22. Nova
I’m an idiot.
Only I would think that I could get away with this friends with benefits situation and come out on the other side unscathed.
I should have known it would end up this way.
As the storm clouds roll overhead, I stomp down the path that leads past the cottage to the old Whitaker house. The house where Reid and I hid from the storm.
“Where the fuck are you going?” Reid growls from behind me. Soaking wet in the rain, his button-up clinging to every finely tuned line of his skin . . . he looks absolutely terrifying. Like Poseidon come to collect an overdue debt.
Like a monster.
“Go away, Reid!” I shout over the rain, flipping him the bird over my shoulder and continuing down the old, worn path. I just need to get away from him, figure out my head, and then never speak to him again.
I regret taking him to my little hideaway. I regret even more that I cleaned up the living room of the house yesterday, making it the perfect little hideaway from the rest of the island in the hope that he and I could spend time here, in the quiet, together.
“So that’s it? You’re not even going to listen to me?”
That’s what Jack always said, too.
You’re imagining things. You’re seeing things.
My phone rings in my pocket, but ignore it, turning to stop in the clearing in front of the old house.
“You know, it’s funny. I actually believed that whole lie about you being different.”
“You actually think I would do that shit to you?”
My, he’s angry. I can’t say I’ve ever seen something quiet as dangerous as Reid with a murderous glare in his eyes. Unfortunately, I’m too full on bullshit to think about self-preservation right now, or I would probably run the other direction. He stops a foot away from me, but I refuse to back down.
“You saw me shove her off.”
I shake my head, turning away, but he catches my wrist.
“Let go of me.”
“Nova,” he starts, but I cut him off, tugging at his hand to no use.
“What makes you so different?”
“I’m not him,” he growls and both of us fall silent, the only sound the racing of my heartbeat in my ears and the thunder overhead as the skies continue to soak us.
In this moment, I hate him. I hate him for making me get attached. I hate him for the pull he has over me. I hate my feelings and I hate that I can’t escape that dread that settles in my chest every time I think about Sophie touching him.
Most of all, I hate that I care.
I don’t know what makes me do it, but when I attempt to jerk out of his hold, and he doesn’t immediately let me go, I snap, hitting him in the chest.
He doesn’t move an inch.
I do it again, an angry growl tearing from my throat.
What are these emotions? This anger, this fear that I don’t understand. I’ve never wanted to hurt someone, but right now, I do. Only, I can’t decipher if it’s Reid or Jack I want to bleed.
“Hit me,” Reid grits when I shove at his chest. “Do it.”
“You’re fucking crazy.”
His eyes flash with something wicked, glinting like a true madman in the rain.
“You made me this way, little bird,” he growls, grip tightening on my wrist. Both of us breathe heavily, both pissed off, both toeing the thin line between toxic and all-out deadly.
This has gone too far.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop it if I tried.
“Hit me. Fight me. Whatever you need to do, just fucking think about what you saw for two seconds. You really think I have space in my fucked-up head for anyone else? I don’t even want you there, but like a fucking pest, I can’t get rid of you. I can’t think of anything but you.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Oh, princess,” he chuckles, voice so dark it sends a shiver up my spine. My phone rings again, filling the clearing with a sounds way too chipper for the moment, but I ignore it, again. “I know you a lot better than you think.”
My phone rings, again, and this time I growl, pulling it out of my pocket, only for it to be tugged away from me in the blink of an eye.
Mouth hanging open, I watch as Reid tosses it right over the cliff . . .
And into the Atlantic Ocean.
The air around us seems to buzz with electricity as I wrack my mind for some kind of explanation for what just happened.
“Five fucking minutes of your time, Nova.”
“You asshole!” I snap, shoving at his chest with everything I have. I actually manage to make him stumble back a solitary step, but he catches me when I try to do it again.
Everythingcomes rushing to the surface. And I mean everything.
All those fights with Jack, all those years pretending I was content with my life of solitude. All the times I let everyone praise him for what a good husband he had been when all I wanted to do was shout to the world that he broken his promise to me, first.
All of it rushes to the surface in a tidal wave.
I’ve had enough. Enough of hiding from the world. Enough of being afraid to live because someone else didn’t. Out of the two of us who crashed into the Mississippi, I survived. The weak, innocent, and sweet Nova survived.
Reid sees me faltering and takes my hands, holding them between us and pressing me against him.
“Are you done?” he bites, voice gruff as both of us pant. His cock is hard against my stomach and the final act of my deranged mental breakdown is the need that burns right between my thighs.
I want him, even if I hate him right now.
“This is the Nova I see.” He pulls me even closer, until you couldn’t fit a single piece of paper between us. “This is the what’s been hiding behind that cheery smile. That magnetic force that I can’t fucking escape.”
God, that makes two of us.
I struggle against his hold, but he just kneels in the tall, wet grass, holding me with one hand under my ass and the other winding in the soaking wet ends of my hair and tugging my head back until he’s the only thing I can see.
“Tell me you hate me, little bird.”
I want to. I want to scream it at him until he leaves, but I can’t.
I don’t hate him anymore than he hates me.
Both our chests heave and I can feel the rapid beat of his heart against mine.
“You’re an asshole,” I remind him, my flesh burning where he touches the bare skin of my ass, even in the icy downpour. “You’re an asshole.”
My hands wind in the material of his shirt, not pulling him closer. Not really pushing him away.
“And you’re a brat,” he rasps, voice husky with the same blazing need I feel. His hand kneads the flesh of my ass, traveling lower over the smooth skin until he’s running the thin strap of my panties through his fingers.
“What do you want from me?”
His eyes fill with heat and spur something dark and caustic inside me. Something deadly that I’m not sure either one of us is ready to face head-on.
“I want to make you come, little bird,” he rasps, leaning forward to nip the skin of my jaw. I whimper when his tongue slips along my skin, catching a water drop as it slips down my neck. “I want to show you how I’ll punish you with my tongue, instead of my fists. I want to hear you moaning my name, feel you soaking my fingers.” His hand slips lower on my ass, cupping me through the lace of my panties. Heat winds through me from the simple, barely conceivable touch, and I desperately squirm against him. “I want your fire,” he murmurs, nipping the shell of my ear. “I want to break you.”
A shiver rolls though me at the bite of his voice in my ear and the roughness of his stubble against my skin.
Still . . . I’m not who he thinks I am. I’m not that sweet innocent girl.
“And what if I’m already broken?” I ask, the question ending on a moan when he sucks the pressure point beneath my ear between his teeth.
“Sometimes things have to be broken to be put back together again.”
Who is this man? I was fine. All these feelings were so carefully compacted, neatly tucked away where I didn’t have to face them. Since he’s showed up, he’s ripped their bindings open until they’re laid bare at my feet, forcing me to stumble over them, day by day until I have to deal with them.
I’m not sure if that makes him good or bad.
Either way, the fire in my chest belongs to him, even if he’ll only be here to stoke the coals for another couple weeks.
So, I lunge for him.
The first taste of his tongue on mine is all I need to drown out every warning bell ringing in my head.
I want him.
He hisses when I nip his lip, his fist tightening in my hair.
“I warned you, little bird. Monsters take and I’m as dirty as the rest of them.”
“Please,” I whimper when his fingers slip my panties to the side and slide through my folds. The pressure . . . “I want you.”
A growl slips free from his chest and he pulls my lips back to his, feasting on my mouth like a man starved. Carefully, he presses me down into the wet grass, not bothering to carry me inside. His finger slips inside me, drawing a strangled gasp from my throat. I reach between us, struggling with the button on his jeans, so he quickly flips them open and leans back so I can fist his cock and pull him out.
He shoves my hand off and takes my hips, aligning himself at my entrance. Then, in one full l thrust, he fills me, bottoming out inside me and making me gasp from the pain of taking him so deep, all at once.
“Fuck, Nova,” he grits, rolling his hips into me as the rain continues to pelt us. Water slips down my clit, colder than anything I’ve ever felt, but I don’t care. With the fire burning through my veins, it’s like a welcome balm, cooling my skin just enough so I don’t go crazy.
“Reid,” I gasp, back arching to allow him to slip further in.
He doesn’t give me time to adjust before he’s pulling me forward on his cock, over and over until I’m sure there will be a permanent print of my ass in the ground outside the Whitaker house.
We tear into each other. Biting, kissing, sucking. My nails rake down his back, gripping his shirt and holding on as he fucks me into oblivion.
It’s rough, impatient, animalistic in need, and the pleasure is almost more than I can take, but still, I beg for more.
Maybe he’s finally broken me. Maybe this is what it feels like to be truly shattered.
He fucks me until he’s branded on my skin, powering into me until my body tightens around his and I’m so lost in him, it would take an exorcism to drag me back from the depths of this hell.
All it takes for the orgasm to rip through me is a couple rolls of his thumb on my clit. My eyes roll back in my head, my back arching off the cold ground and a cry tears from my lips, filling the clearing with the most erotic sound I’ve ever heard.
Reid thrusts into me, spilling inside me on a hoarse shout as he fucks me into the earth beneath us. Distantly, I’m aware we didn’t use a condom, but the part of my brain that forms rational thoughts checked out the moment we stepped into this clearing.
Thank God, for birth control because, let’s be honest, I’m thinking way too many inappropriate things about my summer hookup to be trusted right now.
As soon as Reid can move, he’s slipping out of me and wrapping his arms underneath me to carry me toward the house.
“Where are you taking me?” I breathe, shivering now that I’m not on the verge of losing my mind in a sex-crazed daze.
“Little bird . . .” he rumbles, voice still husky and full of heat. “I’m far from finished with you.”
I used to come to the old Whitaker house a lot when I first moved to the island. Out here, I could listen to the sounds of the water without having to go near it. Without having to smell fish or see people I know. Without having to think.
I could just be Nova. Alone. Like I was the only person in the world.
Now, it feels like we’re the only two people in the world.
Reid’s fingertips are gentle like butterflies, dancing over my skin as he slips the dripping dress over my head in what was once the formal living room and is now our hideaway. I’ll admit, it could be better, but somehow the mattress decorated in throw pillows and old furry blankets I found at the cottage suits him more than a California King bed and pressed sheets.
I spent all day the day before mopping and dusting, cleaning up the room, and now, looking at it, it really does feel like the last stop on the way out to the open ocean.
Our own little slice of paradise.
He drapes our clothes over the back of a chair and stoops down to untie my sneakers. I’ll admit, Reid at my feet is something I never thought I’d see, but now, I want it burned into my brain. Especially with the darkly disturbed look he shoots me when he slips my socks off.
He’s hauntingly beautiful. Like a black dahlia. Soul-sucking. Extremely poisonous, but so perfect, I want a taste.
He presses a kiss to my thigh, letting out a deep groan, as if he’s drinking me in. Goosebumps pebble on my flesh from the scratch of his stubble and a swipe of his tongue along a rogue droplet of water on my knee.
“Is this my punishment?” I taunt, though it lacks it’s usual bite when I let out a shaky breath from the graze of his lips along the sensitive flesh above my clit.
“This is me on my knees, showing you how you should be worshipped.”
He kisses across my flesh, then dips lower until his lips are grazing the sensitive flesh above my clit.
“Let me in, little bird,” he murmurs, so quiet I can barely hear him over the sound of the rain beating against the outside of the house.
I shiver at the feeling of his breath against my skin and I don’t try to stop him when he nudges my legs apart and slips his tongue through my folds.
My head tips toward the ceiling at the first lap of his tongue on my clit and I strain my back to open myself wider for him. I’ve never felt so . . . sexually open as I am with Reid. Like I don’t have a choice to how my body responds to him.
His hand wraps around my ass, holding me steady when my knees start to grow weak, with a quiet growl. He watches me groan, my back arching when the pleasure grows to a fever-pitch, studying me like he’s deeply fascinated by something I can’t quite understand.
My fingers find purchase in his hair while he rolls his tongue around my clit lazily, drawing a whimper from my throat. His hand on my rear holds me in place when I try to roll my hips to his mouth to meet the thrust of his tongue, forcing me to wait for the pleasure he gives me.
“Please, Reid,” I whimper, my legs shaking from the force of his torture on my body.
“Do you want to come, Nova?”
He’s taunting me, keeping me just on the edge of my orgasm until the pleasure robs me of all my sanity.
I don’t even understand what’s happening right now between us. Like we’ve both reached the same, disturbing realization that maybe this thing between us is getting a little out of hand, but both of us are powerless to stop it.
Abruptly, he lifts me into his arms, flipping me like a ragdoll until I’m underneath him on the bed.
“How many men, Nova?”
I stifle a gasp when he runs the head of his cock through my folds, hissing out through his teeth when he finds my warmth.
“What?” I’m unable to form a coherent sentence and he wants to hold a conversation.
“How many men have worshipped you, little bird?”
I shake my head, moaning when he bends down, nipping the flesh below my ear.
“How many men have shown you just how fucking beautiful you are, Nova?”
“One,” I stammer, breathless when the head of his cock brushes my sensitive clit. “And you.”
He makes a satisfied sound, kissing the line of flesh over my jaw until he reaches my mouth.
Panting, I rock my hips against his when he slides back and forth through my folds, his cock slick with my juices.
“How many women have you done that to?” If he can ask the question, so can I.
His eyes darken with some unspoken thought and he reaches up, slipping my hands into his and pinning them above my head, forcing me to hold his gaze.
“Two.” He rolls into me, the head of his cock on my clit making me see stars. I’m so close, hanging on the edge and he knows it.
He’s forcing me to wait for it.
“I’m not sure I like your punishment,” I breathe, groaning in frustration when he stops just as the first waves of my orgasm start. “And surely, there have been more. You’re the infamous Reid Morrison.”
He nips my bottom lip, drawing a startled gasp from me.
“That’s for assuming,” he smirks, voice deepening when he angles his hips so the head of his cock can slip inside me. Lowering his voice, he presses his lips to my ear and a tremor rolls through me. “I’ve worshipped two women, Nova. You and your other, sweet personality.”
He chuckles when my mouth drops open, but dips down, slipping his tongue along mine before I can yell at him.
“Only me?”
That has to be a lie. There’s no way in the world that he’s not—
“You and only you, little bird.”
“Why?”
“Because it used to remind me of shit I wanted to forget.”
I pause, my chest cracking.
“Don’t, Nova,” he cautions, pausing the rolls of his hips.
“My mind is thinking the worst, right now.”
“It’s probably not far off,” he murmurs, voice dark.
My stomach roils at the thought, but when a tear slips down my cheek, he captures it with his tongue and brings his lips back to mine.
“That’s a story for another time. For now, let me inside you.”
Without giving me time to process, he fills me completely, bottoming out inside me. My walls tighten around him and my back comes off the bed like I’m a woman possessed while his hands still pin mine.
“Fuck,” he shudders, that single word holding more meaning than anything right now.
Fuck is right.
“Reid,” I pant when he pulls out and slams inside me again. “I’m so close.”
Finally, he releases my hands and the blood rushes back when they go to his shoulders, feeling the strong weight of them.
I never knew men like Reid existed outside of romance novels and fairytales. Strong and sturdy. Able to withstand a storm and pick you up as if you weigh nothing. Men like Reid are dangerous because, now, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to the way life was before.
He reaches down, lifting my thighs until my knees are draped over his shoulders and drives into me so deep, I’m sure I’ll feel him next week. At this angle, the head of his cock brushes over some dark, unknown part inside me and my orgasm is inevitable.
The orgasm crashes through me, stronger than anything I’ve ever felt. A haze envelopes me and my body clenches almost painfully from how long it’s been begging for this release.
I don’t have time to come down because Reid’s gripping me to him and lifting me onto his lap, resting my ass on his thighs. He nips my lips, kissing and sucking and brushing his tongue against mine with a heated groan.
“How many times can you come in a night?” he rasps, a tremor rolling through him when my nails dig into his flesh to hold myself up.
“Three,” I pant, body still reeling from the last orgasm.
He smirks deviously, fisting my hair to angle my head back for him.
“We’ll see about that.”
“Reid,” I warn, but he only chuckles darkly when it ends on a gasp from a brush of his groin against my clit.
“I told you, little bird, I’m far from finished with you.”