17. Flynn
17
FLYNN
I don’t know what I’m doing.
All sense has left my head. Fuck, the way I was pawing at Abi like a horny teenage boy.
I mean, I feel like a horny teenage boy.
I tug at my hair, tilting my head back and cursing at the sky. What was I thinking?
Aside from the fact that Abi is hot as fuck, and the confidence she found when she figured out the bike controls was even hotter, apparently I wasn’t thinking at all. The intensity of my attraction to her went to my head … the wrong head.
I return my gaze to her and regret it immediately.
Wild green eyes, her dark hair blowing in the sea breeze, cheeks flushed a delicious rosy pink, she’s still astride the bike, panting softly, one foot now on the ground helping support it. At least somewhere in that haze of madness I managed to kick the stand down so when I leapt off the bike I didn’t leave her with the entire weight of it.
Abi’s hands are pressed against her throat as she watches me and I want to race back to her and replace those hands with my own. Or my mouth. The sounds she made as I dragged my tongue over her skin were indescribable.
“Flynn,” she says, voice barely audible over the crashing of the waves and thundering of my heart.
I don’t know what idea was stupider: that I let that happen in the first place, or that I stopped it. Because damn, I doubt I’m ever getting an experience like that again.
I don’t even know how it started. I think it was Abi’s hand on my leg, refusing to let me go, my chest pressing against her back, and when my dick—my still hard dick—came in contact with her ass, I lost all reason.
Abi climbs off the bike and approaches me, the same way someone would approach a spooked horse. “Flynn,” she says again. “Breathe.”
Why’s she telling me to breathe?
Oh.
Because I’ve stopped.
That thundering in my ears isn’t just the ocean.
I suck down a lungful of air.
“I’m sorry,” I croak. I think I’m repeating myself.
“Why are you sorry?” Abi asks, her eyes uncertain and her steps towards me tentative.
“I shouldn’t have done that. Touched you like … that.”
She pauses right in front of me and tips her chin up to look me directly in the face. I want to avoid her gaze. I want to shift away .
But at the same time, I want to close the distance between us again, to carry her back to my bike and lay her across it.
I want to strip those tight, tight jeans off her body and spread her out.
I want to savour her, get down on my knees in the sand and worship her.
“I started it,” Abi says, lifting a hand between us, as if to touch my face, but she doesn’t make contact and it hovers between us for a moment before she lowers it again. “And I wouldn’t mind finishing it.”
Oh god. I thought she’d be running for the hills by now, if not because I just groped her like a fumbling teenager, but because the second her hand touched my cock—through my pants—I flung myself halfway across the beach away from her. I’m super classy like that.
“Sadie,” I blurt. I shake my head. “Dallas.”
Oh, fuck. Dallas. Katie and Olivia. They’re going to destroy me for this.
The flush in Abi’s cheeks fades rapidly. “Dallas doesn’t really get a say in my life anymore,” she says. “I’m quite capable of making my own decisions.” She has that flinty look in her eye, the one she gets when she thinks I’m implying she’s not capable of handling things on her own.
“I know you are, but I’m a really, really bad one.”
Abi laughs. “I don’t know why you think that. You’re one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. Like an actual nice guy, not one of the ones who just thinks he’s nice.”
That may be true, but how nice I am doesn’t come into it. It’s my attachment issues that are the problem, and my complication isn’t my avoidance of attachment.
I already feel a pull to Abi. I want to be around her all the time. I want to learn every little detail about her, and I know that if any more happens between us, that feeling is only going to intensify.
It’ll build and build, then one day she’ll be done with me and want to get as far away from me as possible.
Except here, she can’t get away from me because we work together, and she doesn’t have an option of getting away from me, because of Sadie.
So long as Sadie’s at Wildflower Ridge, Abi is going to be around.
My heart has taken a beating more than once over the years when people have left me, especially my parents and Katie when she left Kauri Creek for a few years. But to have to see Abi every day and know she’s done with me, that she doesn’t want me back … I don’t think my heart would recover when she chooses to leave me.
“It’s too complicated,” I mutter, turning my head away from her.
“Complicated?”
“Yeah.” I sigh and step around her. I can’t explain all of this.
“What’s complicated about a bit of fun between two consenting adults?” Abi calls after me as I trudge back to the bike and flick up the stand, hefting its weight and preparing to drag it back across the soft sand at the top of the beach.
“Your daughter, our jobs, your ex being my boss, me.” I point to the helmets sitting in the sand. “Can you bring those? ”
Abi huffs out a frustrated breath, and I get it. I’m frustrated too. The ache in my balls still hasn’t gone away. I’m beginning to wonder if it ever will.
“None of that has to be complicated,” Abi says, grabbing the helmets and following me up the beach. “We keep what happens between us, well, between us. We keep it separate from work. We keep it away from Sadie.”
I waver. She makes it sound so simple. A bit of fun between friends. Mutual pleasure. Some shared orgasms.
My dick would appreciate it, I’m sure.
I don’t respond as I struggle to push the bike through the sand. Should have just ridden it, but apparently I felt like punishing myself.
By the time I reach my ute I’m breathing hard. I’m grateful that the task of getting across the sand without ending up squished under my bike kept my focus for a few minutes. It gave me a moment of space.
I load the bike onto the tray of my ute, and strap it down, then turn to face Abi who’s standing beside the vehicle, looking a little lost. “You missed explaining away one of the complications,” I say and my tone is bitter.
“Which one?” Abi asks.
“Me.”
She narrows her eyes. “You don’t want to?”
I groan and rub a hand through my hair. “Of course I want to. Isn’t that much obvious?” I snap. I don’t mean to, but I need this whole thing to be over. I need to go back to yesterday when we were friendly workmates and I just had a pointless crush on Abi. I never expected she’d reciprocate my attraction. Somehow we’re going to have to go back to how things were before, but now I know the feel of her body under my hands, the taste of her skin and the breathy little sounds she makes when she’s turned on … I don’t know how I’m ever going to do it.
“I don’t know,” Abi says, her tone cutting. “You seem to be throwing everything in as an excuse. If you don’t want me, just tell me.”
“That’s not it. Fuck.” I slam the tailgate closed, then take the helmets from Abi and toss them into the backseat. “I don’t know how to do this.” I gesture between us.
“It’s just sex.” Abi shrugs. “There’s only one thing that should be hard.” She smirks and fuuuck . It might kill me. Always in control Abi making dick jokes.
“I’ve never done it,” I blurt out.
“The friends with benefits thing?” She looks thoughtful. “Huh. More a one and done type of guy?” Her eyes widen. “I’m not judging. You can have sex with whoever you choose, as often as you choose.”
Oh great, I’m going to have to spell it out for her. My neck heats and I know I’m going to be blushing hard in about three seconds flat.
“No, Abigail.” I nearly growl her name. “I’ve never done the friends with benefits thing. I’ve never done the one night stand thing. I’ve never done the sex thing at all.”