“That was brave of you,” Austin said, reaching out to thread his fingers between mine. “To help Nana out like that. I can’t imagine how hard you worked to save up the money to buy the house.”
Satisfaction bloomed in me at hearing his compliment even though I knew I didn’t deserve it. No matter how hard I’d worked to buy the house from Nana, the only reason that she even had a house to sell me was because of the blood money Chantel Stone had given me—it had gotten Nana’s house out of foreclosure in the first place.
Whatever pride I had, it would always be stained with shame because I took that money. It didn’t matter that I did something selfless with it, it was given to me as payment to stay away from Austin, and even though the decision to disappear was wholly my own, I’d also done exactly what I’d been paid to do.
I only nodded in response, too embarrassed to accept the compliment.
As if sensing the conversation was heading into heavy territory I didn’t want to discuss, Austin changed the subject. “So what do you have to do to earn all this life-changing money? What does the endorsement entail?”
My mouth curved into a genuine smile. “Nothing I wouldn’t do for free. Wear gear with the Under Armour logo on it, have my bike repainted to reflect their brand, and do some photo shoots for ads. And win.” I shrugged as if it was all in a day’s work. “Oh!” I added excitedly. “They’re also giving me an entire wardrobe of Under Armor clothes to wear when I’m not racing. Not a bad deal.”
“They must know how pathetic your current wardrobe is,” Austin taunted.
My mouth dropped open in shock. It had been so long since he’d teased me so lightheartedly. For a brief moment, it felt like we were the Frankie and Austin that existed before Rising Stars.
I slapped my hand across the surface of the pool, sending a torrent of water all over Austin, drenching him in the process. He shot up to a sitting position and almost tipped his raft over as I motioned like I was going to do it again.
“It wasn’t very nice to joke about my wardrobe, Beethoven.”
His face and chest were covered in droplets of water and the look of shock that he wore quickly morphed into something a little dangerous and a lot naughty. “You want to see not nice?” he asked, leaning toward me.
I thought he was going to splash me, so I stuck my tongue out at him. Before I knew what was happening, he pushed down on the edge of my raft, and I slid off and into the pool before I even had a chance to try to save myself. I went completely underwater in a matter of seconds. With a swift kick of my feet and stroke of my hands, my head broke the surface and I took a big gulp of air, only to find Austin staring down at me laughing.
My heart was pounding from the chill of the water and he looked entirely too happy about my situation. With another strong kick of my feet, I launched my body across his. His laughter broke off in a gasp as my chilly, wet arms wrapped around him and I pulled him into the water like the Kraken dragging a ship under the surface of the sea.
As he slipped off his raft, his arms reached out for me, banding around me like a straitjacket. I didn’t know if he intended to dunk me under again, but I slipped through his grip like an eel, my skin slick and my arms flailing. I turned, and with the desperation of someone thoroughly expecting retaliation, I frantically swam toward the side of the pool.
I could feel the tips of Austin’s fingers nipping at my ankles as he grabbed for me, and I laughed when he failed to get a good hold. I kicked hard and heard him sputtering as my feet splashed water in his face.
It felt like being twelve years old again, dunking and splashing each other like two idiots.
My hand reached out, and I gripped the pool coping, spinning around and slamming my back against it for safety just in time to see Austin’s head break the water barely a foot away. His hands found the edge too, and he was so close, he was nearly pressed against me.
“Are you sure this is a game you want to play?” he asked. Rivulets of water snaked down his face, the droplets tracing the strong planes of his cheekbones before curling over his jaw and slipping down the rest of his body.
If the game was sucking every last drop off water off his body, then yes. I was ready to play.
But I didn’t say that.
“If you think I’m going to let you dunk me under the water again, you’re sorely mistaken. You only got me wet the first time because you don’t play fair,” I accused him.
Austin drew closer, his arms creating a cage that I had no desire to break free from. Leaning his head toward mine, he brought his mouth close to my ear. “I know I can get you wet. I don’t need a wrestling match in the pool to prove it.”
His words were warm against the side of my neck, and even though I knew it was a bad idea, I turned my head so that our breaths were tangled and knotted together, our crumbling will power the only thing between us, and a kiss I knew I desperately wanted.
I arched my back. When my pelvis rubbed against him, one of Austin’s hands left the wall to dip under the water, hook around the back of my knee and pull my leg around his. It only took one firm grind of his body against mine for my arms to leave the safety of the poolside and drape over his shoulders so that I could dig my fingers into his hair and pull him into a kiss.
His lips answered mine without even a hint of hesitation. The groan that came from low in the back of his throat made me feel as if he’d been waiting for this exact moment—the moment our lips met—all day. I could taste alcohol on his tongue, but the kiss was laced with warmth and sunshine and desire. Lazy, summertime lust.
Austin nipped at my lip and then eased the sting with a swipe of his tongue. My heart thundered in my chest like a race horse barreling for the finish line. I turned my head just slightly to break the kiss, but still kept my lips against his.
“You’re not drunk, are you?” I asked.
Austin didn’t seem tipsy at all, but I still remembered that night he’d come into my kitchen, drunk and frustrated, and then kissed me in a way that was full of as much regret as it was lust.
Instead of answering, one of his hands reached for the back of my other knee and pulled until I had my legs wrapped around him and could feel the hard length of him nudging against the thin layer of my panties. He kissed me again as he waded through the water, heading for the steps that led out of the pool.
“Are you drunk?” I asked again.
He bit my bottom lip and then made a hum of satisfaction that rumbled in his chest. “Maybe. But not in the way you mean,” he said evasively. He walked up the steps of the pool, his hands cupped under my ass, pulling me against him. I kept kissing him, moaning into his mouth from the delicious way the hardness of his body rubbed against the softness of mine as he walked. Every step he took jostled me against him and sent a shuddering echo of pleasure through me.
Austin sat down on a lounge chair and my knees fell to the sides of his thighs. He reached up to brush a tangled lump of wet hair over my shoulder.
“I can’t stay away from you,” he confessed, his eyes searching the planes of my face. In his gaze, I could see pain and hope and desire swirling together in a heartbreaking look of vulnerability. “I know you might hurt me, that you could wreck me. Even if you don’t mean to, you have the power to break me.” His eyes darted back and forth between mine, and he ran the backs of his fingers along my jaw.
I hated that I was the one who had hurt him. He was the last person I would ever want to hurt.
“I can’t help but give myself to you and beg you to take me as I am, splintered and already broken.” He wrapped a finger around a chunk of my hair and used it to pull me down until my mouth met his. “Let me be yours,” he murmured against my lips. “Because I want you to be mine. From the moment I saw you next door with your mud-spattered bike and skinned knees, snapping your gum, you belonged to me.”
If only I could have trapped that confession to listen to whenever I wanted. Every word he said was every word I’d ever wanted to hear.
And then he was kissing me, words no longer necessary because I could feel them repeated over and over again with the gentle touch of his fingers and the burning demand of his lips. He thrust up into me, and I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my hips in answer.
“Will you take me as I am?” he begged, barely getting the words out between kisses.
My heart ached. I was the one who should have made that request. I was the one who needed a disclaimer. The truth was, Austin wasn’t the only one willing to break. I knew that I would allow myself to get smashed against the rocks for just one more chance to live in the storm of his love again.
His fingers were tangled in my hair, and he tugged. Gently. Pleadingly.
“Please.” That one word was so full of need and, to be honest, I wasn’t sure which one of us said it, only that it was what we were both feeling.
Austin’s mouth was on mine—taking, demanding, robbing me of logic or reason. Our hands were clutching, fingers digging, bodies writhing, water making our skin glisten under the light of the moon.
“Tell me yes, Frankie,” Austin said, his hands flattening over the swell of my ass to pull me close while his fingers dipped between my legs and stroked me with a needy sense of ownership.
I answered by reaching between us, pulling the tie of his swimsuit shorts loose so that I could push them down, freeing the hard length of him. I looked at his face, my hips hovering over his, and said, “Yes. It’s always been yes for you.”
He didn’t break the gaze between us, didn’t try to kiss me. He merely used his thumb to push away the fabric of my panties so that the head of him slid across my bare skin. I opened my mouth, gasping for breath as his touch sent tremors rolling through me. I rocked my hips back and forth, teasing myself as the tip of him barely slid inside and then out again. And then the firm grip of Austin’s hand was pressing on the side of my hip, and I was lowering.
He entered me with agonizing slowness, just like he’d entered my heart all those years ago. He’d been my friend from day one, but it took me years to realize that he had infiltrated my soul and that my feelings for him weren’t just the safe, platonic affections of a friend, but the unflinchingly all-consuming infatuation of love.
That’s how he took me now. Slow. Deliberate. Completely.
When the backs of my thighs finally met the tops of his, and he was so deep inside me that I felt like we were one…whole…he finally spoke again.
“Don’t leave,” he begged. “Stay with me.”
I reached up to hold his face in my hands, and I said, “I want to stay.”
Then I grabbed the back of the chair, and started moving, my hips pumping up and down over his, the fabric of my panties dragging across my clit with every move I made. Austin’s fingers were between my legs, stroking and pressing. His other arm was tight around my back, holding me like I might fly away if he didn’t keep me close.
I was so happy I thought I just might.
“You feel so good.”
His voice was gravelly. Needy.
“I waited. So long.”
When he wasn’t kissing me, I was dragging my teeth down the column of his throat, loving the way it made him thrust harder. Deeper. Wanting him to beg me to love him again.
“I want…you.”
Our movements were frantic like we were unsure what the future might take from us.
Without warning, Austin flipped me backward so that my head was nearly hanging off the end of the chair. He leaned his elbow on the cushion and reached around to cradle my head in his hand—gently and reverently—as he stared down at me. His eyes locked with mine, his mouth hovering over my lips, but not touching. I was panting and making desperate sounds in the back of my throat, urging him to keep going by arching up into him and grasping at his back, pulling him into me.
He pushed slow and deep, plunging in and out of me with deliberate thrusts of his hips. His free hand tangled in the thin strap of my panties, tugging and twisting like he was trying to hold himself back. That barely constrained control made me clutch him harder and pull him deeper. Urging him to move faster.
I tried to capture his mouth in a kiss, but he answered by slamming his hips into mine with such intensity that it knocked the air out of me and I gasped.
“Stay with me.” It was a command. The way he held on to me felt like he was pleading with me. I wasn’t sure if he meant tonight or forever, but I nodded because I wanted to have both. Everything.
And then his hips started a brutal pace, every thrust making my toes curl in need and my fingers clutch at him. My panties cut into me as Austin tugged harder. He still cradled my head gently, still held my gaze like he was promising to never let go.
When the first jolt of my orgasm shot through me, I took in a deep breath and held it, my legs tightening around Austin’s waist. This seemed to unleash something inside him, and I heard the rip of my panties as his thrusts became the best kind of punishment, one that threatened to dismantle the chair we were on. I knew the moment his orgasm hit him because he pushed deep inside me, and his mouth finally came down on mine, our pleasure colliding in a kiss of half-formed words and mingled moans.
Austin broke the kiss and dropped his head to my shoulder as he went still, but our heartbeats raged on, battling against our chests as if trying to reach one another.
My mind was a flurry of questions and uncertainty, and when I said, “Austin,” in a voice laced with warning, he merely put his fingers over my lips to keep me from talking.
He shifted us on the lounger, turning me until we were on our sides, my back curled into his front. He pulled a towel over us and then his arm wrapped around me in a protective embrace.
“Austin?” I tried again.
“Shhh. I know you have secrets. I know you think they’ll break me, but I’ve been broken already. There will be time to talk about this in the morning. Let tonight be perfect.” He pressed a kiss at the base of my neck, between my shoulder blades. “We’re celebrating your new contract.”
Selfishly, I did as he asked. Maybe we could have this one perfect night.
As I snuggled in against him and started to drift off to sleep, I heard him mumble, “You’re staying,” against my skin.
— AUSTIN —
18. MOXIE
The soft sweep of fingertips traced over my eyebrow, around my eye, down my cheek, and then across my lips. The same delicate touch was mirrored on the other side of my face, and then the light press of lips against mine forced my eyes open.
Frankie. Staring back as she stayed pressed against me, tight in my embrace. I’d been awake for a while, but I was enjoying the adoring touch of her fingers too much to open my eyes and make it stop.
“I have to go,” she said reluctantly once she saw I was awake. “Pauly and Tommy are coming over for lunch to discuss putting the house on the market.” The curve of her smile had never looked so sweet, and her gray eyes were shiny, like molten silver, filled with anticipation. “I can’t wait to tell them about the contract. I can’t wait to tell them we don’t have to sell.”
I brushed back the tangled mess of hair that had fallen across her face. “It’s not even breakfast time. Lunch time is a long way off. Stay.”
Her chin tilted up. She kissed me quickly and sweetly again. “I know, but I have a few things to do before they get there. Besides,” she said, her smile swinging into a wry twist of her lips, “I don’t want Miss Rose to see me do the walk of shame. She’ll be outside working in her garden pretty soon.”
The gentle morning breeze blew Frankie’s hair over her face, and I tucked it behind her ear, my fingers skimming along her jaw, lifting her chin so that I could kiss her again. “So, you’re ashamed of me now?”
Frankie snorted. “Well, someone shredded my panties, and I’m pretty sure my hair is doing its best impression of cotton candy right now. It looks like I’ve been thrown into a pool, fucked on a lounge chair, and then left outside naked with nothing but a towel and my sexy neighbor for cover.”
She quirked an eyebrow at me, and I grinned smugly back at her.
“You might look like you were fucked on a lounge chair, but I’m pretty sure ninety percent of what happened in that chair was making love.”
Her other eyebrow lifted, and when she opened her mouth, I was certain she was going to comment about my cheesy line. I used a hand to cover her mouth. “It might have felt like fucking, but it was more than that.” I ran the pad of my thumb across her lip and then leaned in to kiss her.
The kiss was just getting heated with a promise of a repeat of last night when I slapped her ass. “Better get going, hot lips.”
She pulled back, looking at me haughtily. “Do you have a death wish?” she snapped.
“Just getting your attention.” My hand smoothed over the spot where I’d just spanked her, and even though she was still glaring at me, she was pliant and willing when I pulled her hips against mine. “I figured you might want to get going since you have a bit of a mess to clean up in your room before your brothers get here.”
Her glare wanted to turn into a smile, but she held on to her annoyance better than I’d expected. She poked her finger into my chest. “I’m going to get you back so good,” she threatened. Then she stood up, whipping the towel off me before she wrapped it around her nearly naked body. She stared down at me, grinning at the sight of my swim trunks that were still tangled halfway down my legs. “Better get inside quick, Stone. Wouldn’t want Miss Rose to catch you out here with your pants down.”
I reached for her, but she danced out of my grasp, grinning maniacally, just like she used to. “Come over for lunch,” she begged. “Don’t make me suffer through Tommy and Pauly all by myself.” She stuck out her bottom lip, and pressed her hands together in a pleading motion.
I busied myself with pulling my pants up and said, “What time?”
Hated (Hearts of Stone #3) Page 23