Chapter 28
28
Preston
“ H ey,” someone says behind me.
I’m neck deep in the hot springs, the night velvet dark around me, and the voice is Natalie’s.
“Mind if I come in?” she asks.
“No.”
I don’t want to stare at her, but it’s impossible to look away as she sheds her robe, treating me to a full-length view of her in that goddamned bikini. She’s perfect: smooth, curvy, generous. I want to lick every bare inch, then remove the small cloth triangles that hide the rest of her and lick there, too.
Maybe my eyes say what I’m thinking because something hot flickers behind her gaze before her eyes shutter and she slides down into the water beside me. Not too close. A safe distance away. But close enough that my chest tightens and my cock thickens and want turns from a vague, abstract thing to a deep tug on my spine.
“I looked for you earlier…” she says.
“I went out for food.”
I was mad enough to spit nails when I closed the door behind me after my introduction to Natalie’s mother. Natalie didn’t deserve the way her mom had casually torn her down. No one does, but especially not Natalie, not after what she’d done for me. For my family.
For what felt like the twentieth time, I needed to get the hell out of my room, or I would burst through the wall like the Incredible Hulk, this time all rage. So I went for a run, showered, grabbed dinner, and came down here for a soak.
Natalie shifts, sending ripples through the water that tease my over-alert nerve endings. “I wanted to thank you,” she says quietly. “For standing up for me.”
“You don’t have to thank me.” It comes out gruffer than I intend.
“Well, it was—really nice.” She bites her lip, shyly. “No one has ever done that for me.”
“Then they’re fools.” The words spill out before I can help myself. “Like I was at first.”
That makes her smile. “I converted you, huh?”
“Maybe.”
Her smile gets bigger, and I lose my words. I trail my fingertips along the surface of the water and don’t let myself stare at her the way I desperately want to.
“Your mom—” I begin.
She makes a sharp noise.
“What did she say to you? In your room?”
“You heard us?”
“Not the words. Only that you were talking.”
Natalie raises her eyebrows, but we both choose to skate over the implication: that her walls are thin enough for plenty of sounds to carry.
“She wanted to let me know that a doctor I worked for a few years back is willing to write me a letter of recommendation if I apply to schools.”
“Schools?”
“Nursing administration, a bunch of other possibilities. It’s part of my Get Serious About a Career plan.”
I’m unable to imagine Natalie behind a desk, doing soul-numbing paperwork, all the wild joy bound up in her blood and bones instead of out there in the world. “Why would you want to do nursing administration?”
“There are a bunch of other things, too, not only that—they’re medical field jobs with great ratios for how much it costs to get the degree versus how much you can make, and they all have good earning and advancement potential—what?”
I’m staring at her.
She bites her lip.
“Is that what you want?”
“I…” She rubs her thumb over her bottom lip, drawing my eye there, and I have to make myself look away rather than lean in to bite the plump flesh. “I’ve had it on my to-do list for months to look at the brochures and websites. And I…never do. I don’t think—no, I know —I don’t want to.” She takes a deep breath. “I love my job. I wish my mom could see that. She wants me to do something with long-term prospects. A”—she crooks her fingers in quotes—“career.”
I make a sharp sound of frustration. “She’s not being fair to you.”
It sounds blunter and more presumptuous than I mean it to, and I want to take it back. Especially in light of how unfair I was to Natalie in the beginning.
She looks away. “She and my dad are high powered. She’s chief of surgery, and my dad’s a retired state supreme court justice. My sister’s a biochemical engineer, and her hubby is some corporate hotshot doing global whatever it is. I’m not like them. And I’ve always been the kid who—underachieved.”
“Who they perceived as underachieving,” I correct.
Her eyes flick to mine, and there’s something bright and hopeful in them. I think of her saying that no one had ever stood up for her before—and what kind of bullshit is that?
She closes her eyes, opens them again. “When I was in high school, I came downstairs one night and overheard them talking about me. My mom was asking my dad, ‘What does having fun all the time equip you for?’ and my dad said ‘Not much’ and laughed.”
“Jesus,” I breathe, rage rising in me again.
“Then my mom said, ‘It’s like she was born completely without ambition,’ and my dad said, ‘She’s the one we’ll have in our basement till she’s fifty.’”
She reports it coolly, unemotionally, and a band cinches around my chest. “Natalie.”
She waves it off. “Whatever. I know they never meant for me to overhear it. They were worried about me and blowing off steam.”
“They shouldn’t have said it,” I say roughly. “Because it was cruel, but also because it’s not true. You’re—” I have to stop because the words feel so big they’re half choking me. “You’re good at what you do, and what you do matters. You’re funny and generous and giving and fun . So fuck them if they can’t see that.”
“Preston.”
Her voice breaks on my name, and it scoops out my chest. All the logic and caution, all the excuses and reasons go up in flame, and I turn my body toward her, finally doing what I’ve wanted to do all day, taking her head in my cupped hands and lowering my face to hers.
Her mouth is soft, and she opens to me right away, without hesitation. She lets out a small gasp, and it undoes me. I clutch the back of her head, swallowing her moans, running my tongue along her lip and biting it to make her moan again.
The kiss is on fire, my cock already so hard I can’t help but tug her toward me, and she comes readily, willingly, eagerly , pressing her slick belly to me, giving me pressure and friction. I want more of her, though: I want to fit us together, all our opposites perfectly made for each other.
Without breaking the kiss, I lift her up and set her on the side of the pool, and she scoots herself forward, spreading her thighs so I can step between them and notch my hardness to her soft heat. Steam rises off her skin; the air is cooler than the water.
“Preston,” she moans.
“Is this okay? Is this what you want?”
“Yes, please ,” she whimpers.
“Can I touch you?”
“You’d better.”
I reach for the strings of her top, and my hand ghosts over her skin, raising goose bumps and drawing a whimper from her. I untie both bows and let the top fall. She makes a startled sound as the air finds her nipples, and I watch, cock hardening in sympathy, as they tighten against that cool brush. She watches me watch her, and there’s something raw and hungry in her face.
“Like this?” I ask.
It’s the lightest touch. The pads of my fingers skimming the peak barely harder than the air brushed over her. But her nipple tightens more.
“It makes me hard, watching your nipples get stiff,” I tell her.
Her mouth opens. “Preston Hott, are you talking dirty to me?”
I can’t hold back my smile. “I guess I am.”
I stroke both nipples as lightly as I can, watching the play of pleasure across her face. Then I dip my head and take one into my mouth. It’s a tight bead against my tongue, and I flick the tip, loving the taste of her skin and the moans I draw out of her. She pushes closer to me, trying to get more contact between my cock and her pussy, and I cup her ass and yank her closer because I want it, too. Fuck, I want it. Now she’s tipping her hips and rubbing herself against my erection, and it’s not only the sensation—which is fierce—but also knowing that she’s chasing her orgasm that makes me feel like I’m going to lose it. I pull back, and she groans.
“Tease.”
“It’s too good, you going for it like that. Taking what you need. It’s too hot.”
“Preston.”
“Hold still and let me give it to you. Don’t chase it.”
“God,” she moans. “You’re going to kill me.”
I dip my head again, teasing, swirling, biting, working those hard nubs—one, then the other—until she dips a hand between her thighs and grinds herself against it. I tug her hand away and twist it behind her back, and she says, “You’re so mean .”
“Trust me,” I say. “Just trust me.”
Her other hand tries to take its place, so I pin both behind her while I return to tonguing her nipples, until she’s rocking her hips against empty air.
“Preston, please,” she begs.
“What do you need?”
“I need to come.”
“How do you want to come, baby?” I ask, the endearment slipping out. I’ve never used it before, but there’s something about this moment that’s different. Some rawness and tenderness I don’t even know how to name.
“I want to come on your cock,” she pleads, and I want that, too, so fucking bad. I picture it: taking my cock out, yanking her bathing suit to the side, easing into her. The fact that we’re in a semi-public place, that we don’t have condoms—those things don’t matter in this wild, taut moment.
But I also don’t want this to be over, exploring her, teasing her, making her wish for things she can’t have yet from me. I want to surprise her and make her wonder and want.
I guess I want to be her fun for a while.
So I step close again, give her my cock through my board shorts and her bathing suit, and she takes what I’m offering with a groan of gratitude that almost makes me lose it. I wrestle myself under control again and play with her nipples, and she rubs against the hard, swollen bulge in my shorts. It only takes her maybe ten rocks of her hips before she’s coming, crying out, cursing triumphantly—and this is what almost takes me over the edge with her—telling me you’re so good, so fucking hot, Preston, just like that, you did this, this is all for you.