CHAPTER THREE
RIKER
I run my hand over the railing. The wood is splintering in places from all the wear and tear of the salty, wet winds that swirl sand across these boards day in and day out. I can’t even remember the last time I treated the panels with a fresh coat of stain and sealant, plus I’m pretty sure just from glancing at it that the post on the corner is completely rotted out.
“This place is turning into a real shithole,” I mutter to myself. I do that a lot these days. And it’s not like anyone’s around to stop me, or even notice. Not that it would affect people’s opinions of me. For the most part, everyone around here thinks I lost my damn mind four years ago. Fuck it. Maybe I did. “I am standing here talking to my goddamned self.”
Still resting my hand on the wood, I start tapping my fingers, a nervous habit I acquired right around the time I lost everything else. I take a swig from my bottle of beer and tilt my head into the breeze. It’s unusually warm already for this time of year, but I’m not complaining. I close my eyes and zero in on the loud rush of the wind as it dances over the crashing waves until they’re the only things I can hear. Slowly, the rest of the world disappears until I’m surrounded by a numb nothingness, and for a moment being alone isn’t so unbearable.
Until the sound of a dog barking loudly forces me to yank my eyelids up again.
QUINN
“Hey! You! ”
The man’s voice carries, even over my loud music. Still, I clearly have my earbuds in, so he doesn’t have to know that. I could easily keep running and completely ignore him. I go with that.
“Hey! I’m talking to you!”
He sounds closer. Shit. Is he following me? Considering I’ve only been running for about a mile, I could easily outrun most anyone right now. But I’ll have to come by here on the way back, and I won’t be as energized then. So I come to an abrupt stop and spin around, prepared for a fight. What I’m not prepared for is Cowboy. Or the fact that he wasn’t expecting me to come to a crashing halt midstep—made entirely obvious when he literally runs me over.
“What the fuck? Get off of me!” I’m pummeling him in the chest as hard as I can, but he’s so startled to be lying facedown on top of me that he’s having a hard time getting reacquainted with his feet.
Finally, he makes it onto his knees. Brushing the sand off his bare chest, he scowls at me. “What the hell did you do that for?” Then, squinting because the sun is in his eyes, he takes a second look at me. “You?” He doesn’t even wait for me to answer. Just drops his head back and shouts to the sky, “Come on!”
Apparently, twice is his limit, because his eyes travel in wide circles just to avoid landing on me from then on. He doesn’t even offer an apology or, God forbid, a helping hand to get me off my ass and upright again. He just stands up straight, pats the sand from his board shorts, and growls, “Dogs aren’t allowed on this beach.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? That’s why you chased me and tackled me to the ground? Because of my dog?” I scramble to my feet, fueled by an onset of fury I am only capable of when someone goes after Harley. “What are you, the fucking beach police? Why don’t you mind your own damn business? You don’t own this stretch of sand. ”
Then he does something that shocks me. He laughs. Like he’s laughing at me. Like I said something hysterical, only I have no freaking clue what that might be. And I kinda hate that feeling. I hate it so much I’m temporarily stumped. A dangerous thing when you’re standing across from a guy like Cowboy. Especially because this time around he’s not covered in nice-fitting jeans or that long-sleeved button up flannel shirt, both of which made him look like he jumped straight out of a country outfitter’s catalog.
No. Now he could easily have come flying out of a Ron Jon’s Surf Shop billboard. With his board shorts hanging low on his hips, revealing way too damn much by the way, and his seamless tan that makes his mass of muscle body only that much more fascinating, I can barely swallow my saliva fast enough to keep from drooling. And can we talk about the tattoos? Holy hell. The man is covered in some beautiful ink. I understand the conservative shirt from earlier so much more now. He has full sleeves on both arms, reaching up over his shoulders and down his chest. He has another pretty large piece on his left thigh, and who knows what’s happening on his back.
If Kirsten thought he looked like a loser in his dirty jeans with his two-day-old scruff and shaggy blond hair before, she would have a slew of new unpleasant terms for him now. So do I, incidentally. None of which my sister would be pleased to hear.
I wipe the corners of my mouth because, mentally, I’m drooling all over him. My eyes travel leisurely past his collarbone and up to his face. And. I. Want. To. Die.
He’s staring straight at me while I’m still busy staring at him. And he isn’t laughing anymore. He’s smirking. Which makes me both weak in the knees and dizzy from the heat rushing to my head .
“Funny. You suddenly don’t seem pissed off at me anymore.” He glares at me smugly. It’s like he can see straight through me with those deep-blue eyes of his. With the evening sky glowing behind him, they look eerily dark, like there’s a storm brewing inside them. Or maybe it has nothing to do with the sky. Maybe it’s just him.
“Oh, I’m still plenty pissed,” I scoff, but my attempt at anger fails now that it’s lacking in aim and motivation.
“Clearly.” He folds his arms over his chest, and I have to swallow an actual whimper at the sight of his muscles in motion. Damn him.
“Whatever, dude. If we’re done here, I’m going to take my dog and go home.” I motion for Harley to get up. He’s been lying in the sand, quietly watching us from about three feet away. “Come on, Harley.”
“What happened to his leg?” Cowboy drops down to a squat to get a better look at my dog.
“Why do you care? You hate dogs, remember?” I place my hands on my hips, mostly because I don’t really know what to do with myself right now. Then I have a flash of Kirsten in the exact same position and instantly drop them back to my sides.
“I never said I hated dogs.” And Cowboy shocks me for the second time. He looks genuinely offended and even slightly hurt.
“You fucking tackled me because of my dog.” Since my arms have no real job right now, they’re just sort of flying around dramatically, trying to move with my emotions. Which are all over the place right now, so, you know, I’m sure I look pretty ridiculous.
“I didn’t tackle you. You tripped me. And it wasn’t because I hate dogs. I just...fuck it.” He exhales loudly. “I was in a shit mood, and I was looking for someone to blame. Then your dog barked and interrupted the only moment of peace I’ve had all day, and I went with it.” He glances back up at me over his shoulder. “I’m sorry. It was an asshole move. And contrary to popular belief, I’m actually not an asshole. All the time. ”
I twist my lips back and forth to keep from smiling. I don’t know what Cowboy’s deal is, and I don’t want to know. But damn it all to hell if he keeps making me do involuntary things with my mouth.
“I didn’t trip you.” Because being stubborn is all I have left right now.
He chuckles. “Fine. You didn’t trip me. You’re right. I tackled you. On purpose. Now will you please tell me why your dog only has three legs?”
This time his charm doesn’t make my panties want to dematerialize. On the contrary. His question about Harley’s leg makes my blood run ice cold, and all the feelings I had mere seconds ago freeze with it.
I look at Cowboy one last time, then pat my thigh to cue Harley to start walking. “No.”
I start jogging back toward the house. I’m still fumbling with my earbuds, so I can hear him moving in the sand behind me.
“What the hell is your problem now?”
I spin back around, this time careful not to cut into his path again. “You are. In case you missed it, I was out here running. With earbuds. I wasn’t trying to make small talk. I was trying to blow off some steam.”
Cowboy takes a step toward me. And another. Until he’s standing so close I can feel another whimper climb up my throat. Jesus Christ, what is this man doing to me? I feel like I’m running a fever the way I’m going back and forth between chills and hot flashes.
“You’re right. Small talk really isn’t working for us.” His voice drops two octaves again like it had when he was standing annoyingly close to me outside the barn .
“No shit.” I force myself to hold his stare. The storm in his eyes is clearer than ever. I’m not the only broken person standing here. He’s just as fucked up as I am. And even though that thought alone should make me break into a sprint toward home immediately, it doesn’t.
“You really wanna blow off some steam?” His deep voice rumbles past my ears along with the wind.
Still feeling the pierce of his eyes as they keep me locked into place, all I can do is nod. I don’t have to ask what he has in mind. The tension between us is roaring louder than the ocean behind us. I should be terrified. Scared of drowning in it. Of drowning in him. But I’m not. Because you can’t drown when you’re used to being at the bottom of the ocean. The waves don’t scare me. They’re just a welcome promise of change. And I go with them.
Following him up the private boardwalk up to the house, I’m suddenly having second thoughts about this whole thing. For starters, I’m disgusting. Meanwhile, he looks like he just jumped out of the shower. Not me. I’m not only drenched in sweat and covered in sand, I’m still walking around with several layers of dust and grime from hanging out in the barn all afternoon.
The fact that none of this seems to be an issue for him tells me one of two things: either he finds me irresistible beyond reason, and any and all senses that would give away my current condition—e.g., sight and smell—have been completely dulled because of it, or his standards are so ungodly low that even a nasty, dirty, soulless girl like me can meet them, in which case I should probably turn around and walk away right now, because if he’s willing to sleep with me...well, let’s be real, I wouldn’t be willing to sleep with me.
Sad fact is, it’s probably the latter, which brings me back to my second thoughts, and now third because for some unknown reason I’m still following him .
“This is your place?” It’s bigger than Kirsten’s. I wonder if she knows there’s a house this size within a three-mile radius of hers.
Cowboy points at the small, washed-out door beside the garage. “This is my place.”
Ah. Yes. This makes way more sense.
“You the caretaker or something?”
He just grunts in response as he leads the way inside. I close my eyes, bracing myself for whatever I’m about to find. Then I remember the places I’ve been and the things I’ve seen and realize nothing inside this multimillion-dollar beach house could possibly be all that terrifying, and I open them again.
It’s about what I expected. A studio apartment with a mishmash of old furniture. Two wicker patio chairs around a glass table make up the dining area, he’s got a mattress with faded brown sheets for a bed, and in the corner there’s what appears to be an old recliner doubling as his dresser. Or dirty clothes hamper. I really can’t tell which. So, it’s probably both.
Off to the left there’s a narrow door I’m assuming leads to the bathroom, and then to the right of us there’s a small kitchen, the distinct scent of his supper still lingering in the air.
I grin. “Ramen noodles?”
He drops his head and shakes it sheepishly. “I don’t like to cook.”
It’s about what I figured. “Can I take a look at your fridge?”
He cocks his head back. “Why?”
I shrug. “Just want to see if I’m right or not.” I’m already walking toward the kitchen. He’s not moving, so I’m taking it as a yes. “Oh, yeah. Here we go. Leftover Chinese takeout and three pizza boxes. All of which have...wait...exactly one slice and two crusts in them. Why don’t you eat the crust? It’s the best part!” I let the fridge door fall back into place and then return to where I left Cowboy standing in the middle of his small apartment .
“I agree. Sometimes I save a few pieces for the seagulls.” He tips his head to the side and his mouth twitches up into a half grin. “And then I forget.”
He’s being cute. Too cute. And he’s sharing. My fault, but still. This isn’t what I came here for. I glance briefly at Harley, who’s already found a pile of towels to curl up in, and then I just go for it and pull my tank top right over my head.
When Cowboy doesn’t react, I toss it across the room and start to shimmy out of my shorts. “Are we doing this or what?”
“I don’t know. Did you want to check out my medicine cabinet as well? See if I’m fully stocked in condoms and dollar store toothbrushes for my overnight guests?” His voice has dropped again, so he’s not really trying to be funny.
“All I need is one condom. And I’m not staying overnight.” I kick my sneakers off into the corner. There’s nothing left but my sports bra and panties. I’m about to reach up to take off the bra when Cowboy comes for me.
In one smooth motion he’s got me off the ground, both hands firmly under my ass, my legs wrapping tightly around his waist. He presses my back flush against the wall, his rock-hard dick pushing up through his shorts and against the thin material of my underwear. I already have to fight the urge to roll my eyes into the back of my head.
“You’ll need at least three. And I won’t be done with you until morning,” he growls into my mouth, just before his lips crush mine.
In my entire life, I’ve never been kissed the way I’m being kissed at this very moment. It’s almost like Cowboy is gasping for air and breathing me in with each connection our lips make. Only it’s exactly the opposite for me. He’s leaving me completely breathless. Suffocating me with the intensity of his lips on mine, the way his tongue plunges into my mouth and completely takes over. His kiss. It’s all-consuming. Like hunger. And sleep. And I’m starving and exhausted.
Still holding me tight to him, he moves us away from the wall and toward the bed. Or mattress. Let’s not romanticize this.
Considering the mattress is less than a foot off the ground, I’m expecting to drop my legs and lower myself, rather than tempt fate and risk bodily injuries while he does the impossible and balances my entire body weight along with his own as he tries to lean forward and lie down.
Wrong. Again. Cowboy’s got this. Damn, he’s got it good. One arm wrapped snug around my back, holding me to him, and the other stretched out in front, guiding us both safely to ground level, all the while never once breaking our kiss. Which is good, because I’m pretty sure, at this point, both of our lives depend on it.
No longer needing to physically hold me in place, he untangles his arm from around my waist and uses his free hand to undo his shorts. As soon as I notice, my own hands come back to life and I stop pressing them into his chest so I can reach down and help him get out of his pants. He’s not wearing anything under them, and holy Mother of God. If I wasn’t already out of breath from kissing him, I would stop breathing altogether right now.
I can’t even blame the fact that it seems like an eternity since I last saw a penis. If there was ever any question about whether God was a man or a woman, Cowboy is all the proof I need that she’s female. Only a woman would know to build a man this perfectly. And I mean...perfectly.
He drops his entire weight onto my body and moans deeply into my mouth. It’s the sexiest damn sound I’ve ever heard. Between that and the way he’s rubbing against my underwear again, not to mention the way his kisses are making my head spin and the fact that my entire body feels like it’s about to experience some sort of euphoric overload from merely touching, I’m pretty sure the only decent thing to do is tell him to slow down or I won’t have any need for that condom after all. At the rate he’s going, I’m going to have an earth-shattering orgasm within the next twenty seconds, and after that I’m not really going to have much use for him anymore.
But I don’t say anything because words are a little beyond my realm of capabilities right now. Instead, I place both palms on his chest and push up with all the strength I can muster. Which is peanuts, really, but he notices anyway.
“What’s wrong? Am I hurting you?” Actually, now that he’s stopped, he kind of is. My body literally aches for his kiss. An act of betrayal I can barely comprehend, which makes me want to ram my own head into a brick wall just to override my body’s new and unfounded urges.
“You’re not hurting me. Trust me.” I can already feel myself turning red for what I’m going to say next. I feel like a fucking thirteen-year-old about to hand over her v-card to the high school football star. “It’s just...I haven’t done this in a while and it’s not going to take a whole lot to finish the job here. So you may want to cut any and all foreplay and get right to the main event, because I’m not the kind of girl who’s going to stick around and worry about whether or not you got all you were hoping for from this experience.”
He drops his head to my shoulder, grazing it with his lips as he chuckles. When he raises his eyes to meet mine, his disheveled hair is hanging down into his line of vision and I have to fight the desire to tenderly swipe it away.
“I don’t need you to worry about whether or not I’m getting all I was hoping for from this experience. I don’t need you to worry about me at all. I do need you to stop trying to fucking rush me, though. I know what I’m doing. So just close your eyes, lie back, and shut the fuck up so you can enjoy it.”
For the first time in more than three years, someone telling me what to do actually results in my doing it. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m about to get something I want. Maybe because I’m telling myself he’s clearly a glutton for punishment, because he is going to have the biggest case of blue balls when I strut out of here after I get mine. Or maybe, maybe, it’s because for the first time ever, I’m being told to do something that is actually in my own best interest.
I take a deep breath and get situated again on the bed. Closing my eyes and readying my lips, I’m expecting him to pick up where we left off before I stopped him. Only this time Cowboy has other plans.
Instead of landing on my mouth, his lips trail their way down the side of my neck to my shoulder and across my collarbone. The soft scruff on his jawline tickles my skin, magnifying the tingling feeling his lips leave as they trace my chest.
I sink deeper and deeper into his mattress. It’s probably all mental, but if it were possible to literally melt, I’d be doing exactly that right now. In fact, I’m such a puddle that my body is nearly limp when he tug at my arms, bringing me into an upright position while he sits on top of me, straddling me.
I keep my eyes closed as ordered, as he peels my sports bra over my skin and pulls it over my head before gently letting my body slide back onto the pillow behind me.
Holding himself up with the arm he has resting beside my head, he uses his other hand to cup my breast, gently massaging it with his palm while his mouth moves to the other, tantalizing me with each meticulous flick of his tongue across my nipple.
My fists curl around handfuls of his sheets as the mind-bending pleasure begins to mount, sending my body into new and uncontrolled spasms, unable to contain all it’s experiencing .
I’m so focused on what his tongue is doing, I barely notice when his hand moves down from my chest, softly caressing the skin on my stomach before sliding under the rim of my panties. I’m pretty sure I’m about to completely lose it when his fingers slide down the front of me. His thumb instinctively seeks out the most sensitive part of my entire body, moving in small circles, gradually increasing in pressure and speed and then letting up again.
I’ve almost come like ten times already, but somehow Cowboy has more control over my body than I do. It’s the exact moment I realize this that his finger enters inside me, and I want to scream. I do scream. I’ve been screaming. It’s like a freaking prayer circle up in here the number of times I’ve shouted “oh my God” in the last three minutes.
He moves in a second finger, and I feel myself tighten around him. Only this time he doesn’t take it away. He just keeps giving me more. More. And more. Until I’m gasping for air and my body shudders and shakes under him from the release.