Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1) Read online

  “Jesus Christ. That’s some kind of advanced ninja sex. Couldn’t you ease me into this?”

  She laughed. “You’re doing fine.” She took his hand. “If you hadn’t told me I wouldn’t have known.”

  That couldn’t possibly be true. No one did anything useful the first time around. “I know how it’s all supposed to work. Porn channel. But the real thing, you, it’s nothing like I expected.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “To have some fucking control for a start. I can’t, not, it’s. God, what you’re doing to me.”

  “So if I did—” She smacked her lips together, rolled them.

  “Then I’m going to come in my underwear.”

  “You’re going to come in the shower in my hand or my mouth and then it’s going to be easier to slow down.”

  He was only capable of grunting and letting her lead him to the bedroom, sit him on the bed. His brain was a mere receptacle echoing the torturous pains in his body.

  “I want five minutes in the shower to myself and then you come join me, okay? Do you want to undress me?”

  He took a breath and held it. Why was she asking him these difficult questions? Couldn’t she see he was riding a roller coaster and scared of the rattles, trying not to piss himself.

  She nudged his knee and stepped between his legs, her hand spearing though his hair shoving his head back. “Don’t look so worried.”

  “There’s more than a decade of heaving male sexual frustration sitting here. I want this so badly I feel like I’m going to choke on it.”

  She gave his head a shake. “You won’t.”

  He was five kinds of too hot, ten kinds of nervous. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, or how to stop looking at her like she was every lonely night extinguished forever. Part of him wanted to throw her on the bed, rip her clothes off and fuck them both screaming into the next century. That part of him was made from three thousand, six hundred and fifty days’ worth of denial, substitution and regret, and it frightened him how those feelings roared inside him.

  “I’ve got you.”

  Someone needed to. He gripped the end of the bed. “I think I love you, Flygirl.” He closed his eyes, so dumb. “But then I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” He waited for her hand to move, the sound of her shoes leaving the room. What could she possibly want with him? He should end this before it got more embarrassing.

  He got her lips instead. A kiss to start a global meltdown in his chest, and then the sound of her shoes dropping to the floor detonated in his stomach, bringing swirling discomfort.

  He opened his eyes to see her shrug out of her hoodie and pull her tank over her head. She unbuttoned her jeans, sliding the zip down, then bending to take her socks off, giving a cute little hop when one stuck, before easing her jeans down and stepping out of them. It wasn’t a striptease. It wasn’t done to please him. She was just a woman getting undressed to have a shower.

  He lost the power to swallow. She stood there, close enough to grab, in mismatched underwear, her hair a nest of tangles from his hands, her face and chest flushed, and just like this, she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

  She put her hands behind her back and unclipped her bra, let it fall down her arms and drop to the floor. “Keep breathing, Back Booth. In, out, in, out.”

  He knew things about her body even before he saw it bared like this. She was compact, with well-defined long muscles. Her feet turned out like a ballerina’s, her calves were prominent, her thighs strong. She had narrow hips and a flat abdomen, but obvious obliques and abs. Now he saw they led up to firm, round breasts with bubblegum pink nipples that made his palms itch. He wanted to run his nose over the muscle delta in her arm and press his face into her prominent collarbone.

  She hooked her thumbs into her pants and bent forward to drag them down her legs. No hair. He hissed like a basketball losing air.

  “I’d undress you but I think it might be detrimental to your health right now. Count to a hundred, then get undressed and come get me. Try not to have a heart attack before that.”

  When she turned and walked into the bathroom he almost did. He rolled back onto the bed and closed his eyes. Get it the fuck together, McGrath. This isn’t a capital raising, it’s not a listing or fighting off a pre-emptive take over, it’s not work. This is a gorgeous woman who’s into you, maybe as much as you’re into her, at least tonight anyway, and she deserves some fucking coherence, not a bumbling overexcited boy.

  The shower water was running and he could see Zarley through the glass screen. There were those dimples at the base of her spine, made for his fingers to sit in, his tongue to explore. Wet, her hair hung almost to her waist. On autopilot, he shed his clothes, watching as she tipped her face to the spray. Never. This was simply never a thing he’d expected to happen.

  He palmed his dick, squeezed, wiped the wetness away with his thumb. He was a Mentos Mint dropped in a Coke bottle, about to fizz over and explode.

  Ninety-nine. One hundred.

  Coming, prematurely, ready or not.

  TEN

  Zarley almost tripped over her own sock. She was a girl who danced in her underwear for money, but getting naked in front of Reid for fun was the singularly most ungraceful thing she’d ever done.

  And she was the one in control here.

  It was the way he looked at her, as if the bottom would fall out of his world if he couldn’t have her. As if he expected her to reject him and her rejection would slice him into tiny fragments of worthlessness. He had no need to worry on that account. She hadn’t been so turned on since Dalton and their trysts in the barn and that was all teenage hormones, trial and error, and breaking the rules. This was proper adult raging lust, she knew exactly what she was doing, and it threatened to turn her inside out.

  There was no door to Reid’s shower, only a glass wall to contain the water that fell straight from the lowered ceiling. He stepped in behind her but didn’t touch her. She knew he was scared to. She took a step back and he groaned, his arms banding her body, his hands coming up to cup her breasts, his head down, lips to her neck, where he sucked the water from her skin.

  He was big and warm and overwhelmed, and he made her feel overcome too.

  What she’d seen of his chest when she’d unbuttoned his shirt, what she’d felt through his clothes told her he was well built, muscle grafted onto a lean form, economical without being showy, simple masculinity that wasn’t about vain athleticism or physical labor but won from deliberate effort, with less thought to its appeal than its functionality.

  That was so hot.

  She grasped his arms and arched against him. Everything about him from his nervous energy to his astonishing honesty had her aching. And she wanted to make it good for him, like Dalton had made it good for her, but with none of the blind fumbling silences, the need for secrecy and the lasting pain.

  She pushed back into Reid until he stepped into the tiled wall. Hand or mouth, what would he want, what could he take? She soaped her hands and turned to face him, ran the soap down her own body and then dropped it and ran her soapy hands down his. Oh, he felt fine, all contained careless strength and effortless beauty. And yes there was ink, words written across his pec. She’d trace it, learn it later, but what caught her eye was the word alone.

  He wasn’t alone now.

  “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

  “I’m too big for my skin. I’m too loud and too coarse and clumsy as fuck and scared I’m going to do something dumb and you’ll take off. You should take off before I do. I kind of want you to.”

  “You want me to go?”

  “No. Fuck. I might actually die if you leave me.”

  “You won’t die. I won’t let you.”

  “You realize you’re the boss here. I don’t have a clue how to make this good for you.”

  “Reid, shhh. You’re in control. You can say stop anytime and we’ll stop.”

  “Nice theory.” He snatched her
hand, brought it down on his cock, his upper body curling forward, face tight with tension, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed.

  He set the pace, moving their hands together, his breath rasping. He closed his eyes, his other hand gripping her arm as if he still thought she’d abandon him. She wasn’t going to ditch him. She was going to wreck him.

  “Tell me how you want this?”

  “Just, please, touch me, anything. Anything you want.”

  His desperation was heady. Like knowing you had a medal chance, like you were the one to beat. She pulled his head down to kiss him then broke his hold and went to her knees, her hands flattened on his thighs.

  He grunted, his stomach contracting. “Flygirl, you know what you’re doing?”

  She ran her tongue up his length. “Making you come in my mouth.”

  Both of his hands slapped the wall behind him and his quads jumped under her palms. “You sure?”

  “Fill my throat till I choke, Reid.”

  His pelvis tilted and his knees softened. He swore under his breath and kept up a tirade of foul curses as she took him in her hand and licked across the head of his penis. When she closed her mouth over him, he shouted and smacked his head hard on the tiled wall.

  She sat back on her heels. He looked at her with a dazed expression, wonder, pleasure and the pain of conking his head flashing across his features. Then his eyes found her hand, pressed against her mound, and they narrowed, his mouth dropping open, his expression blanking.

  “You okay, Reid?”

  “Total system failure.”

  She smiled up at him. “Hold onto me.” She took him slowly, sucking her cheeks in, gripping the base of his cock to keep him steady, to have all of him, cocooned. His hands found her hair and gripped too tight, a string of inarticulate sounds of pleasure flooding the room.

  She could taste him through the shower water falling over them, but nothing was better than watching his face as he came apart, head thrown back, jaw clenched, throat bared, eyes squeezed shut, gone inside his head as he came in her mouth, forcing her to swallow and swallow and then pull away coughing.

  He was on the tiles beside her, dragging her into his lap, slamming his lips to hers, hugging her so close the shower water got trapped in the valleys of their bodies and slapped in waves to the floor.

  He consumed her lips and jaw and neck and throat. His hands were everywhere, squeezing her ass, holding her head, plumping her breast. She hadn’t wrecked him so much as unleashed him and she loved it. Her very own Frankensex monster.

  When he hauled her to her feet, he kept up the steady luxurious assault on her body with his hands and his mouth and he added words.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful. I nearly drowned you and I’m still hard. Show me what you like.”

  She liked everything about the trembling, deliberateness of him, the dirty worshipping he lavished on her. Thumbs circling her nipples, rolling her breast in his hand, stroking down her body to cup between her legs.

  “Your fingers inside me now.”

  He was good at taking instruction. He stroked three fingers through her and pushed into her vagina with one, making a low soft moan, and they both took shuddery breaths.

  He took her chin in his other hand and brought her head up. “I need to see you.”

  The sound of his voice, whiskey deep and bourbon low, made her want to climb him. “I need you in me.”

  Abruptly he took his hand away and moved, shut the water off and pulled a towel around her shoulders, made a rough attempt at drying himself. “It has to be about you now. I should’ve thought. I don’t have condoms.”

  Only Reid could say that and get away with it.

  But he looked like someone just ran over his beloved dog.

  She had condoms and she should insist he use them. But she was clean and so was he, and she had not getting pregnant covered with the best birth control money could buy, and an intimate knowledge of her cycle. Lightning wasn’t striking the same place twice, and if it did, she had options she hadn’t considered at eighteen.

  “I’m tested regularly and I’m clean, Lou insists.” She held her arm up and pointed to the faint shadow of the implant. “I’m on birth control. We don’t need anything.”

  “Truth, because I . . .” He tried to be noble and failed.

  “I have condoms and I could insist you use them, but we’re good to go. We’re perfect.” They were also sleepless, full of breakfast sugar and high on each other. Reid was no less edgy than he had been, and Zarley was finding it hard to stay centered on him, she wanted to climb his body and shake him to his core.

  “When you thought about this, how did you want it to be?

  He dumped his towel, grabbed the end of hers and used it to pull her body into the gorgeous clean warmth of him. “I didn’t want a pity fuck.”

  She gripped his face in both hands and gave him a fierce look. “You know this is not like that.” His eye contact flickered, and he moved his head, dislodging her hands. Oh, goddamn, he didn’t know. “You do it to me, Reid. All of you, smart and stupid, brave and alone. You get to me. Your body, the way you think. You’re arrogant, opinionated, stubborn and persistent, and I like all of those things on you. And that I get to have you first.” She wound her arms around his neck. “You have no idea how much I like that. How much I like you don’t make me feel ashamed.”

  He fixed on her eyes. “Ashamed of what?”

  Being the town slut who ruined her chance to represent her country at the Olympics, who missed her chance at a medal. Who went off the rails and stuffed up her life. Who dances in a two-bit dive because it’s the only thing she’s qualified to do and she hasn’t gotten over the old dream yet. “Of being the experienced one.”

  “Someone has to be the adult here and it’s not me.” He gave a rough laugh. “We are perfect.” He let the towel drop to wrap his arms around her. “Someone made you feel ashamed for liking sex, and I’m ashamed I took so long to get around to it.

  “No shame between us, no pity, no lies, no mistakes, no stupid promises.” She stood on his feet and bit his pec, where the words were written. “Just lots and lots of crazy hot mind-blowing sex till we’re tired of each other.”

  “That’s a plan I can get with.”

  “Take me to bed and wreck me, Reid.”

  Arm behind her knees, he lifted her, strode into the bedroom, stopped at the foot of the bed and tossed her onto it. She landed with a squeal of delight, sitting on her tail, legs out in front, and lay back as he crawled over her. He’d lost the anxious hesitancy, the get me out of here before I break something look in his eyes, and she’d relieved him of that as much as she’d excited him.

  This thing they had could get addictive.

  He braced over her on his hands and knees, wet hair falling over his forehead. “I never let myself think about how I wanted this. Too dangerous. I watched porn and got myself off but it never meant anything, a distraction, a relief. Your skin, the way you smell, the way you move, how you react to me, make me feel, it’s nothing I imagined and everything I was afraid to want.”

  She reached for him. “Take what you want, however you want it. I’m yours.”

  He lowered himself to one side, braced on one elbow and traced a finger gently over her top lip, then bent to kiss her opening his mouth, demanding, his tongue probing. Then his lips were on her chin, her neck, her sternum. He made her stomach quiver when he licked into her belly button, then down, down, sucking, teasing kisses across the crest of one hip that made her twitch and twist, till he sat back on his haunches between her legs with a look of pure lechery on his face.

  She parted her legs, just a little, and his breath went raspy as he put his hands to her knees and opened her legs out. She was wet and they both heard the slick sound of it.

  He studied her like there’d be a test later, like he was trying to see how the parts fitted together, and she should’ve felt weird about that, exposed, except for the awe she saw when his eyes came ba
ck to hers.

  “Beautiful.” He ran a finger from end to end and settled it over the nub of her clit and her hips left the bed.

  He smiled, delighted. “You like that.”

  “Do it again.”

  “Too much I want to do. Touch you, lick you, suck you, but I’m not going to hold out much longer.” He pressed his cock against his stomach. He was long and thick and very, very ready. “I want to be inside you so much it hurts.”

  She was beyond ready too. He could do anything he wanted. He touched her clit again, dragged his finger through her wetness and probed inside, making her hips jerk.

  “Fuck.” He scrambled back off the bed and she half sat in surprise, laughing when he pulled her ankles so she slid, dragging the bed covering with her to the edge of the bed. She dug that he wasn’t scared to be physical with her, that he understood she was strong. She laughed again when he lifted her foot and put it over his shoulder.

  This is the point other partners wimped out, pretended polite interest or wanted her to do something awkwardly gymnastic and uncomfortable while they ate her out. Reid went to his knees, smoothed his hands up her thighs and put his lips to her hip flexor then tongued her length like it was the reason he was born.

  She dropped back to the bed, her strangled moan acting like applause, urging him on. She got a hand to his hair and he stopped. “No, no don’t stop, that’s good, that’s soo damn good.” He found her clit, closed his lips around it and she yipped and wrenched out of his grasp.

  Not an orgasm but it was there, making her tremble, waiting to be coaxed out, but he was all out of patience to explore. He crawled over her, shoved her back up the bed and settled between her thighs, the head of his cock eased down her slipperiness and breached her. They both groaned.

  “Zarley. Jesus, that’s, that’s . . .” He lost his words as she tipped her hips into him.

  His eyes were down on their joining and she watched his face signal his bliss as he eased inside her till she was full of him, needed to adjust to him. He was adjusting too, his body shaking with the effort of it, his belly hollowing out, the muscles in his arms rigid.