Page 60 of Bad & Bossy

After everything, that shouldn’t have surprised me. But still, I found myself freezing in the doorway, my legs covered in a layer of sand, looking at him in fucking awe. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” he said, flashing me a little grin. “You should rinse off.”

I took his lead and let him take Drew, listening to his tiny little cries that always broke my heart as I hopped into the shower. The sand fell from my body, from places I didn’t know sand could get stuck in, and I slowly let myself relax after I heard the last little cry.

————

Drew was fast asleep by the time I wandered back out in a plush robe, my damp hair dripping onto the wood floor. He lay silently in his crib, his little giraffe on the table beside him.

The shadow of a seated figure on my balcony, the door half open so he could hear if Drew roused, put my mind at ease.

I stepped through the crack in the door. Over the water the sun was slowly beginning to set, the sky colored in pinks and oranges and shades of blue I’d never seen before, almost as if it were painted by hand.

“Thank you,” I breathed. Something familiar was urging me toward Cole but far more intense than I’d felt before.

“For what, baby?” he asked. He welcomed me with open arms, pulling me into his lap and wrapping his hands around my robe-covered waist.

I shook my head, unsure of what I wanted to say. For being so good with him. For making sure he was out like a light. For feeding him when he needed it. For playing with him. For being what I need. “Everything.”

He pressed a kiss against my damp hair, his features darkening as he looked out at the setting sun. Silence filled the space, the only sound the chirping of the crickets and the low bass of a booming party somewhere below us on the beach.

“My parents took me to a beach in Mexico just like this when I was kid,” he said, the words so quiet I almost didn’t hear them.

I looked up at him, watching as he avoided my gaze but holding onto me just as tightly. “How old were you?”

“Six, maybe,” he sighed. “My dad tried to teach me how to surf, but I couldn’t figure it out. So instead, he took me out into the water with nothing but our bodies and spent hour after hour trying to teach me how to body surf.”

His hands squeezed me a little tighter, but even through the seemingly good memory, the darkness on his face didn’t fade.

“It took me a really long time to get it. But when I did, when I finally caught a wave and rode it all the way into shore, he’d hollered like I’d won a fucking gold medal. He picked me up, spun me around, the works. He said he was proud of me.”

Slowly, solemnly, his eyes met mine.

“I think that might have been the only time he said that to me.”

I swallowed, my chest aching for him, nearly splitting in half. I opened my mouth to speak but his lips found mine instead, silencing any hope for a reassuring word.

Taking his face in my hands, I tried to say what I wanted with my kiss instead. I held him, tasted him, conveyed everything, everything I’d been holding back with that kiss. I told him with my lips that I was proud of him, that I was falling for him, that he was enough and that I wanted this, wanted him.

I just wished I could’ve said it with words, instead. Wished he could understand.

His hand tightened around the belt of the robe, tugging at the loose knot until it broke free, splitting down the center and exposing every part of me to him. His cock hardened beneath his swim trunks as he deepened the kiss with every swipe of his lips and tongue. I hadn’t had him in nearly a week, and if it meant here on the balcony, I was more than willing.

I moaned into his mouth as his hand cupped my breast, his fingers brushing against my hardened, almost aching nipples. I needed to pump but it could wait.

His lips found my neck instead, kissing and sucking against the spot that made me lose my mind. My mouth was free and I could say what I wanted but still, the words wouldn’t form. I found myself getting completely lost in his touch, any hope of the truth coming out falling flat. Tell him, I silently screamed at myself, nothing but a sigh passing my fucking lips.

His fingers trailed from my breast down my stomach, dipping below, tracing the folds around my clit instead. Little teases and gentle brushes against the bundle of nerves that was beginning to ache turned my mind further into mush.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he rasped, snaking his free hand between the robe and my skin and wrapping it around the small of my back.

“I’m still not going to date you,” I teased, pushing my hips forward and guiding his fingers toward my entrance. I shuddered as they slid inside, curling forward, pressing against the spot inside that made me feel like fucking heaven.

“Keep telling yourself that,” he laughed, repeating what he’d said to me just before Vee had opened the door a week ago, “while you fuck yourself on my fingers.”

I moaned at his words, sinking myself further onto them and tilting my hips forward. His thumb jutted out, pressing lightly against my clit for added stimulation with every thrust I made. “More,” I breathed, digging my nails into the side of his neck, pulling a little hiss from him.

“More what?”

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