by Red Garnier
Her eyes widened as she reached the tip, the point, that painful second before release. “Now, Sebastian, now!” she cried.
With one last thrust he drove his cock straight home. Cleo clutched him tightly while he shuddered, his face contorted in ecstasy, and be it heaven or hell, she would follow him. Closing her eyes, she rubbed her sex against his hardness ever so slightly, and with that fleeting touch, exploded into a million pieces.
Fucking awesome.
No other words could describe her.
And now Sebastian didn’t give a damn if he was being a real pussy for wanting to hold her. But he did, he wanted—needed—to hold her as much as he’d needed to fuck her. He gathered her into his arms and pressed her face into the crook of his neck. It was odd, the way the burning, fiery desire he’d harbored for years now felt like something else. Something fuzzy, warm. A feeling as alien to him as cuddling a woman after he’d screwed her. A feeling he’d thought was solely exclusive to wimps, gays and girls. That life-is-beautiful sort of crap. It was inside him now, and damn it, it felt good.
And Cleo, in his arms, felt even better.
His thoughts darkened when he remembered she would be going back to take care of those freaking old geezers tomorrow. She would fly back to Seattle, leaving him behind. But he couldn’t let that affect him because tonight…tonight she was his. And for the life of him, he would be content with that.
For now.
It had been…
No. Cleo dared not even think it.
She should not think these things, for her brain was still clouded and hazy, not working properly—short-circuited. But try as she might, she couldn’t stop the sting in her eyes and the feeling of having experienced something painfully beautiful. She sniffled softly when the tears came and prayed a silent prayer that he wouldn’t notice. His hold tightened around her and he bent his head, pressing his brow to hers.
“What is this?” He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face upward. Cleo shyly met his gaze, acutely aware of her stinging red eyes and silently cursing herself for being so weak in front of him, so weak in front of a man who could break her as easily as a twig under his feet. “Why are you crying, Cleo?”
She bit her lip because frankly, she didn’t know.
“Bas, are you making her cry again?” Luella asked, clearly concerned.
“Mind your own business,” Sebastian snapped, glaring at her over his shoulder before he turned back to Cleo and tenderly rubbed his thumbs along her cheeks. “Don’t cry, Cleo.”
His concern tightened around her heart like a fist.
Staring into his eyes, the color of polished onyx, blazing with need and longing as he looked back at her, Cleo finally realized why she was so afraid of him—and why she wanted to cry. It wasn’t him actually, but what she felt because of him. Hate. Pain. Want.
And so much love.
It was impossible to explain these strong, conflicting emotions with the same simplicity as she could explain something like a rainbow. Cleo couldn’t understand them like she could understand the rightness of one plus one being two. She couldn’t predict the outcome of an experience such as this like she could predict the outcome of a division or multiplication.
These feelings rioted, blended, mixed…and she could no more explain them than she could explain her own existence and meaning in this world. It scared her, the sheer intensity and power of her emotions, for she knew they had the power to lift her to the skies. Or destroy her completely.
“You regret this, don’t you?” Sebastian asked gruffly.
“No, Sebastian, I don’t.”
He pressed his lips to hers softly, tenderly. “If I hurt you, I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” she said, reaching to cup his hard, square jaw with her palms. She knew it the second she stared into his eyes, for she saw her heart right in them—she still loved him. Achingly. Deeply. And all these years, she always had. Yes, it hurt. He angered her, hurt her…and she still loved him.
“I’m sorry baby, for everything,” he breathed as he pulled her to him and crushed his lips to hers.
She melted under his lips, under the pressure of his mouth urging hers to open for him. Her hands settled on the back of his neck while she met the thrusts of his tongue equally with those of her own.
She trembled in his arms before he pulled back, for the first time noting they were still naked. “Stay here,” he whispered.
Rising, he left her for a minute and came back wearing his jeans and white cotton shirt, his jacket in his hand. He handed it to her. “Here, put this on,” he said softly.
Cleo did so, slipping her arms into the long sleeves then pulling it closed tightly across her chest. The jacket smelled like him—leather, beer, man and cigarettes. She made it a priority to memorize his scent, drew in a deep breath and felt drugged, intoxicated by it.
Sebastian sat down beside her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his side. He eyed her profile in silence. “We’re going to have to talk about this, Cleo.”
“Yes,” Cleo agreed, nodding slowly.
He stared blindly out at the ocean for a moment and then back at her. “I just don’t know what to say,” he confessed.
She met his gaze and thought how beautiful his eyes were. How deep and dark. There was no trace of the strong, unyielding man she knew. His features were still strong, still masculine and powerful, but much less menacing to her now. “Let’s not say anything then.”
Tightening his hold around her shoulders he smiled, a slow cocky grin, so rare on his face yet so familiar to her—for she knew it by memory. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Hey, are we spinning the devil again?” Luella asked.
“Hell no, this is much better,” Jason said. He was sprawled naked between Haley and Luella’s nude, sweaty bodies. David sat beside them, half-dressed and pensive.
“Your June wedding is definitely off, David, I’m sorry to have to say,” Luella said matter-of-factly. “Your bride will be really pissed when she finds out you fucked us.”
“Just shut the hell up,” he grumbled.
Haley laughed. “How convenient to consider the decency of your actions only after you came in my mouth, David.”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen.” David glowered at the red plush toy, almost buried in the sand now. “Fucking spin devil.”
Cleo turned to look at it, only its tail and chubby legs sticking out of the sand.
Yes, that mischievous spin devil. It had possessed them all. And yet the game and its red-tailed mascot had given Cleo something beautiful, something she could only be grateful for. Maybe the spin devil game had, in a way, helped her to admit all these feelings, wild and beautiful and scary, that Sebastian Russo stirred inside her—now and maybe always.
“I want you again,” Sebastian whispered, his breath scorching her ear. “God, I want you so much.”
Cleo closed her eyes at his words and felt yards of slow, dizzying swirls of desire travel along her body, spreading to touch every corner of her being as he slowly, hotly kissed her earlobe.
“I want you too,” she whispered to the air, to the wind, the sky, the ocean—and him.
“Let’s go inside.”
As Sebastian lifted a shrieking, smiling Cleo into his arms and carried her toward the two-story house, the four remaining friends looked at each other in amusement.
“Think it’s the love bug?” Haley asked, her eyes lively and glimmering.
“Yep,” Jason said, nodding in approval.
David shook his head vehemently, scowling at the toy on the sand, already forgotten by everyone except him. “It’s that damned spin devil.”
Several slaps and smacks landed playfully on the back of David’s head.
“Shut up, you old grump.”
“Get over it, babe. Wedding’s off.”
“Is that what you’re going to tell the blushing bride? ‘The spin devil made me do it’?”
He smiled and nodded at his friends. “Hell yeah. It was the spin devil.”
The End
About the Author
A lifelong reader of romance and erotica, Red Garnier is a lover of love, sex, and laughter. Formerly a full-time diamond expert, now her expertise lies solely in the heart and imagination, spending her days and nights grappling with chauvinistic heroes and sassy, sexy heroines.
Red enjoys reading almost as much as writing, and as a sensitive Pisces, cries wholeheartedly at the merest, silliest things. Not that she’s a crybaby, but hey, she’s female and warmhearted, and she does get to put up with insensitive machos and stubborn females every day—which is plenty enough to make her cry and maybe…laugh her head off.
Red is a firm believer in love being the strongest, deepest emotion of the heart, capable of making one soar to the skies—and crash on one’s butt.
Needless to say, it’s worth the ride. And despite all the obstacles (which are most times within our own very selves) Red believes that love truly conquers all.
Red welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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