Somehow, Nell had managed to sculpt a rough approximation of a foot out of the bush. A big, giant, green foot. I was impressed at the level of detail, even if there were still some rough edges. She was standing proudly with her hands on her hips and a sheen of sweat on her forehead.

  "What do you think?" She flipped both her hands out to gesture toward the bush and lost control of her shears, which flipped through the air and embedded themselves in the top of the foot. "Whoops…"

  “I think it’s really foot-like. Definitely recognizable as a foot from far away.”

  “But…”

  “But I’m not exactly sure it’s edgy enough for Maya and her people.”

  “I thought you’d say that. Allow me to introduce you to this big fella.” She pointed to the next bush in the row, which was still untouched by her shears.

  “Okay. Consider me introduced?”

  “This one is going to be a big ball sack. The foot is going to kind of hover over it?”

  “Oh…”

  She winced. “It’s not good?”

  I laughed. “You know what? I’m not going to pretend I really understand what passes for art. I hid inside a giant set of breasts and spied on you through glass window nipples at one of her galleries. Why shouldn’t a big ass foot about to stomp down on some balls qualify as highbrow art?”

  “Hell yeah!” Nell shouted. She gave me an unexpected hug.

  Something about her sweaty body pressed against mine made me react on an instinctual level. I caught her by the small of her back and took two steps forward until her back bumped against the bush that would become the ball sack.

  “Itchy,” she whispered.

  “I wanted to wait until this was all over. I thought it wouldn’t be fair to you if I…”

  “Defiled my bush?” she asked.

  It should’ve been funny, but her red cheeks and hushed voice made it feel like the sexiest question she could’ve asked. “Something like that.”

  “At this point, the only thing that wouldn’t be fair is if you teased me like that and then didn’t follow through.”

  “You’re sure? Because I can’t promise I’m going to be able to stop once I uncork everything I’ve been holding back.”

  “Who says I’d want you to stop?”

  I wondered if she knew what she was unleashing, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to care. I may not know if Nell was the cure for everything wrong with my world. Maybe when the drama of Damian and his bullshit had passed, we’d realize that circumstance was tricking us into thinking more had formed between us than our few short days together should’ve made possible. Logic told me that all must have been true, but my gut said otherwise. It said I didn’t need weeks and weeks of games—date after date and endless conversations about why our parents weren’t perfect or what our dream car was when we were kids. “Being with you feels right,” I said. “Am I going to scare you off if I tell you that I’m falling pretty hard?”

  “Why would that scare me? I literally fell for you the second time I saw you.”

  “You did?”

  “Don’t you remember pulling me ass-first out of the bush?”

  I smirked. “That’s not the kind of falling I was talking about.”

  “Yeah. Me either. But I’m also not sure I can trust something this fast. I’ve got some baggage, I guess, and it’s going to take me a little while to believe even what my own heart is telling me.”

  “Mine is telling me to do whatever the hell it takes to keep you around. So, if time is what you need, you got it.”

  “Time would be nice. But there was one other thing you’d mentioned…”

  “Oh, right,” I said, straightening up and backing away from her. “The fishing trip?”

  Nell's eyes went heavy, and she reached out for me, tugging me back into her by one of the belt loops on my jeans. "Don't make me say it."

  “Too embarrassed to ask me to tend to your bush?”

  She swatted at me. “Stop it.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to back away again.

  Nell caught me with both hands this time and tugged me back. “Be a gentleman.”

  “I don’t think a gentleman would do what’s on my mind, so I’m in a little bit of a bind here.”

  “Harry Barnidge. If you make me spell it out for you, I swear I’m going to—”

  “What?” I whispered, leaning close to her ear. I watched as goosebumps rippled across her arms. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “Well, I was kind of planning on going limp and letting you have your way with me.”

  I took her hands in pressed them above her head. Unfortunately, the weight of me leaning into her against the bush made us both sink into it. I barely caught her and pulled her back. I lifted her up and started walking toward the house.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Deciding I’m too selfish to risk some random person catching a glimpse of what I’m about to do to you. And realizing that I’m not going to be able to pin you against a bush while I go down on you without you falling into the thing.”

  “Go down on… Oh." Nell wrapped her arms around my neck and let me carry her the relatively long walk from the garden to the back patio doors and up the spiraling stairs to my bedroom on the second floor. I kicked the door closed behind me and tossed her down on the bed once we were inside.

  I stood over her and peeled my shirt off. There was so much adrenaline thumping through my veins that it would've been a blatant lie to say I had a plan. All I had was lust. It felt like months and months of buildup and repressed desire to have her in every way imaginable. When I realized it had only been a handful of days, I could hardly believe how quickly I'd let myself get to this point.

  Taking a break from relationships hadn’t helped steel my heart against Nell. Instead, it seemed like all it had done was prop the doors wide open. I didn’t care about any of that, especially not right now.

  She was watching me while she lay there on the bed, propped up on her elbows while her chest rose and fell in a heavy rhythm. I wondered if she was trying to imagine what I was going to do.

  I dropped my shirt to the ground and moved to my belt.

  “Maybe I should take a shower first,” she said.

  “No,” I growled.

  Nell’s eyebrow twitched up. “I want to be clean for you, if—”

  “Clean. Dirty. Filthy. I want to take you as you are.”

  Nell's eyes glazed over for a second like she had to process what I'd just said. When she looked back up at me, she took in a deep breath, let it out, and gave a subtle nod. "You really know how to turn it on when the time comes, don't you?" Her voice was a little high pitched and shaky.

  Usually, I would've seen her nerves as adorable. Right now, they only registered to me like the smell of blood to a shark. I was so, so hungry for her, and she was only making it harder to bear. “And you don’t know when to stop talking, do you?” I yanked my belt free of my pants, dropped it, and started on my zipper.

  Nell’s eyes went up and down my torso, to my face, to what my hands were doing, and back over it all again. “No. Sometimes, when I get nervous. I just kind of talk in a sort of stream of consciousness kind of thing. It’s like I can’t shut it off.”

  “Mhm,” I said, stepping out of my pants and then pulling down my briefs. I was already hard as a rock, and Nell definitely noticed. I almost laughed when she stared at my cock unblinkingly and then actually licked her lips. It was a completely unconscious reaction, and it was one of the hottest things I’d ever seen.

  I stepped between her legs and put my fingertips on her chest before giving her a slight shove backwards. She plopped down on her back and stared up at me with knitted eyebrows.

  I was torn between the urge to literally rip her clothes off and the desire to make this as slow and deliberate as I could—to savor every kiss and caress.

  I took her leg and lifted it to pull her shoe and sock off one foot, then I followed with the other. I grinned when I saw goosebumps prickling up her legs. “Do you like having your feet touched?” I asked.

  "Um," Nell said. She nearly made me laugh again because she wasn't using anything close to a bedroom voice. If anything, she was talking a little louder and more casually than usual. "I think right now you could probably fondle my elbow and I'd be at risk of exploding. So… Take that as you will. And wow, I said that out loud."

  I reached over her to take her arm and propped myself up on the bed with my free arm as I planted a soft kiss on her elbow. Nell’s whole body shivered.

  "Whoo," she said loudly. "See. Just an elbow kiss, but it's got me all wibble wobbly."

  “Hey,” I said softly. I leaned in so I could kiss her forehead. I meant for the gesture to be calming, but I hadn’t really considered how practically laying on top of her while I was naked and erect was far from calming for her. “You don’t need to be nervous with me. There’s nothing you could do wrong here, okay? I just want you. As you are. Whatever that is. So loosen up and enjoy this.”

  Nell blew out a slow, shaky breath. “Okay. I just really like you. I don’t want to mess this up.”

  “And I really like you too, which is why you can stop worrying.”

  I slowly set to work taking off Nell’s clothes. It didn’t feel like a means to an end with her. I was enjoying every second, from watching her shirt come up to reveal her freckled, smooth belly to pulling down her athletic shorts and drinking in the sight of her mound beneath her pink panties.

  I reached under her and unhooked the clasp on her bra, peeling it off her. I instinctively bent to kiss her nipple as soon as her bra was out of the way. It hardened when my lips made contact, and Nell let out a soft, squirming moan.

  “Oh, jeez,” she said, still in that loud, conversational tone. “Already making noises and you’re barely started. This is going to be bad.”

  “Noises are good,” I said, kissing her again.

  I let her keep her panties on for now. I stood back up and took a step away, enjoying the way she squirmed under my gaze. She was incredible, and I knew exactly how I wanted to start enjoying her.

  20

  NELL

  WOW.

  There were two kinds of people in the world. One type made up ninety-nine point nine percent of the population. I liked to think I belonged to that overwhelming majority who had no right to strut around butt ass naked and look as confident as somebody who just scored the game-winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. Strip me naked, and I'd do all the usual moves. Knees buckling inward to press my thighs together. One hand over my… area. The other arm would be the nipple blocker. It was an undignified affair that would leave everybody feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

  Then there was the other type of person. The kind I didn’t think existed outside scripted movie cinematography and creative camera angles. Those were the people who could take off every last scrap of clothing and still look perfect. Even with a giant, erect penis that arguably was an odd move on nature's part—I mean, why did they have to be so big to get the job done? And why did the balls have to just hang there, like the only organs in the body that weren't cool enough to chill with the rest of the crew, so they got banished to a sack?

  Except it all looked so, so deliciously right on Harry. Trying to peel my eyes away from his round, muscular pecs and that tantalizing ridge of muscle that led down to his pubic hair like a big arrow from God might as well have been impossible. Don’t worry, God. I think I can figure out where my attention is supposed to go without the help.

  I was only distantly aware that I should probably be worrying about any of the fifty things I was usually self-conscious about, even when I was rocking a two-piece swimsuit in a public pool. I mean, what kind of woman had a freckle inside her belly button? And what would he think if he realized my thighs didn’t have a perfect gap between them like the girls in magazines? It all normally would’ve been driving me crazy, but there was nothing in Harry’s hungry gaze that said he cared.

  It was like he said. He wanted me. As I was. A little sweaty and a little dirty from working on the bush. A lot less than perfect. It didn’t matter to him, and the realization washed over me like warm, pure water. I could’ve sunk down into the sheets and basked in his attention for hours. Then again, I was also embarrassingly turned on and so horny I might’ve humped a pillow, so I was anxious to see what he was going to do next.

  “Touch yourself,” he demanded.

  I searched his face for clues. Touch myself? I pressed my index finger to my stomach and gave him a questioning look. “Like that?”

  “Lower.”

  “Oh,” I said. “You mean like you want me to… Uh, jingle the doorbell?”

  Harry’s stern, heavy eyes flashed amusement. I thought he was going to laugh, but he managed to keep that serious look on his face. “Yes. Whatever you want to call it.”

  I licked my lips, then slid my hand inside my panties. I was reminded that with all the bush trimming I’d done in Harry’s garden; I had neglected my own. Oh Lawd.

  I started to rub my fingers in a circle. I couldn’t quite bring myself to look at Harry’s eyes, but every time I peeled my gaze from his face, it fell to his rigid cock, which felt even more naughty. I finally decided to just close my eyes.

  “That’s good,” Harry said breathily.

  I found myself getting uncontrollably turned on—so much so that I was distantly afraid I’d embarrass myself and end up leaping from the bed to jump his bones if he made me keep this up for long.

  “Are you wanting me to have one from this, or…” I asked. Why couldn’t I seem to stop talking so loud?

  “Have one?” Harry chuckled. “Does it offend your sensibilities to say ‘cum’? Or orgasm?”

  “No.”

  “Then I want to hear you say it. What’s going to happen if I don’t make you stop soon.”

  “I’m going to… cum," I said. Even though I'd denied it, the truth was I had always been slightly averse to using proper sexual terminology. I guess I didn't want guys to think I was slutty or something like that. But hearing the word slide past my lips sent a dirty thrill through me that ratcheted my enjoyment up another level. I was squirming now, and soft gasps were escaping from me, whether I liked it or not.

  “Good. And tell me what you want me to do to you.”

  “Anything you want.” Oh, my. I felt like I needed to add an amendment to that before he decided to do something truly crazy, but I also wasn’t sure I could think of something I’d stop him from doing at this point. If sexual tension was butter, it was so thick in the room that we would’ve needed to pop it in the microwave for at least ten seconds before we could spread it on toast.

  Harry pulled my panties down and took me under the arms, lifting me effortlessly and moving me so my head and shoulders were on his pillows. He climbed on top of me and paused so that I could feel the heat of his erection resting against the inside of my thigh. He only stopped long enough to grab a condom from his nightstand and slid it on himself.

  I pressed my head into the pillow and closed my eyes. It wasn’t my first time sleeping with a man, but Harry felt like he was on a completely different level—so much so that I felt more nervous than I’d been even before my first time.

  He slid his hand under my head and took a fistful of my hair before planting a rough kiss on my lips. It wasn’t like the kiss we’d had before. It wasn’t tender, soft, or controlled. The safety bars were off, and Harry was done holding back. I gasped against his mouth, shuddering in expectation when I felt him shift his weight so he could guide himself into me.

  I took a shameless handful of his ass, just like I’ve wanted to since the first time I watched him walk away from me in the gardens. “Oh, God,” I gasped.

  He slid himself into me, stretching me in a way that made me feel wonderfully full. I let myself get lost in the hypnotic pattern of his thrusts—the way his smooth, hard chest slid against my breasts, teasing my nipples as his warm cock drove into me. I tightened my fingers around his ass and on his back, feeling the way his muscles tensed and relaxed with each of his movements like some kind of precise, intricate machinery.

  In some distant corner of my brain, I knew Damian Cross was still a problem. I knew he had possibly cut my chances of helping Ashley pay for school in half with that stupid sword. I even knew he was very likely going to make Harry’s world hell in his attempt to punish us for wanting to be together. But none of that seemed to matter. I could drift away on the rhythm of those powerful thrusts, and the glittering waves of ecstasy that pumped through me in their wake. It was bliss. Serenity. Like somebody bottling up heaven and letting me take a long, warm drink of it—letting me fill up until I could feel it settling into my stomach and spreading tendrils of calm through my body.

  Everything seemed to blend together into a cocktail of explosive pleasure, as if I was so full to the brim that it would burst out of me at any moment. I dug my fingers into Harry and realized I’d been moaning embarrassingly loud.

  My body tightened around him, and I felt the rush of an orgasm tearing through me. But the most startling part of the experience was the thought that seemed to rise up between all the gasps and movements of my writhing body.

  I wasn’t crazy enough to say I loved him. We’d known each other for less than a week. I’d be a lunatic to think I knew him well enough to love him. But crazy or not, the idea seemed to plant itself in me as I laid back down, panting and sweating. Could I love a man I’d only met days ago? Or was that just the chemicals flooding through my system talking?

  “Damn,” Harry said with a satisfied groan. He rolled off me and flopped to the pillow beside me. “I’ve spent a few sleepless nights imagining how much I’d enjoy that. Apparently, I have a shitty imagination, because I wasn’t even close. That was incredible. You were incredible.”

  “I just laid there and made awkward noises.”

  “You also squeezed my ass. And you enjoyed the hell out of it,” he added.

 

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