Chapter Thirteen
Soft and springy. That’s how her hair had felt in his fist. Now he was obsessively wondering if the carpet matched the drapes while reliving the way her mouth had opened under his, soft and hot. Eager.
He was a man with more testosterone than the national average. Sex was something he enjoyed at a higher level, just like everything else in his life. Yet that kiss with Glory still had him shaking the next morning.
It had taken everything he had to walk out of her room yesterday, even though he suspected it wouldn’t have taken much to persuade her into that smallish, but rumpled bed of hers.
She didn’t trust him, though. That bothered him, mostly because it was his own damned fault. He was a perfectionist by nature, rarely making mistakes. When he did face plant, he promptly got up and didn’t do it again.
Kissing her had probably been a mistake, but that whole conversation had gone a lot further than he’d meant it to. He had. The minute he’d noticed both Trigg and Glory were MIA, and his brain put them together in her room, the top of his head had nearly come off.
Since when was he the jealous type? Since never.
But he really was going to chop his brother in the throat if he didn’t stop hitting on her.
“Glory, you coming into Haven for the picnic and fireworks with us?” Trigg said, veering across the lobby as he and Rolf headed out the front doors.
Was it the fourth already? That’s why the dining room had been so quiet. It was a long weekend for most of the workers. He really needed to get his head out of Glory’s bedroom and into the reality around him.
She didn’t even lift her eyes from the tablet she held. “I have plans.”
She pointed to something and glanced at Devon, who was nodding over her shoulder. “Something like that. Would it look good, do you think?”
“Really good,” Devon agreed. “Cost shouldn’t change either.”
“Plans with who?” Trigg demanded.
Yeah. Who?
“My other ménage boyfriends. Why? Are we supposed to be exclusive?” She lifted her gaze to spear Trigg, shot a look across to Rolf and her brow pulled, wary tension stiffening her expression.
Nope. She didn’t trust him one iota.
“Come on. It was a bit of friendly rivalry. All in good fun.” Trigg folded his arms on the reception desk. “Don’t hold a grudge. You’re better than that.”
Rolf choked, hanging back, hands in his back pockets. Like hell she was. That passive-aggressive cold shoulder could go on ’til the calipers broke. Dude. But have at it. Enjoy the chin rash from skidding across the frozen snow.
Still, he watched to see if she would soften quicker for Trigg than she had for him.
“When I was fifteen, the class jock did something really mean that was—” She brought one hand up to make half a pair of air quotes. “All in good fun. You know where he is now?”
“Where?”
“No one knows. Because I know how to hide a body.”
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Devon held up a hand and Glory high-fived it. Then Devon said, “I’ll source it next week, when we get back.”
“Sounds good. Enjoy your weekend.” She waved off Devon, leaving the lobby deserted except for the three of them. She looked at them with a hint of impatience. “Something else?”
“Okay, I get it. You’re genuinely mad,” Trigg said.
“You know, your brother is always making cracks about how dumb you are, but it turns out he’s wrong. How often does that even happen?” She threw that facetious question his way.
Rolf bit the insides of his cheeks, admiring the two-for-one insult. “Economical,” he said dryly.
“Come on,” Trigg said. “Lemme buy you dinner. Make it up to you.”
She swept a chilly look toward Rolf, almost as if she expected him to jump in with a claim. He wanted to, really wanted to, but he knew how that would go. She’d take it as him playing for the win.
Not fucking playing, he telegraphed, staring at her until she looked down.
“Dad’s buying me dinner,” she mumbled as she gathered some things from the desk. “Then we’re going to watch the fireworks. So, I have a date. Thanks anyway.”
“Rain check?”
“Dear God. You are needier than your dog, do you know that? And he licks my ankles.”
“Are you saying we can be pals again if I do that?”
“Are you going to be a jerk again?”
“That’s his job description.” He thumbed toward Rolf. “Do you see him trying to kiss and make up?”
She shot her eyes to the ceiling, where wires hung in place of the old chandelier.
Rolf folded his arms, enjoying himself as he watched her chin work, trying to find words.
“Made you laugh just thinking about it, didn’t I?” Trigg said with satisfaction, arms going out like she should come around for a hug.
She ignored him and sent Rolf a nonplussed look. “Would you two get out of here, please? I want to get a few things done before I take the rest of the day off myself.”
“Find your stick,” Rolf said to Trigg, jerking his head toward the front doors.
“Fuck you,” his brother said mildly, but blew a kiss at Glory and headed out.
Rolf hung back. “What was his name?”
She paused. “Who?”
“The jock you buried.”
She tucked her chin, frowning as she went on the defensive. “Why?”
“Asking for a friend.”
She relaxed and shook her head, but gave him a considering look. Her mouth tilted in a small smile as she turned away.
*
Glory hadn’t been this loose in the joints since the first time she had walked through the doors of Blue Spruce Lodge.
Her dad had been driving tonight so she’d had a glass of wine with dinner, then another one on the beach while catching up with Eden and Candy. Immediately after the final pop, whistle, fizz, her father had yawned and said he was ready to go home.
Glory was having fun and Eden offered her sofa. She could have stayed in town or caught a lift with Trigg. He was still on the beach, holding court with a handful of locals around the bonfire, but hangovers were the worst. She elected to be sensible and go home.
Yet, as her father disappeared down the hall to his room, she walked through the empty lobby to the shadowed bar. She found the bottle of red her father had opened the other day and emptied the last of it into a glass.
Asking for a friend, she heard Rolf say again. Was that what they were now?
She had had enough distractions today that she hadn’t dwelt on it much, but now his remark came back to her along with their kiss. The one he had kept between them, not shooting off his mouth and taking down his brother with it.
What a confusing, confounding man.
She sipped and started up to her room. The lodge was extra quiet with so many people taking off for the weekend. Only Trigg was on the first floor and then Nate with his son on the middle one. She cocked her head, but didn’t hear anything.
Nate had stayed at the lodge this evening, saying he would keep an eye on things since the noise of the fireworks scared his son. They’d been throwing sticks for Murphy into the pond when she’d left for dinner, but Trigg had had the dog on the beach.
Which meant Rolf hadn’t had any reason not to come to the beach, but she hadn’t seen him there. And yes, she had looked. Why, she couldn’t say. Because they were ‘friends?’
She looked at his door as she approached her own. A bar of light showed beneath it. He wasn’t asleep, so why had he stayed home instead of coming out with the rest of the community? Anti-social or what?
Who cared? It made no never-mind to her life.
But she stood there looking at his door. Then at the glass in her hand. Apparently, there was enough of that burgundy liquid in her bloodstream to propel her the four steps across the hall. She knocked.
Quiet footsteps padded toward her, tightening her insides so she was a bundle of nerves when he swung the door open.
He wore a fucking towel, the bastard. A sheen glowed on his skin that smelled like his soap. His wet hair was damp and messy, freshly ruffled by the towel dangling from his hand.
She made an O with her mouth and slowly exhaled, taking in the tree-like pattern of fine hairs across the thick layers of his pecs. Tight brown nipples were set at the tips of the furthest branches. The trunk converged in a dark line down his breastbone, growing thin and light where it skimmed down the middle of his rippled abs. He had an innie, then a fresh line that arrowed into the edge of the white towel loosely knotted around his hips.
He leaned his forearm on the doorjamb, right at her eye level so she saw, for the first time, a small tattoo on the underside. Numbers. Coordinates, since there was an ‘N’ and a ‘W’ along with degree signs. How intriguing.
“How much of that have you had?”
She lifted her gaze from the ink to his eyes. He wasn’t looking at her glass. His gaze held hers like a cat’s before it pounced, pupils dilating into black basketballs.
“I’m not drunk.” She was loose. Low on inhibition, but not drunk.
He took the glass and stepped back, inviting her to, “Come in,” then sipping and keeping the wine.
Her feet walked her in even as her brain was saying, Really? She couldn’t even claim curiosity because she had cleaned this room. She already knew he was a man of order, all his shirts hanging straight, the drips wiped from around his sink, and his blankets were always pulled up and straightened even though he didn’t properly make his bed.
“Have fun tonight?”
“Yes. Why didn’t you come?”
“Crowds aren’t my thing.” He shrugged. “Thought I’d catch up on some work while it was quiet. Nice that you missed me, though.”
“And here comes Mr. Smug.” She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her shorts and rocked onto the balls of her feet. What did she even see in him?
“I stayed up to watch for you.” He cocked a brow at the window. Sipped. “See whose truck you got out of when you came home.”
That. She exhaled through pursed lips. “I kept thinking that I wanted you to notice me and now I keep thinking that I ought to be more careful what I wish for.”
He nodded and set down the glass, padded toward her on bare feet. He picked up her hands and turned her palms up. “You’re going to lead, schatzi.”
“Because I’ve been drinking?” She turned her hands over in his and let them stray onto the insides of his flat wrists, intrigued by that smooth, warm skin.
“That. And I want to know what else you’ve been thinking.”
“Why?” Oh, he was so smooth and hot. Her fingers did the walking up to his elbows, forcing her to take a step closer as she opened her hands on the relaxed muscle of his biceps, fingers playing in the warm valleys made by his elbows.
“What are you thinking right now?”
She looked up at him, saying nothing because her thoughts were growing positively carnal.
The corners of his mouth dug in. “See, that is very interesting to me.”
“I’m not even—” She cut herself off from saying something self-deprecating about her sexual experience. At no point had sex lived up to her romantic expectations. Her rich fantasy life was partly to blame. That, and her lack of courage. She wasn’t a prude, but she didn’t let herself go because it meant making herself vulnerable. No thanks.
“You don’t strike me as the kind of man who takes orders,” she stated, rather than admit she didn’t know how to give them.
“See, I’m offended by that. I believe in equal opportunity. I’m not a chauvinist.”
“No, you believe you’re superior to everyone, not just women.”
“Well,” he agreed. “Almost everyone.”
She nudged him in a playful push, as a test, certain he would hold his ground.
Sneaky bastard let her shuffle him backward toward the bed, but with his fingers curled firmly behind her bent elbows in a demand that she come with him. Push-pull, like they were dancing.
“See, I’m not even going to ask if I made your ‘almost’ list, since you’re only tricking me into thinking I’m in charge right now.”
“Carte blanche. You better believe I mean it.” He lowered to sit on the edge of his bed, drawing her to straddle his towel-covered legs.
She stood over him, his hands on her hips, hers resting on his muscled shoulders, kind of stunned to be climbing her hands into his hair while the roughness of his towel grazed her inner thighs. Heat penetrated through the terry into her skin. A throb of wet heat hit the juncture of her thighs where she was unable to close her legs.
She wondered how it would feel if he let his hands slide low, to the outsides of her thighs. If his thumbs rolled underneath the legs of her shorts.
Her fingers combed his wet hair back, forcing him to look up at her as her hands trailed down his neck, feeling the flex at the base of his neck, then lingered to explore the density of muscle and heat across his shoulders.
Just as his hands hardened on her hips, she gave him a shove.
In a delayed reaction, he slowly fell onto his back and casually stacked his hands behind his head, revealing the dark tufts of his underarms. “Help yourself, then.”
Really? She set her knees on either side of his hips, watching as she knelt over him and roamed both hands over the textures of his chest, sweeping fingertips across his tight nipples, playing her thumbs in circles, then trickling her touch down his sides, fingertips tracing the edge of the towel.
He sucked in a deep breath.
“No?”
“Yes,” he said through his teeth, expression tight.
Skeptical that she had had such a strong effect on him, she left the towel in place and took her time bringing her hands up again, learning all the dips and ropes of muscle and ridges of his ribcage. Hot, smooth, rough, smooth. So hot. The balls of his shoulders, the tendons in his neck, the stubble in his throat.
Reacting purely on instinct, on desire to feel and taste, she leaned forward to kiss him. She sucked on his bottom lip in a way she had imagined a million times. As she did, he made a noise deep in his throat, hands moving to cup her ass and dragging her into place so her crotch was right against the thick shape of his hard cock. He opened his mouth against hers and kissed her back. Tangled his tongue with hers and pulled her into the devouring passion they’d shared the first time.
She had almost believed she had imagined it, but no. He really did make her feel like this. Like everything fell away. Like she was in one of her own fantasies, sliding her hands to brace on the flexed muscles of his chest, pussy growing wet from the pull of his mouth on hers. It was so good.
Sitting up, she pulled her T-shirt over her head and released her bra, letting the straps fall down her arms and throwing it away. Another test? Maybe a little. She wasn’t terribly endowed, barely filling a B cup, which was why she rarely bothered with a bra. They were perky little things, though.
She still experienced a stab of insecurity as his gaze took a long, thorough study, one so avid, her nipples grew pinched and achy with anticipation.
He licked his lips and pushed his hands under her ass, forcing her to set her forearm beside his head while he opened his mouth on her and drew deep on her nipple.
“Ahh!”
“Too hard?” He released her nipple and licked around it, soothing.
“No, it was just really—Oh, fuck,” she breathed as he sucked again, just as strong. Her scalp tightened and hot wires tightened inside her, pulling at her clit and sending streaks of pleasure through her abdomen. She tightened her bent legs on his hips and moved restlessly. “That feels really good,” she gasped, stroking restless fingers through his hair as he moved to the other one. “Really, really good.” Her panties were wet and she grew wetter still as his hands stole beneath the legs of her shorts to brand her ass.
Then, because she wasn’t holding back and was letting this take her wherever he wanted to go, she whispered, “I want you to fuck me.”
His hands tightened on her butt so she very briefly felt the dig of his fingernails into her skin. He dragged his hands from her shorts and stroked her thighs, urging her to kiss him again. She did, kissing and kissing until she grew really impatient. She backed off him and opened her shorts, dropping them with her underwear in one move.
He was propped on his elbows and took her in, nostrils flaring. Then his hand moved. She thought he was going to open the towel, but he rolled to open the night table drawer, removing a box of condoms.
He pulled one from the box, then set it on his navel, one hand dropping the box by the pillow, the other opening the towel and beckoning her back onto him.
Oh, sweet Lord. She licked her lips, fixated on that genuinely beautiful cock. Straight and flushed and turgid, thick and twitching, head glistening with pearly fluid.
She moved without conscious thought, using one fingertip to lightly paint that fluid over his tip. If he reacted, she was too lost in fascination to notice, gently closing her hand and squeezing hard enough to feel him pulse, then loosely skimming her hand in very light pumps. She had never really enjoyed oral, but her mouth watered. She wanted to suck on him. Hard. Harder than he’d attacked her nipples.
The thought of it had her pinching at nothing with her internal muscles, running a hand into her loins to part and soothe herself, yearning for him to be there.
“I’m not complaining.” His voice rasped. “But I thought you would come on me a few times before I go off. I’m going lose it if you keep that up.”
She dragged her gaze upward. He was on his elbows, gaze tracking restlessly over her naked body.
Rolf. Unapologetic and frank. Built like a god, expression inscrutable.
This wasn’t a dream or a dirty fantasy. She was naked, standing over him, cock in her hand, pussy aching with arousal. They were really doing this and she knew she ought to be thinking about how stupid it was. She probably should have thought of the repercussions a bunch of times by now, to discourage her fantasies in the first place, but she was allowed to think whatever she wanted. Fantasies were free. She had indulged herself, convinced this would never actually happen, so why would she have ever walked herself through all the reasons why it shouldn’t?
There would be consequences to sleeping with him, however. The first being that this was far more impactful and profound than she had expected. Far sexier and more intimate.
All she could think in this moment, however, was that she didn’t want to release him to unwrap that stupid condom.
She tried not to look like a novice as she rolled the condom down his shaft, but her hands were shaking. He settled on his back again, patient, eyelids low and hiding his thoughts. When it was on, he encouraged her to straddle him again.
Dare she? She did, reaching to line him up and then rocking his head against her lips to spread her slick juices before impaling herself. A glorious pleasure suffused her as she sank down. Her body felt too small to contain the sensations expanding in her. He reached into places that yearned and ached and needed to be touched so badly.
“Oh, fuck,” she breathed toward the ceiling. This. She only needed this for the rest of her life. This thick cock stretching her meltingly sensitive sheath, his pubic bone pressing hard against her engorged lips and stimulating her swollen clit.
She had to touch there, caressing and arousing herself, slipping her hand around to play with his tight balls, then coming back to circle her clit as she moved on him, riding that hard shaft from balls to tip.
His hands bit into her hips, guiding her rhythm. It was insanely erotic, driving waves of thrilling pleasure higher and higher inside her.
His breaths hissed through his teeth and he muttered something, hips lifting beneath her own, meeting each of her drops with a push that did everything she needed. He filled her to her very limits and kept her legs spread wide so her flesh had maximum contact, each impact full and deep. She didn’t think she’d ever been so wet in her life. So hungry. Fucked so deep and well.
She ground against him, wet, wet, wet, cupping her hands around her breasts and playing with her nipples while her inner flesh grasped at his. She was so damned aroused, so lost, moving faster as the crisis approached. She barely registered he was speaking English now, circling her clit with his thumb.
“Come on me. Do it. Come hard.”
She did, head thrown back, shuddering and arching as she threw herself into the most intense orgasm of her life, pussy throbbing and soaking and clenching on his flesh. She rocked on that marble intrusion until every last pulse was wrung from her and all she had left were trembles.
Then she sank into a splay across him, distantly aware of his heart pounding against her ear. He closed his arms around her, cradling her, petting her back and soothing her while his hot, thick cock throbbed inside her.
*
Somehow she was grateful for that stamina of his. After a few minutes of trying to catch her breath, she lifted her head enough to kiss him. She was buttery and dreamy and loved that he was still so hard inside her. She wanted more. Was insatiable for it. She dragged her tongue into his mouth and smiled against his lips when she felt the strong twitch of his response inside her.
“Am I still in charge?” she asked throatily.
“I’m thinking about that.”
“I feel like you want to take over.” She moved on him, teasing, but enjoying.
“I feel that way, too.” He rolled, almost disengaging, then pushing in again. He leaned over her, cupping her breast in his hand and dipping his head to suck.
She moaned and writhed, gasping. “I want that, too.”
“For me to take charge?” He pulled all the way out and sucked her other nipple.
“I do,” she said, feeling the loss. “I really do.”
“On your knees then.” He backed off the bed.
Really? Filthy animal. She closed her knees and rolled, coming up on all fours. He pushed her thighs apart and caressed between, lightly pinching her lips and caressing her inner thighs, making the center of her grow molten in anticipation.
When she couldn’t stand it any longer, his weight came onto the bed behind her. His knees pushed against hers, spreading her legs wider. Then he rubbed against her, sex to sex, hands claiming her breasts and her waist in easy sweeps, her hips and the cheeks of her ass. It wasn’t enough.
“Rolf.”
“This?” He nudged his head at her opening.
“Yes,” she sighed as he slid into her, filling her up again and making her groan at how good it was. She balanced on one hand and started to touch herself.
“Not yet,” he said through his teeth, brushing her hand away then clutching her hips. “Feel.”
He began to pump. She moaned again, holding still for him, body turning into a vessel that he filled and filled. She was an instrument, drawn taut like strings. Strum, pluck, feel, hold, quiver with intensity.
She grew so wet again, his thighs slid against her own. He thrust harder. Not faster, but deeper. Each impact rang through her, right to the tips of her breasts. Her nipples wanted his mouth. Her clit was swollen and begging for stimulation. Her back bowed. Her entire body was caught in the rapture of this man fucking her and fucking her.
She closed her fists in the blankets, biting her lip against making too much noise, but, “Oh, fuck,” she moaned. “Oh, fuck, Rolf. I can’t take it.” It was too good. Too perfect to sustain.
“Now this,” he said, bracing one hand beside hers so he covered her, belly hot against her ass. His other slid from her hip to her abdomen, down to the inside of her thigh and up. He painted fingertips in the wetness, then traced where his shaft moved in and out of her with merciless precision.
She guided his fingers, showed him, then dragged his pillow closer and buried her face in it, ass high to take the thrusts that increased in tempo. Two thick fingertips rubbed her clit, savage and delicious. She couldn’t offer enough of herself. Couldn’t open herself wide enough. She wanted him deeper. Wanted to come, needed to come. It was too much, not enough. What was he doing to her?
He slammed into her harder and faster. Ruthlessly imprinting himself on her until she stopped breathing, just waiting and waiting until—
She screamed into his pillow as her world exploded, holding herself steady for the pound of his hips. Come, she begged as her orgasm gripped her. She wanted his come, his ownership, his surrender to this sea of ecstasy.
A ragged noise tore from his throat and he jammed himself in deep, grinding against her while his cock pulsed and spilled heat. They held that pose, wringing every last burst of pleasure from each other before he slowly, slowly collapsed, his weight flattening her beneath him.
*
He left her as their sweat was still drying.
Glory wondered if she was supposed to leave. As the fog of hormonal high wore off, ghosts and insecurities crept in. He didn’t give her time to figure it out, coming back from the bathroom before she had found the strength to lift her head.
Shy now, she dragged a pillow to her middle, staying mostly on her stomach with it hugged in front of her.
“If you flushed that condom, I’m going to have my dad talk to you about the septic.”
“Sexy, but unnecessary.” He went for the glass of wine and took a deep, appreciative sip. “Thanks for the room service.” His cock was relaxed, but long and loose. Smug. Like him.
“Self-service.” She stretched her legs and curled her toes, then adjusted her face on the pillow. “I needed that. Thank you.”
It was true, but he seemed to find it amusing, smirking as he said, “So did I. Want to do it again?”
“Right now?” she taunted.
“Yes.” He set the glass on the night table and crawled over her, rolling her onto her back beneath him as he did.
“What are you? Some kind of professional athlete?”
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot.” One strong hand squeezed her thigh, then rose to shape her breast. He kissed the tip as he settled alongside her, nibbling his way up her neck and nipping her chin. As he rubbed his beard into her neck, he whispered, “A lot.”
*
A tap on the window woke him. “Dude.” The tap grew louder. “Wake up.”
Rolf dragged his heavy body into sitting up, brain like cotton, but he had the wherewithal to reach for Glory. She wasn’t here.
“Rolf. Come on.” It was Trigg, rattling the latch on Rolf’s external door. “Open up.”
Rolf yanked open the door, naked, brain still in a stupor from coming so hard his spine had nearly snapped.
Trigg was in his underwear, looking toward the base. “Murphy took off. I brought him out for a pee and he heard something. Maybe I did, too. Yahoos, maybe. Not animals. We gotta check it out.”
“Meet you downstairs.” Rolf turned away to dress and Trigg disappeared down the outside stairs. They met at the bottom a minute later, both in their jogging gear. They fell into an evenly paced, ground-eating run on the half-mile gravel road toward the base.
Floodlights were on Rolf’s list for the base, once the portable office was installed on its pad. It hadn’t happened yet, though. Their path was only lit by the quarter moon. He strained to hear over their tramping footsteps, listening for Murphy. Or voices.
Just as he thought he smelled something acrid, Trigg said, “Fuck me.”
They both spotted the glow and leapt into a sprint. Was that the whine of an ATV? Definitely the growing roar of a fire. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Trigg had got their portable office here on time, but the furniture had been delayed by the long weekend. That meant the wooden desks and plastic chairs were not feeding the fire licking out the broken windows. Black smoke poured out and up regardless, melting vinyl flooring and whatever lined the inside walls.
“Call the fire truck.” Rolf scrambled his phone out of his pocket and hit the button for Nate, who was programmed as his first quick dial.
Two rings and Nate said a sleepy, “Yeah.”
“Fire at the base. Arson. Evacuate the lodge. Make sure everyone’s safe.”
“Done.”
Rolf ended the call. Trigg was finishing up with the dispatcher as Rolf came back from grabbing two shovels from the cargo trailer. They both started throwing dirt in the windows while the dog barked in the distance.