Chapter 29 Gabriel
Gabriel
My mouth lands on hers. Desperate. Starving for her.
She opens for me like a flower in bloom, and I shudder at the feel of her tongue and her body entwined with mine.
Her arms curl around my neck, and I palm her breast through the silky fabric of her bikini top, her nipple a tight little bead under my touch.
I slide my other hand down to grip her ass and pull her against me, my erection stroking against her clit through our clothing.
She moans into my mouth, and I swim us toward the ladder positioned against the wall of the pool and under the blue triangular sails stretched above.
Once I have her safe from the possibility of prying eyes, I lift my mouth from hers, then ease her to sit on an upper rung.
Her breaths come in rapid little pants as I unwind her arms from my neck and place each of her hands on the railing.
She holds on, then blows out a surprised gust of air when I slide my palms down both of her thighs, spreading them wide around my hips.
I move down to tuck her feet behind the lower rung. “Can’t have you floating away.”
When I can focus on her body without fear of her going under, I explore, my mouth and hands roaming. Owning. Too hungry to stop.
Every night, we go to bed with three feet between us.
Every night she reminds me to stay on my side, then, sometime after, she wraps herself around me in her sleep while I respect her boundaries and keep my hands to myself.
I’ve lost the ability to distinguish between heaven and hell. Nights with her are both.
Now, she wants to use sex to drown out pain. It never works for more than the minutes it takes to find release. Then it’s over, and you think and you regret.
Please don’t let me be her regret.
Her teeth sink into the corner of her bottom lip.
Memories bombard me. Of my fingers pressed into her lush, wet curves as I braced her against this ladder and sank inside her.
Pool sex was dumb sex. There was always a little too much friction as the saltwater washed away her natural lubrication, but every once in a while we didn’t make it to one of the lounge chairs or inside the house.
Sometimes, she grabbed me by the dick and laughingly coaxed, “Here. Now.” And I squeezed her ass, tore off her suit and feasted on her.
I trail my lips over her neck with tiny nips and sucks, the water salty, her skin silk beneath my tongue.
I braided her hair for her this morning.
Not because she needed me to do it, but because we both constantly seek excuses to touch each other.
Now, I wind that rope around my fist and push the triangles of her swim top aside to get to the pretty brown nipples hidden beneath.
My mouth closes on one. I flick it with my tongue then suck with the exact amount of pressure that always drives her insane. I could obsess over these breasts for hours. The feel of her on my tongue.
She groans low in her throat and rests her hands against my shoulders.
I delve inside her bottoms and push the fabric to the side with questing, confident fingers. When she squirms, my rock-hard cock flexes in my briefs, and I smile against her skin.
She isn’t as slippery as I need her to be—not because she isn’t aroused—but because the water fights against us. That’s okay. I know how to work her, even here. Even now.
Gently, gently, I dip a single finger inside the snug heat of her and press my thumb against the hard bud of her clit. I crook my finger and massage that place she loves, and, just like that, she’s a silky slide against my palm. I collect what she gives me and use it to circle her clit.
A wordless cry falls from her lips, and I glance down to see her toes curled up tight as her body bows toward mine.
I find her mouth with mine and swallow her sobs of pleasure.
They’re mine, and the last thing we need is for security to hear her and rush out, guns drawn, looking to save her from me.
I lift my head. “Cover your mouth.”
“Wh-what?”
“Put your hand over your mouth unless you want your guards to come running when you scream.”
A startled wheeze escapes her. “I won’t scream.”
“I promise, you will.” I grin and slide two fingers back inside her. “If it turns you on to have an audience, go ahead. Maybe they’ll learn something. Class is in session.”
She squeaks a laugh, then moans when I move. “Oh God.”
“Gabriel. Not God. Honestly, are you even paying attention?”
She thrusts against my hand.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I fill my lungs with oxygen and sink beneath the surface, using the ladder to control my descent. Her hands clutch my shoulders, then her fingers wrap in my hair.
I’ve got approximately ninety seconds before I run out of air. It’s an ambitious mission. Usually, I prefer a slow build.
I tug her bikini bottoms to the side and start with a nuzzling kiss, then I seal my lips around her clit. She squeals, then yanks on my hair, dragging me upward.
I break the surface of the water, searching her face in concern, then scanning our surroundings. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Color paints her beautiful cheeks. She thinks I can’t tell when she blushes, and I love it more because of it.
“Nothing’s wrong. You just—You can’t do that,” she says.
“No?” I ask warily.
“You’ll drown.”
“You’re adorable.” I suppress my smile. “I’ll come up for air when I need it. But if I do die in oral service to my wife, put it on my headstone. Because I’ll be going out a goddamn legend.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
I smirk, fill my lungs once more, and sink until I have her under my mouth, exactly the way I want her.
After twenty seconds of sucking and flicking, her hand leaves my hair. I look up through the water to find Sydney with her hand clamped across her mouth and watching me. Ten seconds after that, she unhooks her ankles from the ladder and drapes them over my shoulders, bucking under my mouth.
God, I missed this. I know the shape of her by feel. Know every intimate frill and petal. What makes her scream and what makes her sob. I ease two fingers back inside her. My left hand squeezes her ass cheek, spreading her so I can graze that sensitive opening with my fingertips.
My cock aches for her, but I need her to come first.
Even through the water and her self-imposed muzzle, I hear her stifled cry. Her bikini top has fallen down farther and drapes around her rib cage, her breasts wet and heaving with every one of her ragged breaths.
She comes before my lungs even start to burn, her abdominals clenching rhythmically when she orgasms, and her thighs clamping around my ears.
When I come up for air, she lowers her hand from her mouth with a heavy-lidded smile. I kiss her. I kiss her and kiss—completely lost. One of my hands roams her body, and the other releases my aching length, notching myself at her entrance.
I breathe against her mouth, “I love you, Sydney.”
Her hands clutch my shoulders, but she stops moving, utterly, devastatingly silent in her reaction to my words.
And I realize what I did. And remember what this is to her. “Sorry. I forgot you . . . forgot me.”
“No. Don’t a-apologize . . . I . . .” She tries to shift away to see my eyes. “I—” She makes a growling sound of frustration. “I-I’m sorry.”
“I don’t love you. I’m sorry.” That’s what she said when I told her who I was to her. When I kissed her in the library, it was “I like you.”
It’s not fair to be disappointed by something I already knew. This isn’t a rejection.
I don’t allow her to look into my eyes. I don’t have control over the muscles in my face, yet. If she sees that pain, it’ll make both of us feel like shit. “I said ‘I love you’ out of habit and made it weird. Now you’re making it weirder.” I force my voice to sound teasing.
A small dent forms between her eyebrows, and she shakes her head. She wanted something fun to replace her memories of trauma, and I tried to turn it into some heartfelt expression of feelings.
She blows out a small breath, then moves subtly against my still painful hardness. Right. Because we were in the middle of something, and she’s not the one suddenly drowning in grief.
If there’s anyone who should know the difference between making love and fucking, it’s me. She wants to get off. There’s nothing wrong with that.
I itch to dive into a bottle. Bourbon. Tequila. I’d take a fucking bottle of mouthwash. Instead, I slap her clit with my dick. “You’re not due for your birth control shot for another month, but if you want me to use a condom, we’ll have to go to the bedroom.”
“Here. Now. I—I trust you . . . Gabriel.”
I almost allow a bitter laugh to escape, but I push it down before it becomes more than a thought. This moment has no room for me to be an entitled ass.
But, come on. She doesn’t love me, but, for the first time in our lives, she believes in me. Eight years of sobriety wasn’t enough to earn it the first time. I had her love, but never her faith in me.
Now I have her trust, but not her love. It’s funny in a twisted, tragic way.
I don’t plunge inside her yet. I need to get her out of the water. She can’t have the first sexual experience she remembers with me hurt from saltwater friction. She doesn’t understand what she’s asking for.
With a tug on her hips, I pull her off the ladder and flip her around, then lift her until she’s torso-down on the edge of the pool with her ass out of the water. Easy enough. Accessible, yet still guarded from any prying eyes.
With my feet braced on the rungs, I pull her bottoms down to her thighs, line up, and hold on to the railing for leverage. “Reach down and play with your clit. You’ll have more fun that way.”
There. That sounded like a man nowhere close to dissolving into romantic drivel. We’re two friends with benefits about to use each other’s bodies for a good time.
I ease inside slowly, in case she’s nervous. The feel of her around me is so fucking good my brain buzzes with pleasure, my body straining for more, need a drumbeat pulse inside me.
“Oh. Oh God.” She slaps the pool deck with her free hand.
Concerned, I retreat and rub her lower back. “Was that you tapping out?”
“No. Don’t stop. Please.”
I push back into her. Slowly, at first, then faster and harder. Her body fits mine like a glove, tight and sweet and achingly familiar. I don’t let my mind wander to thoughts of anything except the physical. Redirect every memory that forces itself into my head.
I work her over, focusing on nothing but getting both of us off. The same way I’ve done with so many partners in my past. Ones whose names and faces I can’t recall because I didn’t want to know or, usually, because I was too drunk to care.
I tip my head back and look at the cobalt-blue sail above us—not at her—and hold back until she comes one more time, squeezing me as her entire body shakes with release.
My wife is the only woman I’ve ever come inside without a condom.
It was one of the few things I was vigilant about.
I never wanted to bring a child into this world with a random hookup who was probably as fucked up as I was.
If I come inside Sydney now, it’ll feel important, a confession of feelings she doesn’t want from me.
Pull out. She won’t care either way. For my own sanity, I have to stop laying every piece of my soul at the feet of a woman who’ll trample it all over again.
But I can’t.
I look down at the curve of her cheek and the rope of dark hair falling over her shoulder. I’m hers, even if she’s never been truly mine.
My abdomen and chest meet her warm wet back. I wrap myself around her, and I give in to my release, holding on as pleasure tears me apart in a nearly painful spasm. I clamp my mouth shut and love her in silence.
Eventually, our breathing calms, our heartbeats slow, and the moment ends. She shifts beneath me, and I separate from her. Sweet, sated eyes watch me through lowered lashes as I drag my wet briefs up.
I give her a cocky pat on the ass. Then, I vault out of the pool with a splash, lift her by the waist to stand, and hand her a towel. I share my water bottle with her, because hydration after sex is important, and she beams at me like I’m her hero. I smile back.
Then I excuse myself.
Then I go to the guest room bathroom.
Then I take the longest, hottest shower of my life, lean against the tile wall, slide to the floor, and lose my shit where no one will ever know.