Fate moved to step out of them, but Dean halted her progress with a firm hand on her waist.
“Leave them on. If you care about me at all, for the love of all things holy, leave them on.”
Her lips tugged upward in a sheepish grin, and suddenly, the weekend didn’t feel long enough for all the things he wanted to do to her, for her, with her.
“How would you like me, Mr. Maxwell?”
His dick throbbed and strained against his zipper. And then something else happened in his pants. His motherfucking phone buzzed. Dean was struck by the impulse to pitch the thing into the ocean. He slipped it out of his pocked and tossed it in the same direction Fate’s dress had gone.
“Should you get that?” Judging from the impish expression on her face, she was teasing him.
“The next person or thing that interrupts us is getting thrown into the ocean.” He wasn’t kidding.
“Feels like the universe might be against us,” she said softly when his phone began buzzing incessantly on the couch where it had landed.
“Fuck the universe. Come.” Dean held out a hand, his heart speeding noticeably when she took it. He led her into his bedroom, where the balcony doors were still open. “This isn’t how it was supposed to go.”
“You had a plan, did you?”
“Maybe.” He sure as hell did. One he’d been formulating since she’d disappeared on him in June.
“Wanna tell me about it?”
“I’d rather show you.” Dropping to his knees at the foot of the bed, Dean pulled her to him and placed a wet, openmouthed kiss on her stomach.
“Dean,” she breathed as she ran her fingers through his hair. “You’re still in your suit.”
“I need to taste you. Need to make you come on my tongue. Can you do that for me, baby?”
Her body trembled against him.
“Y-yes. Yes, I can.”
He kissed her hipbone once more, roughly lashing his tongue against her skin. “Nothing else is going to get in our way this weekend. I am going to fuck you every way imaginable, Fate.”
He licked a trail down the front of her panties, using two fingers to spread the slit in the fabric. Before he plunged his tongue into her already glistening folds, he looked up to confirm that this was okay with her.
Her angelic face was framed by her long, luscious mane of hair as she looked down at him with lust-drenched need in her eyes.
“Are you ready, baby?”
“God, Dean. Oh my God.”
It was wrong to take the Lord’s name in vain—particularly wrong considering what was causing her to scream it out the way she was—but she couldn’t do much to help it.
His fingers had found her pulsating center and were thrusting in and out of her while his tongue was doing an intricate dance around her clit. The powerful combination of sensations had effectively scrambled her brain.
He pressed her onto the bed until she was leaning back on her elbows with her legs propped atop his shoulders. An Adonis in three-piece Armani suit did things to her between her legs that she didn’t even have names for.
The pressure built in her lower stomach and swirled in time with his expert tongue.
“Dean, please. Please.” Her cries neither slowed nor deterred him. Once she felt the pressure reaching epic proportions, her body began to thrust itself into his mouth’s assault.
“I need you naked except the heels, Fate.” His mouth had brought her to the very edge of her peak, but he pulled back with an animalistic glint in his eyes. “Now.”
He divested her of the panties and waited the five seemingly long seconds it took her to unclasp and remove her bra.
His eyes widened with pleasure and appreciation as he took in her exposed body. She felt the flush of heat spread through her when she realized that this was the first time he’d seen her completely naked.
“There you are, beautiful girl,” he said, lowering his mouth to her left nipple. The skin puckered and pearled under his worshipful tongue. “Fuck, I’ve been needing you naked for months now.”
Fate rolled her bottom lip beneath her teeth and gathered her courage. “It works both ways, Dean. I think it’s time to lose the rest of the suit.”
“Your wish is my command, sweetheart.”
Her breasts ached in protest at the absence of his warm mouth on them, but she immensely appreciated watching him remove his clothing. His fingers made quick work of the buttons on his shirt then lifted the hem of his under shirt and lifted it off as well. She was practically panting by the time he’d lost the black, leather belt and shoes. Her insides throbbed when he lowered his zipper.
Black boxer briefs hugged his muscular thighs, and Fate sat up, unable to wait any longer. Her fingers tore at the waistband, yanking them down and causing him to chuckle at her sudden burst of overzealous behavior.
“Patience is a virtue, Ms. Buchanan,” he chided her playfully.
“I think we’ve been patient enough, Mr. Maxwell. Are you going to make me beg for it like on the beach?”
She leaned back to wait as he opened a foil packet from the nightstand and slid latex over his thick erection.
His jaw clenched as he lowered himself onto her. “No. No more begging, Fate.”
She stretched upward to kiss him, but he pulled back. Her insides began to pulse and throb as if she were doing the most intense kegel exercises of her life. Gwen would be so proud.
“Dean?”
His arm snaked around her waist. Then she felt the heat of his hand on her lower back as he pressed her farther up the mattress. They were horizontal on it, so no pillows, but pillows were overrated anyway.
“I’d never make you beg, beautiful. Any time you want me, you can have me.”
“Any time?” She nipped at his bottom lip but stopped her teasing assault when she saw the fires of hell burning in his glare.
“Any time, Fate. I know this weekend is all we agreed to, but I’m a weak man when it comes to you. If you show up in my office a week, a month, or, hell, a year from now, I probably won’t be strong enough to deny you. Ever.”
Confidence surged inside her chest. Somehow, this limited-time thing had been somewhat confining. It had stung a little that he’d placed a time restriction on them. His words erased any doubts she had and she let go of her fears of inadequacy.
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
This time, she was the one who pulled back, but Dean wasn’t as easily deterred. The man made demands with his mouth, stole promises with his hands, and devoured her with the rest of his body.
Once he’d stoked her fire from toe to head until she was a blazing inferno ready to beg despite what he’d said, Dean rolled them so that she was on top.
“I want you to take what you want, baby. I pushed you to come here, but I need to know you want this as badly as I do.”
His eyes never left hers while she adjusted herself over him. “I want it, Dean. I shouldn’t have run before.”
“Say it again,” he commanded. His chest rose between them.
Fate placed her hands on it for leverage. “I want it. I want you. I shouldn’t have run.” As soon as she’d confessed her secrets, she lowered onto him as gently as she could. Her body tensed at the intrusion, and Dean remained still while she adjusted for it.
“Feel okay, baby?” Genuine concerned shined in his eyes.
Fate nodded. “Feels wonderful. Just…full.”
Dean’s eyes closed briefly. When he opened them, lust flashed hot into her. “I want to fill you, Fate. I want to fuck you and fill you and fucking claim you.”
Her blood practically boiled in her veins. “Then do it.”
Before she had time to reconsider giving him the go-ahead, he began thrusting, topping from the bottom so to speak, and soon, he’d taken her so hard that they’d rolled again and his broad frame was braced above her.
Her head fell back as he deepened their contact with each thrust. Dean took advantage of her exposed throat and licked up the column of flesh until
he found her mouth.
The ocean waves could be heard through the open doors, and Fate felt as if she were drowning. She was drowning in a sea of indulgent sensations with every touch, kiss, and stroke of his cock that pushed her further below the level of consciousness. She’d only felt this way one other time—on the beach when he’d been merely a stranger. Now, she knew him. She knew him to be the kind of man who was better than he gave himself credit for. And she knew that this was a degree of hedonistic pleasure she doubted anyone else would ever be able to match.
The deeper her drove into her, the more their sweat-slicked bodies slid against one another, the more she got it—got the natural inner workings of what it meant to be fucked, filled, and claimed, as he’d said, on an empirical level.
Something inside her yearned for him, and when the tip of his dick touched it just right, it was as if he’d tapped a button that released a nearly lethal dose of morphine into her system. It was ecstasy to the point of pain, bliss to near numbness.
She tried to tell him, to articulate her appreciation for what he was doing to her body, but her efforts came out like a demon had possessed her and was speaking in tongues on her behalf.
When the swelling wave of her orgasm approached, she wanted to warn him, but he seemed to already know. His hands flew to her wrists and pinned them to the mattress. Still impaling her on his shaft, he pulled back enough to bore his determined stare into hers.
“Come for me, sweetness. Come on my cock, beautiful girl.”
“Dean.” Her breath came in gasps, and for a second, she was afraid. It was too much, too soon, and more powerful than she thought either of them could handle.
“Fucking come, Fate. I’m here. I’m right here with you. Come for me, baby.” He slowed his motions and ground his hips against her, shoving his erection right to where she needed it.
Her entire body felt in serious danger of bursting apart at the seams. His words, his reassurances, gave her the strength to succumb. “I’m right here with you.” He repeated it until she let go, and as soon as her first wave had crested over the edge, Dean gave in to his own release, prompting a second wave followed by aftershocks that felt like mini seizures.
“I’ve got you, baby. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
His arms wrapped around her and the murmured promises continued into her just- fucked mess of hair until she slipped into unconsciousness.
Dean liked to think he was more than just a decent lover. Making love to a woman had seemed to be his one true talent in life. It came natural to him. The knowledge of where to touch, where to kiss, tongue, lick, and suck. He had an intrinsic understanding of the female body—how it responded when it was time to fuck hard and when to back it down into intense strokes that pulled pleasure from deep within. But in the roughly twelve or so years since he’d started having sex, he’d never made a woman come the way Fate had. Her body had bloomed around him, clenching and constricting until he could barely breathe and she’d finally let go. She was coming undone and unraveling in his hands.
Shattered.
By him.
Because, ultimately, that’s what was keeping his dick hard even after he’d come to the point of almost blacking out. He’d been the one to give her that. Not anyone else. Ever.
He’d been the one to drain every ounce of ecstasy from her now thoroughly exhausted body.
Lying there with her collapsed on his chest, he could practically see Keaton’s face laughing his ass off at him.
You are so fucked, dude.
He was. He knew he was. What he’d told her hadn’t been an empty promise—it was completely true. It wouldn’t matter how much time passed—Dean would never be able to tell this woman no. And that terrified the ever-loving fuck out of him.
It was just a fact that now existed in his universe—one he had no place for.
He let his hand run its course though her hair, kissed her on the top of the head, and then did what he had to in order to make sure she didn’t get confused. Sure, she’d said that she wasn’t looking for more than this, but women always said that. They were always willing to say whatever it took so that he’d show them a good time. But Dean had learned from experience that, when the good time ended, they were always waiting, waiting to be told that they were the exception to his rules—that they were the one who was different. While he didn’t expect that from the woman who’d run from him before and tried to avoid him eighty different ways, he now had a completely different fear.
That he was about to get a lethal dose of his own medicine.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to extend their sexual excursions beyond this weekend—because he’d certainly take more if she was willing to give it. But he didn’t believe he could give her more than this, more than mind-blowing orgasms. He didn’t do relationships and had no intentions of ending up locked into something long term that he’d only fail at. Maxwell men didn’t do failure, a fact his father had reminded him of all his life. They played it safe, took only calculated risks, and they succeeded at every venture. Period.
So once he was certain Fate was asleep, he executed a much-practiced five-point maneuver to escape from beneath her. The couch wasn’t necessarily comfortable, but it was a safe zone, and waking up on it would ensure that he didn’t wake up not wanting to let go of the woman in his bed.
The smell of bacon wafted through the beach house, rousing Dean from a turbulent sleep. Leather stuck to the side of his face as he attempted to sit up. Stretching and standing, he saw Fate in the kitchen. Her back was to him, but from what he could see, she was wearing only his white button-down from yesterday. His mouth watered at both the scent of the food she was cooking—food he hadn’t realized was even there—and the sight of her bare legs beneath his shirt.
“Morning,” he said, walking over and retrieving a carton of orange juice from the counter. “Sleep okay?” He couldn’t hear her answer over the clink of the glasses in the cabinet. “Sorry, babe. What was that?”
Fate slid several slices of bacon onto a paper towel that sat atop a blue china plate. “I said ‘Mmhm,’” she repeated.
“Glad someone did.” He sipped his juiced and leaned against the counter. “I was tossing and turning. Figured it best not to disturb you.”
He’d barely had time to feel bad about the half-truth when she turned narrowed eyes on him.
“I see. Well thank you for being so considerate. I’m a little restless when I sleep near the ocean myself, so I wouldn’t have minded. Tonight, I can take the couch.”
Dean burned his fingertips reaching for a piece of bacon. He might’ve imagined it, but from his view of her side profile, it looked like she’d smiled.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re my guest.” No way in hell was he letting her sleep on the couch. That thing had gotten up close and personal with him all night long.
“Then perhaps I’ll sleep in a guest room.” She paused to pour herself a glass of orange juice that he hoped wasn’t expired. “There’s bacon if you want the rest. You didn’t have any eggs.” With that, she took her glass and plate of bacon and a slice of whole-wheat toast she’d buttered onto the deck without giving him a backward glance.
The impulse to follow her outside to apologize for being an asshole was almost as strong as the one he’d felt to chase after her that very first night. But this was where he had to draw the line. There were certain necessary behaviors he had to maintain to keep from sending mixed signals. No sleeping together involving actual sleep. No dates. No cuddling beyond what was polite post coitus. And no dramatic apologies over maintaining said behaviors.
Sitting at the bar drinking coffee he’d made using the French press his housekeeper had given him for Christmas, Dean watched Fate watching the ocean.
Her back was ramrod straight, her gaze remaining steady on the rolling waves as she barely nibbled at her food.
Dean had rules. Guidelines he’d set and adhered to for years. But when two long, bare, shapely legs lifted and pr
opped on top of the chair across from her, he decided it was perhaps time for some amendments.
“I didn’t know how you took your coffee, and we’re out of half-and-half, so I brought the milk and sugar.”
Fate glanced up and squinted into the glare of the sun. A shirtless Dean clad in only navy-blue drawstring pajama pants was distracting enough. The sun blinding her was almost a blessing.
“Thank you. I tend to only drink coffee on work mornings.”
Dean lowered himself onto the chair next to the one her feet rested in. “I see. Well, now I know.”
“Now you do. And for the record, I like my coffee sweetened and over ice. Never been a fan of scorching-hot coffee blazing a trail down my esophagus.”
Moving the unwanted cup aside, Dean folded his hands on the glass of the table and leaned forward. “Speaking of things I don’t know, can I ask you something?”
Fate tried not to imagine what he might be about to ask, but it was hard to keep the flurry of possible questions at bay. There was a lot he didn’t know.
She nodded and waited for the pop quiz she was grossly underprepared for to begin.
“Why did you agree to come here? I mean, I get that it was probably easier than turning me down because I am persistent son of a bitch. But aside from that, is there anything you’re expecting out of this weekend that I should be aware of?”
Fate sat up in her chair, letting her feet fall to the cool wood of the deck. “I think we already covered the part about my not looking for a commitment, Dean. If that’s why you left last night, it wasn’t necessary.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t. It was more like I wasn’t sure how our little agreement would look the morning after and I didn’t know how you’d feel about it in the light of day. It was just easier to sleep on the couch.”
In a way, she got what he was saying. She chuckled softly. “Isn’t it funny how sleeping with someone, actually sleeping, can be more intimate than sex?”
“I wouldn’t know. Technically, I’ve never slept with anyone.”
Falling for Fate (Second Chance Book 2) Page 19