Washed Up (Bayside Heroes)

And once again, I find that I can’t deny her.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

GREG

“Mm, you’re like a giant, warm, fuzzy teddy bear.”

Amanda wiggles her way even more into my embrace, and I chuckle, kissing her hair.

“Fuzzy?” I frown, putting space between us so I can look down at my bare abdomen. I pat the hair-free skin in defense.

“Okay, so, not so fuzzy, but still warm,” she amends, snuggling in close again. She sighs contently, and I do the same, closing my eyes and savoring the way she feels in my arms.

The morning light woke us not too long ago, although it’s streaming through her blinds brighter and brighter by the minute. Long rays of golden light stretch across the bed, across the sheets we’re wrapped in, across her beautiful face.

“It’s not even cold out, you know,” I say after a moment. “Probably in the eighties already.”

“Shut up and let me pretend I’m cold. It’s the holiday season, even if Florida didn’t get the memo.”

When she tangles her body up with my own, one leg slipping between mine and the other hiking up over my hip, I decide I like this game and lose my will to argue.

We spent the entirety of the night fucking like two teenagers, barely finishing one round before the next would begin. I finally made us break around three a.m. for food and water and sleep, and this morning, every muscle in my body aches in both the painful and delicious way.

But even now, when I should be fully satisfied and too tired to want anymore, I can’t help but roam her body, my fingertips drawing lazy lines over every inch, cock growing hard at the thought of being inside her again.

For so long she’s been off limits, forbidden in every way.

Now that I’ve had her, I know I’ll never get enough.

“This is so nice,” Amanda says, smiling against my chest. “I’ve never been held this way before.”

“What?” I ask on a laugh. “What do you mean?”

She shrugs, lifting my arms around her with the movement. “Josh wasn’t the snuggling type.”

My throat tightens, and I shake my head, wondering how he could have been so stupid as to not see what he had when he had it.

“He also wasn’t the go downtown type.”

I frown. “Like he wouldn’t take you out on a nice date?”

She chuckles, leaning back to peer up at me. “No, I mean, he wouldn’t go downtown,” she reiterates, lifting a brow. Her gaze drops between her legs, and it clicks into place.

“What a fucking moron.”

Amanda lets out a soft laugh through her nose, snuggling into my chest again.

I want to keep on, to ask her what else he failed at so I can show her all the ways she deserves to be treated. But the truth is I don’t like thinking about that man at all, let alone when I’m naked in bed with the woman who’s been driving me crazy for months now.

I decide it’s not worth it, and I focus instead on how she feels in my arms, on every door that just opened overnight.

We’re quiet for a long while, Amanda holding me tight as I run my fingers through her hair. The sun beams in warmer and warmer, and we kick the sheets off, but don’t bother peeling ourselves away from one another.

After a long sigh, Amanda squeezes me tight and says, “I wish this could last forever.”

My heart kicks in my chest.

We’ve been avoiding it, the conversation of what this means, of what happens next. But with a sentence like that coming so easily from her, I can’t ignore it any longer.

I pull back, just enough that I can prop myself up onto one elbow and gaze down at her. “What if it can?”

Amanda snorts a little laugh.

When I’m still staring at her, stone cold serious, she balks. “Greg, we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for starters, I’m much, much—”

“I swear, if you say you’re older than me, I will flip you over on this bed and spank you so hard you’ll think you’re the young one.”

Her cheeks flush. “Is that right?”

“Test it and find out.”

She chuckles. “Would you want me to call you Daddy? Or Doctor?”

“Doctor Daddy is just fine,” I tease, and then I gobble up her neck in a flurry of loud, sloppy kisses that make her laugh and squirm away.

“I’m serious,” she says, pressing her hands into my chest.

“So am I. Doctor Daddy works.”

She rolls her eyes. “I am…” She pauses, noting where I’m about to flip her over, and chooses to amend her language. “There is an age difference, and you know it.”

“So? Doesn’t matter.”

“You want to get married. You want kids.”

“Who said that?”

That gives her pause, and she frowns, sitting up a bit more. “You… don’t want those things?”

“I want you.”

She sighs, slinking back down. “Right now. But one day, that won’t be enough. I won’t be enough.”