Chapter 38
38
Preston
A ll we do for a long time is kiss. Her mouth, soft and open and yielding, on mine. It’s kissing for kissing’s sake, slow and undemanding. Languid. And it sets me on fire, my whole mouth tingling, my skin buzzing with sensation, every nerve ending gathering itself into the thick, angry demand of my cock. I need her now, and I could do this forever, and I can’t decide which would be better.
So I take another route. I kiss along her jaw to her ear and explore the curves of the delicate shell; I huff warm breath against her until she arches and moans, her hands grabbing my clothes. I trail down her neck and throat, then pause to take her shirt off. Her bra. I kneel over her and take her in, because she’s beautiful. Perfect. Round and full, nipples tipped with a dark rose and already peaked for me. I kiss across her collarbone while she squirms under me, trying to press closer, trying to get friction on her needy clit and pussy. I don’t let her, though. I make her wait, loving her whimpers and moans.
I trail kisses down the slope of her breast, teasing the tip of one nipple. Then the other. She arches toward me, offering me more, but I don’t take the bait.
“You’re a tease, Preston Hott,” she says huskily.
“You’re worth the wait, Natalie Archer,” I tell her, and then I draw spirals on one breast, circling from the outside in, closing on the tight nub of her nipple. Teasing over it once, twice, again. She’s worked my thigh between hers now and is rubbing against me, and I use both my hands and hips to pin her because I don’t want her coming too fast. I want to take my time with her. I want to make her desperate.
“You’re mean,” she whines.
“You like it.”
I take off my own shirt because I love the way she looks at me. The way her eyes go hazy and unfocused, the way they linger and admire. I could watch her watch me all day, and if that makes me an egotistical bastard, I’ll take it. Except I’m not as patient as I think I am; as I strip off the rest of my clothes, my cock is demanding, my mouth is hungry for the feel of those nipples, my hands want her smooth skin under them. I go back to work, licking my way down her belly, lush and bitable. My teeth find the waistband of her capris, and my hands take over, pull them down, and then her panties. I settle myself between her legs, shoulders pushing her open, one hand reaching to keep up my tease, flicking the tips of her breasts, taut and beaded.
It takes all my self-control not to grind myself against the bed, but I want to give her everything I’ve got, so I make myself keep still while I run my tongue up her seam, opening her so I can see her sweet, swollen clit, so I can lick it, so I can make her lift her hips and grab my hair and call my name. She does, and I lick more, harder, circling her.
“Preston,” she whimpers.
“What do you need, Nat?”
“I want you inside me.”
I groan.
“Now, Pres.”
“But I’m not done tasting you, baby.”
It’s her turn to groan, and she shifts her hips impatiently against my face. I slide two fingers inside her, loving the way her body clenches around them. I tug her clit between my lips, suck so gently, withdraw my fingers from her so I can hold both her hips still while I suck harder until I can feel the tension gathering tight in her.
It’s tight in me, too, my cock leaking precum at the tip, hard and shiny and so full of need. It bobs against my belly as I kneel up between her legs, and she reaches for it, pupils blown, mindless and eager. I have to pull away because if she touches me, I’ll come all over her, and I want to be inside her, want to take her with me and feel her all around me.
I take the condom she offers and roll it on, then press into her slowly because I want to watch her while I do it. The way her eyes shift over my face, reading my reactions. The way we’re winding each other up, her pleasure, my pleasure, her need, my need, her tension, my tension. Where we’re joined, I can’t tell where I end and she begins or who’s moving. I only know that we’re finding a rhythm together and it feels like the whole world is caught in that rhythm. She pulls me down so my body is pressed against hers, the whole length of me. My cheek is flush with hers, and we move and move. It’s like the kissing was earlier, fucking for the sake of fucking and not to finish, slow and silky and molten, and I decide I don’t want to come at all, I want to stay like this with her for as long as she’ll let me.
Except our bodies still have other ideas, and she’s moving restlessly under me. She can’t stop trying to rub at the end of the stroke where it rucks up over her public bone, she can’t stop trying to get me deeper, she can’t stop squeezing me, and even if I could stop myself from thrusting, which would be about as easy as stopping the sun from rising, she wouldn’t let me, grabbing my ass and pulling me in, tight, close.
“Don’t stop,” she tells me urgently. “Please don’t stop. I never want you to stop.”
It’s the never that gets me in the end, and I’m coming, big, long, deep pulls of pleasure, rigid over her, pressing where she needs me, until she’s coming, too, still telling me she never, ever wants me to stop.
I’ve never been a cuddler. More the kind of guy who rolls back to my side of the bed and glories in the righteous power of a king-sized mattress. But Natalie makes me want to cuddle. Maybe it’s the way her head fits perfectly in the crook of my shoulder or the way she throws an arm over my chest or the way she settles with a small, trusting sigh.
“We’re gonna be great tomorrow,” she says sleepily.
“We’re already pretty great,” I say.
I can feel her smiling, mouth lifting against my bare chest. Her body grows heavier and warmer as she drifts toward sleep.
But sleep doesn’t come for me.
I’m awake tonight. Wide awake. And it’s not because I’m worried about tomorrow. Far from it. Tomorrow will be great. People will love it. We’ll rake in the five-star reviews.
And it’s not because I’m not relaxed. That sex wrung every last drop of tension from my body. Sex with Natalie doesn’t feel like a workout. It feels like a conversation. It feels like fun feels when you haven’t had it for too long, a little bit of party and a lot of revelation.
No, I can’t sleep because I can’t imagine leaving and I can’t imagine staying, so I’m suspended in between.
My phone shows me midnight, then 1:00 a.m., and I gently ease myself out from under Natalie. She clutches at me and makes small sleepy sounds of protest.
“I’m going to take a walk,” I whisper. “Do you want to come with?”
“Are you crazy?” she murmurs back roughly, and I laugh, and she’s asleep again before I can answer her.
I get dressed, take the elevator downstairs, and head out into the summer darkness. There’s a half-moon tonight, and the grounds are deserted. I wander by the ranch house, then down to the river, lighting the narrow path with my phone’s flashlight. I skirt the cottages and campground and head back up, past where Hanna planted a tree for our mom.
A shadow moves by the stables, and I freeze.
It moves again, a human form shifting toward the stable entrance.
What the fuck?
I take a step, meaning to surprise the intruder, but years of sitting behind a desk in New York have apparently overridden my childhood forest sense because as soon as my foot lands, a stick crackles underneath. The figure startles—then bolts.
I chase them, but they’re faster than me, despite the regular exercise and running. I hear an engine start in the distance, probably at the main road, and I know I’ve lost them.
I call Tucker and wake him up.
“You in Rush Creek?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he grunts.
I tell him the situation. “All the stuff for tomorrow’s festival is stored in the stables. If someone got in, they could—they could totally mess us up.”
“Did you make sure it’s all okay?”
I dig my keys out, keeping him on the line, and check, but it’s all there, and intact, and I heave a big sigh of relief.
“Do you think it’s related to the other sabotage? What happened with Hott Spot and the flood, and what happened with Tobuary’s wedding?” I ask him.
“We don’t know either of those things was sabotage.”
“True, but—it’s a lot of coincidence. And then for someone to show up tonight…?”
“You want me to come out there and keep an eye until tomorrow morning?”
“You’d do that?”
I don’t mean for there to be so much surprise in my voice. I was there for Quinn when things went to shit. All of us were. And all of us were there for Shane when he was facing down the cancellation of the wedding that would fulfill his letter from our grandfather. Still, somehow it feels different when it’s me. It feels…nice.
“’Course I would,” he says offhandedly. “Hold tight. I’ll be there in a few.”