CHAPTER SEVEN

RILEY

As soon as Walker opens the door to his hotel room, all nerves vanish. It’s funny. I’d think now is when they’d go into overtime, but we’ve done this before. Only, this time, I actually know the man.

He’s not as intimidating as he was the first night we met. A gorgeous man asking me back to his room for a one-night stand.

Now we’re...friends. Or at least acquaintances. He’s sweet and kind and funny. And he reads. Swoon. I want to ask if he wears reading glasses, because Oh! My! God! I can picture him sitting up in bed wearing nothing but a thin sheet draped across his thighs, his muscular, naked chest tan against the white bedding, a pair of glasses perched on his nose and a book in his lap.

I was absolutely freaked out when he showed up at Boston Strong yesterday. It’s not like anyone there knows about my personal life and the drastic changes that are about to happen, but I didn’t want to introduce a random hook up either.

However, now that we’ve spent an evening dining, walking, and talking, Walker is no longer a random hook up. He’s a man who is as sweet as he is sexy. He listens as well as he speaks. He holds my hand and kisses my knuckles, and he knows how to fuck me against a wall until I feel like I’m going to be split open.

“You okay?” he asks from behind, setting his phone and key card on the dresser.

“Yeah.”

“Would you like a drink? The minibar selection isn’t great, but there might be something you’d like.” He opens a cabinet and shows me a row of small bottles.

I shake my head. “I have to head into work early.”

“I have a morning flight too.”

I try to ignore the disappointment in my chest. No, not disappointment. If Walker was a local, I wouldn’t be here. We only work because, after tonight, I’ll probably never see him again. I shouldn’t see him again. Wanting to enjoy every final moment I have with this most perfect man, who thinks I’m perfection, I unzip my vest and drape it over the desk chair.

“Is it okay if I stay a while?” I don’t want to be presumptuous, but he’s a guy. Granted, he hasn’t asked to have another one-night stand. Or would this be called a two-night stand?

“Riley.” He steps into my space and cups my face in his big, strong hands. “You can stay as long as you’d like.”

I shouldn’t feel guilty, but what I’m doing is wrong, even if Jackson said it’s okay. He wants me to sow my wild oats, but my oats aren’t wild. I’m not this woman. The one who can have sex with strangers.

Fine. Walker isn’t a stranger anymore but...I’m engaged. We have an open relationship, and there’s no jealousy on either end, but still. I’m not an open relationship kind of woman.

“Riley?” Walker tilts his head down, studying my face. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“Oh, I’m quite comfortable with you. That’s kind of the problem.” What if Walker isn’t the random hookup kind of guy either? What if he wants us to have a long-distance relationship? He put my number in his phone. Hell, he called me Perfection. What if he wants something more?

“I’m not following.”

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and step out of his hold. “I want tonight to happen, Walker. You have no idea how badly I want it to happen, but I can’t. I’m at a place in my life where I don’t have the time or ability for...for anything more. I’m not sure what you’re looking for, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I want exactly what you want, Riley.”

“But—”

“No buts.” He captures my lips with his and tangles his fingers in my hair, massaging my scalp.

I fall into his hard body and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him closer to me. I deserve this. I deserve happiness. To feel loved—even if it’s only physical. I deserve this little bit of selfishness in my life. I deserve Walker and whatever he wants to offer me.

He keeps his hands above my neck, but I don’t want to wait anymore. We’ve been at this foreplay stage for hours now. I drop my hands to his waist and find the bottom of his sweatshirt, slipping my fingers underneath until I find his warm, hard abs.

Walker sucks in a breath as I clutch at his back before dropping my hands to his ass. Everything about him is hard. His abs, his ass, his cock as it rubs against my stomach. But his heart is soft, as are his kisses.

He kisses me softly, waiting for me to take the lead. It’s not fair that this man is so perfect. So wonderful. So right for me when I’m no longer right for him.

I glide my tongue along his bottom lip and push into his mouth, taking everything I possibly can in this kiss. If it’s our last, I want it all. Sweet, gentle, rough, hard, fast, and slow. I don’t know how he does it, but Walker makes all my wishes come true.

Sliding his hand under my thigh, he lifts my leg and circles it around his hips. He lifts me in his hands and carries me across the room to the bed. Instead of plopping me down or falling on top of me, he sits at the edge and holds me in his lap.

We’re still fully clothed, which needs to be remedied. Quickly. While I’d love to spend all night with Walker, my heart won’t be able to handle falling for him. This has to be about sex, scratching the itch, and then I need to leave.

For good.

“I fucking love kissing you.” Walker frames my face in his hands and slows his kisses, staring at me, his stormy eyes filled with lust and longing.

“You know what would make this make out session even better?” I wiggle in his lap, pressing myself against his hard length, and grin when he gasps.

“I have a few thoughts.”

“Hm.” I run my fingers through his short hair and press my chest into his. “I wonder if we’re on the same page.”

Flirting with Walker is fun and easy. It should worry me that I’m so comfortable with him, and I allow the guilt to creep for only a moment before I tamp it back down again.

“You know how much I like to read.” He rubs his nose along my jawline, inhaling my scent before resting his lips on my neck behind my ear. “I’m really good at reading between the lines.”

“Is that so?”

Walker gently tugs my earlobe between his teeth. “I need you naked.”

“And here I thought you could read me like a book.”

He tips his head back and studies me, the line between his brow deepening. His hands drop from my face and I take his moment of surprise to push him back on the bed.

I hover over him, my hair hanging low and brushing over his shoulders. “I was thinking about how much better this would be if you were naked.”

A slow smile forms on his lips. He pushes back my hair and holds it in one hand. “Great minds think alike. Why don’t we both get out of these clothes and take our make out session to the next level.”

I push myself up so I’m straddling his hips and grin. “ Now we’re on the same page.”

It’s quick and sloppy and wonderful as our hands grope at each other’s clothes in a rush to take them off. When we’re both finally naked and wrapped in each other’s arms in the center of the bed, we slow our kisses.

“Like I said,” Walker murmurs into my mouth. “I fucking love kissing you.”

He needs to stop with the sweet talk or I’ll never be able to protect my heart. Sex. This has to be about sex. No feelings allowed.

“I’m kind of tired of kissing your mouth.” I pull back and roll away from his body. “There’s another part of you I’d like to wrap my lips around.”

I don’t give him a moment to register what I’m doing before I take his hard length into my mouth. I don’t ease my lips and tongue down his shaft. There’s no playing. No finessing. I deep throat him instantly, not giving either of us time to think with our heads or our hearts.

“Fucking hell, Riley.” He clutches at my hair and there’s a slight pain at my scalp, which I love. It’s not something I ever fantasized about in a relationship, rough sex.

But since a relationship is impossible between us, rough sex is what this needs to be. I bob my head up and down, taking him deep, then dragging my lips and my teeth along him and sucking his tip.

“Fuck. Riley. Fuck.” His hips lift and his free hand grips at the sheet under him. “Slow down, baby. Fuck.”

I suck his tip hard, and he instantly releases my hair and pushes me off him and rolls us over so I’m pinned under him. His breaths come hard and quick as he hovers over me, beads of perspiration dotting his forehead.

“You trying to give me a heart attack?” He lowers his forehead to the place between my shoulder and neck. I can feel his heart race as he tries to catch his breath.

“Guess we’re on different chapters, huh?”

Walker pinches my side. “Smart ass.”

I wiggle under him until the tip of his penis nudges my opening. Spreading my legs wide, I lift my hips to him, but he draws away.

“You’re way ahead of me. Or I should say, I’m way ahead of you. Time for you to catch up.”

He slides down my body, taking one nipple in his mouth and sucking the tip as aggressively as I sucked his cock while he toys with the other one between his fingertips.

“Oh, God.”

“Right here, babe.” He switches nipples and I shamelessly rub my aching center against him. “Need something?”

I love how he flirts and teases during sex, but tonight, it’s our last. I need him to wreck me.

“I need you to fuck me.” Hell, Kendall would be proud of my mouth. I’m never like this with partners, not that I’ve had one in a hot minute. Other than Walker.

He releases my nipple with a pop and lifts those sexy eyes at me. “I like you desperate for me, Riley. I like it way too much.”

Shit. That’s not supposed to happen. He’s not supposed to like me more.

“You’re very talky tonight.” I wrap my legs around his hips and grind myself into him.

“You’re very...perfect.”

That does it. I’m a gooey, melty, horny, mess of a sap. Walker is everything I’ve been looking for in a man and then some. Fate hates me. God hates me. And Walker’s going to hate me if he ever finds out.

Even if Jackson weren’t in the picture, this would never work out between us. Walker lives on the other side of the country. I have no desire to move to California, and I’m not about to ask him if he’d move three thousand miles for me. I don’t even know what he does for work, where his family is, if he has brothers or sisters.

What we have is amazing chemistry. Nothing more. Our lives are too different for anything to ever happen between us. Believing this helps me not feel as guilty about our hookups. Because that’s all this is between us.

Chemistry. Sex. Good times. It’s not what relationships are built on.

“Riley?”

I snap out of it and blink away my thoughts. He’s staring down at me, still hovering over my chest.

I have no idea what he asked me, if he asked anything. Keeping it light and flirty, I throw my hands in the air and let out a dramatic sigh. “Is that all you’ve got? Because I’m pretty sure I kissed you better than you kissed me—Oh!”

Walker gives me no warning before he dives between my legs and laps my pussy with his tongue. He doesn’t take it slow. No, he thrusts in and out in a hurried frenzy in the same manner I took his cock.

“God. Walker. Oh, God.” I lift my hips to his mouth and reach for the sheets under me while he attacks my pussy.

His fingers replace his tongue and he hooks them inside, making my toes curl into the bed for leverage. He sucks my clit and buries his face deeper between my legs. I can’t help the way my thighs clamp around his head, holding him there while he shows no mercy.

“Walker! I’m going to—”

He adds another finger and sucks harder, and I would have catapulted off the bed if his arm wasn’t holding me down. Electricity rushes through my body and I lose my vision, my hearing, my sight, as the orgasm combusts through my body.

If my heart wasn’t racing like a fucking machine, I’d think I was dead. The only sound I hear is the beating of my heart, and I swear it’s between my ears instead of in my chest. I lay spent, spread eagle on the bed, and am faintly aware of Walker tearing open a condom.

“Ready for the next chapter, baby?”

I’m too spent to lift my head, but I open my eyes to a grinning sexy beast of a man. “You don’t play fair.”

“A heart attack for a heart attack. I’d say we’re even.”

I can’t help the satisfied smile on my lips. Walker rests both arms on either side of my face and brushes his lips across mine as he slowly sinks his cock in me.

“Perfection,” he moans.

He fills me completely. I’m stretched thin, but not painfully so. He’s large, and hard, and I mold to him as if I were made for him. Our bodies sync as he thrusts slowly in and out of me. I wrap my arms and legs around him, holding him tight, never wanting to let go.

After our frenzied foreplay, the slow, languid lovemaking is a nice change.

Lovemaking.

I should drive my heels into his ass and make him fuck me like a one-night stand. Like a casual hook up. Like I don’t matter to him and he doesn’t matter to me.

But I can’t. Instead, my body holds on tight to everything he has to offer, knowing it will be the last. I can’t see him again. What I’m doing is wrong. To him, to me, to Jackson.

Especially since I’m pretty sure I crossed the line with deceiving in a much worse way.

I hold on to every sound, every thrust, every touch, every kiss that Walker gives me, and keep my tears to myself until I let myself into my apartment an hour later.