Chapter 27 Eve #2
He nods. “I know, Evie.” He pauses. “You’re on birth control, right? I assumed that was the pill you took every day when you were sick but—”
“Yes,” I interrupt as his pace ticks faster and I grab onto the water wheel tighter, feeling another piece move and willfully ignoring it.
“Can I—?”
“Please.”
His muscles tense, his breathing erratic as he thrusts into me, the deepest he’s been. He groans into my neck, his fingers digging into my skin as he pulls me closer.
“Evie,” he grumbles, as he holds himself deep inside me. His dick twitches as he releases, every muscle taut and hard underneath my fingertips as he pumps into me repeatedly.
I meet him with each stroke, using the water wheel as leverage to get as close to him as possible. It shifts underneath me, and I decide that if this is really the end of the water wheel, at least it went out with a bang. Quite literally.
He moves one hand on the plank beneath my ass to press into me as tightly as he can as his orgasm wanes.
He drops his head to my shoulder when he’s done, leaving a sloppy kiss there as his breathing evens out.
A moment later, he lifts his head, finding my lips with his. He kisses me gently, his arms winding around my back as he slowly extracts himself.
My legs still spread wide, he slowly drips out of me.
He rests his forehead against mine as he runs his hands along my hips, my stomach.
“Fuck, Evie, I feel like I’ve been waiting a lifetime for this.”
I raise an eyebrow. “To fuck a girl using a water wheel like a sex swing?”
He shakes his head. “For you.”
His words strike me right in the chest, and I can’t help leaning forward and kissing him again.
He cups my face, kissing me on the cheeks and the nose and the forehead, before taking a step back and holding the water wheel steady while I step down. His eyes skate along my body as I move, heading straight for my discarded dress on the ground.
“We should probably get you cleaned up,” he says, brushing his fingers along my back to presumably remove some stream mud from where the water wheel pressed into me.
I squirm as more of him leaks out of me. “Yeah, I think a cleanup is an understatement,” I say, squishing my underwear in my hand and deciding it’s probably better to go without until I can secure a clean pair.
He grabs his jeans from the pile of our clothes and pulls them up over his hips, followed by his shoes, and I hang onto him while I pull my own back over my feet.
“Give me your underwear,” Ryder says, holding his hand out for them.
“What?”
“So you’re not walking through the party with them all bunched up in your fist?”
I blink, agreeing with his logic, and quickly press them into his palm before adjusting my socks.
He raises his eyebrows, a quick grin passing over his face.
“Don’t do weird stuff with them.”
“Define ‘weird stuff.’”
I give him a look as he bends to grab our discarded condom with them.
“What? This isn't weird, it's logic."
"That is definitely not the weird stuff I was thinking of."
He shrugs. "If I was into sniffing panties, I’d smell my hand. If I wanted to get off, I’d find you. There’s nothing really weird I can do with your panties other than—I guess—keeping them in my pocket. But like you said, logic.”
I shake my head as I make sure my skirt covers as much of my thighs as possible. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
“’Thank you, Ryder, for saving me from having to explain why I’m carrying my own soaking wet panties around.’”
I roll my eyes. "Yeah. What you said." I hold my arms out to either side of me once I'm suitably dressed. “How do I look? Not freshly fucked, I hope?”
“Bend over and pull your skirt up, I’ll let you know.”
“Oh!” I nudge him with my elbow as we head back to the party. “You’re secretly dirty, aren’t you?”
He shrugs. “Not really. You’re just really hot.”
Before it's out of sight, I take one last glance back at the water wheel that will be forever different in my mind, albeit for a good reason.
And I realize it’s not moving.
I stop, searching for where the plank broke. It would make sense if the water wheel stopped moving because there was no leverage with which the water could move it.
And that, I could arguably file away in the back of my mind as something that I can probably fix myself tomorrow.
But as I retrace my steps back to the wheel, I realize the plank I broke was also attached to one of the large spokes that leads to the circular center plank.
And that spoke, without the plank to hold it in place, has veered off course, the end shoved right into the grassy bank behind the water wheel.
And as a light gust of wind runs by us, the rogue plank splits right down the middle, the bottom portion creaking until it breaks in half and the top portion skidding further into the grass until it’s lifted into the air, turning in a long, lopsided circle as the water wheel starts moving again.
“That does not look good,” I say, frozen in place as I watch it do a full circle, dropping dramatically to the ground on the other side and dragging across the sloped ground.
“We can fix it,” Ryder tells me. “That’s not going to be a big deal.”
I glance at him, eyebrows raised, because he has no clue what he’s dealing with if he’s talking about the historical society.
I turn back to the water wheel just in time to see another spoke break free from the center, popping out of place sideways and catching on the ground just next to the water wheel, followed shortly by the next two spokes. With a quiet groan, they break in half.
I look back at Ryder. “Still not a big deal?”
He holds his hands up. “I promise you, it will be fixed in no time. Good as new. You won’t even notice the difference.”
As he speaks, we hear a sharp crack.
And when I turn to search for the cause of the noise, I see that the main circular plank in the middle has split clean in half with all the opposing leverage knocking it around.
“Still won’t notice the difference?”
He rests his hands on my shoulders, his eyes finding mine.
“Evie, I promise you, we’re going to fix it.
And it’s going to be so perfect that we’re going to laugh at this whenever we think back on it.
Please don’t let a little rotten wood ruin our night.
” His hands drop from my shoulders to my waist as he pulls me close. “Trust me to fix this for you.”
“You’re going to fix it?”
He shakes his head. “I know you need approval now to get it fixed and I know you hate dealing with Reed. I’ll get a bunch of quotes for you—with your approval of course—and I’ll submit the winning one to the historical society for you. No biggie. Nothing for you to worry about.”
I can’t help but smile up at him as I bury my face in his chest, relishing the warmth of his body. “You don’t need to do that. I broke it, after all.”
“Yeah, with those little Hulk hands of yours you’ve apparently been keeping secret.”
I crinkle my nose at him. “I do not have Hulk hands. I just… got carried away.”
He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “So you’re saying my dick was so good it turned you into the cutest little she-Hulk I’ve ever seen?”
I roll my eyes, pushing him away, but he only tugs me tighter, leaving a wet kiss on my cheek. “Seriously, Eve. Can you trust me on this one? I want you to enjoy your party.”
I nod, standing on my toes so I can kiss his cheek. “I trust you.”
He grins, winding an arm around my waist and kissing me, his tongue slipping easily into my mouth as I throw my arms around his neck.
When he pulls away, he takes a step back, toward the party, and holds his hand out for me to take. “Come on. Let’s get you a fresh drink,” he says, pulling me easily under his arm.
And as the music grows louder and the party comes into view, I realize how hard it’s going to be to redirect toward my house without anyone noticing.
While the barn is far enough out of the way that no one will really go there unless they’re trying to find some alone time, my house is not quite the same deal.
The party is raging out front, and if the people hanging out on the porch are any indication, there’s most definitely a line for the bathroom.
At least, the one downstairs. I’ve made clear the one upstairs is not to be used by anyone except those explicitly invited.
But of course, even after we manage to skirt by the outer reaches of the party and sneak inside, Izzy is waiting in the kitchen.
“Hey!” she shouts, quickly abandoning whatever conversation she was a part of and heading toward me.
“You better not be going to bed.” She glances at Ryder.
“Going to bed or going to bed. This is your party. In celebration of another amazing season. You have all night for more private celebrations.”
I suddenly am very thankful that my panties are in Ryder's pocket rather than my hand. I give Izzy a quick smile. “I’m just using the bathroom.”
“Oh,” she says, dropping her drink on the counter next to her. “You know, I have to go too. I’ll go with you.” She turns to Ryder. “Can you watch my drink?”
He raises his eyebrows, glancing between us, and I can only shrug.
“Sure,” he says. “I’d be honored to.”
He leans against the counter, a small smile on his face that tells me he’s enjoying this a little more than he should.
Izzy follows me up the stairs and straight into the bathroom without pause.
“I really can’t believe you haven’t fucked him yet,” she says, easily closing the door behind her and going straight for the toilet. I squeeze my thighs together while I look into the mirror, feigning checking my makeup in the hopes that Izzy doesn’t catch on to what I’m not saying.
I’ll tell her eventually, but it doesn’t feel right to do so immediately after the act. These moments afterward are meant for Ryder and me to get closer, and spouting off to Izzy about it feels akin to bragging about the hot dude I just bagged.
Which, you know, isn’t wrong, but it doesn’t feel right.