22
As long as their bodies pressed against each other, all lips and tongues and the occasional scrape of teeth, there was no one else on this island, no one out there waiting for them with ultimatums or expectations, or at least no one who could reach them. The tree house was a bubble, perfect and intimate andtheirs.
He twisted his fingers through hers and dipped down so that his nose could trace the length of her neck. Shivers skated up her spine. When he spoke, his lips glanced across her skin. “Tell me what you want, honey.”
“I want…” Fletcher gasped as he planted one kiss, two, against the hollow where her neck met her shoulder. Her stomach tied itself in knots. “I want you to kiss me again.”
Waylon nipped at that familiar curve, then traced the spot with his tongue, working at the skin until she was certain she’d have a bruise. “That won’t be an issue.”
One hand drifted beneath her shirt, flattening against her rib cage and tugging her closer. Kissing her harder, deeper. His otherpalm wedged beneath her chin, holding her captive. As if she’d ever want to escape.
He broke away only long enough to ask, “And?”
Every nerve in her body was pure voltage. Snapping and sparking like an overloaded current. “And—I want you to touch me.”
“Where?” he asked, dragging his nose toward her ear until he could suck her earlobe into his mouth, his teeth raking over it. “Where do you want me to touch you?”
Taking his hand in hers, she guided it over her borrowed shirt to her breast. He cupped, squeezed. Taunting her.
“Not, um—” Fletcher stuttered. Swallowed. Every synapse in her brain misfired as he pinched her nipple through her top. “Maybe underneath?”
His scruff scraped along her cheek as he pulled back, the reflecting pools of his eyes finding hers again. This time, they’d gone dark, deep as trenches. “Thought you’d never ask.”
Fingertips trailed over her rib bones, outlining the swell of her breasts. Fletcher lifted her arms and snaked out of the fabric.
Waylon’s hands hovered inches from her body. Like he wasn’t sure where to put them first. “You’re…I mean. Fuck, Fletcher. Look at you.”
All she could see was the molten blue of Waylon’s gaze, a blue so hot it burned. Greedy. His hand as it found its place again at her breast, kneading over her bra until Fletcher arched into his touch.
His other hand grasped the point of her hip bone, dragging her against the length of him and luring a throaty mewl from her lips. Some distant part of her subconsciousness that wasn’t preoccupied with all the skin and friction wondered when the last time she wanted something this badly was. She only thought of Kent in contrast: of ways he hadn’t held her, of things she hadn’t felt.
“Yours needs to go, too,” she said, feathery. Her fingers loopedbeneath the hem of his shirt, and she lifted it up and over his head. The Lydell sun had left an olive tan around his neck and forearms but missed the continental expanse of his chest, leaving it a shade lighter.
Waylon’s touch glanced back up her sides, fingers dancing beneath her bra straps. “And this?”
“Gone,” Fletcher breathed.
She’d never been this forward, this confident. But Waylon made her feel powerful. Like there was nothing she could ask for that she couldn’t have.
On her command, he unclasped it, and Waylon inhaled unsteadily. His gaze glazed over, round and unblinking, like he’d never seen a pair of tits before. Hers were full, nipples peaked. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip, and her name slipped out of his mouth.
The calluses of his palms circled her stomach, her chest. Fletcher let her eyes flutter closed, even as she knew Waylon’s stayed open, watching her turn supple and pliant in his grasp. Her touch wandered, feeling for his thighs, trying to inch toward his erection, but one of his hands captured her wrist.
“This part isn’t about me,” he said before his mouth met hers once more, and in the soft light of the kitchen, the trail of his lips cooling against her skin, Fletcher was writhing and craving. Kissing him like there would never be enough.
“Three years, I’ve wondered what it would be like to have you.” Waylon shifted his attention to her collarbone. “And you’ve been someone else’s the whole time.”
Fletcher sighed. “I could be yours.”
A satisfied hum resonated from his chest. The sound—so pleased, so Waylon—coiled a spring deep in Fletcher’s core, and she clenched her thighs tighter. Reading her body language, Waylon adjusted, slotting a thigh between her legs.
“That’s my girl,” he whispered into her freshly showered skin.Goose bumps rose against his breath, eliciting a noise from deep in her chest, every inch of her on edge as she settled onto him.
Fletcher circled her hips, relishing the scrape of his jeans against her core. Wishing her pants had been discarded on the floor with the rest of her clothes. Building and building. Nothing had ever felt this good before. Not even a fully checked-off to-do list.
Waylon’s fingers skidded once past her hips, between her legs. Curse these stupid khakis. Business casual attire or not, there was no denying the slickness there. Pressure gathered, corkscrewing up her spine until her head tipped back, leaving the wide spill of her neck open for Waylon’s mouth.
Drawing away from her, his fingertips dusted up the front of her, past her navel, her sternum, her throat, until his thumb touched the pout on her lips. “Tell me what else you want.”