Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
“We’re going out there naked?” I ask when he flips the latch on my sliding glass door and tugs it open.
“Exhibitionist that you are, you don’t approve?” He shoots me a cheeky grin.
“I’ve never skinny dipped with another person.” I scowl. “Hey, did you just call me an exhibitionist? It’s not true. I’m not trying to flash anyone.”
“You flashed me .”
My cheeks heat. “That was an accident.”
I’m expecting him to dish out something snarky, but instead, his eyes fill with so much kindness I have to look away.
“You want to tell me why, then?” he asks in a soft tone.
“It feels good. The water, I mean.” How can I explain it so he doesn’t think I’m nuts? After Russel, I craved reassurance, and to be comforted. It makes no sense that a body of water could provide such solace, but it has.
“It’s still plenty dark enough out there,” Linden says, pulling me back to the warmth of his embrace and his steady, calm focus. “But say the word, and I’ll get your suit. ”
Renewed desire unfurls in my belly. Mixed with a craving for the cool water on my skin at the same time, it’s too good to pass up. “We’ll be sure to come in before the sun’s up.”
“Does this mean sex on the beach is out?”
Heat flashes up my chest and makes my still-sensitive pussy throb. I rock my hips closer, needing to feel him against me. “Sex on the beach is sandy.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“No.”
“Plus, the beach doesn’t have condoms.” Just saying our plans aloud is adding a hitch to my breaths.
“Doesn’t mean I can’t get you warmed up.
” He shoots me a cocky grin. After setting me down, he snatches two towels from the hooks just inside the door.
After he wraps me up in one, he tugs me to him and our lips meet in a soft kiss.
The outside air is bracingly cold, but his lips are warm and his body is like a brick of solid heat, radiating into mine.
Hand in hand, we sneak down my steps to the cool sand. At the water’s edge, he drops his towel and continues into the water, giving me a stolen moment to drink in his broad back and tight butt, his powerful leg muscles rippling.
The chill on my skin turns electric, and I shiver. Not minutes ago, he drew all my cravings to an intense and delicious release. I should be satisfied. My flesh is still sensitive, achy. But it only seems to make me more aware of how incredibly alive I’m feeling right now.
In the blink of an eye, we’ve gone from enemies to some sort of fake dating pact, only it’s not feeling very fake. Maybe it never was?
Linden disappears beneath the surface, and I hurry to join him. The cool, clear water shocks my skin, sending gooseflesh up my legs and belly and the hard sand crystals pricking my feet. I wade deeper, then gulp a breath and sink down.
Beneath the surface, all sound goes to a dull hum, the water a thick indigo at this time of day.
When I kick away from shore, Linden follows, swimming next to me, bubbles trailing.
I pop up and float to my back, the chill electrifying my skin as I stare up at the pale sky warming one shade at a time.
Linden starfishes on his back next to me, sculling with his arms to stay afloat.
“You’re right. It does feel good.” He slips below the surface again, then pops up, whipping his head to clear the water from his forehead. “Is that why you bought the A-frame? For the lake access?”
I consider keeping this to myself, but it slips out before I can overthink it. “Back when I was little, we couldn’t afford to go anywhere fancy, so my parents rented a house on Bear Lake for a week every June.”
Linden’s treading water next to me, his eyes fixed on the row of six A-frame cabins lined up like carbon copies along the shore. “These used to be rentals.”
“I know.”
He gives me a glance, his dark eyes piqued with curiosity. Lake water is beaded up on his stubble and his hair has that tousled wildness that makes me want to run my fingers through it.
“It’s not the same one, but…” I scissor with my legs, the water like cold silk on my skin.
Linden swims closer and tugs me against him. With his height, he can just touch the bottom. Those firm planes of his abs and chest and his warmth greet my chilled limbs. He pulls in a full breath that swells into my ribs, drawing a sigh of contentment from my lips.
“Does it make you feel closer to her?” he asks, gliding his big hand down the curve of my spine .
“Sometimes. She loved watching the sunsets. She used to make us drop everything to go outside so we could enjoy it together.” A chill vibrates through my core. Even though he’s warm against me.
“Meg?” His face goes still. “I’m glad you’re my neighbor.”
Something warm and honey-sweet drips inside me. It’s decadent and pure, almost fragile. Trying to capture it is like holding a butterfly in my palms. Too tight and I risk clipping its wings—too loose and it will flutter away.
I wrap my arms around his neck and swallow the barb of emotion pressing into my throat. “I’m glad too.”
A flicker of a smile hints at his lips before he kisses me.
His tongue teases my lips, sending more heat prickling across my skin.
I tease him back and wrap my legs around him.
Being naked with him like this, giving me the freedom to feel every shift in his body, every tensing of muscle, every sigh?
It’s making it hard to imagine not being naked.
Not having him close. It would be scary if I gave this fear the energy it deserved.
But right now, I’m too focused on the shape of his lips, the hardening of his erection against my thigh, the heat filling my body.
With a low groan, he carries me to the shore.
Already, my craving to be full of him, consumed by him, is making my breaths jump in my chest. He snatches a towel and lays me on it beneath his half-finished dock project.
I almost laugh because though we’re not out in the open, it’s not like we’re hidden either. Do I care?
“You’ll need to be quiet,” he says, kissing down the side of my neck. “Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,” I whisper, though if the previous orgasms he’s given me so far are any indication of the volume I’m capable of, this is a promise I don’t think I can keep.
He circles my nipple with his warm tongue.
Because I have goosebumps and a mild case of the shivers, there’s an edge to this sudden pleasure, but it turns electric so fast I start gulping air.
When he draws my other breast into his mouth, I roll my hips, seeking the friction I am suddenly desperate for.
It’s as if he’s as eager to taste me as I am to have him between my legs, because he continues kissing, nipping, swirling his tongue.
Another shiver rattles down my thighs. I squeeze them together, but Linden slides his knees between mine, parting me open.
“Such a pretty pussy,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of my slit, the wet glide of his mouth frustratingly not near enough to where I need him. He kisses down the seam of my thigh, licking with the tip of his tongue, like he wants me to suffer.
He drags his thumb down to my clit, making me groan in relief. “I think you could come just from this, couldn’t you?” His cool exhale across my throbbing flesh is like a twist of the knife.
“Please.” It comes out raspy. Needy.
“Oh, sweetheart, you don’t have to beg.” He blows on my pussy again, making me squirm, like he’s pumping fire and ice through my veins.
Inside my body, I’m hollow and weightless, drunk on anticipation.
He glides lower, to where I’m cramped with need, and slowly thrusts his fingers inside me, filling the emptiness so perfectly that a flutter of pleasure works up my belly.
With a satisfied hum, he wrap his lips around me. The warmth and sweetness of his tongue right there while he strokes in and out of me is sensory overload—too much and not enough all at once. Do I pull him closer or skitter away, like some feisty little sand creature?
A hot, bright heat loosens inside me, rolls through my stomach and into my throat like a sonic echo. I fist the cold sand and his hair like they can keep me from floating away. Already I’m shaking, my breaths rushing in and out of my throat—surely I’m much too loud.
His tongue is relentless, pausing only when he wraps his lips around my most sensitive place for a sensual, playful tug that has my thoughts melting into oblivion and my heart catapulting into the next galaxy .
“Linden!” I whimper, my throat pulpy and raw.
He reaches up to pluck my nipple. I grind my shoulders into the towel, shameless for every bit of his touch.
Then he stuffs something soft and dense in my mouth—the wadded-up corner of the second towel.
I bite down, the relief that I don’t have to hold myself back as incredible as the pleasure spring-loading inside me.
Linden moves faster, urged on by my hips grinding against him.
I have never felt so close to madness. If he stopped, the ache would consume me. Finish me.
Every thread of tension in my body weaves to a tight spiral at the base of my spine, driving me faster.
The towel swallows my raspy breaths and traps the whimpers tickling my tongue.
I grip Linden’s hair and squeeze my thighs but if it’s causing him discomfort, he doesn’t show it.
He’s like a man possessed, wanting this as much as I do. Wanting me .
I blink through the open slats of the deck above us, my emotions cracking open a little more with each stroke of his silky tongue.
The notes of pleasure hit deeper, harder, until the ball of fire in my belly rips free. I come, Linden’s name muffled by the fabric, the powder-blue sky swirling above me.
When I go limp, Linden caresses up my stomach with his big hand and pulls the towel from my mouth. Then he lifts me into his arms and carries me into the house.
I wake from an afternoon nap to Linden’s empty bed and the clink of plates downstairs, my body languid and more than a little bit sore.
After he brought me inside, we didn’t make it past the couch.
Then we showered, which led to more touching, which led to us in his bed, where he made slow, incredibly sensual love to me.
My pulse skips down my belly and my breasts tingle with a sudden awareness against Linden’s sheets. I shouldn’t be eager for more. I think I have bruises from how tightly he holds onto me when he comes. I for sure need more sleep.
But I do want more.
From my bag next to the bedside table, my phone buzzes.
I roll over the side of the bed and pluck my phone from the neatly folded clothes Linden brought over for me. It’s a text from Quinn. My heart leaps. With the time zone jump, it’s already tomorrow in France. I’ve been dying to hear from her. She must have made it back to basecamp.
I bring the phone back to the bed. The message opens to a breathtaking picture of her on a snowy summit.
Her colorful mountaineering garb pops against the cerulean sky, and though her face is completely covered by a balaclava and dark, round glacier glasses with side flaps to keep out the sun, her grin is electric.
It must be windy because tendrils of hair from beneath her climbing helmet are blown sideways and her layers are pressed against her lanky frame.
QUINN:
14 hours, 6 minutes. Stairmaster from hell but I made it!
I type out a congratulatory reply. That she’s back safe settles gently into my heart, and I exhale a soft breath.
QUINN:
How was the party?
I glance out the window, considering my answer. Thinking about Darienne’s actions still stings. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. And I don’t want to spoil Quinn’s moment of glory with my stepmother woes .
MEG:
Fun! I think everyone had a good time
QUINN:
Including you?
I can’t help the smile tugging at my lips. Or the sudden rush of heat dropping through my core.
MEG:
The kiss was a success.
Whitney Houston’s “Dance With Somebody” echoes through my mind. Was that the moment I started thinking about him as my somebody?
MEG:
We even danced.
She replies with a string of hand clapping emojis
I laugh out loud.
QUINN:
Did you take home any party favors?
Downstairs in the kitchen, a spatula scrapes across a cast iron pan. Scents of grilling bread and something salty are wafting into the bedroom. Hunger for whatever he’s cooking mixed with the insistent craving for his warm body wrapped around me makes me sigh with longing .
MEG:
There may have been fireworks
The little dots on my screen start dancing immediately but I place my phone face down on the bedside table and peel back the covers. Because how do I explain what’s happening over a text when I don’t even have words for it?