Getting Rough (17 page)

I closed my eyes, absorbing Shaw’s presence on my skin, in my mind, inside my body, letting him burrow deeper into a space I’d never imagined he would ever occupy. My heart.

“No, Cassidy. I told you I don’t want to be alone. I need you to be here with me in this moment. Not just physically, but in every way imaginable. See
me
.”

I really didn’t know how to process those words, but I knew that no matter how much it would likely destroy me in the end, I wanted to give him anything he asked for.

With a barely perceptible nod, I whispered, “Okay.”

I wasn’t even sure he’d heard it over the sound of the shutters straining at the hinges and the debris hitting the roof overhead, but something must have convinced him that all systems were Go because the way he moved inside me, the way he kissed me… may the powers that be have mercy on my soul as it crossed over into the afterlife. Because this new Shaw was going to be the death of me.

Though we’d just begun, we had to stop to catch our breaths, and not even that kept us from wanting more. He kissed me again and again, resting his forehead against mine in between and staring down at my lips. This was the sort of kiss that went straight to your head and made you forget about everything else, including how to breathe. No oxygen to the brain tended to make one dizzy, so I had to hold on to keep from falling. But Jesus, I was too late. I’d already fallen, and fallen hard. There was no safety net, no bottom in sight. All I could hope was that Shaw would be there to catch me.

Clutching him to me, my thighs squeezed his hips even as I tried desperately to bring him closer. His hands cradled my face while my fingers sought to find purchase in his hair. It wasn’t enough, so I dropped my arms and wrapped them under and over his shoulders instead. Finally, safety. Something to hold on to. Something to give me balance.

I wanted even more control, but Shaw wasn’t giving it. For each time I tried to take the lead, he showed his dominance, countering every move with a redirect or a nip to my lip. No. God. I couldn’t let him. I couldn’t let him have that much control and I couldn’t let him know it was his to give. If he knew how I felt, if he knew I was in love with him…

My breath hitched. I was in love with him. Crap.

Everything went still under the weight of my realization as if some higher being had hit the pause button on the world. It was quiet. Too quiet. Even the howling winds and pounding rain had come to an end.

Shaw slowed his movements, his hips abandoning the thrust to focus on the grind instead. He was so deep. So very, very deep inside me. Closer than he’d ever been before.

“It’s the eye of the storm,” he whispered. “But it isn’t over yet. In fact, things are about to get rough again. Are you ready?”

I knew he was talking about the back end of Ayla, but I couldn’t help but think how well his statement fit everything that was going on between us now.

“No. I really don’t think I am. But I’ve never backed down from a challenge,” I told him. And I meant it.

“That’s my girl,” he said with a slow and steady grind that nearly made me orgasm on the spot. “My girl.”

And then he nuzzled my neck, sucking and nipping… marking me. His girl. God help me, but it was true.

Running my hands along his back, I reveled in the flexing muscles there until I reached his ass. Closing my eyes, I stepped through the looking glass of my mind and recounted the memory of the way his back looked in the mirror while he’d fucked me in the bathroom of that private jet. Only, he wasn’t fucking me now. He was making love to me. Maybe it was wishful thinking from a mind that was still freaking out about my most recent revelation, but even if that were the case, I didn’t care. I’d let myself believe he loved me, too. If only for this one moment.

I sank my nails into the cheeks of that divine ass, feeling the flexing of muscles underneath my fingertips as he ground against me. Closer. I wanted him closer. So I lifted my legs until my knees were at his ribs and then wrapped them around him, cupping his ass and drawing him deeper inside me.

Shaw moaned at my ear, whispering, “Fuck, sweetness, you feel so good. I never want to not be inside you. Not ever again.”

God, I didn’t want him never to be there either. But I couldn’t tell him that. It would give him way too much power over me. Though, truthfully, the power was already his.

I loved him. And for the first time, I felt like we were truly connected. Not just physically, but on some other level. A level that penetrated the core of me that was almost as deep as what his cock was penetrating now.

His groin massaged my clit with a delicious pressure that beckoned my climax forward. I couldn’t have called it back, even if I’d wanted to try. And I didn’t. I wanted to come on his cock, wanted him to feel the pulsing pull of my orgasm, and I wanted to milk him of his own.

His skin was hot against mine, fevered more by his passion than the blood running through his veins. Each grunting thrust forward propelled me further, his thick cock moving so purposefully inside me and the broad head doing something very wicked to that gland of pleasure. It had to be swollen from the stimulation. Swollen and ready to burst. Oh, but I was ripe and on the verge of a dual orgasm; one from my G-spot and the other from the pressure on my clit.

“Shaw, I’m almost…” I moaned out, unable to finish the sentence.

“I know, sweetness. Me too. I’m trying to wait for you, but you’re so goddamn tight —” He paused, grunting through another deep grind.

I bit into his shoulder and he bucked forward.

“Fuck, you can’t do that. You’re going to make me come.”

I didn’t care. I was almost there myself and it set off a sort of feeding frenzy inside me. I wanted to taste him, to feel his flesh between my teeth and savor the salty flavor of his skin. So I went for his neck, sucking with the groaning pleasure of the orgasm at its cusp. And then Shaw really got busy, the thrusting grind jarring my body with its force. My hypersensitive nipples ached in a wonderful sort of way under the compression of his chest, and the raging beat of my heart became heavy and dense.

I moaned, the sound no doubt vibrating against his skin. Every muscle in Shaw’s body went even more taut, his ass still flexing beneath my hands. He needed more control, more room to move.

I started to release the lock I had around him with my legs, but Shaw stopped me with a shake of his head and a raspy “No. Hold on to me, Cassidy. Don’t let go.”

So I tightened the embrace, undulating beneath him and meeting the rolling grind of his hips. Oh, my God… the slippery stroking of his groin against my clit, the engorged cock moving inside me, the feel of his skin on mine, and the sound of his grunted pleasure at my ear… I had no choice but to succumb to it all.

My moan started low, building and building in tandem with the mounting orgasm. With a one-two punch, the clitoral release hit first and the G-spot followed hot on its trail. Shaw pulled back to watch my face.

“Oh, fuck,” he mumbled, and then his lips covered mine as he moaned into my mouth.

I felt it. The pulsing heat of his semen as he came. Not on my belly. Not on my thigh. No, his orgasm mingled with mine deep within the protection of my pussy. I could feel my walls contracting around his cock, milking him while still indulging in the pleasure he gave as his movements slowed to a stuttered pace.

And then finally, Shaw’s kiss became less carnal, tender in the way his mouth softened and his tongue retreated. With one last suckle to my bottom lip, he pulled back to catch his breath and allowed me to catch mine.

Shaw wasn’t moving, but I could still feel his cock throbbing inside me, and it was the most intense thing I’d ever felt before. Almost as intense as the way he was looking down at me. His lips were parted to ease his breathing, and a light sheen of sweat kissed his skin. But the thing I noticed most was the way his brow furrowed with a mix of contemplation and confusion. He wasn’t the only one confused.

I felt his absence before he’d even completely withdrawn his cock, but somehow I still felt fulfilled. Lowering my legs, I gave him room to roll off me, but he stayed right where he was.

What was it about the way he was looking at me that made the butterflies in my belly go berserk?

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked.

I didn’t even need to think about it. I’d done enough thinking tonight to last a whole lifetime. And if this one night was all I’d have with Shaw in this way, I’d take it. Without regret.

So with a shake of my head, I answered truthfully, “I don’t want to be alone anymore, either.”

The smile that spread across his face nearly took my breath away. And then he flopped onto his back, slipping his arm under my shoulders to gather me to him so that I was forced to lay my head on his chest.

“Good,” he said, and I could still hear that smile in his voice.

Yeah, it was very good.

I was fast at work back in my room, cataloguing every detail of the storm raging outside, making notes of everything I saw and heard because if ever I found myself in a position to write a hurricane in the future, I knew that retelling the experience from my own point of view would make it as real as possible for my reader.

But the hurricane wasn’t the only thing I was making note of.

Casey had had some extreme emotional reactions that had led to a fistfight, a man overboard, a near-death experience, and the heartache of losing the one woman on the face of the planet that he’d ever cared anything for. Well, at least I assumed he’d lost her. He’d seen her screwing another man with his own eyes, for goodness’ sake. And if I’d learned anything about Casey while I’d been studying him, it was that he was as loyal as they came and expected the same in return.

I was as shocked as he was by the interesting twist of Cassidy hooking up with a man she’d supposedly despised. We’d talked so much about her and their life together that I felt like I knew her personally. Though truthfully, she intimidated the hell out of me. She had it all: a loving and supportive family, a superstar career, local fame, and a boyfriend (excuse me, ex-boyfriend) who was a one-in-a-million rare find. How could she have left it all behind?

People fascinated me. I was completely obsessed with figuring out what made them tick. I studied the way a subject walked, talked, dressed, gestured, their facial expressions, words they chose and the inflection upon them, the choices they made… everything. All those things that made each of us an individual. Not only did I study all the things of the present, but also of the past. We were a product of our surroundings. The way we reacted to situations was part genetic makeup, part the surroundings in which we grew, and part the lessons we learned on our own. Everything we did was preprogrammed at some point along our journey, and I wanted to reason it all out. It was a game, a riddle to be solved.

But getting to know these people – getting to know Casey – had put an end to the game for me. It was real. His emotions were real. And I just wanted to live in his world. So I did it the best way I knew how. I wrote about it. Within the pages of my own musings, I was in control. I could feel his touch, taste his kiss, and calm his hidden fears… I could give him his happily ever after. And I could imagine it was with me. Though the line between what was a matter of my imagination and what was real had become blurred.

Casey and Cassidy were the fictional characters within a made-up world inside an overactive romantic mind. It was every author’s dream to be able to reach out and touch them, to interact in a way that was tangible, real. My Jayson Bass and Janell Kain had come to life right before my very eyes, and I couldn’t help the overwhelming excitement it had given me. Of course that might have also meant that I’d become too familiar with their real-life counterparts in my own world, a familiarity Casey and Cassidy couldn’t understand and certainly didn’t feel. But in them, I saw my characters. They likely saw a crazy lady who they’d probably thought was being way too intrusive. Hopefully, they’d indulge my fantasy for just a little while longer so I could get my manuscript completed.

I should’ve already been gone, but then Anna had hurt herself and Casey had told me Cassidy was on her way back home. I just couldn’t leave without meeting this infamous woman and seeing if she was anything at all like my Janell. Admittedly, after all the discussions about her – all the
ooh
ing and
ahh
ing over how smart she was, how beautiful, how successful, how loved, and how absolutely perfect – I’d developed a girl crush. But she didn’t like me much.

Cassidy was less than receptive toward me, but I tried not to take it personally. After all, I was a stranger and I’d been spending an awful lot of time with her ex-boyfriend, who didn’t quite get that he was an ex per all of our conversations. It was so obvious to see. Casey was still over the moon for her. In fact, he’d sworn the moon
was
her. Apparently, that had been their thing.

I wished I’d had a thing with someone.

A knock sounded at my door, giving me a start so that I nearly fell off my bed. Then I literally did fall off when I tried to get out of it and got tangled up in the sheets. Again with the knock, more insistent this time, urgent. Jeez, with the hurricane raging as it was outside the Whalen House, I hoped it wasn’t some sort of emergency.

Finally gathering myself off the floor and finding my clumsy feet, I went over, willing myself to stop overthinking things. I had a really bad habit of doing that. But my instinct to do so kicked into overdrive when I pulled back the door and saw what was waiting on the other side.

Casey was standing there, his chest rising and falling in that “quiet just before the storm” sort of way. Which was poetic because the actual storm outside was deafening. Soft baby blues that once promised comfort and security now matched the lonely, tumultuous dark waters of the bay and gave thought to a sailor lost at sea, looking to use every tool at his disposal to find his way back to the shore. Ooh, that was good. Where was my notebook?

Swallowing the clichéd lump in my throat, I decided to say something rather than continue to stand there looking like an idiot. “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah. Something is very wrong.” Casey’s voice sounded even more gravelly than normal in a very sexy, though dangerous sort of way.

I was forced to back up as he walked inside and closed the door behind him like he owned the place. There was something in his eyes, something that changed everything and excited me while also putting the fear of God into my soul.

“You said you could tell a lot about a person by the way they kiss.”

I nodded.

Getting right to the point, he grabbed the back of my head, holding me in place as his mouth came down hard on mine and his tongue pushed inside. There was nothing sweet about his kiss. No light nips of my lip, no precursory suckles at the corner of my mouth, no sweeping tease of the tongue begging for entrance like you read about in all the cookie-cutter romance novels. It wasn’t slow, nor was it gentle. It was desperate and rough and looking to prove a point. So unlike the man I’d thought I’d come to know, but still exactly what I’d expected.

The intensity of his gaze when he pulled back was no different from the kiss. “And what did that tell you?”

Again I swallowed, and then I said the first thing that came to mind: “You need to be fucked.” I couldn’t believe I’d been so bold.

“Wrong. I need to be the one doing the fucking. If you don’t want to be on the receiving end of that, you better say so now.”

I didn’t say a word. Even if I’d wanted to, my lips would’ve denied my brain’s request. But he must have seen my acceptance of the offer in my expression because the already supercharged atmosphere ignited into something I wasn’t entirely sure I’d been prepared for.

“Get undressed.”

I followed the order, not because I was terrified of him, but because I was terrified he’d change his mind if I didn’t. I wanted to be his outlet. I needed to be his outlet. So I made fast work of shedding my yoga pants and oversized T-shirt, and thanked the powers that be I’d just had a shower and hadn’t bothered with the panties or bra. Once I was done, I stood there, awkward and very naked, waiting for Casey to finish undressing himself. I wanted to help, would’ve helped, but something told me my assistance would be unwelcome.

Casey stood when he’d finished and I gawked. And probably drooled. Holy fucking shit, but the man was even more glorious naked than I’d imagined my Jayson to be in my wildest fantasies. And yeah, there’d been a few of those during my special alone time since I’d come to the island. Casey’s chest was thick and firm with a small patch of hair between the pecs, his gorgeous arms were veiny and bulging, and that trail down his abdomen was worthy of a paragraphed description. But there was no time to write now because even farther below, there was a granite trophy in need of attention. Casey’s erection hung long and thick from his body, and I was feeling mighty attentive.

He didn’t take the time to check me out as thoroughly as I had him. I was almost grateful he hadn’t. I wasn’t built like the women I wrote about. My breasts were only about a B-cup, and my figure didn’t look anything like an hourglass. I was average – not skinny, not fat – with the sort of thickness that came along from sitting behind my laptop day in and day out while snacking on junk food.

Taking me by the arm, Casey walked me over to the bed and turned my shoulders so that I faced it. All business in order to get down to the business. I liked it. And then he nudged me forward until I was bent over the mattress. I liked that, too.

“Are you ready?”

More than. “Yes.”

Without any preparation – though, truthfully, I was already more than wet for him – Casey pushed inside me, burying his cock balls deep. My back arched as I whispered, “Oh, my God. Yes…”

“No talking,” he said as he leaned forward, the heat of his body nearly scorching the exposed skin of my back. “And you might want to hold on to something.”

I felt the swift retreat of his cock, which nearly made me shout a protest despite his order of silence, but then I was again gifted with every agonizing inch of the next drive forward. His pace quickened and the power of his thrusts became more demanding. He was right; I needed to hold on to something, so I found purchase on the sheets right next to his hands. The way he covered me with his body, those perfect teeth buried in the skin of my shoulder… it was carnal, intense. Perfect.

Pinning me down by the neck, I was trapped and unable to move. I couldn’t see Casey’s ruggedly handsome face, which meant he also couldn’t see mine. And that was just as he needed it to be. However, I could definitely hear the grunting at my ear. Closing my eyes, I let the sound of him, the feel of him, the smell of him whisk me away to that place inside my mind where I’d recorded every nuance of my Jayson, and the two became one.

Much like the kiss, there was a purpose to his fast and steady strokes. No deviation from the angle from which he worked, no slow and steady grind. He wasn’t working to bring me pleasure. He was seeking his own, though I couldn’t help but wonder if his release would bring him anything other than pain.

I had no grand delusions about what all this meant. His cock wasn’t inside me because he’d fallen madly in love with the woman who’d come from out of nowhere when he was at the most desperate point of his life. It wasn’t even there because I was voluptuous and seductive and he simply couldn’t resist me. And none of this was about my sassy mouth turning him on and making him want to fuck some manners into me.

Casey was not Jayson Bass, and I was not Janell Kain. But I wanted him all the same.

Yanked from my imaginary world and thrust back into reality, I was confused when the glorious cock that had been occupying my very needy vagina suddenly disappeared. And even more so when Casey snatched me up like I didn’t weigh a thing, only to find myself in a straddled position with that beast of a man between my thighs.

Apparently needing no help from me, Casey guided my hips until he was completely sheathed again. I groaned, relishing the stretch and feel once more. But this wasn’t about me, a fact proven when he began to move me up and down on his cock, fast and hard. So I did the only thing I could do; I held on to his shoulders and let him have his way, regardless of how contradictory the position may have been.

As a woman and a romance author, I’d always considered cowgirl style to be a position of dominance over a man, my chance to be in control. That simply was not true with Casey. Like a horse without reins, he controlled the ride. He was wild and free, the lean muscles of his body flexing with each movement, the huff of his labored breaths every bit as powerful as the momentum behind them. Casey was a thoroughbred free of fences, free of restraint. Finally.

I was going to write about this. I was going to immortalize him and this moment in the pages of one of my books. Because it was worthy of immortalization. Inside my writer’s brain, I memorized every minute detail – the flex of his strong shoulders, the grip of his capable hands, the feel of the rough calluses from his palms against my cheeks, the exquisite pull of my anus with each lift up, and the sound of skin meeting skin with each push down. But most of all, I’d remember and hope to capture every shade of the raw emotion behind eyes as blue as a marlin on a hook making its last-ditch attempt to free itself from its captor’s line. Because no matter how free his movements seemed to be, those eyes told a different story.

I was locked on his gaze, unable to turn away for fear I’d miss something intrinsically important. What Casey saw as he looked back at me wasn’t me at all. In the place of dull brown hair, he saw robust locks of shimmering auburn. In the place of amber skin, he saw flawless ivory. And in the place of boring brown eyes, he saw orbs the color of springtime leaves. What he saw,
who
he saw, was Cassidy.

The grip on my ass softened, but the cock inside me was still very rigid. When Casey also stopped moving me up and down, I wondered if he’d changed his mind and no longer wanted to follow through on the task he’d started. So I stopped moving as well, waiting for him to tell me to get off him. He didn’t.

Instead, he pulled my hips forward, encouraging me to take over, to move as I wanted… to ride him. My heart raced in my chest, thrilled by the opportunity to have this man the way I’d wanted him from the moment of our very first greeting. Casey was tall with broad shoulders, sturdy and strong, a mountain of a man that made we want to get out my climbing gear and go for his summit. But I’d somehow managed to control my impulses, intimidated by his mere presence as he towered over me. Now he was between my thighs, all that raw power mine for the taking. So I seized the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and accepted his offering.

Leaning into him, I positioned my hips for an easier glide, rolling forward and back with a pace that was much more sensual than the pounding he’d been serving up. I didn’t want him to feel angry. I wanted him to feel needed, desired, worshipped. Holding him close, I nuzzled his neck. When I heard his slow exhale as he craned his head to the side to give me better access, I took full advantage. But I knew I needed to be careful not to spook him. So I took my time, gently sucking at his skin and taking nips, though I was sure not to mark him. He was not mine. I was only borrowing him.