by Zoey Parker
There was only one thing to do.
“Alright,” I growled to Croak as I stalked past him and out the door. “I’ll finish the damn job. I’ll go back to the old lady.”
Croak didn’t say a word as I left. That son of a bitch.
* * *
I pushed open the door of the room. It was dark inside, with moonlight seeping in through the thin lace curtains. I saw Olivia curled up on the bed, her bare back gently rising and falling with every breath. I padded across the room, taking off my boots, my jacket, my jeans.
I stood still for a moment and watched her sleep. I’d never before experienced this feeling of wanting to protect something and break it at the same time. I wanted both to pull her close and fuck her senseless, all at once. This shit was maddening.
I took a deep breath, then slipped under the covers next to her. She stirred slightly, then scooted her ass back against my hips, never waking, just letting her body’s desire pull her where it wanted to go—next to mine. I wrapped my arm around her waist.
Alright, I told the voice in my head, just like I’d told Croak in the whorehouse. I’ll ride this out.
It was about to be a ride I wouldn’t ever forget.
Chapter 5: The Beach
Olivia
The whole world was moving. The bike between my legs hummed, Blaze’s back in front of me rose and fell with each deep breath, and the scenery flew by on either side of us in long streaks of color. The ocean chased us to our left. I saw dolphins breaking the water and waves lapping the shore. On my right, rocky hills lumped up and down.
My body was sore from hours on the motorcycle, hunched over against the wind. I tapped Blaze on the shoulder and mouthed, “Can we stop?” He grunted and we pulled into the next gas station.
I let out a long sigh as I stretched my legs. My muscles were tense and aching, but I couldn’t lie—the vibrating motorcycle felt good between my thighs.
“Only an hour or so left,” Blaze growled.
Thank God. We’d left Houston the day before yesterday and it had been two hard days of riding. We were on our way to a villa that the Inked Angels MC owned on the Gulf Coast. It was a tradition for Inked Angels and their old ladies to take a honeymoon of sorts. I hadn’t even bothered trying to fight it, I knew there was no chance of convincing Blaze to buck tradition.
Besides, as much as I thought Blaze was a huge asshole, part of me wanted to stay near him. It was causing a bizarre fight internally—my body wanting to be close to him, while every word he said just made me feel more and more like I was losing control of myself, giving all power over to him. It felt like falling. I wondered when I would wake up.
I also wondered what the next few days would be like. Just Blaze and me, trapped in this sham marriage, but stuck together in a tiny villa with no one else for miles around. I thought back to the night in the bed and breakfast, just after the wedding. How he had just left me alone. At first, I’d been thrilled about it. After that scene in the lingerie shop, when he’d thrown me to the ground and pressed himself on top of me while I lay damn near naked underneath him, it felt good to be by myself for a little bit.
I’d always said that I wanted to be independent. I hated when Luke told me what to do, even though I’d put up with it my whole life. What I was struggling with was the fact that when Blaze was on top of me, owning me with just his eyes, I loved it. I wanted more.
I looked at Blaze as he walked out from the store. He had such a bad boy swagger, and that cocky grin that never left his face. He didn’t even have to talk to make my body start to hunger for his. All it took was a single glance.
“Ready?” he asked as he approached.
“Ready,” I told him. It was getting harder and harder to hide the turmoil raging inside me.
I shook my head and reminded myself he was an asshole. I wasn’t going to let him anywhere near me—not this weekend, not ever.
We climbed back on the motorcycle. It purred to life, then we took off down the highway.
* * *
Blaze pushed open the door to the room. I walked in after him and dropped my bags to the floor.
The place was stunning—a huge suite, with an attached bathroom where a granite counter top stretched for what seemed like miles in front of a glistening mirror. The shower was encased in glass. In the bedroom, a massive bed waited with pristine silk sheets.
I stepped forward onto the porch, which took up an entire wall. The balcony looked out straight over the ocean. White sand beach swooped in a delicate little bay, bordered on either side by low mountains.The crash of waves was soothing and quiet. I noticed with a gulp that the whole scene was contained in itself. There was nothing else as far as I could see.
We were alone.
I turned back towards Blaze. “First things first,” I told him, screwing my face into a sassy little pout. I was going to be the one making decisions around here, not him. “I’m not sharing that bed with you.” I crossed my arms and waited for his response.
But he didn’t say anything. He just stared at me for a moment, then walked out onto the porch to see the view for himself. The wind tousled his hair gently. I saw him take a deep inhale of the salty air, sighing like it was delicious in his nostrils.
God, he was so handsome. Why did he have to be so dominating? The way his chin stuck out, sharp and strong. His biceps, bulging with one long, winding vein, even though he was simply resting his hands on the railing. His eyes that glinted with so much intelligence and wit.
The thoughts played out over and over. I had to ignore them. “So?” I demanded. He still hadn’t said anything. “Say something, c’mon,” I said.
He didn’t even look at me. I walked up and pushed him in the shoulder. “Say something,” I repeated. “Say anything.”
Slowly, he spun his gaze in my direction. I swallowed hard, immediately regretting my decision to prod for a reply. His eyes took me in, turned me over and over in their depths. The breeze played across us, sending wisps of my hair swirling in front of my face.
The fierceness of my attitude had lost some of its edge. It was exactly like when I’d walked home from school five years ago and seen him looking at me from the porch of his house. There was no way I could know what he was thinking. So much was moving in his eyes—hunger and confidence and strength and the barest hint of violence. I’d never met a man before who could look at me and show all of that without saying a word. I felt awed by it. For a moment, my will to push him away from me wavered.
We looked at each other for what felt like forever. He was calm. His breath came in slow, even sighs. I tried hard not to watch how his muscular chest strained against his shirt with every inhale and exhale. In the distance, the waves kept crashing and birds chirped.
What the hell was I supposed to do with this beautiful man? He seemed so intent on breaking me. How could I let him? But more importantly, how could I stop him?
“Whatever you want,” he finally said.
Whatever I want? Blaze was definitely trying to drive me insane. He knew he was so hard to read and he knew that it made me batshit crazy to be teased and confused like that.
“What kind of an answer is that?” I yelped. “Whatever I want? You don’t have to be so mysterious all the fucking time, you know!”
I thought I had started to understand him. Just a couple days ago, I’d woken up for a moment in the early hours of the morning during our night in the bed and breakfast. I was sleepy, but I could’ve sworn that he’d had his arm draped gently over me. He’d been holding me, not like some piece of property to be used and cast aside, but like something else…like his wife.
Now, though, looking into his eyes, I wasn’t sure whether I had dreamed the whole thing. Maybe I’d made it all up. Maybe I’d just wanted to be held by him, to believe there was more to him than the son of a bitch who’d dressed me in that lingerie and paraded me in front of him like I was his whore.
I poked him again, demanding an answer. I needed more than this.
I had to know what he was thinking, what was going on inside of him, what he thought of me, what he wanted from me. He was impossible to predict or even to understand. Did he want me as his old lady? Did he just want to fuck me? Or did he want nothing to do with me at all? I had so many questions that were dying to be asked, but I didn’t even know where to begin; what’s more, I couldn’t let him know he was doing all of this to me. If there was any chance of me making it out of this fake marriage with my sanity intact, I had to keep it together while I found a way to break open this maddening man.
My shove did nothing. He brushed me off of him and turned back to face the ocean. I pouted for a moment, then stalked back inside.
“I’m taking a shower,” I announced over my shoulder.
Blaze didn’t bother answering.
Inside the cavernous shower, steam rose in spirals from the hot water. It was probably coming out of my head, too, based on how mad I was.
That son of a bitch owed me answers. I couldn’t be locked in this godforsaken villa with him for the next three days if things kept going like this.
The problem was, I just couldn’t decide what I wanted.
I looked down at my body. Wet hair clung to my pale shoulders, which were dusted with light freckles. My breasts were big but still firm to the touch. I caressed one nipple, letting it peak slowly under my attention. I felt the sensation of little murmurs rippling through my body as I traced soft circles.
My other hand edged slowly down my side, past where my ribs swooped in to my thin waist, feeling the curve of my ass as it swelled outward. The skin there was also firm, thanks to years of running and lifting weights. I moved my left hand from there towards the hip bone that jutted out, and then further, to the soft rectangle of hair that sat above my slit. The fingertips of my right hand maintained their steady rotation on my nipple, letting the waves keep churning across my skin.
That bastard. He lurked at the corner of my thoughts, silent and frustrating, but so sexy. I wanted to feel his hands where mine were. I wanted to peel that sweaty shirt off his body and watch how his abs shined in the light. I wanted that tongue of his to wander down my neck, between my breasts, and explore how wet I could get for him when he played with me.
My left fingertip touched tentatively against my clit. The shower was hot, but it felt so good pounding against my neck. Now both hands were moving in circles—one on my clit, the other gently kneading my breasts. I let my right arm fall to my side, and then, eager to coax more out of the pleasure trickling through me, the soft fingertip of my right middle finger moved to the opening of my pussy.
I was soaking wet now, both from the shower and the thoughts of Blaze that grew more and more intense as I leaned against the tile wall to support my weight while the hand on my clit began to move in faster rings. Slowly, biting my lip and trying not to gasp as I did so, I pushed one finger inside myself.
I could feel the wetness, stickier and denser than the shower stream, slide down past the knuckles as I fingered myself delicately. My eyes were fluttering closed while I pictured Blaze, his hand doing what mine was doing right now; his tongue painting my inner thigh with delicious ease; his cock, wavering at the edge of my lips.
“Blaze” I panted.
“Oh, what is this I see?” laughed the one voice I didn’t ever want to be caught by in an embarrassing situation like this. Blaze had wrenched open the shower and saw what I was doing.
My hands shot away from where they had been toying between my legs. Trying to stand up straight, I felt my footing slip on the slick tile. I would have tumbled to the ground if it weren’t for his strong hand, which grabbed me right as I was about to collapse.
“It wasn’t anything,” I exclaimed. His hand on me was so strong. I wondered what else it could do if only I let him.
“Right,” he chuckled sarcastically, “not anything. Just you fingerblasting yourself and saying my name over and over again. Sure seems like nothing, you’re right.”
“It was nothing,” I insisted. My voice had risen to a pipsqueak. He’d caught me and he knew it, but if I admitted that I’d been fantasizing about him, I thought I would die. I couldn’t leave myself so vulnerable to this bastard who’d had a thousand women and would just treat me like another one to throw on the pile and walk away. I deserved better than that, and I wouldn’t give in to the same treatment he’d showed all the other whores who flocked to the Inked Angels clubhouse.
“Look, babe,” he said to me. “I’ve seen a horny chick before, and the way you were biting your lip and touching yourself told me everything about you that I needed to know. There’s no point in continuing to play pretend.”
“You didn’t see anything,” I lied, knowing I looked foolish but unable to let myself admit to him what I’d been doing.
“Well, then, tell me, Olivia, what did I see?” he quizzed, mocking me.
“You saw exactly what you’ve seen a thousand times before!” I yelled. “Is that what you want to hear? That I’m some whore? Another one for you to fuck and forget? Then fine, that’s all I’ll be! But let’s skip the fucking part and just get straight to the forgetting.”
The embarrassed heat in my cheeks hadn’t calmed down since Blaze had walked in on me. The flush rose further in my chest and throat as I yelled at him.
He started to say something, but I cut him off. “This whole marriage is bullshit! This whole thing is so disgusting, I can’t believe I ever let myself be a part of it! Married to the world’s biggest asshole and I’ve never even had the chance to have another man before.” At this last part, I froze and clapped a hand over my mouth.
I couldn’t believe what I’d just let slip, the one thing I’d been most desperate to keep hidden from Blaze forever: that I was still a virgin.
I’d never seen Blaze at a loss for words before, but even he stuttered for a moment, absorbing this new information.
“You’re a…virgin?” he said, still taken aback.
I tore away from his grasp, leaped out of the shower, and threw a towel around myself. I ran into the bedroom, toweling off in a frenzied hurry before throwing on the first outfit I could find.
I had to get out. I had to get away from him. The last thing in the world I needed was to seem even more vulnerable than I had already appeared. It was bad enough to be stashed away on this foreign beach with only him. It was bad enough to be tied into this insane, ridiculous marriage. It was bad enough to be swept up in his swagger, his silent charm, his beautiful looks, so much so that he’d caught me touching myself and murmuring his name.
But this was the worst part yet.
How could I have been so stupid?
He tried to stop me from leaving, calling out my name, but I ducked under his arm and jetted out the door. I needed to put distance between him and me as fast as humanly possible. I sprinted away from the house and onto the beach, not daring to look back at all the mistakes that laid behind me.
The sun had started to set while I sat with my back against an outcropping of rock and cried. How could anyone be expected to handle this? It was impossible to resist the man I’d married. I wanted him so badly. But it was impossible to give in and let myself be consumed by him, because I was so scared that there would be no surviving the experience. He would break me and abandon me, just like he’d abandoned every other girl in his life.
My chest heaved with all the emotion boiling over inside me. Embarrassment, fear, loneliness, and, at the heart of everything, the most overwhelming desire I’d ever felt in my life. I craved his touch as much as I was dying to escape it.
The waves were nibbling away at what was left of the beach. It would be dark soon. I didn’t know what I was going to do. My problems weren’t going away while I sat here. They were back at the villa, embodied by a six foot two man with a smile that cracked me wide open.
I was surprised he hadn’t come after me. I’d been so silly to let myself get carried away in the shower, and once he’d caught me, I was sure that that would be i
t, that we’d have sex and he would leave me in his wake, without so much as a see you later. It hadn’t been long, but I was already feeling so dependent on him. He was a force to push against, a masculine power that I hadn’t come across in my entire life. He was a craving—not a want, but a need.
Footsteps crunched on the sand. Blaze rounded the corner. He stopped about ten feet away and looked at me. His head tilted to the side as he stared. The waves rumbled next to us.
“It’s gonna get cold once the sun sets,” he said. “You should come back inside.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him.
He crossed the distance between us until he stood in front of me. Offering one hand to me where I sat, he pulled me to my feet.