Page 33 of Anyone But You
“You know what I meant,” he whispered, pushing his dark hair away from his face. The salt had made the strands a little stiff, and his fingers didn’t glide through them like usual, resulting in him jerking at the tangled strands at the end.
Again…thank God for vacation braids.
“It’s not genetic. A reaction to anesthesia caused the dementia. It later developed into Alzheimer’s. She’s why I get up every morning and put a smile on my face for you despite everything. I hate when we fight—it’s distressing to me.”
The silence grew between us as I stared into the bonfire we made.
“I-I’m sorry, Victoria. I didn’t mean to cause you so much pain. I thought you enjoyed going back and forth with me just as much. It felt like twisted foreplay to me.”
“Twisted is right,” I answered softly.
“And your mother… your poor mother. I’m so sorry. How will you pay—”
“It’s fine. The money you bribed me with will cover her expenses for nearly a year. Maybe we’ll be found by then.”
“We will be,” he remarked with drunken optimism.
Maybe…
I gulped down the last of the warmed champagne and tossed the bottle behind me. It landed with a loud thud in the sand.
“I have a confession to make.”
“Go ahead, Victoria.”
“I, too, ate fried chicken the night after we had pizza.”
He narrowed his eyes at me as if I were a monster. As if he didn’t just confess that he’d gone on a million-dollar shopping spree for me. “I can’t believe you,” he hissed.
I laughed as Knox spent the next five minutes bitching about how guilty I made him feel about the fried chicken comment as we prepared for bed. We hadn’t gotten around to building a shelter and would sleep in the raft for the time being. I settled on one side, and he settled on the other. It was a tight squeeze, and our forced proximity was unavoidable. Not that I minded, considering a light breeze had settled in, and the blankets we retrieved from the wreckage were still damp. It was the forced proximity that made me trail my fingers down his chest through the wispy black and silver hairs.
He cleared his throat.
“Victoria? What are you doing?”
“I believe it was you who mentioned fooling around,” I answered, trailing my fingers further. “I agreed, and I always keep my promises,” I whispered, squeezing his impressive bulge. My lips cut off Knox’s soft moan.
Knox
It had all been a dream. The airport, crash, beach, Josh Jayden McClure—all of it. It was the only explanation for why Victoria Caldwell’s lips were on mine. She moved them veraciously as if we were longtime lovers, and she knew exactly what I wanted and needed. She knew that I enjoyed being teased with soft nibbling. My bottom lip was trapped between her teeth, and Ididn’t want her to let go for fear the dream would be over too soon.
Her lips were enough to send every drop of blood in my body south, and when her tongue slid across mine, giving me a taste of the dry sweetness of the Brut, my balls tightened in preparation to come as if I were a trigger-happy teenager again.
Not yet.
She reached into the waistband of my boxers.
“Is this okay?” she whispered against my lips.
In my dreamlike state, I managed a consenting nod and groaned deeply seconds later when her hand wrapped around me. My dick pulsed and twitched excitedly in her hold—simultaneously appreciating her touch and wanting more—wanting to be buried inside of her.
My brain short-circuited at the first long and languid upward stroke and completely melted by the downstroke. Dream or not, it’d been nearly a year since I’d been with a woman. All thoughts of being with another woman went out of the window when Victoria entered the picture. As soon as we met, she consumed me, and I knew just any woman wouldn’t do. I was convinced that no woman could satiate me like her.
I rolled my hips at the same sluggish pace as her tongue and smoothed a hand down her side to her ass. I squeezed her firmly and dug my fingers into the soft, malleable flesh. I’d spent countless working hours stealing glances at Victoria’s ass every time she walked past in one of her pencil skirts. It always looked so damn appetizing.
I broke our kiss, hitched her leg over my hip, and buried my face in the crook of her neck. Her skin smelled of sea salt and the faintest hint of her vanilla perfume that I couldn’t get enough of. I licked a long stripe across her neck before gently sucking at the base of her throat.
“Oh…fuck, Knox.”
