On the Rocks

by Kandi Steiner

  I tasted me on him, tangy and sweet.

  “That was hot,” he said, his words reverberating through me. “You are hot.”

  “Noah,” I breathed, threading my fingers through his hair and pulling his mouth to mine. I kissed him long and hard, feverishly, like my next breath had to be syphoned from that kiss. “I want you inside me.”

  He let out a shaky breath, pressing his forehead to mine. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded, pulling at him again, nails on his back and in his hair and everywhere I could grab until he pushed off me, standing at the edge of the bed. He kept his eyes on mine, a hard swallow marking his throat as he reached for the band of his sweatpants. He bent, taking them down with the motion, and when he stood again, I forgot my next breath.

  I just stared, mouth open, heart stopping along with my lungs before they both kicked back to life.

  Oh, God.

  I’d felt him against me when he was on top, his erection pressed into my stomach, but even that couldn’t have prepared me for what I was face to face with now.

  “Don’t be scared,” he said, worry etched in his brows as he stepped toward me. The monster between his legs was hard and thick in his hand, and he stroked it once, twice, three times before he rounded the bed and sat down next to me. His back was against the headboard, his legs out in front of him, and I edged my way up until my back was against the headboard, too.

  He was pumping, swallowing, watching my expression.

  I was still staring between his legs.

  “Come here,” he said, voice low and raspy. He reached for my hand, and when I met his fingertips with my own, he locked eyes with me, moving us both until my hand was on his shaft.

  His eyes closed at the touch. My mouth fell open again.

  And slowly, carefully, I wrapped my hand around him and slid it down, down, all the way to the base before I rolled it back up.

  A heavy breath broke through his nose, and his hand left mine, reaching for my thigh, instead. He squeezed, letting me explore, letting me stroke him — gently, slowly, his erection growing harder and harder with each pump.

  I wanted him inside me.

  I knew it would hurt. I knew I likely wasn’t ready to fit all of him in me. But, I wanted to try. I needed to know what it felt like to be connected with him in that way — nothing between us, no beginning of him or ending of me — just one, blissful being.

  I swallowed past the knot in my throat as I released his shaft, his eyes creaking open at the loss of my hand. He watched me with that heated stare as I crawled into his lap, my hands balancing on the headboard behind him as I lowered down.

  His thick shaft slipped between my lips, and I rolled my hips, sliding my wet core up and down his erection. Each time I rolled, the tip of his shaft would rub my clit as the rest of him floated between my soaked lips, and I moaned, letting my head fall back at the sensation and gripping the headboard even tighter.

  “Jesus Christ,” he cursed. Prayed? “That feels so good. I’m not even inside you yet. How does that feel so fucking good?”

  I moaned in response, still rolling my hips, coating him with my orgasm and feeling another one building in the process. When he was nice and wet, I reached down, bringing my gaze to his as I wrapped my hand around his cock.

  “Condom?” I breathed.

  Noah wrapped one arm around me, holding me in his lap as he leaned over and dug in the drawer of his bedside table. His hands disappeared behind my back when we were righted, and I heard the tear of the wrapper, felt him pull his shaft from my grip and cover it with the latex, and then, his hands were on my hips again, his eyes on mine, all the control in my hands.

  I swallowed, forcing a shaky breath before I reached back again. He pulsed in my hand, hard and ready, and when I lined up the tip of him with my entrance, we both stopped.

  Our breathing stopped.

  Time stopped.

  And I lowered, just an inch, just enough for everything in the universe to snap back into action.

  We breathed a sigh of ecstasy in sync, and I lifted my hips before sliding down even farther, taking him a little more. Each time I lifted, each time I sank down on him a little more, our breathing accelerated. Noah groaned when I swallowed him whole, feeling the stretching burn from the inside out, and for a moment I just stayed there — him completely inside me, his hands bruising my hips, the moment branding my heart.

  I lifted, sank back down.

  Rolled my hips.

  Rubbed my clit against his pelvis.

  “Fuuuuck,” he groaned, wrapping his arms around me as he sat up a little more. We were chest to chest, and he held one strong arm around me while the other slid up my back, his hand cradling my head and pulling it into him. He pressed his forehead to mine, closing his eyes as he flexed his hips, and I whimpered, feeling the extra inch of him I couldn’t reach on my own.

  I didn’t know sex could feel like this.

  I didn’t know anything in the world could feel like this.

  It wasn’t a hard, pounding fuck, the way Anthony loved to take me. It wasn’t minutes of panting and then a heady, quick release and roll off of me.

  This was art.

  This was Noah, the painter, his hands the brushes, me the canvas.

  This was me, the muse, feeling every breath of his like the fire that fueled my existence.

  We were slick with sweat, rolling and slipping over each other as I rocked and he flexed, his mouth finding mine, kissing me with reverence as sighs and moans mingled between us. They seemed to dance in time with our movements — a thrust, a sigh, a flex, a kiss, a roll, a moan.

  It was a beautiful waltz.

  And we danced for hours.

  I came again, rolling my clit against him as he flexed into me, and then he rolled us until I was on my stomach, my face in the pillows, back arched up off the bed and ass up in the air — waiting. He entered me from behind, and the sheer sensation of that new depth of penetration shocked both of us.

  I sucked in a breath.

  He groaned out my name.

  And in the next breath, he came, pulsing his release inside the condom as he pumped in and out of me, over and over, until every drop was expelled.

  For a long moment, he stayed there, balanced on his hands above me as I released my grip on the sheets. Our breaths slowed, chests aching with the release of air, and he gently withdrew, discarding the condom in the trashcan by his bed before he collapsed back onto the bed.

  I didn’t have time to even reach for my panties before he pulled me into him, surrounding me with his arms, his legs, hands weaving into my hair, breath skating over the skin of my neck.

  And I didn’t know how to fight what happened next.

  My eyes welled with tears, nose stinging as the dam broke loose, and as soon as those tears hit Noah’s chest, he pulled back, worried eyes searching mine.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, wiping at one before Noah took my place, his thumbs brushing over my wet cheeks. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

  “It’s okay,” he responded, voice just as low. “I do.”

  My brows pulled together, eyes flicking back and forth between his. “You do?”

  He nodded. “I felt it, too, Ruby Grace,” he said, pulling me back into him and surrounding me with his heat, with his weight. “I felt it, too.”

  I closed my eyes, two more tears slipping free as I pulled him closer, wanting more, needing to seam us together in every way possible. It didn’t feel real, the whole experience morphing in my mind like a dream I was suddenly aware of, a dream I was about to wake up from.

  So, I held on tight, willing it to be true, willing him to be real.

  My body succumbed to the darkness, my mind following quickly, every part of me slipping into the promising black space around us like it was the open arms of a long-lost friend.

  If he was a dream, I would sleep, just so I could keep him a little longer.

  I’d sleep, and maybe — just maybe —
I’d wake on a day where I got to keep him forever.

  Noah

  God, I don’t want to wake her.

  It was all I could think the next morning as I sat on the edge of my bed, watching Ruby Grace sleep. Her hair had fallen out of the tie she’d fastened it in at some point in the night, and wild, red tendrils splayed over my pillow like flower petals. Her mouth was open just a bit, one leg kicked out of the sheets, eyes fluttering a bit behind her lids.

  She was dreaming.

  I hoped it was of me.

  I sighed, watching her with a sinking feeling in my gut. She hadn’t stirred since we fell asleep together, which was late afternoon yesterday, other than when I’d woken her up somewhere around midnight because her sweet ass was rubbing against my erection. We’d slowly made love, both of us on our sides, our eyes still closed, and as soon as we’d both reached our climax, she’d passed out again.

  But my body woke me again at five — craving her, craving so, so much more of her.

  So, I crawled out of bed — begrudgingly — and got a workout in.

  I needed to do something with all the pent-up energy.

  And the entire time I did my calisthenics, I thought about the girl in my bed. I ran over my memories of the night, searing into my mind what it felt like to touch her so I’d never forget it. And beneath all of that, I worked through the heavier feeling in my chest, the one that was as foreign as it was somehow familiar.

  It was deeper than sex.

  Now that I’d had her, I knew I couldn’t live in a world where I didn’t.

  I wanted to let her in, let her see all of me, and I wanted to see all of her, in return.

  While I’d spent the morning working out and planning every word I wanted to say to her, and knowing exactly where I wanted to take her to say it all, she’d been here, in my bed, sleeping. Knocked out. Completely exhausted.

  After everything that had happened yesterday, I knew she needed rest, and I didn’t want to take that from her.

  But it was Sunday in Stratford, and there wasn’t an excuse outside of being dead that could get Ruby Grace Barnett out of going to church.

  I was still a little sweaty from my workout as I swept a strand of her hair from her face, running my fingertip down the line of her jaw. She stirred a little, stretching her arms up above her head and pointing her toes before her eyes fluttered open.

  The moment they locked with mine, she smiled.

  And my heart nearly burst at the sight of that sleepy smile.

  “Well, good morning,” she said, voice raspy. “You’re sweaty.”

  I chuckled. “And you’re sleepy.”

  She groaned, rubbing her eyes. “I really am. I feel like I could sleep for years.”

  “Here,” I said, offering her the cup of hot tea I’d made her. “Earl Grey. Just a little bit of caffeine, but it should help.”

  She took it in thanks, scooting up until she was seated against the headboard, and after her first sip, she hummed.

  “That’s good,” she said, wrapping her hands around the warm mug.

  My sheets pooled at her waist, but her breasts were bare, exposed, just sitting there right in front of me in all their perky glory. Ruby Grace followed my gaze and gave me a knowing smirk.

  “Whatcha thinking about, Noah Becker?”

  “Just you, Ruby Grace,” I mused, meeting her gaze again. “Always you.”

  Her eyes softened, one hand leaving the mug and reaching out for mine. She folded her palm over my knuckles, lacing her fingers with mine, a thumb brushing my wrist.

  “Tell me last night was real,” she whispered.

  I swallowed, squeezing her hand in mine. “It was real,” I promised her. “It was perfect.”

  She nodded, closing her eyes on a smile before she took another sip of her tea. For a while, we just sat there, eyes wandering over the other, gentle smiles on our lips. There was so much I wanted to tell her in that moment, so much I wanted to make known, but I knew it wasn’t the right time. Or the right place. There were things I needed to do before I made my big gesture, before I showed her the way it could be, if she were to choose me.

  If she were to give me the honor of being the next man she called her own.

  “I want to take you somewhere,” I said after a while, smoothing my thumb over her palm. “Will you go somewhere with me?”

  “Where?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to tell you. Not yet. But… will you go with me?”

  She leaned up, placing her mug on the bedside table before she took my face in her hands. “Anywhere.”

  I smiled.

  “But, not today,” she said next. “Today, I need to deal with… all of this.” She gestured to the space around us, as if her former fiancé and her family and the rest of the town were right there in my bedroom with us. Then, she turned my hand over, checking the time on my heart monitor watch with another groan. “Starting with church. In like an hour.”

  I chuckled. “I understand.”

  Reaching for her hand again, I squeezed it in mine, frowning as I watched her. She was so young — too young to be faced with the hardship she was about to endure. It wasn’t going to be easy to break off an engagement, especially not in this town.

  And especially not with her family.

  “Why don’t you take a few days?” I offered. “I’ll be right here, but you do what you have to do. Okay?”

  Her lips formed a brief smile before it fell again. “Okay. Yeah. I think that’s best.”

  “Do you want me to come with you? To be with you for any of it?”

  She sighed at that. “No,” she said, rubbing her free hand down her face. “As much as I know it’d be easier that way, this is something I need to handle on my own.”

  “I get that,” I said, lacing our fingertips together. “How about you save Friday for me, then?”

  “Friday,” she mused.

  I nodded. “Gives me some time to get everything together.”

  At that, she cocked a beautiful eyebrow. “What are you planning, Noah Becker?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out, Ruby Grace Barnett,” I retorted, kissing her nose, her cheeks, and then capturing her lips. She inhaled at the connection, breathing into me, a sigh leaving her lips when I finally pulled back.

  Her mouth curved into a playful smile. “Last night, you said I have strawberry smoothie lips.”

  “You do,” I said, running my thumb over said lips. The bottom one stuck to my skin, pulling down to expose her teeth before it popped back up.

  That sight shot electricity straight down to my cock.

  I groaned, shaking my head and readjusting myself in my shorts as I slid my hand back into her hair. “I thought that the first time I saw you back in town. And every day since, I wondered if they tasted like a strawberry smoothie, too.”

  “And do they?”

  I shook my head, leaning in to kiss her and elicit another breathy sigh.

  I decided it was my new favorite sound.

  “Better,” I murmured against her lips. “They taste even better.”

  Ruby Grace

  Church felt like the Gravitron from the Tennessee State Fair that morning.

  One minute, I was smiling like a loon, stomach flipping as I replayed every moment with Noah the night before.

  The next, that stomach flip would turn into more of a roll, and I’d lurch forward, feeling like I was going to vomit any minute.

  In the course of twenty-four hours, everything had changed.

  I glanced down at the ring on my finger — the one I’d put back on before leaving Noah’s — and bile rose in my throat again. I couldn’t wait to take it off. I couldn’t wait to shake off the weight of the wedding to a man who didn’t love me, who didn’t care about anything other than what I would look like on his arm, what my family could do for his campaign.

  I felt like the biggest fool, but soon, it would be him who felt that way.

  Still, I knew
my stomach wouldn’t stop turning — not until it was all said and done, and maybe even then, too. I didn’t know where to start, who to tell first, and I didn’t have any way of knowing what to expect once our house of cards crumbled.

  Our friends would be shocked.

  The town would gossip.

  Mama’s heart would be broken, no doubt.

  And Daddy? I had no idea how he would take the news. Part of me wondered if he’d disown me, if I’d even be able to call myself a Barnett by the end of the week.

  Part of me didn’t care, as long as I was free of the man who had lied to me for the past year.

  And maybe that was what upset me most — that under all the anxiety over what was to come, I was still heartbroken over what had happened. The man I had promised my forever to wasn’t the man I thought I knew at all, and as much as I wished I didn’t hurt over that fact, as much as I wished Noah being with me the night before fixed everything, it didn’t.

  I had still been betrayed.

  My heart fluttered at the thought of Noah, a small smile curving on my lips. I reached up, smoothing my fingertips over the bottom one, remembering how it felt when his tongue swept across the sensitive skin.

  The way he touched me, the way he made love to me…

  It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

  How could I feel more passion and care in one night with that man than I felt in an entire year with the one I promised to marry?

  As if he could sense I was thinking of him, Noah stretched his arms up over his head, resting them on the back of the pew before he did a casual scan of the congregation like he wasn’t just trying to look back at me.

  But he did.

  When our eyes locked, every shred of doubt, every fear faded.

  He smiled.

  I smiled.

  And then I counted down the minutes until I could be in his arms again.

  “Mama, can we talk?”

  She was in the kitchen, baking her famous lemon squares for her meeting with the women’s circle at church the next day. Her auburn hair was up in a messy bun — which Mama never did, unless she was stressed, cleaning, or baking.