Tight (4 page)

“What happened with that girl from last night?”

“The blonde?”

“Yeah. Looked like you were headed up to her room.”

A pause. Soft cough. I almost fell off my chair in an attempt to hear his next words.

“Nothing happened. She’s here with a bachelorette party. You know how I feel about that.”

I didn’t pay attention to the other man’s response, my toes curling against the railing, body tightening in hurt and anger.
Not his type
. Maybe that was why he walked away so easily. And here I was, thinking the kiss had affected him as deeply as it had me. I dug my nails into my thighs, watching a curl of forgotten smoke float past, hearing the eventual screech of chair legs as the men behind me moved along.

Fuck him. I didn’t need a one-night stand anyway. My dusty vagina was perfectly happy with the extensive network of cobwebs it’d spent years creating. Somewhere, in the empty recesses of my mind, my subconscious tore to pieces the ‘I love Brett’ poster and moved on to more official business.

tight (tīt)

(adj.)
closely or densely packed together

“the tight crowd”

Midnight
. Thirteen hours left in paradise, then our hung-over selves would be strapped in and flying back to Quincy. I hung an arm around twin necks, inhaling the scent of hairspray and feminine energy, leaned my head back, weight on their shoulders, and bellowed the chorus of "Sweet Home Alabama.
"
The club sang along, and my mouth broke into a grin too big to contain—the familiar tune never failed to raise my spirits. Never mind that, between the six of us, we’d set foot on Alabama soil less than ten times. It was the anthem of the South, and seeing as it took Jena flashing the Bahamian DJ her breasts to get it played, we owned every syllable of the damn thing.

The last chorus rang out, and I released the girls, spinning on the floor, my arms up, getting bumped by sweaty bodies, the dance floor getting tighter by the moment. A heavy bass began, drowning out the country chorus and starting back into the hip-hop that had been dominating the speakers all night.

I slowed my hips, glanced at our table, saw Beth and Tammy there, the rest of us sprinkled between the dance floor and the ladies room. I was pushed forward, hands settling on my waist as a stranger tried to pull me into his crotch-thrusting imitation of a dance. I yanked at his wrists, shooting an annoyed look over my shoulder, and moved to our table, snagging my purse off its surface and moving toward the neon-lit exit sign. Air. I needed air. Air and a moment to regroup, focus. Come to terms with the fact that none of the men in this club would be taking care of my needs tonight. None of them seemed worthy of even a drink. Too young. Too immature. Too available. Too ... not who I was looking for.

I banged through the exit door, the rush of cool night kissing my skin. I took two steps to the right and leaned against the brick exterior wall, legs out, head flat against red brick. God yes. I almost wished I still smoked. I remembered the escapes from life that it provided, the moment to take a pause from the world and do nothing but relax. Now, I didn’t need the nicotine—just the combination of air and quiet were enough to ease my tension and take me one step closer to forgetting last night.

I sensed the presence before I saw it. In the shadows to my right. I stiffened, lowering my chin and staring, confronting whoever it was with my gaze. Then he spoke, and I relaxed, need and heat and want flooding my body with just the scrape of my name. In that one word, that one growl, every lie I’d told myself was exposed. I needed him. My body needed him. Wanted more. I had behaved in the hallway of the 8
th
floor. I had made a mistake. I didn’t intend to make another.

“Come here.” I tilted my head when I spoke.

He stalked forward, in a suit, his hands leaving his pockets as he walked, his head level, stare direct, and ate me with his eyes as he moved without hesitation, not pausing until he was suddenly against me, his hand firm, gripping the side of my face, his mouth taking mine in a possessive kiss that had me back against the wall, his palm against my skin almost hurting me in its need. I gasped for breath when I could grab it, his kiss desperate, dipping, pulling me tighter. I loved it.

“I need you,” he grunted, his free hand sliding up my thigh, pushing my dress inappropriately high, his fingers gripping, squeezing, the heat of his palm sliding over my skin like he owned it, his large hand ending on my ass, and he felt every inch of it as if he was memorizing, worshipping, taking it in his mind as his own.

I need you
. “Yes,” I gasped, lifting my leg and hooking it around him, the shift in my body opening the place between my legs, his fingers finding and running reverently over the line of silk that kept me tied to the edge of sanity.

The door next to me opened, shielding us for a moment, and I froze behind it, my body tensing. His hand dropped from my face, wrapping around my body, the other hand returning to my ass. Both of them worked in concert and lifted, carrying me into the dark shadows where he had just stood, a new wall replacing the brick, this one rough stucco, and I felt lines of it dig into my sunburned skin as he set me down, his mouth taking a break from the kiss and moving to my neck, the rough journey letting me know the level of his need.

Further proof was against me, his pelvis pressed tighter than possible against my own, the hard ridge of it against my pussy making my breath hitch with every twitch of him along me. God, I wanted this man. Was made weak from his touch yet had never felt this aggressive.

Feather soft brushes against silk. Teasing. Torturing. His hand kept my leg in place, though there was no way I was moving it. Not when it opened me up to him. Not when it kept his iron arousal against the place where I wanted it most. My panties were so wet it was embarrassing. I panted against the night air, struggling for silence, the murmurs of the couple who had stepped outside breaking the silence of the night, the orange embers of their smokes reminding me of their presence, their attention on each other, a giggle escaping from their conversation and sending a moment of intelligent thought to my head. Was I really being humped in the shadows against the side of a building? Was this beautiful man really running the pad of his fingers back and forth, lower and higher, finding the—oh my god. My head dropped back, and I couldn’t stop the moan that escaped when his fingers brushed my silk-covered clit.

Jesus
. It wasn’t a curse. It was a thankful message sent upward. I had been lost, and now, in that light brush against my most sensitive place, I was found.

He chuckled against my neck, his fingers moving back an inch or two, until they were back at my soaked opening, pushing on the indent there, the silk moving far enough inside for me to feel the brush of skin on skin, and I just about lifted off the ground in my need for more.

“Don’t stop,” I gasped.

“Honey, I’m not going to stop until you fall apart in my hands. I need that. I’m not releasing you until it happens.”

He lifted his mouth off my neck, returning to my mouth, his kisses softening as his fingers took their time, probing, fluttering over my clit, sliding a firm index down the line, making their way to my ass for a hard press, before returning and starting the insanity again. I was shaking, wanting,
dying
for another touch of his skin, wanting the silk tease of my panties gone, wanting the raw feel of skin on skin. Even with that need, I was not prepared when it happened, my mouth freezing against his kiss, brain function gone, motor skills impaired, every intelligent thought I ever had fleeing my body as his thumb pressed against my clit and two of his fingers pushed inside my body.

Holy Jesus Hell.

He groaned, his forehead on my own, pushing my head back against the wall. “Fuck, I wish you were open before me on a bed right now so I could see this.” The words tore from him, and through the blurred vision of my senses I saw the couple glance our way, a whispered discussion beginning, then ending; the club door opened.

“If we were on a bed right now, your cock would be out.” It was a difficult sentence to formulate, my hips thrusting, trying to help the push and withdrawal of his fingers, my eyes closing despite my best attempts to keep them open.

“Is that so?”

I could hear his need despite the cocky drawl of his question. I had my leg wrapped around him, could feel a tremor in his legs, could feel the stiff ridge of his cock that was anything but unaffected.

“I’m—” The word ‘close’ never made it off my lips. It couldn’t, never had a chance at life, my orgasm eating it for dessert with a ravenous need that took hold of everything else in its path. I tightened around his fingers, my body shuddering as delirium moved in needy waves, radiating from the center of my universe, which laid in the slick breath between his fingers and my everything. I didn’t catch the first of his words; they disappeared in my full body experience. But then later, I heard them as I fell back down to Earth, the vowels stretching out my grip on insanity, taking me to an additional plane I had never reached before.

“... beautiful creature. You feel so perfect. So open, so willing. I want to take every piece of you. Open up your world. Taste you on my mouth. Feel this sensation against the bare skin of my cock. God, I want you so badly. Have thought about you all day.”

His mouth stopped moving, stopped talking, crushed back on mine, communicating the most with its desperation, his fingers thrusting and then slowly halting their movement, and just stayed in place, buried inside, my body fuller than it had been in a long time. I dropped my hand off his shoulders, let the one that had been digging lines of need into his back fall as a wave of sexual contentment moved in.

His mouth slowed, and he slid my leg down, tugged my dress back, keeping our kiss uninterrupted, his hands moving to cup both sides of my face as his legs straddled mine, my push against the wall less intense as our interaction changed to something less dirty. He broke the kiss, resting his forehead against my own as he let out a long breath that was half groan in its makeup. “God, Riley.”

He sounded so pained, so remorseful, that I almost checked for a wedding ring, almost pushed against his chest to look into his eyes. But I didn’t. I didn’t do anything but enjoy the scent of his cologne, the view out of the bottom of my lashes, one of expensive fabric and a peek of tan skin.

“I don’t know what to do with you.” He finished the statement with a brush over my lips, his hands lifting my face until it was turned up to him, our eyes meeting for the first moment since I lost all sense.

Damn, I could look in this man’s eyes all day. Could get lost in them, move for them, lie, steal, die for them. I stared in his eyes and fully accepted that I was a woman. Vulnerable, emotional, delicate, easily overcome. I didn’t know this man. Had shared less than a hundred sentences with him. Had just given him a piece of my virtue in the form of a finger fuck on a dirty Bahamian street in the dead of night.

I stared in his eyes and said nothing. Memorized the dark depths of them. The thick fringe of lashes that I’d accuse of being mascara-enhanced had he not radiated masculinity from every pore on his body.

“I don’t need to ask if you do this often. Your body betrays you of the impossibility of that fact.” He spoke tightly, his hands keeping my face up, my eyes arrested by him, not that I had any plans of looking away in this lifetime. “I don’t. I can’t. This ... is not normal.” His eyes dropped to my lips and he bent, took a long draw of my mouth, as if it was the last time we would ever kiss. He groaned, and my shoulders were suddenly pushed back against stucco. “Fuck,” he swore. “God, I need you underneath me.” He released me, stepped away, rubbed his mouth as he turned, half in the light, the shadows protecting me from the meat of his stare.

“So take me.” The voice that came out of me was not my own. It was of a confident woman who admitted what she wanted, took what she needed.

He dropped his hand, stared at me. “You don’t mean that. You’d regret it in the morning. And I don’t do one-night stands.”