our small stretch of the beach. At least not near enough for it to make any difference. A few partiers had walked past at the shoreline about half an hour ago, but they would never have heard us over their own raucous noisemaking.

  Besides, the possibility of getting caught was a bit of a turn-on. No, I didn’t want to embarrass Mackenzie, but still. Maybe, somewhere deep down inside, I had an exhibitionist streak. Made sense, considering my chosen profession. I loved the roar of the crowd when I was on the ice.

  I wanted all eyes on me when I scored. Apparently, that applied to every sense of the word.

  But something told me Mackenzie wouldn’t want that, which meant I’d be an absolute ass if I pushed her into it. I had no doubt she’d go along with it if I pressed her—she seemed to acquiesce far more than she stood her ground, as though she didn’t believe she could make demands, even if it was something important.

  Fuck. I couldn’t do that to her, no matter how much the idea of making her come in the hot tub under a starry sky might turn me on.

  And it did. Oh boy, did it ever turn me on.

  With a sigh, I released her and started to climb out of the water. I held out a hand for Mackenzie. “Come on. There’s that big garden tub in the master bathroom.” And it had a skylight overhead, so it wouldn’t be all that different—a bit more privacy for her, but the same general setup.

  “Yeah?” she replied, looking up at me with those big, sweet, lust-filled eyes, a hint of relief in the single word.

  As soon as she climbed out of the hot tub, I wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged her against me, reveling in the sensation of her smooth, wet skin sliding against mine.

  This woman was the perfect balm for my bruised and battered ego. She made me feel like a god with the way she looked at me, like I was her hero, the man who’d rescued her from an awful future.<
br />
  Would I ever deserve that kind of adulation? Doubtful.

  She headed toward the bathroom ahead of me and started running the water in the tub while I searched the cabinets for some sort of bubble bath or salts, or something to put in the water to make it sexier. All I came up with were a few candles, which I set out on the counters and lit with a match.

  I only wished I could say I was the perfect man for her. The more I got to know her, and how sweet and innocent and sheltered she truly was, the more I worried I was doing this for all the wrong reasons, right from the start.

  I’d never set out to hurt her. The plan was to help her, and to get back at Amanda and Colby while I was at it. But had my need for revenge overpowered all thought of common sense? Had I dragged Mackenzie into my plans under false pretenses?

  There was a definite possibility I’d fucked up, at least with my intentions.

  Was there any chance I could avoid crushing Mackenzie with my own need for revenge? I wasn’t sure, but now that I’d thought about it, I knew I had to try. She’d already been crushed too many times; stomping her beneath my boots would be more than she could bear. Definitely more than she should have to bear. I doubted she’d ever hurt a fly before, so she deserved to have someone looking out for her.

  And besides, I wasn’t an asshole. I was a good guy. I was the one who’d been fucked over and had my heart dragged through the mud.

  I was a motherfucking good guy.

  Wasn’t I?

  As I stripped off my trunks, climbed into the steaming water, dragged Mackenzie back against my chest, and tucked her head under my chin, I honestly wasn’t sure anymore.

  And that scared the shit out of me.

  Because what good guy married some sweet, innocent girl he didn’t know, not to save her (even if that was what he might claim) but to exact revenge against his ex? And wasn’t that precisely what I’d done? While drunk off my ass, no less—so drunk I couldn’t even get it up to consummate the fucking marriage.

  I was an asshole of epic proportions. Maybe Mackenzie didn’t know that about me yet. Maybe she was still looking at me like I was some goddamned knight on a fucking white charger, rushing in to save the day for her, but that wasn’t even close to the truth.