Page 90 of Dirty Rival
I want to trust him. I want to believe this man could hold my heart and my life in his hands and he wouldn’t crush them both. But Reid is not the guy I could take home to my non-existent mother, as he himself proclaimed quite adamantly. He’s the guy I will end up hating, and that is not a good thought right now.
“Let’s go back to the cottage,” he says, and when he tries to stand up and take me with him, I have this sudden need for control. I push him back and into the sand.
“You don’t get to get up yet,” I say, shoving him until he’s lying flat, and twisting to my knees beside him, my hand on that perfect, hard chest of his.
“And why is that?” he challenges.
“Because I’m not done with you here,” I say, and when I would kiss him, he wraps his arm around me and pulls me against him.
“What are you going to do with me now that I’m here?” he challenges.
“Wait and see,” I say, reaching down and stroking the satisfyingly thick ridge of his erection. I turn him on. I like that I turn him on. I like so many things with this man that I might even love those things, but not him. I’m not going to fall in love with Reid Maxwell. I’m going to enjoy every inch of his hard body with my hands and my tongue, and own him like he did me.
Inspired, I straddle him and lean down and kiss him. He tangles rough fingers in my hair, and I moan with the lick of his tongue, but I don’t let myself get lost. Not in the kiss. There’s too much more of this man for me to enjoy, to own. I push away from him and slide down his body, settling between his legs to shove up his shirt and kiss his stomach. “You want to know what I’m going to do, don’t you?”
“Show me,” he orders gruffly, affected, and the very idea that he’s aroused, that he wants this, turns me on. I’m wet. My nipples ache. My body burns for this man, but I want him to burn for me.
I slide lower, and kiss and lick the line above his waistband, my hand stroking his cock through his sweats. His lashes lower, his hard body harder with the tensing of his muscles, and I know how on edge he is, how much he wants my mouth on his body, and I want it there, too. I drag his pants the rest of the way down and then my hand is wrapping his shaft, and I look up at him as I lick the pooled liquid at the tip of his erection.
He jerks slightly and I’m inspired to do more. I drag my tongue around the soft head of his cock and then suckle him into my mouth. He moans and arches his hips, and I draw him deeper, sucking on him, my tongue working the underside of his cock. His hand comes down on my head and that’s what pushes me over the edge. That’s what has me wet and hot and sucking harder and deeper. He’s in need. He needs. I need his need. I want that burn I felt to burn him and it does. He starts pumping harder, pushing into the movement of my mouth, and when he murmurs, “Carrie, baby,” and releases my head, I suck him harder and deeper until his hand is back on my head, and he’s shuddering, shaking and groaning as the saltiness of his release fills my mouth and I don’t stop. I take it and him and go all the way, slowing as he slows, easing my mouth only when he’s collapsing into the sand. I give him one final lick and then drag his pants back into place.
“Carrie,” he whispers, dragging me up his body. “You know—”
“That I owed you. And never say I don’t pay my debt. I owned you and owed you.”
Suddenly I’m on my back and he’s on top of me, his hands on the sand on either side of me. “You owe me nothing, ever. That is not what we are. You never owe me. Say it.”
“Reid—”
“Say it, Carrie. That’s not who we are.”
“I don’t owe you. That’s not who we are.”
“Say it again.”
“Reid—”
“I’ll say it. We don’t owe each other. Ever. That’s not who we are. That’s not who I ever want us to be.”
This matters to him. Really matters and it makes me feel like we matter. It makes me fall harder for this man. He pushes to his feet and takes me with him, his hand under my hair on my neck as he drags my mouth to his. “And now, I vote we go to bed—together.”
And just like that, he owns me again.
Chapter forty-four
Carrie
Reid drags me close under his arm, and we walk back to the cottage. We don’t speak, a new intimacy between us that is comfortable in the silence. So much so that when we enter the cottage and head upstairs, we still don’t speak. We end up on opposite sides of the bed staring at each other, and what passes between us is intense, intimate, and like nothing I’ve ever experienced. We understand each other. We know each other in ways no one has known us. I don’t talk about my mother, but I have with him. He knows about my challenges with my father. He knows my weaknesses. He knows when and how I am strong. In turn, I know about his struggles with his father, his guilt with his mother, his intimacy issues. I know about his migraines. I know about Elijah. We know what we want and that’s the space out from in between us.
We undress and once we’re under the blankets, we’re instantly in the center of the bed, together, kissing, touching, and when he’s inside me, I’m not sure it’s fucking. It’s more than fucking. It’s tender and intense and it just feels different. We are starting to feel different again, the way we had when we’d kissed by the water between our apartments.
At some point Reid turns me, pulling my back to his chest and his hand is on my breast, his entire body wrapped around mine. I don’t know how having him behind me is more intimate, but it is. It’s like he’s sheltering me and protecting me in some unexplainable way. When we both tremble into release, we don’t move. In fact, he pulls me closer and murmurs my name before the heaviness of sleep and satisfaction wins. My lashes lower and sleep claims me.
I wake with Reid still wrapped around me and it’s a surreal moment, lessened only by the fact that I have to pee so badly I’m about to burst. I’ve never woken up in a man’s arms, which at my age is probably a bit screwed up, but I just—I don’t, or I didn’t, have anyone that made me want to wake up in their arms. Even when my ex stayed the night, I ended up with a pillow hugged to my chest, not him. Reid’s cellphone rings and he groans. “I’m going to ignore it,” he says, his hand sliding to my belly, the thick ridge of his erection sliding between my legs. “So I can tell you good morning properly.”
My hand covers his. “Take the call. Good morning has to come after I pee.”
He rolls me to my back and ignores his call and my bathroom request. “I don’t wake up with women in my bed, Carrie. I don’t do this.”