Every Sweet Regret (Orchid Valley 2)

He spins me and pins me between his body and the wall of the pool, caging me in with his arms. When he breaks the kiss, his eyes peruse my face, my lips, then dip down to my collarbone and the swell of my breasts. “Still thirsty?” His lips quirk into a lopsided smile.

“Only when you look at me like that.” I wrap my legs around his waist and draw in a sharp breath at the hard length of him against my center. Flesh to flesh. The air crackles between us—a blend of electric pulse and magnetic pull that has me leaning into him, silently urging his lips to connect with mine.

“How am I looking at you?” he asks, but his hands answer the question, squeezing my butt before his fingers trace the path up my spine.

I shiver. “Like you want me in your bed.”

He lowers his mouth until he’s a breath away, and it takes everything in me not to close that distance. I’m starved for his touch. “I think you’re misreading me.”

I roll my hips slightly to rub against him. “Really?”

“I want you right here,” he says. His hands slide around to cup my ass, and he kisses me. He curls his fingers into my flesh and holds me until we’re fully flush. The slightest shift from either of us, and he could slide inside me. His lips tease and part, his teeth nipping and tugging. He sucks on my bottom lip, and I whimper. Slanting his mouth over mine, he kisses me fully, his tongue rubbing against mine. I thread my fingers into his hair and melt into this kiss. This moment.

I love the feel of his hard chest cradling me, the way the water moves around us as our bodies rock together, the cool night air on my skin, and the crackling fire in the background.

He kisses his way along my jaw to my neck. “Do you know how fucking sexy you are? Do you have any idea how many times I’ve thought about doing this? How many times we’ve been surrounded by our friends and family, and I couldn’t think about anything but tasting you?”

I tip my head back as his mouth skims across my collarbone. He lifts me, propping me higher on the wall and exposing my breasts to the cool air. I open my eyes in time to see his go darker. He lowers his head and flicks his tongue across the hardened pearl of my nipple, and I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out. His mouth is hot on my breast. He teases with the tip of his tongue then sucks until it almost hurts and pleasure ignites my blood. He sucks and licks and bites my breasts, and need floods low in my belly, an ache building between my legs. I want deeper and faster, but I also want time to slow down so I can relish each touch.

“Kace.” I gasp as his teeth sting. “God, I need . . .” I don’t even know how to finish that. I need him, and this, and more, and promises I can’t ask for.

“Shh,” he whispers, flicking his tongue to soothe the spot he just bit. “I’ll get you there, Freckles. I promise.” He kisses his way back up my neck. “It’s like you read my mind tonight. I was sitting out here thinking about right after I bought this place, and you and the girls came to check it out.”

He licks the column of my neck, and I tangle my hands in his hair and lean my head to the side to give him better access.

“Do you remember that night?” He pulls back and studies me.

“Before you moved in?”

“Yeah.”

He’d shown us all around, and then, when everyone was chilling with beers in the empty living room, I’d wandered out to the pool to get some air. The guy of my dreams was divorced and moving on with his life, and it was all I could do to maintain a modicum of dignity and not beg him to see me, to give me a chance. “You found me out here. With my feet in the water.”

“Yeah. You looked so beautiful in the moonlight, and I had this image of having you in the pool.” His hand skims down my side, then to my ass, where he squeezes. “Like this.”

He wanted me even then. My heart squeezes with the realization, and I tug on his hair and bring his mouth to mine, kissing him with all the longing I’ve been trapping inside me for years. All the hope I feel at learning he wants this too.

He wraps his arms around me. We kiss, and he carries me into the shallow end to the steps, holding me tighter as we emerge into the cool air. His kisses are like a drug that make me want more and more until I don’t remember where I am or what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m intoxicated and barely aware of anything but his mouth.