15 - Peyton
PEYTON
The ceiling fan turned achingly, almost mockingly, slow. It didn’t cool my body, which I’d already stripped down to the bare essentials in the quest for blissful oblivion. Instead it whirled uselessly above me, laughing its ass off, casting flickering shadows on the moonlit walls.
I needed sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. It was well after midnight, and my only visitors were restlessness, conflict, and frustration.
Frustration?
Yes, that kind of frustration. In reality, it had been a while — much longer than I liked to admit. And even longer if you wanted to count anything meaningful, or exciting, or especially fulfilling. Because in that department, my time with Donovan had gotten progressively worse.
Right now my body was humming with needs that couldn’t be met. Only they could be met, and that was a big problem.
Or rather, three big problems.
Fuck.
I thought about Colson, walking away. Leaving no room for anything that might’ve happened between us, to cost him even the slightest bit of control. I thought about Theo, and the smoldering kiss we’d shared. How incredible it felt to float there, weightless, with my legs wrapped around him.
And then there was Ripley.
God, I hated Ripley — but I’d also grown to love him.
I loved his rock-hard abs, his magnificent ass, the sexy twang in his voice whenever he berated me.
He’d called me by a dozen nicknames already, and almost none of them good.
But every once in a while he referred to me as “darlin’,” and my knees would buckle.
Yes, frustration was the major hurdle keeping me from sleep. Frustration, and the need for release.
I stretched, pretending not to notice my own fingers as they slowly crawled their way down my belly. The middle one pierced the waistband of my thong, and then stopped.
No, I didn’t want to go there. I mean it would be great and all — it always was — but it wasn’t what I wanted.
It just didn’t make sense, having to do myself. Not when there were three ridiculously hot guys within a few feet of my bedroom door.
Conflict arose. A decision was made.
I sat up in bed, fully aware that my pulse was still racing. It made no sense, just lying here. Not when I could throw something on, head down to the kitchen, and make myself a snack.
A moment later I was padding down the hallway, passing the boys’ bedrooms with slow but deliberately heavy steps. I drifted past Colson’s door, then Ripley’s, then Theo’s. Not one of them opened. Not one person stirred.
Then the click of ice in a glass reached my ears.
I found him in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. Shirtless. Barefoot. His bronze skin shining, even in the semi-darkness.
“You’re staring,” Ripley said, cradling his whiskey.
“I’m thinking,” I shot back.
He chuckled into the glass as he took a swig. “Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
I ignored him as I pulled open the fridge door and grabbed a water. I needed a reason to be here, other than looking for trouble.
“You’re sort of an asshole,” I theorized. “You know that?”
He raised a brow. “Sort of?”
God, why did he have to be so fucking good looking! And shirtless. And—
“You could be a little nicer yourself, you know. I don’t usually associate with women who’ve kneed me in the balls.”
“And yet…” I smiled, gesturing grandly. “Here you are.”
A beat of midnight silence passed between us. It was everything I could do to stop from staring.
“That’s probably a long list,” I smirked. “No?”
“Women who’ve touched my balls?”
“I meant kneed you there.”
He shrugged. “It’s not short.”
I held the water against my forehead for a moment, letting it cool me down. It was suddenly ten degrees hotter in here.
“You hunted down an innocent woman,” I argued.
“Theo hunted you down.”
“You tackled me.”
“That was Colson,” he countered.
“Still, I don’t trust you. You work for Donovan.”
“Worked,” he corrected me. “Past tense.”
Ripley drained his glass, without breaking eye contact. He set it down and began pouring another.
“So you expect me to believe that’s it, then? You just switched sides?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I expect you to believe I hate bullies. Men who hold leverage against people, like your ex-fiancé.”
He looked down, into his glass for a moment, giving my eyes free license to roam.
They could’ve roamed those bulging arms, or those strapping shoulders that looked like they could carry the world.
Instead, they focused on that roguishly handsome face.
Ripley was boyish in those striking green eyes.
But he was a thousand percent masculine, everywhere else.
“What kind of leverage does Donovan hold over you?”
He looked like he was about to say something, then stopped. Instead, he cleared his throat.
“No answer?” I pushed. “I guess you just went to work for him willingly, then?”
In the midnight silence, his tattooed body glistened. Ripley’s bronze skin still shone with the oils he’d been rubbing all over himself during our time here. I know, because I’d watched that show several times.
“You did it for the money, like everyone else,” I spat. “I’m sure your parents are very proud.”
At that he laughed, his face breaking into the most sardonic of smiles. It wasn’t a good laugh. It was an even worse smile.
“My parents…” he repeated. “Riiiiight.”
He drained his second whiskey, then pushed both the bottle and glass away. When he headed for the doorway, I stopped him with an outstretched arm.
“Look,” I fumbled. “I didn’t mean…”
His jaw tightened at my touch. The tension between us stretched taut, like a wire.
“This is going all wrong,” I sighed in frustration. “I didn’t come to fight with you.”
“What did you come here to do, then?”
Our eyes met, and the air between us abruptly changed. There was a charge to it, now. The invisible promise of something that could be.
“Colson and Theo, they’re easy to read,” I explained. “But you? You’re a lot harder to figure out.”
“And who said you need to figure me out?”
“No one,” I answered truthfully. “But you’re stuck here because you put yourself on the line for me. You told Donovan Prescott to fuck off,” I shook my head reverently, “and I don’t think anyone has told him that. Ever.”
“Yeah, well he needed it.”
“He sure fucking did,” I agreed. “I guess this is my way of saying thanks.”
He looked down at my hand, still wrapped halfway around his huge bronze wrist.
“You have a funny way of thanking people.”
His body relaxed, and I relaxed with it. The stiffness between us was gone.
“Why? What else would you have me do?”
The words tumbled from my lips before I even knew what I was saying. Like my body just elbowed my brain out of the way.
“Depends on what’s available,” he growled.
Ripley’s eyes flickered with an emerald fire, as they over crawled me, up and down. There were no apologies in his gaze. No subtlety, whatsoever.
“I think you know exactly what you want,” he said evenly.
“I do, huh?”
He nodded. “You sure do. You just can’t ask for it.”
I shifted, restlessly. The scent of him was driving me crazy.
“Why not just tell me, then?”
“You’re itching to get your back blown out,” he replied, crudely. “You’re four days into your honeymoon, and you still haven’t gotten laid.”
A thousand butterflies took flight at once, deep in the pit of my stomach.
“Honeymoon…” I laughed nervously.
“That’s what this is, isn’t it?” he shrugged. “You’re a runaway bride, stranded in paradise with three impromptu groomsmen. You’re dying to get properly handled. Donovan sure as hell wasn’t getting the job done,” he chuckled. “And so here you are.”
He was right of course. Especially about the Donovan part.
“And you know all of this… how?”
Ripley turned into me. Our bodies were so close now, I could feel his gravitational pull.
“I know it by the way your breathing just changed,” he murmured. “It’s quicker now. More shallow.”
I scoffed. “You don’t know—”
“Your skin is pink now, too. It wasn’t before. And all of a sudden, you can’t even look at me.”
I looked up at him in defiance. It was like falling into a trap.
“You’re thinking about what it would be like to be with me,” he whispered into the darkness. “And that’s okay. I can’t say I haven’t wondered the same thing.”
His hand slid to my face; rough, calloused, larger than life. Our eyes bored into each other, neither of us willing to blink…
And then we were crashing together, our mouths moving messily, hungrily, taking everything that we wanted. Our tongues swirled as our bodies entwined, my hand sliding to the back of his neck to pull him closer, to drink deeper from the limitless fountain of his hard, masculine essence.
The kiss was rough, tumbling, and tasted like victory. It wasn’t the sweet kiss I’d shared with Theo, or the controlled heat I’d shared with Colson. This was raw. This was primal. This was—
“Oh!”
I gasped as Ripley lifted me into the air and slammed my ass onto the counter.
My thighs drifted apart. He pushed between them, grinding against me.
My hands roamed everywhere as he closed the gap, desperate to trace those uncharted acres of sun-bronzed flesh.
His oil-soaked skin was deliciously smooth.
The muscles coiled beneath it, hard and unyielding.
For a while we were content to devour each other in the darkness, our kisses growing even hungrier as our fingers grew bolder in their exploration. When his fingertips pierced the sleep shorts I’d hurriedly put on, I pushed him back with an open palm.
“So…” I looked up at him teasingly. “You want to take me to bed?”
Ripley laughed. This time it was a good laugh.
“Honey, I’m gonna put you through the bed.”
The butterflies in my stomach had babies. Then those babies had babies, as his stubbled mouth dove forward, burying itself in my neck.
I was the horniest I’d ever been. So wet I was soaked through, and he hadn’t even touched me yet.
“Do you think you could put me through the bed quietly?” I half-chuckled, half-sighed.
Suddenly I was lifted into the air again. Thrown over one great shoulder.
“Let’s find out,” declared Ripley, as he carried me off.