Do Your Worst(81)

When the table was clear, she hopped up on it, spreading her legs, beckoning him between them. Clark went, got his hands underneath her shirt to rub the silky skin of her back before moving to caress her breasts over her bra.

Once again, the style didn’t seem engineered for much besides driving him mad, the cups cut so low they barely covered her nipples. Wanting a proper look, he peeled her top off.

Fucking hell.

She practically spilled out of the dark fabric. All he had to do was thumb at it to have her popping out into his hands.

Riley gasped when he tugged at her nipples. Gently at first and then, gradually, harder. She’d asked for it rough in his camper, but he didn’t know if that was more about the mounting animosity between them at the time, the way she didn’t want to want him.

He kept his eyes on hers, monitoring her response as she arched into his hands, hitched her legs around his waist, and ground against him.

After nuzzling at an almost faded bruise beneath her collarbone, Clark pressed his teeth over the mark, biting again, some primal part of him insistent, possessive.

Her breath hitched, nails sinking into his shoulder blades.

When he finally got a hand beneath her skirt, he closed his eyes and groaned, the questions of if she liked this, and how much, answered definitively.

Clark pulled her underwear off and shoved them in his pocket, while Riley hiked her skirt to her hips. He ran his fingers back and forth over her, smearing wetness up and over her clit in tight, quick circles until she clenched, quivered.

“Please.” Riley reached for his cock. “I can’t wait anymore.” She wasn’t trying to be quiet at all, like she didn’t care if someone heard them, as long as he kept touching her.

Despite how worked up she was, it took them a minute to get him fully seated. Once they did, Clark had to breathe through his nose, counting backward from ten, trying to get a hold of himself so he could make it good for her.

Displaying absolutely no sympathy for his struggle, Riley gripped his ass and tilted her hips up, taking him as deep as she could all at once.

He braced one hand beside her on the table for leverage, the other cradling the back of her skull, before bringing her mouth to his so he could kiss her as he started to thrust.

The table legs stuttered against the floor as they rocked together. A steady thump, thump, thump that went to his head, made him woozy.

“You’re so fucking sexy.” He took her bottom lip between his teeth until she whimpered. “I almost want someone to walk through that door right now, see you like this—clothes half undone, gorgeous tits bouncing, pussy so wet for me you’re gonna leave a mark on this desk.”

“Clark, Jesus.” Riley squeezed her thighs around his waist, locking her ankles behind back. “When we first met, I thought you were repressed.”

Laughter made his strokes stutter.

He brought two fingers to Riley’s lips, gently pushing inside so they rested on her velvet tongue.

“I was a lot of things before I met you.”

She sucked the way she’d taken his cock earlier—eager, her dark eyes heavy-lidded.

When he slipped his hand out of her mouth, trailed his fingers down her chin, her neck, they left the faintest trail. A straight line to where his hand came to rest at the base of her throat.

Riley’s eyes fell shut for a moment, her lips parting, before she placed her own palm over his and—locking their gazes, pressed gradually, shifting his grip until his hand was applying the barest pressure on either side of her throat.

Clark stilled his hips, holding inside of her, bracing everything in his body, trying not to spend.

“Is this okay?” Riley let go of his hand to stroke his face, to run the backs of her knuckles across his tensed brow.

Leaning back a little, Clark looked down as she tipped her chin up, giving him an unobstructed view of how she trusted him—completely.

“Yes. God, yes.” He pulled back, sank forward, gave her exactly what she asked for. Exactly what she needed.

They’d been rough with each other, parried for control both physically and emotionally, but this wasn’t that. He’d never felt anything like the sense of staggering wonder that came from being this close to someone you cared about so much, having it feel somehow impossible and right at the same time.

“I can’t believe I found you,” he said quietly, as she tumbled over the edge, falling apart in his arms. “I can’t believe you’re real.”

When at last he gave himself permission to come, the pleasure was so intense—staggering—his vision swam. Every other time with Riley had been good, better than good—the best he’d ever had—but this? This was different.

Just for us, she’d said.

He’d been happy before. Had won an egg and spoon race on sports day in primary school. Rode horses with his mom in the Lake District, her whoop of joy loud in his ears. He got into Oxford. Bought the camper and built the bookcase of his dreams with his own two hands.

None of it felt quite like Riley Rhodes in his arms, telling him she loved him, whispering it over and over against his lips, his cheek, his jaw. Like holding her, kissing her, without worrying it would be the only time he had permission—or the last.





Chapter Twenty-Two


They spent the night in a cozy rental cottage not far from the St. Andrews campus. With its rounded doorways and low ceilings, the place reminded Riley of a hobbit hole.