I grazed the walls of her wet pussy, fingering her old-school, thrusting two fingers into her and making sure her clit and pussy were thoroughly wet. My hand teased her with a come-hither motion that slammed into her G-spot again and again and a-fucking-gain, slowly enough to build her orgasm gradually, like never-ending foreplay. Her head rolled from side to side on the wall, and I had to chase her for every kiss and bite.

“Touch my clit,” she begged, hooking her finger in the titanium ring and tugging. I was so close I could feel the cum rushing through my dick. I laughed into our kiss, because it was such a trip, having Jesse talk like that. The old or the new or anything in between.

“Ask nicely.”

“Please touch my clit.”

“Will you go surfing with me tomorrow morning?”

“Maybe.”

I dragged two fingers below her clit and pressed them to her core. She chased my touch with her pussy, but I withdrew quickly. She groaned.

“Will Edie be there?”

“Who the fuck cares about Edie? Maybe she will. Maybe she won’t. She’s married. And irrelevant. You’re my girl.”

My girl.

My girl.

My girl.

The sentence echoed in my apparently otherwise empty head. I didn’t know what made me say that. Maybe the crazy need for it to be real. Truth was, it drove me crazy that Hale had even looked at her. I wanted to tear his eyeballs out and make a smoothie with them for even noticing she existed.

She squeezed me harder, and I bit down on her lip out of instinct, reopening a recent small cut that made her bleed. I sucked her pain into my mouth.

“I’m your girl?” she asked. My heart raced like a wild horse, galloping straight into her little fists. Break it and I’ll fuck you up, I wanted to warn. But that was bullshit, and I knew it.

“Not to be messed with, not to be touched. So what’s it going to be?”

Pause. “I’ll surf with you tomorrow.”

“That’s my girl.” I pushed my fingers into her clit and rubbed until she choked on her breath. She pumped me until her hand began to shake and her legs gave out. Her orgasm was like a domino, the fall long and steady and epic.

She dropped to her knees, writhing and panting, just as I said, “I’m coming, too.”

She wrapped her lips around my cock and looked up to me, her blue eyes shining. I fisted her hair, realizing what needed to be done to save both of us.

Giving up my dream.

“I want you to swallow every drop, Snowflake,” I said as I shot my load into her mouth. I made it messy, not going straight for her throat, but pulling out halfway through so she could taste me on her tongue. Marking her in all the ways I could.

She swallowed. I tucked myself back in.

“What did you want to talk to me about in the text message?” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, looking up at me. I took her hand and helped her get to her feet. What I wanted to tell her was that we needed to stop doing this couple bullshit. But now I had a solution. It was going to make me hate myself forever, but I would also get to keep Jesse.

“I wanted to tell you that you snore.”

She punched my arm.

I smiled.

She bought it.

“Bane?” a soft voice probed, forcing me to open my eyes.

It took me a second to figure out where I was. Flung over my messy bed, catching up on some sleep. I looked up and saw Grier pulling an elastic off of her hair, letting her blonde locks fall down all the way to her ass. She was wearing a summer dress I’d once told her made me want to eat her ass. Yellow with cornflower blue daisies. It did nothing for me now.

“Shit,” I croaked, jerking up to my forearms and rubbing a hand over my face. “What’s the time?”

“Eight o’clock. You didn’t open the door so I let myself in.” Her fingers grazed the strap of her bra. Eight o’clock. I was supposed to be meeting Darren at six at his Newport Beach office. I’d even set my alarm, not wanting to miss the meeting for obvious reasons, but I must’ve crashed. I looked down and saw the nightstand clock broken into pieces on the floor. Shit. Goddamn Beck was going to be the end of me with those long surfing sessions. Asshole better get third place or above, otherwise I was going to kick his ass all the way back to Hermosa Beach.

I jerked upright, tossing a shirt on, when a shriek left Grier’s mouth.

“Oh my God, you shaved! Roman, you are gorgeous!”

I wished people would stop saying that. No real man wanted to be described as gorgeous or beautiful. I wasn’t a fucking cocktail dress. But seeing the look on Jesse’s face last night when I’d climbed through her window was enough to make me stand by my decision. She’d looked at me with soft eyes, and her sudden submission was worth waxing the rest of my body, too.