Exquisite Betrayal (29 page)

“
Ryland Thomas.” Her voice is deep and
sexy.

“
Yeah.”

“
Pull the car over.”

“
What?”

“
I said, pull the car over.
Now.”

I find a secluded cove nestled in some
trees, and do as she asks. “What are…?” I look over at her and
she’s already stripped her jeans and panties off.

She reaches for me, unzips my pants, my dick
springs out, she crawls over me and then, in one fluid motion, I’m
inside of her and she’s riding me like it’s our very first
time.

I push her shirt up and move her bra out of
the way so I can see her perfectly hardened nipples. They beg to be
sucked, so I do and her head drops back as she moans. My hands grab
her ass and we work up a damn hot rhythm. Up and down, we move
together and then my thumb finds her sweet spot. This is my
favorite thing because I know in a few minutes this is going to be
her undoing. And God, I love this part of fucking her. I love it
more that I can even say.

“
Fallon, this is us, forever. Say it,
love.”

“
Endless with you, Ryland Thomas. Ah,
yes, harder. Right there.”

Her fingers sink into my arms and there she
goes, clenching my dick, squeezing me for days.

“
Give me that mouth of yours, love.”
She leans into me and I lightly suck her tongue, but she’s not
having any of it. She’s going for rough and bites my lip, so I kiss
her for all she’s worth. It’s way more than I can even guess. I’m
not quite done with her yet since I haven’t gotten mine. I open the
car door and get out, carrying her. Normally, I’d cringe at this
thought because I’d hate to think of putting a scratch on my Aston
Martin, but fuck it. I lay her on the hood, spread her legs, and my
mouth meets her slit. My tongue plunges in her and then circles her
pleasure points as I add my fingers to the action. She tugs the
hell out of my hair, and damn it all, it jacks me up.

I pull her up and off the car, spin her
around and bend her over the hood. “Hang on, love.” I thrust home
and it’s so damn good this way… so deep.

“
You good?” I don’t ever want it to be
too much or too rough for her.

“
Oh, yeah,” she pants. “More than
good.”

I give her all I’ve got and she’s loud. Real
loud. My arm goes around her and I find her clit. I need her to
come for me again because I’m not going to last much longer with
her ass pounding against me and her voice calling out my name like
that.

“
Babe, you gotta come for
me.”

“
Ah, yeah. I’m close.”

If anyone came by right now, I’m sure they’d
think we were killing each other with the racket we’re making, yet
it’s pure pleasure for both of us.

There comes her hand on my arm, fingers
digging in hard, and doesn’t that just make me soar.

“
Ah… ah… yeah.” And there it is, the
clenching of her against me and I’m there, groaning my ass off,
bent over her. When we’re both finished, I’m reluctant to pull out.
I don’t want to move. I kiss her neck, her cheek, anywhere my lips
can reach because I’m in paradise right now.

“
Shit, Fallon. What you do to me.
Love, I’m…” I’m speechless is what I am. I stand up, pulling her
with me. We need to clean up. I wonder if I have a towel in my
car.

“
We need a towel.”

“
My thoughts exactly.”

“
Don’t pull out or…”

“
I know, love.”

Then we both laugh. “What if someone
comes?”

I laugh even harder. “Don’t you think we
should’ve thought of that before we ever started this?”

“
I guess,” she says.

“
Stand on my feet,” I tell her. She
does and we shuffle to the boot of the car. Thankfully, I find a
towel stashed back there. I step away from her, turn her around and
bend down to clean her up.

“
What are you doing?” She’s totally
embarrassed.

“
Cleaning you up.”

She tries to grab the towel from me.

“
Fallon, stop.”

“
No. You can’t do that.”

I grab her chin and force her to look at me.
“Why ever not? Most of it’s from me. And besides, my mouth goes
down on you all the time. What’s the big deal?”

“
I
—
I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“
Only because you’re letting it be
weird. I think it’s totally sexy.”

“
You do?”

“
Of course I do. As is this.” I slide
a finger into her.

“
Mmmm.”

“
See. That’s the same place all this
comes from. So cleaning you up should really be my job, you know. I
did make the mess after all.”

“
I helped.”

“
You caused it. You and your errant
ways.”

She laughs and her discomfort passes.

“
Now kiss me.” We hear a car in the
distance so I tell her, “You’d better get in the car first. I’d
hate for whoever is about to get here to see your lovely, naked
ass.”

She hops in the car like a rabbit and I
laugh as I zip up my pants and close the boot.

***

We check into the spa and head for our first
treatment, a couples massage. It’s very relaxing, but all I can
think about is Fallon being naked under her sheet. I wish the
massage therapists would simply leave us alone in here so we could
play a little. I realize I need to tame my thoughts because, when
they roll me on my back, my dick’s going to be making a pup tent
out of the sheet over me.

The dopey expression on Fallon’s face when
we’re finished is priceless. I want to both laugh and kiss her at
the same time.

“
Need a nap?”

“
I’m jelly. Or noodley.”

“
Noodley?”

“
Yep. Legs are like noodles. Will you
carry me?”

I swoop her up in my arms and she laughs. “I
was kidding Ryland. People are staring.” She makes a point of
calling me that in public, as we discussed.

Glancing around, I notice we are indeed
catching looks from others. I grin and announce, “My beautiful
girlfriend can’t walk because her massage has made her legs
wobbly.” My statement earns a few chuckles from those that
hear.

Fallon’s face is now hot pink and matches
her toenails. My grin widens. “I took you seriously. You ready for
some lunch and wine tastings?”

“
Sure. But, can you put me
down?”

“
Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just carry you
there.”

Now she’s laughing, too.

I finally set her down and she swats me on
my arse.

We head on out to lunch and then we’re off
on an afternoon of tastings. It’s a gorgeous day and we plan to end
it back in the town of Sonoma where we’ll be eating dinner in a
quaint restaurant. So we go to our room to change without a whole
lot of time, making us sort of in a rush.

The town is small and the restaurant is
close enough that we can walk, therefore we stroll arm and arm to
dinner.

And then it happens. The impossible. I never
thought it would, but it does.

“
Ryland? Is that you?” I hear my name
and turn to see her. Tall, thin and blond, she’s as beautiful as
she ever was. Her smile plows into me like the train that killed my
parents. It’s been years, however I feel the blood drain from my
face and everything shifts in my world.

“
Oh my God, it’s really you!” she
says.

Fallon is squeezing my hand, as if to ask
whether I’m okay. I can’t speak for a second, so I nod. Finally I
say, “Hello, Iris.”

She runs and hugs me. I’ve no choice except
to release Fallon’s hand and hug her back. She smells the same,
like vanilla, and she clings to me like she doesn’t want to let me
go. So I keep hugging her back because I don’t know what else to
do. It’s completely awkward for me. I try to look at Fallon, but
Iris’s head is blocking my view. I finally have the sense to
disengage her arms and step back from her. My head is swimming and
I don’t know why. I can’t understand all these strange feelings
that are hitting me.

“
Iris, I want you to meet Fallon
McKinley. Fallon, this is Iris.” They shake hands and exchange a
brief greeting. Fallon’s face looks wounded. I know she’s feeling
the odd one out in all of this. Hell, so am I.

“
So what are you doing here?” Iris
asks.

“
We’re here for a getaway
weekend.”

“
Ah, great choice. I live here now.
I’m an artist trying to make it and I thought, well, this would be
a great place to sell my stuff.”

“
I see.” I don’t know what else to
say.

“
So what about you?”

“
I live in San Francisco.”

“
Great. That’s so close.”

She’s talking like we’re still great friends
or something. “Yeah, not far. Well, we need to get to our dinner
reservation.”

“
Oh, well, have fun then.”

“
Thanks.”

She launches herself at me again and says,
“It’s so great to see you. I’ve missed you Ryland. So much. Let’s
meet soon, okay? For drinks, or you know.” She does this little
wiggle thing.

I don’t know what to say, so I just nod and
say, “Sure.”

I turn away from her then Fallon and I
continue on our way.

We walk to the restaurant in silence. She
doesn’t say a thing and I’m baffled. I don’t understand why she’s
angry. Did I do something wrong? I’m so damn confused that I can
barely eat.

When we head back to the hotel, we’re like
two robots getting ready for bed. And when we get in, I have my
answer as she rolls to the other side. She doesn’t touch me or say
a word, although I can hear her sobs and see her body shaking.

“
Fallon, we have to talk.” I move to
touch her and she jerks from me like I’ve burned her. “Please. Talk
to me.”

Her voice is tiny and muffled, as if she’s
holding back painful tears. “You ignored me in front of her. You
acted like I was your afterthought, just a casual someone you
happened upon, and it killed me. It’s still killing me. Do you want
her, Ryland Thomas?”

I’m trying to process what she is saying.
Did I do that to her? In my shock of seeing Iris, maybe I did. That
certainly wasn’t my intention. My gravest error comes when I don’t
immediately respond to her question. It isn’t because I want Iris.
I don’t. She was never true to me. Had never been. Fallon is. I
never had the kinds of feelings for Iris that I have for
Fallon.

As I ponder all of this, she mistakes my
silence for something completely different. She gets out of the bed
and walks into the bathroom where she softly shuts the door. Her
sobs rip into me like a Sawzall, tearing me into bits.

I’m flying after her, knocking on the
door. “Fallon, let me in. I don’t want her. I want
you
. I was thinking about what you
said. That’s why I didn’t answer you. I love you and only you. I’ll
only ever love you, no matter what. Iris was a shock, that’s all.
Please let me in.” Nothing other than those awful sobs greet me.
I’m a lost soul and don’t know what to do. I slide down the wall
and stay in front of the bathroom door all night long while sleep
evades me.

In the morning, I hear the door open
and she nearly trips over me when she comes out. “Fallon, we have
to talk this out. I don’t want her. She shocked me, yes. And
blindsided me. But I never intended to hurt you. I would rather
take a bullet than hurt you. When you asked me last night if I
wanted her, the answer is a resounding no. I would
never
want her. The reason it took
me so long to answer you was that I was processing how you said I’d
treated you like an afterthought. I’m so sorry I acted like that.
It wasn’t intentional. You’re not an afterthought. You’re the most
important person in the world to me. Do you understand me? Please
say you do. I’m a desperate man and I’ll do anything right now to
make you see that.”

“
But why did you act that way?” Her
face is puffy from crying and her eyes are red with purple half
moons beneath them.

“
I don’t know. Seeing her hit me out
of the blue. I haven’t laid eyes on her since the day I threw her
out. And then seeing her there, after all that time, I suppose I
thought I’d feel something, anything, but I didn’t. There was
nothing there at all. Do you really think I’d want someone like
her? Fallon, call me a wanker. Call me whatever, but don’t close me
out like that. Your crying was like acid on a wound to me when all
I wanted to do was hold you and tell you it would be okay, but I
couldn’t get to you. Please don’t turn away from me.
Please.”

She examines me, her eyes clawing into me,
and then she drops down next to me and sits there, in silence.

I reach for her, but she shrinks from me.
Her voice is raw when she speaks and it bludgeons me. I’ll take
physical pain over emotional pain any day. Physical pain is real;
it’s there. You know and understand the source. Emotional pain is a
whole different beast. It bashes you in every vulnerable body part
without mercy, over and over, leaving you defenseless with your
guts exposed. Then it keeps on coming until you’ve nothing left to
destroy.

“
When you dropped my hand to hug her
back and you didn’t let go of her, I died a very painful death
inside. It was something I’ll never forget. I felt betrayed and I
wanted to walk away from you right then, and would have, but I had
nowhere to go.”