Page 112 of Ride the Wave

‘I’m obsessed with your lips,’ I murmur against them.

‘I’m obsessed with you.’

He crashes his mouth against mine and I respond to the surge of passion by grinding my hips, feeling him pulse beneath me, moaning into his mouth. He tugs at my hair and I roll my hips against him once more, sending both of us into a wild frenzy. Our mouths become hungrier and more demanding, nipping, tasting, licking. He rolls me off him onto my back and moves his hand down to sink his fingers into me, a low, guttural sound emitting from his throat as he feels how ready I am for him.

‘Fuck,’ he growls.

‘I need you now,’ I whisper in response, arching into him.

He doesn’t hang around. As he buries his face in my neck and slowly pushes himself into me, his free hand finds mine, and lifts it back behind my head, his palm flat against my wrist, pinning it there against the headboard. My breath catches at the full feeling of him sinking into me, the pressure and the pleasure that builds with every roll of his hips.

‘God, I’ve missed this feeling,’ he’s murmuring into my neck, his raspy voice almost drowned out by the pounding of blood in my ears. ‘There’s only you, Iris.’

He starts with slow and controlled movements, sending shivers down my spine, each deep, considered thrust generating powerful waves of pleasure that roll through my body. Our breathing becomes shallow and ragged, and his rhythm intensifies.

Groaning expletives as his hips rock into me faster and rougher, my muscles clench around him and he frees my hand, lifting his head to look down, his eyes blazing at me. I drag my nails over his shoulders, but then he moves to lift my leg, hooking it over his shoulder and when I bite my lip and smile, my eyes fluttering shut at the incredible sensation of the angle, he thrusts into me deeper and a long moan falls from my lips.

‘Oh my God, you look incredible,’ he mutters, his skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat. ‘So fucking beautiful.’

It occurs to me that this might have been the sort of thing he was imagining during our yoga classes together, fantasising about angling and stretching me this way. I hope so, because I’ll now be thinking about this whenever I have to lie back and lift my leg up, remembering the feel of his shoulder rubbing beneath my calf, the way his eyes are glazing over with pleasure. His hand returns to the heat building between my legs and when he rubs my clit with the perfect pressure, I almost lose it, my body clenching with need. He groans helplessly as I tighten around him.

‘I’m close,’ I just about manage to say, feeling breathless as I hurtle closer and closer to the edge with every thrust.

When I tip over, he falls apart with me, the pulsing of his length inside me only intensifying the pleasure further. Crying out in pure ecstasy, I clench and flutter around him, the sensation spilling and flowing into every inch of my body, leaving me trembling and shivering beneath him. He collapses on to me, burying his face in my hair and kissing my neck before rolling onto his back to lie beside me.

We take a moment to catch our breath, lying side by side.

‘That was incredible,’ he says in a daze, lifting his hand to push his hair off his forehead. ‘Fucking hell.’

I lean over to kiss him on the cheek, before forcing myself up off the bed to go to the bathroom. I flash him a grin. ‘Coming here tonight was a good surprise, right?’

‘Good? That doesn’t even comeclose.’ He exhales, shaking his head, his eyes fixed on me as I go. ‘Best surprise ever.’

30

‘Have you seen this?’ Leo asks, reading something on his phone at the kitchen table. ‘The headline reads:Battle of the Surf Has-Beens. It’s about me and Ethan, and it’s got this really shitty tone to it. The bloke who’s written it is laughing at us. Mostly at me.’

I move to stand behind where he’s sitting, wrapping my arms around his collarbones and resting my chin on his shoulder to read the article. It’s the first day of heats for the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach competition and he was up insanely early – it’s still dark out. This is the first time I’ve seen him sit down and he’s already fidgeting.

‘Stop reading those stupid articles. There’s loads of good ones about you, saying how excited the surf world is to welcome you home. Everyone is talking about you.’

‘Talking about how washed-up I am,’ he grumbles.

‘No, talking about how you’re aheroto a lot of the surfers competing today,’ I correct, grazing my lips against his cheek. ‘They just want to see you surf again.’

‘Ahas-been,’ he repeats in a low, resentful mutter. ‘Fucking hell, I know it’s been a long time since I was in the game but it’s brutal to read that about yourself.’

‘Which is why you shouldn’t be reading anything about you at all. It’s toxic. Who cares what people like that think? Come on, Leo, you know those articles are written and published by morons who just want clicks,’ I remind him, kissing down his neck.

‘Morons like my mum?’

My lips pause on his skin, and I lift my head back to peer at his phone again. ‘This is one of your mum’s magazines?’

‘Their online site, yeah,’ he sighs, turning off his screen and setting his phone down.

I straighten, resting my hands on his shoulders and rubbing them. ‘Hey, she has a few trashy magazines on her books and she can’t check over everything they publish, especially online. Trust me, stuff like this is probably written by a junior writer in like five seconds before it’s shoved up online and they start writing about the next thing. Seriously Leo, she’ll have nothing to do with this.’

‘I know,’ he says, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. ‘Fuck, I’m nervous.’

---