Bayside Heat Read online

  “They’re a leader in their field,” Serena said, reaching for her drink.

  “Will you be back for the taste testing for the wedding?” Desiree asked.

  Beneath the table, Drake took Serena’s hand and placed it on his upper thigh. She shot him a warning look and tried to pull her hand back, but he pressed his over it, keeping it in place. She leaned her elbow on the table, hoping to make her hand on his leg less noticeable, but that just brought his hand farther up on her thigh.

  He raised his brows, a devilish grin lifting his lips. She glared at him.

  “What is going on over there?” Mira’s eyes moved between Drake and Serena. “You look like you want to hit him.”

  “Something like that,” Serena said through gritted teeth.

  “Taste testing?” Desiree asked again, bringing Serena’s mind back to her question.

  Drake brushed his fingers between Serena’s legs. She lifted her glass and began guzzling her drink.

  Violet narrowed her eyes, and with a knowing smile aimed at Desiree, she said, “I’ve never heard it called that, but okay.”

  Serena spit out her drink, spilling it all over herself and the table. “Shit. Sorry!”

  “Oh no!” Desiree handed her a napkin.

  Everyone began wiping up the table, except Drake, who reached over to wipe droplets of alcohol from her breastbone. His eyes were dark and full of desire, and she was sure everyone was onto them. She swatted his hand away.

  “What did you mean, Violet? What’s wrong with taste testing?” Desiree huffed out a breath.

  “She meant something dirty,” Mira explained, turning a questioning look to Serena—and then to Drake.

  “Ohmygod.” Serena sank back into her chair.

  “I always feel like I’m two steps behind,” Desiree complained. “You keep changing code words. Can’t you just say sex?” Desiree asked.

  “No!” Serena snapped. “We’re not having sex!” All eyes turned to her. “Great. Thanks, Violet.”

  “I can say it, baby.” Rick nuzzled against Desiree’s cheek and said, “Let’s go home and have sex.”

  Now Desiree was as red-cheeked as Serena felt.

  “God.” Serena swiped at her clothes to keep from looking at their knowing stares. “I’m all wet.”

  Laughter burst from Violet’s lips. “This is news to you? Because you’re not going to win any Academy Awards for that performance of innocence—”

  “Violet!” Drake warned. “Come on, Supergirl. Time to get you out of those clothes.”

  “Finally!” Violet lifted her glass in a toast and said, “Proceed with the long-awaited fuckery!”

  “Violet!” Desiree chastised.

  “We are not fucking!” Serena insisted.

  Drake shut Violet down with another harsh glare and hauled Serena against him.

  “Stop. They already think I’m lying about sleeping with you!” she said in a harsh whisper.

  Drake slid a serious gaze over their friends. With his arm protectively around Serena, he said, “Let me make this very clear: Serena and I are not sleeping together. We have never slept together.”

  “Well, that’s technically not true,” Mira said. “You’ve fallen asleep on the beach together.”

  “Aw, you guys are so cute,” Desiree said as she got up to hug Serena. “You should go home and change out of your wet clothes.”

  Drake waggled his brows. Serena rolled her eyes as the others got up to hug her goodbye.

  “I love you, sis. I’m going to miss you, so make sure you call me a lot,” Chloe said. Then she whispered, “And I want details!”

  Serena groaned.

  “Me too!” Emery said, pulling Serena into a fierce hug. “Have fun taste testing.”

  “I’m never going to live tonight down, am I?” Serena asked as Mira hugged her.

  “Probably not,” Mira agreed. “I don’t know what’s going on between you and my brother tonight, but rest assured, I do not want any details.”

  “That’s good, because I don’t know what’s going on either,” she confided. “I love you, and I’m going to miss you so much.”

  “I have a feeling I’m going to be wiping Mira’s tears tomorrow morning when she wakes up and her bestie has moved to Boston.” Matt wrapped Serena in his arms. “Good luck. You’re going to make us all proud.”

  “Damn right.” Rick smirked as he crushed Serena to him. “Don’t worry, Serena. I’ll wipe Drake’s tears tomorrow.”

  Drake scowled as Dean moved in for a group hug, squishing Serena between him and Rick.

  “All right, you two, that’s enough.” Drake tugged her out from between them and said for her ears only, “We’ve got to get out of here before I lose my mind.”

  “I love you guys!” she said as Drake grabbed her purse. “Save my seat at the breakfast table on weekends!”

  Their friends’ voices trailed after them as they left the bar. Drake held her closer with every step across the parking lot. She was sure he’d be all over her as soon as they reached the truck. She was so nervous as he helped her into the truck, she felt numb and a little dizzy. He reached across her lap for the seat belt, his chest brushing against hers as he buckled her in, which she appreciated because she wasn’t sure she could get her brain to work well enough to do it herself.

  Watching her intently, he said, “You’d better stay on your side of the truck, or we might not make it to your place.”

  He closed her door and went around to the driver’s side, while she tried to stop her world from spinning.

  The drive to her cottage didn’t take long, but it felt like an eternity. Questions circled her brain like a carnival ride, as exhilarating as they were alarming. Why hadn’t he kissed her yet? Was this it? Was he having second thoughts and now he was back into doing the right thing? Would he even kiss her good night? Would he come inside at all? Did she want him to?

  He parked in the driveway and came around to help her out. She took his hand as she stepped out of the truck, which she’d done too many times to count. On the nights he’d driven her home from outings with their friends, he always walked her up to her door, but tonight she was hyperaware of his tempting, strong body beside her, how tightly he held her hand, and how big that hand was.

  She fished her keys from her purse, feeling the heat of his stare, and awkwardly unlocked the door. He moved her hair over her shoulder, as calm as a summer breeze, which made her even more nervous as she pushed the door open. She caught sight of the bracelet he’d given her, bringing back all of his naughty whispers.

  He took her hand, drawing her against him on the porch. Her wet shirt pressed chillingly against her breasts, but his warmth could have burned it right off. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His approval-seeking gaze told her he was offering her an out. Her emotions sped and skidded. She’d imagined this moment so many times, had fantasized about all the things he’d done and said at the bar, but nothing compared to the real thing. Drake’s power of seduction was a hundred times stronger than she could have ever imagined.

  He splayed his hand across her back, as he’d done when they’d danced, sending tiny shocks rippling through her. He kissed her cheek, and she closed her eyes, trying to calm her racing heart. A kiss on the cheek shouldn’t make her entire body plead for more, yet she was going up on her toes, clutching the front of his shirt, breathless and needy.

  “How did we get here?” tumbled from her lips as he threaded his fingers into her hair and held on tight, searching her eyes.

  He skimmed his lips over her jaw, slowing to press light kisses there, and said, “I don’t know.” He brushed his scruff along her cheek, abrading the tender skin, and nipped at her earlobe. Each touch of his slow seduction sent erotic sensations skittering through her.

  “Do you want to be here?” he asked roughly, tightening his hold on her.

  “Yes—”

  Heat flared in his eyes, and he lowered his face toward hers, stopping short of kissing
her and lingering there like the most sought-after treat, just out of reach, making her breathless and anxious.

  “I’ve waited so long to kiss you,” he said in a low growl. He tugged her hair, angling her face beneath his, and slowly traced her lower lip with his tongue. “To taste you.”

  He kissed the edges of her mouth, pressing his hand firmly on her lower back, his arousal temptingly insistent against her belly. She clung to him as his hot lips touched her neck, kissing and licking, taking his time as he revved her up one sinful second at a time. Just when her legs were ready to give out, his mouth covered the curve of her shoulder in a hard suck, and then he feasted on her sensitive skin, grinding against her until she was a boneless, trembling mess.

  “Kiss me,” she pleaded.

  He drew back with a wolfish grin, and in the next breath he was lavishing her shoulder with more taunting openmouthed kisses and grazing his teeth over her skin, causing pleasure and pain to collide inside her. Never in her life had she been so turned on. She arched against him, groping his ass, needing more but not wanting him to stop his masterful seduction. His wicked tongue moved across her breastbone in mind-numbingly slow strokes. She had no idea how her legs carried her, but they stumbled into the cottage, and he backed her up against the door, pinning her there with nothing more than his hungry eyes raking down the length of her with lethal calmness. She was breathing too hard, shaking from fingers to toes, every nerve ending already aflame as he visually devoured her. His gaze crawled north again, lingering on her breasts. Her nipples tingled and burned with the need to be touched by him.

  He took hold of one end of the tie that laced up the center of her shirt, and his eyes found hers. “If you want to remain only friends, now’s the time to tell me, Supergirl.”

  Was he nuts? She couldn’t freaking speak right then if he’d held a gun to her head, so she began fumbling with the buttons on his shirt to convey her answer.

  Without a word, he lifted her into his arms, guiding her legs around his waist, and finally, hungrily, crushed his mouth to hers in a penetrating kiss that resonated through her like a symphony. Every insistent stroke of his tongue took her higher; his roughness hit like crescendos as he took their kisses deeper. Just when she thought she would come apart from nothing more than this, he eased his efforts to the sweetest, tenderest kisses she’d ever experienced. He was like the most intense, passionate roller-coaster ride, taking her harder, more demanding, holding her in place with one hand buried in her hair, the other gripping her bottom. He continued his exquisite possession, devouring her fast and then slow, rough and then sweet, until her thoughts fragmented and she gave up trying to think at all.

  The next thing she knew, he was on the move, carrying her to the bedroom. She could do little more than cling to him as they ate each other’s mouths, and when he lowered her to the bed, he went with her, never breaking their connection.

  His strong body pressed down on her, his hands cradling her head as he took their kisses to mind-numbing depths. His kisses were whole-body invasions, causing her heart to beat faster, her breathing to become shallow and then frantic, as she filled with desperation. She clawed at his back, tugging at his shirt with the need to feel his bare skin on hers. She was completely and utterly lost in a frenzy of lust and greed and something much more animalistic.

  He reared up on his knees and stripped off his shirt. Her hands were drawn to his chest like metal to magnet, moving over his muscles, through his chest hair. How many times had she imagined doing exactly this? His fingers circled her wrists, and he kissed one palm and then the other, his eyes never leaving hers. His lips were soft and hot, and when he touched them to the underside of her wrist, she held her breath. He sealed his mouth over the sensitive skin, driving her out of her mind by sucking and licking, nipping and kissing all the way from the underside of her wrist to the crook of her elbow and back again. She writhed beneath him, feeling every slick of his tongue like a spear of pleasure between her legs. She never knew mere kisses could have this effect on her, but Drake didn’t merely do anything. He consumed. Claimed. Possessed.

  “Drake,” she begged. Her thong was drenched, her thighs damp with her arousal. He wasn’t kidding. He really would make her come from sheer desire.

  He continued kissing and sucking, all the way up her arm to her shoulder. Then he roughly captured her mouth again, lowering his body over hers. His hard length rocked against her center. She was so wet, so ready, every bit of friction took her closer to the edge. She gasped for breath, and he breathed air into her lungs, unrelenting in his thrusts as he claimed her hands and held them above her head. His scruff abraded her lips and cheeks with the force of his kisses. One hand pushed beneath her bottom, clutching her cheek so hard, it forced her sex open, allowing him to press his shaft where she needed it most, taking her up, up, up. She was hanging on by a thread, so focused on chasing the peak, her jaw went slack as she angled her hips.

  He tore his mouth away and said, “Don’t move your hands.”

  Before she could process his words, he grabbed her ass with both hands, holding her open as he thrust against her. The rough denim and his hard heat sent her soaring, and when he sank his teeth into her neck, she cried out as a million shiny stars exploded behind her closed lids. Her body bucked, her sex clenched, and he captured her mouth again, kissing her so forcefully, she spun higher, out of control. A litany of indiscernible sounds and pleas flew from her lungs into his. Just when she came down from the peak, gasping for breath, his mouth left hers, and she whimpered like a lost soul.

  He blazed his way down her body, nipping and sucking, whispering sweetly as he went, but she was too delirious to process his words. When he reached her shirt, he took the tie between his teeth and tugged it free. Holy mother of sexiness, that was hot.

  He began kissing her oversensitive skin, and her eyes fluttered closed.

  “Eyes open, sweetheart. I want you to see who’s driving you wild.”

  Her eyes flew open with his command, stirring all sorts of passions she’d never known existed. She craved that roughness of his voice, the fierceness in his eyes as he loosened her shirt, and then unthreaded the tie completely. He pushed the two sides of her shirt to the mattress, leaving her bare from the hips up.

  “I’ve waited a fucking lifetime for this. You’re gorgeous, Serena.”

  He dragged the silky tie over her breasts. Her nipples pebbled against the sensual touch, and he lowered his mouth over one taut peak, teasing her with light flicks of his tongue.

  “Oh God,” she said in a long, heated whisper.

  He took her nipple between his teeth and tugged, sending shocks of lightning to her sex. Her hips shot off the mattress.

  “Mm. Supergirl likes that.”

  He did it again, and her eyes slammed closed with the mix of pleasure and pain.

  “I love your eyes, sweetheart. I want them on me.”

  Every word was laced with emotion, but the underlying command was not lost on her, and Lord help her, she loved it.

  Her eyes opened, and he continued his magnificent ministrations, sucking and biting, loving each breast. She struggled to keep from closing her eyes, and at the same time, watching him was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen. The pleased look he gave her as he tasted her made her even hotter, more desperate for him. Her entire body tingled and throbbed as his mouth moved slowly over every inch of each breast, sucking the underside of one as he groped the other. She’d never known her body was so sensitive, but every slick of his tongue made her wetter. His hips were wedged between her legs, and he angled up, thrusting against her swollen sex in the same rhythm as he squeezed her nipple and sucked her other breast, causing a collision of sensations. She bowed up beneath him, her legs opening wider so he could press harder, and sweet baby Jesus, the man knew exactly what he was doing. A searing ache burned inside her, an orgasm fluttering just out of reach. He pinched harder, sucking so roughly a spear of pain shot through her core, exploding in a gus
t of fiery sensations. She cried out, clutching at the mattress. He didn’t relent, holding her at the peak, heightening and extending her arousal just as he’d promised. She quivered and quaked, caught in a web of exquisite sensations. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, could only surrender to his divine ecstasies, spiraling into oblivion.

  She felt suspended by waves of pleasures as his mouth and hands traveled down her body. His fingers pressed firmly into her skin as his lips brushed ever so lightly beside them, on her ribs, her waist, her belly. Every squeeze of his hand was accentuated by a tantalizing press of his lips and slick of his tongue. She was mesmerized by the look in his eyes as he moved from her face to the part of her body he was cherishing, then back again. Every time their eyes met, her pulse spiked, and when his mouth touched her skin, it brought a rush of too many sensations to pick apart.

  He pushed up her skirt, and she lifted her hips for him to remove it, but the coy grin he flashed told her he wasn’t going to. Instead, he lowered his mouth to her inner thigh, sucking the wetness of her arousal and sending more electric currents coursing through her. He gripped her thighs, just above her knees, spreading them wider as he kissed her knee and up along her inner thigh until he reached her center. He hovered over her sex, breathing her in, and placed a single kiss to the thin material separating them. Then his mouth met her other thigh in hard sucks and tender kisses, all the way down to her knee. Her skin was on fire as he tasted his way back up her flesh, eyes locked on her.

  “Drake, you’re driving me crazy—”

  He dragged his tongue along the crease beside her sex. Her inner muscles pulsed and swelled in anticipation.

  “Give me your hands,” he rasped, and she did.

  He pressed his palms flat against hers, holding them to the mattress beside her, and lowered his mouth beside her sex again, teasing and taunting all around it but never moving her thong or touching her there. She hung on the brink of madness as he loved her thighs, belly, and finally, her breasts, taking her expertly over the edge time and time again.