The Best Part of Me

by Jamie Hollins

  He turned his head in her direction and ran his eyes shamelessly down her body.

  “Hey.”

  “Rough night?” she teased, looking at the empty glass in his hand.

  He huffed out a laugh, looking down at the last few drops of milk in his tumbler. “Long night.”

  She slipped into the kitchen to stand beside him, leaning one hip against the counter.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  He looked at her for a second before shaking his head.

  She reached out and ran her hands along his perfect chest.

  “Anything I can do to make you feel better?”

  His lids lowered as her hands reached his shoulders. He stared at her intently while she watched the desire play across his face. It was a heady feeling knowing she could affect him that way.

  “I should be the one to ask you that after I acted like a complete dick earlier.”

  “Is that an apology?”

  “Yeah.”

  She smiled. “Apology accepted.”

  She wrapped her fingers around his neck before pushing one hand up in his damp hair. And to think, he’d been naked and in the shower just steps away from where she’d lain in bed.

  “Well, there is something you can help me with. You see, I’m having trouble sleeping.” She pressed against him. She could feel his very hard body growing warmer against hers as his hands wrapped around her waist to rest on her bottom. With her nose at his neck, she pulled in his warm, clean scent.

  “Trouble sleeping, you say?”

  Nodding slowly, Quinn rose on her tiptoes, so that their lips were only inches apart.

  “Any ideas?” she asked, gazing into his eyes.

  A low rumble left his throat before he pressed his lips to hers. Quinn could feel the chill in his mouth left from the milk and the undeniable taste that was Ewan as their tongues slid greedily against each other. Heat spread quickly through her body, pulsing through every cell. She tightened her grip in his hair, pulling him closer.

  Leaving one hand on her ass, pulling her against his rock-hard erection, Ewan slid the other hand up to grip the back of her neck. Quinn moaned into his mouth. The hot, wet assault on her lips was nothing short of mind-blowing.

  The man could kiss.

  Her breasts felt heavy and swollen with desire as her nipples tightened against the friction between their bodies. Lifting her easily, Ewan walked her into the bedroom, never once breaking their kiss. He was devouring her mouth as if it were the last morsel of food he’d ever eat.

  As if this was his real apology.

  Standing next to the bed, he hooked one of her legs around his waist. At this angle, her swollen sex was pressed snugly against him. She could feel her heartbeat there as he pushed his hips forward. The blood was rushing quickly through her veins, making it sound as if an entire army was marching past her ears.

  Wrapping her other leg around his waist, she had to tilt her head down to keep the contact with his mouth. He took her bottom lip between his teeth and bit down ever so gently. The pain was exquisite. Quinn involuntarily gasped and arched into him.

  Turning them around, he sat on the bed with her straddling his lap on her knees. His hands still firmly gripping her ass, her fists pulling at his hair. She couldn’t get close enough to him. If she could, she would have crawled inside of him.

  “I missed you,” she groaned as his lips started a hot trail down her neck.

  He momentarily hesitated, then nipped at the taut cord of muscle leading behind her ear. He slid both of the thin straps of her dress off her shoulders before pulling the fabric down to bare her breasts.

  “Jesus, you’ve been walking around all night without a bra on?”

  She bit her lip and grinned.

  He leaned down to latch his mouth on to one of her nipples. The tight suction from his mouth pulled all the blood to the tip of her breast, sending sharp, aching bliss straight to the apex of her thighs.

  “Oh, God, Ewan.” Her breathy voice was barely a whisper.

  “Mmmm,” he hummed against her breast. “You’re talkative tonight.”

  “I told you I’ve missed you,” she said as she watched his attention shift to her other nipple and he circled it with his wicked tongue.

  “I’ve missed this. How you feel against me. How you respond to every fucking thing I do to your perfect little body.”

  That was the most he’d said to her during sex, and it turned her on so much she was about to implode. His growls and moans were hot enough. But throw in some dirty talk and she was putty in his hands.

  She pulled the drawstring on his pajama pants and tried to use her knees to push her ass off his lap enough to pull his pants down. His cock, hard and fully erect, throbbed between them.

  She couldn’t wait another minute. She had to have him inside of her.

  Quinn’s dress was already hiked up around her waist, allowing Ewan to run his fingers along the crease of her ass as he followed the fabric of her thong to where she ached for him. With a sharp tug, Ewan ripped her thong in two.

  Pushing up onto her knees on the edge of the mattress, she forced him to lean back on the bed. His eyes burned into her as she raised her dress over her head, leaving only her ruined thong circling her waist. Leaning forward, she positioned herself over him, willing herself to go slow as she watched every movement affect him.

  His beautiful full lips were parted, and his breath was pulling rapidly with each rise of his chest. His grip on her waist tightened as she slowly took the head of his cock into her welcoming body. She bit her bottom lip and moaned, trying to keep her eyes open to watch his face.

  Her pulse was still marching past her ears as the blood raced through her veins. Inch by inch she lowered, feeling every glorious hard ridge enter her. With a patience that was probably killing him, Ewan remained still with a death grip on her waist, not moving his hips.

  He was letting her set the tempo. This was her show.

  Finally, her ass rested against his legs, and she closed her eyes at the intense feeling.

  After several long breaths, her body adjusted to his size. He felt a lot deeper with her atop him. She felt Ewan trembling beneath her, and when she opened her eyes, she gasped. His eyes blazed with desire.

  Red. Hot. Fuck-her-into-oblivion desire.

  She arched her back and started to move, running her nails up the hard planes of his torso.

  Her movements were slow and timid at first, but with every passing second, her wetness increased, making it easier to pull farther up on his cock before pushing back down. Ewan raised his hands to knead at her swollen breasts. All the while, his smoldering gaze never left hers.

  He was the epitome of breathtaking. And he was lying beneath her, inside of her.

  The idea that it could be like this forever flittered across her mind. They could be like this forever.

  She continued to ride him with increasing intensity. Ewan pushed up onto his elbows, changing the angle of his entry and creating a sweet friction against her sensitive clit. She moaned his name as the fire spread out from her core. Her tempo increased, and she could feel her release building.

  Ewan’s head dropped back, finally breaking eye contact. “Jesus,” he groaned.

  His irreverent prayer pushing her faster toward her approaching orgasm, Quinn reached behind her and gently palmed his balls.

  “Fuck,” Ewan moaned as his whole body coiled with tension.

  Brilliant white light filled Quinn’s vision as she plummeted over the edge. Her body quaked, and she breathlessly whimpered his name over and over. She tried to continue her movements, but they became jerky and erratic. When Ewan’s back dropped to the bed and he gripped the tops of her thighs, she knew he’d found his release as well. He spilled deep inside of her as his body shook. Concentrating on him, she flexed and tightened around his cock and evened out her rhythm, prolonging his pleasure.

  The pure ecstasy on his face was the biggest blue ribbon she’d ever received.


  I do this to him. I make him feel this way.

  Quinn watched as his body relaxed beneath her. And when he opened his eyes to meet hers, something happened inside her chest. It was a physical reaction. An actual precise moment that resonated through her entire body with such clarity that she almost cried.

  She was in love.

  Chapter 21

  Sean was right. Ewan was a textbook masochist.

  Scientists who studied human behavior would have a fucking field day with him. Maybe he was being a bit dramatic. Walking through the Blue Hills Reservation with a beautiful woman wasn’t exactly painful. But being in close proximity to Quinn was enough to make his body ache and his mind get all gooey.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t just his body’s reaction to her that was the biggest problem. His mind was tormented because as much as he’d like to ignore it, he could see tiny changes in the way she acted. And those changes spelled big problems if his goal was to keep their relationship from getting serious. Those changes hinted that she was thinking about the future.

  One that included him.

  He’d spent nearly every day with her in the two weeks since she’d come to dinner at his aunt’s house. She was like some horribly addictive drug. Every time he dropped her off or said good-bye, he swore to himself that he’d slow things down. But damn it if he wasn’t itching to see her again the next day. To feel her smooth skin under his fingertips, to smell the sweet lavender that seemed to seep from her pores. He always gave in to his need for her.

  Which was exactly why he was knocking on Maura Hughes’s porch door on a fucking Sunday morning, getting ready to hike in the goddamn Blue Hills.

  The door swung open suddenly, and he saw Quinn with a toothbrush hanging from her mouth.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, the words slurred and almost unrecognizable as she continued to brush her teeth. “My alarm didn’t go off!”

  Quinn fluttered her hand at him, waving him into the house. She was in a pair of dark green cargo pants and a long-sleeved white T-shirt that hugged her slim torso like shrink wrap.

  She turned and hurried down the hall, disappearing into the hall bathroom. He heard the water come on, and after a second, she yelled, “Aunt Maura’s gone to mass. If we hurry, we can get out of here before she gets back.”

  He walked over to the dining table and sat down to wait, having no idea how long it was going to take her to get ready, but seriously hoping they could avoid an unpleasant chat with her aunt.

  The sun was shining now, but there were clouds on the horizon, which meant that it could be raining in less than fifteen minutes. It was on the chilly side today, so he’d opted for a sweatshirt instead of a jacket, but probably should have still brought one along.

  “Quinn, you should grab a jacket.”

  “Okay!” she yelled back to him. He could hear her quick footsteps taking her from the bathroom to her bedroom. “Do you want something to drink? Coffee?”

  He looked over toward the kitchen but didn’t notice a coffeepot. “Did you make some?”

  “No,” she yelled from her room. “There’s instant coffee in the pantry. Help yourself!”

  Yuck. Forget that. Instant coffee wasn’t coffee. It tasted like dirt. “You don’t have any real coffee?”

  Quinn entered the room, pushing her arms through her windcheater. “Nope. Instant is all I have. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  He rose and went to her as she shrugged her last arm through her jacket. Reaching down, he started the zipper and slowly raised it, making sure to skim his hand over her stomach and up over her breasts. “I can do without coffee. And besides, I don’t beg. You, on the other hand…”

  He let his sentence hang in the air between them as he stopped the zipper under her chin. She smiled but narrowed her eyes at him.

  “You’re full of shit.”

  “Really? I could have sworn last night you were begging me to stick my—”

  “Oh, my gosh.” She interrupted him quickly, covering his mouth with her tiny hand. “First of all, I was requesting, not begging. And secondly, I was drunk.”

  He smiled at her underneath her hand before he quickly touched the tip of his tongue to her fingers. She pulled her hand back with a squeak, making him chuckle.

  “A request preceded by please, please, please and followed by announcing that you’d do anything for it is universally known to be begging.”

  “Whatever,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Only if you beg.”

  “You’re definitely full of shit.” She headed for the door but not before he saw her smile.

  They hopped into his truck and headed south toward the Blue Hills. As predicted, the clouds rolled over the hills, shutting out the sun.

  “What type of hike are you interested in today?”

  “How about a mix of challenging and leisurely. Is that possible?” Quinn asked.

  Ewan thought over the trails that he knew, which weren’t very many.

  “Of the two trails I’m familiar with, one is about a four-and-a-half-mile hike called the Breakneck Ledge Loop and it’s really steep. There’s also a Forest Path that’s less rocky with more woodland views, but it’s six miles. Both begin and end at the headquarters.”

  Quinn smiled. “I’d love to try both.”

  “We only have time for one today,” Ewan said, already dreading the second hike.

  “How about the six-mile hike for today then?”

  Ewan nodded, relieved that she’d picked the easier hike that didn’t involve scaling cliffs and steep hillsides.

  After a short drive, they pulled into the parking lot and started down the gravel path to the head of the trail. The sun peeked out between some dark clouds, making the depth of the forest they were headed into look darker in comparison. If it did start to rain, they would at least be covered under the trees’ canopy for most of the hike.

  Once inside the forest, the terrain stayed level, but the path narrowed. They walked single file for a while before the gravel path gave way to a paved road before veering east back into the woods. They followed the wooded path as they climbed over large roots and boulders, the rustling of the leaves and their breathing being the only sounds they could hear.

  “This place reminds me of Cook Forest, the place my family used to go camping every year.” Quinn’s voice, although barely above a whisper, sounded loud as she broke the silence. “I don’t think the tree cover is as thick here as it is at Cook Forest, but the terrain is similar.”

  Ewan could imagine Quinn as a little girl, climbing over fallen trees, lifting up rocks to check underneath. She was in her element, and it showed even now as she trudged up the trail ahead of him.

  “There are a couple portions of this trail that will wind up to some higher elevations. They’re toward the end.”

  “How many times have you been on this trail?” she asked.

  “Once or twice. But this is my first time as a tour guide.”

  She bit her bottom lip playfully. “If you’re good, I just might give you a big tip.”

  “I hope you’re not one of those fifteen-percent-across-the-board tippers. If I provide excellent service, I’ll expect a little something extra.”

  “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how good your service will be.”

  “I think you’ll find that I service quite well.”

  She rolled her eyes for the hundredth time that morning, but this time, she laughed out loud.

  They walked silently for a while. The sunshine had been chased away by a light mist that found its way down through the trees. The mist had stopped a couple miles back, but they were both still damp and cold. It was the kind of dampness that went straight to your bones.

  Ewan tried to imagine what the park looked like through Quinn’s eyes. Even though he’d seen it a few times before, it was surely one of the most beautiful places on earth. The narrow dirt path led them through dense forests and across wi
de-open clearings of tall grass. He had to admit that the serenity of the place was a nice change. Still, there were lots of other things he’d rather be doing.

  Quinn stopped often to marvel at the countryside, especially when they started on the toughest climb of the trail and the trees began to thin out.

  “My goodness, this is a hike,” Quinn huffed between heavy breaths.

  Ewan smiled at her good-natured complaining. “I think we’re almost to the overlook.”

  “Is it all downhill after that?”

  “As far as I can remember.”

  “Thank God,” she muttered, stopping for a second to stretch her back.

  “You aren’t getting tired on me yet, are you?”

  She grinned at him and trudged on up the path. They pushed up the steepest part of the climb, where the road peaked between two towering rock faces. When they had made it to the top, Quinn stopped in the middle of the trail.

  Ewan stood behind her and took in the view. The valley opened up before them. The gray, rocky sides cradled the valley where the path snaked its way down the hill. The view stretched on for miles, and in the distance you could see the gray buildings of downtown Boston. The sweet air smelled of wet earth and was thick with moisture.

  “Amazing,” Quinn whispered.

  Although he’d walked this trek before, he’d never felt its stunning beauty like he did at this moment. And he knew that the woman in front of him had everything to do with it.

  They stood there for a few more minutes taking in the grandeur of the scenery.

  Quinn finally looked up at him over her shoulder and smiled.

  “You catch your breath yet?” she asked.

  He grinned as she moved ahead, and they started their trek down the hill back into the forest. It was slowgoing at first. The road wound its way through several hairpin turns before it leveled off.

  “My mom mentioned this place a few times. She said it was like stepping into a picture book,” Quinn said. “She was right. This place is stunning.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  “She wanted to bring me here.”

  Ewan kicked a stone to the side of the road. “Had your dad ever been to Ballagh before?”