She stopped in her tracks.
She wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been tempted by the hostel beds that night. There was someone else swimming in the pool. Someone with cobalt blue shorts, a strong back, and sun-lightened hair.
Her stomach nearly flopped out of her body, all the electricity she’d been trying to hold back zinging straight to her chest.
She thought about sneaking back inside and just, she didn’t know, sitting up all night in some corner in the hostel where she’d never be found. But it was too late—he had come up for air and seen her standing there.
And in the instant when his eyes met hers, Julia knew that no matter what she told herself was the right thing to do, she would never forgive herself if she didn’t get into that pool.
Blake had lost count of how many laps he’d done without pause, pounding at the water like each stroke was taking him somewhere and not ferrying him in circles, which was exactly how his life felt.
It had been so good. So good. She’d wanted it; she’d wanted him. She’d lifted her lips to his and closed her eyes and smiled like she was somewhere far away and taking him with her, and he’d felt like whatever they were doing was right. The way he’d wanted that kiss—it wasn’t like the other one-night stands he’d had, where things fell into place and progressed from there. He wanted this in a way that he’d forgotten he was capable of.
Sure, it wasn’t great timing and there had been a car full of people waiting for them, plus more people in the hostel, and their separate rooms. But they’d figure out how to give everyone the slip and find somewhere to themselves. In a dark corner of the garden they could have done anything. It didn’t have to be a big deal.
But when he’d turned around after tipping the driver, she’d immediately looked away. Then she gave some big elaborate yawn, when she’d seemed more than awake just moments ago. Okay, fine, so it was a little awkward, but Julia darted off to bed so fast that afterward, Chris demanded to know what the hell he’d said to her in the car.
“Nothing,” he’d said, a little defensively.
“Well that’s where you made your mistake,” Chris said. “The two of you going off—I thought you were going to make your move!”
“You didn’t even pash her?” Jamie echoed.
It would have been worse to tell them the truth—that he did go in for a kiss and she went from yes, please to not on your life in the amount of time it took to slam the car door.
Was he really that bad?
He was so sullen the rest of the evening, Chris accused everyone of being no fun and stalked off to bed early herself, Jamie and Lukas trailing behind. Blake knew there was no way he could sleep, so he’d grabbed his trunks and gone straight for the pool. He’d been banging out laps ever since, and it was only when he saw a shadow flicker in the doorway to the hostel that he looked up and realized his heart was hammering from more than swimming.
It was obvious who was standing there, but it didn’t make any sense. Nobody claimed they were exhausted and then got up in the middle of the night to go swimming alone. Not even this girl.
But there she was. She was just standing there, not moving toward him or away, so he pulled himself out of the pool and approached.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
“Me neither.”
“I didn’t think anyone would be out here.”
“I guess we both had the same idea.”
She hovered between the hostel and the garden as though caught, unsure which way to turn. Blake wanted to tell her to go back inside if she wasn’t interested. But her hair was falling in long, dark streaks down her back and the sleek cut of her bikini barely concealed those two maddeningly alert nubs he wanted to flick with his teeth. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what he wanted from his last few hours in Brazil before a bus whisked him away.
But he didn’t know her, and obviously he had no idea what she wanted. As far as he could tell, she didn’t know what she wanted, either.
At least not yet.
“What time is your bus tomorrow?” she asked.
“Nine a.m.”
He waited to see how she would react. But if she thought anything about it, she didn’t even blink. That certainty and calm had descended to shield her like a fortress of steel. He wanted to crack it open and see what was underneath. Run his tongue over the pieces she was hiding. Drink in who she really was.
Then she flushed, even though he hadn’t said a word. Whatever she was thinking, he hoped it was good.
“Does that bother you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, I just—”
“Then let’s not worry about it.”
“I feel like I should explain,” she started, but this time he was the one who said no.
“I don’t want to spend the time we have left talking.” He took a step toward her and under the garden lights he could see the pink deepen across her face.
“You don’t even know me,” Julia said demurely. But when Blake extended a hand, she took it. Her soft skin against his palm—was that all it took to make his breath catch?
“I never got to finish giving you that birthday present I’d had in mind,” he whispered in her ear, brushing her hair over her shoulder as he leaned in.
The bulge was growing in his shorts, and the thin bathing suit material did nothing to hide it. Her eyes strayed downward and lingered over the knob straining below the waistband. Then they lifted to meet his face. Goddamn, she was beautiful. Her thin mouth stayed set in a line, betraying nothing.
But her rich, smoky eyes looking up at him? There was definite hunger there. She was hard to read, but not her eyes. They gave everything away.
She stepped toward the pool, tall and lithe against him, and he wanted to kiss her right then. But still he hesitated, prolonging the moment to make sure she wanted it as much as he did. His desire was obvious, and if she moved another inch closer, she would feel it press against her thigh. She knew what he wanted and this time she hadn’t backed away. But he could sense her nervousness, some kind of conflict brewing below the surface of what she let him see.
Blake knew all signs pointed to yes, but he didn’t want it to just be yes. He wanted more than that. He wanted her enthusiasm to build until everything in her was screaming for him. Until there was no fucking way she could contain herself anymore.
He liked to be in control, but he didn’t just want to take her. He wanted to be taken, too.
Without thinking, Blake turned and jumped into the water, intentionally splashing Julia where she stood.
“Come on in,” he called when he came up for air, treading water and swinging his head to get his hair out of his eyes. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Mmm, I see that,” she responded, and then bit her lip as though trying to take back what she’d said.
Her surprise at her own boldness made him want her more. “I think you should feel it for yourself instead of looking.”
As he looked up at her, he wondered if maybe he’d pushed too far. She was still waiting, still holding back from jumping in the pool—from jumping into whatever was going to happen with him. She looked down at him, obviously aware of how he was running his eyes all over her.
“I like looking,” she surprised him by saying, low and breathy and so quiet he almost didn’t hear.
Oh.
She had decided.
Blake flashed her a grin and dove back under the water, taking a few strokes toward the center of the pool. He had to calm his hard-on before he got too far too fast. They hadn’t done more than kiss in the back seat of a cab and already he ached like he was ready to explode.
When he came up for air, she was still standing there, watching him swim.
“No sharks in here,” he teased, paddling on his side.
“Just one anaconda,” she smirked, and this time he was the one who felt the heat rise to his face.
“I don’t bite,” he protested.
“What if I ask for
it?”
That brought him up short. He swam over so that he was treading water below where she stood. “You can ask for anything you want.”
“Because it’s my birthday week?”
Blake shook his head. “All the time. Don’t you know you should always get what you want?”
“Hmm, I do like the sound of that,” she mused.
He clasped the edge of the pool and heaved his torso up out of the water. “So are you getting in or what?”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said, and dipped a toe in to check the temperature.
“I hope that’s not the last time I hear you say those words,” he said, just loud enough to be sure that she heard. And before he could read her expression—excited? Shocked?—he pushed off again and splashed into the water, bobbing up on the opposite side.
But he needn’t have worried about scaring her off. He came up for air, and she held his eye, making sure he saw her take two running steps and leap into the pool, thoroughly outdoing his splash. She swam over to him, her bright laugh ringing through the garden. Take that, she seemed to be saying, and he knew not to underestimate this girl.
It was one thing to put his life on hold for seven months to travel the world, leaving behind demands and deadlines and the barrage of headlines and photos burned into his brain. That was such an obvious move that he almost felt like a cliché for running away.
But it was something else altogether to buy a ticket by yourself for just a week, because you were brave and maybe a little impulsive but certain, at last, of what you needed to give to yourself. Whatever she was looking for, he wanted to provide it tonight.
“The water is amazing,” she exhaled, limbs rippling in the underwater glow as her hair billowed behind her.
“That’s not the only thing,” Blake murmured. Now that they’d plunged into the pool, he couldn’t keep his hands to himself anymore. She let herself be pulled toward him with an audible sigh, surrendering whatever had been holding her back before. They were treading water together but with their bodies pressed closer they moved toward the shallow end, until his feet brushed the bottom and then hers. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling the softness of her skin in the water and the delicate pressure of her hips against his.
She hooked her finger into the band of his shorts and pulled him closer. He could feel her breasts against his torso, his aching erection pressing back hard against the base of her belly where the thin line of her bikini bottom hid everything he wanted to find.
“Hi there,” she whispered.
“Hi.” His lips were almost against her ear and he gently bit her lobe. “Just a little nibble from the anaconda,” he said.
Her lips sought his, and then her tongue. Then, to his surprise, her mouth pulled back slightly and her teeth grazed his lower lip. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough that he felt the pressure rocket all the way down to his cock, now very much standing at attention to find out what else those lips, that tongue, those teeth could do.
“Just a little bite,” she whispered, and he felt his whole body shudder as he clamped down on her in absolute need.
Chapter Four
Julia had never had sex with a stranger. Never had a one-night stand. Ever since the summer after her senior year in high school, when Liz discovered what could happen when boys said I love you, Julia had been so, so careful not to get hurt, physically as well as emotionally. But if she’d ever wondered whether there was some piece missing, now she knew exactly what it was.
Because she’d never felt herself fall apart like this, her whole body unraveling from the feel of his strong arms circling her waist and pulling her close as his lips found hers. It was everything she’d felt in the cab, everything she’d let run through her mind as she lay awake. Everything she’d never before let herself dream.
Her back was up against the side of the pool, her legs spread wide and wrapped around his waist. She ran her fingers down his chest and over his back, burrowing into his thick, curly hair.
She couldn’t stop kissing him. Literally could not. There could be an earthquake, a fire, an explosion—who would notice? The whole world could come crashing down and it wouldn’t be enough for her to pull away. She’d always wondered what other people were talking about when they got that misty look in their eyes, going on about passion and fireworks and how just kissing someone could make them entirely melt.
Now she knew. There seemed to be a direct line from her lips to her thighs, because the deeper Blake kissed her, the more she felt it all the way down.
Her hips pressed hard against his. Ordinarily she would have felt self-conscious about so obviously signaling her desires. But that little voice she always carried around—the one that watched everything while recording a tally of all her rights and wrongs—was oddly silent now.
Or maybe that was the same voice making an unholy chorus of pants and whimpers in Blake’s ear as he ran his hands over her breasts. When he slid his palm under the cup of her bikini, the feeling of skin on skin made her moan. Then he twisted her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Hard. But it felt so good that Julia bucked her hips forward and widened her legs as they wrapped around his waist. The thin strip of bathing suit that ran between her thighs was pressed right against the knob straining out from his shorts and the feel of him rubbing through the fabric between their legs… How could she be this breathless when they were still—technically—clothed?
“God, I’m so hard for you,” he groaned into her ear, pressing his erection against her harder.
She groaned back and nibbled his ear, wondering who this new person was who lost control and loved it.
“I want you,” he panted.
“Show me,” she whispered, and the words thrilled her as much as his touch did. What did it matter that she had never done this before? He didn’t need to know how she’d always been good. One night, far away from herself and her actual life, she could say such things. She could be brazen and bold.
Desire smoldered in Blake’s eyes. “Find out for yourself.”
How was it that she knew what to do? Without stopping to think, she hooked one leg around Blake’s waist as he supported her against the side of the pool. Then she reached down and tugged on the white strings at the front of his bathing suit until the ties were undone. Her mouth found his, feeling the warmth and wetness of his kiss at the same time as she slid her hand down his torso and didn’t stop.
Under the waistband she skimmed her fingers over the tip of his cock, that incredible part of him hard and soft at the same time. He was so excited she could practically feel him jump into her hand. He returned her kiss ferociously.
“Fuck, yes,” he exhaled into her ear. “Just like that.”
As if this wasn’t already the dirtiest experience of Julia’s life, he had to go take it to a whole other level. Danny never said anything during sex. Certainly nothing that might be construed as an improper way to treat a lady.
Now, though, she wanted to find out just how improperly Blake would treat her. She shimmied his swim trunks down enough to release his cock.
“Jesus Christ.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
His hands paused in their voracious exploration of her body. “I hope that’s a good exclamation?”
Julia tried not to giggle as she wrapped her hand around him and rubbed her thumb over the tip. “What was that you said?” she said, furrowing her brow. “Oh yeah, I think your exact words were something like ‘fuck, yes.’” She stroked his entire length and breadth, hardly able to believe how easy it was to be somebody else for the night, feigning confidence and control.
His knees buckled, and he pressed himself against her, burying his face in her neck with a groan. “That feels. So. Good.”
“Just you wait,” she whispered. It was a taunt and a promise and a threat, and as she was hoping, it made him wild. He wrapped her hair around his palm and tugged down, forcing her chin up and exposing the soft underside of
her neck to give him a clear path for tracing his lips down to her chest. His other hand was on her ass, propping her up against the side of the pool so he could pull down on the cups of her bikini with his teeth.
The fabric dropped over her breasts and she arched her neck back as he pulled on her hair. He toyed with her nipples with his tongue, biting hard enough to make her squirm. She was no longer grasping his cock but instead had her arms around his shoulders, digging in with her nails while he pressed his pelvis against her. The way his hardness rubbed up and down against the thin swatch of fabric between her legs was so hot she thought she might scream.
But as Blake’s mouth worked over her breasts, they heard a door slam and the sound of footsteps across the garden.
“Oh shit.” Blake’s head shot up.
“Is somebody here?” Julia asked, scrambling to pull up her bikini top, glad it hadn’t come completely untied.
“Maybe there’s a night guard,” Blake said.
“What?” she hissed.
“They must not leave the place unattended at night. I wasn’t exactly thinking about that right now.”
What an idiot—she hadn’t even thought about the fact that they weren’t really alone. The night had been so quiet when she stepped into the garden, it seemed like they had the whole place to themselves. But she could hear the shuffling of footsteps, the jangle of keys carrying through the night.
Blake was still pressed against her, his cock at attention and his shorts pulled down around his ass, when a face appeared in the doorway of the hostel.
“Oi, is someone out there?” a man’s voice called. Julia’s stomach clenched at the thought of him coming out to the patio and seeing them like this, the stranger the hot Australian had picked up within five minutes of her arrival now wantonly pressed up against the side of the pool, waiting for him to stick it in her.
This was why she didn’t do things like this. She should never have come to Brazil. Should never have even looked in Blake’s direction. Didn’t she know better? Under the dark of night, the glowing water rippling around her, she burned with shame.
How to Fall Page 4