Riptide Affair, page 11
Sitting up, I cradle his thick neck between my hands and kiss back and forth across his jaw, feeling the skin at the nape of his neck pebble as he shivers.
“It's okay.”
Kiss.
“It's okay.”
Kiss.
“I promise.”
Settled between my legs, Jared stares down at me, concern pulling his features tight. The look is so intense, I almost—almost—consider backing down and asking for a rain check. But just as I'm about to pull a one-eighty, Jared brushes a lock of hair away from my face with a tenderness that has me seizing up inside.
Jared may be a stranger, but he's good. Kind. A gentleman. And I don't meet many of those all that often. In fact, I'm convinced they're a dying breed.
“Are you sure about this?” His voice is rough and commanding, but his eyes are anything but.
“Absolutely”
After taking a breath, Jared shifts gently, claiming my lips in a bruising kiss the same time he juts his hips forward with a quick, efficient thrust and...
Fucking. Hell.
Stinging pain ignites where we're joined and it hurts just as much as I thought it would, but Jared swallows every whimper with a kiss, soothing me with his hands on my shoulders, kneading, stroking up and down in a calming, hypnotic rhythm.
He comes up for air, breathing through his nose with our foreheads pressed together. “You okay?”
“Uh huh,” I squeak.
“You sure?” His hands move down, back to the underside of my thighs where he gives me a quick squeeze. “Your legs are shaking.”
That's a bit of an understatement, actually. My back may be pressed firmly against the table, my ankles locked, but the length in between is trembling. Vibrating. Quaking uncontrollably. Why? Who the hell knows.
“I'm fine,” I assure him as I shift my hips to alleviate some of the discomfort. “Promise.”
The pain is already subsiding, leaving behind a lingering pressure in its wake as Jared's length stretches and pulsates against my inner walls, overshadowing everything else. It's a foreign yet sweet intrusion; uncharted territory, but my brain registers the delicious way in which Jared is holding me, and my courage returns in a rush. I do a little test run with my hips, shifting forward, tilting, and every minuscule movement sends shivers rocketing through me.
“Slow.” The word is gruffly whispered, but that doesn't make it any less of an order.
I nod, letting him take the lead. Slow...I can do slow.
I let my head fall back against the table as Jared sloooowly pumps into me. Dragging all the way out before pushing back in, a little deeper each time. Heat and moisture intermingle where I'm tight and slick, but friction is a wonderful thing, and I never knew it could feel this good.
Once we find our rhythm, I decide slow isn't enough. It's still blissful, don't get me wrong, but something in the way Jared's reigning it in, keeping one hand clasped tight around my leg, the other white-knuckling the table's edge, tells me he's capable of so much more. The sparks and tingles and subtle jolts just aren't enough anymore.
I want the explosion.
“Jared?”
He shifts, pressing his chest to mine as his arms reach out to grip the table's edge on either side of my head, putting us nose-to-nose. “Yeah?”
“Are you close?”
He pauses mid-thrust to chuckle. “Getting there.”
I kiss the corner of his mouth, winding a hand in his messy hair before leaning in to whisper, “Then make it good.”
One corner of his mouth curls up in a sly, borderline-arrogant grin. “Yeah?”
Absolutely.
I nod, returning the smile, telling him that I trust him, that I'm with him.
“Okay.” He pushes up on his arms. “Roll over.”
Yes, sir.
I do as he says, my belly replacing my back on the table, the tips of my toes touching the cold tile floor. I can't see him like this, can't look him in the eyes or anticipate his next move, but somehow that only serves to stoke my fire until I'm pushing back against him, whimpering, practically falling apart with need when his capable form cages me against the table. I should feel vulnerable in this position, but when he presses his lips to my bare shoulder, I know I'm nothing but safe.
“Tell me if I need to stop.” His hot breath fans out over my skin as he speaks, causing goosebumps to erupt all down my spine. “Got it?”
I swallow hard and nod. “Got it.”
The tip of his dick nudges at my opening, teasing, spreading my wetness in circles...before slamming inside.
This time, it's not slow, and it's sure as hell not gentle. But it's raw. Primal. Dirty. Sinful in the best possible way.
Fingers digging into the flesh at my waist, Jared pounds into me, hard and fast, unrelenting. Every muscle in my body contracts as I cling to the edge, clawing at the wood finish of the table my great-grandmother left behind, and I almost feel bad for defiling it in such a way.
Almost.
“Fucking hell,” he murmurs, and I can't help but agree.
My mouth falls open but no sound escapes as I'm overcome with sensation. The ferocity of his touch, of his body claiming mine, is a thing of beauty.
“Merrin,” he growls, moving his hands under my belly and pulling me upright until my back hits his front. I reach both hands back to cup his head and turn my face to the side and he kisses me as he fucks me, one hand pressed roughly against my stomach, the other wrapped around my throat, and I know I'm a goner.
I'm fucking gone on this man. Because it can't get any better than this. It's impossible.
Suddenly, the pressure is shifting into something else. Something bigger. An edge. Sharp and dangerous. It's right beneath my feet, retreating until there's nothing supporting me, no oxygen to rake in, no gravity to pin me down. And just when I think I'm about to fall...
I fly.
“Ja—”
Only half his name makes it out before the orgasm takes hold and it's so violent I can't breathe. Can't move. Can't think. All I do is feel.
Feel Jared's body tense. Feel his shudder. Feel the fire racing through my blood. The lightening infusing my limbs, thunder encasing my heart, bubbles of pleasure bursting, one right after another.
It's a heady combination, that's for damn sure, and when my body has consumed every last scrap of ecstasy, I barely have energy left to flutter my eyelids open.
“That was...unexpected,” I say, releasing a breathless giggle.
His laughter matches mine, but he doesn't say a word as he scoops my hair to the side and proceeds to feast on my neck, kissing and sucking and nipping at the skin just below my hairline like it's his new favorite obsession.
“What are you doing?” I ask on a whisper.
“Enjoying myself,” he mumbles after a few more nibbles.
His hands find mine and our fingers lace together. Before I can talk myself out of it, I say the only word left on my tongue.
“Stay.”
Jared pauses, and I think I've overstepped, but when I crane my neck back to look at him, his content smile puts my mind at ease.
“As much as I'd love to spend all night worshiping your body, you don't know me well enough to have me sleep over.” He pecks a kiss to the tip of my nose. “Not yet.”
The 'not yet' part gives me hope. High hopes...
“Which is why you should stay,” I point out. “So I can get to know you better.”
“Hmm...good point,” he muses. “Although, I could be a serial killer who beds women right before chopping them up into tiny pieces to feed to my cat. What then?”
I kiss his lips without a single shred of hesitancy or shame or fear.
“No chance of that. You don't have a cat.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Merrin
It's hot.
So hot, I stick one leg out of the sheets for temperature control, but even that doesn't help. Groggily, I wake enough to acknowledge the humming of the AC and the steady creak of the ceiling fan, but it still feels like the fires of Hell are being stoked beneath my mattress.
Flinging the covers off my body completely, I try to get some relief from the heat, only for the back of my hand to smack against something hard and hot—a body; the source of my discomfort—and suddenly I'm wide awake, remembering the events of last night.
To say I enjoyed Jared's company would be an understatement. If I concentrate hard enough, I can still summon up the sound of my headboard rapping against the wall and...yeah. Not a night I'll be forgetting anytime soon. But this is the first time morning sunlight has ever laid its hand on a man's naked body in my bed, and I'm not sure how to go about this morning with poise and grace.
Cracking one eye open, I steal a glance at Jared's back and find him rousing. The muscles on either side of his spine shift beneath tanned skin—a breathtaking sight to behold—and then they tense completely.
“Holy shit.” His sleep-roughened voice fills the air. “Is that the time?”
He doesn't sound anywhere near as relaxed and sated as I feel. In fact, if I'm reading this correctly, that's panic I hear in his voice. Not something you want to hear from your lover after a night of strenuous, passionate lovemaking. But once I look past his naked form flying out of bed, I too begin to panic.
It's 8:48 in the morning.
I have to be at work in twelve minutes. And so does he.
“Shit!” I screech, flying out of bed right behind him.
Fanning away the last remnants of joyous afterglow, I join Jared in the hunt for clothes. His are strewn around the room, left to die wherever they were discarded, and I pick up his pants and hurl them across the room, hitting him in the chest.
“Did we not set an alarm?” he asks, flustered.
Hopping over various belongings of mine that somehow ended up on the floor, like my bedside lamp, I make it to him and duck around his elbow to reach my closet, hoping against hope that I have a clean uniform.
“I don't even remember falling asleep, so it's a good bet that I didn't set one. You didn't?”
He pulls his cell phone from the pocket of his wrinkled jeans and huffs. “Dead. Figures.”
Now it's 8:50 and there's no way I'm making it to work on time. I hope to God April doesn't pick today of all days to show up.
“Here.” I finish sliding a white polo over my torso and turn to find Jared tossing a hair tie my way.
“Oh, thanks.”
I throw my hair up into the world's shittiest messy bun and send up a silent prayer that there's some kind of concealer and lip gloss in my purse, because there's no way I'm doing my makeup.
On my way back around the bed, my toe snags on something and I look down to find Jared's belt peeking out from beneath my dust ruffle. “Here.” I throw it across the room the same way he tossed me my hair tie. “You might need that.”
He catches it and the smile he wears reaches all the way to his eyes. It's filled with new warmth—one I didn't see last night, and a content grin takes up residence on my own face, even through my panic of showing up late for work. For a split second, I'm tempted to abandon this whole getting ready task and slide back under the sheets, but sex doesn't pay the bills. Well, it does, just not MY bills.
I brush my teeth at hyper speed, slap on some deodorant, then jog to the living room where Jared is slipping his wallet into his back pocket and trying in vain to flatten his tousled hair.
“Ready?”
“Yeah,” he answers, slightly breathless, before waving to the door. “After you.”
At my car, Jared opens my door and fidgets with the keys in his hand. “So...I'll talk to you later?”
“Of course,” I say cheerily as I turn the key, multiple times, until finally my old rust bucket turns over. “I'll text you.”
But right now, I seriously need to go.
Jared leaves wearing another one of those panty-melting smiles I'm quickly falling for, and even though I'm stressed to the max, I'm also giddy with happiness. So giddy, in fact, something tugs at my heartstrings, demanding I call him back. But I don't have to because he stops in his tracks, spins around, and yells, “Wait!”
He stumbles adorably in the gravel, but even that doesn't stop him from making it back to my car in three steps.
“Yes?” I ask with a little laugh.
He clears his throat before speaking, and for the first time ever I see him fidget. “Is this, like, a thing?” He motions between the two of us and my heart falls right out of my chest and melts on the cracked and weed-riddled sidewalk.
“I guess that just depends,” I reply evenly. “Do you want it to be a thing?”
He nods, just once, his eyes wide and severe. “I very much want this to be a thing.”
Jared's wicked grin and deep, sultry voice are so not what I need right now. They're what I want, but what I need is to get my late ass to work.
“Good.” I pull my sunglasses out of my purse and slip them on, hoping they'll mask the happiness I have radiating out of my eyes like laser beams. “Have a good day.”
“You too, babe.”
He bites his bottom lip as he backs away toward his Jeep and I sit there like an idiot until he pulls out of the drive and heads down the road.
I've never been someone's babe before, and if I'm being honest, I've always hated that pet name. Yet, when Jared says it, it sounds right, like I'd enjoy hearing him say it over and over again, every single day...
And all night long.
“Merrin, delivery!”
Harper's voice rings out above the roar of clanking silverware, screaming toddlers, and parents trying to talk over their children. It's kids eat free day, so the place is swarming with unruly crotch goblins. I'm a little busy balancing a gazillion-and-one plates on a tray since, yanno, kids are apparently the most wasteful creatures ever, so I can't exactly drop everything and go to her.
“Sign for me, would ya?” I grunt, unloading my tray at Jeb's station. His feet are propped up against his dishwasher as he reads the paper.
“Think you could maybe do your job today, Jeb?” I ask sweetly. “It's gonna be busy.”
His retort is something I've heard a million times.
“Mind ya business, sweetheart. They'll get washed.”
“Before the dinner rush?”
He turns the page, refusing to look me in the eyes. “Guess we'll see, won't we?”
“How do you still have a job, old man?”
This time, he lowers the paper so I can see his toothless grin and pockmarked forehead. “I'm too purdy to fire.”
We share a laugh before I wash my hands and jog to the hostess counter. “What's up?”
Harper lifts a small white square of card stock between two fingers and thrusts it my way. “You must be great in the sack,” she deadpans. “I took the liberty of reading the card for you.”
I jerk it from her hands. “Of course you did.”
When I see the message written in a slanted, masculine scrawl, I smile.
Just because.
-J
Harper's pierced brow lifts. “Not much of a wordsmith, is he?”
Heart galloping away in my chest, I slip the note in my back pocket. “It says all I need it to say.”
It's no secret that Harper's standards are so high no man will ever meet them—and no one faults her for that, not after everything she's been through—but her dismissal of Jared's gesture irks me. The card could be blank for all I care. It's not his words that mean the most to me; it's his actions. And when Harper jerks a thumb over her shoulder and steps aside to reveal a potted orchid, I fight back a girlish squeak and instead take a second to smell its sweet petals.
When I turn back, Harper's playing on her phone, already bored with me, so I leave the orchid on her counter. There's no way I'm taking it out to my car to bake for the next few hours, plus it blends with the décor so no one will pay it any mind.
Stealing a second to myself, I press my back to the soda cooler where no one can see me and type a quick message to Jared.
It's beautiful. Thank you. :)
As soon as I lock my phone, a message comes through.
You're very welcome. Don't kill it. ;)
I chuckle.
I have a very green thumb, thank you very much.
His reply takes a few seconds to come through.
I've seen pretty much all of you and I can confirm there's not a speck of green on you.
My cheeks warm at the reminder that he has, in fact, seen every inch of me, and I glance through my lashes to make sure no one else is around to read his suggestive text. I'm alone, so when the phone vibrates in my hand again, I hurry to open the message.
Call me when you get home?
I'm feeling brave, and a little bit frisky, so I tap out a reply I know will rev his engine.
Or...you could come over and let me cook for you again. My dining room table loves the company.
I hit send but don't possess the bravery to stick around for his response, so I go back to check on my tables. They're all still chatting away or playing on their phones, completely ignoring their children as they fling french fries across the room and grind cracker crumbs to dust on the tabletops.
Joy.
Most days I love my job, but today it's a struggle. These parents—men and women I went to school with—have no clue how lucky they are to have a family, and yet here they are, completely ignoring them in favor of Facebook and Snapchat. It's disheartening, and I can't help but feel a pang of jealousy. The fact that they all act as if they don't know me is just icing on the cake, but I shouldn't be surprised. They act like they don't know their own offspring half the time.
My phone vibrates against my leg, but I ignore it and grab a rag to wipe down a table that just cleared. It vibrates again and I take a pile of dirty dishes back to the kitchen, stopping next to Kate at the dishwasher.
“He's got good taste,” she says, never looking up from where she's cleaning ketchup off her ticket pad. “I've been here a long time and I've seen waitresses receive everything from a dozen red roses to wildflower bouquets overflowing with daisies to a single carnation—no one's ever happy to get those abominations because, I mean, the card might as well be an invitation to a homecoming dance—but that orchid? Absolutely perfect. Not over the top. Not cheesy. Just beautiful.” Finally, she looks up, and her encouraging smile gives me another blast of hope. One I didn't need, because I'm already at full capacity. “I'd keep that one if I were you.”
