AUDRA
Iwas a bona fide asshole. If the roles were reversed and someone was doing this to one of my girls, I’d have a lot of things to say about how shitty said individual was and encourage my friend to run from that kind of behavior. Yet there I was, unable to commit to this amazing man and leading him on because I couldn’t get over the heartbreak of my past.
In the pool, desire drowned out reason, and I couldn’t stop myself from giving in. Granted, after all the playful touching and flirting, I knew it would be met with no complaints, but I wasn’t being fair. Then, I asked him to share a bed with me and straight up told him nothing else would happen? Who was I?
To be fair, given how jarring my night was, I would have slept in one of the girl’s beds for comfort. As it stood, my option was to share a bed with a smoking hot, sweet-talking, big-dicked man. I guess there were worse things.
When we finished our snack, I let him pick the room we’d retreat to. Since I had already invaded his house and invited myself to sleep with him, he could choose the bed. He chosehis, and while I was in his bathroom brushing my teeth, he popped in.
“Hey, there might be a minor issue. This pair of rugby shorts is a little bigger. If you want, I can throw the other ones in the dryer and we can wait until they’re dry to go to bed,” he said, holding up red ones to show me how much bigger they were. “I had no idea I’d get so much use out of these,” he mused with a smile.
“No worries, those will be fine. Thank you, Donovan.” A pair of shorts that were a little too big was exactly something he would be worried about. He was so damn considerate. I finished braiding my hair as he watched me intently.
“Other bad news. My alarm is going to go off in like three hours, and I have to go in. Mondays are exceptionally hard for me to miss, even if I worked over the weekend and I’m the boss. But I can go in a little late if I need to, and I can drop you anywhere you want. Or, you can stay here. My cleaning lady comes around noon. Again, you are welcome to hang or do your own thing. I am not your keeper, but I think maybe until we get a better handle on this, maybe stick with someone? Or, play Belle in the library all day, or swim, or work out, or do literally anything besides try to go somewhere by yourself. However, just so you know, I have cameras on the main floor. I’m not telling you because I think you’re going to do anything questionable. They just came with the house. If I didn’t disclose that now, and then down the road you found out, I don’t think it would be a good look.”
“No looting the living room. Got it. But your bedroom is still up for grabs then?” I joked with him. “But jokes aside, I will be smart about this, I promise.” Because I had to be.
When he went back into the bathroom, I threw on the clothes that didn’t really fit, and hoppedinto bed. Looking around this room, it was elegant, and so … Donovan. Warm, with almost moody tones throughout, there was evidence of, what I guessed, were his travels placed all over. Carved vases on the nightstand, six photos of spectacular scenes behind the bed, and books of maps on the bookshelf in the corner. I wondered what gems he had tucked away between those pages.
I cozied up while I waited for him, and I melted right down into his mattress. “Donovan, the plan was to get up with you in the morning, but I might never leave this bed. Holy cow, it’s the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in. Is it made of clouds?”
He popped out of the bathroom and rested his hip on the doorframe with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and a pair of athletic shorts that rode low on his hips. My mouth went dry at seeing him as my gaze traveled down his body.
“It’s a good one, yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah, it’s a good one, alright,” I parroted back, not even remembering what was good besides the God of a man standing in front of me. We had just been in the pool for hours, and I had been in his arms, touching all those glorious, hard muscles, but now that he was over there, I took another opportunity to admire them fully. He had to work out six times a day to look like that. Disappearing into the bathroom, he left me with my very inappropriate thoughts.
When he emerged again, he came over to the side of the bed that I occupied and looked at me like he was trying to be stern. “We have to have some rules and decorum here.”
I shook my head yes because I agreed. I did think we needed some rules about sleeping in the same space. But he couldn’t even get the next sentence out without cracking.
“This is my side of the bed, so scoot over.”
I laughed softly as he climbed intohisside. After gettingcomfortable lying down, he offered his arm like he’d done before. Taking the opportunity, I sunk right in, rested my head where his tattoo started, and he gripped around me to pull me closer.
After a couple of minutes of pillow talk, I could hear him start to breathe a little heavier. “Donovan, can I kiss you goodnight?” I ventured. I know it was a shitty thing to ask, but I found myself unable to stay away.
“On one condition,” he sleepily replied.
“What’s that?”
“Come to New York with me. Realistically, it’s only for forty-eight hours. But you can completely let your guard down. We can do whatever you want to. Just come with me, Chaos,” he pleaded.
I propped myself up on my one elbow and leaned over his body. Stroking his stubbly cheek, he leaned into my touch. Though it was too dark to make out his face, I moved up and timidly pushed my lips onto his. “Ok, I’ll come,” I whispered.
At that, he made a sound of appreciation, deepened the kiss, and hauled me up completely over his body like I weighed nothing. Straddling him while he held my hips, I grabbed his face to make out with him again. Immediately, I felt him thicken beneath me, and I adjusted myself to right where I needed to feel that ridge, letting out a breathy moan. Fuck, it felt good. I started moving back and forth every so slightly while desire exploded in my body. Everything else be damned. I wanted this man.
We were both caught up in the moment when Donovan groaned loudly and gripped my hips, holding them steady so I couldn’t move, even though I attempted to keep grinding on him.
“You have to stop, Audra,” his voice was strained, “or I won’t be able to hold to my promise of just a kiss.”
“What if I don’t want you to?”
“If you didn’t want to, you wouldn’t have set the rule in the first place. I am a very willing participant in whatever it is we have going on, but I want to make sure you are all in and ok with doing this. I won’t have you regret something because you are lost in a moment of pleasure. So I’m going to need you to stop doing what you’re doing before my resolve crumbles.”
That snapped me out of it. Embarrassment flooded my body. Oh my God. What was I doing on every level? The mixed messages I was sending to the fucking man who had been nothing but amazing to me. I was the worst. Shame had me getting up out of bed, but before I could even get my feet on the floor, two muscular arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me back into his body.
“I said you had to stop grinding on me like that, Chaos, not leave this bed,” he exclaimed emphatically.
