Page 28 of Story Of My Heart

“You taste so good, Piper,” Tate growls, his voice rough with desire. “All I think about is licking you.” His words send a surge of heat through me, and I buck against his mouth, chasing release.

“Yes,” I cry out, my head spinning with ecstasy. “Right there—”

With Tate’s lips sealed around my clit, my peak crashes over me like a tidal wave, pleasure washing over every nerve ending until I’m trembling with the force of it. Tate doesn’t let up, riding out my climax with expert precision until I’m left boneless and gasping for breath.

As I come down from the dizzying high, he presses a gentle kiss to my inner thigh before standing back up to meet my gaze. The raw intensity in his eyes driving me nearly to my breaking point. While I struggle to get my breathing to return to normal, Tate grabs a condom from his toiletry kit and rolls it on.

Reaching my hand between us, I take his cock in my palm, guiding it toward me. I let out a small hiss as he presses forward, everything in the room condensing until nothing is left but the deep, satisfying stretching sensation of him filling me.

He pauses briefly once he’s completely buried, resting his head against my shoulder. “You’re so fucking tight, Piper.”

The fire has left a lingering smoke scent on his skin, along with a touch of sweat and the outside air, producing a more masculine aroma than I’ve ever encountered from him. The effect is intoxicating, and I find myself starting to lose what little control I had to begin with, cupping his ass in my hands and urging him forward.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re perfect?” he groans, starting a slow rhythm between us that makes the tips of my toes tingle and my tongue dart out against my lip.

“You have,” I sigh in response, letting my nails drag along his back.

“I can’t imagine it was in the same context.”

“No.” He thrusts against me with a particularly hard stroke and I bite back a sharp cry. “But you’ve said it about just about everything else.”

“Well, I want you to hear me. I want you to understand me. You’re perfect to me. In every possible way. I can’t get enough.”

The rhythm between us is beginning to grow obscene, and a nagging fear builds in the back of my mind regarding the strength of this countertop and the competency of whoever installed it. “Who says I’m going anywhere anytime soon?”

“God, I fucking hope not,” he growls, his hand passing between us, taking my breast in his hand and massaging it in a rough circle that hurts so pleasantly it makes my eyes twitch.

Bringing my legs around his waist, I pull him toward me, letting my hips roll against his with every stroke. He’s so close to losing control entirely, to letting that cool, detached facade slip away. There’s an edge of vulnerability just beneath the surface, hidden behind his shield of quips and snappy comebacks. And the only thing I want most in the world is to unlock it.

“Tate.” I kiss my way along his jaw, working up toward his ear, dropping my voice to a throaty whisper. “You feel perfect, too. Just like this. I’ve never felt so perfect with anyone before. Just you.”

He grunts, his thrusts becoming less even, but he’s still clinging to a thin veneer of control. His mouth opens, like he’s plotting a quick retort, and I cut him off before he has the chance.

“Your cock feels pretty perfect, too. So big and hard.”

It’s the exact dagger that I hope it to be, Tate letting out an undignified moan before he doubles his pace, his hands clutching at any bit of me he can grab as he drives into me over and over. Before long, I shatter again, pulsing around his dick as he bottoms out inside me.

“God, Piper—”

He slams forward another handful of times, before he goes still with a sharp shout, burying his face in my shoulder. We sit like this for a moment, skin damp with each other’s sweat, breathing each other’s air, neither one wanting to break the silence. Much like my worry about the countertop, another worry starts to set in. If I can’t bear to break the moment now—how am I going to cope with returning to our lives outside of Sunset Lake?

He says he wants everything to go back to the way it was before… this. When I know damn well that’s impossible.

Chapter Fifteen

Tate

Everything smells fantastic. A burnt brown sugar and hickory smoke aroma drifts around in the air, strong enough that I’m worried stray dogs are going to smell it on my clothes later and try to follow me back to the cabin. I was leery about blindly following my sister’s catering recommendation, but Piper convinced me to let her handle it. Stepping back was the right move. Whoever Fallon hired hit the nail on the head.

I’ve seen Leo go back for three servings of potato salad now, despite the way Fallon has been glaring at him. The lemonade they brought is so perfectly sweet that even I have no complaints. And I’ve had the good stuff, made from hand harvested heirloom lemons with organic sugar and raw mountain spring water, served in glasses more expensive than my first car.

Fallon and Piper spent most of the morning moving chairs and tables out behind the main lodge, making sure the caterers have enough room while still leaving ample places to sit for all of the couples who replied to our beta testing invite. The two women in my life are significantly more competent than I am, and I should be scared that one or both of them are going to pass me by one of these days. Watching Piper as she makes small talk with our groundskeeper Hank, hauling cornhole boards across the grass, I’m struck by how beautiful she is when the sunlight hits her dark hair. I don’t understand how anyone possibly believes we could be a couple. Without knowing my net worth, no one in their right mind should assume that I could pull somebody like her.

Due mostly to Piper and Fallon’s combined efforts, the BBQ is going perfectly. This is, however, only half the battle. The other half is the ridiculous cornhole tournament. Or ‘cornament,’ as Fallon has taken to calling it all morning. I can only hope nobody brought it up in front of Captain Obvious or we’re going to be hearing about it for the rest of his avian lifespan. And he had a hard enough time with ‘popcorn.’

“Why do you even have these?” Piper huffs incredulously, measuring the distance from one board to its opposite with a tape measure.

“They were for a bachelorette party that stayed here two summers ago,” Fallon replies, and my eyes follow Piper’s to the surface of the board. Painted in a looping pink-glitter script is the phrase ‘GET IT IN THE HOLE.’ If Mom ever saw these she’d have a heart attack, though from laughter or shock I’m not sure. “You said adults only! You’re lucky I didn’t break out the matching bags they had. Those were … phallic.”

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