Fall Guy (32 page)

He shakes his hea
d, still looking down, and
loose
ns a
litany of flowing, liquid words that could just as easily be a prayer or a
string of
curse
s
.

Then his mouth gets busy kissing me, hard, nipping at my lips, catching the skin on my neck between his teeth with gentle bites, grazing down my
arm, and sucking
in at my breast
. His teeth edge on my
nipples,
and every experience I've ever had with
any other guy dissolve as if those memories had
been dipped in acid.

It's only Winch. It will only ever be Winch for me, from now on.

I feel the polarizing twist of total euphoria
over the fact
that I got a chance to know him
mixed with dread over
the true
,
but unbelievably heart-breaking
, reality
that I probably won't be able to hold onto him.

Every wall is down, every stake has been pulled out, and we're both tumbling into something we couldn't even imagine controlling.

I want to be with him in every way that matters.

Even if it's impossible.

And, if I can't, I want to have as much of him as I can while I can.

But I also want this to never end.

His racing, pleading words transition into English. "Evan, I want you." His mouth and hands are everywhere, covering me with
goosebumps
and smoothing them back out, whipping me into a passionate frenzy and massaging me back to baited anticipation. "Say you want me."

He slides up and I feel the long, hot press of him, so close but not nearly close enough.

I open my eyes wide and look at his, wild and black with lust for me, and, maybe, love, too.

But that's too much right now. I've always been happy to take what I can get, and what I have my hands wrapped around
right now is Winch;
wild, on-the-edge-of-his-control Winch.

"I want you," I whimper, ready and sure.

I reach over and find the basket with my iPod and hairbrush, fishing underneath for the condoms that I've always kept ready. They used to be for anyone who I brought here, but I know when I grab the packet that they're only ever going to be for Winch.

Winch and
no one else.

Because this time with him proved exactly wha
t I was excited about and terrified
of; once I was with him, once I fell for him, even the
remote
possibility of anyone else would
just
cease to be
a reality
for me.

He takes the packet out of my hand, rips it open, and rolls the condom on. We both glance down, and his chest rises and falls with the rapid breaths he's pulling in and out of his lungs.

"You want this?"

I swallow hard. I do. I want it all, every single thing he's willing to give me. And I want everything I know he can't
give me
.

But I'm willing to take what
ever
I can get.

I wrap my hand around the hard length of him and fit him against my body. "I want this. I want you. I want it now."

He braces his arms on either side of me. He closes his eyes, his bruised face so handsome and so wild all at once. For a split second, everything is still and tense. Then he presses into me, and I suck my breath through my teeth and bite my lower lip.

He goes perfectly still for one long second, then pulls back slightly and presses against me again.

I've had sex before. This is nothing new for me. But when I'm with Winch, he fills me in a way that is only partly physical. It's like he's inside my pores, like his taste is imprinted on my tongue, like our bodies forgot to exist as two separate entities and are now one.

I've had sex before, but it's a completely new experience with Winch.

I'm stretched around him, and I wrap my legs around his waist, look him in the eye
s
, and instruct him the way I've fantasized a thousand times. "Faster," I whisper.

His mouth compresses, and he pumps into me with quicker, sharper thrusts. Unlike the guys I've been with before, Winch watches me, pays attention. He moves my body under his, repositioning my hips until we click in just the right way for his body to jolt mine on a straight slide down to that perfect, crazy, shaking, smashing release.

I wrap my arms around his neck and bring his mouth close to mine.

"Winch," I breathe against his lips before I kiss him deep and slow, drawing his wild, unchecked moan from low in his throat until it tumbles into my mouth.

The sound of it, the feel of it in me, cracks through the eggshell walls of my calm, and urges me to press against him harder and then let go.

I've always been good at letting go.
Free-falling.
Opening up and letting everything wash
over me.

The hard part for me has always been holding on after the fact.

Head back, legs tight around him, arms holding him close, I let myself slide and shake into perfection. But when it's over, I have to resist the urge to pull back.

I want to. Deep in my gut, I want to kick away from him, be alone with the fill of my own happiness, protected and disconnected. I always knew being with him would eventually hurt me, because it would have to end. But now I've been exposed to the full extent of
exactly
what it is I'm going to miss.

And it's going to ache like my heart's been torn from my chest, still beating.

I can see in his face that he's holding back, slowing down,
closing
up. Like always, Winch and I are at opposite poles.

And, like always, we push e
ach other to stand and face the one
thing we
always
run from.

I free-fell, but now I'll also cling to him, no matter how much this will hurt later.

He held on, and now he needs to let go.

"Let go," I whisper, my hand running over his back, down to the curve of his perfect ass. I smile at him, nervous to be this close, this
unsexily
open during something this intimate.

The sexy mask of lust is gone, and it's just me and him, too close and too connected for what's probably going to be too short a time. His eyes are wild, panicked, and he's lost any sense of rhythm. I adjust under him, fit my arms on his shoulders, and draw long, smooth strokes down from the rounded muscles of his shoulders to his tensed wrists, leading his body back to the pattern it needs to be in so he can fling himself open and let it all wash over him.

"It's okay. I'm here. Let go."

His eyes are wide. His breathing is ragged. His arms snake around me, so tight they almost
crush me, and I only
hesitate
a single beat before I wind my arms around him and crush back. I wrap myself in him, drape him over me,
let
him closer than I've ever let anyone before. My body shakes, not from lust this time, but from a feeling that wells deep in me. I feel the hot slide of tears dripping out of my clamped eyes. His heartbeat is wild against my chest.

I feel like my heart is tearing to get out of my body. I take a long drag of air, inhaling the smell of the two of us, his skin and mine, our sweat. I press my lips to his neck, his mouth, and my hands reach to the back of his head and pull him hard against me.

The pace is frantic now, and we're both lost in this crazed, strange, scary, wonderful moment that's getting bigger and stronger than either one of us can safely manage, like a deep, powerful wave about to pound a previously untouched shore.

A gasp and a groan stutter out of his throat, and then he gathers my body tight and fits it to his, pulls his mouth just a fraction of an inch from mine, and the strangl
ed words he grits out pulverize
any sense of disconnect I could have hidden behind.

"Evan, I love you. I love you. Evan."

Then our world eclipses, dark and
and
strangely new, frightening except for that fact that he's here, with me, protecting my heart, and he loves me.

He loves me.

I hold him close and let the tears course out without any shame.

He loves me. 

The sex...

Sex with her...

Being with Evan...

My mind is like a strobe, pulsing with a thousand different thoughts and ideas. Her body, naked, hot, sticky with sweat, is pressed along mine, and her breath is panting in quick bursts against my neck, which is moist from her tears. I have no idea why she's crying, but I feel...I feel the overwhelming urge to...?
To do something slightly stupid, without analyzing or hyper-focusing.

I pull her up by the hand. "Let's go."

Her face is streaked with smudged makeup and leftover tears. And she looks so goddamn
beautiful,
it grabs at me and shakes me hard.

"Where?" she asks, blinking uncertainly.

I've never been big on parading around naked. My parents raised us to be modest, and, if anyone in our family was going to streak,
it's
Remy, who would feel comfortable enough just letting it all hang out no matter where he was or who he was around.

Not me. I'm sensible fucking Winchester, the guy who cleans up after everyone else's mess
es
, the guy who keeps his emotions under control and his damn clothes on.

Except that's not me tonight.

I roll the condom off and throw it out, not even minding that Evan sees me do it. For the first time in my life, I'm with someone who accepts everything about me, even the things I have to hide from all the other people in my life. She's opened something deep in me, and I'm not ready to put a lid back on it.

"C'mon, gorgeous."
I reach my hand out and she scoots off the bed and takes it. "Feel like a swim?"

I know this stretch of road her grandparents' house is on
pretty well
.
All older people, vacation homes.
It's late on a Sunday night. No one's
gonna
be out now. Not that I'd care at this minute if there was an entire stadium of people watching.

"In the ocean?"
The look on her face is a mixture of amusement and surprise.

I love that I'm surprising her. Hell, I'm surprising myself.

"Are you worried?"

I pull her close, and the feel of her in my arms makes me want to push her back on the bed and start again, building her up from cool and calm to panting and begging for me.

"The tide will be strong right now." She trails her finger down my chest, from the center of my collarbones all the way down until I feel the beginnings of a hard-on starting again. "And my grandparents have a really killer pool. And a hot-tub."

She arches one eyebrow, and, somehow, even with all her naked glory right in front of my face, that eyebrow is what turns me on hardcore.

It takes every fucking ounce of my self-control to say the next three words.

"Lead the way."

My phone is on the floor, in the pocket of my pants, unchecked. My family is probably gathering to watch a movie. The guys are all around the television with beer and pretzels, the women will drift in and out of the kitchen with their glasses of wine and, later, coffee. It's the same thing that's happened in my family's house on a Sunday night for as long as I can remember.

And I'm not there.

I don't want to be there. I
chose
not to be there. I
chose
this night, alone, private and doing
whatever the hell I feel like doing with a girl who drives me wild and makes me question every damn thing I ever thought I knew.

A girl I love.

I love her.

I check out the sweet sway of her ass, shaped exactly like a plump little upside-down heart. I follow it until she dives, clean and smooth, off the side of the deck and into the pool, not even checking the temperature of the water.

Usually I'd be the guy standing on the side, fully dressed, arms crossed, attention focused on keeping everything calm. Tonight that guy is put away, and someone careless and wild is standing in his place.

I dive in, the cold bite of the water such a shock,
I
come up sputtering. "Damn, girl! You could have warned me
it's
Arctic temperatures in here."

I notice now that Evan's teeth are chattering just slightly. "Live a little. And come her
e
to me. I'll keep you warm."

I swim over to her and hook an arm around her waist, pulling her to me for a damp kiss. Her skin bobs next to mine, like velvet under the water, brushing and rubbing a
gainst me in a way that makes my dick
stand at attention.