The Cornerstone (5 page)

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Waiting for you to stop me,” I said against her lips.

She sighed, and I couldn’t tell if the sound originated from pleasure or pain. Then she shook her head and it was highly probable her knee would be connecting with my groin any minute. I felt every single second tick by, each one heavier than the one before.

“Will,” she finally said, my name no more than a gasp.

I stole those last syllables from Shannon when my mouth met hers. She tasted like beer and sweetness, and just that quickly, my entire world condensed down to her skin, her hair, her scent. We dropped into an easy rhythm of kisses; sweet and simple, and perfectly right for the dark of night at the beach.

But then she bit my tongue and the gauntlet was thrown. Lips and tongues and teeth all fought for control, and oh holy fuck, I was bringing this girl to her knees tonight. I didn’t care what it took, she was going to surrender to me. I pulled that plump bottom lip of hers between my teeth, nipping and scraping as my hands moved down her body. Her ass fit right in my palms and I jerked her against me, my fingers squeezing that taut skin until she yelped.

“Not nice,” she murmured against my lips. Her hands traveled up my chest and over my shoulders, and the fire in her eyes was enough to get me as hard as a goddamn lamppost.

“The last thing I’m going to be to you is nice,” I said.

I lifted Shannon to the countertop, knocking over glasses, bottles, and utensils in the process. With her hair wrapped around my fist, I pulled her head back and my mouth latched onto the graceful slope of her neck. Her pulse was hammering and she offered tiny hums each time my tongue skated over her skin, but it wasn’t enough to kiss her. I needed to lick, suck, bite. Her fingernails scored my neck and shoulders as I ground my erection between her legs, and what I really needed was to fuck her.

My arm swept out, clearing the remaining barware from the surface. I rocked into her again and her warmth drew a choked, ragged moan from deep inside me. I buried my head in Shannon’s chest, kissing and nipping every freckle I could find while my hand slipped up her shorts. I was inches away from her panties when her fingers closed around my wrist, a warning look in her eyes.

“I am
not
fucking you on a bar,” she said.

Oh, there was the spitfire.

“Let’s get one thing straight right now,” I said. My fingers were drawing slow circles on her inner thigh and nothing compared to watching her arousal extinguish her anger by small degrees. “I do the fucking here.”

SHANNON

Eighteen months ago

T
his boy was
a
savage
.

The door to my cottage wasn’t even closed and Will had my face pressed flat to the wall while he stripped me to my bra and panties. And he didn’t waste any time thrusting that bulge against my ass, reminding me that
he’d
do the fucking.

Will’s fingers flicked over my back and my lacy B-cup bra was gone, along with the bangles on my wrist. He curled one finger around the side of my panties, and it was enough to send them drifting down to my ankles. From there, his hands spread out, shifting until he was holding me in place with one hand on the small of my back and the other tangled in my hair.

What the hell was I thinking? Kissing him. Bringing him back to my cottage. Having an admittedly hurried birth control and STD conversation at the door. Promising we’d never burden Lauren with the events of this evening. Letting him strip me naked. And it wasn’t like I could avoid him tomorrow. I could try, but…oh, fuck, his mouth was on the back of my neck.

He licked every inch of my neck and shoulders but it was his rough chin that had me panting and arching my back to feel more of his erection. That sharp scruff awakened every nerve, and I couldn’t stop a shiver from vibrating through me.

Right, right, now I remembered why I was doing this: I was thinking my last decent orgasm occurred in my twenties.

“Be a good little cock tease and stand still until I tell you to move,” he growled in my ear.

What did he say to me?

I was outraged and insulted and ready to shove his commando ass out the door. Regardless of whether I’d fulfilled my commitment to Lauren or not, I didn’t put up with shit like this. I could survive on inadequate orgasms. I preferred my men civilized, thank you very much.

“You’re such an arrogant asshole,” I said, and those words weren’t halfway out of my mouth when his hand cracked over my ass. He didn’t deserve the satisfaction of the moan his touch garnered, but I was powerless to swallow it when his hand coasted over my backside and between my legs.

“I’m gonna keep that smart mouth of yours busy,” he said. He edged my feet apart and we groaned in unison—loud, needy, and unhinged—when his thick fingers circled my clit.

No one had ever—
ever
—spoken to me that way before.

The sounds of his belt unlatching and his fly unzipping crawled over my skin and burrowed, frantic and urgent, in my muscles. He guided his cock against my folds, his breath shuddering on my neck. He leaned into me, his throbbing length right up against my ass, and said, “Now I’m going to show you what it means to be fucked.”

“You talk a really big game,” I said as his fingers speared inside me and his thumb came down on my clit. “It’s actually very cute but—”
Oh,
those fingers. I wasn’t capable of sustaining cogent arguments when those fingers were moving in and out and everywhere, and why, why,
why
couldn’t the men I’d met through online dating have this kind of dexterity?

Will bit his way up my shoulder, chuckling. “You were saying something?”

That conceited bastard.

“I was saying your technique is awkward at best.”

He pulled away, and the absence of his imposing warmth—and fingers—left me aching. Tossing him the most hateful glare I could conjure, I pivoted, completely impervious to the fact that I was naked in five-inch wedges and trembling with want.

His hand was gliding up and down that beautiful beast of a cock, and my tongue darted out to gather the drool that was about to spill from my parted lips. I glanced up to find him watching me, and I knew he saw every one of my hungry, dirty thoughts as if they were scrawled across my body like subtitles.

“Does your pussy taste as good as it looks?” Will asked.

I tossed my hair over my shoulder and folded my arms under my (very bare) breasts. “Better,” I said. “But it’s not like you’re ever going to find out.”

He chuckled. “I think you’re wrong about that.”

A smile pulled at Will’s lips and he inclined his head. He was goading me, and as I yanked his t-shirt over his head and palmed his cock, I didn’t care that I’d taken his bait. I was vaguely aware of tattoos and scars, instead focusing on the imprint of his scent and getting rid of his jeans. I ran my nails over his chest and legs, scratching his tanned skin and soothing those marks with my tongue.

“You’ve tested enough of my patience, Shortcake,” he said, his hands sliding to my hips. He lifted me, set me on the bed, and crawled over me, his cock dragging along my leg like a threat.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” I said, my legs winding around his waist.

I tried to force him closer to me, to find some friction, but he wrapped one giant paw around my wrists and pinned my thigh to the mattress with the other. This asshole was under the impression he was calling the plays.

“But it suits you,” Will said. His hand shifted from my leg to stroke his cock as he gazed at me for a slow, heavy minute. “And you’re too pretty for Firecrotch.”

“You’re a prick,” I groaned. His hips snapped forward and the bed creaked beneath us as he pushed into me. He was so much bigger than I expected, and my mind was quickly numbing to anything but the pleasure surging through my body. He was tearing me apart, thrust by thrust, and I wanted to do the same to him.

“Stop talking, Shortcake,” he said. “You’re ruining this for me.”

The headboard knocked against the wall in a harsh rhythm, as if he was trying to fuck me into the next room. Each time he drove into me, my eyes rolled back in their sockets, and I was convinced I was about to combust, but that didn’t prevent me from getting in some taunts. “Not much to ruin,” I said.

“All this talking makes me think you need a dick in your mouth,” he murmured.

He pumped in and then fully out, and it only took a flick of his wrist to flip me on my stomach and yank my ass in the air. I heard his hand connecting with my backside before I felt it, and when I did, the only thing I could think was
hot
. I was so hot, so hungry for his rough touch, and so, so close. I moaned—and it was a straight-up whore moan; no polite virginal sighs or gasps here—into the quilt, my hands fisting in the fabric.

“Now do us both a favor and stop talking,” Will said.

He pushed inside me and I knew right then I’d be leaving a puddle of drool on this quilt. I couldn’t stop the desperate cries and hushed pleas for
more, more, more, yes just like that
. He wrapped a hand around my hip and another in my hair, and then pulled just enough to send spasms through my body. A quick burst of light cascaded behind my eyes as I came, and despite Will’s hold on me, I dropped like a stone. A happy, satiated stone with a savage on her back.

“What was that?” he asked. He didn’t stop thrusting. He went right on rocking over every tender, pulsating inch of me.

“An orgasm,” I said into the blankets. “Surely you’ve encountered more than your own, commando.”

“If that was an orgasm, it was a pathetic one,” he said, his arm snaking around my waist and hiking me up.

I looked over my shoulder at Will, horrified. “Did you just
insult
my orgasm?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “Now get your little ass over here. You can do better.”

Of course this asshole wasn’t finished. “And what are you getting out of this?”

He bent me over the edge of the bed, my feet not even touching the ground as he moved in me. “If you have to ask,” he grunted, “you’ve been doing it all wrong.”

I had no leverage in this position, no capacity to steer his movements or change the pace, and I did not want to like that. Being in control was my thing.

Will’s hand settled between my shoulder blades, anchoring me in place. “Would you just chill out?” he asked, each word punctuated with a long, dragging thrust. “You have to relax, baby.”

“I’m not your baby.” The stirrings of another orgasm started building in my belly, and as much as I wanted to tell Will to fuck off, that was not the way the words were falling out of my mouth at this moment. “Ohhh,” I gasped. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…Will.”

“Shannon,” he panted, forcing me deeper into the mattress. “Please.
Please
just let me make it good for you.”

I
really
wanted to tell him to fuck off, and for no other reason than to banish that starved tone from his voice. I knew he’d been deployed for a long time, and logically I knew he probably wasn’t getting much ass on the battlefield, but as far as I was concerned, this was a baggage-free hook-up. Emotions need not get involved.

“Fuck,” I moaned, my teeth closing around the quilt beneath me. I couldn’t decide what to feel, what to think. Multiple orgasms belonged with urban legends like delicious fat-free frozen yogurt and comfortable high heels. The only thing that made sense was screaming into the mattress as heat poured down my spine, around my legs, and unfurled in my center. “Oh, oh,
fuck
.”

I expected the warm fluttering to pass quickly—after all these years, I knew what to expect from my body—but it didn’t stop. It expanded until every limb was consumed with hot, sweet bliss. It was overwhelming and nearly painful, and I didn’t have anywhere for all this sensation to go so I kept on moaning into that quilt.

“That’s a little better,” Will said. He was moving faster now, his hips slapping against my ass while the bed grunted, and the headboard barreled against the wall.

Talk about stamina. He just did not stop.

“You’re going to break the bed,” I mumbled.

“I can accept collateral damage.” His hand shifted from my back to cup my chin, and he angled my head to the side. “Suck,” he ordered, two fingers pressed to my lips.

My eyes drifted shut and I did as he said, and I didn’t even have a quippy comeback for him. My mind and body were consumed by the electricity coursing through me, and it seemed plausible that I’d drown in my own release.

“Open.” Will’s fingers left my mouth, and in their place, he left a biting kiss. “Let’s see about that orgasm now.”

I tried to protest, to explain that we were well past the point of teeth-numbing orgasm, but that would have required more than guttural babble. He continued pumping into me, panting, and whispered, “I told you that you could do better. Keep going, pretty girl, you got this.” I nodded, too boneless to form words, and he bit my earlobe. “Good. So good. You’re so good. Think you can give me a little more?”

I nodded again, and he growled as he slammed into me. His fingers shifted to my clit and nothing would ever be the same again. There was no way I could absorb all of this, and I couldn’t take this much at once. These sensations—his cock, his fingers, his mouth on my neck, his roared release—they engulfed me, and then,
then
I fell apart.

As if he knew I needed something to hold me together, Will wrapped his arms around me and held me while I gasped and shook. We were still bent over the bed and he was still inside me, twitching and setting off tiny orgasmic land mines, and minutes passed before the stars faded from behind my eyes.

“That was good,” he murmured against my neck. “It takes you a little while to warm up, but you are not bad at this, Shortcake.”

“You were on-par with my vibrator,” I said. Total lie. All the vibrators couldn’t destroy me the way Will did, but he didn’t need to know that. “Completely adequate.”

Will laughed and tugged my earlobe between his teeth. “I’d like to meet that vibrator,” he said. The air conditioner switched on, and I shivered when the blast of cool air hit the fine sheen of sweat on my skin. He pulled out, smacked my ass, and tossed me to the middle of the bed. The bastard actually
tossed
me.