Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “I got those,” I told him hurriedly. “What about flesh?”

  “Hot, wet, flesh?” He turned his head to look at me. “No. I didn’t get that. Are you sure you have hot, wet, flesh?”

  I could not help it. I was going to have to start fanning myself here pretty soon. “Yes. And I got the word yes too.”

  “What a naughty girl.”

  It actually took me a moment to process those words. It wasn’t something that the old Kevin would have said. But then this was decidedly not teenage Kevin lying here on the bed. His expression was devilish. His body was absolutely sinful to look at and probably even more so to touch. And right now he was staring at me as though he were ready to remove every stitch of clothing from my body.

  “Eleanor?”

  I swallowed. My mouth felt like it was full of cotton. “Yes?”

  “What do you think? I think you win on hot, wet, flesh.”

  My lips were parted. I was trying to breathe. And yet when Kevin pushed the gameboard away I was still surprised to hear it hit the floor. His hands pulled me from my prim sitting position down onto the mattress of his double bed.

  I probably still could have said something. Anything. Just a word or to two in order to tell him that I wasn’t feeling as confident about all of this as he apparently was. But he kissed me and I quickly realized that anything I might have wanted or needed to say was no longer going to be an option. My words were gone. They had gone up in the smoke and flames consuming my body as Kevin Landau slowly made sweet love to me with his lips, teeth, and tongue.

  The kiss was carnal. There was nothing sweet or innocent about it. The absolute domination of his mouth over mine sent frissons of delight through my body. I could do nothing but bury my fingers in his hair and hang on for the ride. Every nerve fired at once. Heat suffused my skin until I was certain that my clothes were melting off. My core began to pulse with the need for more. I had never been this awake or alive. Not since Kevin. And I knew instinctively that I never would be with anyone else.

  He quickly rolled me onto my back. One hand swept down the length of my body. He paused at my hip, curling his fingers into the flesh of my butt and giving it a squeeze that sent a jolt of awareness ricocheting through me. Then he continued down the outside of my leg until I felt him gathering up the fabric of my skirt and dragging it back up the length of my body.

  His lips left my lips and traveled down over my jaw and my neck. He bit my throat, his teeth sinking into the soft skin there and making me tremble with undisguised need. I had never been so hot and so needy before in my life. My thighs were slippery with the evidence of my arousal. And when his hand lightly stroked that warm flesh I knew that he knew everything I might ever try to hide.

  “I can smell your arousal,” he whispered in my ear. I felt the tickle of his breath against my skin. I struggled to remain coherent, but it wasn’t easy. I wanted to lay there like a boneless lump of clay and let him mold me into whatever he wanted. “I know how much you want me, Eleanor. I want you too. I want you so badly. Do you feel what you do to me?”

  He took one of my hands and guided it to his crotch. I felt the hard ridge of his erection and a deep sense of pride that I had done this to him. I was the one he wanted. I was the woman who could turn his head and make him crazy with lust. This was all me and all I wanted was more.

  I cupped my hand around him and lightly squeezed that hardness. He shuddered at my touch. His teeth nipped my earlobe. He moaned low in the back of his throat. And as he undulated against my side I realized that the two of us were so far down this road of seduction that there was no point anymore in pretending that I did not want to play.

  Kevin gently urged my legs apart. I lay beside him, his body stretched out lengthwise alongside mine. He placed his hand between my thighs and cupped my mound through my panties. I no longer cared what underwear I had on. It just didn’t matter. They were soaked through anyway.

  The pressure of his hand was unbelievable. I could not conceive of anything that had ever felt this deliciously naughty before in my life! He lightly stroked me, his fingers finding the contours of my flesh beneath the fabric and touching each piece of me with deliberate care.

  The shot of pure unadulterated pleasure that whipped through my veins was enough to make my head spin. I closed my eyes and held tight to Kevin’s forearm as he began to rub faster and harder. He applied more pressure, and more, until I was whimpering and squirming against him. I could feel each and every stroke inside me as though it were building and building to that impossible crescendo of pleasure that I wanted so badly and yet could not begin to reach for.

  “That’s it,” Kevin whispered into my ear. “I can feel it, Eleanor. I can feel you getting hotter and wetter. Did you know that? You’re wetter for me now than ever. I’ve never felt you this way. So beautiful!”

  His words sent me soaring a few notches higher. I had never thought of myself as a particularly passionate woman. Yet here I was losing control while he pressed the pad of his hand and nothing more between my legs. Then I felt him slip his finger into the indentation of my body and I was done. It was over. I was through.

  My back arched. I flew up off the bed. My heels braced against the mattress and my hands sought to twist in the comforter. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to breathe. It was more than I could handle. I was gasping. Gasping for breath as my whole body snapped as though it were a bow string pulled far too tight.

  The rolling waves of undulating pleasure that washed over me left my lungs weak with lack of air. I struggled to remain conscious. I was close to passing out. I could tell. My fingers twirled so hard in the sheets that I was sure I was going to rip them apart.

  Then the tension and instant euphoria seemed to meld into a greater sense of pure relaxation and a flow of something approaching Zen. It had to be Zen. This was what people talked about. The complete and total loss of tension or the need to control or care or anything else. All I wanted in this moment was to be left alone. I wanted to snuggle here on the bed beside Kevin and try to forget the world.

  “That’s my girl,” he whispered. “So beautiful. Do you have any idea how incredible that was? My God! It was perfect!”

  I let him talk. If he was going to sit there and compliment me then why stop him anyway? I felt like a million bucks. I wanted to giggle and laugh and maybe just sit there and sigh over him. He had made me feel as though I were on top of the world.

  “I don’t think we ever did that in high school,” I suddenly whispered.

  Wait a second. Where had that come from? I started to giggle. Kevin laughed. That was good. I didn’t want him to think that I was being rude or something. He snuggled closer to me and drew me into his arms.

  I felt cherished and protected. It was a wonderful sensation. He was so muscular and so very strong. I hadn’t thought about that sort of thing when we were younger, but then I had been so much shorter and smaller too. Or maybe that had just been because we were young. Now we were grown and things were different.

  “You’ve changed,” I told Kevin softly. “I think it’s good.”

  He stroked my hair. “I hope so.”

  “I think it is. I wouldn’t have wanted to stay nineteen forever. Would you?” The thought alone was enough to make me positively ill. “I was such an idiot back then. I thought I knew it all. But I didn’t. I didn’t know anything.”

  “And in another twenty years we’ll say the same thing about ourselves now,” Kevin teased.

  I could still feel his erection pressing against me. I let my hand rest over the top of that ridge. I gave him a squeeze. I heard his breath catch. I wanted more. I don’t know when I had honestly come to understand that. But I did. More. I needed to feel him in that basic way. The way that would allow us to truly blend our lives and our hopes and dreams together.

  “Kevin,” I whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “I want you.”

  He had just taken a breath to answer when there was a h
uge knock on the door. The bedroom door.

  Our reaction was instant and probably hilarious. Or at least it would have been hilarious if we hadn’t been living through it. I jumped up so quickly that my head smacked him in the chin. He grabbed his face, but the bed bounced just then and he lost his balance.

  Kevin rolled onto the floor with a resounding thud that had probably shook the entire house. I covered my mouth with my hands and stared down at him in horror. Had I done that? Talk about ruining a mood!

  But Kevin was smiling. No. Laughing. He rolled his eyes. “What?” he shouted. “I think the door is closed. Doesn’t that mean you need to go away?”

  “But I wanted to talk to Eleanor!” Thayla protested from the other side of the door.

  It was my turn to laugh. “Thayla! What’s wrong?”

  “I just wanted to go over some details for Thanksgiving. That’s it!”

  “Thanksgiving,” I sighed. I looked at Kevin and shrugged. “Apparently this was not meant to happen right now.”

  He did not look convinced or pleased. In fact, he looked downright disgruntled. “Is this where I tell her that Dad told us to come up here and get on with it?”

  “No!” I protested. I could actually feel my eyes bugging out. “You can’t say that! It’s embarrassing.”

  Kevin got up off the floor and grabbed hold of my hands. He tugged me to my feet. Then he pulled my skirt down around my legs where it belonged. “So you want to go hang out with my sister instead of with me?”

  “Well, not exactly.” Gee. When he said it like that I sounded like a totally horrible and maybe just a little unnatural person. “I just want to see what it is she wants to talk about. Thanksgiving is going to be stressful. Don’t you think?”

  Kevin reached for the door and pulled it open. Thayla was practically leaning against the other side. Kevin at least resisted the urge to shove her back out into the hallway. “What are you doing?”

  “Me?” Thayla looked taken aback. “What were you guys doing in there? And please don’t tell me you were getting busy. I can’t even imagine Kevin being desperate enough to do it while Mom and Dad are right downstairs! Talk about tempting fate! If Dad caught you it would be like high school all over again!”

  I wasn’t about to correct her. If Thayla needed to think that her parents were still ready and willing to chaperone a couple of thirty years olds that was her business.

  Kevin wasn’t so circumspect. “If Mom thought we were up here making grandbabies, she’d probably provide the romantic music.”

  “Oh, ick!” Thayla moaned and plugged her ears. “I do not want to think about my brother having sex!”

  “Then don’t think about it,” I advised her. I winked at Kevin and headed down the hall to Thayla’s bedroom. Wow. It was literally like being in high school all over again. Awkward moments and all.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Kevin

  “So…” Thayla let the word just sit there for one long moment. “Were the two of you making out up there or something?”

  “Or something,” I murmured. I wasn’t going to talk about my sex life with my sister. Come on! It was all I could do not to laugh my ass off as I waved Eleanor out of our driveway and down the street. “I notice you felt the need to walk with me to Eleanor’s car. I’m surprised you didn’t try to lean in the door and give her a little peck on the cheek too!”

  My sister rolled gave a dramatic and rather trademark eye roll. “Come on. I’m not in love with her. Although, I have to admit that I never really believed you had that great of taste in women or people in general.”

  I looked over at Thayla. What was that supposed to mean? “I’m very good at assessing character,” I informed my sister. “That’s part of what makes me so good at my job.”

  “Yeah, but remember those chicks you dated before you met Eleanor?” Thayla was actually laughing. “Oh my God, the cheerleader!”

  “I was sixteen.” I chuffed out a sigh. Nobody likes to be reminded of their bad decisions. And yes. That cheerleader—I couldn’t remember her name—had been a pretty bad decision. “I think I can be forgiven for not dating the best people when I was sixteen. What about you?” I forced myself to stop. I hadn’t actually been intending to talk about Brock Mortensen when I’d said that. Maybe there was a way to salvage my statement. “Surely at sixteen you dated someone you would rather forget.”

  “I didn’t date at sixteen,” Thayla murmured. Eleanor’s taillights disappeared around the corner.

  My sister and I stood down at the end of the driveway near the curb. It was just starting to slide toward freezing. There was no moisture falling from the sky, but what was left on the trees and pavement was already starting to ice over. By the time Thanksgiving actually rolled around at the end of next week we would probably be covered in ice.

  The Christmas lights all up and down the street blinked on and off in flashes of green, blue, red, and twinkly white. Someone had lined their front walk in those little candy canes. I thought about my apartment building in Kansas City. It would be lit up for the holidays. The whole downtown area would follow suit. There would be a huge tree in the city center. People would gather to watch the lighting of the tree on the day after Thanksgiving right after they spent the day trying to kill each other competing for Black Friday specials. It was a very complicated time of year.

  “I never knew that Brock was a bad guy,” my sister murmured softly.

  In the cold air her voice barely traveled past the two of us. I did not look at her. I didn’t want her to feel as though I were judging her. Not now. Not like this. Thayla was finally talking. I didn’t know why. But I did know that it was because of Eleanor. Eleanor had done more for our family than she could probably ever imagine.

  “Brock told me a lot of things.” Thayla sounded almost wistful. “I don’t know that you can possibly realize what it’s been like living here with Mom and Dad for the last fifteen years. I never meant to stay. I really didn’t. I wanted to get my own place. But then Dad sat down in his chair and never got up after he retired. I got worried about Mom. She was so spiteful and vindictive and just angry at him. But she wouldn’t come out and say it. She talked about you all the time. She wanted you to come home. For some reason she was so sure that you being here would make it better.”

  “She never said anything,” I told Thayla. I remembered the last decade or more and realized that there was nothing in that time that could have possibly prepared me for what the truth really was. “I thought you were all happy. I’ll be honest. Mom made it seem like you were just a lazy mooch. I always figured that you didn’t leave the house because you felt like you could get a free ride if you stayed.”

  “Nice,” Thayla said bitterly. “They won’t have to worry about that. I’m leaving just as soon as I can be sure that Brock won’t follow.”

  “And how do we do that?” I wondered out loud. “I know what he did to Emmaline Potter’s father. I don’t know how we’re going to get rid of him, Thayla. Do you have any ideas?”

  “He’s coming to Thanksgiving dinner. He’s angry at me. I stopped paying his rent. I stopped giving him money.” Her expression grew thoughtful. It was odd, but in the last day or so I had started seeing her a bit differently. She looked different. Less like a female version of my father and more like herself. “I don’t think he was really going to come to Thanksgiving. I don’t think he wanted to. But now, he doesn’t have a choice because he thinks this is what will make me start paying his bills again. Throw me a bone, you know?”

  I was not my sister’s biggest fan, but the idea of someone treating her like that was appalling. “Sounds like the world’s biggest bastard.”

  “Right. But if he’s already belligerent and pissed off, it’s just a short drive to explosion. If he really throws a fit, then we’ve got him. Right?” Thayla sounded hopeful and not at all certain about that. “I want him to go to jail. I want to file a restraining order.”

  “Then maybe you need to go
and do that,” I suggested. I wasn’t sure how that stuff worked. “Have you spoken with the police? Don’t they have ways of dealing with people like him who are basically repeat violent offenders?”

  “Innocent until proven guilty, remember?” Thayla nudged me. “So I guess we’re going to have to keep the phone at the ready and hope that the police make a fast trip over to the house.”

  “Has that man ever threatened Dad?” I wondered suddenly. It seemed so unrealistic that he hadn’t made himself a little more known to my parents before now.

  “I’ve done my best to keep Brock away from Mom and Dad.”

  “You knew,” I decided.

  “Yes. I did. But I didn’t know what to do.” Her expression grew determined. “Then I started talking to Eleanor and I realized that I had to do something or risk living the rest of my life with him pulling my strings.”

  I owed Eleanor so much more than I could ever repay. It had been such a long day. A cold breeze buffeted my face and I shivered in the cold air. I thought about the day’s events. And that’s what reminded me of Dad. I started walking into the house. Thayla followed me. I made a vague gesture to the living room. “So what’s with Dad and the home shopping addiction?”

  “I’m not sure. He started ordering that stuff years ago. He keeps saying that he keeps it around for his hunting trips. But I’ll be honest with you, Kevin. I don’t actually believe that our father has fired a gun in decades.” Thayla just shrugged it off.

  “Did Mom not know about it?” I was getting concerned. Hoarding. It totally felt like hoarding. As if my father could not help himself when it came time to purchase supplies for a sport that he dearly loved, but never had the time or energy to do.

  “I guess not.” Thayla pushed her way into the front door. She looked at me over her shoulder. “I would kind of think no, though. Because I don’t think Mom would have let him just stuff the closet under the stairs full of that stuff.”