Getting Rough

  When Shaw finally reached me, he took the only seat left, mimicking my position as he also straddled the pitch right behind me. Apparently not satisfied with the distance between us, he moved closer to hug me to his chest, wrapping his arms around my waist. I was glad he did.

  “Can’t have you falling off,” was his excuse. As if he’d needed one.

  And then we just sat there.

  Casey and I had had the crow’s nest for our special place, but this spot was my personal secret. No one had ever been there with me. Until now.

  Tilting my head back to let it rest on Shaw’s shoulder, I looked up at the sky. The stars were bright and plentiful, a twinkling light show to accentuate the half moon so brilliant and so high above. There was a gentle yet steady breeze blowing in from the bay, balmy thanks to the wind streaming in from the south. I sighed, feeling within my element and allowing the energies of the night to help steel up my nerve.

  The sound of crickets was almost deafening, or maybe it only seemed that way in light of the silence between Shaw and me. I’d had so much to say, and now that we were alone, I was at a loss for words. So I said the first thing that came to mind.

  “You know, if you don’t look down, you can almost pretend Ayla never happened.”

  Shaw tenderly pulled my hair away from my neck, and then his cheek was at my ear. His warm breath tickled my skin before his soft kiss followed. “Is there anything else you’d like to pretend never happened?”

  I closed my eyes, as the feel of his palms to the inside of my thighs was intoxicating and sending me into sensory overload when mixed with our setting and the wicked thing he was doing with his lips to my neck and ear.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “I really love these legging things,” he said, his hand inching closer and closer to my center. “Are they warm? Because they feel… warm.” He swept my center, the pressure from his fingertips finding its mark without error.

  I gasped, my back arching and any rational thought evacuating as a flood of “yes, please” rushed to meet his touch. Reaching to hook my hands under his thighs, I held on, loving the thrill of sitting so precariously on the edge of a roof while this man whom I would never get enough of made me feel as if I could soar.

  “God, you smell so good.” Shaw inhaled deeply, humming his approval on the exhale while he continued to rub me through the leggings.

  His tongue was on my neck, a string of openmouthed kisses leaving a hot trail cooled only by the breeze. My body tingled, my flesh pebbling from the sensation. I was lost to him, to his touch, to his mere presence.

  What was I going to say to him? I decided it didn’t matter. Well, it did, but it could wait because Shaw’s hand was drifting up my abdomen and slipping under the waistband of my pants for some skin-to-skin contact. My muscles contracted, that thing we women did to make our stomachs seem flatter when a man touched us there. And then Shaw was inside my panties, touching and caressing.

  Cupping my pussy, he slipped his fingers between the folds to coat them with my wetness. “That’s for me?” he asked, curling his fingers back to tease my clit with a slow approach.

  I could do nothing but nod. If I thought words had failed me before, it was nothing compared to now. Shaw was well skilled at the art of finger play, like a guitarist masterfully strumming his instrument to make the most beautiful music ever composed. Back and forth, round and round, slow then fast then slow again. His movements were accompanied by varying degrees of pressure applied in a legato fashion. The symphony he created was maddening and unpredictable, but it was harmonic.

  His cock was hard against the small of my back. I could feel him ready and in need of release, but his only concern seemed to be giving me mine. He’d have it if his persistent fingers had anything to say about it. And it wouldn’t take long.

  Shaw’s teeth scraped my earlobe, tugging and sucking at it before he moved down to my neck again. I could hear his breaths, feel them against my back with each rise and fall of his chest. He loved this, loved making me see stars behind my eyes even though there were so many to behold if I’d just open them. I did. I opened my eyes and looked up at those stars, dreamed of reaching out to touch them. All while Shaw pushed me closer and closer as if I were weightless and adrift in a never-ending universe.

  It was almost impossible to describe an orgasm. But not tonight. Tonight it was like kicking off the surface of that moon and reaching for the brightest star in the galaxy, and then hugging it to me to let it burn in the most blissful sort of satisfaction.

  Putting one hand over his and wrapping the other around his head, I turned my face into Shaw’s neck as I reached for that proverbial star and held my breath. My orgasm washed over me with a whimpered “Unnmph,” which was meant for him and only him to hear.

  The death grip I had on his head was likely creating a very uncomfortable bend to his neck, though he didn’t seem to mind in the least. In fact, he resituated himself, taking my jaw into his free hand and kissing me fully. He’d stolen my breath, but it wasn’t the first time. He could have it. He already had my heart, so the need to breathe was useless anyway.

  Shaw pulled back, rubbing his nose back and forth against mine before kissing the tip. “Let’s get you inside,” he said.

  I honestly wasn’t sure my legs would be steady enough for the precarious climb back down the roof, but I was sure Shaw would guide me to safety without fail. So I put my trust in him, something I never would’ve thought I’d do before our time in Stonington, and let him lead the way.

  Once we were back inside, Shaw closed the window behind us and then turned to face me. He looked nervous, like something was on his mind he’d yet to say. Or maybe he was still just super horny. I chanced a look down at his crotch, but the erection I was sure had been there before was gone.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Shaw raked his fingers through his hair. “I think we need to talk.”

  Uh-oh. Nothing good ever followed those words. So then I got nervous, a thousand scenarios swarming my brain and trying to come up with a counter to the problem I didn’t yet know existed. Was this the part where he dumped me? Was the orgasm he’d just given the last he’d bestow?

  “Wait,” I told him, not quite ready to let him go before he knew how I felt, and really not sure if it would change his mind even if he did. But if I didn’t tell him what I needed to tell him, I knew it would take a whole lot of jazzing myself up to get the nerve to do so again.

  Shaw started to pace. “This can’t wait any longer, Cassidy. I have to go back to San Diego, but I’m not going a damn place until I get this off my chest.”

  He was leaving. I wasn’t sure why that shocked me so much. It wasn’t like either of us could stay here forever. But it felt an awful lot like the bubble we’d found ourselves in within the relatively safe confines of this little island was about to pop. As much as I’d liked to think I’d escaped, I’d found myself right back in the Stonington frame of mind, that the outside world didn’t exist. It did, and I had no choice but to get back to reality – a reality that was staring me right in the face. “Fine. Say what you’ve got to say, then.”

  “Look, there’s a whole lot that’s gone on in the last few days – the last few weeks, actually – and it’s all been happening really fast. So fast I’m having an incredibly hard time keeping up, and I’m all mixed up in the head. Everything I’ve known, my whole way of life, has changed. I don’t know if I’m coming or going, who I am or what I want to be. But what I do know is this thing between us has to change.”

  He wasn’t the only one mixed up in the head, and his chaotic rant wasn’t helping the matter. “Just say whatever it is you’re trying to say, Shaw.”

  “I want more, Cassidy.” His words were very precise in the way they cut through the air between us.

  Understanding dawned on me. The cold, hard truth. “I’m not enough.” I let the words hang in the air until they really sank in. “I read you loud and clear.”

>   “Obviously not,” he said. “Because I want more of you. Like on a permanent basis, more.”

  I furrowed my brow, not quite sure I understood what he was saying and unwilling to make any assumptions without further clarification, because the last thing I wanted was to look or feel like an even bigger fool if I got it wrong.

  Shaw must have read my distress. “My whole way of life has changed… because of you. Don’t you get it? All I’d ever known was struggle. I’d had to fight my way out of the slums. I’d had to fight to keep a roof over my head and food on my table. I’d had to fight my way into the boardroom. And I’d had to fight to prove I was worthy of being there.

  “I’m tired, Cassidy. I’m tired, and I don’t want to fight anymore. Not unless I’m fighting to stay by your side. Not unless I’m fighting my way into your heart.”

  “Don’t say that to me, Shaw. Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

  “I do mean it.” He stepped to me, cupping my face in his hands and looking me in the eyes. “I love you. I have never loved anyone. And as egotistical as you think I am, the truth is I haven’t even loved myself.”

  I was as frozen as an ice statue, with all the mobility of one, as well. But I didn’t feel its arctic chill. No, quite the opposite. Shaw’s words had set me aflame with their potency. I was stunned. Maybe even a little confused. Crap, this must have been what going into shock felt like.

  Shaw’s baby blues turned a rainy-day gray. “Please say something.”

  Well, there was a novel idea. “I don’t know what to say.” What the hell was I talking about? Of course I knew what to say! So why were the words refusing to come out?

  He released the hold on my face and stepped away. “Oh, God. I’m making a total ass out of myself here.” He turned toward the window and then back again, exasperated. “I just told you I love you and you don’t know what to say?”

  There was a pleading in his eyes, a sort of desperation and vulnerability I’d never seen there before. Like a man dying from a self-inflicted wound to the chest who suddenly changed his mind and wished he could take it back. And I was the only one with the ability to keep his heart from bleeding out all over the place, but I was too terrified to do anything about it.

  Did he mean it? Of all the women who had likely passed in and out of his life, why was I more special?

  Fed up with my stalling, Shaw shook his head in defeat and turned to walk away. And that simply was not okay with me. In fact, it terrified me even more than applying pressure to that gaping wound.

  Closing my eyes and swallowing my pride, I let two syllables slip past my frozen lips and hoped they would be enough. “Shaw, stop.”

  He did, though he kept his back to me. “Why?”

  “Because there are a million things I want to tell you right now, and they’re all coming at me at the same time. But I know if you walk out that door, I’ll never get the chance to say any of them. Especially the most important thing.”

  He faced me, everything about him demanding an answer to a question that had not yet been spoken. “Then say it. What are you so afraid of?”

  I needed him to understand my fear, even if I didn’t understand it myself. “If I do, it changes everything. There’s no going back. You understand that?”

  “You’re the one who doesn’t understand.” Shaw’s shrug and the exasperated shake of his head was the proverbial towel being thrown in. “That Hail Mary I just threw already pushed me past the point of no return, anyway. You got the interception, now run the ball back.”

  “This isn’t a game, Shaw.”

  “You’re right, Cassidy. It isn’t. So stop playing with me.”

  It suddenly occurred to me why I’d been so terrified to tell him what I knew to be in my heart. And it was time he knew it, too.

  “Shaw Matthews, you’re pretentious, domineering, melodramatic, stubborn, and vain. You break all the rules, think you can sweet-talk your way out of any situation, and most of the time the simplest of human emotions is lost on you.”

  “Well, don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”

  “You’re a risk,” I told him.

  Shaw’s eyes dropped to the floor, and I couldn’t stand to see him that way.

  So I approached him slowly, lifting his chiseled chin so he’d see the truth written all over my face. “But you’re a risk I’ll always take. Just don’t make me regret it.”

  That winning smile spread from cheek to cheek as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me against him. “So you like me, huh?”

  I grinned. “Maybe just a little.”

  He quirked a brow. “Oh, just a little?”

  Laughter bubbled up and out of me because he was just too damn cute for his own good. He had me… heart, body, and soul. “Shut up and kiss me.”

  “Not until you say it,” he baited.

  I feigned annoyance. “Fine. I love you. There. Are you happy now?”

  “Extremely,” he said. “Especially now that I finally understand the true definition of happiness. I owe that to you.”

  I furrowed my brow at him. “If you’re trying to make me girly…”

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I love you just the way you are.”

  “This is getting entirely too mushy,” I told him, only half-joking.

  Shaw fisted my hair and pulled it back so that I was forced to crane my neck to look up at him. And then he kissed me hard on the mouth, sucking and biting on my bottom lip and then pushing his thick tongue inside to caress mine with deep, probing strokes of domination. And I let him… because he was “the” Shaw Matthews, and he was mine.

  When he was done proving his point, he pulled back to look at me, a gaze steeped with desire in his eyes and a very prominent bulge hard against my belly.

  “You’re right,” he said. Releasing the hold on my hair, he was lightning quick when he grabbed the waistband of my pants and shoved them, none too gently, over my hips and ass. “Bend over the goddamn bed, Miss Whalen. I’m going to fuck that pretty little pussy until you come, and then I’m going to fuck your mouth until I do.”

  Yes, we loved each other. We were both clear on that now. But that didn’t mean our sexual dynamic had to change in the least because of it. So I did what I always did. I set my chin in defiance and got my sass on. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  One side of Shaw’s mouth lifted into that cocky, albeit sexy, smirk I loved so much. Challenge accepted. He grabbed my hips, turned me around, and put one hand on my back to shove me into the position I’d refused to assume. And then he held me there while he worked his pants loose, never once seeing the satisfied grin on my face as he did so.

  With a quick, hard thrust – that very well might have caused some damage to my girlie bits – he entered me. My whole body would’ve come off the bed if he hadn’t been holding me down, but I wasn’t complaining. He was mine and I was his, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Once he’d worked himself completely inside, he leaned over my back, encompassing me until his mouth was at my ear. “My title of partner says differently. And you bet your sweet, delectable ass I’m going to take full advantage of it.”

  With slow, yet deliberate strokes, he fucked me. Hooking his arms under mine to hold onto my shoulders, he made sure I wasn’t going anywhere. Not that I would have even if I could, but I loved his closeness and his labored, grunting breaths at my ear.

  Shaw’s thrusts were short, his grind on point, and his teeth on the back of my neck on the mark. I came, the pulsing of the walls of my pussy even more pronounced thanks to the very well-endowed thickness of his cock.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, like the egomaniac he was.

  Then he unhooked my shoulders to rise into a standing position, grabbing my hips to pound into me harder.

  “And that goddamn tattoo is getting removed the second we land back in San Diego,” he ordered, apparently none too pleased by the reminder of Casey’s name there. “You?
??re fucking mine.”

  Yes, I was, and I’d happily oblige his request that wasn’t really a request. Lots of things would need to be dealt with upon our return to the real world. Though for now, he was dealing with giving me yet another orgasm. His possessiveness was a driving force. I almost hated to admit it to myself because I’d always been such an independent woman, but I didn’t mind being submissive to him. In the bedroom alone, of course. Outside the bedroom? Well, that was another story, another storm, and another part of who we were.

  When my second orgasm had subsided, Shaw’s cock abandoned the confines of my pussy and he maneuvered my body yet again until I was facing him. Stroking himself with one hand, his expression softened. “I love you,” he told me in the sweetest tone I’d ever heard him use.

  “I love you, too,” I answered, not only with my voice but with my eyes, as well. Because I meant it.