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What a great sound, he thought. After he helped River off the table, Riot kicked out of his pants and slipped River’s panties from her legs. He loved that her thighs were wet with his seed. Wiping it away with her panties, he kissed her mound firmly. “Best twenty minutes of my life,” he heard her mumble. He stood up and he looked her in the eyes. He loved when her eyes went wide as she realized they had barely gotten started.

Maybe she had forgotten a few things about him. He was quick at recovering, and he took what he wanted when he wanted. He was not a man who asked when it came to women he considered his.

And whether she was willing to admit or not, she was his.

***

Somewhere between the dining table and the living room floor they had managed to make it to her bedroom. Riot had threatened to break in every room in the house before the night was over, but River suggested leaving something for another time. The moment had gotten tense on her part, not on Riot’s. He had smiled, telling her to stop thinking so loudly and just let things go where they would go. She had climbed into her head, worrying and wondering if she could handle only one night with him. Between kisses, he had managed to make her forget her worries and solely focus on the technical skills he had with his tongue. Lord knew the man had a devil for a tongue and she was willing to burn for him.

River had forgotten how talented Riot was in the sex department. She felt like she was drowning in a sea. She needed to come up for air—and she was starving. “I’m so hungry.”

Kissing her stomach, he laughed. “Sex does that to you.”

“I don’t remember that part.” River pointed to a spot his lips had missed. He followed her fingers, kissing each spot.

Riot loved how her nipples tightened into little hard peaks when he paid attention to them. The hiss River let out as he scraped teeth across one then the other told him they were now tender. Looking up at her, he smiled, thinking about food. “Really? We used to gorge on pizzas, chips, and chocolate bars.”

“Oh, that was because of sex, I thought we were just always hungry.” She laughed.

“We were always hungry.” He crawled over her kissing her. “Because we were always fucking.”

“That part I remember.”

His leg pushed her thighs apart so he could lay between them. “Wrap your legs around me, sweetheart. I’m going to make you even hungrier.” Laughter was what he got in response to his demands. Riot bit her hip, making River yelp. “I’ll just eat you while you starve to death.”

***

Late in the evening, River gently ran her fingers over his scars, not sure if he would be bothered by it. “Do they hurt? Your scars.” She had never seen the scars that riddled his body from the wreck. They had been covered in bandages the whole time she was there with him in the hospital. It had definitely been a long seven years. They had faded some, but they reminded her of how fragile life could be.

“Sometimes my leg hurts. When it gets cold it really bugs me.”

Riot knew he had gone too far with this little stunt. He was tired of feeling half-dead, and River made him feel alive. How would he walk away when tomorrow came? River hadn’t said anything about wanting him back, she had only wanted tonight. Rolling over, he wrapped himself around her, wanting her to remember how they were once upon a time.

He’d leave at some point, and she knew it. For now, it was the two of them, no outside distractions, no ringing phones. Just the two of them for the rest of the night.

Chapter Thirteen

As she stood on her back patio, River tried not to think about the night before with Riot. She gave herself a pep talk about how she could blame it on loneliness, on being vulnerable, on her wanting to get back at Laurel. But in the end, there wasn’t anyone or anything to blame for what happened except that they had a connection from a very long time ago. A very sexy, sensual connection. Who wouldn’t want to revisit a time in their life that they felt free?

He hadn’t left a note this time. There was no cold tray of food waiting for her to eat. No race to take her mind off the reality that it had truly been a one-night stand. River refused to regret her evening. She was a big girl and could handle her feelings.

Who was she kidding? She was a damn wreck. Reaching for her phone, she pulled up Mal’s number and sent a text. Mal would know what it meant.

Grigio girl- lady gaga

She sat down, dropping her head into her hands. “Breathe, River. Breathe.”

Mal found her out back by the pool, sitting on the diving board. “You gonna jump?” Mal laughed when River flipped her off. Holding up two bottles of wine, she called River off her perch. When River approached, all Mal asked was, “Red or white?” River grabbed the red, a telltale sign of “what the fuck” in their wine vocabulary. “Tell Mal what the asshole did, and I will cut his dick off and shove it up his ass.” When River turned and glared at her, Mal reminded her best friend that the ass in question had suggested the very thing the night before on the phone with River as a witness.

“Where’s the corkscrew?”

“It’s twist top.”

“Mal, wine isn’t supposed to have twist tops, that’s beer.”

Mal shrugged, twisting the top off the pinot. “Twist top.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me. Twist top wine. What is this world coming to?”

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