Why the hell does that blunt, crude admission turn me on so fucking much?
I pull on my seatbelt, and he squeals out of my parent’s driveway.
“You don’t like them,” I say after a few minutes.
His gaze turns to me, pure disbelief, and I swallow hard. “No fucking shit, Pey.”
He drives for about five minutes, and then jerks the truck off the road, onto a dirt road that serves as a driveway to an old, little used farm. “What are we doing?” I ask, nervously.
“Your brother’s house is thirty minutes from here, and my hotel is farther than that. And I can’t wait that long to fuck you,” he says matter-of-factly, stopping the truck. He glances at me, the look hot and invasive. “You look fucking amazing, Fish.”
Then he’s out of the truck and I have just a few seconds to decide. If this is what I want. If Rike is who I want. Then the door pops open, and his hands are on my legs, pulling me around to face him. He nudges them open and settles against me, hugging me. His shoulders relax as he clings to me. “I’ve missed you, Fish. So fucking much.”
I don’t know how to respond to that. Except… “I miss you too,” I confess quietly. The truth. How can I miss someone I barely know, someone who shouldn’t matter to me? But should or not, he does.
He matters so much.
Rike looks up at me, his blue eyes hungry. “I want you. But it’s your choice. It’s always been your choice.” Something crosses his eyes and he smirks at me, a crooked little boy grin. “Stay or go?” he murmurs.
A shudder runs through me, and my body goes soft and pliant, my panties wet. I’ve heard him say that before and it was hot.
“Stay,” I whisper.
His eyes flare and then he’s pulling me down, and I slide down his body, against this thick erection. He groans and I smile, just barely resisting the urge to wrap my legs around his waist and grind against him.
Instead, I keep sliding down, until I’m on my knees. “Peyton,” he says hoarsely.
I unzip his pants, and my hands are on him. Stroking over the silky skin. His dick kicks in my hand and I giggle, sliding his pants and boxers aide. He has two tattoos, trailing down that sexy v that makes my mouth water. A pair of dragons in mid-flight. I lean down and kiss one, my tongue licking over it, and he grunts, thrusting a little. I pull back and he curses. “Don’t tease, baby. Let me fuck your pretty little mouth.”
My hand comes up and cups his balls, tugging gently, and he grunts. I lick over the matching dragon. “Dirty girl. You fucking love this. Want me to beg? Because I’m begging. Do it, babe. Suck my dick.” I take his cock deep, my lips tight around him and his head falls back, hissing, “Fuck, yes, baby.”
I whimper as his hands find my hair, and he thrusts gently. “Love that dick, don’t you, dirty girl?”
I keep one hand on his cock, and slip the other one down, pulling up my skirt and slipping a hand between my legs.
“Yes,” he groans. “Fuck yes, touch yourself, Pey. You’re wet, aren’t you? So wet. I could fuck you so easy right now, babe.”
I scream, shuddering as I come, a combination of the dirty, raspy words, and my fingers, and the fucking crazy high of controlling his pleasure. His hands are on me, jerking me up and I scream again as he buries himself in my pussy.
“Fuck, yes,” he groans, pulling back and slamming into me again. He shifts me against the truck, slides a hand between my ass and the door and pulls me into him, meeting each furious thrust. Each one sets off another tiny orgasm, until there is nothing but sensation, and pleasure, and his body and mine.
***
We fuck again when we get to the hotel, against the door while he chants my name like a prayer and plays my body like an instrument. After, I cuddle next to him on the bed, his fingers toying in my hair.
“I want you to come home,” he says into the silence.
I squeeze my eyes closed. I knew it was coming, but still—to hear it said so bluntly is like running headlong into a brick wall. I shift, so I’m lying across his chest. The koi on his arm stares up at me through the shield of seaweed and coral, and I study it.
“I love that one,” I say. He chuckles, and I prop myself up, glaring at him. “What?”
“You should. It’s yours.” My mouth falls open and he laughs again. “Why the hell does that surprise you? Half my ink is because of you.”
“Tell me,” I demand.
He pushes off the bed, and stands naked next to me. I make a small hum of appreciation and Rike laughs again. “Stop. Focus.”
With some effort—and a good deal of reluctance—I force my attention from the more interesting bits of his anatomy to the ink he’s pointing at.
I’m a patchwork across his body. The pinup girl on his ribcage with her head turned away, and long red hair. The script wrapped around his right wrist. The matching swallows on his back. And the koi, the brilliant tattoo that’s captivated me since I woke up in the hospital.
“Why do you call me Fish?” I ask, tracing it.
“People say there’s plenty of fish in the sea. I say, fuck you, she was my sea.”
My breath catches and I glance up at hm. Let my lips curve into a tiny smile. “Doesn’t take mean I’m Sea?”
He shifts, covering me and sliding into me in one move that makes my laugh catch in my throat. Turn into a broken groan.
“Fish sounds better,” he whispers, watching me.
I whimper, and he smiles, a smile so fucking beautiful and sad it makes me want to cry. Moves in me, slow and sweet, his lips on my neck and shoulders and lips, whispering sweet, dirty words of love while he makes love to me, until I gasp, my body arching against him as I come apart.
When he comes, a few seconds later, he whispers, so softly, “I love you, Fish.”
Chapter 23 : Before
The girls are out. Peyton wanted tequila, and after the few hours we spent with her parents, I don’t blame her much. I want some painkillers and my bed.
“Was it bad?”
“I won’t make her visit her parents again; let’s put it that way,” I say, scrubbing a hand over my face.
Scotty’s quiet for a long minute, and I frown, glancing up at him. “Ever wonder if we were lucky? Our parents were awful, but at least we didn’t get stuck with them. We got free.”
“Being put in the system isn’t free, Scott. It’s just in a fucking broken system.”
He nods. “Yeah. I know. But we’re out now. And at least in the system we found some family. Maybe not the one we were born with, but family that you choose is just as important. Maybe more, in a way.”
I stare at him. “Where the actual fuck is this coming from?”
He shrugs. “Dunno. I guess now that we have the girls—we’re our own family. We created something for ourselves that we never had. What would we do if we lost that? If the girls walked away or decided that we aren’t good enough as we are?”
I think about Peyton, and her fierce anger with her father, the way she defended me and refused to let him and Mary Anne tear me apart. I think of Lindsay and her good-natured teasing, the way she fights with Scott while pulling him closer. I think of how they both vanished, giving me and him the time to process shit, and how she put together that fucking perfect room, the way they’ve slipped so effortlessly into our lives, and made it their own.
How Linds will work to get us gigs. How Peyton is so quick to encourage me and Scott to try new things, shit that will make us better. Happier.
“They wouldn’t do that,” I say hoarsely. Because now I’m thinking about it, and the idea of losing them, even for a little while, is fucking terrifying.
Lindsay isn’t mine. She won’t ever be, and I don’t want her. But the four of us—we’re a fucking family. And I hate even the thought of losing that. I glance at my best friend, the brother I never had. “They wouldn’t.”
“No, brother,” he says gently. “They wouldn’t.”