I’m standing before her stunned. There’s a veil of rain between us and yet a connection stronger than I’ve ever felt before. I start to speak, but she shakes her head, puts her hand up for me to stop.
Lightning flashes over the water and it lights up the wild in her eyes.
“No. I have to finish. I need to say everything I want to say. Mitch said you were the ghost between us. The reason we didn’t work out. Always there. I told him that was bullshit. That he was lying. But you know what? He’s right. You’ve always been there, Hayes. In my dreams. On my mind. In my hopes. Tattooed permanently on my heart.”
Hayes stares at me with the muscle pulsing in his jaw, his only show of emotion. His head tilts slightly like he’s trying to make sure what I’m saying and what he thinks I’m saying are one in the same. I see relief. Hope. Desire. Love. His hair is plastered to his head, shirt soaked through, and eyes searching when he steps toward me. I’ve never thought him more handsome.
He places a hand on the side of my face, our connection rekindled. “Saylor.” It’s only one word said in that deep timbre of his and yet it’s packed with so much emotion.
I came out here needing a breather. Mitch’s words hit too close to home to the fears I had and to the doubts still milling inside. Then Hayes arrived and his face looked like a reflection of the turmoil I was feeling inside. Like exactly what he is to me: The storm that can bring me down.
Now’s my chance to lay all my cards on the table because if I don’t and he walks away, I’ll always question, always wonder, if I fought hard enough to keep him.
“I’ve loved you, Hayes. Then. Now. I always have. And I’m scared to death of what’s going to happen when we leave here. How, when we walk away to our separate flights, our separate worlds, that I’ll never see you again.”
He doesn’t respond with words. His body is too tense. Emotion is strung too tight. And so he reacts the only way I think he can to express how he’s feeling, to show how my confession makes him feel.
His lips are on mine as quick as the lightning flashing overhead. It’s a bruising kiss. Hard. Fast. Desperate. Violent with desire.
And I don’t hesitate. I’m all in. With lips and hands and heart. We’re soaking wet, a tempest rages around us, and yet we finally find peace in our own storm.
“God yes, Ships.” My name’s a gasped word caught on the wind before he dives back in and takes what he wants from me. What I’m giving him. My body, because I’ve already handed over every part of me without even realizing it.
We move in desperation. Hunger and resolution fueling our actions. Our desires. Our want to connect. Our need to express the end of the turbulence that has kept us in the air over the past ten years.
We give no thought to where we are. To the rain drenching us or to the wind whipping around us. Because all we see is each other. All we feel is now. And with his mouth consuming mine—showing me how he feels, breathing life into me, before drowning me in his intensity—I don’t want to come up for air.
But the crack of lightning shocks us apart. We stare at each other: chests heaving, eyes hungry, smiles shy but salacious, libidos begging for more.
“We need to get inside.” His voice is strained. Posture a perfect picture of restraint holding on by a thread. The first few buttons of his dress shirt are undone. His erection straining his slacks.
“We do.” I nod but step into him rather than head to the villa. I fist my hands in his soaked shirt and lean in to kiss him again. This time it’s slow, seductive, taunting. I can’t hear the groan in the back of his throat but can feel it vibrate against my hands and lips. And it only urges me to want to make him do it again.
His hands slide down my hips and cup my ass while mine move over his shoulders and loop around his neck. And almost as if on cue, he lifts me and I wrap my legs around his waist. Without a word, he starts to walk as we continue this long, drawn-out kiss. I take advantage of my positioning, of how our bodies fit together perfectly, and place kisses down his smooth jawline.
Sensations swamp me. The taste of salt and rain on my tongue. The scent of his cologne in my nose. His strained sigh in my ear. His hands gripping my ass tighter as I cinch my legs around him harder so that with every step down the path that leads to the villa, the bulge of his erection rubs firmly where I want it to.
It feels like it takes forever to get to the door and when we do, Hayes holds tight to me still wrapped around him while he fumbles in his pocket for the room key.
My body vibrates with the anticipation and the fierce desire burning within as I wait. But there is no key, no door unlocked, just a muttered, “I can’t fucking wait any longer,” before Hayes carries me down the private path that leads to the back of the villa.
My eyes are closed, and my lips are pressed against the base of his neck. I feel him step up some stairs, open the door to the screened-in porch with thick foliage on both sides, and then he leans over and lays me down on the double chaise longue.
And the minute he’s free of carrying my weight, the control is snapped.
Gone.
Hayes grabs me by the ankles and pulls me down the chair so my dress rolls up beneath me, my legs fall off the end, and my torso is no longer sitting at an incline. I yelp out a laugh, loving this side of him. The I want you and have to have you.
And before I can even look up to meet his eyes, he dips down and licks a line over the thin lace of my panties. I cry out at the heady feeling of the muted sensation, already desperate for him to do it again. He moves his hands to my thighs, pushes them farther apart, and then he delivers. His tongue parts me through the fabric, licks down the seam of my sex and then back up to flick over my clit.
My head lolls back. My hands pull at his hair. A moan falls from my lips. And I buck my hips up, giving him access because the texture of the lace combined with the wet heat of his tongue evoke a different type of friction that makes rendering thought near impossible.
“You smell so fucking good, Say. So good,” he murmurs against me, the heat of his breath a hint of what he’s withholding from me. My body aches all over, burns from his praise, and from his words earlier tonight on the dance floor.
“Hayes.” I tighten my grip in his hair and try to pull his head up to tell him I don’t care about foreplay because our make-out session in the rain was more than enough for me. That and the fact that I just laid my heart on the line to him and he stepped into me instead of turning away.
I want him desperately.
Need him.
In me.
Right now.
Unwilling to give up the control, he shakes his head from my grip and in the action rubs the tip of his nose perfectly against my clit. I cry out as my body ignites.
“Not yet, Saylor. Don’t worry. I’ll fuck you, good and hard. I promise I’ll earn every damn moan that you make. But not until I lick every damn inch between your thighs. Taste you. Feel you. Own you.” His chuckle is low and rumbles in the space. His grin is full of sexual promise and I squirm beneath the touch of his finger where he’s slowly running it up and down the line of my sex outside the fabric. Just enough to let me sink into the sensation before he pauses, waits for my muscles to relax, for my overstimulated nerves to calm, and then he starts the process all over again. “But since words are cheap, I guess it’s time to prove it with actions. Hold tight, Ships. I’m not holding anything back.”
My smile is quickly replaced by a moan. My declaration that I wouldn’t beg falls to the wayside. My ability to form coherent thoughts obliterated when in a breath of time, Hayes has hooked my panties to the side with one hand and parted me with the fingers of his other. Then there’s his mouth. The heated skill of his tongue as he flicks it over my clit and works me into a frenzy. My hips writhe, my hands fist, and my teeth bite into my bottom lip. And just when my body begins to twist that coil of arousal so tight I know I’m going to reach the point of no return, he eases up and slides his tongue down to my wetness. Dips into me. Taunting.
Teasing. Urging me to beg.
I’m so overwhelmed by the onslaught of sensations—the storm whirling around us and the need raging inside me—I don’t think I could form words if I tried.
And between his fingers and tongue, the desire within me grows. My hands grip tighter, my gasps become harsher, and my resolve not to beg vanishes as the orgasm rips through me.
“Hayes. Hayes. Yes. No. Oh God. Stop.” But contrary to my words, I hold his head between my thighs and lose myself in the soft slide of his tongue as he lets me ride out the ferocity of the climax he more than just earned.
I hear his chuckle. Feel its vibration against my hypersensitive nerves and squirm to shift away from him. But his hands on my thighs remain firm when he lifts his face so I can see the grin on his glistening lips.
“I’d like to gloat that you just begged.”
He shifts back to his knees with my legs framing his body. His voice husky with the violent desire reflected in his eyes.
“And I will, Saylor.”
He rips his shirt open causing buttons to pop onto the deck. I admire the sight of his firm biceps and lickable abs as he strips the sodden material from him.
“Oh, I will gloat.”
His hands work his belt followed by the sound of a zipper. Then the unmistakable movement of his hand sliding over his cock.
“But fucking you is more important.”
I wet my lips in anticipation. His eyes darken in ecstasy when he rubs the crest of his cock up and down my swollen sex. My moan is reflexive. My need unyielding.
The wind whips all around us but he stops to draw my eyes up to his. And when our gazes connect, he slowly pushes his way into me. I tense around him, my body and mind overwhelmed by the all-consuming pleasure the slide of his cock creates within me.
The groan he emits when he’s fully sheathed is incredibly sexy. Everything about him is. The way his head falls back, how his lips part, and how his fingers tense on my thighs.
And then he moves. His first slide out and then forceful slam back in causes that sweet, painful burn to spread like wildfire to every single part of me. I know he’s as consumed as I am. Lost in the moment. In the feeling of us connected. In every damn sensation between us.
Hayes sets a bruising pace from the get-go. There’s no apology in his movements. Nothing uttered from his lips other than my name. No other focus than the end game.
Time occurs in flashes of lightning. Snapshots of time when his figure is lit up amidst the dark around us.
His shoulders taut. Hands firm. Hips thrusting. Mouth pulled tight. Eyes focused on our union.
It’s erotic to watch him. Sexy. Empowering.
“Yes. God, yes, Say. Tell me yes,” he groans out as his hips buck wildly against me. I’m transfixed watching the orgasm consume him. The expression on his face and the broken way he says my name will forever be burned into my memory.
Tell me yes.
Yes to what though? To him? To there being an us? To having a future together?
And all I can think as he slowly pulls out of me and gathers me in his arms is I hope that’s what he was asking me to say yes to.
Because after everything that has happened between us, how could I say anything but yes? In this short span of time, he’s made me feel validated, adored, accepted, and loved.
Everything Mitch didn’t. Couldn’t.
Emotionally, I’m spent. Exhilarated. Revived.
So many revelations on this day. So many mixed emotions. So many truths shared.
But this? Hayes asking, no, begging me to say yes?
Slayed.
Owned.
His.
Perhaps he’s right though. Words can be cheap, but he’s sure as hell proved it with actions.
So I give him the only answer I’ve ever had when it comes to him.
“Yes.”
The storm has passed.
It’s my first thought as my eyes flutter open and feel the sun warming my skin through the open blinds. We forgot to shut them last night when we finally collapsed into bed after a midnight snack. And another round of incredible sex.
The Captain definitely knows how to steer this ship of his to ecstasy.
I bite back the giggle over my ridiculously cheesy thought and snuggle deeper into the heat of Hayes’s body behind me. I revel in the weight of his arm over my hip, the possessiveness of his hand resting on my abdomen, and the unmistakable morning hard-on pressing against my backside. Everything about him feels like my perfect heaven.
And then I remember what the morning brings: our last day. I sigh and close my eyes, trying to memorize this feeling, and enjoy it despite the sudden dread that shadows the few hours we have left together.
I run last night through my head. Mitch and Sarah get a fleeting thought. Their weird relationship and bizarre need to confront me at their wedding of all places. Then I move on to Hayes. To how he made me laugh and put me at ease despite the constant scrutiny and nastiness from the guests around us. Then the dance. Sigh. The dance where he lit the match just enough so I’d be left wanting but unable to have him. To my confessions in the thunderstorm and his long, slow, wet kisses that I swear could have lasted all night without any complaints from me.
Well, I lie. Because what happened next was pretty damn incredible.
So why am I the only one who did all the talking? All the soul-baring? I know he said words are cheap and action is everything, but I can’t help wonder if stepping in to kiss me was his way of not having to figure his own feelings out. The thought triggers a flicker of panic. I shove it down along with the sudden unwelcome idea that maybe he doesn’t feel the same as I do. I told him I love him, had always loved him.
Don’t do this, Saylor. He showed you how he felt all night long. With tenderness and reverence and passion. I hold onto that thought along with the reminder that he was never very expressive about his feelings.
Cocooned in his security and warmth, I realize I need to accept what he was able to give me in the way he was able to show me.
Time passes. Seconds I soak up. I lose myself in the emotion. The acceptance. The hope for something more, something better than we could ever have imagined, and purposely try to ignore the particulars of how that might be able to happen.
The minute he wakes up I know it. I can feel the fleeting tension of his muscles and the break in his even breathing. And yet he doesn’t speak.
So we lie in the silence of the morning, the storm having moved on, and the rain having washed away the grime from the past. The breeze blows in off the ocean and our hearts try to settle in their new places. A little fuller. And hopefully, a lot less permanently broken.
“I could buy us a house halfway between cities, you know.”
It takes everything I have not to turn over and stare at him, mouth agape, because I’m shocked at his words. Surprised that his thinking is that far ahead when mine was merely afraid to even hope for something more than our last day.
I draw in a slow, steady breath in an attempt to calm the hope that just bubbled up before I respond.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that.” I say the words all the while thinking YES. Please. Anything to hedge our bets against the grim statistics of how many long distance relationships actually last. “You’ve told me yourself that there are some days you are on set for a ridiculous number of hours. I couldn’t ask you to work that long of a day and then drive well over an hour—because let’s face it, LA traffic is horrific, so we both know the commute home would be way longer than that.”
“I would though, Saylor.”
And I know he hasn’t said the love word back to me, but that comment alone says it just the same.
“I know you would.”
“It would be a compromise for both of us. It would allow us both to keep doing what we love to do as well as make us work. I know you love Sweet Cheeks but this would allow you to have some distance and a life separate from work . . . or as separate as you allow yourself to ge
t.” He chuckles against the back of my head. The heat of his breath causes goosebumps to chase over my scalp. “And for me, it would let me have a place where I could escape from the glitter of Hollywood and its endless bullshit. Give me the chance at living an everyday, normal life.”
“You love the shiny lights and glitter though,” I tease.
“Only if you’re wearing the glitter.”
“Such a charmer, Mr. Whitley.”
We fall into silence and our breaths even out as we lose ourselves to our thoughts. To possibility. I think about the airport and wonder how we’re going to bring ourselves to walk away when we’ve just found each other again. It’s like someone loaning you a warm jacket when you’ve been freezing and just when you sink into it, believe its warmth is real, the person comes back and snatches it away.
“We’ll figure it out, Ships,” he murmurs, somehow knowing the direction of my thoughts. “It’s not like this is a new relationship or anything. I mean you forget that I used to know you back when you used to pick your nose.”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes and laugh but welcome his arms pulling me tighter against him and how his fingers automatically link with mine. And despite the humor in his comment, the worry returns. Because in his arms is one thing, but being apart is an entirely different situation.
“Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in that beautifully, complicated, stubborn, creative mind of yours.”
“I’m just silently freaking out about what happens next,” I whisper.
“Well, let’s see. What happens next is I have a table read the day after tomorrow in New York. It’s for the movie of that scene we were rehearsing. The director and the casting director will know from that table read whether or not they think I can play the part. As of right now they’re not entirely convinced I can pull it off since it’s so different from my norm. But to me, that’s the whole point. So that’s what I do next. I go there, kick some audition ass, and leave with the part. And you? You’ll go back home and see if business will pick up now that the wedding is over. And if business doesn’t pick up, then we’ll brainstorm other ways to get customers in the door. The bakery is your dream so we’ll do whatever it takes to make it work.”