by Leigh, Ember
It’s weird being surrounded by so many Dalys, because A.) I am not one, and B.) my parents would probably shit themselves if they knew I had penetrated so deeply behind enemy lines. Honestly, I’m surprised Annette let me attend the funeral. I sort of expected a “Cabanas Stop Here” tape around the perimeter of the cemetery.
“Kinsley!” Connor’s voice wafts in from the backyard. I step outside to join him, a slice of the bright mid-day sun breaking through the tree cover of their backyard. He’s waiting for me with an outstretched arm, beckoning to me, and the smile on his face—directed only toward me—is so beguiling that I practically float toward him. When I approach, he snags his arm around my waist, bringing me solidly into his side. Leather and spice wash over me, and I about lose my footing and fall head over heels for this man.
But his voice snaps me out of my freefall.
“I was just talking to my cousins about us,” he says jovially, and the subtle call to arms makes me snap my smile a little brighter.
“Oh, were you?” I send out my best winning grin. The one that says, We’re really a couple so no need to probe further, okay?
“You two have a lovely life out west,” the very prim-looking cousin says.
Dom and Grayson wander up, both holding beers. “What’s going on over here?” Grayson says, clapping his stocky cousin on the back.
“We were hearing about Connor and Kinsley’s wonderful life,” Ms. Prim coos, smiling over at Connor. “It’s so awesome that you work for E-bid.”
Connor’s grip around me cinches tighter as Dom’s gaze swings over to us. “Oh, yes. Wonderful.”
“I work for Emerson and Bennett,” Grayson interjects, stepping forward. “Which is equal parts awesome and horrible.”
The cousins struggle to place the city of origin of Grayson’s firm, which prompts an overly long explanation of the various cities his firm operates in. While they’re listening to Grayson, Connor lowers his lips to my ear.
“I think we should kiss.”
The words sear through me like a surprise lightning bolt. Kiss? Kiss Connor? The very thing I’ve been fantasizing about doing since junior year of high school?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
“To prove what a special couple we are,” he murmurs, and squeezes the top of my waist. To anybody else, it looks as if he’s murmuring sweet nothings. I giggle, rolling my lips inward. I angle myself toward him more, finally daring to meet his gaze.
“Yeah?” I ask, nudging him with my shoulder.
From this angle, he’s more gorgeous than ever. The corners of his eyes crinkle as he looks down at me. He wets his bottom lip, that leather and spice not only filling my senses but drowning me completely. I’m a goner. Send for the rescue boat. The S. S. Kinsley is headed to the bottom of Lake Erie.
His eyes search my face for a moment, and then he bridges the distance between our mouths, his lips landing against mine so softly, yet so intensely, that I have to silence a gasp. I grip the side of his arm, pushing up onto my tiptoes so that we can mash our lips together even more.
Because now that I’ve had a taste of him? I need all of him.
He smiles through the kiss, which leads to a second kiss, which leads to a very noticeable damp surge in my panties. My fingers dig into the sleeve of his white button-down.
“Jeez, guys,” Grayson interjects a moment later, as we’re rounding the corner into kiss number three. “Get a room.”
Connor breaks away, and I collapse against him. My heart is pounding between my ears, and I’m not certain I’ll be able to walk out of the backyard on my own two feet. Three kisses with Connor is all it takes to undo me. And we didn’t even use our tongues.
“We do have a room, you know,” he says to me, loud enough for the others to hear. I laugh weakly, because of course he’s saying it for them. He doesn’t mean it. Even though the fake kisses he gave me easily win first, second, and third place in the history of every kiss of my lifetime.
“Sorry, guys.” I give his cousins an apologetic smile, but I’m not sorry at all. God, it’s nice to play the coy girlfriend part. Connor doesn’t move his arm from my waist, and he effortlessly rejoins the conversation about everybody’s current work situation. I can barely focus on what they’re saying. I couldn’t care less, actually. I just want Connor to kiss me again.
But he doesn’t, and the afternoon whiles on. Soon, Annette is bringing out the pasta salads, and Damon is firing up the grill. Some of the family members have left, but most of the cousins stay for dinner. The post-funeral remembrance slowly turns into a post-funeral party. Connor rolls his sleeves mid-way up his forearm, which nearly impregnates me on the spot. Once I see Annette has changed her clothes, I run to the bedroom to change into a thrifted sundress. It’s strappy and long and full of cartoon suns, which seems perfect for this evening. Because, you know, summer.
When I come back down, Connor’s gaze washes over me, leaving hot prickles in its wake. I can’t tell if he likes what he sees or not.
“You should have told me you were going to change,” he says once I rejoin him. “I would have come with you.”
I gulp. Does he mean what I think he means? Nobody else is near us right now; the majority of the family is gathered around the patio tables, comparing the two types of pasta salads Annette made. While Grayson is loudly insisting the mayonnaise base is key, I realize that these words were meant just for me.
Finally.
“Well, the bedroom is still there,” I offer, and as soon as the words come out, I realize I have no idea what I’m saying. I have no idea if he even meant what I thought he meant.
“Yeah.”
Yeah. That’s all he says, and then he looks over at his family, leaving me stewing in confusion. I read this all wrong. He probably simply wanted to change his clothes. Or maybe he would have suggested I put on something else. Maybe this dress is awful. It probably had nothing to do with continuing those kisses.
I finger the sides of my dress, wondering if I’d ever be bold enough to say the words, Can we formally initiate a make-out session? That might be the only way to clarify this. I could write it on a piece of paper, even, high-school style. Slip it to him when his brothers aren’t looking. It would have two checkboxes, of course. Do you want to formally initiate a make-out session with me upstairs? ABSOLUTELY NOT or HELL YES.
Something has been left unsaid, but Weston calls him over suddenly. For some reason, Connor needs to weigh in on the subtleties of the pasta salad debate. I follow him, and Maverick has two big spoonfuls of each pasta salad while he passionately explains something about the acidity.
After Maverick’s impassioned plea, Dom scoffs. “Whatever. You smoke a lot of pot, so you’re always eating.”
Maverick drops the spoons. Some pasta salad falls onto Grayson’s pants, which makes him turn toward Dom angrily.
“Seriously?” he asks Dom.
“I didn’t ruin your damn pants,” Dom responds. “Mav dropped the spoon.”
“Yeah, because you’re antagonizing him,” Grayson clarifies.
“Actually, all of you antagonize me,” Maverick spits, getting to his feet.
“He’s not wrong,” Weston adds.
“Boys,” Annette begins, even though she’s halfway across the yard by the grill. Moms can sniff out a fight from up to five hundred yards away—I swear I read it in a science mag once.
The fray dissipates when Annette brings over a plate of hamburgers. There’s a line of condiments carefully arranged, followed by napkins and paper plates with suns on them. I laugh and hold one up for Connor to see.
“Look. It matches my dress.”
He smiles at me in a way that makes my core tighten. There’s heat in his gaze, but more than that, I swear I catch a smidge of tenderness.
“You’re such a sunbeam,” he says, and the air goes tight between us across the table as we shuffle down the line toward the burgers. My hand is suspended mid-air, because the way he’s looking at me has disabled my m
otor skills.
He’s looking at me like he’s gobbling me up. Like he doesn’t just tolerate me, but that he actually likes me. Maybe even wants me.
Or maybe I’m so starved for affection that I’ll see it anywhere.
At any rate, the lines are blurring. My panties are damp from wanting him, and I might not ever recover from our earlier kisses.
If this is what posing as Connor’s girlfriend is going to be like for the next week and a half, I might not make it out of Bayshore alive.
Chapter 12
CONNOR
I don’t sleep much that night. Whenever I drift off, I’m jerked back to consciousness by any sound or sigh from Kinsley. Every inch of my body is buzzing from wanting her, and I swear to God, I don’t sleep more than three hours simply because my mind is in overdrive.
In the hours that I’m drifting between consciousness and restfulness, I come up with a new nickname for her. Sunny-kins. Because she is Sunny Kinsley. My sunbeam. Well, not mine. She’s a sunbeam, who happens to be on loan to me while we’re convincing my family she’s mine. I sigh, turning away from her in the bed.
Dawn creeps into the margins of the windows. I can see the cobalt fringe to the pitch-black sky. It’s got to be close to six, which means I’ve been replaying our kisses in my head for damn near twelve hours.
I want to continue those kisses so bad, I could karate chop a two-by-four and it would actually break, with zero martial arts training. That’s how badly I want to push the envelope with her. I want to take it all the way. Big ears be damned.
I flop onto my back, forcing my eyes closed. I’m going to at least nap, so help me God. Now that the funeral is out of the way, the real vacation begins.
The only thing on my agenda is to put myself into painful proximity with Kinsley Cabana while beating back the urge to pull her slight frame on top of me and discover on a scale from one to velvet how sweet she is on the inside.
I adjust the pillow under my head while my cock throbs to life again. Thinking about velvet did not help things.
“Mrrgmmm.” Kinsley’s sleep protests are back, and she slings an arm over me. I grin from ear-to-ear up at the ceiling. This is what I get, I suppose. Platonic touches from a sleeping Sunny-kins.
I listen to her breathing. She shifts, which brings her hand dangerously close to my cock. I’m wearing underwear, so it’s not like she’s going to give me an accidental hand job. The rise and fall of my chest brings her hand nearer to and then farther away from my junk. My skin prickles across my shoulder blades.
I shift slightly, putting more space between her hand and my cock, which has gone half-hard. She mumbles something in her sleep that sounds suspiciously like “pasta.” I stifle a laugh. I need to ask her later if she was dreaming about the pasta salad fight from yesterday.
She moves suddenly, burrowing into my side, her lips brushing against the curve of my neck. She wraps an arm around my ribcage, and one leg goes over top of my groin. Now my cock is trapped between her silky, warm thigh and my low belly.
And I am most definitely completely hard.
But hell if I’ll move now. It feels too damn good to have her draped across me. I sigh, letting my eyes drift shut. Is this torture, or is this heaven? Something about Kinsley feels so soft and welcoming, as if I’m slipping on an old sweater I’ve had for years but completely forgot about. It doesn’t make sense. We’re basically strangers. Except there is something so familiar about her, I could swear we’ve been doing this for months instead of days.
I move so that I can sling my arm above her, removing it from its trapped position between us. She nuzzles closer, and I slip my arm beneath her head. I listen to her rhythmic breaths, hoping for sleep, but really my mind is on the fact that her breast is mashed against my chest. I would give anything to peel this pajama top off her, inch by lemur inch.
A car drives by outside. A little while later, I hear a lone seagull. And that’s when I notice her breathing has quieted. My breaths whisper through the silent room. Her fingernails scrape into my skin below my rib cage.
I shift slightly, and Kinsley’s leg flexes against me. Blood rushes to my cock all over again, like maybe now is the time I’ll start paying attention to it. I swear I feel her hips jerk toward me, like maybe she’s dreaming of me fucking her. Like maybe she wants this even half as badly as I do.
My senses go on high alert, trying to determine if she’s awake and as conscious of our proximity as I am. I imagine the feathery brush of eyelashes against my side. Maybe she’s come to and is wondering if I’m awake. Maybe her pussy is already wet from thinking about where else our kisses could lead.
I shift again, turning more onto my side, and she folds into me. My chin rests on the top of her head. Her hips thrust again, the inside of her thigh pushing up against my cock. Heat floods me all over again and there is one thing on my mind.
That had to be intentional.
I vote Kinsley is awake.
A gruff grunt escapes me, and I push my hips into her leg. She nuzzles into the hollow of my neck, her breath hitting behind my ear.
It’s decided. This is torture.
And I’ve got only a couple more minutes before I need to go jack off in the shower.
“Kins.” My voice is gruff so early in the morning. “Are you awake?”
She doesn’t say anything at first, but she presses herself against me. When she speaks, her voice sounds a mile away. “Maybe.”
I smile into the strawberry blonde flyaways at the top of her head. “Yeah?”
For a long moment, we’re just breathing together, our chests rising and falling while the seconds melt away inside this steamy yet somehow innocent embrace.
“No,” she finally says.
“Mmm.” Blood is pumping through my veins so hard, so eager, that it laces my insanity with courage. I turn toward her, all the way now, and my palm finds the side of her thigh underneath the sheet.
So she doesn’t mistake my intention. So she knows exactly where I want this reverie to go.
“Maybe we should keep dreaming, then,” I murmur, digging my fingertips into her leg. She’s heat and silk, and that’s just at the part above her knee. She draws a deep breath, burrowing into the pillow. Her dark lashes flutter briefly, but she keeps her eyes closed.
“Mm-hmm.”
I push my palm higher, starting a slow trek up her leg. She murmurs something, bucking her hips closer to me. My fingertips reach the hem of her cotton shorts, and I push up beneath the fabric, finding the goose-pimpled flesh beneath her ass cheek.
“Should I keep going?” My fingertips drift back and forth under the apple swell of her butt. She draws her brows together and nods furiously.
I wet my bottom lip, skipping my hand up over the fabric of her shorts until I find the waistband. I grip her and tug her closer, so that our bodies meet head on. If she hasn’t felt my cock before, she does now.
I guide her leg up and over mine, so that she’s half-straddling me. My groin presses into the sweet heat covered by her cotton shorts. She inhales shakily, eyes pinched shut.
I brush my cheek against hers, then allow my lips to graze her chin. I need another kiss. Immediately.
She giggles. “You’re scruffy.”
“You are.” I brush my lips over top of hers, but she doesn’t give it up to me.
She rolls her lips inward, ducking her head. “I have morning breath.”
I flex my hips, and the steel ridge of my cock crashes into her pelvis. I trail my lips up along her jawline, until my breath hits her ear. “And?”
She shivers, hips bucking again. She wants it. Oh damn, she wants it. “It’s not sexy.”
“Morning breath is the last thing I care about.” I slip my hands into her shorts, cupping the perfect apples of her ass cheeks. My cock is throbbing now. “Besides. We’re dreaming, right?”
She grins, and this time, when I bring my lips to hers, she doesn’t resist. In fact, she leads the way. Her mouth opens again
st mine, and our tongues crash together, urgent and hungry. The force there tells me how hungry she is for this. But she’s not as hungry as I am.
I flip onto my back, bringing her with me. She straddles me from above, palms pressed to the mattress on either side of my head. One kiss bleeds into another, each one more drugging than the last. I’m tugging down the waistband of her shorts before I can think better of it, because I need to get in there.
When we finally break apart, her lips are pink and kiss bitten. Her hair is wild around her face, and I’ve never seen a more ecstatic sight. She blinks lazily, question marks in her periwinkle eyes.
“Take this off.” I lift the hem of her lemur shirt. She watches me for a moment, then scrambles to comply. She lifts it up but gets stuck in the long sleeves somehow. She twists, grunting, dark blonde brows knit together in frustration.
“I can’t—”
I laugh, tugging at a sleeve. She twists away from me, and her arm clears the hole. I push the shirt up and over her head, my gaze falling to her breasts as they meet the air. Her rosy pink nipples pebble under my gaze, and I cup them immediately. They are perky little handfuls that make my cock jump for the hundredth time. I swipe my thumbs over each nipple in turn while she watches my hands with a rounded mouth.
Finally, her head lolls back, and the moan rips out of her.
I found her sweet spot.
“Mmm.” I buck underneath her again because I’m so horny for her I could die, but I’m not going to rush this. I dip my lips to meet a nipple, swiping my tongue over the tight point. Her thighs clench around my hips and she arches toward me, inviting more.
I cup her narrow ribcage in my palms, scraping my teeth over her nipple. She whimpers, her eyes drifting shut. She bucks again, her belly going tense. I can tell she is loving this, and watching her drift into outer space right before my eyes is more fascinating than I expected.
