Under Pressure Read online

  I shake my head. “That woman was bat-shit crazy.” Christ, when we were kids, we all used to take the long way to the playground to avoid her house at the end of the street.

  Reese smacks her palm to her forehead. “God, I’m going to turn out just like Mrs. Jones, aren’t I?”

  I nudge her. “Don’t worry. I won’t let that happen to you.” As the vessel reaches the pier, I grab our wrappers and package everything back in the box we were given. “I’m going to buy a video. Maybe we can watch it tonight.”

  She nods and I reach for her hand to help her up. The boat sways, and her body collides with mine. I wrap my hand around her and feel the warmth of her skin beneath my fingertips. Fuck, she feels good. My cock thickens as her breasts push against my chest. She is so fucking perfect.

  Her hands go around my back, and I become hyperaware that her tiny little bikini and my swim shorts are the only things separating us. What I wouldn’t do to feel skin on skin, to taste my way from her mouth to the spot between her legs. As my mind conjures the route my tongue will take, I harden even more. A strange, strangled sound catches in Reese’s throat, and I want to inch back and apologize. Would inch back and apologize, if I had any fucking blood left in my damn brain.

  “Cole,” she squeaks, and the sound snaps me back to reality.

  Back the fuck off, dude.

  “Uh, yeah,” I say, but as I step away, I don’t miss the way her hands linger on my body, or the way her gaze dips to see me in all my hard glory. She stares for a moment, a pink flush crawling up her cheeks. Her lips part, and her chest rises and falls as her gaze lingers. She’s fucking checking me out. The girl I’ve been crushing on since I was eight is checking me out.

  I stand there and let her, but she can’t for one minute think she’s going to get an eyeful and I’m not. I take in those sweet, lush lips I want to suck on. My gaze drops to her breasts, a little smaller now that she lost so much weight. They’d fit into my mouth so nicely. I take in her tanned skin, the soft curves of her hips, and those long legs I’d cut off my left nut to feel wrapped around my back.

  I slide my gaze back up, and when my eyes lock on hers, see the heat reflected there, I want to drop to my hands and knees and howl at the damn moon.

  “Right this way, everyone,” one of the crewmembers says, pulling me back from my fantasy—one that has been plaguing my dreams for years.

  “We, ah…we should go,” I say, my voice an octave lower.

  “Yeah. It’s a long drive back to the hotel.”

  “Let me get that video, okay?”

  Needing a reprieve so I don’t take her right here on the catamaran and ruin everything between us, I turn and leave her standing there. But when I feel her eyes drilling into me, I look over my shoulder and catch the way she’s staring at my ass. Son of a bitch. She’s still checking me out.

  So, what am I going to do about that?

  Chapter Three

  Reese

  Honest to God, I have no idea what the hell happened between Cole and me on the boat yesterday—okay, maybe I have some idea—but were we seriously checking each other out? Gazing at each other with pure lust in our eyes? We’re best friends, for God’s sake. Best friends don’t look at each other like that, right?

  Must be the tropical air.

  From beneath the wide brim of my sun hat, I steal a glance at him as we hike along the cliffs of Spookdraai Mountain, a trail that is supposed to be haunted with discontented souls who wander up and down the coastline. Cole looks my way, but I’m far too slow to react. His eyes turn a deeper shade of blue when he catches me staring, and his gaze drops to my parted lips. Feeling breathless beneath his intense stare, I suck in air, but can’t seem to refill my damn lungs.

  “Doing okay?” he asks.

  I nod as he checks in with me. “Yeah, I guess I need to hit the treadmill more often,” I say to cover the real reason I can’t seem to breathe. What the hell is going on between us?

  “You’re perfect,” he says. I’ve heard him say that to me before, even before I lost the excess weight, but why does it suddenly sound more sexual, more suggestive?

  Because you two were checking each other out, and he had a huge freaking hard-on.

  Oh, right.

  “This is just a tough climb for someone who’s not used to it.” He stops and looks over the cliff. I follow his gaze and the water is so clear that I can see numerous shipwrecked boats on the ocean floor. The scenery around us is magnificent, breathtaking really, but my eyes keep coming back to Cole.

  Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

  He shrugs off his backpack and adjusts his ball cap, shoving his bangs inside. “We’ve been traveling for over an hour now. Let’s take a break, get a drink, and have something to eat.” He gestures with a nod to the little ghost sign up ahead. “There’s a small cave over there where we can get out of the sun.”

  “I’m not going into any cave,” I shoot back quickly.

  His gaze darts to mine, a small grin playing on his mouth, making him look boyishly handsome. Except after yesterday, seeing him shirtless and feeling his arousal, I know there is nothing boyish about him. “Why not?”

  I plant one hand on my hip and glare at the cave. “Some girl who survived a shipwreck and made it up to one of the caves where she died, haunts them, remember.”

  “Come on. You don’t believe in all that, do you?”

  I step closer to the cliff and point to the water. “Of course, I do. Look at all those sunken boats. There are a lot of lost souls up here. And you read the sign back there. It says hikers can hear her singing in the caves sometimes.”

  His grin widens. “Don’t worry. I won’t—”

  I cut him off. “I know. I know. You won’t let anything happen to me. You’re even going to protect me from becoming a crazy cat lady.” How he’s going to do that is beyond me.

  I follow him and watch his broad muscles shift under his T-shirt. He steps into the cave, and I nearly crash into him when he comes to an abrupt halt. “Shh, hear that?” he asks.

  “Oh my God, Cole.” I practically crawl up his back. “Is it singing? Tell me it’s not singing,” I say, my voice bordering on hysteria.

  Cole laughs, and the sound echoes in the cave as he slides his hands around his back to hold me. “No, it’s not singing. It’s silence. We’re the only ones here, Reesey Piecey. Relax.”

  “I hate you,” I say, then pinch his side for teasing me, although what I really want is to pinch his ass, thanks to the way it looks so cute in his shorts. “You scared me half to death.”

  He flinches. “Hate you, too. Now come on, let’s get some food. I’m starving.”

  “You’re always starving.” I curl his shirt in my hands and follow him. I tug when he goes too deep. “Let’s stay close to the mouth of the cave, just in case.”

  With light pouring in, I let him go, find a flat spot, and sit crossed leg on the cool ground, a nice reprieve from the heat outside. Cole moves in beside me and I ditch my hat. When he looks at me, I run my fingers through my hat hair and try to fix it. The man has seen me at my worst. Cripes, he’d even held my hair back the night I turned sixteen and thought it would be a good idea to drink a few shots of Patron. So I have no idea why I’m suddenly trying to make myself presentable.

  Because you want his damn body.

  Oh, right.

  As that shocked realization settles in my passion-rattled brain, I open the backpack and pull out our sandwiches, compliments of our hotel. Cole takes a long pull from his water bottle and hands it to me. We’ve drunk from the same bottles since we were kids, swapped a ton load of spit, yet it never felt intimate before, like it does right now. I take a drink and recap it.

  Cole repositions himself until his back is against the rock wall. “Come here,” he says, and I shuffle until I’m beside him, our thighs touching. Hyperaware of everything Cole—his breath, his body, his every movement—I bite into my sandwich and try to push the bread down my tight throat.


  “We have the safari tomorrow,” I say as sexual tension fills the small cave.

  “Yeah, I know.” Why does his voice sound so much deeper? Oh, probably because he must feel this sexual shift between us, too.

  Cole’s hand lands on my bare thigh, his thumb sweeping back and forth, brushing my tingling skin. Does he even know he’s doing that? I’m not sure he does, but the hungry spot between my legs is well aware what his innocent touch is doing to my body. Odd really, considering he’s caressed me like this numerous times before—a friendly, caring touch—and it never melted my bones the way it does now.

  “Why do you think my friends keep putting me in dangerous situations?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “They all know you’re a chickenshit, so I’m not really sure.”

  “I’m not a chickenshit,” I counter, and whack his stomach.

  Big mistake.

  He grabs my hand and holds it to his body. Unable to help myself, I rub the back of my knuckles over his six-pack. God, he is so hard and yummy. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop from moaning. A growl rumbles in Cole’s throat, and I steal a quick glance at him in time to catch the tortured look crossing his face.

  Holy hell!

  I shake my head, hardly able to believe Cole Rayburn, my best friend, is groaning as I touch him. What the ever-loving fuck is going on between us? A flapping noise comes from somewhere deep in the cave, and my heart leaps.

  “Cole,” I say, and practically scurry into his lap. “What was that?”

  “Probably just a bird,” he mumbles. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

  His arm goes around me, and he’s rubbing my side, a long slow sweep, that brushes along my outer breast. My nipples tighten painfully, begging for his hand, his mouth. His head turns, and with enough light shining in through the mouth of the cave, I can see the turbulence in his eyes. His jaw clenches and he turns away. His breathing has changed, become more erratic.

  “Cole?”

  He scrubs his chin and exhales sharply, less composed than I’ve ever seen him. “Yeah.”

  Trembling with a need so foreign to me, I lean into him, even though every instinct I possess is screaming in warning.

  “You okay?” I ask, positive neither of us is currently in our right minds. Must be something in the air. Has to be. We’ve never acted like this around each other before.

  “I don’t think so,” he says as heat simmers between us. The cave is suddenly so hot I can’t breathe.

  He turns my way, shifts his body until we’re both sitting crossed-legged facing each other. His hand goes to my cheek, a soft touch as he slides his big palm around my neck.

  “Reese,” he whispers, but before I can say anything, he dips his head and his lips close over mine, warm and soft, yet hungry and demanding. His tongue slides into my mouth, and when it finds mine, it steals the last of my breath and all of my common sense. A moan I have no control over crawls from my throat, and he deepens the kiss—hot and firm, taking full control. I’ve kissed Cole before, but never, ever like this.

  He drags me onto his lap and his cock—a rock-hard cock, thank you very much—presses against my ass as I let my legs fall over his outer thighs. My knees hit the ground as I straddle him and shamelessly gyrate on his lap. I’m acting like some desperate girl who hasn’t had sex in ages, a girl who would—and is—jumping on the first man to present her with a hard-on. But I don’t care because it’s true. I am a desperate girl, and I need this.

  His fingers tighten on my hips and when he powers upward, I move with him, hardly able to believe I’m dry-humping my best friend in the middle of a goddamn haunted cave. We shouldn’t be doing this. We shouldn’t be doing this.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “I know,” he says. “We shouldn’t.”

  Shit, did I say that out loud? Shut your damn mouth, Reese. You know you want this, even if it’s wrong.

  His hand slides to my shoulders and presses down, grinding his cock harder against me. He moans into my mouth, his tongue brushing over my bottom lip, tasting me, savoring me. I grip his hair, swiftly run my fingers through it, wanting to touch every inch of him before we both come to our senses. I can’t understand this pull between us, this need clawing at my insides, demanding to be sated. Is it the same for him? I have little time to think about that as warm heat floods me, and I swear to God if he doesn’t strip me naked and touch every inch of me in the next five minutes, I might just die. Then I’ll be the one haunting the damn cave forever.

  “Cole,” I whisper, a desperate sort of ache in my voice.

  He breaks the kiss and when he pulls back, we’re both left breathless. Guilt flashes in his eyes. “Fuck, you’re right. Sorry.”

  I shake my head because he’s mistaken the desperation he’s heard. It wasn’t for him to stop. It was for him to continue. But this is wrong and we shouldn’t be doing it. But why, oh why, does it feel so right?

  “Cole,” I say again, my lust-buzzed mind trying to string a sentence together.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why…why did you kiss me?” I ask, not only because I need to say something, but because, deep inside, I’m curious about this sudden need we’re displaying.

  His gaze moves over my face, a careful assessment. He must see the want in my eyes because his expression changes from apologetic to hungry. “I was helping you out,” he whispers, his voice playful as he brushes his thumb over my cheek, the intimacy in his touch going right through me.

  “Helping me out?” I ask, playing along, desperately wanting to see where this leads. “With what?” Not that I care. I just like this intimate conversation, the way his warm breath is washing over my face as we talk, not to mention the way his big hands are touching me with such soft recognition, tugging my shirt out from my shorts.

  “A list of things, really,” he murmurs.

  “Oh, okay.” A moment of silence and then, “Will it require more kissing?”

  He brushes my hair from my shoulder. His fingers burn over my quivering flesh. “Yeah, but that’s not all it will require.”

  “No.”

  “No, I’m going to have to do things to you, Reese. Dirty things.”

  Oh. My. God. I’m seriously dying here. Cole is going to do dirty things to me! I shouldn’t be this happy. I really shouldn’t. This could be so bad for our friendship. But, holy hell, the heat between my legs is telling me not to think too hard on that right now. Not when there are other hard things I should be thinking about.

  “What…what kind of dirty things?” I ask, loving the direction this is going, despite my best interests.

  “I’m going to take these clothes off you and kiss every inch of your body.”

  Alrighty, then. I didn’t see that coming, but I always did love the man’s spontaneity.

  “Okay.”

  Okay? That’s all I can come up with? Then again, how can I possibly counter with a witty comeback? My body is on fire, burning up, under terrible pressure. If he doesn’t touch me soon, I’m afraid something might blow.

  Blow.

  Oh God, why did that word pop into my rattled brain? Probably because I can’t stop thinking about his cock, the long length of it, the hardness, and the way it pressed against me on the boat—the way it’s pressing against my ass right freaking now. I should not be lusting after my best friend. If I knew what was good for me, I’d tap out right now and shove this crazy need so far back in my mind that it never sees the light again.

  Walk away, girl. Just walk away.

  I blink up at him innocently and continue to play along. “Then what?”

  So much for doing what’s good for me.

  “Then I’m going to put my cock inside you.”

  I quiver at his bluntness. I’ve never heard Cole talk like this before—playful and sexy—and I can’t deny that it’s damn exciting.

  “How is that helping me out?” I ask.

  Cole is going to put his cock in me, and I need to stop ask
ing questions already!

  Another eerie noise jostles me back to the present, and I turn. “What was that?” I whisper. “Was it singing?” Could the cave be haunted?

  He tears off his T-shirt, tosses it behind me, and bends forward until I’m flat out underneath him. He shifts his weight and slides his hand between my legs. “The only singing we’re going to hear is when I strum your body right here, and you’re calling out my name in orgasm.”

  OMFG, if that’s isn’t music to my ears, I don’t know what is.

  His lips close over mine again, taking full possession, and I writhe beneath his invading tongue, hungry for everything he’s going to do to me. I run my hands over his bare back, and when I palm his muscles, they bunch beneath my fingers. He is so hard and solid it’s insane. I take a breath and try to control myself, but I can’t, so instead I lightly drag my nails over his flesh as his mouth goes to the sensitive spot on my neck.

  The air around us is heavy with sexual energy, and I’m pretty sure we’re giving off enough sparks to light up the damn cave. I hear another shuffling noise and crane my neck to see outside.

  “Cole,” I whispered. “What if someone comes?”

  His soft chuckle vibrates through me. “Oh, don’t worry, someone’s going to come.”

  My body is quivering and I don’t want him to stop, but smack him anyway. “I’m serious.”

  He moans against my neck. “I am, too.”

  “I hate you,” I say.

  “I hate you, too.” His wet tongue sweeps over my flesh then he puts a hand on either side of my head and pushes up. “But while we’re here on vacation, I’m still going to help you out.”

  “With what?” I ask for the millionth time.

  “You don’t want to be like Mrs. Jones, right?”

  “No, you’re right. I don’t.”

  “So, by having sex, I’m helping you from becoming a crazy cat lady.”

  I do like his way of thinking. But what will this do to us? I don’t want to lose him because some sort of tropical lust bug has bitten us this weekend.

  “And you know, since you’re here on this adventure for epic sex, and I don’t happen to have any plans, we’re killing all kinds of birds with one stone.”