Chapter 33
Rhett
Holding Bailey’s eye, I step back and untie my swim trunks, feeling like I’m eighteen all over again.
She bites back a smile, but it floods her eyes, which never leave mine.
Then, she reaches behind her to untie her top, holding the front up.
Even after her top falls, and she steps out of the bikini bottoms, our eyes never leave each other, and we grin wildly, like we never thought this moment would actually come.
I had thought I’d felt every type of adrenaline there is, but none even comes close to this.
Warmth spreads down my skin as she stands so close that there’s no room for sunlight to filter between us. Her body is slick and smooth and addicting.
I tuck her wet hair behind her ear, tracing it back with my fingertips, then dip to press my lips to her temple. Her body melts into me with every slow kiss I leave, tracing the sunlight flooding across her cheekbones with my lips.
Gathering her hair, I twist, gently lifting her chin up to mine, then take her lips and devour them, moving to the softness of her neck. It feels like I’m spinning, with only her body right here to ground me.
The space behind the falling sheet of water is backed by a smooth rock wall, and with one step, I have Bailey pressed up against it. I lean a hand above her head, steadying our weight, then wrap my other arm around her waist, pulling her in, feeling like it’ll never be close enough.
She rolls her hands down my hips, then pulls me against her firmly.
I trace the outline of her body, running my palm against her silhouette, from her shoulder to the curve of her ribs, her waist, loving the fullness of her hips, as she arches her back to keep warm against me. A collection of goosebumps breaks out, and she shivers. I want to give her more of that.
I drop my lips to her jaw, tracing it slowly when her head dips back, tasting the lake and the sun and the bits of stars left dancing across her skin. Dragging myself down her body, I slide my hand between her thighs, where the warmest part of her waits so patiently for me to find it.
She drops her head forward, burying her face in my neck when I get there. But I don’t want her to bury her face in my neck while I touch her here.
I want her with me, more than anything else in the world.
Pulling my hand down off the wall, I use it to cup her chin between my thumb and forefinger, bringing her eyes back up until her lashes graze my cheek, opening for me to see the mossy green fanned in copper.
“You sure you’re okay with this?” I ask, freezing everything until I can see it in her eyes that she wants this here just as bad as I do.
Her answer is a kiss, and it matches the desperation I feel.
Lifting a hand back behind her head, I drag my knuckles against the tender apex of her thighs, then slide down again, lengthening my fingers before pressing them into her.
She licks her lip before biting down, pulling me closer as her body tightens around my digits, breathing tiny gasps near my ear while I memorize this new favorite part of her.
She holds on to my hair, using it to pull my face back to meet hers with a kiss, as again and again my fingers rake across the most sensitive spot I can find.
Water from the falls sprays across my back when the breeze hits just right, making her shudder between me and the rock wall, holding my warmth against her, writhing into my hand. She is so soft. Her muscles clench as if asking for more.
“This might be better than the counter,” she moans, grabbing my erection. Then she drags my fingers from between her thighs and positions herself to draw the full length of me in next.
I wait, ready, as her mouth hovers over mine while I slide into her, slowly, gently, firmly, just as she bites down on my bottom lip instead of hers.
She takes me in, and I watch as her eyes roll back and her head leans against the wall when I can’t fill her anymore.
Clutching me by the hair, drawing me in, asking me silently to stay as close as I can to her while we learn to move together.
My body is electrified, and my skin is begging to have her against every part of me.
“Forget everything,” I whisper, my forehead against hers, stealing kisses between moans. “Just move with me, Bay.”
I hoist her up onto my hips as her legs instantly wrap around my waist. Her fingers clasp against my neck as she arches her back off the wall, rolling her hips against mine. Arching to meet me with every thrust.
And I allow myself to get wrapped up in only the moment happening right here. With only her.
The taste of her.
The feel of her.
Obsessed, fully, with only her.
Losing track of time, of space, of anything else but the woman I want. Pulses and curves and movements of her body, locked and pressing against and around mine over and over.
Her breath picks up its pace.
Gasping. Writhing.
“Not yet, Bay,” I beg, clenching my jaw, not willing to give this moment away, but she grasps desperately to my shoulders, and her eyes lull, dropping as she tries to hang on.
It pushes me harder. Her face against my chest. Her palms close over my shoulders, and I don’t know if she even realizes, but her hand covers two of the scars beneath it, warming the skin that can never warm itself.
Her hair drips with the lake as it clings to her cheeks, her neck, and her back.
The green in her eyes pulsing, pulsing, pulsing with mine when she opens them beneath her fan of eyelashes, just as wet and dripping as her hair.
I brace myself against the rock wall, fingers curling into the stone, wanting to be the only person she ever does anything even close to this with ever again.
Thrusting faster, our bodies begin to clench and shudder together as we forget all sense of where we are. Each time I push into her, another shadow recedes in my mind. Until it’s only her, filling me up. The only thought I’ll ever need.
Bailey.
Bailey.
“Bailey,” I groan into her hair, feeling desperate that this moment can never end.
She gasps and shudders in rhythm to my hips, melting faster into me now, hardly able to keep up. Tiny cries pour out of her throat as she clings to my body. Then the warmth of her spills over me, and I push into her one more time, letting myself get lost in this.
I ignite and explode all at once. Shooting sparks down my veins, firing heat from each tiny blood vessel, her fingers, her hips pressed against mine, mini shockwaves more and more each time we move.
I am electric, and Bailey is the conductor bringing me back to life with her current. Her back lifts off the wall one final time, and my knees nearly buckle, but I press my hand against the wall harder and harder, feeling how cold it is again for the first time since climbing up here.
This moment, this woman, is my reincarnation. In the pool of a crater built by the stars. It’s all I’ll ever need, right here, finally and fully, bringing me back to life.