Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
WYATT
I have to laugh when the DJ starts playing “Take My Breath Away” and my Maverick is glaring at me from the refreshment table while I dance with his dad.
“I think my son’s about to have a little come apart,” Mr. McBride says with a chuckle. He’s got one hand resting lightly on my waist, the other clasping mine as if we’re about to do a very respectable nineteenth-century waltz.
I lock eyes with Owen and watch his jaw flex, the only betrayal of his annoyance. Felix is laughing beside him.
“Probably the most polite come apart the world has ever seen,” I say. “You raised a real gentleman, Mr. McB.”
“Please, call me Jack,” he says, then glances over at his son, who’s starting to make his way across the dance floor toward us. “And keep an eye on that one for me. He thinks being a good guy means hiding the cracks.”
I’m left to contemplate that as Owen strides up to us, hands clasped at his lower back, stance strong like the military man he’s dressed up as.
“Excuse me, Dad. Mind if I cut in?”
“Well, that’s up to the lady,” his dad says.
Owen doesn’t even roll his eyes at the use of lady to describe me. Man, these McBride men are built different.
Owen locks eyes with me, those brilliant baby blues piercing. He gives me a gentle grin and holds out one of his big hands. “May I?”
“Well, I guess it can’t hurt,” I say, smiling at Mr. McBride, who releases me and takes a step back. Owen quickly takes his place, his hands snaking around my hips. I drape my arms over his broad shoulders and let him pull me close enough that I can rest my cheek on his firm chest.
“What took you so long, soldier?”
“You made me wait, tiny bartender,” he growls.
“That a problem?”
“I’ve been waiting an awfully long time,” he says.
“So what’s a little longer?”
“You know, at first I thought it was our schedules that were keeping us apart—me at the clinic during the day, you at the bar at night. Then it looked like my brother was trying put one over on me. But all this time it was you, playing your little games.” He laughs, giving my hips a squeeze with those large hands. “Now I see that if we’re going to get anywhere, I’m going to have to take the reins.”
“You think you’ve changed my mind?”
“I think you’ve changed your mind,” he says. He gives me a little shove, spinning me away from him and back in again. I crash into his chest with a little oof , liking far too much the way he takes charge of me. He grins down as if to say, See what I can do to you?
I sigh, an ache deep in my chest. “I do want to be with you, Owen. But that’s not the point.”
He scoffs. “It’s entirely the point.”
“What I want is irrelevant. I want to quit my job and run off to Southern California to live on the beach. I want to eat a diet consisting only of fountain Cokes and Cool Ranch Doritos. But I don’t do those things because they’re bad for me. Relationships are bad for me. I end up losing things. People. Myself.”
Owen pauses, staring down at me with a little crease in his brow. He looks like he’s just finished a puzzle only to discover that the last piece doesn’t fit.
“Who hurt you, Wyatt?”
I don’t like the serious look on his face, the concern written there. I want banter. Low-stakes fun and games. I don’t want him looking at me like he’s trying to excavate my pain. It scares the hell out of me.
So I give a dramatic eye roll and force out a laugh. “Why, you wanna hurt them back?”
His eyes go thunderous. “I want to ruin them.”
It’s not what I expected, not from this sweet man who cradled my niece so gently on her very first day on this planet. And I believe him. Not just that he wants to, but that he actually could— would —lay waste to Griffin Stone and his manicured stubble and his stupid cowboy hats, and he’d enjoy it.
I pull Owen closer, winding my arms tighter around his neck. I have to rise up on my tiptoes to reach his ear, but I get there and whisper, “Why did you have to go and say something like that when we’re standing in the middle of a dance floor surrounded by everyone we know?”
I drop back down onto my heels, relishing the foot of difference in our heights. His grip tightens around my waist as he grins down at me.
“What is it that you want to do and can’t, Wyatt?”
I give a saucy little shrug. “I’m open to feedback, but my plan involves far fewer clothes.”
The man looks downright cocky. “I might have a solution.”
Without explanation, he takes my hand and starts walking. To anyone else, it probably looks like he’s gently leading me through the crowd. But his firm grip on my much smaller hand is anything but gentle. It’s demanding and possessive. It reminds me of his confidence that night at Sorry Charlie’s when he invited me outside, shoved me against his truck, and gave me a panty-melting kiss.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about how Owen McBride might fuck, but this? This possessive, almost bossy thing he’s got going on? I did not see this coming.
It’s always the nice ones.
We push through the doors of the gym and into the hall, but he keeps going. With his long legs and determined gait, I have to trot to keep up.
“Where are we going?” I ask as we fly past banks of red lockers.
“Somewhere we can be alone.”
At the end of the hall, we duck into a stairwell, and Owen immediately backs me into the corner, his hands on my cheeks as he pulls me toward him. He claims my mouth, a true claiming , and all I can do is surrender to him. I moan into his mouth and press against the hard ridge inside his flight suit.
“Hardly private, Doc,” I whisper against his lips.
“This isn’t our final destination,” he replies with a curl of his lips. Then he traces his tongue along the edge of my jaw. “I just couldn’t wait.”
And then he’s taking my hand again, pulling me after him down two flights of stairs, through a set of double doors, and past more lockers. At the end of the hall, he turns and shoulders into a classroom, the heavy wooden door smacking hard against the wall before he closes it behind us. There are tall tables and metal stools, shelves against the back wall full of glass beakers and jars. And in the corner, a little nook with a sink and a counter.
Owen drags me back there, turns, and in one swift motion, grasps my hips and lifts me, depositing me on the countertop. Tucked back in this nook, we wouldn’t even be seen if someone opened the door and poked their head in.
“How do you know about this spot?” I ask, breathless.
“This is my high school,” he reminds me, then grins. “And I may have brought Suzie Parrish here during the homecoming dance.”
I roll my eyes as if I’m not completely charmed by the idea that the golden boy has a few dirty little secrets. “Way to make a girl feel special, Doc.”
“We just made out a little,” he says, peppering my collarbone with soft kisses. “That is not at all what I have planned for you.”
Owen places his hands on my bare knees, sending a sizzle of heat through my body.
“Open,” he says. It’s a command, issued in a low, stern voice. It’s an Owen I haven’t seen before, and I like it way too much.
Still, I take pleasure in smirking at him. His lips twitch, trying to suppress his own smile, as I press my knees together.
“You’re being a brat, Wyatt,” he says with a warning in his tone.
I grin. “Do you like it?”
His eyes grow dark, and this time he lets his lips curl into a smile. “Yes.”
Everything around me fades to black as this man in front of me becomes the center of my universe. His smug smile, the way his fingers flex into the skin of my thighs. As much as I want to keep playing with him, pushing him, something about the commanding look in his eyes causes my knees to drift apart.
And when he realizes that he’s won, that I’m opening for him, he parts my legs the rest of the way with a firm press of his palms, dropping to his knees before me.
He looks up and meets my eyes.
“That’s a good girl,” he says, then gives my inner thigh a slap.
I gasp.
A guy called me a good girl during sex once. It sounded porny and demeaning, and—entirely instinctively—I kneed him in the balls. (Okay, it was a little bit on purpose.)
But when Owen says it, it’s like my body comes online, erogenous zones lighting up like a slot machine, the little air traffic controller in my brain setting every nerve ending ablaze.
My lips part and a moan escapes.
“Tell me yes, Wyatt,” Owen says, and this time it’s part demand, part desperate plea. When I don’t respond immediately, when I press my lips together, a brow arched, he bends down and sinks his teeth into my inner thigh.
“ Yessss ,” I hiss, holding my thighs open for him, wanton and free.
It’s the affirmation he needs to send his lips ghosting over the thin strip of fabric covering me. This leotard was an even better costume choice than I imagined.
Because while I certainly planned to have fun with him tonight, getting eaten out in a high school chemistry lab is miles better than any of my dirtiest fantasies.
I lean against the wall, arching my back and pressing myself into his lips, desperate for contact. But Owen pulls back, exhaling a soft puff of air that drags a desperate whine out of me. It feels so good, and yet it’s not anywhere close to what I want from him.
“Needy, are we?” Owen chuckles, running a finger along the damp spot blooming on the fabric. “You know, when I think about that night in the parking lot and all the things I regret not doing, tasting you is at the very top of the list.”
And then that same long, strong finger hooks into the elastic at the apex of my thighs and drags it to the side. When his tongue dips between my folds, I nearly levitate off the counter.
“Fuck please yes oh my god ,” I babble as his tongue makes gentle circles around my clit.
Owen’s hands slide beneath my thighs and lift them onto his shoulders. Then they slip beneath my ass to tilt me until I’m at the perfect angle for him. I let him manipulate my body as he pleases. I’m so far gone for him and for this that he could stand me on my head or suspend me from the ceiling and I’d simply beg for more.
Which is what I do when he sucks my clit hard between his lips.
“Please don’t stop,” I whine, followed by a string of expletives and pleas and prayers. My fingers thread into the thick waves of his hair, pulling him closer as my hips began to buck against his tongue.
Through the flood of pleasure, the absolute electric current of his attention, I think I hear sounds that could be distant footsteps, but it’s not enough to pull me away from this, from him. I feel like I’ve gone over the first hill of a roller coaster, and I’m not stopping until I’ve come screaming into the station.
And maybe I say something like this out loud, some garbled plea for more and harder and now , because Owen pulls back just long enough to run two of his fingers through my slick heat before sliding them inside me. I feel the delicious stretch, the glorious fullness all the way in my throat, or maybe that’s just the scream I’m suppressing as his tongue laves my clit.
“Fuck fuck fuck I’m coming!” I cry, my head dropping back against the wall as Owen coaxes me to the most explosive orgasm of my entire life. My ears are ringing, and every nerve in my body is alight as I ride the wave of pleasure back down like a feather floating gently from the sky.
“You are delicious,” Owen says, his lips ghosting across the tender skin of my inner thigh.
I’m still heaving in breaths, my heart thundering in my chest, when I hear the creak of the door.
“Occupied!” Owen shouts in his most authoritative voice, the sound of which nearly makes me come again.
“Got it,” a man’s voice replies. The door shuts, and it takes me two full breaths to realize I recognize it. And the giggle that comes after it.
It’s Decker and Grace.
I huff out a laugh as I finally lock eyes with Owen, still on his knees between my thighs, wiping the glistening evidence of my orgasm from his lips.
“A popular hookup spot, I take it?”
Owen grins. “I got it from Dan, who got it from Archer, who I’m guessing got it from Decker.”
I shake my head. “You McBride boys are bad news.” I reach down for his elbows, trying to haul him to his feet, though of course he stands on his own. There’s not a thing I could do to move this wall of muscle against his will. He leans in to kiss me, and I lose myself in his lips and tongue once again. But as I reach for the zipper at the top of his flight suit, he pulls back.
“We’re done for tonight,” he says.
“Excuse me?” I try to sound indignant, but I think I just sound like a petulant teen.
Owen shakes his head. “I’m not fucking you for the first time in Mr. Dillon’s chemistry lab,” he says, and though I immediately begin to pout and start to formulate ways to change his mind (my hand on the shockingly large, hard ridge of his erection is my first gambit), he remains resolute. “When I finally get to be inside you, I want to take my time. I want you laid out beneath me. I want you to scream as loud as you want.”
“What makes you think there’s going to be another time?” I ask, cocking an eyebrow at him, but he levels me with that furrowed brow and those piercing blue eyes.
“Cut the shit, Wyatt. I want you, and once was not enough,” he says, reaching for a paper towel from the dispenser beside my head. He gently cleans me up and settles my leotard back into place. “I’m done dancing around this, debating semantics. If you don’t want to call this a relationship, that’s fine with me. I’ll call it whatever you want. A hookup. A situationship. Fuck buddies.” He throws his hands up, a smile on his face. “Hell, call it a pineapple. I just know that I’m not done making you scream my name. Not even close.”
I laugh hard enough that I hiccup. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed like this with a man, and certainly not after he’s made me come so hard I can barely spell my own name.
“Okay, then,” I say, swallowing the fizzy feeling in my chest. Because if Owen can take a detour from being a relationship guy, then maybe I can meet him halfway. “Let’s call it a pineapple. A pineapple sounds good. I want to…pineapple? Be a pineapple? Have a pineapple?”
He presses his finger to the crease between my brows. “Stop overthinking,” he says, then kisses the spot. Then he focuses his blue eyes on me like I imagine he used to focus on chemistry experiments at that table right over there. “Tonight we dance. Tomorrow we sleep. And tomorrow night? You’re mine.”
My stomach does at least four full cartwheels, landing somewhere high in my chest. I’m filled with an absolute blizzard of emotions, from desire to nervousness to a wicked case of church giggles and back again. I try to center myself, to return to this cold, empty classroom, to listen to what this man is saying to me.
I appreciate that he doesn’t invite me to sleep over, even if there is a very loud part of my brain that is screaming that being Owen’s little spoon would be the fucking best. But a) we both desperately need sleep, and if we get into a bed together, spooning will not happen—only forking. And b) that’s too much too soon. It’s too close to what scares me the most. I need to walk away from this man while I’m still able.
So I just nod, letting him be in charge. He’s so very good at it, after all.
Satisfied, Owen grasps my hips and lifts, gently lowering me to the floor. Taking my hand in his, he leads me back through the blessedly empty halls, up the stairs, and past the lockers.
But I pause just outside the doors to the gym.
“We walked out of here together with an awful lot of purpose, Dr. Boy Scout. If we go back in together?—”
“With you all flushed like that,” he says, running a finger along the apple of my cheek.
“Yeah. If we go in there together, it’s going to look like?—”
“A pineapple?”
I snort. “The metaphor might be breaking down.”
Owen drops my hand and shoves his into the pocket of his thrifted flight suit. He looks bashful, and it’s sexy as fuck. “Whatever makes you comfortable,” he says, with not a trace of judgment. “You go ahead. I’ll sneak in the back door by the locker rooms.”
“Shit, you know all the secret spots in this place.”
He grins. “I’m not always a good boy, Wyatt.”
My body lights up. “Don’t I know it.”
He winks, and then he’s gone, striding down the hall with all the confidence of a man who just brought a woman swiftly to orgasm in a chemistry classroom.