Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
SCARLETT
J ames was kissing me. James was kissing me . Not as an alternative to the situation, or a distraction. He was kissing me because he wanted me, which was all I’d ever asked for.
The rain that had been taunting us for days was pouring, soaking me to the bone, but all I could feel were James’ strong hands wrapped around my back, and his lips pressing into mine, demanding, bruising, taking.
He pulled away from me for just a moment, staring at me. “I thought you were hurt. I heard you scream.”
I brushed my hand against his sharp cheekbone. “I’m fine. I was sleeping. You can’t trust your senses.”
“I know.” He shook his head, eyes pulling over me once more in a way that felt a thousand times more intimate than his touch. “I’m sorry.”
“For waking me up? I was barely sleeping anyway.”
James shook his head. “I’m sorry it took me so long to see what was standing right in front of me. I’m sorry I didn’t realize how hard I was fighting against it. I’m sorry I almost let this pass me by.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I had some sense shaken into me.”
Nash . I’d thank him later. Maybe when we weren’t about to start a harrowing trek. “There’s nothing to apologize for. You’re here now.”
“And you want this? Want me?” He dropped me with one hand, wiping the rain away from his eyes. “I’m not like them, Scarlett. I’m not a good person. I’m not warm and comforting. I’m not the first person you think of when you need reassurance. I’m cold and resentful, and…”
“Strong and unyielding. You’re a rock, James. You’re just using the wrong words to describe yourself.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck me.”
“What? What’s wrong?” I pulled his face up so I could look at him, his icy blue eyes staring into my soul.
“I’ve never let myself want something before. Not like this. But I want you, Scarlett. Fuck, I want you more than I should. I want you in ways I shouldn’t even think about. I want you, and I never want to fucking let you go.” His chest heaved with his confession, but I could see the bits of insecurity lingering in his gaze.
I stood up on my tiptoes to press my lips to his. “So don’t.”
James closed his eyes. When he opened them again, there was something set in his expression. “This better be fucking real this time.”
I would’ve laughed had he not immediately tangled his fingers into my hair, pulling me close, kissing me so deeply that any semblance of humor was gone. All his fears and doubts were washing away, between the rain, disappearing into the microscopic space between us.
His hands drifted lower, slipping beneath my shirt, creeping up my skin. I sighed with relief. This was all I had wanted. To feel like this was enough for him
That I was enough for him.
And now that I had it, I wanted more.
I pulled his face back to me, needing to feel his lips on mine once more.
James pulled away, tugging me down to the wet deck with him. It could’ve been covered in mud and I wouldn’t have cared. Except for one nagging thought.
I sat atop him, a leg on either side, and pulled back. “You still with me? This still feel real?”
“Way too real,” he groaned. “Real enough to kill me if you don’t come down here and kiss me again.”
I smiled, leaning down to kiss him, our bodies pressed against each other. He groaned, rolling his hips against me, and my eyes flew open.
“You forgot to mention your size,” I whispered against his mouth, equal parts terrified and excited. Camp and Nash had broadened my horizons, but that was still new. “Are you sure it’s going to work?”
James laughed against me, tugging my hair lightly. “It already did once, I don’t see why it wouldn’t again.”
We both froze, looking at each other. Because it hadn’t already happened once. At least for both of us.
But it had felt pretty damn real to him.
We sat like that, looking at each other in the silence that seemed to stretch on for centuries. Finally James smiled, a real smile that reached his eyes. “Well, at least I get to be one of those lucky few who gets a first time all over again.”
I grinned back. “Interesting way to look at it.”
He pulled me down again, and this time I kissed him without worrying about the rest of it. Everything else was secondary to this moment, even the rain that continued to pour down around us.
“We’ll go slow,” he mumbled against my lips. “Slow as you want.”
I nodded between kisses, not sure how to explain I didn’t want to go slow. I just wanted him.
James tugged at my shirt, until I pulled it over my head, and the look in his eyes was something I wanted to memorize.
“You’re perfect,” he whispered, running his hand down my body, across my breasts, trailing over my stomach. “Every inch of you is more perfect than I ever could’ve imagined.”
I pulled at his briefs helping him shuffle them off until he too was exposed to the night and the rain and whatever it was that stretched between us.
He really was bigger than I’d expected. I wrapped my hands around his cock, stroking him softly.
“Are you sure?” James reached for my wrist, stilling me.
I nodded. There was no universe in which I wasn’t sure about this. About him. About us.
I leaned forward, fitting him between my legs until his cock pressed up against my entrance.
He took the opportunity to grab my chin, pulling me down for a bruising kiss. “You are everything to me.”
James rocked his hips up, his cock slipping inside the tiniest amount. I gasped, still feeling the stretch. I had a feeling James was going to push my boundaries in completely different ways than Nash and Camp had.
I sank back onto him, taking him deeper, and he cursed. “Fuck, seeing you like this on top of me…you’re sure I’m not dreaming?”
I moaned as I took another inch of him inside, my core clenching and tightening around him. “Fairly sure,” I gasped. “Unless we’re both dreaming. In which case, please don’t wake me up.”
Rolling my hips again, he sank in deeper, until he was completely inside me. I was positively stretched to my limits, like I was going to come with the slightest movement of James’ body.
James groaned, rocking his hips up into me. “Goddamn, love. Please tell me I can move.”
“You’re good,” I breathed, clutching onto his shoulders and thrusting back onto him. “ So good.”
He reached up and grabbed my hips, driving himself in deeper. “I’ll go slow.”
“No.” I dug my nails into his flesh. “You won’t.”
James blinked up at me. “Okay. I won’t.”
It didn’t take us long at all to find our rhythm, and every thrust of his cock made me feel like I was about to explode. I was so sensitive, and James grabbed me tighter, fucked me harder, and looked at me in a way that made my heart hurt.
All the sensitivity started to build in my core, driving my hips faster against him. “Oh, James. Oh, God.”
“Come on, love. Come on my cock. I need to see it. Need to hear it.” James’ fingers were digging into me, his cock hitting something just right. “ Come .”
I cried out his name as I shattered around him, falling into a million pieces as he held me together. Somewhere through the orgasm, I could hear him calling out my name, his hips stuttering and falling beneath me as he came.
I collapsed on top of him, our heartbeats blending into one as we both came down from our high. Then again, maybe they’d always been like that. Violently the same, even as we fought to deny it.
I don’t know how long we lay on the deck, tangled in each other, the warm rain washing over us, the night sky a blanket around us. I only knew I was safe in this moment, wrapped in James’ arms, and as soon as the moment was broken real life would come throttling back all too quickly.
But moments end, and time moves on. A door opened and closed somewhere in the distance. A slow clap made me scramble upright.
“Glad to see you finally manned up.” Camp smirked down at us. “I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen, or if you two would just pussy foot around each other for the rest of the trip.”
“Fuck off,” James muttered beneath me. “Scarlett, are you sure you like him? Like really sure? Because the man is an annoying fucking twat.”
“I like him. Leave him alone.”
Camp smiled, and James grumbled from the floor. I pressed a kiss onto his forehead. “I like you, too, though, so don’t be too grumpy about it.”
This, too, was a blip. A reprieve from everything about to happen. But of all the things in my life I’d gone through, I’d never found myself as grateful as I was at this moment with one man smiling down at me, another holding me in his arms, and another sleeping soundly across the boat.
Despite it all, despite whatever may come when we left the boat and ventured off into the rainforest tomorrow, we wouldn’t be doing it alone.
It counted for a lot more than we realized.