He places a hand on the side of my face, our connection rekindled. “Saylor.” It’s only one word said in that deep timbre of his and yet it’s packed with so much emotion.
I came out here needing a breather. Mitch’s words hit too close to home to the fears I had and to the doubts still milling inside. Then Hayes arrived and his face looked like a reflection of the turmoil I was feeling inside. Like exactly what he is to me: The storm that can bring me down.
Now’s my chance to lay all my cards on the table because if I don’t and he walks away, I’ll always question, always wonder, if I fought hard enough to keep him.
“I’ve loved you, Hayes. Then. Now. I always have. And I’m scared to death of what’s going to happen when we leave here. How, when we walk away to our separate flights, our separate worlds, that I’ll never see you again.”
He doesn’t respond with words. His body is too tense. Emotion is strung too tight. And so he reacts the only way I think he can to express how he’s feeling, to show how my confession makes him feel.
His lips are on mine as quick as the lightning flashing overhead. It’s a bruising kiss. Hard. Fast. Desperate. Violent with desire.
And I don’t hesitate. I’m all in. With lips and hands and heart. We’re soaking wet, a tempest rages around us, and yet we finally find peace in our own storm.
“God yes, Ships.” My name’s a gasped word caught on the wind before he dives back in and takes what he wants from me. What I’m giving him. My body, because I’ve already handed over every part of me without even realizing it.
We move in desperation. Hunger and resolution fueling our actions. Our desires. Our want to connect. Our need to express the end of the turbulence that has kept us in the air over the past ten years.
We give no thought to where we are. To the rain drenching us or to the wind whipping around us. Because all we see is each other. All we feel is now. And with his mouth consuming mine—showing me how he feels, breathing life into me, before drowning me in his intensity—I don’t want to come up for air.
But the crack of lightning shocks us apart. We stare at each other: chests heaving, eyes hungry, smiles shy but salacious, libidos begging for more.
“We need to get inside.” His voice is strained. Posture a perfect picture of restraint holding on by a thread. The first few buttons of his dress shirt are undone. His erection straining his slacks.
“We do.” I nod but step into him rather than head to the villa. I fist my hands in his soaked shirt and lean in to kiss him again. This time it’s slow, seductive, taunting. I can’t hear the groan in the back of his throat but can feel it vibrate against my hands and lips. And it only urges me to want to make him do it again.
His hands slide down my hips and cup my ass while mine move over his shoulders and loop around his neck. And almost as if on cue, he lifts me and I wrap my legs around his waist. Without a word, he starts to walk as we continue this long, drawn-out kiss. I take advantage of my positioning, of how our bodies fit together perfectly, and place kisses down his smooth jawline.
Sensations swamp me. The taste of salt and rain on my tongue. The scent of his cologne in my nose. His strained sigh in my ear. His hands gripping my ass tighter as I cinch my legs around him harder so that with every step down the path that leads to the villa, the bulge of his erection rubs firmly where I want it to.
It feels like it takes forever to get to the door and when we do, Hayes holds tight to me still wrapped around him while he fumbles in his pocket for the room key.
My body vibrates with the anticipation and the fierce desire burning within as I wait. But there is no key, no door unlocked, just a muttered, “I can’t fucking wait any longer,” before Hayes carries me down the private path that leads to the back of the villa.
My eyes are closed, and my lips are pressed against the base of his neck. I feel him step up some stairs, open the door to the screened-in porch with thick foliage on both sides, and then he leans over and lays me down on the double chaise longue.
And the minute he’s free of carrying my weight, the control is snapped.
Gone.
Hayes grabs me by the ankles and pulls me down the chair so my dress rolls up beneath me, my legs fall off the end, and my torso is no longer sitting at an incline. I yelp out a laugh, loving this side of him. The I want you and have to have you.
And before I can even look up to meet his eyes, he dips down and licks a line over the thin lace of my panties. I cry out at the heady feeling of the muted sensation, already desperate for him to do it again. He moves his hands to my thighs, pushes them farther apart, and then he delivers. His tongue parts me through the fabric, licks down the seam of my sex and then back up to flick over my clit.