Chapter 22
As long as their bodies pressed against each other, all lips and tongues and the occasional scrape of teeth, there was no one else on this island, no one out there waiting for them with ultimatums or expectations, or at least no one who could reach them.
The tree house was a bubble, perfect and intimate and theirs.
He twisted his fingers through hers and dipped down so that his nose could trace the length of her neck. Shivers skated up her spine. When he spoke, his lips glanced across her skin. “Tell me what you want, honey.”
“I want…” Fletcher gasped as he planted one kiss, two, against the hollow where her neck met her shoulder. Her stomach tied itself in knots. “I want you to kiss me again.”
Waylon nipped at that familiar curve, then traced the spot with his tongue, working at the skin until she was certain she’d have a bruise. “That won’t be an issue.”
One hand drifted beneath her shirt, flattening against her rib cage and tugging her closer. Kissing her harder, deeper. His other palm wedged beneath her chin, holding her captive. As if she’d ever want to escape.
He broke away only long enough to ask, “And?”
Every nerve in her body was pure voltage. Snapping and sparking like an overloaded current. “And—I want you to touch me.”
“Where?” he asked, dragging his nose toward her ear until he could suck her earlobe into his mouth, his teeth raking over it. “Where do you want me to touch you?”
Taking his hand in hers, she guided it over her borrowed shirt to her breast. He cupped, squeezed. Taunting her.
“Not, um—” Fletcher stuttered. Swallowed. Every synapse in her brain misfired as he pinched her nipple through her top. “Maybe underneath?”
His scruff scraped along her cheek as he pulled back, the reflecting pools of his eyes finding hers again. This time, they’d gone dark, deep as trenches. “Thought you’d never ask.”
Fingertips trailed over her rib bones, outlining the swell of her breasts. Fletcher lifted her arms and snaked out of the fabric.
Waylon’s hands hovered inches from her body. Like he wasn’t sure where to put them first. “You’re…I mean. Fuck, Fletcher. Look at you.”
All she could see was the molten blue of Waylon’s gaze, a blue so hot it burned. Greedy. His hand as it found its place again at her breast, kneading over her bra until Fletcher arched into his touch.
His other hand grasped the point of her hip bone, dragging her against the length of him and luring a throaty mewl from her lips.
Some distant part of her subconsciousness that wasn’t preoccupied with all the skin and friction wondered when the last time she wanted something this badly was.
She only thought of Kent in contrast: of ways he hadn’t held her, of things she hadn’t felt.
“Yours needs to go, too,” she said, feathery. Her fingers looped beneath the hem of his shirt, and she lifted it up and over his head. The Lydell sun had left an olive tan around his neck and forearms but missed the continental expanse of his chest, leaving it a shade lighter.
Waylon’s touch glanced back up her sides, fingers dancing beneath her bra straps. “And this?”
“Gone,” Fletcher breathed.
She’d never been this forward, this confident. But Waylon made her feel powerful. Like there was nothing she could ask for that she couldn’t have.
On her command, he unclasped it, and Waylon inhaled unsteadily. His gaze glazed over, round and unblinking, like he’d never seen a pair of tits before. Hers were full, nipples peaked. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip, and her name slipped out of his mouth.
The calluses of his palms circled her stomach, her chest. Fletcher let her eyes flutter closed, even as she knew Waylon’s stayed open, watching her turn supple and pliant in his grasp.
Her touch wandered, feeling for his thighs, trying to inch toward his erection, but one of his hands captured her wrist.
“This part isn’t about me,” he said before his mouth met hers once more, and in the soft light of the kitchen, the trail of his lips cooling against her skin, Fletcher was writhing and craving. Kissing him like there would never be enough.
“Three years, I’ve wondered what it would be like to have you.” Waylon shifted his attention to her collarbone. “And you’ve been someone else’s the whole time.”
Fletcher sighed. “I could be yours.”
A satisfied hum resonated from his chest. The sound—so pleased, so Waylon—coiled a spring deep in Fletcher’s core, and she clenched her thighs tighter. Reading her body language, Waylon adjusted, slotting a thigh between her legs.
“That’s my girl,” he whispered into her freshly showered skin. Goose bumps rose against his breath, eliciting a noise from deep in her chest, every inch of her on edge as she settled onto him.
Fletcher circled her hips, relishing the scrape of his jeans against her core. Wishing her pants had been discarded on the floor with the rest of her clothes. Building and building. Nothing had ever felt this good before. Not even a fully checked-off to-do list.
Waylon’s fingers skidded once past her hips, between her legs. Curse these stupid khakis. Business casual attire or not, there was no denying the slickness there. Pressure gathered, corkscrewing up her spine until her head tipped back, leaving the wide spill of her neck open for Waylon’s mouth.
Drawing away from her, his fingertips dusted up the front of her, past her navel, her sternum, her throat, until his thumb touched the pout on her lips. “Tell me what else you want.”
“We should go upstairs.” Her voice was coarsely ground. It was like she hadn’t had a drink in days. Parched. Desperate. Thoughts were a distant memory. All she knew was want, need. Primal lust that craved anything he had to give.
He pulled back just enough to look at her beneath his lashes, noses grazing. “Are you sure?”
Together, they had outlasted almost everyone.
So few of them remained on the island that Fletcher couldn’t stop hope from sprouting.
Maybe they actually could make it off Lydell alive.
She’d thought that if—when—they did, Waylon would go back to Brooklyn, and Fletcher would cross the East River.
That their lives would go more or less back to normal, give or take a few extra therapy sessions.
But this was a bridge they couldn’t uncross. She couldn’t unfuck Waylon any more than her colleagues could be unkilled.
Fletcher nodded. “Never surer. Are you?”
He made a noise at the back of his throat. “I’m happy to show you how certain I am.”
With her legs wrapped around his waist, he carried her up the spiral staircase to the loft and eased her onto the mattress, the sheets devastatingly soft against her back. Egyptian cotton, for sure. Hallelujah.
He caged her, hands splayed on either side of her head, the feel of his certainty undeniable between them.
Fletcher was going to have sex with Waylon Cartwright.
Likely very, very good sex. Her experience was comparatively limited, but the half-lidded way he looked at her stoked a fire in her belly.
Made her feel confident and capable. Like just being her was enough.
Waylon kissed the tender skin between her breasts as his hands mapped up her body.
Fingertips trailed up her legs, flush against the borrowed fabric.
His palm glided between her thighs toward the center of her, and he pressed against her aching pulse point.
Fletcher raked her fingers through his curls as he circled, her nerves arcing with each revolution.
She’d never hated a pair of khakis more than she did right now.
His other hand slid past her loose waistband, curving against her ass, fingertips expecting to meet a pair of underwear but…not.
“I decided to wash mine and let them air-dry,” she said, relishing the surprise on his face as his fingers met her bare skin. “But I appreciate the offer.”
His mouth hung open, a devious smile lifting the corners. “Fletcher Spence, you are full of surprises.”
She unbuttoned the trousers and kicked them off, eager to feel his touch at the apex of her thighs, and he obliged with one finger, then two. Waylon’s lips found hers again—firm, needing. It worked her into a sweat, the heel of his palm, the rhythm of his fingers.
“You like that, honey?” he asked.
The words for I’m not sure I’ve ever liked something quite as much as I like this felt too far away, so she settled for a breathy “Yes,” and a reedy, “Whatever you do, don’t stop.”
“Anything you want.”
Fletcher believed that he meant it. Pleasure pulsed, hot and tingling, through her. She’d sustained herself for the last several years on touching herself in the shower and compulsory sex with a man she didn’t truly love. It was like a vampire drinking only from squirrels. Survivable, but barely.
She’d told herself for so long that it was fine, that everything was fine. That being with someone who wanted only things she couldn’t give was par for the course. That chasing her dream life meant living in a nightmare sometimes. That getting what she wanted might always be out of reach.
But here was Waylon, finger-banging her to her heart’s content like he didn’t have his own burgeoning need for release. Smiling into their kiss like he didn’t mind the wait. Sharing his clothes. Saving her life. Maybe in more ways than one.
Even when she reached her peak, it wasn’t enough. She needed more of him. Waylon may have majored in business, but he must have minored in telepathy because as soon as the thought crossed Fletcher’s mind, he leaned back, reaching for his own waistband.
Adrenaline coursed through her body as he unzipped his pants. Beneath his boxers, the length of him was already bulging. Then, the boxers were gone, too. Fletcher reached out to feel him, all of him, and Waylon sucked a breath through his teeth.
His head dropped forward, eyes pinched closed. Gathering himself. “Fuck. Two seconds,” he whispered, and his weight shifted off the bed.
Rising onto her elbows, Fletcher tracked his movements as he pawed clunkily through his backpack at the foot of the bed. A metallic square manifested in his fingers.
“You packed condoms? What else did you find time to grab? The Oxford English Dictionary? A Jet Ski with a satellite GPS and a full tank of gas?”
“Condoms are very small, Fletcher,” he laughed, rasped.
“I’m not complaining. Look at you, being all prepared.”
Waylon’s thigh warmed under her touch as he sheathed himself in whatever brand of condom billionaire heirs preferred. “I learned from the best.”
“Personally, I was more concerned with not getting killed by Asshole Rick or Deepti or the Brians but—” The sentence died in Fletcher’s throat as Waylon pressed into her. “Oh.”
He smirked, and if her heart hadn’t already been hammering, it would have lurched. “The only name I want to hear out of your pretty little mouth tonight is mine.”
Her hips drew wide, making more room for him. There was a shuffle as they found the right shape. Him lowering, her rising to meet him. Then: a moan. Hers or his? Both, maybe.
Hooking a hand beneath Fletcher’s knee, Waylon hiked her leg up, allowing him to work his way deeper. A groan slipped past her lips, and she clawed at his back, desperate for purchase. He pulsed again and again, each stroke carrying Fletcher closer and closer to dizzying bliss.
They stayed there, tangled in the sheets and each other, until the storm cleared and the clouds shifted and all Fletcher saw were stars.