by Avery Flynn
…
Watching Clover strip was like watching the sun rise after the longest, coldest night of the year. It made the whole world a better place. It made time stand still, and it made him want to be a better man so he’d be worthy of touching even a single inch of her soft skin.
“Jesus, you’re beautiful.”
“I hope you’re not planning to just look,” she said, feathering her fingers across her tits.
“Only for a little bit longer.”
If this was their last night together—and despite what he knew was the right thing to do, he wasn’t willing to agree to that right now—he was going to look his fill, put it to memory. The way her blond hair fell to her shoulders, not long enough to reach the rosy tips of her hard nipples. The flare of her hip as her body curved out from the pinch of her waist. The line of six freckles on the back of her thigh pointing up to her perfect ass. All of that was amazing, but it wasn’t what he really saw when he looked at her standing tall and proud in front of him, daring him to look his fill. It was what he’d seen of her before. The way she’d laughed so loud at one of the flea market dealer’s corny jokes that everyone around them turned to look. The ease with which she jumped into new situations without the slightest hesitation. The tired smile she gave him and the soft, satisfied sigh she made after they were both wrecked from brain-depleting orgasms that made him want to do it all over again just to see and hear it again.
Hudson had warned him about getting distracted, but Sawyer knew he was way past that for all the absolutely no good it did him. She had adventures to go on that didn’t involve him or his big-picture vision, and while part of him—that selfish, shitty part of him—wanted to keep her with him, he couldn’t do it because his brother was right. It would cost him too much, just not in the way Hudson meant or Sawyer wanted to admit—even to himself.
“Enough lookie-loo time,” she said, closing the distance between them.
Her fingertips gliding down the middle of his chest broke him out of his daze.
He grabbed her wrist before she could get to his happy trail and he lost the will to set some ground rules. “This will be slow.” He lowered her arm to her side and let go. “There will be foreplay.” He dragged the pad of his thumb across her full bottom lip. “There will be kissing.” He dipped his head lower, stopping just shy of her mouth. “There will be no negotiating.”
Of course, he never said it would be gentle or sweet, so when he kissed her he did it like a man staking a claim because tonight Clover was his. Her lips parted and he swept his tongue inside, tasting her and teasing her until she sank against him, and he wrapped his arms around her. Fuck, she was soft in all the places he was hard and aching. His hands roamed over her smooth skin, imprinting on her in an invisible script that said all the things he could not.
Her hands were everywhere—sliding down his spine, squeezing his ass, and roaming across any inch of skin she could reach—as they kissed, taking everything from each other they could and giving back just as much. It wasn’t enough. He needed to feel her everywhere so he loosened his hold on her and they slid to the blanket. He broke the kiss, tracing his lips across the line of her jaw and down the long column of her throat.
“Sawyer.” Her plea.
“Yes.” His answering promise.
He cupped her tits, brought them higher and lowered his mouth to them and circled his tongue around her pebbled nipples, first one and then the other. Answering her moan, he grazed his teeth across one nipple before drawing it into his mouth and sucking hard. She cried out, her fingers gripping his hair. So he did it again and again until she’d wrapped her legs around one of his and rubbed her wet folds against his thigh in search of relief.
“What do you want, Clover?”
“Touch me.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
“Here?” He slid his fingers down her side, following the dip and expanse of her waist and hip.
She may have meant her frustrated groan to hurry him along, but it did the opposite. They both might be cursing later but he planned on drawing this out as long as he could stand it, which judging by the tingling ache in his balls would definitely not be as long as he wanted. Still, he caressed the gentle curve of her belly, going low enough for her to let out a whimper of gratitude before traveling upward and rolling one hard nipple.
“Touch me.”
“Where?”
“Please. I’m so wet. I need you.”
It was such a desperate appeal, to deny her would just be cruel. He glided his fingers down her stomach—slowly, after all he was still a prick—while she writhed underneath him until he parted her slick lips and circled her swollen clit.
Her legs parted, her spine bowed, and the words that left her mouth could have been English or another language, he couldn’t tell because he was concentrating too hard on not giving in to every instinct screaming at him to put his hard cock where his fingers were. But just touching her like this wasn’t enough.
He rocked back on his haunches. “Spread your legs.”
She did without hesitation, her core glistening in the moonlight, and all thoughts of taking it slow left him. He had to have more of her. Now. He leaned down, his hands circling her thighs and then going underneath her to cup her ass, lifted her hips, and tasted her. She was so wet, so soft and ready for him as her rolled his tongue over her clit.
Her fingers dug into his scalp as her hips bucked upward, pressing herself more firmly against him. “Make me come.”
His girl wasn’t fooling around anymore. She’d played his game and was obviously now done. Who was he to tell her no? Adding his fingers to the tongue action, he pushed her closer and closer to the edge as her sucked, licked, and rolled her most sensitive spot until he felt her thighs tremble on either side of his face.
“Sawyer,” she cried out as her orgasm hit.
Her heels dug into his back as she rode the wave, and he continued to lap at her core with an ever-softer touch as she began to come down. By the time he sat up, she had that hazy, satisfied look on her face of a woman—his woman—who’d had her world thoroughly rocked. She sighed and gave him that tired smile of hers that brought out the chest-pounding caveman inside him.
“You can mark foreplay off the list for tonight,” he said, brushing a wet kiss across the belly button.
“Thank God,” she said, chuckling as she slapped her hand around the messy mounds of their clothes until she hit his jeans. Without waiting for him to say anything, she grabbed his wallet out of the back pocket and pulled out a condom. “I’m ready for the main event.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I should say so.” Her gaze dropped to his cock and she flipped the condom over to him.
He ripped it open in a rush, rolled it on, and sat back on his ass. “Come here.”
…
Clover’s thighs were still a jiggly mess, her brain drowning in a lust-induced fog, but she managed to make it over to Sawyer. Bracing her hands on his shoulders with her feet on either side of his hips, she watched his face as she lowered herself down onto him inch by inch until he filled her completely. His jaw tightened and the vein in his temple throbbed as he waited for her to adjust to his size. No rushing for him, not even now when they were both so desperate for it. Then, when her muscles relaxed enough from the massive climax she’d just had to let him inside, she wrapped her legs around his back and kept her gaze on his face as she undulated her hips, angling her body so her clit rubbed up against him with every wave.
“God, you feel so good,” he said, his voice rough with desire.
If she could have formed words she would have told him ditto, but his hands were on her back, sliding down to her ass and pushing her down harder on him, and the part of her brain in charge of speech didn’t work anymore. She dug her fingers into the thick muscles of his shoulders, grounding herself to the moment and to him, and lowered her mouth to his. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was hard and
yearning and needy. It was a demand she couldn’t voice and a question she couldn’t ask. It was everything in the world that mattered.
Forward and back she rocked against him, taking him deep within her before letting him go. Over and over he buried himself in her, thrusting and retreating until a light sheen of sweat covered them, making it hard for her to hold on to him but she wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t. Her thighs ached. Again and again her core squeezed him every time she raised her hips and took him until he filled her completely, until all her body knew was the sensations of desire and pleasure pouring over her.
Sawyer shifted beneath her, changing the angle of his thrust so that it hit the bundle of nerves inside her opening and she gasped, breaking the kiss. Good didn’t begin to describe it. Mind-blowing was close but still not close enough.
“Fuck.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” he said, sliding one hand between their bodies and pressing his thumb to one side of her clit.
A jolt of sensation rocketed through her. “Yes.”
He lessened the pressure then reapplied it over and over as she rocked against him, taking his cock in as deep as she could. “That’s it, ride me until you come again.”
As if the mere mention of it was enough to trigger her, the second orgasm hit without warning, turning the night Technicolor and blocking out the rest of the world except for Sawyer.
“God, I love watching that,” he said, each word coming in time with his thrusts as he gripped her hips and moved her up and down. “I’m not—” His climax hit before he could finish the sentence and her name fell from his lips.
By the time he came back to himself, she’d half convinced herself that she’d memorized every line on his face, every strand of his hair, every line of muscle.
“I think you killed me,” he mumbled.
She brushed her lips across his. “Only a little.”
Rolling off Sawyer and laying down on her back, Clover ignored the little voice telling her to be careful—to remember the clock was ticking down the minutes until all of this was over. Being naked next to Sawyer with the stars spread out like a blanket above them and the sound of the water lapping at the shore in time with his breaths, she gave in to the lazy, bone-melting satisfaction that only an amazing orgasm could deliver. She felt too good to listen to the invisible asshole of a naysayer on her shoulder.
Sawyer let out a happy sigh and lay back onto the blanket. “Five minutes and we head in.”
God, he was optimistic. “Make it ten and I’m in.”
“Are you ever not negotiating?”
“I do sleep occasionally.”
He reached out and intertwined his fingers with hers. “Smart-ass.”
“You know me so well.”
“I’m beginning to.” He squeezed her hand.
And a beginning was all they’d get, the little jerk on her shoulder whispered, yanking her out of her post-coital happy haze and throwing her right back down into hard reality. It was for the best, really. Body protesting, she sat up and reached for her panties—and froze. The sticky slickness on her upper thighs didn’t come from her. Confusion. Understanding. Panic. They swept through her one right after the other like a ninety-miles-per-hour wind gust, leaving her heart racing and her lungs heaving.
“What’s wrong?” Sawyer asked, the question sharp and jolting.
“The condom.” She couldn’t look at him, only the red and green plaid pattern of the blanket. “Is it okay?”
“What do you… Shit.”
She was up and to the edge of the dock before reality sank in. Jumping in wouldn’t do her a damn bit of good. No use crying over spilled semen and all that. Oh yes there fucking was. Her throat constricted as she turned around.
Sawyer stood in the middle of the blanket, the moonlight illuminating the wing tattoos on his chest and the shocked expression on his face.
“Okay, is there a twenty-four-hour pharmacy here?” he asked, calm even in the face of disaster. “We can go get the morning after pill and—”
“I can’t. I’m allergic.” There were three inactive ingredients in the pill and one of them made her react like someone with a peanut allergy in a nut factory.
“You can’t take it?” Now there was that icy panic in his voice that she felt in her veins.
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“Okay, so…”
“We wait to see if I’m pregnant or not. It’s the only thing we can do.” She yanked on her jeans and pulled on her tank top, her stomach roiling and her mind going eight directions at the speed of light all at once. “No offense, but can we not have this talk right now? I just want to go inside.”
Once there, she’d shut the door to her childhood bedroom and stare at the water stain on her ceiling until she stopped feeling like she was going to puke or pass out.
Sawyer nodded, his eyes brighter behind the glasses he’d put back on. “Sure.”
He got dressed quickly, she rolled up the blanket and tucked it under her arm, and they left the lake behind them. The walk through the woods back to the house was filled with shadows and silence. By the time they got to the gate with its cheery gnome handle, Clover was cold inside and out.
Sawyer stopped her before she could walk through the gate. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll figure it out.”
The words were pretty, but she knew the truth. Whatever else the past few weeks had been for Sawyer and her, they weren’t a prelude to something permanent. He was an industry titan from a wealthy family with a big-picture plan for everything. She was a working-class girl from Sparksville who’d never met a job she couldn’t quit or an adventure she could turn down. They weren’t a forever couple. They weren’t even a for now couple. Fake engagement, real maybe baby. She glanced up at the house behind the white picket fence. Despite her best efforts, she might just turn into her mother anyway. Her gut cramped.
“Let’s just keep this between us until we know if I’m even pregnant. That’s not negotiable.”
“Agreed.” But it didn’t sound like he liked it.
She nodded her head, unable to do much more than mutter a quiet, “Good night.”
He didn’t stop her as she walked through the gate, around the corner of the house, and in through the kitchen door to her childhood home, the one she’d sworn she’d never come back to or build one like it for herself.
Chapter Twenty
The sun was up and Clover could hear voices coming down the hall from the kitchen. She smoothed her shirt over her flat belly and ran a brush through her hair. The bed was made. The bathroom connected to her bedroom put back to how it had been before. Her overnighter had been repacked and zipped closed. She’d delayed as long as she could. Time to put a smile on and pretend that everything hadn’t just changed. More than that, she had to do it all while lying to her family about the man she wasn’t about to marry and wouldn’t be seeing after today.
Still, she didn’t move toward her closed bedroom door.
A baby. Maybe.
Her period was due in about a week. Until then, there was nothing she could do but wait and worry and…ignore the small bubble of excitement surrounding the boulder of anxiety in her stomach and the dream she’d had last night of a baby with her hair and Sawyer’s hazel eyes. That wasn’t the life for her. She was about new places and new experiences, not a static life behind a white picket fence.
Hustling out of the room before that mental image could take hold, she walked down the hallway toward the kitchen, the telltale smell of smoke announcing that her mother was in the kitchen. God love the woman, but she could burn water, which is why her dad did most of the cooking.
“You’re gonna burn the place down, Laura,” her dad’s voice filtered out of the kitchen, along with the haze of burned bacon–scented air.
“You just got back from the hospital. Don’t make me send you back there, Phillip,” her mom retorted. “Now, go sit in the living room like I told you until everything’s ready.”
The smoke detector let out a long squawk before being silenced as Clover approached the kitchen, listening to the banter that had been a part of her parents’ marriage for as long as she could remember. She hesitated in the doorway. Her brother was at the table, a book open on the table and oblivious to the goings-on around him. Her mom looked harried but happy as she stood in front of the stove waving a tea towel to push the smoke from the pan toward the open back door. Her dad, a little paler than normal with a tired pinch to his eyes, leaned against the half-wall dividing the kitchen from the living room.
“Good thing I didn’t marry you for your cooking,” Phillip said, shaking his head.
Her mom tossed the towel across one shoulder and marched over to her dad. “Nope, you married me because, and I quote, you couldn’t imagine your life without the most beautiful woman you ever met.”
“More like the most maddening,” he said, beaming down at her.
“And you love it.” Laura went up on her toes and kissed Phillip’s cheek. “Now get out of here. Sawyer and I can handle brunch.”
Sawyer?
At that moment, the man in question came strolling out of the walk-in pantry his arms filled with pancake mix, syrup, chocolate chips, and powdered sugar. Some of the sugar must have poofed up from the bag because there was a fine dusting of white across one of his glass lenses. He looked totally out of place and completely ridiculous, and her heart skipped anyway. Damn it. Not the reaction she needed to be having right now.
He spotted her and stopped. Every nerve ending in her body came alive when he looked at her and the bubble of hope that had no right to be inside her expanded just a little.
A baby. Maybe.
Don’t do it, Clover girl.
They didn’t make sense together and a maybe baby wasn’t going to change that. The best thing she could do for her own sanity was remember that this wasn’t a real engagement. It was a job. One that would pay for her trip to Australia and more adventures after that. To imagine anything else would just lead to heartbreak. Even if there was a baby, that couldn’t be the cornerstone to a lasting relationship. She may have spent her life fighting against going down the same path as her mom, but there was no denying that her mom and dad loved each other. Really loved each other. She wouldn’t settle for anything less and she wasn’t cruel enough to raise a child in an environment where its mom and dad didn’t have that.