Unfortunately Yours (A Vine Mess, #2)

“No, they’re somebody else’s.”

Apparently the sarcasm didn’t register. He was too busy bracing his hands on the wet shower wall and leaning down to look at them. “Oh my God. They’re incredible.” He choked a sound and winced. “Jesus. My balls have never gotten so heavy so fast in my life. Pretty sure every drop of blood in my head just went south. Give me like . . . eight seconds to make sure I’m not going to pass out.”

Seriously, that wasn’t a problem.

With his eyes clamped shut and his bottom lip being pulverized between his teeth, Natalie was given the opportunity to look him over. Starting from the top of his wet warrior’s torso covered in dark hair, down his egg-carton stomach to the . . . whoa, mama. His balls were not the only thing that was hard. If the financial sector didn’t work out, maybe she had a future in snake charming. Her sex clenched and turned warm, so warm. So ready. And if she was being honest with herself, this wasn’t instantaneous arousal. This physical attraction had been brewing for months. Plaguing her. Keeping her awake at night. God, it felt incredible to stop fighting it. To let her heart race and her body soften and know that relief was on the way for both of them. Finally. Finally.

“Okay,” he exhaled above her head. “I think I’m good.” His mouth dipped and found hers roughly, two sets of lips slippery from the steam, suctioning her into a kiss that made her whimper in her throat, her palms flattening on the ridges of his pecs, her nails scraping down through the patch of springy hair. “Scratch that,” he groaned. “I’m so much better than good.”

“It’s going to feel even better inside of me,” she whispered against his panting mouth, her fingertips traveling lower, lower. “It’s long overdue, isn’t it, babe?”

“Babe?” He caught her wrists before she reached his erection, his breath pelting her forehead. “Hold up. What is this, Natalie?”

“I . . .” She tried to tug her wrists free, but he didn’t let go, eyes narrowed on her through the swirling mist. “I want you. That’s what this is. We want each other.”

“No shit. But why now?”

Natalie opened her mouth but nothing came out.

“Is this because of what I told you?” Slowly, August pinned her wrists high above her head, his mouth hovering an inch away from hers. “Do you think I’m going to let you pity fuck me, princess?”

Being called out, even if it was only the partial truth, rankled. “Based on the way your hard-on is trying to enter my belly button right now? Yes, I do.”

“It’s been a while. He’s confused.” He pressed their foreheads together, looking her square in the eye. “You’re confused, too, if you think I’m going to let you explain this away later with some nonsense about feeling bad for me. Not happening.”

“You were trying to do something noble,” she whispered in a rush. “All this time.”

His jaw ticked. “That has nothing to do with us.” They breathed against each other’s mouths so long, she lost track of who was inhaling or exhaling. Only knew her chest ached as much as the flesh between her legs, and August was so hard, she could almost feel the pain and hunger in every vibrating inch of his body. “I can’t fuck you when your head isn’t in the right place.” His mouth moved to her ear, open lips raking side to side over it, then up into her hair. “But I’d sell my soul to yank those panties down and finger you, Natalie. The fact that I’ve never made you come eats me alive. Do you get that? It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. Still haven’t given Natalie an orgasm. Day eighty-two of not making those two hot legs shake and kick the lamp off my side table. It’s hell. Day in and day out.”

Her brain was struggling to make sense of his words. They were sexy words. Her body liked them very much. As for logic and her power of deduction? Circling the drain. “You . . . don’t want me to make you—”

“Come? Yeah. Another time. When the reason doesn’t piss me off.” He tucked his coarse index finger inside the center of the waistband of her panties, so close to the top of her slit that she moaned, her head landing with a thud against the tile wall. “Say yes if I’m allowed to push these panties down to your knees.”

“Yes,” she said on a shuddering exhale. Wasn’t she supposed to hate the abrasive way he spoke to her? Yes? Didn’t she normally? When had that same method of communicating become a verbal drug to her senses? “Yes . . . you’re allowed.”

With a groan that shook her head to toe, he fisted the front of her underwear so tightly that she swore he was going to rip it off, but instead he pulled them down hard, his labored breaths loud in the shower stall. Braiding together with her gasps. Gasps that only increased in volume when that huge, thick-fingered hand dragged up her inner thigh and he gripped her pussy roughly, massaging it while he held her in thrall with splintering eye contact. “Nearly had this thing months ago. I’ve been hating myself for blowing my shot.”

Her teeth were literally chattering. “You can take your shot right now.”

“No,” he gritted out, parting her flesh with a middle finger and entering her so swiftly with that single digit that she screamed, going up on her toes as she was plastered to the wall by his strong body, his mouth flush with hers. “No, I want a lot more from you now.”

“Please, please, please.” The shower spray came from over his shoulder and rained water down between them, the fall of warm moisture parting around his hand where it started to work her, pumping that finger in and out slowly, too slowly, all while he watched her face. He seemed to hunt for every little reaction and exploit it, pressing deeper when she whimpered, pulling back when she started to breathe hard and rock her hips. “Please, August. I need something.”

“You’ll get it. You’ll always get it from me. Just let me enjoy you.” The joint of his thumb pressed to her water-slicked clit and rubbed, making her back arch compulsively off the wall, stars dancing in front of her eyes. “Jesus Christ. You are so fucking gorgeous, Natalie. Bet you rub expensive lotion and shit all over yourself twice a day to look so . . .” He licked her. From the curve of her shoulder all the way up the side of her neck and jawline, all while pressing his finger high and deep. “Damn. Damn, it’s so smooth. You’d slide all over me like a fucking dream, wouldn’t you, princess?”

She couldn’t take the dirty talk anymore. It was overwhelming her, along with his touch, which she definitely hadn’t expected to be so . . . skilled. And the sudden proof that he’d definitely done this before made her irrationally annoyed. To the point that when he stamped his mouth down over hers, she bit down on his bottom lip and pulled hard. “You’re too good at this,” she said on an expulsion of breath. Then, on a quieter breath, “I love it. But I hate it.”

Watching her with a furrowed brow, he slipped his middle finger out, joined it with his ring finger and rubbed her clit, slowly at first, then with more pressure. Faster. Leading to an embarrassingly whiny moan from Natalie that she swore came from someone or somewhere else. “Tell me why you hate me being good at this,” said August, his lips grazing hers, side to side. “And I’ll keep this up until your knees buckle.”

“I don’t want m-my knees to buckle.”

“Yes, you do.” Faster. Oh my God. “You know I’m going to catch you.”

“Do I?” she whimpered.

His teeth snapped at her jaw. “Yes.”

Dammit. She did know that. Why did she know that? The reason wasn’t clear, nothing was clear right now save the fact that a fuse had been lit, the fire racing across the ground toward the powder keg that was Natalie’s body. Going to blow, going to explode.

When that touch slowed slightly, she cried out.

“You want me to keep going, don’t you?” he asked, mouth busy on her neck.

“Stop and I’ll kill you.”

Those two fingers delved inside her, twisted deep, and pushed high. “Answer me, then, Natalie,” he growled against her mouth while she silently screamed, eyes blind, release shaking the exit gates. “It’s only supposed to be you and me. That’s why you’re thrown off by my knowing how to touch a woman. That right?”