Chasing Perfect (Someday#4) Read online

  His eyes sparked with desire as he pulled me close to him so that he could whisper roughly in my ear, “Baby, you’re pretty much the starring attraction in my spank bank. And now, the image of you thinking about me while you touch yourself…imagining me while you make yourself come? That’s going to be my main go-to.”

  My pussy clenched at his words. “Oh, fuck,” I whispered raggedly. “Hunter, I want you right now. I need you!”

  He pressed his lips to mine in a crushing kiss. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I understood how ridiculous it was that he’d been driving me absolutely insane with desire by licking my nipples, yet we’d never even kissed. But that realization was drowned out almost completely by the mind-altering experience of kissing Hunter for the first time.

  I couldn’t get enough. My hands roamed over his body with a kind of desperate intensity I’d never felt before. It was like I had to touch him everywhere. Right now. Or I would die. I had to get closer to him, as close as humanly possible, and pull him in as close as possible to me. Every cell in my body screamed for it.

  “Hunter,” I gasped between kisses, “I want…our clothes off. I want to be naked with you. I want to feel you.”

  “Oh…fuck…Sandy… God, you’re so hot,” he moaned as he carried me over to the padded grass area beside the flat rock where we’d been sitting and talking just a little while ago.

  He gently set me down on the rock and carefully spread out our towels over the green grass before lifting me off the rock and setting me down on the towels. As he stepped back, I noticed that his hands were shaking, and if the trembling of my own hands was any indication, those shakes were coming from lust and not nerves.

  Even in the throes of burning-hot passion, when his whole body must’ve been telling him to throw caution to the wind and barrel on ahead, he still took the time to stop and make me comfortable. To take care of me. My heart did a little skip at that realization, but I pushed that aside.

  No, I told myself, this is just sex. This is a grad night fling between friends. This doesn’t mean anything.

  Hunter looked at me, his face intense with a powerful combination of emotions I couldn’t fully identify. Lust and desire were definitely among them. Whatever the deeper ones were, I wasn’t going to stop and consider them. Right then, I just wanted to get lost in the physical.

  I stood languidly, savoring the way his eyes hung on my smallest movement. Then I hooked my thumbs through the sides of my bikini bottom and slowly…ever so slowly…inched them down.

  “I think it’s time for you to make that comparison now,” I whispered. “Don’t you?”

  Hunter’s eyes shot up to mine. He nodded, seeming for all the world as if he were in a trance, then his eyes raked back down my body. Holy hot tamales. My entire body was tingling as I stood before Hunter’s rapt attention. His gaze on me was so powerful that it was almost a physical sensation—almost as concrete as his hand on me, his tongue. And it affected me just as profoundly.

  “Wow,” I breathed with a little laugh and said exactly what I was thinking. I always had zero filter in general, but when it came to Hunter, I had negative zero filter. “When you look at me like that it makes me wet.”

  He didn’t join me in my chuckle. In fact, his expression was deadly serious as he whispered, “Show me.”

  Just like his first two-word sentence, this one was delivered in his intense whisper, and it shot a jolt of arousal through me so overwhelming that it made me draw in my breath sharply. Damn. Since when had my best buddy become sexy? God. I wasn’t sure when the transformation had taken place, but one thing was definite: It sure as hell had. This new, intense and commanding version of Hunter had me creaming my jeans (or, well, my bikini) all over the place.

  I took my time sliding my bikini bottom down over my hips and legs, not rushing—in an attempt at seduction—until I finally slipped the damp garment off over my feet. After tossing it over on the pile of clothes that had formed on the edge of the rock, I returned my attention to Hunter. A small smile played on my lips as I watched his eyes roam hungrily up and down every inch of my fully nude body. Some girls might be embarrassed under the intense scrutiny, but I wasn’t one of them.

  Not being conceited or anything—my mom might’ve been an alcoholic and a supremely shitty parent, but she’d passed down some extremely pin-up worthy genes to both Brandy and me. I could tell Hunter liked what he saw; both because of the dumbstruck look on his face and the growing bulge in his swim shorts.

  After a few moments of watching him take me in with his eyes, I heard my voice, small and breathy. “You can touch me, you know.”

  He looked up from my naked body and stared into my eyes. “How about I taste you instead?” he said, his voice strong and steady.

  Holy. What the…?

  Just when I’d thought I’d gained the upper hand in the encounter, Hunter went and did or said something that made me weak in the knees and spun my senses out of control.

  Damn you, Hunter, and your newly-developed sexiness.

  “Okay,” I responded weakly.

  He crossed to me in one sure stride and crushed my mouth to his in an earth-shattering, breath-stealing kiss. Wanting him to feel what I was feeling, I fumbled with his swim shorts and finally pushed them down. When I grasped his cock in my hand, I was surprised by how thick it was, how iron-strong.

  “God, you’re big!” I groaned as he kissed his way down my neck.

  He smiled against me and, between featherlight kisses on my collarbone, groaned teasingly, “I don’t know whether to feel complimented that you think I’m big or insulted that it surprised you.”

  “How about just being happy I’m touching your dick?” I shot back lightly, trying to get some of the equal footing in the sparring that we usually maintained in our relationship.

  “Trust me. I’m more than happy.”

  He wrapped one of his strong arms around my waist and lowered me onto the towels, trailing kisses down my body as he did so. I lost myself in the feeling of his hot tongue running deliciously sensual circles over my nipples again, and again before trailing down the length of my belly. As his tongue made its slow and sexy descent, his hands took care of every other part of my body. He ran them over my arms, through my hair, and up and down the outsides of my legs.

  Finally, when he reached my lower belly with his mouth, he sat back and said, “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to taste you? How many times I’ve thought about how sweet you would be?”

  I was breathing so hard that I couldn’t spit out any words or sounds aside from the occasional moan, so I sincerely hoped that those were rhetorical questions and not a pop quiz. My body moved of its own accord as I instinctively arched my back. Hunter’s large hands pushed my knees apart, exposing my sex completely. I expected to feel him touch me right away, so when I didn’t, I lifted my head to see what was going on.

  He was kneeling in front of me, his hands still on my knees, just staring at my exposed pussy. He glanced up and met my eyes.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “God…just…so…beautiful.”

  The reverence in his tone caused tears to pool at my eyes. Tears. I did not cry. Ever. It was somewhat of a thing to me.

  Before I could process what the leak in my tear duct meant, Hunter lowered his head and covered my core entirely with an open-mouthed kiss. My body lit up like the Las Vegas strip. The wet pressure of his tongue against my clit was electric. The sensations his mouth was illuminating in me, were overwhelming in their intensity.

  “Oh my… Hunter!” I gasped, tangling my hands in his hair. “That feels…so…so good!”

  At my encouragement, I felt the roughened tip of his finger run down the seam of my quivering opening and just that quickly, I exploded with a powerful orgasm, one that shook every muscle in my body. I saw nothing but white against my eyelids until it was over.

  I’d never felt anything in my life that rivaled the burning sparklers of sensation that were sizzling over
every inch of my skin and rocketing around my entire body. And, somehow, I doubted I ever would again. What in the future could possibly live up to that amazingness? To the feelings Hunter was giving me right then?

  Nothing. Not ever.

  When my brain calmed down enough to process reality again, I realized that Hunter wasn’t touching me anymore. I opened my eyes and saw him standing over by the pile of our clothing, fumbling to put on a condom he must’ve gotten out of his wallet.

  “No, wait,” I protested. “I want to…ya know…to um…pay you back for that.”

  He shook his head. “No, that’s okay.”

  Sitting up, I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs. “Gee, thanks, Hunter. Tell me how you really feel.”

  I hid my feelings under the joking tone, but that did sting a little. Okay… a lot. I mean, what guy in the history of the world has ever turned down a BJ? It made no sense.

  Hunter must’ve noticed my underlying insecurity, because his face and tone turned serious. “You honestly think I don’t want you to?”

  “Well, based on the fact that I just offered and you just declined, yeah, that’s where I was going with it. Pretty much.” My gaze dropped down and all of the bravado that I’d had going into this new friends with benefits situation, drained out of me faster than my last iPhone battery.

  I felt the air shift as Hunter lowered himself so that he was now at eye level with me. He cupped my face in his hands, then threaded them through my hair, tilting my face up.

  When my eyes met his, I was shocked at the power and sincerity in his stare. “Sandcastle, there’s almost nothing I’d like better than feeling your lips on me. Believe me. It’s something I’ve dreamt about. Often. But, if you wrap that sweet mouth around my cock right now, do you even know how fast I’m gonna come? I’ll give you a hint. Faster than you just did.”

  I couldn’t help but grin at that.

  “Yeah. It’ll be lightning speed. Trust. And I don’t want that. I want to make love to you. I want to be inside you. I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything else.”

  All I could do was nod. New Hunter had a habit, it seemed, of stealing my ability to speak. Which was quite a task, believe me.

  “Do you trust me?” his voice was gravelly and raw.

  Moisture began to fill in my lower lids from the content of his question, while goosebumps simultaneously broke out over my skin at the seductive quality of the tone in which he’d asked. I didn’t know how to process what I was feeling, what was happening. I felt paralyzed with the weight of the energy that was hanging heavily between us.

  Somehow, someway, I was able to answer with a strained, “Yes.”

  A look of something very close to the big L word flared in his golden brown eyes. His jaw flinched and his fingers tightened against my scalp causing tremors of tingling awareness to spread through me like a wildfire. His gaze was trained on me like a heat seeking missile and I stayed directly in its crosshairs, unable to look away. Our stares remained locked in what felt like the sexiest game of chicken ever played for what seemed like an eternity. It was like we were both trying to climb into the windows of each other’s souls. Searching for what…I wasn’t sure.

  I felt myself holding my breath as he began to lean forward. His movements were measured, controlled and his pace was excruciatingly slow. Finally, when he was just a whisper away from me, I closed my eyes and was rewarded with the feeling of soft, firm lips pressed against mine.

  I’d always been an extremely competitive person, and normally, the fact that I’d just lost whatever emotional staring contest we’d been engaged in would’ve pissed me off. But, with Hunter’s mouth on mine in the most possessive, claiming kiss that I’d ever experienced, instead of feeling the sting of loss, I felt like I’d just won some kind of cosmic lottery.

  His kiss started off very softly, but it quickly built in passion and intensity. Hunter’s tongue swept into my mouth, exploring it with tantalizing expertise. His velvety licks were leisurely but deliberate. Gentle. Hot. Hungry.

  Never breaking the mind-blowingly seductive kiss, that in my mind deserved to be recognized in the Guinness Book, he lowered me back down and rested my head gently on the towel. His body was positioned between me and my knees spread automatically.

  Although the kiss we were sharing was all consuming, the desire to feel him inside of me crashed into me like a tsunami wave. I wanted, no needed, him to fill me up, to make me forget everything but the sensation of him pumping in and out of me. I reached between our bodies and wrapped my fingers around his shaft, placing him at my opening.

  That got his attention.

  He looked into my eyes and whispered, “Are you sure?”

  My heart swelled. That was Hunter, always making sure I was okay.

  I nodded even as my eyes were once again misting with emotions that I didn’t want to name. Thankfully, as attuned as Hunter was to my every thought, every move, every whim, he must’ve missed the tears forming because without hesitation, he pushed past my tight opening and entered me with a powerful, forceful, thrust.

  I gasped as the sting of his entry caused me to cry out as I snaked my arms and legs around him, needing to feel every inch of his body against mine. Skin to skin. My nails dug into his muscled back as I clung to him like my life depended on it, which it felt like…it did. Hunter had always been my life support, my life raft, my life preserver but never more than at that moment.

  “Fuck, did I hurt you?” he worried against my ear.

  There it was again. Hunter, always taking care of me. Always putting my needs, my comfort, before his own.

  “No, I’m fine. Keep going. Please don’t stop,” I pleaded, first one then a second tear—that had been threatening to make an appearance—now flowed down my cheeks.

  I, Sandy Cooper, did not cry. What was happening to me?

  “Sandy?” Hunter gritted out as he tried to pull away from me.

  “Please…please,” I begged, hearing the desperation in my voice as I tightened my hold on his broad shoulder blades.

  He remained perfectly still. The only thing that I could feel moving was his heart beating rapidly against my chest. I loved the way the weight of his body felt on me. The way being in his arms felt like the only place in the world I’d ever truly belonged. The way his heated breath fanned down my neck. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on all of those sensations.

  Soon, my body adjusted to his size and the discomfort and borderline pain evaporated into a feeling of erotic fullness that caused a swirl of desire to whip through me as a spine tingling ache began to build low in my belly. I felt my inner walls begin to pulse around his rock hard shaft. I knew he felt it too because a groan vibrated from deep in his chest and his arms tightened their embrace.

  A smile pulled at my lips. Now that I no longer thought he was a flight risk, I began to move my hands up and down the powerful muscles in his back. My fingers danced along the strength of his shoulder, over the hard planes of the blades beneath them. His heart continued to thump rapidly as I went on with my exploration of his bare skin, and turned my head so that I could shower kisses along the sexy slope of his neck. Needing more than just the feeling of his smooth skin against my mouth, I parted my lips and licked up from the base to the sensitive area just below his ear where I nipped lightly before flattening my tongue to run over the area I’d just taken a bite out of, before peppering wet, open-mouthed kisses down the same path that I’d licked.

  Before I made it all the way back down, Hunter started to move inside me. His hips rocked seductively in a rolling motion that was so unbearably sensual that I—the girl who didn’t have a shy, timid, or embarrass-able bone in her body—felt my cheeks flame.

  I tilted my hips up and down, in perfect sync with him; the intimacy of our bodies moving together like we did this every day, like we were made to do this and only this, was both erotic and unnerving. The chemistry we shared wasn’t just on a different level; it was on a
different planet. A totally out-of-this-world experience.

  It was slow at first, rhythmic and hypnotizing. It filled my body with the most delicious warmth and feelings of contentment, peace, and pleasure I’d ever experienced. It was lovely, and I luxuriated in it. I surrendered completely to it, to him, and much too soon, those sweet sensations were replaced by a building intensity as he sped up his movements. It began low in my belly, a tingling pressure I didn’t recognize for what it was until I was almost at the brink of losing control again.

  “Oh, God, Hunter!” I whimpered, “I’m gonna…come. I’m about to…oh…oh…yes…”

  I held onto him as this second—and even more body-racking—orgasm tore through me. When his muscles contracted under my grasp, I realized he must’ve been coming, too. Even though I was attempting to keep this encounter carefully filed in my brain under, “Casual Sex and Nothing BUT Casual Sex,” I knew I would’ve been lying to myself if I didn’t admit that I loved that we were coming together, sharing that powerful experience at the same time.

  As I came back down to earth, the first thing I became aware of was that Hunter was planting sweet kisses on my face and stroking my hair. My heart fluttered at this, and as my lust-steam cleared on my fogged-up sex mirror, and the reality of what we’d just done was staring back at me, fear gripped my heart like it was being squeezed in a vice.

  No matter what, I absolutely, positively could not catch feelings for Hunter. Under no circumstances was that an option.

  All he ever talked about was how much he loved Arcata, how he couldn’t wait to get back after he finished college on the East Coast and make a life there, how he wanted his kids to go to the same schools he’d gone to and maybe even have the same teachers, and blah, blah, blah.

  I wanted the exact opposite. I wanted a life full of intrigue and travel and glamour and adventure. I wanted to live life to the fullest, in every corner of the globe. I wanted to get out of Arcata—not pass go—and put this town in the rear view. That was my plan, had always been my plan. Which, of course, included my ideal man. The perfect person to fit into my glamorous and adventurous life. I knew exactly what my future husband was going to be like since the first wedding Brandy and I threw for Flight Attendant Barbie and Businessman Ken. I was four at the time, and fourteen years later, that knowledge hadn’t changed.