Chapter 46
forty-six
. . .
CONNOR
Wilmington feels like a finish line I don’t want to cross.
The last few days have been a blur of events, early morning workouts, long hours at the pool, and every stolen minute in between spent tangled up with Whitney, half the time in bed and half the time talking shit over a controller before one of us gives up pretending we want to do anything but each other.
Tomorrow we go back to Coral Cove. Back to real life.
Back to all the things waiting for us there, and I’m not ready.
I lean back against the hotel room couch and look at her properly, which is exactly the problem. Sleep shorts. Tank top slipping off one shoulder. Hair still a little messy. Mouth pink from biting at it every time she tries not to smile.
She looks good enough to make concentration impossible, which is probably how I end up in my boxer briefs in the first place. Strip gaming seemed like a funny idea until Whitney started dominating and every misstep cost me another piece of clothing.
“Pretty sure this is rigged,” I mutter.
Whitney laughs. “No, you’re just easy.”
“Easy?”
“To distract.”
Before I can answer, the game freezes. The sound cuts. The screen flashes.
I examine the controller. “Looks like it’s the Bluetooth connection.”
“Well, didn’t you time that perfectly?” she teases. “And here I thought I was going to get a show.”
When she wiggles her brows, she’s so damn cute, I almost think about stripping down and letting her declare victory right now. But I also know Whitney likes to earn things.
“I think I’ve got a backup.”
I grab the old corded controller from my bag so we can keep going, but when I turn back, Whitney is watching me in that way she does now, like everything between us has gone too far for either of us to pretend it’s still light.
I sit beside her again, close enough that our thighs touch, the corded controller in my hand., but neither of us looks at the screen.
“You okay?” she asks quietly.
I look at her. “No, not really.”
That gets her attention.
“Why?”
“Because tomorrow we go home.”
Whitney goes still.
I keep my hand on the cord because it gives me something to do. “And I can’t stop thinking about what that means.”
“For us?” she asks.
The fact that she says us nearly does me in.
“Yeah,” I say. “For us.”
She looks down, then back at me. “I’ve been thinking about it, too.”
I slide the controller from her lap and set it aside. My hand settles on her thigh instead, slow enough that she can pull away if she wants, but she doesn’t.
“Whit.”
Her breath catches. “Yeah?”
“We don’t have to pretend this is still about the game.”
Her mouth parts a little. “Connor—”
“Talk to me.”
For a second, I think she’s going to dodge it. Make a joke. Throw us both a rope back to safer ground.
Instead, she says, “I like when you stop trying so hard to be good.”
Her words settle into me.
I lean in a little. “Yeah?”
She nods, cheeks pink now. “Yeah.”
“What else?”
Her eyes flick to my mouth, then to the cord still in my hand.
“I like when you talk to me,” she answers softly.
A slow grin pulls at my mouth. “That so?”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s flustered now. “You know what I mean.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
Whitney exhales and looks at me like she hates that I’m making her do this and likes it, too. “I like when you’re not as careful. When you’re a little rough.”
That’s closer.
I let my thumb drag once over her thigh. “Still not enough.”
Her breath stutters. “Connor.”
“Use your words, baby.”
That does it. I see it in her face.
Her voice drops. “I like when you say filthy things like you mean them.”
I go still, because there it is. Honest and shy at the same time, and somehow that gets me worse than if she’d said it boldly.
I glance down at the cord, then back at her. She watches me do it. And just like that, I know.
My hand lifts slightly, the cord loose between my fingers. “You thinking about this?”
She swallows.
“Whitney.”
Her lashes lower. “Maybe.”
I move in until my mouth is close to hers. “Maybe what?”
“Maybe I’ve thought about you tying me up.” Her words are barely a whisper.
The air leaves my lungs slow.
I don’t rush to respond. I just look at her because this matters. The heat of it matters, sure, but not more than the trust underneath it.
“You want that?” I ask.
She nods.
I shake my head once. “Say it.”
“I want you to tie me up.”
“Tonight?” I confirm.
“Yes.”
My hand slides to her jaw, thumb brushing once over her cheek. “Yeah,” I say, voice rough already. “I want that, too.”
Her breath catches.
I hold her gaze. “I want you every way you’ll let me have you, baby. But if you want me to stop?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“Good girl.”
Her breath catches on the words.
I set the controller aside and pull her into my lap.
She comes easily, one knee sliding over mine, warm and soft and already a little shaky, and the feel of her there hits me harder than it should.
It reminds me of when we hung out in Coral Cove.
How I wanted her then, but I couldn’t let myself have her.
Now? I’m so far gone for this girl. And despite my reputation and rocky relationship with her brother, she’s my priority now.
While I’m dying to tie her up and play with her, I also need to ease her into it.
Lifting her tank top up and over her head, I drop my mouth to one tight nipple. Her hands thread into my hair, gripping me tight as I lavish one hard peak with my tongue, and then the other. As I tease her, she grinds her warm center down against my crotch.
Fuck. I need to see her. Need to see how wet she is.
Hauling her up by the waist, I lift her off me.
“What—”
“Take those little shorts off, baby. Show me how wet you are.”
Her knees wobble with my directness, but she immediately dips her fingers into her waistband and strips off her shorts and panties.
I take the opportunity to lift my hips and shed my boxer briefs. Then, taking in the sight of her before me, I stroke my hard cock as the tip leaks with need for her.
Whitney watches my languid strokes, as one hand slips between her thighs to play with her clit.
She continues stroking through her slit, one hand reaching up to grope her breast, the skin there still wet from my mouth.
“Is that pussy ready for me, SailorGirl?”
“You tell me.” She removes her hand from between her thighs, then reaches out to paint her soaked fingers against my lips. My tongue flicks out, my piercing grazing along the pads of her fingers as I lap up every taste of her.
“Even sweeter than Hummingbird cake.”
Her lips twitch at the callback to the day she smashed her cake against me and I licked her finger the exact same way I am now.
Watching her fingers slick with her need for me has a primal ache rising in my chest. I want something with her I’ve never had. I want her bare. Nothing between us.
“Birth control?” I ask.
“Yeah, IUD,” she says, her lids growing heavy with want as she moves to straddle me. “You want me bare, DreamBoat?”
“You have no fucking idea.”
She reaches between us and grips my cock with her other hand, her thumb circling around the sensitive head. Fuck. I’ll never not love how she touches me.
“My recent test was clear,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to her lips.
“Same.”
But knowing building back trust is important, I reach for my phone to pull up the medical portal with my test results and show it to her.
She studies the screen for a moment.
“This is from eight months ago.” She bites at her lower lip. “You haven’t been tested more recently?”
“I haven’t been with anyone since I was tested. Since we met online.”
“Connor,” she says with surprise in her voice.
“It was always you, SailorGirl.”
She drops my phone onto the couch then spreads her knees wider and settles against me, her soft warmth pressing down against my hardness.
She rocks against me, back and forth, coating me with her arousal.
“Fuck, baby. That’s going to ruin me.”
She smiles, loving the power she has over me.
I’m so focused on how perfect her pussy feels sliding down my cock, that I almost forget about tying her up.
I reach for the controller cord, letting it slide across her thighs as I gather it in my hands.
She shivers, then her breathing changes, and I can see how much this turns her on.
I take her wrists gently behind her back and slowly wrap the cord loosely around them, watching her face the whole time. “Too tight?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I like it.”
My hand slips between her thighs to find her soaked. “Yeah, you do.”
With her wrists bound, she doesn’t tense, she softens. And that’s the hottest part. It’s not that I can hold her still, but that she lets me, and then looks at me like she knows I’ll be careful with her while I ruin her.
I could tease her, make her come with my fingers, but I know what she really wants. My cock.
I slip my fingers out of her and press the head of my cock to her entrance.
“Eyes on me, baby.”
She holds my gaze as I slowly lower her onto my cock, inch by inch until I’m fully seated.
Our eyes stay locked, but as the sensation of her slick pussy sheathing my bare cock hits, a feral whimper escapes me. She’s so warm. So wet. So perfect. “Fuck, Whit. You feel incredible.”
“Yeah? I’m so full.”
“You like me deep? Stretching you like this?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She rocks against me. “It’s so good.”
I lift her hips up an inch, then lower her back down. “You’re taking me so well.”
With her hands bound, I hold her steady, guiding her movements, reading her face to understand what she likes, what she needs.
“Fuck, Whit. Look at you. Giving me this. So pretty when you trust me.”
Her breath breaks on a soft sound, and that alone nearly does me in.
I keep hold of her, one hand firm at her waist, the other steadying her bound wrists as I guide her through it, slow at first, letting her feel every inch, every drag, every shift of me inside her.
Her face tells me everything—what she likes, what undoes her, what makes her soften and what makes her shiver—and I read it all.
“That’s it, baby,” I murmur, my mouth brushing hers. “Just like that.”
She rocks down again, deeper this time, and her eyes flutter.
“Connor.”
“Yeah.” I kiss her once, hard and hungry. “I’ve got you.”
That’s what finally does it—how open she is with me, how she lets me hold her there and take care of the pace, the pressure, all of it. It should feel like control, but what hits harder is the trust. The way she gives it to me so easily now, like she already knows I’ll make it good for her.
My forehead drops to hers.
“Good girl,” I say, rougher now. “You’re doing so good for me.”
Her whole body answers that. She starts to shake, just a little, and I feel it everywhere.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “There she is.”
She’s gone soft and flushed and beautiful, moving with me now, letting me keep her right where I want her. Every little sound she makes pushes me closer to the edge; every look she gives me worse than the last.
“You’re gonna ruin me like this,” I mutter, and she gives a breathless laugh that turns into something smaller when I pull her down again. “Christ, Whitney.”
Her name comes out like a plea and a curse all at once.
I kiss her to swallow the sound she makes next, hold her steady as the whole room narrows down to her in my lap, her mouth against mine, the trust in her face, the heat of her wrapped around me.
By the time she breaks apart, I’m already half gone, talking her through it because I can’t seem to stop, because watching her let go with my hands on her feels like more than I know what to do with.
“That’s it, baby. That’s it. I’ve got you.”
Her thighs tighten around me as the last of her orgasm rolls through her, and feeling her come undone like that is enough to drag me over the edge right after her.
For a second, neither of us moves.
She stays in my lap, breathing hard, forehead against mine, hands still bound behind her, and I press one unsteady kiss to her mouth before I ease the cord free.
Then I lift her wrists and kiss the marks left behind, one at a time.
“Still okay?” I ask, my voice wrecked.
Whitney opens her eyes and looks at me like I’ve just given her something she didn’t know how badly she wanted.
“Yeah,” she whispers.
That should settle me.
It doesn’t.
It just makes me want to pull her closer and keep her there.