My Grumpy Billionaire Soccer Star (HOT Firefighters & Sportsmen)

22. Chapter Twenty-Two

Vaughn

T he soft rain strikes the leaves above, the sound blending with the crackle of the fire we’ve been able to get going. Now, I feel the warmth of the flames, stark against the damp chill of the air. Across from me, Rachel, her face lit by the flickering light, sits, and I feel calm for the first time since we crashed.

I look over at her, watching as she pokes a stick into the fire, and the fiery sparks shoot into the air. It’s oddly endearing how her brows furrow in concentration. This whole ordeal has really brought us to the brink, yet here we are, sharing moments that feel almost . . . normal.

“What’s up with your family?” Rachel suddenly asks. She leans back against a log with her arms crossed over her knees. Her gaze is open, willing to pry, and it makes me uneasy.

I shrug and stare into the flames. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Really?” Her eyes dance with a playful challenge. “You can’t avoid that forever, Vaughn. You’re not playing soccer here. You’re stuck on an island.”

In spite of myself, I laugh, and the sound escapes before I can stop it. “You think I’m avoiding it? I don’t have anything to say.”

“Come on,” she pushes, her tone teasing but insistent. “You’re not that macho. We’re stuck here. You can’t keep pretending to be the tough guy.”

Instinctively, my jaw tightens. I snap, irritation bubbling just beneath the surface. “This is who I am. What do you want me to say? That my family is a mess? That we don’t get along?”

I am surprised when she lets out a small laugh. “So you admit it. You really are a dismissive robot with mean red eyes.”

Her words take me aback, and I blink. “Excuse me?”

“Red eyes,” she repeats, grinning. “The way you glare at people when you’re in a mood, you know. You think you’re some kind of robot programmed to be angry all the time.”

The laughter bursts uncontrollably between us. I can’t help but laugh, too. It’s foreign, but it’s refreshing. “Maybe I have my moments. But you always listen to my tantrums without complaining.”

She tilts her head to one side and looks at me. “Vaughn, maybe that’s because I’m just trying to survive out here. That’s not me throwing fits.”

“Is that so?” A smirk tugs at my lips, and I challenge her. “You’re as stubborn as I am. Think about how you demanded I follow you earlier.”

“I had to!” she protests, laughter still dancing in her eyes. “You were leaving me alone with a snake!”

“Right. Can’t argue with that logic.” The warmth of the fire wraps around us like a blanket. I shake my head. The rain gets a little harder, but it doesn’t matter. We’re safe here together.

The laughter dims, and I think of my family. The truth is that it’s complicated. I’ve been vulnerable for so long, building walls around myself, convinced that vulnerability is a weakness. This is Rachel, and Rachel is different. She chisels away at those walls, and I want to let them fall to reveal something deeper, rawer.

“Fine,” I say, my voice quieter now. “My family is complicated if you really want to know. I was young when my parents divorced. My dad was all about his work, and my mom . . . I’ll say this much: she had her issues. We never really talked about anything that mattered.”

Rachel listens, and her eyes are open wide with understanding. It’s kind of weird to let someone in, but something about the way she’s looking at me makes it easier. “That sounds rough,” she says gently. “Is that why you’re so . . . I don’t know, closed off?”

The fire crackled, and I slowly nodded and gather my thoughts. “Yeah. Early on, I found out that showing emotion meant I was being vulnerable. I thought being tough was the way to get through it. But it just made me . . . angry. And alone.”

“I get that,” she replies, her voice soft. “At least you aren’t alone anymore, Vaughn. We’re in this together.”

Her words are hanging above heavily. Then, I know this island of danger and uncertainty has become a place of connection for us. It’s taken away the roles we played and shown something real underneath.

The rain falls, and I no longer feel the chill. A voice in my head tells me that this vulnerability doesn’t have to be a weakness. At this moment, with Rachel by my side, I realize that things are starting to change. It can be a bridge—between us in ways I never thought possible.

The fire crackles, and the rain trickles softly around us. I take a breath and feel the weight of my walls begin to break. Perhaps—just perhaps—I can show her who I really am.

We share a look, and for a moment, the world outside freezes, fades. The flames of the candles are flickering and casting dancing shadows across Rachel’s face, illuminating the uncertainty she’s feeling and something more, something deeper. I can feel it, too—an electric tension starts to buzz between us with each heartbeat.

Finally, she breaks the connection, looking away as if being forced to look into my eyes is too much to ask. A part of me wants to extend a hand, to yank her back into this moment, but I don’t. I look at the rain, how it sounds gently on the leaves, and the heat of the fire, seemingly keeping us out of the world beyond.

A thunderclap echoes in the distance. Rachel’s eyes widen with surprise, and she flinches. She clings to me in an instant, her fingers digging into my arm as if it’s a lifeline.

I laugh at the sudden change. “You okay there?” I try to lighten up by teasing.

She doesn’t answer with words. Instead, she presses closer to me, her warm body against mine and her breath against my neck.

She finally mutters, “Don’t laugh at me,” with a hint of defiance in her voice, but it’s mixed with something a little softer.

Now, I say, “I’m not laughing at you. I’m just . . . surprised you’re so jumpy.”

Again, Rachel shifts her expression and meets my gaze. She’s got that vulnerability in her eyes now, and I can feel the war raging within her. She’s slipping away from the distance she tries to keep, and the pull between us is increasing.

The rain booms against the ground as it intensifies, and in that moment, everything else disappears. Like a moth to a flame, I lean closer. “You know,” I say, my voice low, “we’re on an island, and it’s just us. Perhaps we should stop pretending.”

She gasps, and I see it register. There’s a tension in the air, and I can almost taste the anticipation. I don’t know who goes first, but we crash into each other’s lips, and it’s like a dam has broken.

The fire I feel from the kiss is hotter than the flames before us. Rachel’s lips are soft, and I feel her body melting into me. This time, there’s no hesitation. We succumb to the lust that’s been growing between us, a hunger that needs to be satisfied.

I pull her closer, wrap my arms around her, and deepen the kiss. This moment is all that matters, and the world around us disappears. The rain falls harder, but it’s just background noise as my heart pounds and her taste lingers on my lips.

Yes, she eagerly responds, her fingers knotting themselves in my hair and drawing herself a little closer, pressing against me. The heat radiating off her reaches my core, and I want to have her fully, to lose myself in her warmth. The storm outside is a tempest in our relationship, and I savor every moment of it.

Our foreheads touch, and we pull apart for a breath. The flicker of uncertainty in her eyes is interrupted by a spark that I know is a stronger connection than just a physical one. “Are we really doing this?” she asks, her voice a whisper.

I nodded, my heart racing. “Yeah, we are.”

She tilts her lips, happiness and fear fighting for resolution on her face. “But what about everything else?”

I brush my thumb along her cheek and can’t help but chuckle. “We’re just us right now. Later, we’ll figure the rest out.”

I lean in again, capturing her lips with mine. It is not lust this time—this is more. It’s a promise, a vow to explore whatever this is between us. The kiss gets deeper, and I settle into the feel of her body against mine, the feeling of the fire and the sound of the rain coming down around us.

Rachel’s moans are like music to my ears. She tastes sweet and sour at the same time, and I don’t think I can ever have enough of her.

My hands might be a bit faster now and just a little rough here and there, but that doesn’t stop me from being tender and loving. I want every bit of her body and will always remember the taste of her flesh, that tender spot just under her breasts, the way that angle curves from her rib cage to her hip, and the smooth feel of it all under my palm and fingertips.

It feels outrageously erotic as we roll together on the floor in plain sight, and I feel her muscles tense from a mini orgasm.

She buries her face against my throat, fighting to catch her breath. “Vaughn, for God’s sake. Now.”

“Not yet, not yet, not yet,” I say it like a chant.

Desperate, she sinks her teeth into me. “I’ll die in a minute.”

“Here, now. Here.” My mouth claims hers yet again as I slide my hand between her legs, slipping my fingers into the heat of her vagina.

My lips take hers with a fierceness that sends shockwaves of hot, raging desire through her body. Even as her heartbeat quickens, I change the pace, becoming more tender until that raging heat flows slow and thick.

I capture her lips with mine, rub lightly, then go deep.

I kiss her as though I’m starving, and at that moment, I’d spend the rest of my life doing nothing else but this.

My lips touch hers, retreat, and I repeat the motions until her arms lock around me. With an exasperated breath, she locks lips with me, and her tongue wrestles for supremacy with mine.

Taking time for each other adds a new layer to the intimacy we share.

I can hear the low sound of arousal as I play with her belly button. When my lips nibble down her throat, she turns her head away and sighs in wanton bliss.

All the worries and the fatigue that have bothered her are fast melting away. I can feel her surrender to me, to the pleasure I give, and hear her breathing quicken as I take my time.

She comes like a flood, fast and full, with her body bucking against mine. I swallow her cry of shock and release, absorbing it even as my blood burns for more. Then she falls pliant, leaving me free to feast on her mouth, on her throat, on her breasts.

“Just let me have you for a while.”

The pressure builds again, layer by layer, slick and slippery, until Rachel slides off the edge a second time. My flesh is damp as hers, my heart jumping as high and fast, my body tense and ready.

Once again, Rachel arches against me. Once again, she wraps her legs tight around my waist. Our eyes meet in the shifting light.

“Now,” I murmur as I slip into her waiting pussy, silky and smooth as if we had made love a thousand times before.

My breath trembles in, then out. My hands cover hers, and she places her fingers with mine. We watch each other as we begin to move.

Rising and falling, pleasure met with pleasure. Her eyes are darker now, that dreamy blue going opaque as she loses herself. When she tightens around my turgid rod, when her eyelids fall closed and a moan ripples from her throat, I hold on for dear life.

Then I bury my face in her hair and let myself go.

I smirk and shove hard into her as she starts to lower herself. Rachel whimpers, and the glorious peak of pleasure takes over my body. She gasps and seizes up, grabbing my shoulders and squeezing her thighs. I let myself come as well just to make her orgasm all that much better. She gasps and flops down on my shoulder, her soft ass shaking with pleasure.

When I begin to come down from my post-orgasmic daze, she pushes herself upright and sighs, “Not enough yet. Hope you’ve got more for me.”

“Oh, baby, do I.” I grin and lift her from my dick. We stand up from the ground, and I turn her around, rubbing my cock against her lower back. I crouch and rise, sliding my thick head up against her needy vagina. She bites her lips and hisses sharply as her love canal is stretched wide open.

At this point, my dick feels as hard and hot as a poker rod, and she instinctively clenches her vaginal muscles. I immediately get the hint and take a few slow thrusts to work my way entirely into her.

“Sweet heavens, Vaughn. You are killing me,” she groans, her body a mixture of pleasure edged with a tinge of pain.

“Oh, it’s going to get better,” I tell her, lifting her legs out from under her. Rachel moans loudly as the last inch of my cock sinks inside. I grab her shaking waist tightly and pull back, thrusting slowly into her as she’s tormented by the ecstasy of my cock pulsating against her pussy.

I fuck her hard, and she screams, letting out constant streams of gibberish as her body is assaulted endlessly with orgasms. After a few minutes of this treatment, I bury myself completely in her and let loose.