His bravado plummets to a shaky whisper, an animalistic sparkle in his eyes. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.”
Hayes immediately leans forward, marrying his lips to mine. Intertwined, the two of us are nothing but the most naked parts of our souls. My arms cling to him like he’s my salvation, and when he applies the tiniest bit of pressure, my hips buck against him. We’re both lost in the essence of each other, savoring swollen lips and whimpers of affection. I can’t get over how seamlessly we fit together, as if I’d been carved from his very being, perfected for him.
I discard his shirt, which he doesn’t oppose to. My fingers brush against his pectorals, trailing over hardened muscle, descending to the plane of his abs. He growls into my neck, and the low sound reverberates through me like a gunshot.
He gently lowers me onto the blanket, simultaneously pushing plates of food out of the way. The weight of his body pins me against the ground, and he devours my neck in a trail of open-mouthed kisses. A groan wrestles its way from my throat, my nails leaving half-moon crescents in his back.
I pull at the waistband of his jeans, bringing his body closer to mine, brushing the crease of his V-line with my pelvis. I can feel his dick quiver from the close proximity to my pussy.
His mouth moves down the valley of my breasts and the length of my stomach, lifting my dress up to lick the cold metal of my belly button piercing. I clench mounds of dirt through the blanket.
He helps me out of my thong, rumbling his approval of the nude lace. His large hands support my lifted hips on either side, and he kisses one hipbone, then moves to the other with a languid pace, lips pressed softly against the flesh. He takes his sweet time teasing me, knowing how starved I am for his mouth, his fingers.
“Fuck,” he pants, his fingers brushing against my damp cunt. “Look at you, soaking the blanket like such a greedy girl. How long have you been like this?”
I hold my admission back as embarrassment cartwheels in my lower gut.
“Aeris.”
“I-I don’t know. A while,” I answer him.
Hayes shakes his head, swirling my arousal with his knuckle. “You should’ve told me. I would’ve taken care of it.”
“Don’t you like me like this?”
“You have no idea how much I like you like this.”
I spread my legs wide so he can drink in every part of me, and he does—he practically swallows me whole.
“Then fuck me,” I say, the mounting warmth in my groin growing more and more irrepressible.
Hayes makes a noise in the back of his throat, something half-human and half-animal, and there’s pre-cum staining his crotch. “The first time we fuck, Aeris, won’t be in the middle of a field.”
I whimper but nod, falling back against the soft earth.
“But I can think of another way to please you,” he drawls, and before I have time to form a coherent thought, a cold chill whooshes over my exposed sex, and his head is between my thighs. Stars twinkle in my vision, my head becoming fuzzy, my legs wrapping up over his shoulders.
His tongue dips in and out of me, paying special attention to my drenched labia. He teases his way over the sensitive area, arousing every nerve inside of me, my hormones igniting into a small electrical fire.
“Do you like when I fuck your pretty pussy with my tongue?” he murmurs against the hood of my clit, lightly taking a lip between his teeth and pulling.
Pleasure compresses in my stomach, and I yank roughly on his hair, making him quicken his pace. “Yes, Hayes.”
His tongue circles my nub in expert strokes, spearing into my slick folds. Every movement he performs is methodical. One hand shoots out to grip my thigh, hard enough to leave a bright red print. My legs squeeze his head in retaliation. He presses his other hand down on my abdomen to keep me from squirming.
“I don’t want to hear my name unless you’re screaming it.”
I open my eyes long enough to catch my cum glistening on his lips, and the sight alone has me close to combusting. Hayes is slurping up every drop of my wetness like I’m the first meal he’s had in weeks.
“Hayes…” It comes out as a breathy moan, and I know that’s not good enough.
“Close, but not quite.”
He adds two fingers, stretching out my walls, flicking back and forth before I feel him slide another digit in. Oh my God. The pressure feels so good. I haven’t had someone inside of me in such a long time, and now all of that pent-up sexual frustration is slowly leaving my body.
He works me with his fingers and mouth. His tongue moves in a figure-eight over my bundle of nerves, edging me closer to my orgasm.
“Hayes!” My voice is shaky, same with my legs, and I can’t fight the way my eyes roll back.
“That’s better, Stacks. Let it all out,” he coos. “Let me feel you come on my tongue.”
In the matter of seconds, he locates my G-spot, and I combust into a firework of screaming colors and scalding sensations, leaving me with a high I have no intention of letting go.
He lifts my lower back up so I’m parallel to the ground, then kisses me with an intensity and brightness that until now has been a foreign feeling to me—the kind of feeling that love songs are written about, what romance novels are made of. I can taste my own salty slick on his tongue, but when it’s undercut by the sweetness of his mouth, it doesn’t bother me.
Hayes Hollings just rocked my fucking world.
18
WHO KNEW THE DEVIL WAS A MIDDLE-AGED MAN?
AERIS
I feel like I’m glowing.
I stumble into my house with a giddy smile on my face, still somehow sex-drunk from the afternoon. I toe my wedges off and plonk my keys down on the coffee table, falling back onto the couch with a happy sigh.
Crunch rubs against my leg as she starts to purr up a storm, her raised tail flicking back and forth. I palm my phone, planning on sending a thank-you text to Hayes—for the food and the orgasm—but my screen flashes with the name of an incoming caller who I never thought I’d hear from again.
Everything inside of me freezes, and my thumb automatically hovers over the decline button. I haven’t spoken to my father in over a year. Roden was the only thing keeping our family together—“keeping” being a loose word here—and once he was gone, I wanted nothing to do with my parents. When Roden died, I think my dad saw it as a way out. He abandoned me when I needed him, and my mother followed suit.
So why, after all this time, could my dad possibly be calling me?
Against my better judgment and my skyrocketing pulse, I answer, but I don’t say anything.
“Why have you been photographed with Hayes Hollings?”
Not even a hello. He hasn’t cared how I’m doing since he left me to pick up the pieces of myself that Roden shattered with his death. There’s been this aching, empty hole inside of me that’s grown with each passing day, and my father’s absence only widened it. I’ve been doing so well mentally since Hayes came into my life. But this—this one impromptu phone call—has erased weeks of progress, sending me three steps backwards.
Anger cracks through me like a clap of thunder, swallowing my body in hellfire. I wipe the unshed tears from my eyes.
“Why are you calling me?”