breath. I lean against a large palm that shades me from the sun and close my eyes.
Only…
I’m not alone.
Sixteen
EDEN
Long fingers splay out across my hip, right above my bikini bottoms. I feel his body heat behind me. The scent of him infiltrates my nose, heading straight for my core, bypassing my better sense altogether. Henry is enticing in a way no man should ever be.
An angry expletive forms on my tongue, but as his hand travels up my bare skin it gets lodged in the back of my throat.
What is he doing?
He grasps my ribcage, his thumb on my shoulder blade, his fingers hitting the underwire of my bra-like bikini top. I don’t have a lot of boobage by nature, but this suit takes what little I have and hikes my girls up to the sky. Most importantly, it hides my nipple rings. While I typically wouldn’t care enough to hide them with friends, when I’m around my brother, his friends, and their children, I do.
Henry’s lips press into the crook of my shoulder and for what feels like forever he just stands there breathing into me, touching me without copping a feel, and staying silent. It doesn’t matter. I feel bare with him. Raw and exposed but turned on as hell.
“What are you doing?”
His only response is to thrust forward, his large erection planting itself against my ass. He cups my breast, and I whimper like the wanton fool he makes me. I grit my teeth, hardening my stare even as I look out at nothing.
“I hate you, Henry. I hate how you make me feel. How you think you’re hot shit and can take me however you want me. I hate that I don’t have the strength to stop you despite my bold inner expletives and proud, tough girl bullshit. You make me weak in all the ways I want to be strong.”
“I’d never take away your strength, Eden. Your strength is one of the things that turns me on most about you.”
Fuck.
My eyes close and my head tilts back, meeting his shoulder. His lips, his tongue, his goddamn teeth rip at my skin. I will have marks on my neck and shoulder. I have to imagine that’s his intention.
“I need rules,” I manage as his other hand wraps around me, toying with the hem of my bottoms. My eyes open and I stare out at the palms as I try to regain control of my thoughts.
I feel his smirk. “Rules?”
“Yes, Henry. Rules. Because if you intend to fuck me as I think you’re about to, I need rules. Especially when I have a hunch this won’t be the last time it happens. I need rules that keep you out of my heart as I previously instructed.”
That grin. That stupid, perfect, seductive grin…
“I can do rules.”
Oh good. At least one of us can. That’s a help, considering I’m already plotting loopholes in my own plan.
“It stops the second we get stateside.”
“Absolutely,” he agrees.
“Your dick doesn’t go near or even entertain another female until this is over.”
He laughs at that. Like my request is ridiculous. “Not a problem.”
“You leave right when we’re done. No sleepovers.”
“Same goes for you. You seem like the clingy type,” he says as he bites his way up my neck, echoing my words to him from last night. “I like my space when I sleep.”
“Jesus, Henry. What are we doing?”
“What I can no longer deny,” he rasps, and my eyes close in defeat. “I tried, Eden. I tried all damn day. The same way I’ve been trying for weeks now. But I want you. I want you hard and rough and kinky and sweet and dirty and slow. I want you all the ways possible, and the only way I can see myself not wanting you like that is to take you all those ways.”
That should make sense, but I’m not stupid and neither is he. I’ve read enough romances to know how that particular plan goes.
Only he and I are different, aren’t we?
We’re both freaking messes. I just got out of a two-year relationship. And though Henry was my first love, this could also be considered rebound and frankly, it’s just too freaking soon for me. Plus, he’s Keith’s BFF. Bandmate. And he’s a disaster of a man. I mean, come on.
So that’s where we are: I won’t let myself get hurt again and he is the epitome of damaged goods. We are the definition of a fling. Emotions need not apply.
“Just sex, Henry.”
“Just