The touch of his lips to hers was light as a feather, a tickle and nothing more.
“Harder,” she whispered, the word catching in her throat.
“What?” He cupped a hand to his ear. “The waterfall, I can’t quite hear you.”
“Harder,” she begged louder, and it was such a strange thing to give commands at the same time that she was completely at his mercy.
She got her wish, though. He grabbed her around the waist and crushed his lips to hers. Immediately Julia opened her mouth, seeking his tongue before he had a chance to pull away. The kiss was so much sweeter, so much hotter, so much more enticing because of how she’d had to build to it.
She had always been well behaved, always done what she was told. She never rebelled against her parents or experimented in college or got in any kind of trouble. Liz had done enough for both of them, and it sort of lost its appeal. Julia was the one who picked up the pieces, not the one who fell apart.
She’d had one serious, significant relationship with the man who was her best friend’s brother. They just kind of fell in together, more because they were both there with Liz during her hardest times than because they had any true spark. He’d been kind and sweet and safe.
Too safe.
Julia could take control in a classroom of rowdy teens but that wasn’t the same as taking control now, flexing her tongue against Blake’s, drawing his hand to her breast to feel the way her nipples responded to the heat radiating from him when they touched.
“What else do you want?” he whispered in her ear, rolling his fingers over the delicate curve of her breast.
“Touch me.” Her voice was throaty, hoarse, thick with desire. Thick with the heady, forbidden thrill of asking for what she wanted. Of telling him her need.
Blake bent his forehead down so it was resting against hers, one hand slowly working under the fabric of her dress while the other gently slid the straps off her shoulders, one side and then the next.
“Where?” His voice was quiet, a breath in her ear.
“Everywhere,” she exhaled, leaning into him. When she pressed her hips forward she felt him hard and wanting, pressing back. His hands grew bolder, firmer, grasping her around the neck as he kissed her, hard, everything he had kept pent up surging forth with the force of the river rushing around them.
“Like that?” he asked, drawing his lips from hers for a fraction of a breath.
But she could only whimper in response.
She slid her hand down the front of his shorts, reaching for his cock. Wanting the feel of him, solid and real. She couldn’t believe how much just touching him through the fabric of his boxers could make such warmth build deep inside her. If he’d asked her right now what she wanted, she would no longer have hesitated with her reply.
“Why don’t you find out how wet I am,” she whispered, sliding her palm down his shorts. He let out a low moan as she wrapped her fist around his full cock and helped draw his boxers down.
“I can do that,” he murmured, running his fingers under her dress, over her thighs, up to her hips, bunching up her dress as he crept north. At the ridge of her hips he stopped, a smile teasing across his face. “Is this what I think it is?” he asked.
She gave a flirty shrug. “Guess you’ll have to see.”
Slowly he lifted the bottom of her dress to reveal red lace panties hugging her hips. Julia had absolutely not planned to pack anything sexy—what would she need it for? They never got any use anyway. But at the last minute, when she’d been putting her new bikinis in her bag, she rooted through her dresser drawer and found them. It would be only for her, but sometimes it was nice to feel sexy, even if no one else knew. Maybe especially then.
Now, though, the secret was out. And she could see in Blake’s eyes that he was more than happy to have discovered her surprise.
“Well goddamn,” he said, eyeing her up and down. He ran his fingers over the thin strip of lace and then across the narrow V of fabric that burrowed down where her desire pooled. “I almost hate to take these off you.”
She spread her legs apart, granting him further access. He looked deep into her eyes and kissed her.
“Almost,” he whispered in her ear, then pulled the panties down.
Behind her, the waterfall roared and roared, a timeless falling. A barrier separating them from the rest of the world. In this tiny circle all their own, they could be anyone they wanted. Julia could be reckless, dirty, stepping out of the little lace things. And Blake? Well, she only knew him as the man who looked at her like he wanted to devour her whole.
This time, he didn’t have to prompt her to spill her desires. “I want you inside me,” she panted.
Blake squeezed his eyes shut like he was savoring a taste, a smell, a perfect memory he didn’t want to forget. “God, I love those words in your mouth.”
“I need you,” she whispered.
“I’m yours.”
The words still shocked her coming out of her mouth, but hidden under the waterfall she could hold nothing back. It was a strange sort of paradox, to be somebody else and yet at the same time to know that in here, with him, she was only capable of truth. It was as though the river washed away all pretense, all hope of normalcy and decency and respectable things men and women did with each another, leaving something naked and raw and devastatingly true in its path.
“Fuck me, Blake,” she moaned as he kissed his way down to her breasts.
There were things she’d never said before and things she’d never done. And now that she’d discovered them, she didn’t know how she’d ever go back to a more innocent time, when sex happened behind closed doors with people who loved each other, tiptoed around each other, gave but never took, maintained that everything was fine, and never, ever asked for more.
She buried her fingers in Blake’s hair as his teeth found a nipple and pulled on her breast. Part of her felt like she was completely letting go but another part knew she was already gone, hurtling herself over the cliff of desire like the water rushing above and all around her, pounding in her head, pounding in her heart, pounding as his body moved with hers in the crevice of the earth they had marked as their own.
Chapter Seven
Blake had been playing, teasing, building up the moment as his hard-on grew from watching her come undone in his hands. He knew from the night before that underneath the demure, proper exterior, light and fun and girlish in her sundress with her long hair streaming, someone else was waiting to be released. He only had to give her permission to let go.
Julia’s hair, wet from the waterfall, clung down her back, and her cheeks were flushed from the warm day and the fervor of their touching. The look in her eyes as she begged him to fuck her was enough to elicit a low groan from him, hungry and possessive. He wasn’t the only one discovering something hidden deep within that was taking over now. Hearing what she wanted, there was no way he could stop himself from giving it to her. Anything she asked for, he couldn’t say no.
He hooked her panties over one finger—goddamn how his dick had jumped when he felt that little lacy tease over her hips. He’d been expecting something simple and practical, the traveler’s wardrobe. In fact, he didn’t really have any expectations at all. His focus wasn’t on her panties but what was underneath.
The surprise and delight that she’d been carrying this secret was almost more than he could bear. Had she woken up knowing she was going to seduce him again? He’d said he was leaving, but maybe she’d already sensed there was no way he was getting away that fast. A night like they’d had could only be followed by an even better day.
Or maybe she’d changed into them when she went back to her room to get ready before they left. The thought that she’d prepare for him was equally thrilling.
He knew, too, that it might have had nothing to do with him. And thinking about her going through her day with that flimsy red lace clinging to the curves of her ass, for no other purpose than the fact that it made her feel sexy even if no one else saw, was perhaps the most arousing possibility of all.