14. Anthony
Chapter 14
Anthony
T HIS HAS TO be another cosmic joke. Because there is no way in hell that the very woman who’s ruining my life is coming my way in the dusk, hips swaying far too deliciously against the backdrop of sand, lips turned up as if she’s in on the joke and knows I’m at the end of my rope.
Swallowing and standing, I give her what I hope is a friendly smile. “Darcy Belle. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Her smile widens, and the joy on her face is the sweetest hit to my solar plexus. “Anthony Hall. To what do I owe the pleasure? Shouldn’t you be manning your fine establishment?” I don’t miss the way she scans me head to toe, and I’ve never been more grateful to be shirtless.
I shake my head. “Nah. Harrison always takes over for the Fourth. He doesn’t like the fireworks, and I love them, so…”
“Harrison is afraid of fireworks?” The gleam in her eye is positively endearing as she closes the space between us.
“I didn’t say that,” I hedge.
“But you didn’t not say that,” she fires back.
All I can do is shrug and smile.
“There you are,” she murmurs.
I frown.
She laughs. “No, don’t do that!” Setting her tote down and sliding off her flip-flops, she laughs more. “I finally see one of those rare smiles and then you instantly frown!”
Naturally, my frown deepens.
She giggles, then undoes her shorts and drops them to the sand before pulling her shirt off.
My mouth dries. She’s wearing a retro-style two-piece, bright red with stripes, her curves on display more than any time I’ve seen before, and it takes everything I have not to pull her to me. When I lift my gaze back to her face, she smirks, and I know I’ve been caught.
She laughs quietly, turning to walk the few feet to the surf. “Ah, Anthony—you’re the worst !”
Somehow, I don’t think she means that. After a moment’s hesitation, I take a step toward her.
She leans down and makes to splash some water at me. I flinch and jump back, and it only serves to make her laugh harder.
“Let me guess—Harrison is afraid of fireworks, but you’re afraid of the ocean?” she teases.
I cross my arms. “I am no such thing.”
Raising a dubious eyebrow in the fading light, she splashes me again.
“That’s it,” I growl, reaching out to grab her.
She squeals and leaps away, her movements hampered by the heavy surf lapping at her thighs. Then she turns and splashes again, but the waves catch her off-guard and she pitches forward.
I lunge, catching her in my arms and pulling her upright just as the wave crashes into my knees.
“Shit, how did we get this far in?” she laughs, breathless.
“Probably because you weren’t paying attention,” I admonish, a smile playing on my lips.
Her eyes zoom to my mouth and lock there, heating as I lick the salty water away. Then, without warning, she steps away and heaves a handful of water at me.
“You little brat,” I call out as she yelps and ducks out of my reach, trying like hell to outrun me.
She’s got no chance. I catch up in two strides and haul her to my chest, picking her up and holding her out of the water against my chest, one arm tucked beneath her legs and the other cradling her back.
“Put me down!” she commands, her voice high-pitched with laughter.
“Are you sure about that?” I ask, taking us a little farther in. “If I put you down, you’re getting dunked.”
Her eyes shimmer with delight as she tightens her grip on me. She doesn’t speak.
It dawns on me that I have her in my arms. All of her. My breath is hot and fast with the realization, and God, does she feel amazing. Her curves plastered against mine, her nipples pressed against my chest. She relaxes into the hold, not seeming the least concerned that I’ll drop her, and something inside me cracks wide open.
Above us, the sound of the first firework crackles above us, and the colors reflect in her eyes. Darcy’s lips tilt into a pleased smile, her gaze on the sky.
“Do you trust me?” I don’t recognize the gruffness in my voice.
She looks back at me. “Always.”
Without another word, I turn us to shore, striding through the surf and aiming for the towel I’d laid out earlier. She holds on as I move, her eyes darting over my face, shoulders, and chest before resting again on my lips. I can’t explain how I know the path her gaze takes since I’m not watching her; I simply do.
Maybe it’s because that’s the very same path my own eyes have traveled a million times, wondering how her skin would taste. How her lips would feel beneath mine, soft and pliant.
I kneel in the sand and lay her on the towel, lowering myself beside her, refusing to miss a second of watching the droplets of water trail from her forehead down to her temples.
The fireworks shoot off above us, and still, she keeps her eyes on me. “Anthony.” My name on her lips is something like a plea, and I finally can’t refuse her. Not anymore.
With my finger, I trace her temple and soft cheek, positioning her exactly where I want her. Then I lower my mouth to hers.
She tastes like she smells: watermelon and cherry, with a little sea salt thrown in. I hold there, reveling in the feel of them, knowing it’s the only time I’ll feel them for the first time, and desperately wanting to bottle the moment forever.
Darcy’s lips open and mine follow, desiring to give her exactly what she wants. What I want. And as the fireworks boom above us, I slide my tongue into her mouth, exploring, tasting, nipping and sucking. She moans and sighs beneath me, threading one hand into the hair at the nape of my neck while the other cups my face, feeling my beard before sliding down to my chest.
Kissing her is everything I thought it would be. By turns innocent and chaste, then lush and lewd. When I pull away to look at her, she grins back softly, her eyes gentle even as they’re blown with lust.
“More,” she whispers. “Kiss me again, Anthony.”
I groan. I couldn’t resist her request if I tried. Lowering my lips to hers once more, I slant my mouth and take hers with an ownership I probably shouldn’t feel. There’s no stopping the way I want to possess her. To claim her as mine for all the world to see. I release her lips, kissing a trail down her chin to her neck, breathing in the overwhelming scent of her as I nibble the skin beneath her ear and feel her shiver beneath me.
“Cold?”
“No,” she sighs. “You found the spot that makes me crazy, that’s all.” Her arms tighten around me, her nails raking down my chest.
Hissing in surprised pleasure, I nibble once more, relishing the feel of her squirming in my arms.
I move back to her lips, plunging my tongue into her mouth with abandon. I want her. Want to feel the tightness of her wrap around my dick and hear her breaths quicken as she nears release.
When her hand dips down my stomach, angling to slip into my shorts, I almost let her. Instead, I put my hand on her wrist, halting its path.
“Because you don’t want to?” she asks, her eyes searching mine with obvious vulnerability.
“Does it feel like I don’t want to?” I ask, guiding her hand to my dick.
Her eyes flash, then heat once more. “So why not?”
“Because the first time we do anything, it’s not going to be on the beach like a pair of horny teenagers.”
She rises, pushing me onto my back and shifting to push me onto my back. I go willingly, taking in the way her lush curves are silhouetted by the fireworks behind her as she straddles me. Her thighs grip my hips, and her center is warm and damp, and I groan again, knowing the dampness isn’t because we’ve been in the ocean. “Darcy.”
Biting her lip as her eyes roll in the back of her head, her hips swivel slowly on top of me as she seeks her pleasure. Tendrils of wet, dark hair fall from the bun on top of her head, framing her beautifully as she moans. “God, Anthony. Say it again. Say my name again.”
“Darcy.” My voice is gravel as I wrap my hands around her thighs and grip so hard I’m certain they’ll leave bruises. “I want you. I want you in so many ways that it’ll take me years to be satisfied, and even then, it’ll never be enough.”
“Fuck, Anthony.” She moves a little faster.
“Am I getting you off, baby girl? Is my filthy mouth all it takes?” I watch her greedily, clocking every nuance of her expression, the way her mouth opens, the flush I shouldn’t be able to see in the dark but swear I can anyway, the hardness of her nipples that I’m keeping my hands off by willpower I didn’t think I possessed.
She whimpers. “I think so.”
I take over the rhythm, my dick so fucking hard that I might explode. “Ride my cock, baby. Get yourself off. I want to see you come. I want to know what you’re gonna look like when I’m fucking you.”
She pants, falling onto my chest with her hands, her nails digging half-moon crescents into my chest. It feels perfect. She is perfect, lit by fireworks from above.
“There you go,” I murmur, my voice going as deep as it can. “You’re almost there, aren’t you? Come for me.”
“Fuck,” she breathes. “Holy fuck.” Her hips buck, taking what she wants from me, and she whimpers as her entire body shudders, head thrown back and eyes closed tight with the orgasm.
I watch in rapt fascination, both devastated and wholly obsessed.
This woman will be my ruin. Everything about her was tailor-made to torture me, and all I want is more. So much more.
Her breath coming in soft gasps, Darcy opens her eyes and finds mine.
My lips tip up. “That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
She smiles, her eyes hazy with pleasure. “That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. So, we’re even, maybe?”
I chuckle, shifting and rolling us so that she’s on her back and I’m between her incredible legs. “It’s not about being even. Never.”
She blinks. “That’s…not what I’m used to.”
The words are a cold splash of reality, and my dick gets the memo as well. This shouldn’t be happening. Yes, she’s an adult, but she’s had such little life beyond this. I don’t think she even went to college. I’ve got almost two decades on her. There’s a big difference. Though I’m not sure she cares.
“Where’d you go, Daddy?”
I jerk back to reality to find her grinning saucily at me. “You and that Daddy word,” I grumble.
“Tell me you don’t like it.”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I admit, “Not sure I can say that, Darcy.”
She shivers even as she beams. “Thought so.”
I frown. “You’re cold.”
She tries to protest, but I stand and pull her up. “Let’s get you to your car so you can warm up.”
She laughs. “Anthony, it’s easily eighty-five degrees. I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe, but the fireworks are over, anyway.”
She glances up at the sky, her lips swollen, her dark hair gloriously disheveled. “Fine. Walk me to my car?”
I hear the question in her voice, but I ignore it. We went too far as it is. I don’t want her regretting anything.
We get ready, pulling on clothes and packing away the towel, before she digs in her bag for a flashlight. It’s dim, but it’s all we need to see our way through the dunes and back to the street.
When we get to her beat-up Camry, she pops the trunk and digs into yet another tote, producing dry clothes.
She looks at me, bemused. “What? You don’t have a change of clothes in your trunk?”
“Of course not.”
“Anthony, we live at the beach. It’s summer. How do you not have a change of clothes in your trunk?”
“Because I’m forty-one,” I answer.
She rolls her eyes. “Your age has nothing to do with it.” After a beat, she glances down at my crotch and back. “Clearly.”
I chuckle. “Okay, you. How are you changing your clothes?”
“In my back seat,” she says, winking at me. “You wanna stand guard?”
After a few minutes—minutes in which I behave myself and don’t stare at her while she’s in various stages of undress—she emerges in a fresh T-shirt and shorts. No bra.
My mouth instantly waters. “Darcy.”
She shakes from side to side, sending her luscious breasts bouncing and swinging. “You like?”
I wipe a hand down my face. What I’d give to have those tits around my face. “I’m trying really hard to be good here.”
She presses herself against me, soft and warm. “I’m trying really hard to understand why.”
Me, too . I take in her upturned, sunburned nose and see the beginnings of beard burn forming around her mouth. I can’t help the smirk that forms, knowing that anyone who sees her tomorrow will know she’s been up to something.
“Be good,” I admonish, popping a kiss onto her forehead and walking away before anything else can happen.