Chapter 13 #3
‘You too, Tay?’ Theo adds. ‘I promised Sadie I’d take her out. We can couple up!’
Couple up?
What is it with everyone suggesting we’re a bloody couple?
Everyone suggesting it. Axel acting like it. And my body betraying me by loving it.
‘You’re all right, thanks.’
Because there is no way I’m straddling a jet ski with Axel between my thighs – or vice versa – and keeping a lid on the butterflies multiplying like mad. I need space. Perspective. A second to breathe—
‘She’s coming,’ Axel says.
I shoot daggers at him. No, she fucking isn’t.
‘Ax, I just said—’
But he’s already striding off, leaving me grinding my jaw and my heart hammering for all the wrong reasons.
‘Come on, sis!’ Sadie waves me over. ‘It’ll be fun!’
Fun, my arse.
Of all the maddening, impossible, pig-headed—
Fine.
He wants to play games and call the shots?
Let see how he handles it when I start playing too…
It’s time I showed him who’s boss.
And it’s not him.
Axel
Jealous?
Of course I’m fucking jealous.
Because she ain’t mine, no matter how much I want to make it so.
No matter what I say, what I do, what our baby arrangement dictates, she will never be.
Sterling’s got the brains, the looks, the polish. All things I’ll never have.
And that’s before you get to the rest of me: the mess, the bad blood, the toxic shit I keep dragging behind.
They were talking about Granny Anna.
I should be relieved. But I ain’t.
Because it’s not him chatting with her that’s got under my skin; it’s how right they looked together. They fit. We don’t. End of.
Only it’s not, is it?
You wanted to rip men apart for touching her before… Now she’s been yours, you seriously think you’ll willingly give her up and walk away?
I don’t have a fucking choice.
‘Get on,’ I say, revving the engine. The roar drowning out the noise in my head, that image of her and Sterling still sitting there, smiling, fitting, wishing it were me.
‘You going to ask nicely?’
I glance up. She’s popping her hip, giving me attitude, that damn life jacket still unzipped to her middle and propping up her tits… like they ever need the encouragement. Fuck.
‘You gonna zip yourself up?’ I bite out.
Her teasing giggle shoots straight to my goddamn balls.
‘What’s the matter, Ax?’ She toys with the little tab on the zip, lips pursing around her laughter. ‘Worried about me?’
I grit my teeth and stare straight ahead, trying to ignore the heat crawling up my neck.
‘You should zip it up, Miss Stone,’ says Louis, the young deckhand on duty who comes to my inadvertent rescue, cheeks flushed as he tries not to stare. I know the feeling, mate.
But at least she listens, drawing the zipper to her collarbone as she approaches the edge.
‘You’ll need to counter her weight,’ Louis adds, coming up alongside us, and I swallow the urge to swear at him.
‘Yeah, yeah, it ain’t my first rodeo,’ I mutter.
The ski rocks as she steps on, and she gives a small huff of laughter, her hands landing on my shoulders to keep her steady. Every muscle locks tight. Then her knees skim my sides, her thighs coming to press against me.
Why in the hell did I think this was a good idea?
‘You two coming or what?’ Theo hollers as he tears past, spray fanning in his wake while Sadie shrieks with laughter.
‘You good?’ I say tightly, eyes on the racing duo, though every part of me is tuned into her.
She leans in, her scent slipping into my breath as her arms snake around my waist. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
‘Oh yeah,’ her lips brush against my ear, ‘I’m good. You?’
My answer is to gun the throttle and shoot after Theo and Sadie.
Good? I’m nowhere near good. I’m fucked.
And she knows it.
I ride the ski hard, willing the wind and the waves to beat the heat out of me, but every turn drags her closer, her laughter spilling against my neck, blood pounding south. As bad decisions go, this has to be one of my worst yet.
Then she shifts, one hand tracing along my inner thigh, circling the skin—
‘Tay…’ I growl out, slowing the ski. She knows I don’t like being touched. She knows the fucking line. Screw kissing, this line. The one her teasing fingers are stroking into oblivion.
‘Yeah,’ she drawls.
‘What are you doing?’ I grit out.
‘Enjoying the ride. You?’
I grab her hand, pinning it to my middle. ‘Stay.’
‘No.’
She slips it back down and I’m this close to cracking a tooth.
‘I mean it, Tay.’
‘Or what?’
I grind my teeth, my eyes tracking Sadie and Theo doing donuts up ahead.
‘This was your idea, Ax. Are you not having fun any more?’
She inches higher and my cock jerks.
‘This ain’t funny.’
‘Oh, I know it isn’t funny.’
‘This thing ain’t a toy.’
‘What? This thing?’
She grips me through my shorts and I hiss, my whole body combusting as my eager cock leaps into her hold.
‘I think you’re being a little mean on Baby-Ax.’
Baby-Ax. Did she seriously just call my dick Baby-Ax?
‘What the fuck, Tay?’
‘I don’t think there’s any fucking going on here.’
She strokes me, steady, deliberate, and the heat rips through me.
‘And you weren’t complaining when you were fucking my mouth last night.’
I buck in her grasp, a grunt breaking through my chest. ‘Taylor.’
‘What is it, Ax? Can’t take a taste of your own medicine?’
‘I didn’t tease you in public.’
‘No, you just came down my throat and expected me to go to bed like a good little girl. But I’m not a good little girl. And last night… after you left… I was bad… very… very… bad.’
She’s working me harder with every word and my cock is loving it – balls aching, climax building, fucking loving it! I don’t see the ocean any more, or our unsuspecting audience. I see her on her bed, legs spread, fingers working her bare pussy.
‘Jesus H Christ!’
‘No, not Jesus – Baby-Ax,’ she murmurs, lips tickling my lobe. ‘And he isn’t complaining… in fact, I think he’s weeping for joy.’
She strokes her thumb over the fresh damp patch forming in my shorts, sweeping the sensitised head in the process, and my thighs tremble.
‘Quit it with the Baby-Ax!’ And fuck, did I really just shout that out to be heard over the water and the engine and… This is not sexy. Though my dick begs to differ.
‘Why? Don’t you like it?’
‘Seriously, you need to stop.’
‘But I’m your Baby Girl, isn’t that right?’
Jesus. Yes, fuck yes.
‘Surely, I get to call him whatever I like.’
She’s stroking me faster and I can see Theo turning up ahead. They won’t see anything at this distance, not with the spray and the way the skis are moving through the water, but there’s no fucking way I’m losing it in my shorts.
No. Fucking. Way.
I catch her wrist, fold her arm across her other, and clamp both to my middle as I haul the jet ski into a hard turn.
‘What are you doing?’
‘We’re going back in.’
‘But you wanted to go out—?’
‘I want a lot of things in life,’ I grumble, low enough she’ll never hear it over the water and the motor. ‘Doesn’t mean they’re good for me.’