On my hands and knees, I flick my tongue across the head of his cock, then lick down his shaft slowly. He moves his hands to my head, tangling his fingers in the back of my hair, and I take his whole cock, hard and throbbing, into my mouth. I slide my lips down and then up, down and up, consuming him.
His fingers tug at my hair as I move faster on his cock. “Come here,” he says. “I want to taste you.” He reaches down and grabs my thigh, pulling my lower body toward him. He tugs at my shorts and I help him get them down my legs until they are off. He pulls me so I’m straddling his chest, my bare ass presented to him. Grabbing my waist, he guides me backwards onto his face, my belly on his, his cock erect and ready to fill my mouth.
With the tip of his tongue, he bats at my clit as I rock back and forth on his face, and every muscle in my body fills with pulsing sparks, like a thousand firecrackers going off all at the same time. He darts his tongue into my opening and I tighten my grip on his cock as he thrusts it into my mouth, our bodies contracting, tensing, ready for simultaneous relief as he licks at me, greedily, like a glutton who can’t get enough, as I work his shaft with the flat of my tongue.
I grind into his mouth faster, moaning against his hardness, completely losing control. I free fall through my orgasm, riding the intense waves, as he releases into my throat with a final groan.
While he catches his breath on the mat, I climb up and settle on his chest, brushing my fingers across his open mouth.
“Fuck, you taste good,” is all he manages, kissing each of my fingers in turn.
“So, is this how your training sessions usually end?” I say with a smirk.
He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “But it’s a routine I’d be happy to start.”
***
Later that morning, I speed through my house, a half-filled duffle bag dangling from my arm as I go through a mental checklist for a camping trip to Lake Lanier. Before I left his place, Ryder invited me to join him and Cash and Jackson on the trip, and seeming to sense my hesitation he’d added, “Shelby and Avery and Ruby will be there, too,” as he exited the steamy bathroom, wrapping a white towel around his hips, just below his sharply defined V-muscles, the lines of them straight and angled, directing a viewer’s gaze in only one direction: down.
“We’ll spend the night, play hooky tomorrow morning. Leave Katie to manage the bar.” The hot air in the bathroom puffed like clouds, making it look like his shower must have been some kind of portal to heaven. And considering he was wet and naked in there, I guess it kind of was.
He walked over to where I sprawled on the unmade bed wearing only his Kings of Leon t-shirt and lay next to me, propping himself onto one elbow, only a white towel around his waist. “You should come with us. If you don’t already have plans.”
“No plans,” I said. “I’m free and easy.”
“Those are my two favorite qualities in a girl,” he said, kissing me.
“You are such a prick sometimes,” I said, smiling as I climbed on top of him.
“But I think you like me anyway.”
He had me there.
Ryder dropped me off at my place a little bit ago and is coming back to get me after he does a quick grocery shop at Publix. The lake is an hour away, and I want to be ready to leave when he gets here so we can maximize our time with everyone, but searching for a sleeping bag and swimsuit and sunscreen in a house I haven’t lived in for two years is making I feel like I’m a headless chicken.
I’m scurrying around the kitchen, finally having found the sunscreen—why Jamie was keeping it in a drawer with the batteries and flashlight, God only knows—and as I pass by the window behind the table, I notice a bouquet of flowers sitting on the step outside the side door.
The assortment is simple but gorgeous, blood-red roses scattered among pink and coral peonies, the colors of a sunrise, and I smile at the old-fashionedness of Ryder’s gesture. I’m not a girly girl really, but I think all women like to get flowers, a lovely little reminder that in the middle of buying hamburger buns and beer, he was thinking about me.
I open the door and pick up the flowers expecting to see Ryder, too. But he’s not there, which probably means he’s out front, waiting in his car. Which also probably means I definitely need to get my butt in gear so we can get on the road. Every minute I’m not ready is another minute we’re not skinny dipping.
I carry the bouquet inside and set it on the kitchen island. The vase is heavy, thick glass, with braided etching, fancier than anything I might have thought a grocery store florist would have, but then again, I haven’t been to a Publix in a while. I almost kind of missed them when I was in England.
That’s how you know you’re really homesick: you long to debate granny smiths or gala apples in the produce aisle of your old neighborhood grocery store.
I pluck the card from the middle of the bouquet to read it as I head back upstairs to grab a couple final things. Cassandra.
I stop dead on the last stair from the top floor. Only one person ever calls me Cassandra.