Conception (The Wellingtons, #4) Read online

  Amelia’s eyes remain innocent, as if she didn’t basically tell me to get the fuck on with it through her pussy, but then she tugs her lower lip between her teeth, holding back a laugh.

  Fucking hell. She’s so damn lovable. So damn sexy. So damn feisty, and wet, and perfect, and everything I never fucking knew I wanted or needed, yet now, I’ll never know how I’ll let her go.

  And fuck me, she’s so damn wet. So incredibly eager. And after experiencing my fingers and my tongue, she’s so fucking ready and so fucking done waiting.

  Fortunately for both of us, so am I.

  Knowing it’s time I stop torturing both of us, I withdraw from her with painstakingly reluctant ease. My cock misses her warmth even as I savor the feel of her, hot and tight around me with each miniscule withdraw until just the head of my cock remains inside. Amelia lets out a guttural moan against my mouth, and I relinquish the last little bit of control I’ve been holding on to.

  Teeth clash as my mouth descends on hers, but it’s barely jarring enough to notice. Amelia holds tight this time, allowing me to drive up into her, impaling her on my cock hard, fast, and not stopping until I’m embedded so deep in her that I see stars. I scarcely give her time to adjust before pulling out then quickly slamming back in with such force that she gasps into my mouth.

  Her brief hesitation allows my tongue to overpower hers, and we engage in a duel that, no matter the victor, we’ll both come out on the winning side. Over and over, my cock soars up into her depths, each thrust more powerful than the last, and my tongue reigns supreme in her mouth. Amelia seems to realize her hands are all the power she has, so instead of trying to win her dominance, she rakes her nails across the expanse of my shoulders, up my neck, and into my hair, where she tugs enough to send a pleasurable jolt of pain down my spine.

  I’m too fucking gone to care. And I fucking love it.

  She could slice me up head to toe, and until I come inside her, I wouldn’t object.

  Lips feud. Tongues tangle. Cock meets hot, wet heat in thrust upon thrust.

  The rhythm between the way I’m fucking both her mouth and her pussy threatens to send me over the edge all too damn soon.

  Climax is inevitable the second I slide a hand between us and strum her clit with my thumb.

  “Oh!” she explains, tearing her lips from mine, her head falling back as if the sensations of my cock and tongue were too much to handle in tandem. Her roaming hands cease movement, and she grips the skin beneath them. “Ohhhhhhh.”

  She repeats that as I rock back up into her, her eyes fluttering closed like I’ve depleted her energy and she’s now just going along for the ride, waiting for the moment of bliss that isn’t far off. Fuck, I don’t even know how I’ve been able to hold off this long.

  “Baby.”

  The one word is all it takes for her to give me those lustful eyes again.

  “Ready to come?” I can tell that some smart-ass retort comes to her mind. Instead, I get a sweet-ass nod. “Help me out.”

  Hooded eyes widen with desire, and I delight in the way Amelia craves to be an active participant. She lifts her back up off the wall, readjusts her legs around my waist, and grins down at me. “Let’s go.”

  And we do. With each upward drive into her, I use my hands to force her hips down while she rocks them against me with the hot glide of flesh on flesh. We’re a perfect team in this, and I can’t imagine not doing this with her.

  Not wanting to contemplate that though, I rain kisses along the curve of her neck, nibbling every so often, wanting to give her a little taste of her own medicine. She moans when I bite down more harshly than I meant to, and as I’m about to ensure she’s okay, I feel her tightening around me.

  Note to self: Amelia likes a little pain.

  I slow my pace; Amelia moans again, but this time, the sound isn’t pleasure. It’s impatience.

  She grabs the sides of my face, her eyes boring into mine. “I’ve waited long enough. Fuck me, Knox,” she insists. “Fuck me like you’ve never fucked before.”

  How the hell could I say no to that? I can’t. So I don’t. I go wild, thrusting deeper, harder, faster, pushing her hips down onto my raging hard-on, wanting to do anything, everything I can to finally get her there. She holds on for dear life, her head falling to the crook of my shoulder as she bounces up and down on my cock until I’m nearly bursting.

  “Amelia.” The word is part groan, part whisper—all reverence.

  Her only response is a muffled moan against my neck. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her warm breath panting against my chest.

  “Babe, lift up and give me those eyes,” I insist. “I want to watch you come on my cock.”

  She complies so damn readily that it makes me want to scream. Her eyes flutter open, swirling with a mixture of lust, desire, and something I’m not ready to examine as they search mine. Buried to the hilt inside her, I pause, hoping I reflect back whatever she’s aiming at me. Just because I’m not ready to acknowledge it’s there doesn’t mean I want to hide it, either. Hell, right now, I don’t think I can even if I try.

  The moment ends abruptly at the sensation of her walls contracting around me. Not wanting her to reach that critical point just yet, I increase my pace, frenzied, hurriedly, desperate for us to come in unison.

  The second she cries out her pleasure, I plummet over the edge along with her.

  Every single nerve ending in my body ignites, bursting with immense pleasure. Her walls clench, holding me inside her—her body’s way of telling me that it loved this. Craved this. I swell; she compresses, and it’s just so goddamn perfect, like we’re merged together in this ridiculously primal and intimate way. She holds me in place as if she never wants to let me go, and I don’t move. Because I don’t want her to.

  That’s when it hits me. Amelia and I are just like a passing storm on a summer’s day. We’re electrified, thunderous, torrential, and at the end of it, there’s an extravagant fucking rainbow telling the whole world we were here, we came, and everyone should witness the stunning aftermath.

  It’s beautiful.

  It’s fleeting.

  It never lasts.

  In this moment, I hate storms as fucking much as she does.

  Lazy strokes along my shoulder blades bring me back to the cave.

  “Why do you look like you’re a million miles away?”

  Amelia’s question catches me off guard. I rack my brain trying to come up with some sort of an excuse, but then she playfully hits my shoulder and her laugh echoes around us.

  “Geez, Knox, shouldn’t I be the speechless one? After all, you totally just rocked my world in this cave.”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  Her legs loosen from around my waist, and when I release my hold on her, she slides down my body. I take a step back, a sudden chill hitting me as I lose her warmth. I lean down and give her one last peck on the lips before retreating, finding my T-shirt, and coming back to her. I use my shirt to clean her up, and she watches when I wipe myself clean. It’s the first time it dawns on me that we didn’t use protection.

  “Um, so, I just realized…”

  “No condoms?” she asks, and I wonder if the fear is that evident on my face.

  “Yeah. I don’t know what I was thinking. I have some in my shorts, but—”

  Her hands brace my face and she squeezes my cheeks before lifting onto her toes offering me a reassuring kiss. “You weren’t thinking. Neither was I. And that’s fine. I’m rather good at calculating my cycle and we should be fine.”

  I run a hand through my hair, not wanting to scream for joy but also kind of wanting to sink to my knees and beg forgiveness. “Still, I’m sorry—”

  Once again, she cuts me off. “Pretty sure two of us were involved in what just went down. And do you see me complaining? It’s fine, Knox. Don’t give it a second thought.”

  I have no idea how she’s so calm and comfortable about this, but I release my breath and take a play from
her book. If she’s cool, then so am I.

  I hope the storm hasn’t cooled the air too much, ’cause there’s no way I’m putting my soiled T-shirt back on. I get the rest of our clothes, passing Amelia’s off to her, and then find her camera, thankful it’s all in one piece and didn’t get damaged in the frenzy of our fucking.

  “Camera’s all good. If the weather holds, there’s another place I can think of taking you tomorrow.”

  She’s watching me warily.

  So I wag my eyebrows in her direction. “Though perhaps I might want to check a map and see where all the sweet caves in Tennessee are first.”

  “You can’t contain yourself. You’re just dying to say it, aren’t you?” she asks, and I try not to smirk.

  “What’s that?” She’s going to have to spell it out. Because yes, I do want to say it; she just has to ask for.

  She steals my thunder by saying it for me. “Told you so. Ugh, it’s annoying how right you always are.”

  “Hey, when it comes to fucking, never bet against me.”

  Amelia raises an eyebrow and places a hand on her hip. “Pretty sure we had the same amount of experience before we started our little tryst this summer.”

  “Babe, you’ve got me there, but you’re forgetting one thing.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  I stalk towards her and box her in on the wall behind her. “Teenage boys have very wild imaginations.”

  It’s true. Even back when I thought sex was just dry-humping until a girl got “the feeling,” as Gwen called it, or a guy’s dick leaked creamy fluid, I still had fantasies about when, where, and how a guy could get a girl into doing said dry-humping with him. Imagine how I was when I learned that real sex was actually penetration and that it didn’t only have to be in the pussy.

  My imagination ran wild.

  Only now, being here with Amelia, do I finally feel a desire to act on all those late-night teenage boy fantasies. And I want to start right fucking now.

  Hell, I never want to stop.

  Stop, Knox. No future. Something tells me I’m going to have to pound those two words into my head for the remainder of the summer.

  Something else tells me I should just rip the duct tape off and ask Amelia if there’s any way there’s a snowball’s chance in hell she’d be interested in more.

  “Well then. What’d do you say you take me back home and enlighten me on just how wild those imaginations can be.”

  Come again?

  My heads jolts up and I see her lips curved into a wry smile, and my cock inflates. Greedy little bastard. See—pretty girl, mention of sex, instant hard-on. It’s a pretty standard formula.

  She grabs my hand and drags me towards the entrance of the cave, where a deluge of rain continues to fall.

  Amelia pushes me back and then surprises me when she falls to her knees. With hungry eyes, she gazes up at me. “Or, while we wait out the storm, how about we see what I’ve been imagining?”

  And just like that, cock overrides heart. Any fleeting thoughts of changing our plans fly out the fucking window.

  For now.

  Because it’s too soon to tell Amelia that what I’ve been imagining isn’t just her in my bed for the rest of our lives.

  It’s her for the rest of my life.

  I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to admit it.

  I WASN’T LYING WHEN I said it’s annoying that Knox always seems to be right. It’s just, in this particular instance, I was more annoyed because of why he was right.

  I told Knox it was impossible to have sex in a cave. He countered that it was entirely possible. He didn’t warn me, though, that what he was about to embark upon was not sex. Because it wasn’t.

  No, what Knox just did to me in this cave can only be considered… Hell, I don’t know if there’s a word for it. Worship is much too reverent; admiration much too understated. It was some sort of cross between ultimate fucking and slow, deliberate torture.

  The way his hands roamed my body, the sensations he elicited as he buried his head between my legs and drank, sucked, ate, licked, fucked—basically ran the entire gamut—nearly sent me over the edge time and time again. But he didn’t allow that. Hence the torture.

  I don’t know what it was. The darkness, the nature surrounding us, the truths I’d just spilled to him that I’d never told a soul left me vulnerable in a way I’d never felt before. A way I never thought I’d want to feel.

  Yet, through it all, I didn’t have a single regret. Knox didn’t handle me like I was delicate. He didn’t handle me with sympathy—or, hell, even empathy. He allowed me to tell him what I wanted to say, and then he placed it behind us without my even having to ask.

  That’s why I told him he couldn’t make me fall in love with him, never expecting that his response would be the sweetest contrast between lovemaking and fucking that a woman could ever experience.

  One simple request. He did the opposite.

  That’s why part of me hates him right now, even though I know the truth. I’ve fallen hard and I don’t give a single damn. Because when he leaves at the end of the summer, every second, every memory, every piece of myself that he’ll take with him will have been worth it.

  Even if it breaks my heart.

  Before him, I was already broken. With the power to put me back together again, just to have it all come crashing down, it’s all in his hands.

  It doesn’t matter. Knox has given me something I didn’t have when I came to Crystal Cove the beginning of the summer.

  He’s given me back me.

  And even if it all falls apart and we say our goodbyes, sure, I might have a broken heart. But I’ll still have myself, and I will forever be grateful to him for it.

  I just really, really hope it doesn’t come to that.

  I have to find a way to make him stay—or start building the walls around my heart to keep him out. Either way, I have a feeling I’ll still be broken in the end.

  And I think I’m okay with that.

  For now.

  Ever since that day in the cave, I’ve felt closer than ever to Amelia. Hell, anyone. Not that I’ll tell her that. It’s been three weeks of settled bliss without another thunderstorm to spook her. Not that I’d mind playing protector again.

  She hasn’t brought her parents up again; still, I sense a peace in her that wasn’t there before. Like just talking about them for once, saying it all out loud, was the therapy she needed. Not to let them go—I’d never expect that—but to realize it’s okay to move on.

  It’s the closest I’ve ever come to telling her I want more than this, but if she feels the same, she’s tucked those emotions deep down, perhaps where she hides her parents.

  She told me not to make her fall in love with me. I should’ve made her make the same promise. Instead, I work on building my own walls. Reminding myself that this is temporary. Wellington is forever.

  Why the hell does it seem like that’s not enough anymore?

  And why the hell can’t I beat the damn thought out of my mind?

  Along with my fucking obsession with Amelia, the heat wave plaguing the summer hasn’t relented one bit. July brings even more brutal temperatures, which makes it difficult for lazy days at the lake or long hours out exploring the countryside. And that makes it easier to spend long days lazing about in bed, getting to know every curve, every inch, and every freckle on Amelia’s body.

  On the days we actually venture out, it’s usually to neighboring towns so Amelia can help me with the lake house. She picks out light fixtures and bathroom tile and everything in between with me. I love that her touch is on every inch in the place. I also know it’s going to be a constant reminder of her when we’re finished.

  During the last week of July, there’s an unexpected reprieve from the heatwave, so we head out into the mountains for a hike. Amelia’s camera, now practically another appendage, hangs around her neck. As we go along the trail, she stops every so often, taking pictures. She’s
been doing this ever since the day I first took her out with her camera, yet she hasn’t developed any of the photos. I don’t question it, even though I’m not sure what that’s all about.

  “So, tell me more about your dad’s business. What exactly are you going to be doing when you graduate?” she asks, catching me off guard for a moment. It’s not something we’ve ever talked about before. What’s happening beyond this summer. The future.

  “It’s boring,” I tell her, not really wanting to spend my time talking about work. That’s a new development, courtesy of her. “Trust me, your photography is much more interesting.”

  She shoots me a look. “My photography, thus far, is a hobby. I only hope I can turn it into a career someday. But you have your whole life planned out. What’s that like?”

  Safe.

  Comfortable.

  Stifling.

  I’m startled by the last word that comes to my mind. It must be the heat, because never in my life have I thought of my future in the family business as anything other than a welcome legacy.

  “I’ve never thought about it that way. It’s all I’ve ever known. All I’ve ever wanted.”

  She stops and turns to look at me, her head tilted in contemplation. “Do you think that’s true? Or is it because it’s all you’ve known?”

  “I don’t know, Amelia.” I clear my throat. “I mean, I’ve loved going into the office with Dad since I was a kid, and all I’ve ever wanted was to help the business expand. I look forward to graduating and taking a seat at the table.”

  She offers me a reassuring smile. “Then I think you have your answer. It wasn’t a trick question, Knox. You’re lucky, you know. Knowing what you want and having it right there in your grasp. Many people would envy you.”

  “It helps being so tight with my family. Clay’s the same way as me. He and I have plans for the company. We always have. We want to take it to the next level. I’ve worked my ass off for this for my entire life, and I can’t wait to make my dad proud.”

  Amelia gives me a playful bump with her shoulder. “Don’t you think he already is?”

  “Yeah, I suppose so. What about your future? Your dreams? Where do you see yourself in ten years?” I ask, because with each passing day that I get to know her, I’m more interested, more invested in what she wants beyond this summer.