“How are you two feeling this morning?” Considering neither of them showed up for breakfast, I’m guessing not well.
I hold out two black coffees. Connor texted me, asking me to grab them for them. At least they showered before they got here, so they don’t reek of stale beer.
Connor grins up at me from beneath the San Diego baseball cap he’s donning today. “Fan-fucking-tastic. You?”
“I’m tired.”
Ronan shoots me a sly grin as he takes my cup, his fingers grazing mine in the process. The ones he likely used to stroke himself with last night, seeing as he’s right-handed. “Yeah. Sorry about that. Hope it didn’t take you too long to get back to sleep.” He watches me through a sip of his coffee as my face heats up.
Like he knows what I did.
“Okay. Listen up!” Darryl claps his hands, earning Connor’s wince. “With this wedding ceremony tomorrow, we’ve got to change things up a bit.”
I hear someone murmur, “Don’t do it, man. Run while you can!” and a round of chuckles floats around the group.
“Alright, alright. Connor, you’re with Pegs and Brody on tent set up.”
Connor groans but Darryl ignores him. “Abbi and Ronan, you two do the weekly check on the Wolf Cabin, and then be back for landscaping around the site. Abbi, you lead on the planters. These morons couldn’t make a garden look good if their lives depended on it. The rest of you… the usual.”
Ronan and I together, and alone, all morning. It’s not the first time, but after last night, after the tension that’s been brewing….
My gut tells me this isn’t a good idea.
The look on Ronan’s face says the exact same thing.
~ ~ ~
The air within the cab of our maintenance truck hangs thick with unspoken words and undeclared intentions.
“No one’s stayed in this place for three years and they still want us checking it week after week,” Ronan mutters, steering around the worst of the potholes along the narrow path.
“It’s important to them.” To him. I keep a firm grip on the door handle, my eyes ahead, waiting for that bend where the cabin suddenly comes into view. I haven’t been back since the day we staged it, the weekend of the grand opening ceremony.
The day Henry told me we were different. The last time I felt him inside me.
“You’re doing it again.”
I glance over to find Ronan switching his glances between the narrow road and me. “Doing what?”
“Disappearing into some deep, dark place where your face turns all sad.”
Ronan is way too observant. “You should watch where you’re driving. You know, in case of animals.”
That buys me about ten seconds of silence. And then he asks so softly, “What did he do to you?”
Familiar hollowness blooms inside me. It’s not even eight in the morning. I’m not sure I can face this. “He fooled me. He told me lies that I believed, because I was stupid and naive.” I’ve never actually talked about it with anyone. There’s no one to talk about it with.
“Do you miss him?”
I chuckle, though it’s not with humor. “I miss what I though we had.”
He sighs. “Then maybe it’s time you move on.” He reaches across the seat to give my knee a friendly squeeze before pulling back.
And, after all this time, it dawns on me. I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before. Not in all these weeks, in the countless mundane, pointless conversations. “What did she do to you?”
Ronan’s Adam’s apple bobs with a swallow. He doesn’t answer right away, but I already know there is a she. “She decided she needed time and space.”
“How long were you together for?”
“Four years. We broke up about three months before I came here.” A little softer, he adds, “Her name is Tasha.”
I reach over to squeeze his knee, just as he did to me moments ago, because it feels like the right thing to do. He’s still hurting over her, that much is obvious. “So, now what?”
He sighs, then shrugs. “I give her what she asked for.”
“But you’re messing around with other girls.”
“She wanted the space, not me.”
“And what if she tells you she wants you back?”
“Then she gets this version of me.” His smile is weak and unconvincing. “But I’m guessing we’re done.”
“But what if you’re not?”
“What am I going to do, not have sex with anyone until I know for sure? Because I know she is.”
I swallow my pain. Just like I know Henry is sleeping with other women. He basically promised as much.
“What do you want, Abbi?”
“I don’t know.” Some miraculous turn of events that makes Henry not an asshole? That gives me a reason to forgive him for how he’s treated me?
If that’s the case, then I haven’t really learned anything at all from this experience.
I stare out the window, seeing the steep roof through the trees. “To figure out how to let go, I guess.”
~ ~ ~
“All good down here. How about up there?” Ronan hollers from the bottom of the steps.
“Just a sec!” A lightbulb in the back bedroom blew when I flipped the switch and, according to Darryl, we’re supposed to make sure everything is in working order. I’ve had to take my boots off and climb onto the bed to reach it. At least the beds have long since been stripped of their sheets from the grand opening ceremony weekend.
I turn around to find Ronan leaning against the doorframe, watching me intently.
“Okay. I think I’ve got it in.” I move to jump off the bed but Ronan’s voice stops me. “Don’t.”
“What?”
He strolls in slowly, his gaze drifting over my body. “What do you want, Abbi?”
He’s yanked us right back to the conversation in the car.
That’s the second time he’s asked me that. I wish I had a good answer. “I don’t know. To feel good. To not hurt. To move on.” Those are pretty basic things.
Strong hands grip my outer thighs as he stops just in front of me, his head at waist level. “I can help you with that.”
“We need to get back to the hotel, Ronan. We can’t.” Suddenly, this is exactly what I want. Ronan, making me feel good. Making me experience life again.
“There was a squirrel.”
I frown, a laugh threatening. “A squirrel?”
“Yes.” His hands begin sliding up and over my hips, his fingers curling tight around my body, until they come to rest on the button at my waist. “It was loose in the house, and we had to catch it.” His green eyes lift to lock on mine.
And he pops the button to my pants.
I say nothing to stop him.
With a single finger, he pushes the zipper down, the tip of it running along my panties, down, to stop just above my clit. “It took a while to catch that fucking squirrel.”
Why am I not stopping him? This is about to go way too far.
He tugs on my pants until they’re sliding all the way down to my ankles.
“We can’t do this in here,” I whisper. This is Henry’s grandparents’ cabin.
He leans forward, his mouth landing between my legs. I feel the heat, the slip of his tongue, even through the cotton of my panties. “Why not? Do you think he cares?”
Henry doesn’t give a fuck about me.
Ronan looks up again and he must see the answer in my eyes. His fingers coil around the sides of my panties and he pulls them down. My t-shirt is long but it doesn’t cover me completely, and his mouth is so close.
My body begins reacting to him, a heavy pulse growing between my legs, even though this is wrong and stupid on so many levels. “This is going to make things weird between us.”
His rough, callused hands slide up the backs of my thighs to land on my ass, squeezing almost to the point of pain, but not quite. “It won’t. I promise it won’t. I won’t let it.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can. Take your shirt off.”
“You haven’t even kissed me yet.”
His sigh skates across the very tip of my clit. “You want me to kiss you?”
“Isn’t that how all this should start?”
He pauses to look up at me through his penetrating eyes. “Sure. I can kiss you.”
I’m about to step down from the bed when he leans forward. I gasp as his tongue slides over my slit, wriggling in to touch my clit, swirling around it.
I stop letting myself think—and worry—and just close my eyes and feel as Ronan kisses me between my legs, his hands gripping my ass, squeezing my flesh, pulling me closer to his mouth.
I watch him, eyes closed, mouth open, his tongue working away at me, and I can tell he enjoys doing it without even having to ask.
When his eyes flash open, they’re darker and his pupils have dilated. “Shirt off. Now,” he demands.
I peel off my t-shirt and unfasten my bra. My breasts fall with heaviness, my nipples hard and sensitive. Ronan looks up, his mouth still on me, and heat flares in his eyes. “Get your pants off and lie down.” Stepping back to give me space, he yanks his t-shirt over his head and pulls out his wallet to fish out a condom. He tosses it on the bed and then simply stands there, watching me sit down to tug my pants and panties off around my ankles. The bare mattress isn’t exactly comfortable, but I don’t really much care at this point, because I’m now completely naked in front of Ronan.
And, oddly, not at all uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because I know him so well. Maybe it’s because I somehow know he’s going to be satisfied no matter what. Maybe because I’m doing this for me and not for him.
He unfastens his belt and pants, and pulls his hard dick out to hold it in his hand as he stares without shame at my body. “Open up for me.”
My nerves are going wild as spread my legs apart, letting him see all of me. And admire all of me, as he seems to be doing. “You’re so fucking fresh and innocent.”
Henry used to say things like that to me. I close my eyes and push that aside.
But Ronan sees it. He always sees it. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s how he said he liked me,” I admit quietly. “But he didn’t really want that after all.”
Henry doesn’t want me.
Ronan doesn’t answer for a long moment, his hand running up and down his cock in long, languid strokes, his thumb skating over the tip with each pass. With our gazes locked, he reaches over with his free hand to slide a single finger along my slit. “So you don’t want to be fresh and innocent?”
I gasp at the intimacy of this, of Ronan, of that soul-searing look, even when I know he’s having emotionless sex because he’s still in love with another girl. I saw that same look the night I walked in on him, only now its intensity is tenfold. “I want to be wanted.”
“You’re wanted. Look at me. Look at this.” He strokes himself to make a point. “This happens every time I see you. That first day we picked you up, to bring you here, I wanted to touch you. On the way home, your legs straddled that gearshift and I had to fight not to slide my hand up your skirt to touch you. Believe me, I want you. Connor wants you, too. We both want you.” His gaze drops to rake over my chest, landing between my legs. “I like you fresh and innocent.”
“I don’t want to be so innocent anymore.”
His mouth twists in thought. “You want to gain some real experience?”
I bite my bottom lip. And nod. A tiny bit afraid of what Ronan’s idea of “experience” means, because I’ve already gathered that he’s very experienced.
A soft smile curls his lip. “Turn around.”
I remember how deep it felt from behind with Henry. I also remember how exposed I was. But I do as asked, tensing slightly as Ronan comes up behind me. I hear the soft slide of his pants, down past his knees. “Relax. I’m not going to do anything to you that you won’t like.” His lips skate along my neckline to place a kiss on my shoulder, making me shiver and drop my head back against him. I gasp as his hands come around the sides to cup my breasts. He pulls my entire body backward, closer to him, until I feel his erection lined up as the top of my crack, a bead of moisture leaking from the tip.
I instinctively grind my ass against him.
“Do you know how perfect these are? Most women need to pay for tits like these.” He alternates between gripping my entire breast, or as much as his hands can manage, and rubbing my nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, squeezing them until almost just painful. Over and over again, a repetitive stroking that I feel through my stomach and down between my legs.
Until I’m squeezing my thighs together against the ache.
“I can’t…. I need you to….” I don’t have to finish my thoughts. He drops a hand down between my legs. I step farther apart to spread myself, giving him access as he slides his index finger through my slit and into me.
“That’s it.” Still, he clutches a breast with one hand while his finger pumps in and out of me. I close my eyes and revel in how wet he’s making me.
At some point I’ve reached up absently, gripping the back of his head to give myself leverage as I grind my hips against him, working the end of his cock into my wet spot.
“Wait.” He guides my knees onto the mattress with his, and pushes on the space between my shoulders until, leaning forward, I’m on my elbows, my face pressed against the mattress. I listen to him tear open the condom wrapper. Moments later he’s pushing a finger inside me again, then two fingers.
“I think you may have the tightest pussy I’ve ever felt,” he murmurs, thrusting his fingers in and out, hitting that spot deep inside that drives me wild and makes me drip with need.
Finally, he settles his cock at my entrance.
Is this really happening? Am I going to—
Ronan pushes himself into me with a moan. I close my eyes and clear my mind, breathing through the delicious pain as his cock pushes deeper into me with each thrust, only mildly aware of him dragging his wet fingers along my crack, smoothing over my tight, puckered skin.
“Oh, fuck. Abbi. I’m almost… I’m all the way in.”
I revel in the feeling of being completely full of Ronan, of having him inside me.
Until he rubs that spot with a wet finger.
“Relax.”
I clench instinctively but he keeps rubbing his thumb over and over and over, applying just a touch of pressure with each pass, all the while still pushing into me, again and again, helping to distract me.
Then a gob of something wet lands on my backside. “What is that?”
“My spit. I need you really wet.”
People actually do that?
He rubs his saliva all over me, until everything feels slick and strange.
“Take a deep breath.”
I do, and he begins pushing his thumb inside me, so slowly. There’s a burn that’s not entirely painful but not at all comfortable. “Relax, Abbi. And trust me. You’ll be begging me to fuck this soon enough.”
I don’t know about that, but I take another deep breath and concentrate on Ronan’s swollen cock pumping in and out of me at a slow and steady rhythm, his hips circling with each thrust. Soon enough, my body is loosening enough that I barely notice the burn as he continues to inch his thumb deeper into me.
First time having sex and Ronan is already sticking things into my ass. Even Henry didn’t attempt that. Suddenly I can’t help but giggle. “You are depraved.”
“You love it. Don’t worry, I’m almost there,” he whispers with a groan, thrusting his hips at just the right angle to help build that delicious heaviness in my belly, even as I feel an almost unbearable feeling of fullness everywhere else. I can’t help but spread my legs farther apart and stick my ass up higher, desperate for this orgasm that’s hiding in the recesses.
“Did you touch yourself last night, like I asked you to?”
There’s no room for shame with him, not right now. “Yes.”
“I knew you would.” He begins thrusting harder. “I need you to do it again now because I won’t last. You feel too good, and I want you to come with me.”
I reach back with one hand and begin rubbing my swollen, wet clit, my fingers catching the side of his cock every once in a while as it plunges into me.
“Faster, Abbi. Rub harder.”
I obey, rubbing myself with quick strokes, my fingertips gliding over myself. Knowing that he’s struggling not to come spurs me on, bringing my orgasm closer.
“Fuck. I’m about to explode.” His fingers dig into my hip as he hammers against me, hitting my back wall over and over again hard and fast. I’m vaguely aware of my knees sliding against the abrasive mattress but I don’t care, so focused on how Ronan both fills me and violates me but in the sexiest way. It doesn’t even hurt anymore. It just feels strange.
I curl my head under and watch upside down as his thick, rigid cock disappears inside me over and over again, coated in my slickness. So much of it. I didn’t think I’d ever get that wet for another guy again. But I have, for Ronan.
My orgasm comes on in a rush, and I cry out as I’m flooded with heat, my muscles not only pulsing around his cock but around his thumb as well, in what feels like a double orgasm. I ride the intense wave and then another intense wave, my body going wild with the conflicting sensations, until the spasms still and I’m left wanting to sprawl out on the bed.
Dropping a single soft kiss on my spine, Ronan pulls out, grabs the condom wrapper, and heads for the bathroom.
Leaving me to get dressed in bewilderment.
I can’t believe I just had sex with Ronan.
I quickly pull my clothes on. How do I really feel about that? I honestly have no idea.
I’m lacing my boots up when he strolls in with his pants bucked but shirtless, his chest still gleaming with the slightest coating of sweat.
“We should probably take our trash.”
“In my pocket.” He yanks his t-shirt over him. “Ready?”
“Yeah.”
He turns to leave. And stops. “You good?”
“I don’t know. What’s going to happen now?”
“Well, now there’s going to be a wedding.”
My eyes pop wide with his words. “What?”
He frowns. “Back at the hotel, remember?”
A wave of relief hits me. “Right. The planters.”
He must finally clue in because he starts chuckling. “You’re adorable.”
“You’re sure nothing is going to turn weird between us?”
“By weird, do you mean, am I going to think about fucking you constantly? Because I was already doing that in my head.”
I blush.
His boots fall heavily on the floor as he walks toward me. “Yeah, things are a little bit different. We’d be idiots to think otherwise. I mean, we’re closer friends now, right?”
“Yes.” He’s seen me naked and done things to me no one else has.
“But this thing you feel for me, it’s not anything like you felt for him, right?”
I frown. What I felt for Henry. That all-consuming burn in my chest, the way my heart still stutters when someone mentions him even though I should despise him, the way my stomach twists when I see pictures of him.
No, I don’t feel that with Ronan. What I feel for Ronan is a strange, close friendship, nothing more. I’d care if he were hurt, or sad, and I’ll miss seeing him every day when we’ve parted ways. But I don’t see a romantic future between us. I don’t even hope for one.
As if reading my mind, he says, “See? Just good friends. Who sometimes fuck.” He pushes a stray hair off my forehead. “Did it feel good?”
I hesitate for only a moment. “Yes.”
He leans in to place a kiss on my forehead. “Good, because I’d love to do it again, sometime.”
I think I’d love that, too. God, what am I getting myself into here? “Please don’t tell anyone.”
A somber cloud flickers across his face. “You should know me well enough by now.”
“You’re right. I do. I’m sorry.”
“But just to warn you, Connor will probably figure it out.”
I groan. “What’s he going to say?”
“Seriously?” Ronan chuckles. “He’s going to ask to join in next time.” Ronan sees my expression and starts to laugh. He throws an arm around my neck like we’re buddies and weren’t just naked together ten minutes ago. “We better go. Remember, if anyone asks… it was a squirrel that made us late. A red one.”
I snort and trail him out of the house, locking up behind me.
