Chapter 13 Coco
THIRTEEN
Coco
“Ridge,” I breathe, the word barely clearing my throat as his mouth drags slowly over my chest.
“I know,” he says against my skin, voice low and tight, like he’s holding himself in check. His hands slide to my hips, fingers digging in with purpose, not gentleness. “I know.”
He lifts his head, and his mouth crashes into mine before I can think. The kiss is hard and demanding, all heat and intent, his tongue pushing in like he’s done waiting.
I gasp into it, my hands coming up automatically, gripping his shoulders as the water shifts around us.
His body presses closer, the length of him hard and unmistakable against my stomach. The contact jolts straight through me.
I feel it everywhere. Between my legs. In my chest. In the way my breath stutters as he rolls his hips, just enough to make the friction impossible to ignore.
His hands slide up my sides, his thumbs brushing over my breasts until my back arches without thought.
The pool holds me up as he explores me like he already knows where I’m weakest. I hate how easily my body answers him. I hate how little it matters.
“Fuck,” he mutters, his hand slipping between us. His fingers find me confidently and skillfully. “You’re already there.”
“I got there the moment you stepped into this pool.”
“Oh, yeah? You sure it’s not just the water?”
I let out a soft, broken sound as he slides inside me, the water making everything slick and too easy. I laugh once, breathless and unsteady, and it turns into a gasp when he moves again.
“That’s not the water,” I manage to say, even though I’m barely holding on to my impending orgasm.
His mouth curves at the corner, but his eyes stay dark and focused. He adds another finger, stretching me, patient in a way that makes my chest tighten.
I ride his hand instinctively, chasing more pressure, more of him. The water sloshes around us as my control thins to nothing.
“I need you,” I say, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. “Ridge. I want you.”
He stills just for a second, but long enough for me to notice.
Then he withdraws his hand and shifts, stepping closer in between my legs.
I wrap my legs around his waist, primal need taking over, pulling him in so that pressure stays right where my body is already begging for more. The water laps up and down my body softly as I move, my thighs tightening, guiding him closer without saying a word.
His breath hitches against my mouth.
“Jesus,” he mutters, breaking the kiss just long enough to drag his lips along my jaw. His hands slide lower, spanning my hips, thumbs pressing in as he lifts me slightly, pinning me back against the pool wall.
The cool tile meets my spine. His body cages me in, solid and unyielding, as he positions his cock at my opening. I pull my legs tighter around his waist, buoyed by the water as I tip my hips and draw him into me, to force him in if he’s not going to do the job.
He’s big and hard, and the stretch burns in the best possible way. The pressure is sharp enough to steal my breath before melting into something that makes my thighs tremble.
His hips rock forward again, slower this time. He knows exactly what he’s doing, knows how the slow drag fills me, how it makes my toes curl, and my nails dig into his shoulders.
I shift against him, chasing the friction, opening myself to him without thinking, and the sound that slips out of me is raw and unfiltered.
That does it.
His grip tightens, hands digging into my hips as he stills inside me for half a second. His forehead drops to mine, his breath heavy, controlled only by force of will.
“Tell me to stop,” he says in a rough but quiet voice. “Because I fucking can’t on my own.”
I don’t hesitate. I roll my hips against him, dragging myself along the hard length of him already buried inside me, making the answer unmistakable. I don’t need to say anything more.
I never want him to stop.
His jaw tightens. A low sound leaves his chest as he slides one hand between us, steadying my movement, guiding the angle as he pushes deeper.
I cling to him as his hips roll against mine, my legs tightening around his waist further to keep us anchored when the water tries to pull us apart. My hamstrings ache from the exertion, but I don’t care. I want more, I want harder. I want every inch, every second of him.
The water slaps softly against the pool’s edge as he increases his cadence, and every nerve ending threatens to explode inside of me.
He groans against my neck with his arms braced on either side of me. His body is rigid as he drives into me, over and over, the water breaking around us with each hard thrust.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Coco.”
The sound of my name on his mouth snaps all control, and I’m done.
The pressure builds mercilessly, heat coiling tighter and tighter until my body shakes. My breath comes apart. I can’t find words. I can’t even find air.
The sensation crests all at once, too much and not enough, and when it breaks, it tears through me without warning.
I cry out, the sound raw and uncontrolled, echoing off the plaster walls as my body clenches hard around him. My legs tighten. My back bows. Every muscle locks as the release crashes through me in waves.
I cling to him, breath breaking apart as the waves of it roll through me, leaving me weak and unsteady against his chest. My legs go slack.
He groans loudly, the sound rough and undone, his grip tightening as he shifts, pulling back just enough to keep himself from tipping over the edge with me.
The movement sends another aftershock through me. My legs don’t feel like they belong to me as they float in the water, straddling him, but limp now. I tremble as I gasp his name against his neck.
For a heartbeat, he holds there, pressed close but controlled, breath coming hard and uneven. Then whatever restraint he had left snaps.
His body goes still inside me, gripping me tightly, before he pulls out. He breaks contact as his hands brace hard on the tile beside my shoulders.
“Fuck,” he breathes, forehead dropping to my shoulder.
He comes with a sharp groan, body locking as he holds himself still, water surging violently around us from the force of it.
Then everything goes quiet, and neither of us moves.
The water settles into slow ripples. My breathing comes in shallow pulls, my center still pressed against him as my legs float on either side of him.
He stays limp against me, his chest rising and falling, his forehead still resting on my shoulder.
His arms come around me again. It’s not tender or gentle. His heartbeat thuds heavily against my chest, loud in the quiet that follows.
For a long moment, we just stay there, suspended in the water as the echoes fade, my body still clinging to him like it hasn’t registered that it’s over.
The water around us has warmed from our bodies. Any small shift brings a rush of cooler water, sharp against skin that’s still too sensitive.
I’m hyper-aware of every place we’re still touching, aware that whatever just happened between us didn’t end when the movement did.
Eventually, he guides me out of the pool and onto a lounger. The air hits my skin all at once, sharp and cold, raising goosebumps along my arms and legs. He moves without hurry, one hand steady at my back, the other braced at my elbow so I don’t slip.
He grabs a towel from the hook and wraps it around me firmly, rubbing warmth back into my skin like it’s a task he’s set himself to. When I start to shiver, he sits and pulls me in, tucking me against his chest, the towel drawn tight around us both.
He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t look away. His attention stays on me like he’s trying to anchor something before it drifts out of reach.
For a moment, he just holds me. He’s solid and steady, his body is warm in a way the water never was.
“You don’t make this easy,” he says quietly, more to himself than to me.
I don’t answer. I let my head rest against his shoulder, my body still humming, my thoughts finally catching up.
Whatever this is between us, it stopped being contained somewhere between the moment he came into my room in the cabin and here in this pool.
And I don’t pull away.
I wake slowly, heavy with sleep, blinking as the low amber glow begins its gradual climb across the ceiling.
The lighting system is already shifting, easing toward morning. It’s unsettling how convincing it is. Without windows, without clocks, my body has learned to trust it anyway. I haven’t seen actual daylight since Wednesday, but the rhythm still finds me.
I turn my head and stop.
Ridge lies on his back beside me, the light catching just enough of him to soften the hard lines I’ve come to expect.
His shoulders are broad even at rest, his jaw relaxed beneath the weight of a full beard, lashes dark against his skin.
Ink covers both arms and spans his chest. The tattoos stretch and shift as he breathes, the steady rise and fall of him anchoring the space between us.
I don’t move.
This version of him seems borrowed. Temporary, even, like something I’m not supposed to witness.
The glow traces the edges of the black lines, ink curving over muscle, stories I don’t know and haven’t earned.
It catches in the rough shadow of his beard, softening the severity I usually associate with him.
In sleep, the control slips just enough to reveal the man beneath it. Not weak. Just unguarded.
A persistent ache settles low in my chest.
I tell myself this was never meant to be anything more than strategy. Sleeping with him was survival. Leverage. A way to stay alive long enough to find an exit.
I repeat it like it’s a fact I can anchor to.
But watching him like this, the certainty of that becomes fuzzy.