Chapter 2
GUNNER
There’s nothing I don’t like about this bar.
The worn leather stools. The crappy neon sign that never lights up all the letters at once. The smell of stale peanuts and beer in every inch of the place. The rotating display of racks of every gorgeous girl in town.
Most of all, I love the fact that this place is all mine.
Sure it was bought with dirty money. But that money didn’t come easy. Who would have guessed that the summer my father took me and my brothers across the country to slave away as roadies and muscle for the band, Pitch Black Riot, we’d witness more than a few things that they didn’t want anyone outside to know about? When one groupie wound up being a trust fund baby and my brother got some footage of her, the bassist, and the drummer doing things that would make the most hardcore porn studio drool, my father made quick work of sending a snippet to her daddy. And, a few negotiations later, Dad kept the lion’s share of a shitload of hush money, but he gave each of us a little bit.
My dad may be an a*shole, but he’s loyal as hell. We worked our asses off, and he paid us.
Suddenly the good-for-nothing Hunts proved we were a force to be reckoned with in little old Piedmont. Most citizens of this fine town figured we’d drink and drug the money away, but my dad raised us all smarter than that.
“Why buy the booze from the bar when you can own it off the tap? Smart, son,” he said, his smile of pride falling a little when I made it damn clear I wasn’t opening a bar so everyone with the last name Hunt could get a free drink whenever he wanted.
We like to f*ck, so there are dozens of us. And we’re all pretty damn cold-blooded, mean as hell, and always starting trouble. I love my blood, but I have no interest in spending any more time with them than I have to.
And now that I can be done worrying about them making it, I left them all, never looking back. Some might say I’m crazy for walking away from the limitless fortune I could have had if I’d stuck around with my dad while he bought oil rigs and got my brothers to work for him and buy up shares, but they don’t know what it’s like to live in a constant state of backstabbing, lies, and revenge. Money corrupts like no one’s f*cking business, and I feel like I didn’t know the people I was raised with anymore. It’s rough not having anyone to trust, anyone who’s real.
“What’ll it be?” I ask, drying a rocks glass, and then stacking it on the shelf with the others.
“Jameson, on the rocks,” the suit says, pushing past a tiny blonde.
I roll my eyes at his choice. His suit doesn’t fit well, and he looks like he thinks he’s much more important than he actually is. Which irritates me, because he may have a good job, but that doesn’t make him any more important than the rest of us.
Besides, I may come from white trash, but we were always taught ladies first. With everything. First in line, first to order, first to get off when we’re f*cking. What can I say? I’m a gentleman to the core.
“I think the lady was first,” I say, turning my attention back to the glasses. The man huffs and barely steps aside, leaving only a few inches for her small frame to squeeze up to the bar.
“Sapphire Sin,” she says. Her voice is light, but with a hitch of sexiness.
And I nearly drop the damn glass I’m drying.
I said good-bye to that voice—to that girl—my own personal version of sin years ago. I never thought I’d see her again. It was for the best. I thought she understood that. So, what the hell is she doing here now?
I fumble for the bottle of gin, avoiding her eyes, but that doesn’t do much good because my gaze instead settles on that exposed strip of skin where her tiny-ass shirt doesn’t reach her short-as-hell skirt. That strip of skin that I’d licked, tasted, and claimed as my own. All before I walked away.
I slide the drink across the bar without making eye contact as she pushes a ten dollar bill my way.
“Keep it.” I push the bill back. “It’s on the house.”
“What about that Jameson?” Super Douche interrupts. I should want to punch him, but instead, I find myself thanking him silently. Because without him and his penchant for whiskey, I’d be thinking about how I want to pull Harlow over this bar and f*ck her right here. And I can’t be thinking like that. Because the smartest, least selfish thing I ever did was walk away from that girl.
I pour his drink and finally allow myself a quick glance. She’s still standing close. Running the rim of the glass along her lower lip. Teasing me. Tempting me.
“Hey, Gunner,” she says.
“Harlow.” I nod. Anything more will just bring me right back to that summer over three years ago when she was mine.
She takes the ten dollar bill and stuffs it into the tip jar, and I cringe. Because to her, I’m the same deadbeat I was back then. She doesn’t know I own this place outright. She doesn’t know anything.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, concentrating on drying that damn glass better than any glass has ever been dried before.
Harlow shrugs, and I suck in a quick breath as the strap of her shirt slips down one of her tiny shoulders.
“Harlow,” I say. Her eyes snap up at the sound of her name. “What are you doing here?” I repeat.
She leans in over the bar and I step back. “I came to see you. Obviously.”
“Why?”
She jerks her head back, stunned. I don’t know why she would be. Despite the newly acquired business, I’m the same screwed up a*shole I was the last time I saw her.
“I just...I... Can we talk?”
“I’m working,” I say.
“Right. Okay.” She rubs her palms down her skirt, drawing my eyes to places they shouldn’t go. “Well, what time do you get off?”
I want to tell her that I’m the boss and I can leave whenever I damn well please, but that would just encourage her. I toss the towel onto the bar top and jerk my head back.
“C’mere,” I say. Harlow rounds the bar quickly, hopefully.
“Jared, watch the bar will ya?” I say. I instinctively reach back and clutch Harlow’s hand as I make my way to the storage room. She twists her fingers into mine and that’s my cue to let them drop.
As soon as the flimsy door shuts behind us I turn toward her. Really looking at her for the first time since she walked up to the bar.
Her face is the same, it hasn’t been long enough to change it; maybe it’s a little thinner—a little more grown-up. Her hair is longer than I remember, and I remember it well. Grabbing it in my fists and tugging as I pumped in and out of her. She always moaned the loudest when I did that.
“How’d you find me?” I ask. It’s not like I’m well hidden in this small area, but my bar, Tricks, is kind of a dump. Not exactly the place that princesses like Harlow or her friends stumble into.
“I have my ways.” She lifts her chin confidently, but I see through it. I see the goose bumps across her chest and the vein in her neck that twitches every time she swallows. She’s nervous as hell to be standing this close to me again. I sort of dig that. “Besides, I heard the drinks here were killer.” She takes a sip of the gin cocktail and licks her lips for good measure.
“You didn’t come here just for a Sapphire Sin, Harlow. It’s been years. What were you hoping to get out of showing up here?” Looking like that, I want to add. Instead, I let my eyes linger on all of that tan skin.
“I just wanted to talk. I’ve never really gotten over how things ended. With us, I mean.” She finishes her drink, and it must help with her boldness because she takes another step closer. Close enough that I can smell the all-too familiar sweet scent of Harlow— amber and pomegranate, it hasn’t changed. “And when I found out you were working here, I just... I wanted to say hi. See how you were. Friends can do that, right?”
And just like that, I’m back to summer, three years before, the smell of ripe peaches in the air, and it’s the very first time I’ve ever seen Harlow Mills.
“Hey, f*ckhead, go get another case before Dad gets here,” my brother Greyson shouted across the room, tossing me the keys to his Camaro.
I would have asked ‘why me,’ but I knew it was because I was the most sober. And also because Greyson knew I had a hard-on for his car and wouldn’t turn down a chance to drive it.
It was the kind of hot summer day that made waves of heat shimmer off the asphalt. A perfect day for a game of pool in the air conditioning, never-ending cans of beer, and a bonfire late at night. I was ready for exactly that, plus hoping some sweet pieces of ass would show up to keep me busy in bed, and that’s where my mind was when I happened upon a sporty red Jeep stranded on the side of the road, a pretty blonde standing next to it, cell phone in hand.
I may have been in a rush to get back to my day of being a lazy f*ck, but I’d never pass a pretty girl in need of help. My mama raised me right.
I pulled to the side and watched as she bit her lip nervously. I put my hands up to let her know I wasn’t planning to do anything stupid. “Hey, darlin.’ I saw you pulled over and wondered if you needed a hand.”
“I can’t get ahold of my father,” she said, shifting her weight from one foot to another. Her body was all sweet curves covered with a tiny sundress, light green and ruffled. She had on sexy cowboy boots, and kept pulling one foot out and rubbing it along the back of her calf. Her blonde curls tossed around her shoulders whenever the breeze picked up. “I don’t have the number for AAA in my phone. I don’t even know what’s wrong. It was in the shop the other day, so I don’t get it.”
“Mind if I take a look? My brothers are hardcore mud boggers, so I may be able to help.” I watched a smile of relief break over her face, and I decided right then and there I was gonna fix this damn Jeep no matter what it took, just so I could see her smile again.
One glance under the hood, and I knew it was the spark plug wire. Fool auto shop monkeys must’ve knocked a wire loose. It would be a two minute fix.
Two minutes, and she’d be back on the road.
“Is it something you can fix?” she asked.
“Sure can,” I said. I debated telling her it’d take awhile. Or that I needed her to ride to the parts store with me to get some part I’d pretend to use. Or that I couldn’t fix it, but I could give her a lift wherever she was headed.
Any of those would’ve fit my usual scenarios with a pretty girl. But I shocked myself by reaching in and fixing it, and even double checking to make sure everything else looked fine.
“Well, this sure as hell isn’t some beater you’d mud bog in, but a Jeep’s a Jeep, and this one is good to go.” I slammed the hood and wiped my hands on my jeans. “Wanna start her up?”
The girl nodded, ran to the driver’s side, and turned the key. The engine roared to life, and she grabbed the wheel and hollered, “Woot!”
Her excitement loosened something in me, and I found myself not wanting to leave. But I had to. This gorgeous girl in her shiny new Jeep didn’t need me in her life. That was for damn sure.
“Glad to help.” I smacked the hood and tipped my hat at her, then walked back to my car. I was about to pull out when I saw her door swing open and she came running.
My heart stopped in my chest, and I sat, not knowing what to expect.
“Hey,” she said, leaning down and into my opened window. “Um, thank you. I didn’t say ‘thank you.’”
“You didn’t have to run back for that,” I said, looking her up and down. “But I’m damn glad you did.”
“My name is Harlow. Harlow Mills.” She stuck her hand in my window.
I took it and pressed it to my lips, loving the way her cheeks went all red. “I’m Gunner Hunt. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
She tugged her hand back and bit her lip, and my brain went crazy imagining every naughty thing this angel-face might be capable of doing.
Naked
In my bed.
“So, um...I never, ever do this. But....here.”
She shoved a napkin into my hand and, before I could register what it was, she ran to her Jeep. I hardly had time to watch that fine ass before she was in her Jeep and peeling out, leaving me staring into a cloud of dust.
I looked down at the napkin crumpled in my hand. It had a phone number with a message scrawled in bubbly letters underneath: “I love a guy who can get his hands dirty. Call me sometime.”
I held the napkin to my nose and inhaled the pomegranate and amber scent I was about to know very well...on every inch of that sexy skin.
I took my phone out and dialed.
I never made it back with the beer that night.
I’ve got to end this. Again.
“We aren’t friends. You shouldn’t have come. And I don’t want your money,” I say, shoving the crinkled ten dollar bill I pulled out of the tip jar back into her palm.
“We used to be friends. More than friends, Gunner. Was it really so bad?”
I try really f*cking hard not to, but I can’t help but let my mind flashback to how things were with Harlow before they got so damn complicated.
“You look good,” I say, shaking away the images before they make me rock hard back in this storage room. Because what the hell else am I supposed to say right now? That I don’t regret walking away from her? That she never should have tracked me down? Maybe I should say all of those things, but I’m weak and she’s so close.
“You too. And I’m sorry for just showing up like this, I hope I didn’t get you into any trouble. I’m sure your boss isn’t thrilled.” She thinks I just wipe counters and pour beers. Good. That’s all she needs to know. “I know you need to get back, but maybe when you get off, we could talk for a little? Just catch up?"
I run my palm across the scruff of my five o’clock shadow.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Harlow.”
“Come on, I don’t bite,” she says, with a small smile.
“The reasons we can’t be together haven’t changed,” I say. “I’m still the same loser I was back then, kitten. And you’re still a goddamn princess.” A goddamn sexy princess. And if she knew all of the new reasons that there can never be an us, she’d definitely run the other direction. She needs to get over this bad boy fantasy, and go back to the family she loves.
“I’m not asking for us to get back together, Gunner. I’m just asking for one night.” She swallows hard and that vein in her neck is throbbing like certain parts of my anatomy are right now.
“Please.” She bites her bottom lip in that way that screams sex and innocence all at the same time, and she knows I can’t f*cking resist it.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I say. But it’s a lie.
I link my arm around that delicate waist and pull her in. Her skin is hot like she’s been out in the sun all day, probably in some skimpy ass bikini. She perches up onto her tiptoes and runs her mouth slowly along my jawline. She was eighteen the last time I saw her, and at the time, I didn’t think she could get any hotter. But right now, she’s all woman, and she knows exactly what she’s doing to me.
“My bike is out back,” I say, knowing it’s a f*cking stupid idea the minute it comes out of my mouth. But I’ve had stupider, and I’ve done alright for myself. “We can take a quick ride, but I gotta be back for last call. Alright with you?”
Her eyes are wide, sky blue, looking at me like I’ve got the answer to every problem she’s ever had. Too bad she doesn’t realize this ride is about to toss one more big ass problem at both of us.
Because I’m going to f*ck Harlow. It won’t be sweet, but it will be good as hell. And when it’s done, she’s going to walk like she just rode a horse ten miles bareback, and I’m going to tell her that all I’m good for anymore is a f*ck and a pour, anytime she needs either.
I didn’t turn into the man she imagined I would. I hate that about myself, but I hate it even more that those big blue eyes look so hopeful. Especially because I’m about to let her down hard and fast. Maybe I’ve got more money, but my life is even more f*cked up, and I’m not about to get her involved in any aspect of it.
But I swear on all that’s holy, I’ll give her the f*ck of her life before I cut her off. It’s not much, but it’s what I do well, and I’ve never done it better than when I’ve had my dick buried in Harlow’s tight little p-ssy.
“Yes. I mean...I’d love to. Um.” She looks uncertain, like she wants some kind of confession of love from me, or at least some sweet words, maybe.
I hate the hurt on her face when I keep my expression blank, but what I’m about to do is stupid enough without adding extra emotional complications in.
“Let’s go,” I say, jerking my head to the back door. “Jared! I’m out till last call.” Jared scowls at me, but he doesn’t say anything, because he knows I’ll throw him all tonight’s tips plus triple pay. I know it would break Harlow’s heart to know, but this isn’t the first time I’ve ditched the bar for a f*ck.
“I have to tell Daisy,” she says, turning to find her friend in the smoky crowd.
“Forget it. You can text her.” I’m already walking out the door, fast, not looking over my shoulder when I go.
A big part of me hopes she won’t be there when I get to the parking lot. But she is. I look her up and down in the glow of the streetlight. She has her arms crossed over her tits and she’s biting her lip again. But this time it isn’t because she wants to drive me crazy with lust. This time it’s because she’s nervous. She looks up at me from under those crazy dark lashes, her eyes a little scared and a little sad, and she might as well have punched me in the stomach.
“Just go back inside,” I say, my voice tight.
She shakes her head. “No. Gunner, I’ve wanted you so bad for so long. I’ve missed you. Haven’t you missed me?” She reaches a hand out to touch me, then pulls back.
Dammit, I’ve missed the feel of her hands on me. I didn’t realize how badly until this minute. The kid I was three years ago would spit in my face if he came across me today, here, in the parking lot making plans to f*ck this girl—to f*ck Harlow—senseless.
I knock that kid out of my head and pull her close around her waist.
“Listen, kitten. I’m not that guy you knew back then. I don’t do sweet. I don’t do nice. And you should be done screwing around and wasting time already. You need to be looking for a guy you can settle down with. Someone to put a ring on that pretty finger of yours. Not some soulless a*shole that’ll use you and leave you like me.” Our faces are so close, I can smell the sweet bubblegum of her breath as she pants, excited or scared, I can’t tell which.
“I know that isn’t true,” she says. Her pretty pink lips part and she darts her tongue out, licking the top, then the bottom with a slow slide. “I know you don’t mean that for a second.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Harlow.” I crush her close and speak low and slow. “It’s not gonna turn out that I peel your panties off and come out the other side of this f*ck a changed man. If we do this, it’s about me scratching an itch that’s long overdue. And once it’s scratched, you and I have no business together anymore. Got that?”
Her pretty face is turned up to look at me. I can’t see the blue of her eyes anymore, because they’ve gone black with need. “Got it,” she whispers.
“No strings attached. You understand?” I demand.
“I understand,” she repeats, her cheeks turning pink like she’s embarrassed.
“This is just sex, Harlow. Just sex between two people who know how damn good it can be. Say it. Say, ‘This is just sex.’” I stare down into her eyes, careful not to fall in and drown in their pure beauty.
I shake my head. I haven’t gotten soft like this over a girl in years. This is not a good sign.
“This is just...sex. Gunner.”
That pause. The soft way she says my name. I may have flunked out of high school English, but I’m no dummy. I know she’s using words, looks, anything. She wants what she can’t have. She expects to snap those manicured fingers and get any damn things she pleases. Even me.
Maybe this idea isn’t so stupid after all. Maybe what Harlow Mills needs is to have her romantic dreams crushed under someone’s boot heel so she can grow the hell up and stop pining for the bad boy she wants to save. I’m no rescue dog; I don’t need saving, especially from the likes of her.
“Let’s go, then.” I stalk to my bike and throw a leg over. It’s started and almost rolling when I feel her jump on the back, her chest pressed close to my back, her arms wound tight around my waist.
The night is cool and calm, the kind of night we used to wish for that summer. This was the kind of night we would have spent skinny dipping or rolling around in the hayloft on a blanket she brought tucked under her arm. This was the kind of night where Harlow would curl on my chest when we were done screwing like wild things and force me to look away from her and up at the stars.
“Gunner, what would you wish for, if you could have anything?” she’d ask. Her voice was lazy, her head tilted back, silky curls spread over my chest.
I wound a gold curl around my finger and traced the line of her shoulder, so soft. So beautiful. Goddamn, that girl could kick the breath out of my lungs.
“Nothing.”
She rolled onto her side, the blanket slipping down off her nipple and just the sight of that little pink mound got me hard and ready for her again. “Nothing?” She frowned. I loved the way her lips pouted when she frowned. “That’s boring.”
“What kind of idiot would wish for a damn thing when he had you in front of him?” I gathered her in my arms and spoke close to her ear. “You’re every wish I could make, Harlow. You know that?”
She turned in my arms and kissed me quiet.
I’m glad the roar of my bike competes for attention with the memories going through my fool head. By the time we pull up at my place, I’ve pushed that one aside, trampled it. No good remembering what couldn’t be and still can’t. I was a dumbass, and it’s embarrassing to dwell on it.
Harlow swings one sweet little leg off my bike and starts off toward the barn. I catch her hand to stop her. She looks down at me holding her, then up at my face, confused.
“You want me. Right?” she asks.
Her voice is killing me. We haven’t taken off a single stitch, and I feel horny as hell. “I want you so bad, my dick’s about to tear through these jeans, kitten. But I’m done with getting my skin rubbed off in the hay.”
She looks around like she’s expecting a cheap motel to pop up and entice us with its hourly rates. I forget how much has changed in years we’ve been apart.
And I take comfort in how much hasn’t.
“Get over here,” I say. She follows me like a shadow while I go up the steps to the door of the big farmhouse.
The owner, Mr. Daniels, was one of the nicest guys I ever met. I know he knew damn well I was bringing Harlow to his hayloft the summer I worked for him. I had no choice; there’s only so many positions you can comfortably manage on the bench seat of an old Ford.
Old Daniels just pulled me aside and said, “If the missus finds any lacy little panties when she’s feeding her horses, I’ll have hell to pay. And if I have hell to pay, so will you, son.”
So I made sure to always collect Harlow’s panties and anything else after we finished.
When the missus died a year back, he came to my apartment, hat in his hands, and said it killed him to have to sell, but he’d feel so much better knowing it was going to good hands.
Good hands.
Old Daniels was a good guy, but no doubt he was soft in the head.
“Um, I know Mr. Daniels moved, but we can’t be here. Someone might be keeping an eye on things and see us,” Harlow whispers. “We can go to my place if you like. My apartment is only fifteen minutes away, and Daisy is never around this time of—”
I take out a key and stop her little ramble in its tracks. She flashes questioning eyes my way, but I’m not in the mood for questions. I lead in and she follows, looking around bright and curious.
“Gunner? Is this...yours?”
I try not to mind the amazement. “It is. After Mrs. Daniels passed, Mr. Daniels wanted someone trustworthy to take care of the place.”
Her face looks relieved, like she just figured something out. “Oh! So you take care of this place for Mr. Daniels.”
She doesn’t phrase it as a question, so I don’t offer an answer.
I also don’t admit, even to myself, how hard it sucks that it doesn’t even cross her mind I could have bought this place.
She walks past me, stepping on the shiny oak steps, her hand on the railing. She gets all interested in some picture of horses on the fifth step, and I get a clear view up her skirt.
There’s not a scrap of fabric under it. She’s asking me some crazy question about the one horse’s name or something, but my mind isn’t mine anymore. I’m up the steps before I have time to think and my hands are on her thighs, the skin warm from the sun she’s always worshipping.
I kiss down her neck, suck on the skin almost hard enough to leave a mark. I hear her pull her breath in and drag my mouth away. She isn’t mine to mark.
“You used to get soaked if I told you all the dirty things I wanted to do to you. That still hold, kitten?” I ask kissing along her neck and loving the way she braces one hand on the wall and one on the bannister.
“I’m, uh, not s-s-sure,” she stutters. “No one’s talked dirty to me since you.” She leans back into me and rubs her ass against my hands.
It makes me glad to know I’m the last one who talked dirty to her. I’ve gotta accept that that probably doesn’t mean she’s been celibate, only that the guys she was with didn’t know how to turn her on.
“I’m gonna guess that panties aren’t the only thing you forgot tonight?” I push one hand under the hem of her shirt and, sure enough, the soft, heavy swell of her tit rests against my fingers, her hardened nipple tight under my palm. I kiss her neck and push my other hand up under her shirt. She grinds back into me, moving her ass against my dick.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” I say. “I miss watching that ass when I’m f*cking you from behind.” She moans. “You remember that time you got on your hands and knees for me in your daddy's kitchen? He could have come back any second and caught me dick-deep in you.”
Her laugh is low and throaty, cut short on another moan when I squeeze her nipples between my fingers. “I r-r-remember that. I still can’t get a midnight snack at my parents’ house without wanting to feel you in me. I’ve missed it so much, Gunner.” The last words come out on a whimper that makes my head spin.
My hands squeeze her tits, then turn her around. I pull her shirt over her head and her tits bounce, smooth and round in the moonlight. I feel like I’m a starving man staring at a banquet table.
I dip my head down and suck one nipple in, pulling at it with my tongue and grazing softly with my teeth. Harlow holds my head and her fingers tug at my hair.
“I missed you pulling my hair,” I say, licking at one nipple while she yanks harder.
“Same here.” Her smile is a little sad. “We got wild together, didn’t we?”
I only nod, because there’s dirty talk, then there’s reminiscing. Sex with Harlow is already going to be more than I can handle without getting feelings all tangled up in it.
To distract her and me from our past, I slide my hand up between her legs and grin at the slippery wetness I feel there. “Damn, kitten. You’re wet as f*ck.”
She sits back suddenly, like her knees gave out, and my body covers hers on the stairs, my hand going back to her p-ssy to touch again what I’ve obsessed over every f*cking night for three long years. I slid one finger in, then two, and watch as her back arches.
“So damn tight, baby,” I whispered. “Goddamn, if my fingers feel this good in you, imagine what my dick will feel like.”
She spreads her legs and looks at me. Her eyes and smile are inviting. “I want your dick inside me right now, Gunner. Do it.” She hikes the tight denim up over her hips and that soft, sweet p-ssy is spread out, just for me.
I undo my button and slide my zipper down, slightly embarrassed that it takes a little wrangling to get my dick out. When I do, she makes this little coo of pleasure that sets my vision to red. She reaches one hand out and draws her fingers down to the head, stroking it with her fingertips, then moving back to cup my balls.
“Gunner,” she pleads. “I need your dick in me. Now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say. I shake a condom out of my pocket and roll it on, then I come up over her and position myself, taking a second to make sure everything is right. Just right.
My mind flashes this one thought: Everything is right. I’m with Harlow.
I need to get a damn grip. I rock into her and, much as I want to keep thinking of this as just a f*ck, I sure as hell feel like I’ve come home.
“Damn, girl, you’re so f*cking tight.” I push into her as deep as I can go. She claws the t-shirt over my head and pulls her skirt up higher, spreading her legs wider. “That’s right. Let me get in there deep, just the way you like.”
I push in as far and hard as I can, and Harlow’s body twists under me, trying to get closer. Her nails claw down my back, leaving scratches. I’ll wear them proudly, like badges of honor. She knots her legs around my waist and her sweet little mouth is going wild, kissing every square inch of skin she can reach.
I pull back until I’m almost completely out of her, then drive back in, deep and hot, right to the hilt. “Oh, yeah, kitten. That’s it. Grind harder. I can feel you’re about to come. Soak my dick, sweetheart. Come on, I can see you’re almost there. What do you need? This?”
I plow into her again. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her mouth hangs open, and her hands are burrowed in the muscles of my back. Her p-ssy is slick, and I can feel this slight tremor. I dip my head so my mouth is just over her nipple. “I’m gonna suck these tits and keep f*cking you. I know you love that.”
My hands tug up on her ass, driving her higher in my arms, so I can get as much tit as possible in my mouth. My dick is slick with her, my mouth and nose are full of the sweet taste and smell of her tits, my hands dig into the soft, plump ass I see in every dream I have of her every f*cking night. I move as slowly as I can until she arches her back and goes stiff, then shakes under me.
She drops her legs from around my waist and digs her heels against the stairs, her tremors shaking her body. “Holy f*ck! Gunner! Gunner! Please! Gunner, f*ck me! Hard!”
I breathe fast and f*ck hard, just like she asks. In the back of my mind, I’m glad as hell that I own thirty-two acres of land, because I want her screaming that loud again in a minute, and all night, without worrying about anyone hearing her.
Her hands go up to her own tits and her fingers squeeze and pull at them while I fill her and pull back then ram into her again, my dick hard and full in her p-ssy. She screams my name and moans under me, her hands stroking down my chest and abs.
“I want you to come,” she says, her hands pulling down on my neck so I can kiss her. I can’t get enough of the sweet taste, something like peaches and spring water. “Come. Come. I want you to come, too,” she begs.
“Turn around,” I say. She flips, her knees on one stair, her hands braced on another, her heart-shaped ass in front of me. I slide back into the hot, depths of her. I can’t believe she’s actually tighter from this angle. I press my hand into her hair, all those golden curls twined around my fingers and over my wrist.
The wrist that still has her name inked on it.
Man, I was lovesick. I thought it would all be so f*cking easy. I was a moron.
I tug just hard enough to make her jerk hard against me. I lean down over her naked back, my mouth close to her ear. “You like this? Tell me you like it from behind. Say it.”
“I like it...I want it from behind,” she gasps. “Gunner, I think...Gunner?”
I planned to remind her that this was just a f*ck. That when this night was over, so were we. For good. Walking away from each other.
But then she came on me, and my body couldn’t handle another second, and I was in no place to be giving anyone a lecture. I grabbed onto her shoulders and tilted my hips to fill her as deeply as I could. I came with her, so hard it winded me. It was never like that with any other girl, and I knew it never would be.
I pull out slowly, roll the condom off and she lay back awkwardly, her tits pressed high, her blonde curls all over the stairs. “I’ve waited three years for that,” she breathes. “That was incredible.” She reaches a hand up to touch my face, but I pull back.
Damn I want her to touch me like she used to. But I’m not an idiot. And I’m definitely not a masochist.
“You ready to go back? I got what I wanted.” I say the words coolly, make sure I look her in the eye.
I feel like a dick. And I expect a lot of things. Tears. Anger. A slap across my face, a boot in my sack. I’m ready to take accept a world of hurt as payback for hurting her, even if it’s for our own good.
Maybe I imagine the pain that flashes through her eyes so quickly, because her next words actually make me laugh.
“Go back? You’re giving that bartender all your tips tonight, aren’t you? Last call is two hours away, and I saw a nice big kitchen table that doesn’t look like it’s been f*cked on recently.” She grins at me. “Or do you need a mattress now? I know you’re getting older.”
Shit. I steeled myself for her tears or her fury. But her humor? She cut me at the knees. I scoop her up and hold her tiny body tight in my arms, trying to tune out her laughter before she gets me more f*cked up in the brain. I deposit her on the table, yank her skirt off her hips and down her legs, but put a hand on hers when she tries to take off her boots.
I’d know those damn boots anywhere; she wore them that entire summer three years ago, and I’d seen her in them a thousand times. But there was nothing sexier than a girl in nothing but her boots.
“Leave them on,” I say. “And back that gorgeous ass up. Seeing as you’re all spread out on the table, I’m feeling hungry. Spread your legs and let me suck on that sweet p-ssy.”
She drops her head back and lets her knees fall at her sides, but not before she whispered, “I f*cking love you, Gunner.”
I decide to save my comments and use my tongue for better things.
She better cut that shit out. We had terms and she agreed. She wasn’t about to trick me into something that would just wind up screwing us both up again.