The Real Deal

“Hi,” she whispers.

Heat crackles down my spine. I’m not sure I can withstand the wanting much longer.

“Hi,” I say as she lies back down. I lower one hand to the blanket, palm flat on the floor of the tree house. With my other hand, I position my erection between her legs. I try not to invest the moment with too much significance. It’s just sex.

But hell, it’s not just sex.

I’m crazy for her.

I ease the tip in, and she gasps, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Oh God,” she murmurs.

She trembles as I push in more. She’s so soft and wet, and so ready, and she feels unbelievable. I can’t believe I’m doing this, that I’ve broken this golden rule of my side business, but with the way she feels beneath me, I’d break it a thousand times over.

We fit.

“You feel amazing,” I whisper as I lower my chest to hers. Her lush body is pressed to mine. I can’t get enough of her. I want to feel her everywhere. I want her softness against me. I want her wetness gripping me. I slide in more, and I’m rewarded with a sweet little hiss of her breath.

“It’s okay? Doesn’t hurt?”

She shakes her head. “It’s so good.” She licks her lips, her eyes pinned to mine. “More.”

I move in her, taking my time, letting her adjust, letting myself adjust to the extraordinary feel of being inside this woman I can’t resist. I move my hips, stroking deeper.

She leans her head back, stretching her neck. It’s so inviting. I dip my face to her neck, grazing my teeth across the delicate skin. Her breath catches.

“I feel like I’m on fire,” she says in a feathery voice.

“Yeah?”

“Everywhere. My skin. My heart. Just everywhere.”

I push deeper, with longer thrusts. Electricity crackles in my body, sparking down my spine.

We move like that for several deliciously intense minutes, her sounds echoing in the summer air, our bodies sweat-slicked and hot, our breath in each other’s ears. Her hands travel all over me, exploring my shoulders, traveling down my back, stopping at my ass. She grabs me, pulling me deeper.

“More,” she groans. “Harder.”

The last word is a shot of lust straight to my groin. Burying myself in her, I fuck her with long, rough strokes.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

Then I slow the pace, so I can torture her, and let it build again. She moans, a tiny sound of frustration. I bring my lips to her earlobe and nibble. “I’ll get you there.”

“I know.”

“Do you trust me?”

She nods. “I do.”

“I’ll make it so good for you.”

“I know you will.”

I want it more than good. I want to shatter her world. I want to see how she looks beneath me, falling apart into a thousand beautiful pieces.

I punch my hips into her. She matches me thrust for thrust, moving fast and hard with me. I ease back, slowing, and she whimpers. Such a needy gorgeous sound. Picking up the pace again, I reach down, running my hand along her thigh, grab her foot, and hike up her leg.

I bring her knee up to her shoulder and marvel at how sensual she looks beneath me. Under me, trusting me to take her there. “You like it like this?”

I ask because I want to know everything. I want to record all her likes, I want to learn where my touch drives her most wild, I want to catalog every beautiful response from her. She arches her back, and a low, sexy cry comes from her lips. “Yes.”

Tension builds in me; it tightens and intensifies with each stroke. Her warm body grips me, her hips rocking up like she can pull me deeper with each roll.

I go as deep as I can, needing this closeness.

And when she threads her fingers through my hair, whispering my name, I feel something unlock inside me. “Theo.”

It feels as though all the secrets I’ve been keeping are bubbling up, threatening to spill over, and I know I will tell her. I know I will share everything. I want her to know me. Want her to understand who I am. Because I want her to feel the same damn way I do.

I want her to fall in love with me, too. The real me.

“Are you almost there?”

She nods and pants, a flush spreading up her skin, traveling to her neck. “Yes, keep doing it,” she says; then her sounds grow hoarse, turning into incoherent pleas.

“Not stopping. Never stopping.”

She shudders, and her eyes squeeze closed. I watch her face, watch the start of an orgasm bloom on her expression as her mouth twists, then falls open, and she’s noiseless at first. Just the tiniest gasp, then a long, lingering, gorgeous groan. Like a bomb, she detonates. She rocks up into me, grabbing at me, kissing me, pulling me closer.

I grit my teeth, holding off my own orgasm because I won’t miss a second of this explosion. She’s panting now and moaning, those aftershock sounds as she bathes in her pleasure.

“You’re beautiful when you come,” I grunt. Then I pound into her, wilder, harder, letting loose, letting go until my own orgasm powers through my body, lighting me up, making my bones shake with pleasure. My body jerks as I come hard, filling the condom.

I pant and breathe hard, as if I’ve run a race.

When I open my eyes, the sight before me is heaven. April is blissed out, high on her second orgasm. Her face glows, dewy with a sheen of sweat, and her smile is all natural and naughty.

The words she says next make my heart leap. “I want to keep you around.”

I bury my face in her neck, kiss her skin, nibble on her ear. “Keep me.”





Chapter Thirty-five

Theo

On the return to the inn, I can’t keep my hands off her. We stroll past a white colonial with orange tulips bursting in the front yard, and I kiss her cheek.

We stop at the market to grab a pepper, and I run my hand down her arm.

After we cross the next street, I inhale her neck. “You smell like me.”

“So I’m sexy and manly and edgy?”

I snort. “Correction. You smell like you’ve been well fucked.”

“It’s the JBF look you promised, I believe.” She loops her arm around my waist. “And, yes, I’ve been quite well screwed, thank you very much.”

Pride surges in me. There’s nothing so good as pleasing your woman.

My woman.

Hell, she’s my woman, and I have to find a way to keep her. We stop under the canopy of a tree, and once again, my hands dive into her hair. “Can I have you again tonight?”

She arches one brow. “Maybe I’m presumptuous, but I figured that was a given.”

“Even at the inn? You’ll have to be quiet.”

“I can be quiet.” She places her hands together as if in prayer. “I promise I can be quiet.”

I move in closer to her. “Then I’ll sleep with you in the dark,” I tell her, trailing kisses on her neck. She trembles. “Under the covers. The sheets slipping down to our hips. I’ll tell you to be quiet, or I won’t let you come.”

“Will I? Be quiet?”

I run my index finger along her cheekbone. “It’ll be tough, but you’ll want it so bad, knowing how good it can be.”

“How good will it be tonight?”

“Even better than this afternoon.”

Her breath hitches. “Why? Tell me why,” she says, and I know she loves that we talk like this. We tell stories of our desire, and those stories are coming true.

“Because it’ll be the middle of the night, and we’ll take our time, we’ll linger on each other, as if we have hours. I’ll pull you on top of my body, you’ll slide down on me, and you’ll fuck me like that,” I rasp out, and she sways closer. I whisper in her ear. “You can ride me tonight. Get on me and ride me, nice and slow and easy, in the dark, shadows falling across us. I want it like that. Do you?”

She swallows, and her eyes flutter. She shakes her head. “Who are you?”

I blink, taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“Who are you to just fall into my life like this and say these things? You say these things, and I want to climb you again now.”

I smirk. “Tonight, cupcake. Climb me tonight.”