Page 50 of The Vineyard Crush

Jesus. This incendiary joining of mouths and limbs had me utterly molten and aching for more of his possession. I willingly surrendered every trembling inch of myself to Ridge’s devouring dominion, craving the purgatory of his mercilessly thorough conquest. Shattering apart on the pleasure/pain of his mastery was my sole aim.

I’d imagined this heated consummation countless times over the past few weeks, tormented by lurid fantasies of wringing pleasure from every drop of potent masculinity Ridge exuded. But this…this was so far beyond the tame conceits of my subconscious’ shallow yearnings it made everything before pale drastically in comparison.

This shattering communion eclipsed even my wildest fantasies.

This was like tasting sweet oxygen itself after being trapped in a vacuum too long. A blissful, soul-searing redemption of the body and spirit, granting me life anew with every plunging stroke of Ridge’s tongue and aching sweep of his wandering palms.

He consumed me, remolding my very essence in the crucible of his unleashed passion as if I were some supple, malleable clay. And I gladly, rapturously yielded to the onslaught of intoxicating sensation without protest.

Ridge ravaged my mouth with masterful strokes of his wicked tongue, stoking the ache between my thighs into a relentless throb. Fleeting moments where his searing lips retreated left me bereft and keening until he surged forth again in another soul-searing slide of velvet and steel.

When we finally broke apart, chests heaving, Ridge scattered scorching kisses along the thundering pulse at my neck. When his blunt fingertips finally graze the underswell of my breast, my back bows in a desperate arc, craving more.

“Ridge…” I pant against the scorching seam of his mouth, nipping at the plush give of his lower lip with my teeth. The husky groan he exhales raises gooseflesh along the nape of my neck.

“Sweet…beautiful girl,” Ridge growled against the satin hollow beneath my ear. I squirmed against the thick ridge of his arousal grinding so deliciously into my inner thigh. “Please…” The breathless keen fractured on a high note of uninhibited need. “God, Ridge, please…”

Then we both freeze, holding our breaths - at the dull thud of something solid hitting the floor nearby - to see if the noise wakes Lily. Please don’t wake up, please don’t—. Lily doesn’t so much as twitch in sleep, thank god, Twin rasps of relief gusted across swollen lips, but Ridge is already disengaging, palming the back of his neck with a wince.

Fuck.

Horror flashed across Ridge’s features even as his hooded gaze clung hungrily to mine. Raking a hand through his tousled hair, self-loathing etched deep lines into his brow.

“I shouldn’t have…” His gruff voice fractured on the raw words. “I’m sorry,” I whispered helplessly. My heart physically aches as I watch those beloved mossy-green irises cloud over with guilt and regret, distancing himself from our exquisite joining. Every treacherous inch of new space yawning between our bodies feels like a mortal blow. “Taking advantage of you like this? Christ…”

Disgust laced his tone like a blade through my chest. As those defensive walls slammed up, distancing himself from our exquisite joining, something vital in me withered. The ragged words feel like a shard of ice through my thundering heart. My fingers instinctively curl themselves into the rumpled cotton sheets for want of something, anything to ground me against the rushing torrent of his retreat.

“Ridge, no.” I reach after him in mute entreaty, skin still ablaze from our fevered embrace.

But he recoiled from my outstretched hand, jaw tightening as his molten gaze cooled to disinterest. Panic strangles me by the throat, because no…this man couldn’t be more wrong about what just transpired between us, this sacred consummation of our deepest longings. He isn’t the one who violated, who instigated the devastation - I was undoubtedly the tempter, the hopeless siren who drew us both out into unsafe waters.

“You didn’t…you weren’t…”

My rasped protest withers on my tongue as Ridge whirls away from me with a sharp indrawn breath, disgust etching into every haggard line of his expression. When he rounds on me, eyes blazing with shame and self-loathing, it’s like being blasted by an inferno.

“You were drunk and exhausted, and I just…fucked it all up.” With that, he storms from Lily’s bedroom, boots thudding hollowly across the hardwood. I stand frozen, hand outstretched futilely between us, scorched by the scalding heat of his anger and disgust. At me or himself, I couldn’t even begin to decipher.

Twenty One

Ridge

“Ishouldn’t have done that. Fuck, what was I thinking?”

The harsh words scraped from my throat as I paced the length of the hallway, trying to calm the blood rushing through me and willing to get my angry cock to subside and get the fucking message. Each heated stride carried me a few feet before I spun on my boot heel, retracing the same path in tight, agitated circles. My fingers dug into the shorter hair at my nape, while my other hand raked constantly through the longer strands fringing my face.

With every turn, Emma’s slight form came into view - a porcelain doll haloed in buttery lamplight from Lily’s bedroom. Shock and confusion pinched her delicate features, those moss-green eyes wide and lips slightly parted as if to speak. But no words came, only the scorching weight of her stare trailing my caged pacing.

An invisible shroud closed in around me, the air thickening until I could barely suck in a full breath. The night whispered with the babble of the nearby creek and the chirping trill of crickets, a harsh juxtaposition to the riotous storm ravaging inside me. One swirling maelstrom of anger, disgust, desire - all of it directed inward like shrapnel tearing through my gut.

How could I have kissed her? Let my iron grip slip so completely? Emma was nothing but warm light and laughter, pure sunshine cutting through the long shadows I’d wrapped around myself. What insanity possessed me to try and taint that radiance?

Unbidden, the memory lashed me like a red-hot whip - Emma’s slight weight sinking onto my lap, her fingers tangling in my shirt as our mouths collided in a desperate, starving clash. And I, damn me straight to hell, had greedily taken everything she offered and then some.

My boot heels gouged the floorboards as I spun again, dragging a shuddering hand down my face. The scent of her clung to my skin like a phantom caress, an unfurling blossom and sunshine and everything I could never deserve to touch again.

“I’m sorry, Emma.” My raw voice cracked like I’d swallowed shards of glass. I stilled at the edge of her stricken form, desperate to say the words, to end this storm before it raged out of control and destroyed her light entirely.

Emma shifted, shaking her head slowly as tendrils of chestnut hair swayed around her pale face. “Ridge, you didn’t…”

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