The Best Kind of Forever (Riverside Reapers Book 1)

AERIS

When we get out of the car, the crisp air pervades my nostrils, and a slight breeze whispers over my skin, making the hem of my dress billow. The sorbet sky is clear with the exception of a few clouds, and if I look hard enough, I can faintly see a studding of stars throughout the backdrop of space.

Hayes leads me over to the center of the clearing, and once we find a nice spot to settle in that’s not ridden with rocks and overgrown roots, we plant our stake. There’s absolutely no one in the area, which gives us some much-wanted privacy. He begins to set out our spread on the checkered blanket, and I’m at a loss for words when the food keeps coming, like the basket is some bottomless hole.

There’s a fruit salad, a charcuterie board, two BLTs, a jug of lemonade, and a container of snickerdoodles. Everything looks homemade, and I surmise that Hayes must have employed his cooking skills.

“Are you hungry?” he asks, giving my knee a small squeeze.

I nod, because I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a person can be so considerate. Wilder never took me on dates, and whenever I’d ask him why, he’d turn the narrative on me and tell me I was being too clingy, or that I was asking too much of him. He told me couples didn’t need to go on dates to prove that they cared for each other. He told me I should be grateful he even made time for me with his start-up business taking off.

Once I shake myself out of that depressing trip down memory lane, I notice the beads of sweat starting at Hayes’ hairline, the cords of his neck straining, the curl of his shoulders. He looks…nervous? That can’t be possible, right? I’m the least intimidating person in the tri-state area. Also, the man plays professional hockey for a living. Surely he’d be used to a little bit of nerves.

“Are you okay?” I ask, alarm dipping low in my belly.

He gives me a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“I’d be better if you weren’t sitting so far away from me,” I say, gesturing to the three large, square lengths of blanket between us. He’s close enough that he can extend his arm to reach me, but his body itself is practically on the other side of the blanket.

Upon my answer, he scoots closer to me, dousing me in that sandalwood scent of his. I’m close enough that I can see the soft, fluctuating pulse in his throat, see the swell of his chest as he breathes. The rays from the sun glisten over the strong arch of his cheekbones, painting his face in marigold brushstrokes. Most things are uglier up close, but not him. Not Hayes Hollings.

I pop a strawberry into my mouth. “You don’t need to be nervous.”

He gets to work on his sandwich. “What makes you think I’m nervous?”

“The way you’re avoiding me like I have the plague.” There’s no frustration in my voice, no judgment—it’s just a keen observation.

“Okay, maybe you make me a little nervous,” Hayes admits, crunching down on a ribbon of perfectly cooked bacon.

“I do?” I cock my head to the side, genuine curiosity breaking over the syllables.

“You do,” he reaffirms, covering my hand with his. “You’re amazing, Aeris. You’re one of my favorite people to be around. I’m not going to say you always know what to say, but you always know how to make me laugh. You make the dull days brighter. And I love how big your heart is, even when you wish it was smaller.”

I didn’t know Hayes felt that way about me. I’ve always had low self-esteem, which was only augmented thanks to Wilder. I really should forward him my therapy bill.

I must’ve gone brain dead for a few seconds because a frown manifests on Hayes’ lips.

“Was that too much?”

I shake my head, wrapping my fingers around his hand. “No, no. It’s just…nobody’s ever said anything like that to me before. Not my ex, not my parents…”

“I’m sorry that you’ve lived the majority of your life without knowing how extraordinary you are,” he says, pressing his forehead against mine, “but I’m glad that I got to be the first to tell you.”

My heart graduates from a jog to a sprint. “I’m glad you got to be the first too.”

“I, um, didn’t have a big speech prepared or anything, but I wanted to ask you to officially be my girlfriend.”

Girlfriend. That’s—that’s a big deal. A deal that I thought I’d be panicking over…but I’m not. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever felt surer of anything in my entire life. For once, I’m not thinking about all the ways things could go wrong. For once, I’m basking in the moment, and I’m letting my heart lead instead of my head.

“Hayes, I would love to be your girlfriend,” I reply, my body moving of its own accord to kiss him.

I impulsively wind my hands into his hair, running them over his scalp gently. His lips move against mine, and he runs his tongue over my teeth, the contact sending shockwaves into the pit of my stomach. His hands map the expanse of my curves as he holds me closer, relishing the moment, like he’s afraid to break away in case time will steal the memory.

I want him to touch me. I want him to kiss me everywhere, starting at my mouth, taking a snaking detour down the length of my body, and ending at my pussy. I squeeze my legs together, already feeling liquid desire lubricate my clit.

“I want you to touch me,” I say.

“I thought I was touching you.” He nods at his hands, which are still very much on my waist.

“I mean like…touch me, touch me.”

“You think I don’t want to touch you, touch you?”

I extract myself from Hayes’ grasp. “No?”

I’m expecting him to say something, but he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches for the strawberry lemonade holding down one of the corners of the blanket.

He dips his index finger into the pink liquid, swirling it around for good measure, then holds it out in front of me.

“Suck,” he orders, his tone bringing a shiver to the surface of my skin.

“What?”

“Stop thinking. Just su—”

I do as he says, closing my lips around his finger, hollowing my cheeks and sucking.

An audible sound rolls out of Hayes, somewhere between a grunt and a groan. The cut of his biceps tautens, and his jaw clenches so tightly he might have pulverized his molars.

“What do you want me to say, Aeris? Do you want me to tell you how every time you flash me that better-than-sex smile of yours, I grow hard? How you’re the only thing on my mind when I have my hand wrapped around my cock in the shower? How I want those perfect breasts of yours in my mouth while you fuck my hand with your pussy?”

I lean forward just an inch, trailing my fingers up his leg, cupping the engorged bulge in his pants. He hisses under my touch, and his breath verges on the edge of a moan.

“You don’t think these past weeks have been torture for me, Hayes? Trying not to think about your tongue in my cunt while I’m lying in bed at night, surrounded by the lingering smell of you on my clothes? Trying not to imagine what you look like coming?” I say, a spark of uncontrollable want lighting a fire under my feet. “You have no idea how many times I’ve fantasized about your breath growing faint, your muscles tensing so hard that sweat breaks out over every inch of you, and the way your eyes will cloud with breakneck need when you ride out your orgasm.”

His bravado plummets to a shaky whisper, an animalistic sparkle in his eyes. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.”

Hayes immediately leans forward, marrying his lips to mine. Intertwined, the two of us are nothing but the most naked parts of our souls. My arms cling to him like he’s my salvation, and when he applies the tiniest bit of pressure, my hips buck against him. We’re both lost in the essence of each other, savoring swollen lips and whimpers of affection. I can’t get over how seamlessly we fit together, as if I’d been carved from his very being, perfected for him.

I discard his shirt, which he doesn’t oppose to. My fingers brush against his pectorals, trailing over hardened muscle, descending to the plane of his abs. He growls into my neck, and the low sound reverberates through me like a gunshot.

He gently lowers me onto the blanket, simultaneously pushing plates of food out of the way. The weight of his body pins me against the ground, and he devours my neck in a trail of open-mouthed kisses. A groan wrestles its way from my throat, my nails leaving half-moon crescents in his back.

I pull at the waistband of his jeans, bringing his body closer to mine, brushing the crease of his V-line with my pelvis. I can feel his dick quiver from the close proximity to my pussy.

His mouth moves down the valley of my breasts and the length of my stomach, lifting my dress up to lick the cold metal of my belly button piercing. I clench mounds of dirt through the blanket.

He helps me out of my thong, rumbling his approval of the nude lace. His large hands support my lifted hips on either side, and he kisses one hipbone, then moves to the other with a languid pace, lips pressed softly against the flesh. He takes his sweet time teasing me, knowing how starved I am for his mouth, his fingers.

“Fuck,” he pants, his fingers brushing against my damp cunt. “Look at you, soaking the blanket like such a greedy girl. How long have you been like this?”

I hold my admission back as embarrassment cartwheels in my lower gut.

“Aeris.”

“I-I don’t know. A while,” I answer him.

Hayes shakes his head, swirling my arousal with his knuckle. “You should’ve told me. I would’ve taken care of it.”

“Don’t you like me like this?”

“You have no idea how much I like you like this.”

I spread my legs wide so he can drink in every part of me, and he does—he practically swallows me whole.

“Then fuck me,” I say, the mounting warmth in my groin growing more and more irrepressible.

Hayes makes a noise in the back of his throat, something half-human and half-animal, and there’s pre-cum staining his crotch. “The first time we fuck, Aeris, won’t be in the middle of a field.”

I whimper but nod, falling back against the soft earth.

“But I can think of another way to please you,” he drawls, and before I have time to form a coherent thought, a cold chill whooshes over my exposed sex, and his head is between my thighs. Stars twinkle in my vision, my head becoming fuzzy, my legs wrapping up over his shoulders.

His tongue dips in and out of me, paying special attention to my drenched labia. He teases his way over the sensitive area, arousing every nerve inside of me, my hormones igniting into a small electrical fire.

“Do you like when I fuck your pretty pussy with my tongue?” he murmurs against the hood of my clit, lightly taking a lip between his teeth and pulling.

Pleasure compresses in my stomach, and I yank roughly on his hair, making him quicken his pace. “Yes, Hayes.”

His tongue circles my nub in expert strokes, spearing into my slick folds. Every movement he performs is methodical. One hand shoots out to grip my thigh, hard enough to leave a bright red print. My legs squeeze his head in retaliation. He presses his other hand down on my abdomen to keep me from squirming.

“I don’t want to hear my name unless you’re screaming it.”

I open my eyes long enough to catch my cum glistening on his lips, and the sight alone has me close to combusting. Hayes is slurping up every drop of my wetness like I’m the first meal he’s had in weeks.

“Hayes…” It comes out as a breathy moan, and I know that’s not good enough.

“Close, but not quite.”

He adds two fingers, stretching out my walls, flicking back and forth before I feel him slide another digit in. Oh my God. The pressure feels so good. I haven’t had someone inside of me in such a long time, and now all of that pent-up sexual frustration is slowly leaving my body.

He works me with his fingers and mouth. His tongue moves in a figure-eight over my bundle of nerves, edging me closer to my orgasm.

“Hayes!” My voice is shaky, same with my legs, and I can’t fight the way my eyes roll back.

“That’s better, Stacks. Let it all out,” he coos. “Let me feel you come on my tongue.”

In the matter of seconds, he locates my G-spot, and I combust into a firework of screaming colors and scalding sensations, leaving me with a high I have no intention of letting go.

He lifts my lower back up so I’m parallel to the ground, then kisses me with an intensity and brightness that until now has been a foreign feeling to me—the kind of feeling that love songs are written about, what romance novels are made of. I can taste my own salty slick on his tongue, but when it’s undercut by the sweetness of his mouth, it doesn’t bother me.

Hayes Hollings just rocked my fucking world.