Every Time I Fall (Orchid Valley 3)

Our friends could catch us so easily here.

“Tell me you want me,” I growl into her mouth.

“I do.” I feel her smile against my lips. “So much.”

“Tell me you’re mine tonight.”

“I’m yours.”

I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Except maybe I do. The idea of this all being for some other guy isn’t sitting right. The idea of being her dirty secret riles me. I’ve been there before with Amy, and I never meant to find myself here again. So I just kiss her again and again until lust roars so hot and fast through my blood that there’s no room for frustration or irritation.

When I tear my mouth away, we’re both breathing hard.

“What was that for?” she asks. Her lips are swollen from the assault of my kisses, reminding me all too much of the way she looked in bed after she took my dick into her mouth, the way those lips parted earlier tonight when I slid my hand between her legs, reminding me of other things I want to do with her—things that have nothing to do with wanting to teach her skills for some other asshole.

“You’re beautiful. You know that?” I ask.

Her cheeks, already flushed from our kisses, glow brighter. “I don’t,” she says, “but I almost believe it when you say it.”

I brush the back of my hand across her cheek, then down, letting my knuckles graze the side of her neck before gliding over the front of her dress, across the mound of her breasts. “Come home with me,” I say, watching her face, her brown eyes.

She glances toward the door for a beat then smiles. “I could make up an excuse to get out of here.” She trails her hand up and down my arm, her fingertips lingering on the ridge of every muscle. I don’t even think she realizes she does it, but I fucking love that she can’t keep her hands off me. Is this just physical for her? Am I just a means to an end? The thought makes me crazy, wakes up some caveman instinct that tells me to take her home and make her come over and over again until she forgets all about him. “Brinley will know what’s up if we both leave early, but she won’t tell anyone.”

I frown. “Would it be the worst thing if she did?”

She cocks her head to the side. “I mean, it’s just gonna make this awkward for everyone if—when it ends.”

“Abbi.” I kiss the side of her neck then down to the juncture of her neck and shoulder. I nuzzle her there, breathing in the smell of her, and groan. “You make me crazy.”

She laughs. “Why?”

“Because I don’t like thinking of this as something with a firm expiration date.” Though it has one, I realize now. Whenever Frankie moves to town, I’ll be kicked to the curb. I bet Frankie comes from a nice nuclear family. Probably played ball in the yard with his dad growing up. No cheater in his DNA.

“But this isn’t . . .” Abbi clears her throat. “I mean, we’re not . . .”

Right, so I’m not the only one struggling to define the changes in our relationship.

“This isn’t real,” she says, and even though I know she doesn’t mean for the words to be a blow, they are. They hit me square in the chest, and they fucking hurt.

Abbi has no way of knowing Amy said the same thing, that she said what we had wasn’t real but “just unattached fun,” as if that was supposed to change the fact that I’d fallen for her.

“I call bullshit.” I brush my lips across hers to soften my words and to remind her just how real this feels. “It doesn’t feel fake,” I say softly, and her breath catches. Her expression shifts, her eyes tightening in the corners as worry creeps in, and when she draws in the breath of a woman preparing herself to let the guy down easy, I don’t want to hear it. “I know,” I say before she can speak. “I know this is just temporary. Just an . . . arrangement. But I knew even before that first time I kissed you that it’d be good. That once I touched you, I wouldn’t want to stop. I was right. So let’s fucking enjoy it rather than focusing on what might happen in the future.”

She forces a smile, but she can’t hide the confusion on her face. “Okay. I can do that.”

“Are you seeing anyone else?”

She coughs out a laugh, as if this is a ridiculous question.

“I mean it. I want to know.”

“Are you?” she asks me.

I hold her gaze. I need her to look at me when I say this. “I’m not interested in anyone else, and I don’t want anyone else. I’m yours for as long as you’ll let this last.” Whatever this is. “I can’t be with you one night and plan to be with someone else the next. That’s not who I am.” God, I need her to believe me. I need her to trust me. “Your turn.”