Binding them.
“Why, Piper? Why did you spend so much time watching me?”
Her gaze fell away from his and roamed over his wet, solid shoulders and down his arms to where his hands started their slide up her calves landing at the sensitive area tucked behind her knees.
“Because you saw the real me, and you liked me anyway,” she whispered.
“Piper—”
“Don’t say anything. Don’t ruin it. Not tonight.” She pushed up to her feet and peeled her t-shirt over her head.
“What are you doing?”
“Swimming.” She dragged her shorts down her legs and tossed them with her shirt on his pile of clothes.
“And here you were worried about the bathing suit I originally packed,” she said as she reached behind her back.
The bra joined the heap. The sight of their clothes piled up together touched her somewhere she had kept locked away. It didn’t take a shrink to tell her the reason she had held men at arm’s length had everything to do with the fact that she had never given up on the idea that one day she might have a shot with Trevor.
Needing to get completely naked before she dared look at him, she peeled her bikinis down her legs and tossed them, too.
Trevor floated in the water, his hands clenched on the edge of the dock, his eyes roaming over her, starting at her feet and working his way up.
She rested her hand on her cocked hip, waiting, daring him to find fault. She studied the way his eyes changed, his every emotion there to see: they widened in surprise right before they flared with lust, and then that all-consuming need settled in.
He’d been so careful to keep his eyes above her neck at their couples’ massage, but that chivalry was nowhere to be found tonight.
Rough, greedy hunger ruled and left them spiraling in a cloud of fierce desire.
“So, do I measure up to your other women?” Why did she say that? Her confidence danced away in the warm night breeze, leaving prom Piper in its wake.
He tilted his head back, kept his eyes on hers despite the nakedness before him. “What other women?”
Desperate to hide the pleasure the words gave her, afraid for him to see just how much she wanted him, she leapt past his head and dove cleanly into the lake.
The cool water soothed her fevered skin and washed away the events of the evening, the tension, the doubt. She broke the surface, wiped her eyes, and smoothed her hair. Treading water, she waited, wondering what Trevor’s next move would be.
He kicked away from the dock and caught her, wrapping his arm around her, and pulled her in. He used his other arm to tread water, their naked bodies brushed against one another eliciting delicious shivers.
“You’re cold,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. I’m not.”
“I promised Rye I wouldn’t have sex with you,” he said.
“I promised him I wouldn’t have sex with you, either,” she said right back.
Trevor pressed his lips against her shoulder. His tongue flicked out along the ridge of her collarbone working his way up to her neck.
“Maybe,” he said, the words low and rough against her skin, “It’s time for Rye to worry about his own sex life and stop trying to control everyone elses’.”
The laughter on her lips died the minute she slid her legs around his waist and locked them behind his back bringing his hard cock right into the center of her, brushing her clit with every kick of his legs. She closed her eyes, letting the heat and desire build and torture.
“I guess he’s going to be disappointed in the both of us,” Trevor said, cupping his hand around her ass before seeking out the heart of her with wandering fingers.
“Rye’s not the boss of me,” she said on a gasp as he glided so fucking close to her most sensitive spots.
God, she wanted those fingers, that mouth, and that thick heat between his legs sliding inside her. A gasp fell from her lips when his finger found her and teased her with a couple light swirls before diving inside.
Eyes drifting shut, her head started to fall back as a low groan vibrating from her throat.
Before her head could fall clean off her shoulders, he captured her moans with his lips. Fierce one minute, coaxing the next, he took possession of her mouth, stealing every sound, every breath, taking and taking, as if she might vanish from his arms at any minute.
Hard, cold metal of the ladder against her back made her gasp. With the assault on her senses, she hadn’t even realized they were moving.
“That’s better,” he said, pinning her there. Locking his hands on the ladder, his muscles bunching and flexing with the effort.
His stormy eyes locked on her, their breathing mingling in the narrow space between them. In that moment, she found him. The boy, and later, the man he used to be.
His jaw muscles flexed with tension under her searching gaze. She’d swear he didn’t want to her to see that deep into the heart of him. Like he needed to hide before she laid him bare.
She cupped his jaw, and for just a fraction of a second, he leaned into her touch as if he needed her, but also saw it as weakness and resented the hell out of it.
With a quick shake of his head, he shattered the glimpse of vulnerability, and with one powerful thrust, he buried himself inside her.
A cry broke free from her lips, splitting the silence of the night. He answered the intimate sound by pulling back and thrusting again.
A moan, deep and animal, rose up out of her. This had nothing to do with winning a promotion. There was no one to convince of their feelings. This was purely the two of them wrapped up in the vortex of feelings they’d danced around for the past two days. Their familiar past, their rocky present, and their uncertain future all intertwined and rose up to the surface demanding they take action.
Stripped to their beginnings, the girl next door and the football star sought each other in the inky night.
Trevor had to admit a part of him had craved this ever since he took her to prom. She had turned his head that night, but he had an obligation and had every intention of honoring it.
But he’d always regretted not taking the opportunity for one kiss.
And now he had to wonder if the missed opportunity maybe wasn’t missed after all. Fate might well have had other plans, and had they crossed that line that night, they may never have been here to cross this one.
This one was so much more.
He intended to cross every damn line he’d set with her, both past and present.
Fuck the lines.
Piper had asked him where that boy she had known had gone.
He honest to God didn’t know.
Until now.
Her pink lips parted, her eyelids slid partway closed over fiery eyes, but she never looked away. She pinned him with that stare, climbing inside him, seeing everything he’d hidden, all while letting him see the same in her.
The day he’d left town, that boy she thought so highly of, he stayed in his hometown, with her.
With each stroke she gripped him tighter, so tight he had to bury his face in her neck to keep from shouting into the night in the sheer glory of being inside her.
Hot and tight, frenzy took over, as did the desire to leave his mark. To make sure she never forgot this moment, the way they fit, how goddamned right they were…together.
Even as she clung to him while he went wild inside of her, every thrust, every kiss felt like one step closer to letting go, to walking away, making him more frantic to anchor her to him.