Wanting a Family Man (Raven’s Cove #3)

Chapter Thirteen

W hat she said was true, but saying it made her feel as though she was begging. Please like me. Please touch me. I’m so lonely .

She hugged herself as she stared at the water falling in lacy trails over the rocks, sorry she’d said anything.

“I have,” Trystan said. She could feel his gaze on the side of her face like the hottest midday sun. “Lots of times.”

“What?” She glanced at him.

“Had sex outdoors.”

“ Lots of times?” With who ?

“I spend most of my life outside. It’s a numbers game.” He shrugged it off. “You’re from LA. I’m guessing you’ve had sex in a car?”

“Not lots of times. You’ve probably had sex in a car more than I have. And in a boat.”

“With a goat. That’s a joke.” He waited a beat, then said, “It was a camel.”

“Oh, shut up,” she sputtered. “Now you’re just making me feel inadequate. It’s not a competition, Trystan.” It kind of was, but she already knew he was winning.

“I like seeing you laugh.” He stepped closer and cupped her face. “I really like it.” His thumbs caressed her cheeks. “Every time you smile, I want to feel it with my lips.”

“Trystan.” Her pulse skipped. She could hardly speak, she’d become so breathless. She splayed her hands on his waist, and dear God, the man was lean and honed and so innately strong, her knees grew weak.

He stole the smallest of kisses, one that was barely a drop when she was so parched, she thought she might die.

“Do you really want to?” he asked, shadows of concern in his eyes.

“Well, not here .” She shifted one hand to the middle of his chest and looked around the viewing platform, then into the surrounding woods. “You’re the expert. Can’t you find us somewhere private?”

“Someone still might see us.” He took her hand, then snagged the day pack from where he’d left it, drawing her toward the picnic area. “That’s kind of what makes it fun, though. The danger.”

She was tingling with as much apprehension as anticipation. She wanted to have sex. She definitely wanted it to be with him. She was excited to try something new, but this was their first time. As much as she wanted to act like this was casual, she would have to look him in the eye later. She worked for him. Their relationship was complicated by Storm and all those other things she didn’t want to think about because look at him.

His shoulders were gorgeous mountains, his torso a mouth-watering wedge down to his muscled buttocks. Since when was she turned on by the back of a darkly tanned thigh and a calf muscle that looked carved from stained oak?

She wasn’t paying attention to where he was taking her. He drew her along an overgrown path where tendrils from the berry bushes closed in and brushed her arms and legs as they passed. The ocean disappeared behind her, and she had the strong sense that she would be very lost if he let go of her hand.

As the canopy of branches overhead thickened, the underbrush thinned to ferns and carpets of needles over bared roots. The heavy branches dimmed the light. There was a silence that wasn’t quite silent, making her nerves flutter all the more.

“This should do.” He set the pack on a fallen log, then turned to sit where a split in the trunk was thick with bright green moss, forming a cushion. “C’mere.”

He drew her between his splayed knees and ran his hands up and down her sides.

She nervously set her forearms on his shoulders and encircled his neck, playing with his hair as she dipped her head and kissed him. Sweet lightning seemed to shoot through her, searing away any doubts. He tasted so good! Tangy and hot and she was immediately falling into that bottomless well again, the one that made her feel safe even as she thought she might be drowning.

When he lifted his arms, she dragged at his shirt, not wanting to stop kissing him, but she wanted to feel his skin.

Oh sweet Lord, the man felt like polished mahogany. Smooth and warm from his traps to his delts to his pecs. She squeezed and cupped the back of his head and sighed when his hands dove beneath her own shirt to seek out her breasts.

“Can we get rid of this?” His voice was raspy and sexy as hell. He drew back to look at her shirt bunched across his wrists. Her bralette had his hands trapped against her breasts and he was slowly massaging in firm circles, creating thick waves of yearning that rolled deep into her belly.

She pulled both shirt and bralette away, then suffered a stab of shy uncertainty. Her breasts were a modest B cup. Ivan had been very vocal about wanting her to have more up top, so she waited with dread for Trystan’s verdict.

He seemed arrested as he ran tickling fingers over the swells.

“So fucking pretty,” he whispered.

Her nipples were already hard, stimulated by the air and his grazing touch and the naughtiness of fooling around in public. But when he cupped one breast and leaned forward to lick her nipple, then blew softly across it, the sting was acute and otherworldly. She made a noise that was a sob of both agony and ecstasy.

He was even more blatant with the other one, circling his tongue around it, warming it and playing and capturing it in the heat of his mouth to suck until her stomach clenched.

Longing began to pulse between her thighs. She cradled his head, stroked his skin, bit back her gasps of near suffering even as she twisted, encouraging him to be as deliciously cruel to her other breast.

He wasn’t holding back his own gratified noises. Nor was he shy about letting his hands roam her back or ass. His long fingers went up the legs of her shorts, cupping the backs of her thighs while his fingertips stretched to tease against underwear he must feel was already damp.

“Take ’em off?” he tipped his head back to ask. His eyelids were heavy with arousal, his voice sounding as though it resonated from the depths of his chest.

She nodded and he unbuttoned and unzipped, skimming them off her hips with her underwear.

She had never been naked outside. Topless at a pool, yes, but never fully nude so she could feel a cool breeze graze her exposed lips and damp curls. Oh God. She hadn’t shaved or waxed in months.

He didn’t seem to care. He ate up her whole figure from navel to the feet she stepped out of her shorts, then slowly his gaze climbed up her legs, hips, bush, belly, breasts, collarbone. Then he looked deep into her eyes. The lust in his gaze was so undisguised, her pussy clenched with need.

“Okay?” He had one hand on her hip. The other splayed inward so his thumb could trace the crease at the edge of her mound.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He shifted his touch to part her folds. When the pad of his thumb grazed her clit, she jolted.

“Tell me it’s okay, Clo.”

“It is,” she moaned, eyelids fluttering closed. She could practically feel the whorls of his thumbprint, her clit was so swollen and sensitive.

“Would you rather have my tongue?”

Her strangled response must have conveyed a yes because he wrapped his arm around her hips, dipped his head at an angle and began the most sinful assault against her.

This was… He was… She couldn’t form thoughts. Each lick was like a shot of brandy that seared into her blood, leaving fingers of tingling pleasure radiating outward.

He drew back long enough to guide her foot to a spot beside his hip on the log, spreading her open to him and nature and the world. He stuck his finger in his mouth, wetting it, then probed gently. He sought her soaked channel and penetrated deep. They both moaned.

“Fuck, you’re hot.”

She didn’t know if he meant that literally or figuratively, but he was licking at her again, fucking her with his finger, and she had never been so aroused without coming in her life.

“Trys. I think—” She didn’t want him to stop, but she really wanted his cock inside her. “I’m really close,” she moaned. “I want you to fuck me.”

“Sure?” He lifted his head and slowly removed his finger, showing her an intense expression that was a tiny bit cruel as he enjoyed how near she was to tipping over the edge.

She nodded.

He stood, his height overwhelming her for a moment until he gathered her against him and kissed her, branding her whole body with his hot skin and his hard thighs and the roam of his hands across her back and ass.

She could have kissed him forever, but she was horny as hell and tried to open his shorts with as much finesse as he’d shown.

“Wait.” He pulled a condom from his pocket, then dropped his shorts and twisted his briefs down and off.

Oh wow. He was head-to-toe gorgeous. She did exactly what he had done to her. She looked and looked, skimming light fingers across his shoulders. She caressed the sharp points of his nipples and followed the line of hair that bisected his abs. She slowly trailed her touch around his erection, avoiding it before drawing a single line up his length.

His cock was a thick thrust of dark, tensile muscle. It leapt in her light touch, and when she fondled his tight balls, he sucked in a coarse breath.

He cupped the back of her head and kissed her so deeply, it was almost a punishment, but the need he conveyed was so intense, she couldn’t help matching him. She clashed her tongue against his and suckled at his bottom lip and ran her hands across his buttocks, then squeezed with urgency.

He swore and backed off enough to tear open the condom with his teeth, then rolled it on.

“How—?” She looked to the log, wondering if she would bend over it.

He picked up his T-shirt and draped it on the moss, then sat again. When he drew her closer, he guided her knees to bracket his thighs.

“Oh.” Her excitement flared as he guided the tip of his cock along her spread folds, then prodded. She let out a longer “Oohhh” as she sank her weight down and his thick cock forged its way into her pussy.

“Okay?”

“My knee hurts.”

He shifted, wide hands keeping a firm grip on her while he lifted her, tilting and guiding each of her legs to dangle behind him. Another small adjustment, and he was deeply seated inside her.

They were eye to eye, nose to nose. Lips to lips. His hands were positively immoral as he fondled her ass and caressed along her crease.

She curled her arms around his neck and they went back to kissing as though they would consume each other, but now that other connection was thrilling and teasing and undeniable.

Each tiny shift was both erotically good, but also not enough. She could only rock her hips a little. She didn’t have enough purchase to really ride him. He helped, though, lifting her and pulsing his hips.

When she tried to push her hand between them, they were too tightly pressed.

“Trystan,” she sobbed. She was so wet, so aroused, she was going to die.

He was such a fucking god, he rasped, “Hang on.”

As she tightened her arms and legs around him, he stood . He had one arm wrapped around her shoulders, the other braced under her ass, clamping her pelvis to his.

In two steps, he had his forearm against the trunk of a tree. He began to fuck her like he meant it.

That was what she needed. Long, deep strokes of friction that set her whole body on fire. Each thrusting return impacted her swollen clit. Her inner muscles contracted and orgasm struck almost immediately, with ruthless power.

She clung to his neck and squeezed her thighs around his undulating waist and made zero effort to hold back her cries of ecstasy.

He thrust harder. Deeper. Once more, then he stayed there, pulsing as though he would imprint himself on her soul. His whole body jerked while his own guttural noises of release filled the air. His arms almost bruised her in the way he crushed her, but that tight grip told her he was as overcome as she was.

He had done what she had asked. He had made her feel so good, she could have wept with joy.

Even as she held on to this fog of sheer bliss, however, melancholy crept in. She wasn’t looking for forever with anyone. She’d been honest about that.

But if she could have held on to this moment forever, she would have.

*

“I feel stupid,” Cloe said as they ambled down the road on their return to the Storm Ridge . It was the first thing she’d said besides a polite “thank you” as they had carefully untangled themselves.

“Why?” Trystan asked, concerned that her silence hadn’t been because they’d heard a family arrive while they dressed, complete with excited children and a couple of barking dogs.

They had skirted curious looks by avoiding the picnic area and heading back to the road through a side trail.

“I mean I literally can’t hold a thought in my head,” she said with a blank look on her face. “I think you screwed my brains out.”

“Oh.” He grinned, still feeling well oiled and dopey himself. “You’re welcome.” He’d had sex outdoors before, that was true, but never like that. It was kind of disconcerting how mind-blowing that had been.

Impulsively, he caught her hand, stopping her in the middle of the quiet road for a long, tasty kiss. He could get used to this, he thought dimly, as she stretched onto her tiptoes so she was a lithe line against him. He liked that. He liked it a lot.

And then what? His rational brain was rattling at the door where he’d locked it away so he could justify taking everything this woman cared to offer him.

That thought checked him. He kept her hand as they began walking again, but he kept thinking about how her emotional stores were on empty. She had said so herself. The rest of her life was pared down to almost nothing.

He wanted to believe she had taken as much or more from him than he’d taken from her, but now he wasn’t so sure. What did he have to offer her? At best, a long-distance relationship that involved weeks, sometimes months, of zero contact.

When the wharf came into view, Cloe gently pulled her hand free.

“Look, I was serious about not expecting… Well, you exceeded my expectations as far as, um, new experiences go.” She bit her smile and looked to the sky, then grew more solemn. “But I don’t want anything to be awkward for you. I can’t imagine your brothers would be thrilled to learn we fooled around.”

“I have never given one solitary fuck what my brothers think of my sex life.”

She blinked. Then rolled her lips inward as though holding back from saying something.

“What?” he prompted.

“I don’t know. Just that you’re pretty vocal with your opinions where Logan and Sophie are concerned.”

“That’s different. She’s my friend and he was a giant dick to her.” Although, now he came to think of it, both he and Logan had given Reid a healthy helping of shit when they realized he was getting busy with Emma.

Rule number one , he could still hear Reid saying on day one with Storm. No one fucks the nanny .

And he could already hear both of them saying the acorn hadn’t fallen far from the tree if they learned he was messing around with Cloe.

“I’m not trying to friend-zone you or anything,” she said. “I’m just saying that I don’t expect to be more than friends if that’s what you want. I’m also okay if you want to keep…expanding my horizons. On a boat. Under a coat.” She quirked her mouth, then her brows came together in a frown. “I’d rather not have outside expectations or speculation imposed on it, though. I’ve already had my sex life on trial.”

Right. He had forgotten about that.

“The speculation will happen whether we admit to it or not.” He scratched the back of his neck. Even a kid like Kristen had noticed the sexual tension between them. “But we can keep it low-key if you want. No grab-ass in the galley.”

It didn’t escape him that he was not only agreeing to an affair, but to keeping it secret. Given his family history, he knew damned well that if you couldn’t be open and honest about having sex with someone, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

“See? I didn’t even know that grab-ass in the galley was something I wanted.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement. “We’ll have to save it for when we’re tied up between cruises.”

Now he couldn’t wait for this one to be over.