Page 68 of Everything You Hate
I take a sip. It’s good. Better than good.
I climb back up. He hasn’t moved. The horizon has opened another inch of blue.
We stand in the silence, drinking coffee, watching the sky go gold above the mountains to the east and spread across the bruised water.
I don’t know what I expected after last night, but it isn’t this easy silence.
At some point he puts a hand on my lower back. The touch is casual, possessive, like he’s not even aware he’s doing it. I lean into it and wait for the voice in my head to start the postmortem, to run the tape and catalog every mistake.
The voice is gone.
Instead, there’s just the water and the sky and his hand on my back, and the coffee warming my palms through the chipped ceramic.
The sun clears the mountain ridge, and the water turns from bruised to gold in a single stroke, and I watch it happen with my shoulder against his arm and the taste of coffee on my tongue and the memory of his hands still printed on my skin.
“I should call Bodhi,” he says finally. “Let him know we didn’t drown.”
“Probably.”
He doesn’t move. His thumb traces a slow arc against the small of my back. I close my eyes and lean in until he abruptly lets go.
“But first…” He takes the mug from my hands.
My eyes pop open, and I reach for it. “Hey, I need that.”
“Later.”
Heat rushes through me at the roughness in his voice, and I’m instantly soaked again. I press my thighs together. “Dean…”
He sets the mug behind him on the deck rail and pulls me in, his mouth finding mine as he drags me down to the deck with him. He sits with his back to the railing and me straddling his lap, legs bracketing his hips.
The deck is wet, my knees are freezing, but I’m not stopping. Not when his breath goes harsh against my jaw, not when he bites my earlobe and says my name like it’s a secret only he gets to know.
He slips a hand inside my shorts, finds me already wet, and drags his fingers teasingly across my opening. I gasp, and he laughs against my neck, low and filthy.
“Still think you need that coffee?”
“Shut up and—” I break off with a choked sound as his fingers dive in deep and find a sensitive spot. He presses the heel ofhis palm up, grinding it in a rhythm that makes my toes curl. I clutch his shirt, bury my face in his neck, and moan.
I ride his fingers, shameless, greedy for it. In my old life, I was careful about sound—always aware of the camera, the boom mic, the audience. But here, with the sun coming up and the boat steady under us and nothing in the world but the two of us breathing hard in the morning, I give up the last of my pride and chase it all the way.
He’s hard under me, and I want him inside me, stretching me. I grind against his hand, desperate for friction, any friction, and whimper when he slows the rhythm. The bastard. He wants me to beg, wants me to give it up for him, and I’m close enough to do it. I dig my nails into his shoulders, gasp into his neck, and say, “Please—Dean—don’t stop?—”
He groans low, more animal than human, and slides his fingers out, leaving me empty long enough to make me say it again. I do, because apparently I’m that girl now, the one who can’t stop needing him, the one who never wants to.
He lifts me enough to dig another condom out of his pocket, then shoves the front of his pajama pants down. His cock springs free, and before I fully realize what I’m doing, I’m bending down, my mouth closing over the flared head.
I’ve done this before, obviously. There are exes, liaisons, all the usual modern ruins. But I’ve never wanted to taste a man this badly, to take him in my mouth just to see what happens to his control. Salt and skin, clean and hot from the sun, and his whole body locks down as I swirl my tongue around the tip. I look up, not coy, just curious, and see him watching me through hooded eyes, jaw flexed so hard there’s a white nick in his cheekbone.
“Scarlett—” It’s barely a word.
I press my lips lower around his length, flatten my tongue and suck, and he hisses, hands tensing on my shoulders. I expecthim to take over—push, guide, fuck my mouth like a test of boundaries—but he just lets me, rigid and impossibly still, as if any movement might break the spell or snap his last thread of self-restraint.
I work him slow, exploring the shape of him, enjoying the throb and twitch and the little stutter in his hips when I take him to the root. He tastes clean, faintly bitter, and I want more, all of it, so I flatten my hands to his thighs and lock eyes with him as I bob up and down, watching his expression shift from controlled to helpless.
Dean is a stoic man in every sense, but there’s nothing stoic about the way he looks at me. He is wide open, stripped of all the armor, every muscle in his body strung tight and caught between agony and release. I breathe him in, savor the power, the way he tastes, the faint catch in his breath with every swipe of my tongue. When he can’t take it anymore, his hands find the back of my head, gentle, guiding, not forcing, and I let him. I want him to.
“Scarlett.” The sound is a growl and a prayer.
