Soaked (The Water's Edge #2) (4 page)

Lifting his head and pulling on the pebbled bud until it popped free, his stormy eyes seared mine with dark promises.

“We’re just getting started.”

I glared, bit my lip, and bucked again—whether my hips were begging for more or trying to push him away, I couldn’t tell.

“Let me go.”
Dear God, don’t stop.

He shook his head, his eyes daring me, but he released my wrists. My body gave him the answer he wanted though when I rocked my hips restlessly, and he closed his eyes and dropped back down to my breasts, sucking and squeezing. I panted with each delicious flick of his tongue and pull of his lips, the sting of his teeth twisting me tighter, making me forget everything but where we connected.

My hands fisted his shirt, yanking, and he raised up, tearing it off with one hand and throwing it to the floor. I dragged my nails across his back, pulling his head closer to my chest.

“Stay.” The pain in that one word sliced deep into my jagged emotions.

I shook my head, but pressed closer.

“Don’t go tomorrow.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re done. I won’t do this again.” I clung to my convictions and his hard body with equal desperation.

He moved, ripping my dress farther to bare more skin for his mouth to explore.

“You’re wrong. We’re gonna do this all night.”

I was torn, knowing this was wrong, but wanting one last time with him. One last time to burn the feel of his skin against mine, his mouth, his hands, his cock—all of it—into memory.

“No!”

He groaned, rising up on his elbows to look at me through hooded eyes.

“Are you really gonna deny this? I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about with Aubrey—about going back to her—but the only woman I give a fuck about is underneath me, and I promise you, she is gonna be thoroughly satisfied before I’m done with her.”

He started to lick a trail down to my navel, my dress destroyed, split at the top and bunched at the bottom, when I caught his chin and made him look at me.

“I was there today. I fucking
saw
you carrying her.”

He paused—the moment frozen, dark and intense between us. We were both breathing hard from arousal and anger and uncertainty, and the tears I’d been holding back threatened to spill over.

“You were there
today?
In Charleston? At the marina?”

I nodded, my heart stuttering in its sprint under my ribs.

“Why the fuck didn’t you say something?”

I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat. “You’d made your choice. It was obvious.”

“I made my choice weeks ago. Apparently it hasn’t been obvious enough.” With a harsh noise, he pulled himself higher up my body, my breasts crushed beneath his chest, his heat scorching me.

Framing my face with his hands and forcing me to meet his stare, he gazed down at me, his eyes harsh and fierce. His thumb stroked over my tender lower lip and he chuckled once, the rough sound vibrating in my own chest.

“This isn’t how I wanted to do this. I had a plan—but leave it to you and your hard-headed stubbornness—” he cut himself off and pressed a kiss, soft and tender, to my forehead.

The unexpected change in pace gave me whiplash.

“I love you, Sadie.”

I tried to shake my head, sure I hadn’t heard him right.

“Yes. I. Love. You. I thought—I thought you knew. I thought my actions showed it. The paper airplanes, crawling in your window to cuddle for a few hours, your hair tie that I can’t bring myself to take off my wrist—how could you not know? Do you think I take moonlit walks with all my female friends? That I get so crazy going up my back stairs that I can’t even wait the few steps it would take to get to my bed with just any woman? I can’t hardly pass a fucking Krispy Kreme anymore without getting a hard-on. Gives a whole new meaning to the HOT NOW sign in the window.”

I stilled beneath him. That was everything I’d wanted to hear—but now couldn’t bear. My heart felt like it was in a blender, my emotions chopped to bits and flying everywhere. He was lying—I’d seen him with her with my own two eyes. The pictures in his nightstand. The lunch meetings he conveniently didn’t mention.

But I wanted desperately to believe him too. His eyes shone with sincerity, and the memories of all the times we were together, just
together,
came roaring back. Not the sex. The other times. His stubbornness trying to coax me into the ocean. Lying on the hammock, legs intertwined. The way our bodies automatically curled together in sleep.

The look on his face dropped, twisted, grew more determined. “I know you feel this connection we have, Sadie. It’s undeniable.” Reaching one hand between us, he plunged a finger into me. I was wet, more than ready for him and my hips surged up. He added a second and it was all I could do to focus on his words. “You think you respond this way because we click physically? You think this is just biological compatibility? You think this is just hormones at work?”

He worked me, pumping me with his hand, the heel of his palm circling my clit. I couldn’t answer, my body on sensory overload. I gasped his name. It was the only thought in my mind.

“You think you could feel this way with just anybody?”

When he withdrew from me abruptly, a cry of need wrenched from my throat. I was so close now. He unzipped his pants, pushing them down just far enough to free himself. He settled between my thighs, his cock a welcome warmth against my sensitive skin.

I squirmed, searching for pressure, friction, anything to ease this feeling inside me, despite knowing this was wrong, knowing this was goodbye.

“You don’t think it’s gotten better between us for a reason? I know you love me—you don’t even have to say it. I thought you knew it too. I thought the way our bodies spoke to each other made it clear—you don’t reach these heights, feel this passion, experience this utter perfection without love.”

“You don’t love me,” I gasped, tilting my hips until he was poised at my entrance.

“The hell I don’t!” he roared, impaling me with one hard thrust.

We both paused, the fullness of him stretching me, completing me, overwhelmed everything else. His neck muscles bulged, and his ass flexed under my hands. Even yelling at each other, nothing had ever felt more right than being joined with him.

And even if I never got to experience it again after tonight, I knew I’d never forget how he felt inside me. His long, hot length, greedy and impatient, moving now at a savage pace.

He dropped his mouth to my neck, sucking hard. Marking me.

I clutched him tighter, squeezed harder, slid against him, met each thrust. I wanted everything he could give me one last time.

He changed his angle, rolling his hips on the downward stroke, making sure my clit wasn’t ignored. We moved together, scaling the precipice until it was too much and I was right there at the peak. Tears fell from my eyes as my orgasm burst through me, scary in its intensity, its finality.

Another pump, one more, and he joined me, my name a harsh cry on his lips.

He buried his face in my shoulder, his chest heaving, as he pulsed deep within me. We stayed like that for a long minute, aftershocks rocking both of us as we caught our breath.

With a satisfied groan, he twisted, our sweaty bodies sticking to the leather seats as he rolled until I lay spent across his chest, my cheek pressed to the thundering pulse of his heart.

He ran his hand down my hair.

“Stay,” he whispered. “You’re mine. Fuck, if I’m doing something wrong, talk to me, teach me. But you can’t go. Not like this.”

I brushed my lips over his damp skin.

“I can’t, West. I can’t do this again. I shouldn’t ever have to wonder if I can trust you. Have to wonder if you’re with her, thinking of her, touching her.”

He started to protest, but I covered his mouth with my hand.

“You want to talk about actions? You were carrying her! She was draped all over you! You were laughing!”

My hand was ripped off his mouth.

“She’s an idiot who twisted her fucking ankle and I was taking her to the ER—”

“You know what?” I interrupted. “I don’t fucking care. I’m sure you have an excuse. You always do. I’m sure you have a perfectly good reason for having half-naked pictures of her in your nightstand too.”

He wrinkled his brow. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming. Scooping his shirt off the floorboard, I slid it over my head, grateful it would be long enough to cover my dripping sex. Glaring at him, I scrambled out of the truck. I didn’t even register the sharp edges of the crushed oyster shells digging into my bare feet.

“Why don’t you check when you get home? Then you can tell me what completely legitimate excuse you have for that. Because, I’m
sure
you have one.”

Tucking himself back inside his pants and zipping up, he followed me.

“Sadie, don’t do this. Don’t go. Catch a later flight. Turn down the job. Let’s work this out.”

I turned flat eyes on him, ignoring the hand he stretched in my direction. “There’s nothing to work out. We’re done.”

“We’re
not
done! Quit saying that!”

Stepping close, I kissed him one last time, softly, lips closed. A final goodbye.

“You really love me, West? Let me go. Just let me go.”

I
WAITED LIKE
a fool. Laid in bed, wide awake, dry-eyed, trembling at times with arousal and other times with anger. I wanted to scream and yell and beat my fists on his chest. Kiss him senseless and fuck him until we were too tired to talk anymore. My lips wanted to whisper in his ear that I loved him too, that we’d make this work. I plotted Aubrey’s demise with increasing detail. The ways I’d prove her wrong. Prove West did love me—that we were perfect for each other.

But I didn’t get to do any of that.

Because he never came.

Not when I got up to get a glass of warm milk. Not when the stars mocked me when I looked out the window for his truck—again. Not when the gray fingers of dawn stretched awake. Not while I showered off the last remnants I had of
us,
the last of him on me, our musky smell replaced with my usual cheap watermelon products. Not while I finished packing, my body on autopilot as I plucked toiletries from my bathroom counter. Not as I hauled two oversized suitcases to the curb and waited for Grady to pick me up on the way to the Savannah airport.

He didn’t show last minute, running to the gate, desperate for a last attempt to convince me to stay.

He didn’t text. Didn’t call. Didn’t appear.

He never came.

He let me go.

He let me go.

He let me go.

YOU KNOW WHAT
was great about airplanes? They served alcohol. Even in the morning. Today was only a travel day, according to Grady. I wasn’t officially on the clock, so why not start the day with a screwdriver? I didn’t remember much else from the first flight—Savannah to Miami. Just that one screwdriver I nursed the entire way. I was stuck next to some foreign businessman in coach who thankfully ignored me, leaving me to brood in my drink and stare unseeing out the window.

As I looked at the miniature landscape spread out thousands of feet below me, I remembered exactly how small I really was in this great big world. That my pain was nothing compared to all the problems that existed and plagued the world. Poverty, hunger, illiteracy, crime, discrimination. My heartbreak was so far down that list of problems.

And yet, I felt crushed by it.

Shattered. Cracked. Betrayed.

But not destroyed. I was too fucking stubborn to let a guy utterly destroy me again.

No. If nothing else, I had my pride.

And my pride demanded that by the time I arrive in the Caribbean, my wallowing would end. I had one more flight to pout and then I had to pull on my big girl panties.

If West was too dumb to realize what he fucked up, that was on him—not me.

I was a
damn
fine catch.

Any man should be
lucky
to have me by his side. Fucking honored.

I downed the last gulp of my screwdriver and allowed myself a tight, bitter smile. Anger was so much easier than denial. I was making nice progress through the stages of grief.