Barefoot Bay: Wild on the Rocks (Kindle Worlds) Read online

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Followed you, too, for an entire day. When I saw you were packing for a trip,” he paused until she lifted her eyes to his. “I let you go.”

  “You let me go?” Her voice cracked, so raw with emotion, it physically hurt Jasper to hear it. “Why?”

  “Because I loved you!” His loud shout bounced off the water. Quinn’s hand shot up to cover her open mouth while unshed tears made her eyes glisten in the moonlight. “I knew something was wrong, but you wouldn’t talk to me!” He felt that helpless frustration as though it was new again and yanked a hand through his hair to clutch the back of his neck rather than grabbing hold of his wife.

  “We were so new, I figured it would work itself out or you’d tell me once you got more used to me. To us. Once you knew you could trust me with this shit, with anything, for fuck’s sake. Next thing I knew, you were gone. So, when I found you—when I saw you wanted to be gone—I didn’t stop you. The least I could do was let you go.”

  “We’re not,” she stopped as the words lodged in her throat. “We’re not supposed to talk. Especially not about how we feel, or what we’re thinking.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You never hold back. You always say what you mean whether I want to hear it or not.”

  “Not when it matters. Not when it’s important.”

  “Quinn, that’s crazy.”

  “That’s how I was raised, Jasp. That’s what I know.”

  “Bullshit.” He settled his hands on her hips. “You’ve been out of that place almost as long as you were in it. Out on your own, building a business, making a life. You know better now.”

  “I wish it was that easy, I really do. I may have left fourteen years ago, but parts of that place are still in me, will always be in me, whether I like it or not.”

  Jasper limbs went cold as the light dawned. “That’s why you told me. About the commune and the Leader. So I would know.”

  “I thought…” She stopped and gestured back toward the resort. “We’re here, together at the same time. We’re having sex again. It—it seemed a good time to…air things out.”

  Was she serious? “You want to air things out,” he repeated dully to make sure he heard this latest shit from her right before he blew.

  “Yeah. Yes,” she said with more conviction. “I regret not explaining why I left, so I thought we could at least come clean and maybe…part this time as friends?”

  Unbelievable. Even now, she was deeply, unfathomably clueless.

  He had her back in his arms in the next second. She wanted to stay clueless even after finally letting him in on shit he should’ve known a year ago? Fine, she could be as clueless as she wanted so long as she did it naked and with him inside her.

  Quinn yelped when her breasts smashed into his chest, but he ignored it to hoist her high enough his hard-on hit her right where it was designed to go. “Consider the air cleared, but I sure as hell don’t want to part as friends.” He didn’t want to part at all, but telling her that was pointless. “I want to fuck you blind so when you come all over me, I’ll know the next time you leave, you do it knowing what you’re giving up. You do it knowing you’ll never get it as good as you got it from me.”

  She’d grabbed his shoulders for balance but now her fingers dug deep for a different reason. “You said you love me, and now all you want to do is fuck me?”

  “Past tense, baby, but otherwise, sums it up pretty good.”

  She started to squirm in earnest. “I told you things I’ve never said to anyone! I bared my soul to you!”

  He dropped her back on her feet and pulled her behind him at a fast clip back toward the resort. “You’re gonna bare a whole lot more soon as I get you back to that shitty apartment. Don’t lose the shoes,” he added, ignoring her efforts to pull free.

  “You’re insane. You’re worse than that congressman.”

  He whirled around and yanked her back in his arms, hand on the back of her skull to hold her in place an inch from his face. “You wrecked me,” he snarled, finally letting it out, letting it go, letting her know what he’d only ever admitted to Twist. “I barely ate, lived off of coffee and MREs for weeks. Twist had to drug me so I could sleep. That was the only time he left me alone. I had zero focus. It got so bad, a man was shot during a training exercise on my watch. Twist had to bench me from an entire mission on a trumped up medical to keep me from getting someone killed in the field because my head was so fucked up over you.”

  “Oh, no,” she breathed.

  He shook her and didn’t care to be gentle about it. “You scared the fuck outta me, Quinn. Yeah, I found you in San Diego, but after that, I had no idea where you were, what you were doing. Did you have a job? Were you safe? Yeah, you need to live wild and keep moving, but, Jesus Christ, did you think for one fucking minute what that would mean to me? What you’re leaving would do to me?”

  “I thought you wanted me gone,” she reminded him.

  He crashed his forehead against hers, clenching his eyes shut against pain as fresh and unbearable as the day he’d realized she was gone for good. “You thought wrong.”

  Her hands shifted to grip his neck. The sudden change broke through the reinforced wall he’d built around his pain so that Jasper realized she was no longer trying to get free.

  Quinn was holding on.

  “Jasper, look at me,” she coaxed. “Open your eyes and look at me.”

  He couldn’t do it, couldn’t bear her bewildered look that told him more than anything how badly he’d fucked up by letting her go.

  Softly, almost too soft for him to feel it, she kissed his cheek, and her voice surprised him with its tenderness when she repeated, “Look at me, honey.” He exhaled hard, then did what she asked, unable to deny her even now.

  She was so close, his lashes brushed her nose. The gold ring around her brown irises flared the moment she knew she had his attention.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered and pain sliced through Jasper that eclipsed all else with its crushing sweetness. “I screwed up and I hurt you doing it. Please forgive me.”

  Jasper stole the last word from her lips, kissing her hard and close mouthed, but when he realized she wasn’t fighting him, was in fact, an enthusiastic participant, he breached her mouth and took it deep with overwhelming relief.

  That was it. That was what he needed to hear. Twist might think Jasper needed to fix whatever was in Quinn that made her bolt, but he’d needed those words more. He didn’t know it until she gave them to him.

  It suddenly occurred to him Quinn might need to hear that too.

  He rubbed the side of his nose against hers. “I’m sorry, too, sweetheart,” he offered quietly, brushing hair from one cheek so her beautiful face was unobscured.

  A sob broke from her mouth before she crushed it again to his. His arm convulsed around her back to take her weight when she hopped up to wrap her legs around his waist. One arm cinched around his head while the other reached under his pit to clutch his shoulder so that he felt each one of her fingers dig deep.

  “Don’t let me go,” she pleaded.

  “Never again,” he vowed.

  He followed the lithe line of her neck down to her collarbone, where he pulled the collar of her shirt aside to gain better access. Her arm came up and over his shoulder as he went down so that he felt her hot breath on his ear when his lips hit the valley between her breasts. “Jasper,” she moaned.

  “Fuck, I want you now. Right here.” More than anything, he wanted to take the woman he loved by the sea that soothed his soul.

  She bucked against him and as much as it killed him to do it, Jasper dropped her back on her feet. But rather than strike off back to the resort, Quinn reached for her belt and shot him a look full of her usual cheek. “Better set your feet, then, sailor, because I’m not about to get sand up my ass.”

  He barked out a laugh. “Damn right.”

  It was a race to see who could get their clothes off first. Jasper w
on, but only because he didn’t bother with his slacks, stripping off only his shirt and shoulder holster as Quinn skip-hopped first one then the other leg out of her pants. Her thong sliced between her pale legs like a landing strip guiding him to target, the front panel already dark with dampness. She had her shirt up and over her head when he threw his to the ground, dropped to his knees on top of it, and pulled her hips to his mouth.

  He kissed her through the thong’s sheer, pale fabric, grinning when she shrieked, gyrating against him as she struggled to get free of her top.

  “I want you inside me,” she protested even as her head dropped back when his tongue traced the outline of the thong.

  “You’ll get me there about one minute after I get you back to that shitheel rental. But babe, I’m not getting sand up my ass either.”

  Her chuckle was hypnotic, but it was the taste of her that did his head in. He ate her hard and fast, sucking on her clit until she trembled and then licking inside her, adding his thumb to keep her high and on the cusp before easing her back from the edge.

  Her leg was over his shoulder so he felt her bare heel on the small of his back. His dick was a hard spike against his zipper, but he held it back and focused on Quinn, on showing her how much her apology meant to him, how much she meant to him without actually saying the words.

  He wasn’t ready to give her that yet, to let her know how much he still loved her, that he would always love her no matter where they might be or whether they were there together.

  But he would goddamn well show her.

  He lifted his gaze up the length of her lush body, over her soft belly and breasts that bounced each time she shoved her pussy into his mouth, so greedy for it, fucking begging him for it with every breath.

  And he gave it to her, returning his mouth to her clit and plunging two fingers deep in her core so he could feel her come. She bent over him, hands stretching down his back to slide beneath his waistband and grab his ass as he kept at her, pushing her farther and farther up until he tilted her over the edge of her orgasm. He felt her teeth in his shoulder as it burst through her, the bite hard enough that he knew he’d bear her mark.

  He wouldn’t have it any other way.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to the food.

  —W.C. Fields

  “Jasper!” Quinn’s groan was muffled given she’d face-planted into the pillow the second he got her naked and shoved her down on her belly in the bed. His big hands spanned her back, holding her fixed in place while he worked his cock in and out of her.

  “Up on your knees, babe,” he ordered. Quinn scrambled to comply, pushing up until her torso was exposed to the air. He treated her to more of his dizzying arm porn by locking her back against his chest with a forearm across the tops of her breasts. Those long, calloused fingers reached down to toy with her hard nipple. Jasper leaned down and nipped the shell of her ear before whispering against it, “Fuck yourself, sweetheart.”

  Quinn shivered and immediately reared back and forth on his cock, working herself to a frenzy, but never enough to finish, not with Jasper’s arm controlling how fast she could move and how deep he could get.

  “Please, Jasp,” she whimpered. “I need to come.”

  But he held her to the rhythm he set. “I’ll get you there, baby. I always do.”

  This was true, but Quinn wanted to get him there with her.

  She slammed back against him, pressing her forehead to his cheek as she gyrated in short bursts that dragged a rough noise from his throat. “You’re fucking gorgeous,” she said against his chin. Her tongue traced the hard line down his neck where she tucked her face.

  His hand left her breast to wrap around her throat. “Look at us,” he demanded with a squeeze. The hand on her hip slid down to spread her wide so when she craned her neck, she could see his cock taking her as she worked herself back and forth. “Look at how beautiful you are, taking me deep. Taking me so hard and deep.”

  “Jasper.” She moved faster as he kept hold of her throat, bringing her head around so he could kiss her, easing up enough that her hips practically flew back and forth until she cried out into his mouth with her release.

  She was still coming when his control snapped and he shoved her flat to the bed, plunging deep and wild without finesse, slamming her back on him with a hand working between her legs to stretch out her pleasure. He was only minutes behind her, shoving inside with a hoarse shout that skimmed over her back.

  Quinn hummed in her throat when he finished off by sliding in and out of her wet sex before settling over her back while still inside her. She felt raw and used and cherished, every throb and quiver a reminder of how good her man gave it. When she felt his lips on her shoulder, Quinn mustered enough energy to turn her head and meet his mouth. “You’ve ruined me for other men.”

  “Good. That’s where I was headed.”

  “That was amazing, honey.”

  He hesitated, then she felt his mouth curl up against hers. “Yeah? You kickin’ me out of your bed now you’re done using me for sex?”

  “And deny myself round two? Have you met me?”

  “Met you, ate you, fucked you.” The warmth of his chuckle curled through her belly. “Much as it pains me, I’m not a new recruit. Need about half an hour to recharge if I’m gonna be any use to you. You sucked me dry.”

  “Hmm. That’s round two.”

  His cock twitched inside her while his smiling mouth coasted over her throat. “Thinking ten minutes’ll do now.” One wandering hand slipped under her belly to lightly pet her mound. She lifted her leg enough for him to slide a finger between her folds and soothe oversensitive flesh with gentle touches.

  She lifted her mouth to his and trembled at the tenderness that flooded through her when he kissed her sweet.

  God, how I love this man.

  She knew it; she’d had that crashing epiphany on the beach when he’d finally let her see the pain she’d caused him, pain she’d never knowingly inflict on him.

  You wrecked me!

  For the rest of her life, she’d remember the agony on his face when he shouted those words at her.

  For the moment, she’d focus on doing her best to make it up to him.

  He gently slipped out of her to settle at her side. Quinn turned her head to find his on the pillow beside her. “Hungry?” he asked, stroking his thumb along the small of her back.

  “I ate at the party. You?”

  “Starved.”

  “You didn’t get a break to eat at the reception?”

  “I did, but that was before I worked up an appetite fucking you.”

  She blew out an exasperated puff. “You’re the one who made me wait to come.”

  “Wanted to watch you work yourself on my dick first.” One long finger eased itself along her collarbone. “Nothing hotter.”

  “We’ll have to see if I can top that later.”

  He smacked her lightly on the ass. “Greedy woman.”

  She was greedy for him, and not only for the sex, but more this fragile intimacy that was new between them. New and precious.

  “You wanna clean up while I rustle up some food?”

  “Is anything open this late? I wouldn’t guess Mimosa Key has a twenty-four-hour Micky Ds.”

  He gave her a loaded look. “Quinn, I lived with you for six months. You trying to tell me you don’t still stash food in your room?”

  She wouldn’t say that. Didn’t mean she was keen to share.

  “Fuck me.” He flipped her over onto her hip, so they faced each other. “That’s why you do that. You hoarded food so you could run the second you got the chance and can’t break the habit. You’re always ready to run.”

  Sometimes, his honed perception was vastly annoying. “Partly,” she reluctantly admitted before lightening the vibe by joking, “And partly because I’m hungry after a late shift.”

  He studied her for a minute, that green-gold gaze sharp with hawkish inte
nsity, probing hers for answers she wasn’t ready to give. “Bathroom, babe,” he said finally.

  He was letting it go. “Deal,” she said softly, grateful.

  They slid from opposite sides of the bed, neither bothering to cover up, as comfortable as ever around one another in nothing but their skins. Quinn cleaned Jasper from her, taking note of the whisker burns on her inner thighs, but the satisfied smile faded from her face when she met her own gaze in the mirror.

  The sex cauterized some of the wounds between them tonight, but she wasn’t naïve enough to think it meant they were back together. Their problems didn’t evaporate because they’d been exposed to the air. Her problems were very much yet front and center. She simply hadn’t unloaded them all on Jasper yet.

  Quinn set her jaw. She wasn’t going to think beyond what they had tonight, the new they were building this weekend. She was going to enjoy having Jasper back in her bed and in her body and very much not hating her. She could compartmentalize with the best of them, and right now the Russian mob was going to stay firmly shoved in its cubby while she sucked every drop of joy from what time she could snatch with Jasper.

  Newly resolved, Quinn switched places with Jasper (who copped a feel as he passed by) and saw by the pile on the bed that he’d not only found her stash, but unearthed her precious Musketeers bars too.

  “You’re not getting my chocolate!” she shouted toward the bathroom door, though she needn’t have bothered since he’d left the door open.

  “Is that a challenge?”

  She thought about it, she really did, before wiser impulses prevailed and she mumbled a resentful, “No,” as she scrambled back into the bed.

  He was still grinning when he joined her. “I see your dietary requirements continue to mock the four food groups.”

  She pointed to the bag of jellybeans. “It says ‘bean’ right in the name. They’re practically legumes.”

  “I’ll have to do extra lifts tomorrow to burn this shit off.”

  “Only if I can watch.”

  She watched as he tucked into the booty she’d amassed from the Super Min. A yawn escaped and she wiggled deeper into the pillows.