Mouth to Mouth (Beach Kingdom 1)

“You almost have me convinced I can be a good guy. Every time,” he rumbled into her neck, his teeth razing her, his mouth sucking until she gasped. “Then you spread your tight, young thighs for me and I show you, don’t I? That I’m always going to fuck you like I’ve already earned a place in hell.” His teeth sank into her neck and he thrust hard, lifting her toes from their perch on his boots. “Might as well enjoy it.”

Olive climaxed with her feet dangling in the air and a scream trapped in her throat. She shook so hard under the force of the pleasure that her teeth chattered and her vision dimmed, before erupting with light. Light so intense she threw her head back on Rory’s shoulder to avoid it. His fingertips still toyed with her clit, extending the bliss, making it never-ending. But the feeling went from life-changing to nirvana when she sensed him getting closer, too. She needed him with her. Experiencing the same exhilaration. Always. Always.

He made a choked sound and she mimicked it as natural as breathing, ordering her inner walls to seize around him, instinctively knowing how to make his peak better. Rory staggered one step to the right, bouncing her in short upward drives of his hips, creating punctuations of Olive’s whimpers—and then heat bloomed inside her, Rory’s broken shout music to her ears. Her feet dug into the sand as he let her down, her arms closing around her, their bodies swaying, mimicking the ebbing and receding of the ocean.

Without turning around, she could already sense the thoughts running through his head. He was worried he’d been too rough, too explicit, too everything. She only needed to turn around and show him her dazed, satisfied expression to ease his fears. But she literally could not move. Never wanted to move. So she leaned to the right and kissed his bicep, whispering, “Stay at my place tonight?”

Tension left him, reminding her of a wave rushing back to the sea. “I have a condition.”

A line formed between her brows, some of the worries from earlier in the evening trying to break through her bubble of contentment. “What is it?”

Before she knew his intention, Rory tossed her up into his arms, righting her askew glasses with a nudge from his nose and carrying her from beneath the boardwalk against his chest. “I want to see the famous matching shower curtain and towels.”

She tucked her face into his shoulder and laughed. “Done.”

Was it possible to fall asleep while being carried by her boyfriend through a sea of people on the boardwalk? Olive was preparing to test the hypothesis when Rory’s muscles turned to concrete. Enough that alarm shivered through Olive, her eyes flying open. She followed his line of sight and found a man staring back at Rory, appearing stunned and uncomfortable. They were roughly the same age, but the man was fair-haired and clean cut, where Rory was a beautiful storm cloud, always ready to throw a bolt of lightning.

“Who is that?” Olive asked.

Rory’s Adam’s apple rose and fell. “That’s him,” he said, turning on a heel and carrying Olive in the opposite direction from the man. “That’s the man I put in a coma.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When Rory was seven, his father decided it was time he learned to swim. His mother had already put Andrew and Jamie through swimming lessons, but money was too tight to do the same for Rory. The sun had been blistering that Saturday afternoon and the community pool was packed so tight with locals trying to cool down, you couldn’t see the cracked, concrete bottom through the abundance of bodies. He could still remember standing at the edge, sweat rolling down his spine, wishing Jamie and Andrew weren’t at a birthday party. Wishing they’d come along, so he wouldn’t have to be alone with their father. He hadn’t spoken the entire way to the pool and it was anyone’s guess what mood he was in.

“What are you waiting for?” Rory’s father’s voice came from behind him. “I don’t have all day, kid. Jump in.”

Rory hadn’t bothered reminding the man he couldn’t swim—he already knew. Already knew that he’d only ever waded into the ocean up to his knees. What he didn’t know was that fear of the unknown scared Rory most of all. Would the water weigh him down? What would it be like to float and not be able to find the bottom with his feet? None of these questions could be voiced out loud, though. He’d be called a sissy boy. Or he’d simply be scoffed at. Maybe even pushed in before he was ready. No, he didn’t want that. He wanted to make sure he had time to gather a big breath.

Rory had closed his eyes, inhaled until his chest hurt and jumped into the pool, hoping his body would know what to do. Wishing his brothers were there. The cool wrapped around him, the soles of his feet touching scratchy concrete, and he’d propelled himself to the top, fighting through the panic in his mind, ordering himself to paddle his hands, the way he’d seen Andrew do. Kick. You’re supposed to kick, too. The first sound he heard upon breaching the surface was his father’s laughter. The outline of him had been shadowed, his stocky body outlined by the summer sun—and he’d been holding back the alarmed teenage lifeguard.