CHAPTER THREE

RILEY

I should have known Walker had more stamina than me. He’s more than a pretty face and a truckload of muscles. The last thing I remembered before I passed out from an orgasm coma was him getting up to dispose of the third and final condom.

I hadn’t planned on staying the night, and I sure as hell hadn’t planned on cuddling with him until the sun came up. His warm, solid chest presses against my back, and his heavy arm is slung over my waist.

After three rounds of explosive sex and a damn fine blow job, if I do say so myself, I can’t believe he’s already hard. Or still hard. The man is insatiable. I wiggle my ass against his erection and he chuckles.

“Not tired from that marathon, are you?” He nuzzles his nose into my neck and kisses behind my ear.

“Marathon?” I snort. “I thought that was the warm up.”

His chuckle rumbles through him and he squeezes me into his chest. “As tempted as I am to call you on your bluff, I’m quite content right here just like this.”

“That so?” I push my ass back into his erection. I don’t know why I’m teasing him. My body is sore from head to toe. “Guess I won then.”

Walker left no part of me untouched, unloved. Even without moving from the bed, I can tell my limbs are going to be useless noodles. I could use another few hours of sleep, but I need to get back to my hotel and get ready for the luncheon.

I’ll never be able to do this again. Never see Walker again. Never...so many nevers after today.

“You okay?” Walker rubs his hand along my hip and turns me in his arms.

How he can sense the turmoil in my head is beyond me. “I should head back to my hotel. I didn’t mean to stay the night.”

“Even marathoners need to rest every now and then.” Walker pushes my hair out of my face and tucks it behind my ear. “And I’m glad you stayed the night.”

I curl my bottom lip between my teeth to stop the ridiculous grin that threatens to take over my face. If only I’d met Walker months ago. Not that it would matter. He lives in San Francisco. I’ll never see him again, which was what made him the perfect one-night stand.

“I should go,” I say, making no effort to climb out of his warm bed.

“Hm.” He strokes my face with the pad of his thumb and drags it across my bottom lip. “Before you go, there’s one more thing we need to do.”

“What’s that?”

With a quick burst of energy, Walker rolls on top of me and kisses my forehead before hopping out of bed. “Come.”

He holds out his hand to me, but I can’t help the direction of my eyes. His erect penis is at eye level with me, and I want to reach out and touch it. Again.

“Glad we’re on the same page.” Before I can register what he’s doing, Walker whips the covers off me and scoops me up in his arms. “I can’t send you back sweaty and smelly.”

“I don’t smell!” I smack his shoulder. Maybe like him. Maybe like sex. I don’t want to wash his scent off me, but it would sound kind of stalker-ish if I told him that.

Walker sets me on the bathroom counter, and I yelp when my naked ass hits the cold marble. He turns on the shower and returns to me, capturing my mouth between his lips.

“I’ve fucked you against the wall and draped over the couch.” True story. That was condom number three when we came out to get some water. “In the bed on your back, on your knees, and with you on top. I’ve tasted you in the living room and in the bedroom. Now I need to taste and fuck you in the shower.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. More O ’s before...”

Before I leave. I stare into his stormy eyes, reading the lust and something more. Not regret. If he regretted this night, he wouldn’t be extending it with morning shower sex.

“More O ’s sounds like a fantastic idea,” I whisper against his lips and wrap my legs around his hips, tugging him closer.

He picks me up and carries me to the shower where he kisses me like his life depends on it. Like he’ll never see me again, which he won’t. I return the kiss with reckless abandon, grinding my pussy into him and driving my tongue further into his mouth. I tug at his hair, not allowing a breath of air between our bodies.

“Fuck, Riley.” He breaks the kiss, and we’re both gasping for air.

His erection rubs against my center, and I can’t help grinding against him. “Walker.” I’m so close to losing it. I need him in me. I crave him. No one else will ever compare to the way he makes me feel. To the way his body feels against mine.

“Riley.” He crashes me to the wall of the shower, cradling my head, and thrusts his length inside me.

“Oh, God.” I squeeze him and ride him, grinding hard and fast against him. He. Feels. So. Damn. Good. The pressure builds up inside and I explode around him.

He kisses my gasps away while continuing to thrust through my orgasm. “Baby. Riley. Fuck.” He pumps once more, twice, then pulls out and comes on my stomach. “Fuck.”

I’m still grinding against him as we catch our breath. My head drops to his shoulder and I hang on for dear life, my body completely spent.

“I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Sorry?” I lift my head and cup his cheeks. “For what? That was...amazing.”

“I’m clean. I swear.”

“Clean?” I look between us, aware of the stickiness on my stomach. “No condom.”

“I’m pretty sure I pulled out in time. If I didn’t—”

“No. It’s okay. The, um, timing isn’t right.” That’s not a lie. The timing fucking sucks.

In three hours, Jackson will be announcing our engagement.

“ H oly shit. You got fucked six ways to Sunday and I’m totally jealous over it.”

Ignoring Kendall, I fall face first onto the mattress in our hotel room, praying she didn’t hook up on this bed.

“Noodle legs. Sexy hair. Tell me he left marks all over your body.”

Maybe? I have no idea. After our shower sex, I was too satisfied, too languid, too numb to do a thorough inspection of my limbs.

“And tell me you’re wearing his clothes because he ripped your dress off you and tore it in half clawing to get at your tits.”

“Oh my word, Kendall. You’re exhausting.”

“Not me, babe.” My head bobs as she bounces on the mattress next to me. “You’re exhausted from all the sex. I’m so proud of you, my little angel doing the devil’s work.”

I snort into the comforter and turn my head, peering up at her through my naked lashes. The shower washed off any traces of makeup I had left after sweating most of it off during our sex Olympics.

I tried to hide my plain face from Walker, but he’d cupped my cheeks so tenderly and kissed me so sweetly before pulling one of his sweatshirts over my dress, making me feel beautiful. When I tried to give his sweatshirt back to him in the lobby of the Holiday Inn, he shook his head and gave me one final lingering kiss. Audience be damned.

The San Francisco football sweatshirt hung down to my knees, and I had to roll the sleeves up four times to find my hands. It smells like him, so I bury my face in the soft material, inhaling his scent.

Kendall runs her fingers through my hair and twists it into a braid. She’s not the most affectionate person, preferring to deliver sass and jokes rather than hugs and comfort. Unless she’s with Danielle, her younger sister, born with Down Syndrome, and the sweetest human being on the planet. She has Kendall wrapped around her finger.

Dani’s favorite request is to have Kendall brush and style her hair. When Kendall plays with my hair, it’s her way of showing comfort without the words and the touchy-feely stuff she doesn’t care for.

Today is a big day. Last night was a big night. My hopes and dreams are now only that. Dreams. I didn’t go into this blind, and it’s not like my life is ruined, but it’s not the future I’d always dreamed about as a little girl.

“I’m not going to ask for specifics, but it’s not too late to—”

“Don’t say that.” I jump off the bed and rummage through my suitcase for new undergarments. Scrunching them in my hand, I head to the bathroom and plug in my flat iron. “We need to get ready. Jackson and his family are expecting us in less than an hour.”

“You can say no.”

I undo the braid and brush my hair. “I promised him. He’ll take care of me. This is good. Yeah, I had to pivot my goals, but I’m going to be living an amazing life.”

“Is it okay to crack a Friends joke?”

I roll my eyes, knowing better than to use the word pivot. Normally, Kendall would break out in a Ross Gellar voice, mimicking the couch in the stairwell scene from Friends . It’s an overused joke, even more than twenty years after the show ended, but it is funny.

Only, I don’t feel like laughing this morning. Even though that’s why Kendall is here with me. To support me and help me keep my head held high.

Jackson has never come right out and said his family is awful, but it’s what he doesn’t say about them that has me worried. He respects his father and holds him on the highest pedestal in the universe, praising his business ways and work ethic. He’s well respected in corporate America and by his employees. And especially by Jackson.

We’ve been friends for almost a decade and I’ve only met them once. I’ve never heard any picture-perfect stories about their family traditions or spectacular vacations. Holidays are spent abroad. Maldives, Tahiti, Cabo. Whenever I ask Jackson about what they do on vacations, he says they relax or do work on the beach.

His mother is another anomaly. She spends her time working on charitable events and planning galas. I’m not one to dig into someone’s personal life, even my best friends, and respect them when they don’t want to talk about it. I don’t push, because that would mean it would be okay for them to push me for information.

Granted, I’m an open book. Kendall and Jackson know about my mother’s death when I was ten. They know about my father’s depression and his long trips on the road. Of our lack of a family and my desire to be part of one.

I’ve always wanted to have a big family. To marry into a large one. To have siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. I don’t have any of that and have dreamed of becoming part of a family that already exists and creating my own.

Today erases any hope of that happening.

Kendall comes up behind me and picks up the flat iron, doing my hair without asking. I love when she does this. It’s the closest I get to feeling like I have a sister, and I know it brings her some sense of comfort as well.

I try to keep my head still while I do my makeup.

“You know I’d take your place if I could.”

I snort. “Please. You and Jackson? You compete too much for airtime. No one would buy that two people who both need to be the center of attention could fall in love. You’d smother him in his sleep before the honeymoon even started.”

“And be one rich bitch. I mean, widow. Hell. Why didn’t we think of this before?”

I’d be mortified if I didn’t know how much Jackson and Kendall love each other. As friends. Friends who only see each other every month or so. Small doses are all they can take of each other.

“Promise me you won’t say or do anything to embarrass me in front of his parents.”

“Me?” Kendall looks at me in the mirror, her not-so-innocent green eyes wide with mischief.

At first sight, Kendall is a loose cannon. Her gestures, her mouth, her attitude. It’s the image she likes to portray to keep her heart from getting crushed again. But I know the real Kendall. The woman whose heart is as big as her personality. The woman whose heart was utterly destroyed by a slimy bastard. She hates herself for being fooled by him, and this act is a way to prevent it from happening again.

But when it comes to our friendship, she’s as real as it gets. I love her and respect her. There’s no way I could go through with this without her.