Better With You (Better Love 2)

“False. I like banana in some things. Maybe I’ll like it in empanadas. Won’t know until I try.” I put my hand out again, wiggling my fingers and raising my eyebrows.

Slowly, he sets the empanada in my hand, touching way more of my palm with his fingertips than necessary. I swallow back a sigh, then take my time unwrapping the food. When a corner of the empanada is bare, I hold eye contact with Riggs as I take a bite. The moment the flavor hits my tongue, my eyes flutter shut, and I hum.

“Oh. My. God.” It’s so damn good.

I’m about to insist Riggs try it, but my words die in my throat when I open my eyes and catch him looking at me like he’d rather have me for dessert. I swallow, and his pupils dilate as he watches my throat contract with the action. I lick my lower lip and he groans, reaching out and taking the empanada from me, then taking the plate from my lounger and setting it somewhere on the ground.

“Sundance,” he rasps, his voice jagged and tight, “have you ever been fucked on an open-air terrace thirty-two stories up?”

I shake my head slowly and clear my throat. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Would you like to?”

“Yes.” Duh.

He’s on me, then, big hands in my hair and up my shirt, tongue in my mouth, teeth on my neck. He’s everywhere at once and it’s still not enough. I rip at his clothes until he’s shirtless, so I can drag my fingernails down his chest and back. So I can grab onto his biceps and squeeze.

I go for the button on his pants next, and he lets me wrap my fingers around his hard cock before he groans and flips me onto my stomach. He tugs my jeans down my thighs, pulls me up onto my knees, and then shoves his tongue into my pussy from behind. All I can do is whimper and moan, white knuckle the lounger and urge him on.

I’ve never, ever, been touched like this.

The places I can feel him are new and strange and oh, so good. He bites my ass cheek hard, and I let out a cry. Then his tongue is back on me, in me, lapping at my clit and making me squirm. Any self-consciousness I may have felt is off the balcony and plummeting into the river below. I flatten my chest on the lounger so my ass is straight in the air and I can press back onto his face with more force. I know it’s what he wants, because he wraps one of his big hands around my thigh and pulls me closer, then uses his other hand to palm and massage my breast.

“I’m close,” I cry, “I’m so close.” He takes my tight clit into his mouth and sucks, and within seconds, I’m coming so hard I can feel it dripping down my thighs.

He stands briefly and I feel a cold breeze on my backside. I hear his pants drop, a soft grunt, and then he’s plunging into me with a force that shoves my cheek into the cushions. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have a fabric imprint on my face when this is done. Totally worth it.

He pumps a few times, then pulls me up so my back is to his chest and his mouth is on my neck. I twist so I can kiss him as his thrusts slow, pulsing in deep and pulling out slowly, so I can feel every ridged inch of him. One of his big hands holds me in place by my hip, and the other slips under my shirt and cups my left breast, fingers splayed over my tattoo. I know he can feel my heart racing. I can feel his thumping on my back.

His mouth never leaves me, not when I come for a second time tonight, and not when he finds his release moments after.

“I like your boobs,”Riggs says randomly about an hour later. I couldn’t move my legs after his assault on me, so he brought a blanket out to the terrace and wrapped us both in it. Now I’m tucked in his arms with my head on his chest, watching snowflakes fall from the sky and melt before they hit the ground.

“Ugh.” I snort out a laugh. “Don’t say boobs. I hate that word.”

“Tits?” he asks, reaching down to cup one of the boobs in question.

“Surprisingly, I can do tits. Or breasts.”

“I can’t do breasts. Makes me think of baked chicken.” I laugh loudly at his tone.

“I guess it’s tits, then,” I say, and he chuckles.

“Okay, well, I like your tits. They remind me of holding a baseball.”

I shoot up and turn to look at him. “The fuck?”

The fuck? This dude just compared my tits to a baseball?

He sits up straight, his smile big and his eyes playful. “No, hear me out,” he says. “When I’ve got a baseball in my hand, it feels perfect. The perfect size and shape. It’s like the baseball was made specifically for me to hold it. It just…fits.”

“Okay...”

“So basically, your tits fit my hand perfectly. And they’re even better because they’re softer and smoother and warm. Like my hand was made to hold your tits. Your tits were made for my hands. Fucking sexy.”

I roll my eyes and flop back down on his chest. “Good lord, that’s ridiculous.”

He moves both hands over my chest. “I might just hold your tits instead of your hand next time we’re out.”

“Ha! Then I’ll hold your dick.”

“Is that supposed to be a bad thing? It sounds amazing.”

I can’t hold back my laugh, and soon, I’m giggling so much my stomach hurts and I have tears in my eyes. “Oh my god, shut up,” I gasp, catching my breath. “You’re seriously fucking ridiculous.”

He shrugs, and I feel him smile into my hair. “I know what I like.”

We fall back into a comfortable silence, and my eyes drift shut as he runs his fingers lightly up and down my arm. It’s not until he starts speaking softly that I wake back up.

“She was diagnosed in June of last year,” Riggs whispers. I don’t say anything, but I take his hand in mine, so he knows I’m listening. “She was having trouble holding piping bags and measuring cups and stuff. Like she couldn’t quite keep a grip. Then she had a fall at work—not a slip, just tripped over her own feet—she went in for testing.”

“That must have been scary.”

“Yeah. It seemed like she got worse kind of fast after that. She was using a wheelchair just six months later.” He sighs and my heart squeezes for him. “Only recently has she had difficulty with her arms.”

“Is that why she’s got the feeding tube?”

“Yeah. In her stomach. Lifting her arms to feed herself was tiring her out. She won’t say it, but I think chewing does, too. They didn’t tell me about the feeding tube until a few weeks ago, and only then it was because I felt it when I moved her from her bed to her chair.” I can hear the anger in his voice.

“Why wouldn’t they tell you that?”

He shrugs. “My dad doesn’t want me taking my focus off baseball. Wants me to go to the pros. I think my mom doesn’t want to worry me. She doesn’t want to interrupt things with...well, school and stuff.”

I don’t ask how much time Odette has. I Googled it on my phone Tuesday night. It could be a few months or another year. I don’t want to make him talk about anything he doesn’t want to, so I don’t ask.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m doing all this other stuff for everyone else, and I haven’t really had a chance to think about what I want.” His voice is low and kind of dreamy, like he doesn’t realize he’s saying it out loud. If he weren’t running his fingers through my hair, I’d think he’d forgotten about my presence all together. “Baseball, the draft, school, and—” he stutters, and I feel his body jolt. “Just everything.”

“You don’t want to enter the draft?” I trace my fingers on his chest, over the t-shirt he’s put back on. “You’re a really good pitcher.”

I feel his smile in my hair. “You checkin’ up on me?”

I scoff. “As if. I don’t live under a rock, Stanton. I hear people talk.”