Against All Odds

Chapter 19

KILLIAN

"Stels, you OK?"

She turned to me, framed in the light of a full moon. The ocean glistened and rippled with its reflection behind her.

Her smile was warm, but I found her eyes pensive. I sat down in the sand beside her, wrapping my arm around her waist and tugging her into my body. "Yeah, why?"

"You've gone a bit quiet," I pointed out, then nodded at the howling group at the bottom of the sand dune. It wasn't like Stella to remove herself away from everybody.

She gave me a playful nudge. "Thank you for checking up on me."

The woman must have known by then that she consumed my every breathable thought... it was impossible not to check up on her. Throughout the duration of the party, from the limo to the boat, from the boat back into the limo, and then the disreputable establishment that was classified as a bar, Stella had almost been on my radar the entire time. If it weren't for one of the servers on the damn boat, I would have had my fingers so deep inside her...

Not that I was only thinking about fucking her. Although it was damn hard to think about anything else. I had no idea what sort of dress Mia had gotten the girls to wear, but Stella's may as well have been painted onto her skin. I had been hard-pressed the entire evening not to run my hand over her hip and ass, lace our fingers together, drag her onto my lap... everybody needed to know that this beautiful woman was with me.

But she wasn't.

Not really.

The crash of the waves on the shore was loud, almost drowning out the drunken revelry of our peers below. Stella turned her head to consider the shadowy vista before us, her hand sliding onto my thigh. "Is it lame of me to want to go home and crawl into bed?" she asked, half-laughingly.

I shrugged, a smile teasing one side of my lips upwards. It was late- this was our own brand of after party, convening with reckless abandon to the beach near Sadie's parents' house as we had done so often in our youth. "I would say yes- for you," I said. "But because I'm selfish and want to crawl into bed with you... nope. Not lame at all."

Her fingers squeezed my knee. "I thought that was off limits."

"Huh, that's funny."

She snapped her head to squint at me, her eyes reflecting the silvery moonlight with an ethereal quality that made my heart stutter. "What is?"

I pretended to dig around in my ear. "I don't believe I heard myself say we would fuck."

She snorted, digging her elbow into my ribs, making me clench with the sensation. "You're a dog. What would we do then?"

"I'm the dog, huh? Says the girl who wants to take advantage of me. Shame on you, Huxley."

"Uh huh, and why would you assume I'd even let you into my bed in the first place?"

"You would," I told her confidently.

Her eyebrows drew up, disappearing under those wild bangs of hers. "With what incentive?" A delicate little snort left her. "It sounds like you intend to climb between my sheets for, what? A chat?"

"Maybe." I reached across her body, gripping her waist, and pulling her over my thighs until she straddled me. She somehow managed to kick up enough sand to fill the Sahara Desert once over, covering the both of us. I ignored it... for now. "Or maybe I just intend to hold you in my arms until those drunken little snores of yours wake up the entire town."

"Oh, so rude!" She wriggled and squirmed, endeavouring to rid herself of me, but I held her hips firmly, locking her against my body with my knees.

"I'm joking!" I laughed, earning myself an irate glower as she stilled against me. "Well, kind of."