“Please,” she panted, both hands back on the wooden fence to prepare herself for what he was about to give her.
“It’s all for you,” he said through gritted teeth. His balls ached as the release grew within him, hot and strong and impossible to stop. On impulse he let out a cry and grabbed her hair in his fists, long and luxurious between his fingers. He pulled and she arched her back, craning her neck. Over her shoulder he could see her breasts half out of her dress. The cloth had gotten all turned around and hung off her waist like an afterthought. She was so fucking sexy. He lost it.
“Right there,” she gasped as he pumped his heat inside her, pulling on her hair, making her take it from him. It was like she knew all his secrets—how to make him go insane. It felt like forever before he slowed, completely spent. She ground her hips back against him, bending over so that her head dropped low and her ass was high and pressing into him.
He wrapped his arms around her and slowly pulled out, savoring the feel of every part of her against him.
“That,” he exhaled, “was something else.”
She straightened and faced him, hair tousled, gorgeous breasts still exposed. She flashed a dirty smile, letting him ravage her all over again with his eyes. Goddamn.
Blake wrapped the condom in tissues to throw out when they got to a trash can. Slowly he buttoned up his shorts, while Julia pulled up the straps to her dress and ran her fingers through her hair, composing herself. She almost looked like nothing had happened. Except for the flush. And her panties still in his pocket.
He pulled them out and dangled them over his finger. She reached out a hand like she was waiting for a gift. He started to pass them over, but on second thought, he yanked them back.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said thoughtfully, twirling them around. How could something with so little fabric make him go so completely insane? “I’ll make you a deal.”
She raised an eyebrow skeptically and folded her arms. “Oh?”
“I’ll give you your panties back,” he said, beginning to pass them to her. “If—” he pulled them back again, making her pout. He grinned. “If you give me another chance to take them off you again.”
“So you don’t want this to be our last time fucking,” she said pointedly, and the way she cut through his teasing to call out exactly what he was saying made him suddenly squirm. They had a great time and he wanted to have another go—why not?
“Or I can hang onto these like some creeper.” He went to stuff them in his pocket and she laughed.
“You let me have my underwear back and I promise, you can have me as many times and as many ways as you want.”
She reached out her hand, and he passed her the prize. He loved the sight of the bright lace riding up her thighs as she pulled them over her hips and let the dress fall again.
“As many times?” he asked. “That might be a lot.” He looped one arm over her shoulder while the other reached out to graze the waterfall as it continued its endless plummet over the cliff.
She rested in close to his shoulder and splashed water over him. “I’ve got four days until Chicago. You see how many rounds you can fit in.”
Chapter Eight
Shit, Blake thought as he stood under the shower, hot water pounding down his back. Shit. Shit. Shit.
What the hell kind of post-fuck nonsense had he been thinking? I’ll fuck you as many times as I possibly can in the next four days before you return to your life and I return to mine. Okay, it sounded good in theory. Great, in fact. But he’d spent the last three months on his own, beholden to nothing more than his calendar and the whims of the local bus schedules. He’d been trying to learn how to do the whole one-night stand thing—stay smooth, don’t get attached, and don’t ever, ever let your guard down—and already he was ruining everything.
He let the water run until he heard banging on the door.
“You drowning in there, mate?” Jamie called.
“Sorry.” Blake shut off the stream. “I’ll be out in a sec.”
“No rush, just making sure you’re okay.”
Blake wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped out into the steam. He wiped a streak through the foggy mirror with the side of his fist and looked at himself in the watery stripe. What was he doing? What—who?—was he still running from?
The face looking back at him was distorted through the bathroom steam and it didn’t have any answers. Slowly he watched the mirror fog over again, and when his face was gone he opened the door to get on with his life, wherever it was leading.
“All yours,” he said, passing Jamie in the hall.
“Have a good afternoon?” Jamie smirked as he held open the door.
“I guess.” Blake paused, frowning.
Jamie gave him a quizzical look. “Is there some sort of maybe in there?”
Blake tried to laugh, keeping it light. He really didn’t know what the problem was. “The waterfalls were great,” he said, steering away from any mention of Julia. “What’s the plan for tonight?”
“Chris has some bar in mind if you guys want to come check it out.”
And there it was, exactly what Blake didn’t want to hear. “You guys.” Like they were already some kind of a package.
Because packages, he knew, existed to be ripped apart.
But he said, “Yeah, okay,” because it would be weird after all this time with Jamie and Chris to say no.
“Leaving at seven,” Jamie said. “Drinks out back before then.”
Blake nodded noncommittally and walked down the hall to the dorms. He threw on a pair of shorts, ran the towel over his hair, and lay down on his bed, staring up at the wall. It was nearly seven when Jamie came back in to get him, thinking he’d fallen asleep.
“Totally knackered,” Blake said, realizing that he sounded like Julia when she’d given her fake yawn.
“That girl’s wearing you down,” Jamie joked.
Blake gave his best rakish grin, the kind that he’d perfected in his weeks on South American beaches. He grabbed his wallet, rolled up the sleeves of his button-down shirt, and slid on his leather sandals. “Let’s go,” he said as he closed the door behind them.
The truth was that he hadn’t slept a wink. Instead, he’d spent two hours memorizing the spidery pattern of ceiling cracks, and he felt like he could trace their web for two hours more. It was a good afternoon, like Jamie had said.
But he couldn’t help wishing that he’d gotten on that bus after all.
The bar was a ragtag collection of plastic tables with Pepsi umbrellas on the banks of a wide, lazy lake, dark water reflecting the lights from the makeshift restaurants set up along the path. A leaning wooden structure housed a long table with dark bottles piled high. A grill was set up under a tarp tied between two trees in case it rained, but on this night the clouds were nothing but thin wisps idling by. Every so often a swell of laughter rose from one of the other tables like a ripple of water before falling still.
Julia wondered who these other people were and what they were like and how they had found their way to this hamlet outside of town. She wondered, too, about the man sitting next to her as he brushed her hand with his and then suddenly pulled away, reaching for a menu as though an afterthought.
Was everything okay?
But she was being paranoid. Of course it was—Blake was just tired after the, ahem, energetic activities they’d shared. Jamie had said he’d found Blake napping all afternoon, which was why Julia didn’t see any more of him when they got back from the falls.
He’d practically promised to spend the rest of her trip with her. She didn’t know exactly what that was going to entail since she hadn’t booked any more nights at the hostel, but she was pretty sure there’d be space for her to stay on.