CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Dublin
I don’t see it coming.
One second I’m standing there, trying to catch my breath, trying to find the words that make sense and the next . . . his mouth is on mine.
Urgent. Demanding. Desperate. Stealing the air right out of my lungs.
I freeze. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
But I followed him here, didn’t I? Through the storm. Through the dark. All the way here to his house.
Maybe I knew.
Is it why I followed him?
The thought barely forms before it’s swallowed whole because I surrender. Not slowly. Not carefully. Completely.
It’s like I’ve been waiting for this, wanting this, and as much as I’d rationalized that I didn’t, the way I just dove head first into this moment says otherwise.
My hands come up before I can stop them. They fist in his wet shirt, pulling him closer like he’s the only thing keeping me from losing my footing.
And God, I feel it. That same violent and delectable chemistry from Cabo. It’s stronger now—more dangerous—because this time I know exactly what it is, and I still don’t stop.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, holding me there, grounding and ungrounding me all at once. His other hand tightens on my waist like he’s afraid I might disappear if he lets go.
Push him away.
Stop this.
I don’t, because the second I try, his tongue sweeps between my lips again and the thoughts disappear.
The kiss isn’t careful. It isn’t slow. It’s laced with desperation like he needs this.
Like I do.
And that realization alone should be enough to make me pull back. It isn’t. Because for one reckless, terrifying moment I’m back in that bar in Cabo, walking up to a man I want and not caring about the consequences.
Only this time, I’m sober. And I know exactly what this could cost me.
The kiss breaks just enough for air. Our chests heave. Our gazes stay locked.
“This . . .” My voice wavers. “We can’t, Cole. I can’t do this.”
Even as I say it, my fingers are still curled in his shirt, still holding on, still wanting more.
But he doesn’t argue or try to convince me otherwise. Rather, he just stares at me, which is almost worse. There’s nothing calculated in his expression. No charm. No ego. Just something raw and open and dangerously close to breaking.
His jaw flexes, muscles ticking beneath the skin, with his hands still on me like he doesn’t know how to let go.
Like he doesn’t want to.
And the way he’s looking at me—like I’m his salvation and his damnation . . . God. How can this connection feel this strong, this fast?
His thumb brushes my side. It’s enough to send a delicious heat through me that has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with need.
My control is slipping.
“Dublin,” he says my name low and rough like it’s been dragged out of him.
My name. His eyes. The taste of his kiss still on my tongue.
That’s all it takes.
We crash back together, but this time there’s no hesitation. No shock. No pretending.
This is his escape and my reward.
His hands tighten, pulling me flush against him, and I go willingly. Meeting him. Matching him. Giving back everything he’s taking.
There’s desperation in every touch. An unsated hunger in every press of our bodies, like we’re both trying to make up for something we never fully had.
His mouth moves against mine like he’s memorizing, like he’s claiming, like he’s trying to forget everything else that’s happening outside of this moment.
And I let him.
Because right now this is the only thing that feels real. The only thing that makes sense. The only thing I can hold on to without it slipping away.
This is insane. Reckless. Everything I swore I’d never do.
And yet . . . I don’t stop.
Because there’s chemistry. There’s lust.
But then I tear my lips from his, breath coming fast, trying to steady myself. This will cost me everything.
“We can’t do this,” I repeat.
He exhales slowly, his fingers tightening on my waist. “Now. Later. Does it matter when it’s inevitable?”
The words settle between us and instead of pulling away, instead of ending this before it gets worse, I step fully into his house.
I stay.
His hand slips from my waist, finds the door behind me, and slams it.
The sound echoes through the house. Final. Determined.
My pulse spikes. “Cole . . .” But I don’t step away.
I don’t reach for the handle.
Because my body has already made the choice.
He steps into me again, cradling my jaw. “You followed me,” he says quietly.
It’s not a question and somehow this feels more dangerous.
“I was worried about you.” The words are breathless. True.
His jaw tightens. “Worried,” he repeats like the word doesn’t sit right.
I should explain, should justify, but I don’t, because the truth is already between us. I can’t leave.
His hand skims across the side of my waist.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he murmurs.
“I know.”
“But you did anyway.”
“Yes.”
A beat. A breath. A choice.
And then I stop fighting it. Just this once. Just tonight.
I look at him, every nerve in my body alive. Every warning signal blaring but ignored.
“Tell me you want this, Dublin. Tell me—”
“Yes.”
The second the breathless word leaves my lips, everything shifts. His hand tightens. His mouth finds mine again.
And this time, there is no turning back.
We’re a chaotic mess of hands and lips and heat.
Wet fabric clings and slides and tangles between us, making everything harder and slower, but somehow only fuels the urgency.
Because we don’t slow down. We don’t think. And we sure as hell don’t stop.
His kiss is deeper now, rougher, reminding me of what I buried years ago. Something unfinished. Something I told myself I’d forgotten and walked away from.
But I didn’t. God, how I didn’t forget.
My hands slide beneath the soaked fabric of his shirt, pushing it up, needing skin. I need to ground myself in this moment that feels like it’s spinning too fast to control.
He breaks the kiss just long enough to drag his lips over my jaw and down my neck. His breath is hot against my skin despite the chill from being wet.
He helps pull his own shirt over his head, our connection only breaking for the brief moment before we come back together.
My hands roam. Up his back. Over his shoulders. Fingertips trailing down every crevice and dent of sculpted abs and then dip beneath the waistband of his gym shorts.
Thank God for loose shorts.
The contemplation is fleeting though because thoughts evaporate the minute my hand closes around his rock-hard cock.
“Dublin.” My name is a groaned warning. A confession. A need.
The sound sends shivers through me that has nothing to do with the rain and everything to do with anticipation. If his lips, if his groan, can do this to my body—sate an ache that burns this bright—then I can only imagine what the rest of him will do to me.
“I need this. Need you.” The words are murmured against that sensitive spot just beneath my ear that sets me on fire. Words that have no place in this first time together but that somehow do.
But the thought vanishes as his thumb and finger lightly pinch my nipple and mainline sensation straight to my core.
“Cole.” Breathless. “Please.” Even more so.
We stumble forward together, half-walking, half-falling, as we bump into walls, into a high table in the foyer, into anything that gets in the way of where we’re going.
Neither of us cares.
A laugh almost escapes but it’s swallowed by another kiss. And we’re halfway up the stairs before he pushes me to sit on one, his hand at the back of my neck, as he slows the moment down to steal another deep, seductive kiss from me.
I feel like everything slows so I can feel it—the kiss to end all kisses.
The soft carpet against my back. The drips of water falling off his hair onto my chest. The warmth of his tongue.
The demand in his fingertips as he spreads my thighs and draws lazy circles on the outside of my leggings—enough to make me gasp into his mouth and enough to tease me with what’s to come.
The moment—the kiss, the tease—doesn’t last. Not when this moment is built on urgency. On need. On something neither of us is pretending to control anymore.
We move again. Up the stairs. Down the hall. The world narrowing to just this—the way our bodies keep finding each other like they were always meant to be.
The bedroom door hits the wall as we push it open without breaking contact. Clothes come off in an awkward dance made more difficult by the wet fabric.
Shoes kicked. Clothes stripped, making a slopping sound when they hit the floor. Underwear. Bra.
And then it’s just him, just me, and nothing left.
There’s a brief moment where our eyes roam. His breath hitches as his gaze scrapes over my body.
“Jesus, Dublin,” he murmurs while my fingers itch to touch and taste and enjoy every long, hard inch of him.
My back hits the bed seconds later, Cole collapsing on top of me, one arm propping him up as his other cups my breast.
My hands roam, desperate to touch every scar, every muscle, every shiver that ripples in response.
His fingers slide down my torso leaving fire in their wake, and as they move between my thighs, he finds evidence of what he does to me.
“You’re fucking soaked,” he groans, his lips against mine.
And for a brief moment, his words hit both of us—the double entendre—as my hair soaks the pillow beneath me and we laugh.
But that laugh is smothered within seconds when he coats his fingers in my arousal and then slides them back up to add friction to my clit.
My knees fall apart even farther giving him complete access because it feels so damn good.
The pace. The pressure. The way I can feel his eyes on me watching to make sure I’m enjoying his tempo.
His lips meet mine again. A slow lick of his tongue against mine. A nip of my bottom lip as my breath becomes harsher and my head begins to dizzy from the pleasure.
My hands fumble down his chest, over his hip, and circle around his cock the same moment he pushes two fingers into me.
My moan becomes a mewl as his groan vibrates through the room.
I forget that his cock is in my hand as he begins to work his fingers in and out of me, hitting that sweet spot that has me bowing my back and bucking my hips.
Without thought or fear of embarrassment, I slide my free hand down my abdomen to my clit and add friction there while he’s working me out.
“Christ, that’s sexy,” he says, breaking from our kiss to watch both our hands work in unison to drive me higher and higher.
His cock pulses in my hand and I’m so turned by the whole thing—the way his teeth dig into his bottom lip, how I want to lick the rivulet of rain sliding from his hair down the side of his neck, how fucking hard he is for me, the tendons taut as he coaxes the orgasm from me . . .
My God.
“There you are, Trouble,” he murmurs, his lips meeting mine again. “You’re almost there.”
I tighten around him as he moves his fingers over and over and then . . . the orgasm slams into me. I knew it was coming but holy hell is it powerful. My back arches and my vision goes black as my climax roars through me, one wave after another.
Cole slides his hand up my chest to put his fingers on either side of my jaw and hold my head still as he kisses the panted breath out of me. His tongue does a slow delicious sweep of my mouth.
I pull him into me so I can lick that damn raindrop up the line of his throat and move my lips at his ear. “That was worth the wait. Now it’s your turn. Fuck me, Cole.”
His chuckle is a throaty seduction. He takes his fingers and sucks them, his tongue swirling around their tips as he tastes me on them.
“Fucking hell,” he groans as he repositions on his haunches between my thighs before reaching over and grabbing a condom. His eyes devour every inch of me as he rolls on the protection. From between my thighs to my breasts, stuttering over my mouth before he meets my eyes.
I’m spread shamelessly wide for him. His hands slide up my thighs as he lines his cock up and pushes into me in a slow, deliberate slide.
My mouth falls open. The stretch of him. The heat it causes. The sexy tremor that ripples through his body at that first deep thrust.
His groan is low and ragged and the sound vibrates through me. Our eyes meet and despite my head swimming with how damn good he feels, I’m capable of nodding. Of telling him I’m ready for him to lose himself in me.
And that nod is all it takes.
He begins to move. Slow at first so I can adjust, but within seconds the man sets a wild rhythm that robs me of thought and steals my breath. It’s driving, insistent, rough. He’s perfection looking down at me, how he feels inside me.
The way his fingertips dig into my thighs.
How his half-hooded eyes move from watching to where he’s fucking me to my eyes and then back again.
The way he grinds his hips with every push in so I feel him everywhere.
My orgasm builds. Every thrust sharpens the ache, and every moan shows my surrender.
My nails rake lines down his thighs, a silent plea for him to lose control.
To let me watch it and feel it and own it.
Just as I think that, my body ignites again—muscles pulsing, bliss swelling, body overwhelmed.
“Dublin,” he calls out as every muscle in his body tenses, his hips relentless.
The last thrusts are frantic—shuddering, uncoordinated and incredible—and then he collapses, his body falling on top of mine. The sound he makes is raw, and it’s followed by a dazed laugh, muffled against my collarbone.
Neither of us moves for a few minutes. There’s only the sound of rain thrumming against the windows, stuttering in time with the thud of Cole’s heartbeat against my chest.
We’re a mess, tangled and sweaty and satisfied. Sex-drugged and head hazy, I can only process one thought.
Yeah, that was definitely worth the wait.