Good Vibrations (Welcome to Paradise) (16 page)

Heading straight for me, she sits down on my lap. Her arm wraps around my shoulders, and she smiles at me. “I didn’t think I’d ever be back here and now that I am, I’m glad I came.”

“Why are you glad? I need to know. I need to hear you tell me.”

She crawls on top of the covers then tucks her body underneath. Flopping back onto the pillows, she says, “Because this is where I slept the best since I’ve been in Hawaii.”

Her playful side makes my heart pound from pure happiness. I lean down and kiss her on the shoulder before getting up to brush my teeth. Not able to contain my own theories on the reason she slept here so well, I say, “You sure it wasn’t exhaustion from that night’s activities?”

She grabs the pillow next to her and tosses it at me as hard as she can. Scrambling out of the line of fire, I laugh as I run into the bathroom.

When I return, she’s curled up on her side, facing my side of the bed. I slide under the covers and brush a section of hair from her forehead. “Hi, beautiful.”

“Hi.” There is a lightness in her eyes that eases my worries. “You still sleepy?” she asks.

“No, I think I’ve gotten my second wind.”

“I think I did, too,” she whispers as her fingertips stroke feather light over my cheek. Her hand comes to rest on my neck. “Can I ask you more questions?”

“Sure, but only if I get to ask some.”

“That’s fair.” She acts as if she doesn’t know what she wants to ask me, but I can tell it’s a ploy. “Why aren’t you in school?”

I glance away, chuckling before I respond because one thing I’ve learned about Mallory is there is always more going on inside that pretty head of hers than she lets on. “I’ve gone two years. Technically, I’m a junior.”

“Why aren’t you in school? I mean, Kate told me you didn’t go last year and you’re not registered for the fall either. Why?”

I try to formulate the perfect answer. Usually, I try to avoid this line of questioning and yet this is the first thing she wants to know about me.
Figures
. “I got into some trouble. I didn’t want my grades to slip and there was no way I could’ve stayed and not ruin my grade point average.”

“That seems contradictory. If you cared that much about your grades then you wouldn’t have gotten into trouble in the first place, right?” She raises her eyebrow at me not scolding, but curious, sincerely interested in what I have to say. “What kind of trouble?”

How do I answer this without saying too much? “I got a little out of hand with my professors.”

She doesn’t say anything, but a fresh smirk on her face signifies she understands completely. I think she has me figured out more than I want to admit.

“I kind of thought I was smarter than them,” I add.

She laughs softly, rolling onto her back. “Why does that not surprise me?”

“Geez, I have no idea,” I say, letting a little sarcasm slip out.

She rolls back over and rubs my arm. Her gentle touches affect me more than she knows. She is warmth and sunshine and the light to my dark. She makes me want to bare my soul even though I shouldn’t.

“Where’d you go to school anyway?”

This always reveals more than I’m comfortable sharing with people. I’m usually embarrassed because they will instantly think I’m an arrogant prick, like I’m bragging. “A school in England for a year and then I transferred to one over in Connecticut.”

Her eyes narrow and I can almost see her brain cogs turning. “Where in England?”

I roll over, avoiding eye contact, draping my arm over my eyes, and whisper, “A small town outside of London.”

“Oxford?”

Um… I don’t answer.

“And, the school in Connecticut,
Yale?
”

Closing my eyes, I think of my cover. I always have a cover with girls and yet nothing comes to mind to help me out when I need it most.

She shimmies against me, resting her body half on top of mine. I take a deep breath, wanting to grab her and rub against her and kiss her breathless. I desperately want to be inside of her, but after taking another deep breath, I come to my senses. I promised her I wouldn’t make a move and need to keep that promise.

“Evan?”

“Yeah?”

“You went to Oxford
and
Yale?”

“Yeah.”

I move my arm, bringing her tighter against me so she can’t see my face. “Yes, those are the two schools. Have you heard of them?” I ask an octave too high to sound natural and once again sarcastically. I’m kind of hoping this will throw her off the scent. I also know she’s smart, so I know this plan won’t actually work.

She moves over me, hovering above and looks down into my eyes. Her minty breath is warm and makes me feel dizzy from the close proximity. This is a similar feeling to how I felt the first day I spent with her.

She hits me in the arm. “You’re really fucking smart then?”

“Just because you go to those schools doesn—”

“Admit it! You’re a smarty pants.” She giggles then says, “I already knew it anyway. So you can just admit it now.”

She’s adorable. “Fine,” I say with a smile plastered on my face. “I’m a smarty pants. Happy?”

Lowering all the way down, she rests on my chest. “But not just smart. You’re like super intelligent.”

It’s not a question, so I don’t feel the need to say anything more about it. “Can we change the topic? It’s my turn anyway. What year are you?”

She pauses as if she’s now a little uncomfortable being the center of the conversation. “I’m a senior this fall. You already know where I go to school, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Because you’re observant, always paying attention to the details. What gave it away?”

“Beside the University of Colorado t-shirt you slept in the other night, Noah put the mascot on your surfboard.”

“Ahhh, yes, that’s right. The surfboard.”

“I don’t want to talk about him or that board. Do you have a boyfriend back home?”

“Oh!” She seems surprised. I hear a hint of irritation as if the topic itself is offensive. “If I had a boyfriend, do you think I would’ve slept with you?”

“No, but making sure, just in case. I don’t want to have to deal with an angry haole. And for the record, we haven’t done that much sleeping together.” I snicker.

With a loud laugh, she rolls onto her back and rubs her stomach. I place my hand on top of hers and she doesn’t move it, which lets me know I haven’t overstepped any boundaries.

She surprises me by continuing. “I had a boyfriend last year, but we broke up a few months ago.”

“Why’d you break up? Better offer? Did you have a line of guys waiting to take his place?”

An annoyed scoff escapes her and she replies while entwining our fingers. “He broke up with me for another girl. He’d been cheating on me for a while though.”

“He’s an idiot, baby.” I say this with more passion than I probably should, but he is a total asshat for cheating on her. Looking on the bright side—she’s in Hawaii because he was stupid for letting her go. Maybe I should thank him.

Her hand leaves mine, and she brushes my chin with the back of it. “You’re sweet.”

“I’m super intelligent too, remember?”

“Yes, I remember,” she says.

I can’t keep my hands off of her any longer. Screw the promise. I roll over maneuvering between her legs while holding her by the hips and kiss her belly button. She smiles down at me, and asks, “How long you were you planning on torturing us?”

“I promised I’d be a good boy.” I lean down again and dip my tongue into her belly button and swirl it. “Is this being a good boy?”

Her uninhibited laugh is an angel’s voice pulling me from my life’s wreckage. “That’s being a
very
good boy.” Her fingers roam through my hair and lightly tug.

With my fingertips, I push her tank top further up her body to expose her stomach, but keep her breasts hidden from view. I slide my hands up and down her curves several times then rest my cheek on her stomach. I need a moment to collect myself, to gain control over my urges because even if this girl begged me, I wouldn’t make love to her.
That might be a lie. Okay, that’s totally a lie.
If she was begging me I would take her in an instant, but I shouldn’t, not tonight. I close my eyes and wonder at what point in the last few weeks I started caring about anyone other than myself. Sensing my unease, she strokes her fingers through my hair in a comforting manner, gentle. “Hey, what’s wrong?” she asks.

I sigh, keeping my eyes closed. “Nothing.”

“Come on, Evan. You told me you wouldn’t lie to me.”

She’s got a point and she’s not afraid to use it. “I haven’t felt like this in a long time.” I keep my head lowered, knowing what she’s going to ask next, so I save her the trouble. “I like you.” Suddenly, I feel like I’m ten years old and telling a girl that I have a crush on her. “I care about you.”

“You haven’t opened your heart in a long time. I know that was hard for you. Thank you for opening it for me. I care about you, too.” Then she adds, “Sometimes I worry that I care too much.”

I look at her and our eyes connect. Her sweet soul visibly displayed just for me in the soft moonlight of the room. My lips part and my breathing slows as I analyze my beautiful girl’s face.
My girl
. I still need to make her my girl, only mine, and tonight I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Chapter 17

Evan

Mallory Wray is stunning, especially when she goes after what she wants.

“I know you said you’d be good, but do you think you might be a little bad for me?” she asks. Her cheeks turn the perfect shade of rose petal pink, embarrassed for being direct.

I could easily give her all she wants right now. I want the same, but she deserves more than a few tried and true smooth moves and a certain perfected smile. I have to use my mind with her which turns me on so fucking much.

Exhaling loudly, I’m frustrated that my conscience has decided to intervene. The words fall from my lips before I have a chance to stop them. “I want to be with you so bad, baby, but I think we should wait.” She moves a few inches higher on the bed, purposely positioning the apex of her thighs right above my mouth. “Are you trying to drop a hint here?” I ask.

“Am I being too subtle?” She tilts her pelvis up and taps me on the chin… twice.

“Subtlety is my specialty.”

“Really? I never took you as the subtle type,” she says, mocking me.

“Watch out little girl, I can do subtle.” I look her in the eyes and take her challenge. Taking her panties in hand, I, oh so slowly, slide them down. I lift up on bended knees and start removing them from her ankles when she playfully kicks them off and they go flying over my head. “That’s not so subtle,” I tease. “Oh, screw subtlety!” I pin her ankles to the bed beside me and bend forward.

Giddiness overcomes her, but her impatience shines through. She tilts her middle up toward my mouth again.

I don’t do this. I don’t go down on women.
I have done it before, years ago, when I was a horny-assed teenager in high school. But even then I did it only to my girlfriend at the time, never casually and never to a girl I was fucking for the week. It’s way too personal for that. But this is different, not cavalier at all. Mallory has awakened something in me that’s long been dormant.

Desire
bubbles inside of me. I haven’t
desired
anyone in years. I’ve lusted and I’ve always gotten what I lusted after. But
desire
, desire feels like an old friend that I didn’t know I missed until it returned.
I desire this girl.
I need to taste this girl. It’s something I mistakenly didn’t do the first couple of times we were together. I took her for granted. I won’t make that mistake again.

I adjust my scruffy face toward her wet center. The phrase ‘
be careful what you wish for because you just might get it’
comes to mind. I dip my tongue, worried this might be the end of me in the best of ways. I want her like I’ve never wanted any woman before in my life. I just don’t want to screw this up. I need her to like this, to like me.

The first contact makes my head swim as she wriggles and releases a quiet moan. I take her by the hips, holding her down. I want her to feel how beautifully connected we are. I stiffen my tongue and swirl it quickly where I know she’ll react. I start to relax and indulge by bringing my tongue into my mouth and savoring her sweetness. My eyes close at the sensation, and I quickly delve back in wanting to devour her. Her hips move beneath my hands as I lick. In this moment, I can be everything she needs me to be and use my tongue to make love to her.

“Oh God! Yes!” She cries out.

Surprised by such a strong verbal response, I back up and slip two fingers inside. She thrusts with pleasure, grabbing my hair tightly in her hands and squeezes, tugs, pulls, and encourages me. I’m not done with her. I bring my fingers to my mouth and suck.

She’s not pleased by the pause in action, and looks up. When she sees what I’m doing, her mouth drops open, and she watches as I push them into her again, methodically, while resting my other hand on her abdomen. I watch as she tosses her head back, panting. I’ve never felt possessive over a girl, ever, but this girl is different. She challenges me in so many ways and owning her so completely right now makes me feel powerful just from the thought.

“Look at me, Mallory,” I demand, but keep my voice low.

Her head shoots up and our eyes meet as I swirl my tongue around her gloriousness. The sounds of her pleasure make my cock throb, so I press it into the mattress seeking some kind of relief. My body seems to have its own agenda and I’m thinking this mattress isn’t going to satisfy that need. She drops her head against the pillow maintaining our eye contact. Her eyes look how mine feel, heavy with lust, but a depth of something more hidden behind the beautiful color.

The grip on my locks tightens, but the pain is nothing compared to the pleasure I’m receiving from this simple act of intimacy.
That’s it.
That’s why I haven’t done this in forever. This is something I can do to her to show my feelings through my body.
This is intimacy.
  I think my heart stopped at the exact second I discovered that I’m in love.
I’m in love with Mallory
.

As I continue, she struggles to keep her eyes on me, so I give her a reprieve. “I want you to come for me, baby.”

Her head drops back and her body jerks forward, harder against my mouth and she cries out in ecstasy. I enjoy the sight of her so tense and yet euphoric, and it’s all because of me. As she settles back down, relaxing onto the bed, I leave a wet trail of kisses on her stomach.

Just as I lower the hem down to cover her midsection, she says, “I want you in me, Evan.” Her eyes go wide like the words accidentally slipped out.

Crawling up her body, I press my hardness against her stomach. “I think you can tell how much I want to be inside of you, too, baby, but, not tonight.”
I can’t believe I just fucking said that.
This is the girl of my dreams. I’m in love with this girl, but that is the exact reason I shouldn’t do it. “I don’t want to screw this up,” I say as her hands rub my back, “so I think this should be all we do tonight.”

“But I want to,” she says, bringing my cupped face to hers and kissing me, still encouraging me.

I pull back, brow furrowed in confusion, to gaze down at this siren beneath me. She runs her nose along my jaw and ends near my ear. She whispers, “I want you, Evan. I
need
you.”

“Fuck, Mallory. What are you doing to me? I don’t have the willpower to fight you. We should stop.” I sound authoritative and in control, but even I can hear the slight whine in the back of my throat.

She giggles.
So much for control.

She kisses me again then licks the side of my mouth. Maybe I have died and actually did get into heaven despite my mother damning me to hell. My eyes close at the sensory overload of her plush lips on me.

I jump, pinning her by the wrists to the bed. “No! You must stop.” Me and my throbbing erection roll onto my back and I slam my arms down next to me.

Rolling onto her side, she props her head up by her elbow. “Evan Ashford, I think your façade is slipping. I think you like me.”

With an epic roll of my eyes, I laugh with mild irritation. Okay, it’s actually sexual frustration, but I play it up as I look over at the temptress next to me. She’s glowing and beautiful and her expression is proud. “I’m not playing games with you. I can admit defeat.”

“So, you’re comparing
liking me
to losing?” she asks incredulously.

“That’s not what I meant. It… it feels like freedom. Does that make any sense?”

“Because you don’t have to put on the charade for me.” She leans forward and kisses me on the tip of my nose then retreats to lay flat on her back. “I like you, too by the way. There, we’re even. Does that make you feel better?” She asks smugly. “It is freeing, isn’t it?”

“Like jumping off a cliff.”

“Or falling in love for the first time.”

I’m stunned by her ability to say that so easily. She smiles and my heart fucking melts and I think for the first time in my life, I know exactly what she means. I reach over and pull her against my side. After bringing the sheets up to cover our chests, I kiss her on the forehead. “It’s exactly like that,” I whisper. “Goodnight, baby.”

* * *

Morning comes too soon when I
’m holding Mallory in my arms. Morning means daylight, which means getting out of bed, which also means not holding her much longer. I sigh in discontentment at this bothersome predicament.

She shuffles, snuggling closer as her breath warms me with its steady cadence. I tighten my arm around her shoulders and appreciate what I can tell are her last few moments of sleep.

Looking down at her, I allow myself to indulge in her natural beauty and how she fits so perfectly into my side. I can’t hide my smile just as her eyes open and she looks up at me. In the cutest groggy voice, she asks, “What are you smiling about, gorgeous?”

Her name for me comes as a surprise. “You think I’m gorgeous?”

She looks down, drawing her hand across my bare chest, and adds, “Who doesn’t think you’re gorgeous?”

I am well aware of the attention I get from the opposite sex, but none of it ever mattered because it’s superficial. It’s meaningless, but for some reason I care that Mallory thinks I’m attractive. “I don’t care about anyone else, just what you think of me.”

Her eyes flicker back to meet mine and with a smile reflected in them, she says, “In that case, I think you’re really fantastically gorgeous, Evan.”

“Well, I think you’re really fantastically gorgeous too, baby.” I back my words with a lingering kiss on her forehead.

She giggles, encouraging me to ask, “What has you all happy this morning?”

She sits up and slides her face closer to mine. Her expression goes from playful to genuine within the flash of a second, before she says, “You’re here. You’re here with me this morning just like you promised.”

I gulp, not wanting to be anywhere else but with her, and I want her to know that. “Mallory,” she remains calmly looking at me as I continue, “I should explain about that first morning when you woke up mad.”

“I didn’t wake up mad. I was hurt when I discovered you left me here alone.”

I pull her back down into my arms. “I know you were, but that wasn’t my intention. You thought I had just screwed you over, but it wasn’t like that for me. It was actually the complete opposite.”  This is the part that still gets jumbled in my own mind, much less trying to verbalize it to sound like I know what I’m talking about.

My hesitation causes her to look up and rest her chin on my chest, waiting. “Are you okay? We don’t have to talk about this right now. I mean, we did just wake up.”

“No, I want to say this. You need to know that I wasn’t abandoning you. I didn’t treat our night lightly. It was so much more to me than that. But, I had to organize my thoughts and get some clarity on the situation,
on us
. I did that by surfing.”

I take a deep breath and finish. “Surfing helps me clear my mind of the extraneous stuff that’s not important. I can focus on the waves and what I need to, which for me that morning, was you.”

“Evan, I should apologize—” She sits up trying to talk, but I quickly cut her off.

“No, don’t. You don’t have to apologize. I really need to tell you this because it’s important and yet I feel like such an asshole for letting this get out of hand.” I sit up, touching her arm, wanting to touch more. “I knew you were different. I knew as soon as you made your smart-ass comments to me at the airport. Then during our conversation at the diner, I realized you were too good for me. You became a challenge. So when we got to my place and kissed, it was surprising. You let me make love to you. I almost couldn’t contain myself. I fucking won the lottery that day and I tried to play it off like what we were sharing was just a standard fuck for me. But you sensed how I really felt and you kept going. Why’d you go through with it? That’s not you. I knew when I met you that you didn’t do that kind of stuff and yet you did with me. Is it because you’re on vacation? Wait, I might not want to hear the answer. Do I want to know the answer?”

I wait for her to respond, but I can tell she’s processing everything I just laid on her.

“When you say you ‘won the lottery’ are you referring to me?”

I nod my head, unsure of why she’s focusing on that tidbit out all of the other stuff I said.