I’m perched on a stool at the bar, The Black Keys and Wild Turkey my company for the evening. I swirl the golden contents around in the glass as I mentally review the night. I parked myself here after searching the streets for Reagan. With the madness of Mardi Gras and countless locations, it wasn’t a fruitful endeavor. I tried Izzie’s place, but neither of them was there. After that, I searched each bar and every face in the hoard of partiers.
“Why aren’t you upstairs with Charlotte?” Rae asks, the front door locking shut behind her.
I release a sigh. She came back. My eyes drift to hers. I’m drunk. Not wasted. But certainly drunk.
“I kicked her out.” I slowly twist my glass on the bar, leaving a ring of condensation.
“You did?”
“Mm-hm.” I raise the glass to my lips but don’t take a drink. “Not before she confessed she scared you off.”
“She did not,” she contests, offended I’d believe Charlotte had that power over her. I don’t. I happen to know Lotte is the type of woman who does anything to get what she wants. She isn’t afraid to hit below the belt.
“I wouldn’t blame you if she did.” I finally draw on the liquor in my glass. “She isn’t one to play fair,” I state through a burning throat.
“She didn’t scare me off,” she insists again. I see her mentally stomping her foot. “She disgusted me.”
“That makes two of us.” I raise my glass, as if to say ‘cheers to that’. “Did you have a good night with Iz?”
“You knew I was with her?”
“You’re not exactly beating off friends. Plus,” I pick my cell off the counter next to me and show her, “she texted me.”
Izzie messaged a few hours ago. Gave me the third degree. Told me to smarten up. Once I knew Rae was okay, I came back to the pub and sat my ass right here. I was going to need some liquor before dealing with shit-storm I have coming at me.
Her face screams murder. When I hold the bottle of bourbon in the air and shake the cheap liquor around, it quiets into a murmured “fuck it.”
She walks over to the bar, her purple dress vivid against her strawberries-and-cream skin, accentuating her delicate curves perfectly, and sits in the stool beside me, the same one she sat in the night we met. I remember every detail as if it were happening in the moment.
“It was surreal,” she finally answers my original question.
“Surreal, huh?”
“Yeah,” she responds flatly.
I reach across the bar for a glass and pour her a hefty helping. She takes it with a grateful nod.
“Bottoms up,” she says before consuming it, her head thrown back, her raven hair cascading down her alabaster back. When she’s liberated the glass of its contents, she sets it back on the bar with a hard slam.
“I’m done with her,” I state. It seems out of left field, but I’ve wanted to tell her for hours. When I found Charlotte upstairs and Rae not, my mind was made. I want Rae. I want her more than sex. (Any man will tell you sex outranks breathing every time.) Ironic, considering how goddamn badly I want to pound her. And that dress is my own personal kryptonite. It’s proving very hard to keep my cock to myself right now.
Bringing me out of my sex-obsessed brain, she says, “You don’t owe me anything, Grey,” she shakes her head and turns away from me, “not even an explanation.”
I move my hand across the counter to hold hers in mine. “Maybe I feel I do.”
“I lied to you,” she blurts, ripping her hand from the bar and tucking it in her lap.
A second or two slips by before I process the words. I study her scrunched face, wrenched as if she’s waiting for the first blow. Does she expect me to hit her? If so, why? What happened to her that this would be her expectation?
“About?” I question, my voice calm but guarded.
“Me. Us.”
Us. I like us. My new favorite word.
Honestly, I’m so relieved she came back, I don’t care about lies or what led her to me or what’s going to happen tomorrow. She can reject me then, when she insists tonight was a mistake. Only thing I care about is now. And now, I want her.
“I’ve lied to you, too,” I admit.
Her eyes grow three sizes bigger, round and golden like apple pies, and her bottom lip juts out into an appealing pout. “You have?”
“Mm-hm.”
“When?”
“When I promised I could keep this thing between us platonic.” Her gaze follows me as I rise off my stool and tower over her. “I can’t.”
“No?” she asks in a breathy, Marilyn-esque voice.
I lean my body into hers. “No.”
A shuddered breath breaks free from her perfect pink lips. “Must be hard for you.”
“Excruciatingly,” I whisper, our mouths virtually touching. “You’re always on my mind. It’s been a serious problem ever since we met.”
“Grey, I—”
“But tonight, in that dress,” I ignore her, “you’ve taken residence in there.”
“I really have to confess something, Grey.” Her voice is shallow. No fight. No vigor. She’s breaking down.
I take her porcelain face in my cupped palms, feeling the subtle heat of her skin against mine. More than I’ve gotten in days.
“Will it upset me?”
“I think so.”
I shift my hands down her neck, tracing the line of her delicate jaw with my thumbs. “Then don’t.”
I’ve kept my distance. I’ve played the good boy. Well, maybe I’ve slipped once or twice. But could anyone blame me? She’s fucking irresistible. And I’ve managed the unmanageable. But I’m done resisting.
The music stopped at some point during our conversation. I walk over to the jukebox near the bar and hit F6, watching the disc load. When the haunting rendition of “Wicked Games” plays from the speakers, I rejoin Rae, extending my hand out to her.
“Dance with me.”
“What?” Her head cocks back. “No.” She laughs off my request. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Yanking her from the stool, I bring her into me with an insisting arm on her tapered waist. She gasps from the spontaneous jolt, bracing herself with my biceps, her nails biting into my skin with a gratifying burn. I smile at the honeyed lilt of her laughter, anticipating the confection of sweet noises she’ll make when I take her.
Pressed tight, we sway, eyes welded. My hands slide to the breadth of her hips, wider since she arrived in my bar—in my life. Holding Rae to me as we move, it becomes painfully evident they aren’t the only proportions that filled out in the past weeks. Her upturned breasts smash into my chest. They’re begging for my mouth.
Extremely turned-on, my fingers clutch the taut fabric of her skirt, my hands balling into fists, bringing the hem high on her thighs. Before overthinking my next move, I hoist her onto the unforgiving counter, forcing her legs open with my waist. She presses her pliable lines into my immoveable edges.
Her scent, her suppleness, her black waterfall of hair. Something about Rae makes me feel like a fucking man.
I lean my lips close to hers but don’t let them touch. “If you don’t want this,” I groan into her parted mouth, “you know what to do.”
She boosts her hips from the bar’s surface to help me along.
“I want it.”
I shove the hem up around her waist, revealing her panty-less condition. Hungrily staring me in the eyes, she raises her arms high over her head, inviting me to continue removing her dress. Makes my cock so hard I could hammer a nail through the densest wood. Accepting her invitation, I pull my hands skyward, taking her dress with me, peeling it from her bare curves.
I involuntarily groan.
“Think you forgot somethin’ when you rushed out,” I remark, the line of my mouth cracking into a crooked smile.
Her entire body blushes. Even her permanently erect nipples take on a rosier shade. Fuck me if that doesn’t make her hotter.
“The dress was too tight for panties,” she confesses in a whispered voice, as if telling me a secret.
“Sounds awful.” I caress the under curve of her breast with my knuckle, to the mouthwatering pink gumdrop reaching temptingly toward the ceiling. “Glad I could relieve you of it.”
She sucks a sharp breath in between her teeth when I clamp the bud between the pads of my thumb and pointer finger.
“Tell me what you want, Reagan,” I order gently.
“I want to come.” She moans when I loosen my vise-like pinch on her. “And I want you to be the one who makes me.”
Her hot breath, spiked with a hint of sweet liquor, rushes out in cock-twitching pants.
An arm’s length away, I reach for the cocktail garnishes and pluck a Maraschino cherry from the container, bringing it to her mouth. I glide it across her lips, over the tip of her tongue, sneaking out to taste the juices threatening to drip down her chin.
“Open your mouth,” I instruct, mesmerized by how fucking sexy she is.
Opening it without pause, I wedge the bright fruit between her cherry-stained lips. Before she comes to her senses and pushes me away again, my mouth covers hers, breaching the wet gap between with my tongue, roughly declaring it mine. The cherry splits from the force of our kiss, the sugary syrup seeping down our chins. Her tongue sloppily tastes the sticky mess, her eyes shut. She’s completely immersed in us.
My dick nearly busts out through the zipper of my jeans like a convict from prison. I want to fuck her until the end of civilization. But not tonight. Tonight, I have other hungers to feed.
“Jump down, turn around, and bend over the edge of the counter for me.”
Under a trance, she follows every direction without fail, without pause. Below her creamy heart-shaped ass, rosy lips peek out from the gap between her milky thighs. I’m brought to my knees, in awe of the perfection I’m about to devour. She widens her stance as my fingers move to the supple skin on her inner thigh, making her tremble.
In a deep, husky voice, I rumble, “Bottoms up,” before I bite into the snow-white mound of her backside, my teeth branding the flawless flesh.
She squeaks and squirms, her fingers curling around the opposite edge of the counter.
I reach up next to her to pinch another chilled cherry and glide it along the soft folds, over the swollen bud, up to the tight entrance, gently forcing it in with my thumb. Her head flops onto the bar with a sweet moan when my tongue sinks into the plush crease, hot and wet with her willingness. I move the tip over the red, marble-sized fruit. Her muscles constrict, popping the cherry so juices drip down her pussy and thighs. She tastes sinful on my taste buds, and her syrup coating has nothing to do with it.
It’s Rae.
My tongue locates her clit, teasing it with slow, deep laps. I work her at a maddening pace, taking my time to enjoy what I’ve patiently waited for like a good boy. Now I want to play with my new favorite toy. And she wants to play as well. She shoves herself back into me, silently begging for more. My hungry hands creep up her juice-streaked thighs, coming to rest on her heart-shaped backside. I open her to me with my thumbs, spreading her rosy, swollen lips apart. I suck and lick the hard bud into a frenzy, giving her exactly what she pleaded for. She punctuates her hastening breaths with the occasional shaky whimper, sweet little commas in a run-on sentence. She tangles her fingers in my hair when my mouth draws on her clit just right, tugging it with a high squeal.
“You eat me so good,” she praises with a moan, staring back at me from her slumped position over the bar.
Her thighs jiggle, her body denying the orgasm building inside it, her core winding like a coiled rattlesnake preparing to strike. She fights me—as she fought us. But like her stubborn denial over our undeniable chemistry, I break her, refusing her the right to deny me any longer.
Shoving me deeper, she finally surrenders to herself and to me with a cathartic scream. Releasing onto my mouth, she rides out the cleansing orgasm until her body lies satiated and limp across the counter, the final rattles of release jolting through it.
Fuck, she drives me wild.
I press my mouth against the sticky skin on the back of her right thigh. “I’ve been wanting to do that ever since our first night together.”
“What took you so long?” she teases through big gulps of air, in a state of partial awareness.
After removing the cherry, I stand, adjusting myself, and begin to pull away when her hand snaps out, snatching my wrist.
“Where are you going?” she asks, coming out of the haze.
“Where do you want me?”
With sex-flushed cheeks, she says, “Inside me.”
Fuuuck.
“Yes, ma’am. Don’t hafta tell me twice.”
Towering over her, I unbutton my pants and yank them down to my knees, my cock flopping against her ass with a satisfying slap. I position myself to enter, aligning my throbbing head with her little pink hole. Unhurried, I sink inside her, spreading her open one tight inch at a time, stuffing her to the limit. I still, allowing her to acclimate to me, savoring the way she stretches to accommodate my thick shaft. Her face turned toward me, I study every waver of her lips, every flutter of an eyelid.
“Ready?” I murmur, overwhelmed with the sensation of her softness.
She answers with a silent but eager nod.
I meld my hands to her hips, slowly guiding myself in and out, over and over, again and again. Her low groans drive me to speed up. I lean over her and wrap my arms about her waist, pumping into her with root-deep thrusts, mesmerized by her pleasure-wrenched face. I want to show her what she does to me, what she’s become to me.
She twists and bows, rolling her hips to meet my rhythm, coaxing moans from my throat.
I climb closer to that euphoric peak, bringing her with me, her body tensing under me, around me. She’s edging, about to freefall, her toes hanging over the ridge, but she doesn’t take the plunge, so I move faster, slamming myself into her repeatedly, pushing her closer to the ledge, daring her to jump with me.
My mouth smashed against the side of her face, I say the words she needs to hear, “Let go.”
Hands blindly searching for me, her fingers dig into my hips, limiting my movement, keeping me buried inside her until she releases with a violent beauty, raw and real and uninhibited. Face pressed into the counter, her body quakes beneath me, her cries resonating throughout the bar, through me.
I follow close behind, her name on my lips. Collapsing on top of her, one word crosses my mind.
Finally.