The After Dark Collection: Books 1-3 in The Gift Series

by Blakely, Lauren

  “And on that high note, want to play a round of our favorite trivia questions game?” I asked as I folded the dish towel and set it back on the counter.

  “With wine, of course?” he asked.

  “Everything is better with wine,” I answered, and we settled into the couch, glasses in hand. With each question, I was reminded once more of why I’d said to Miss Sheridan that we were just friends.

  Because we were the kind of pals who teased and laughed, who poked fun and played games.

  But then he grew quiet as we volleyed questions about new science facts at each other. Normally he’d make a joke about some impossible-to-answer question, pretend it was a trick by the game maker.

  Only he didn’t. He seemed lost in thought.

  “Excuse me for a second,” he said, and rose, heading for the guest room.

  That’s odd.

  But ten seconds later, he returned, a determined look on his face as he sat next to me, closer than he had been.

  I parted my lips to speak. “What’s—?”

  “Nina,” he said, his voice rougher, deeper than I’d heard it before. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Tension darted down my spine. Those words never preceded anything good.

  What was he going to tell me? Was he leaving Vegas? I worried about that from time to time. He worked in the entertainment business, and his job could easily be moved to Georgia or Canada or Hollywood. While he traveled to those places a lot, Vegas was his home and his company’s home. I hoped it would remain so, but you never knew. “Are you moving to Atlanta?” I blurted out.

  He furrowed his brow. “What? No.”

  “Oh good. I was worried,” I said, relaxing. But then, something else was bugging him. “What’s going on?”

  He scrubbed a hand across his jaw, exhaling, then meeting my gaze, his hazel eyes shining darker than usual, like there were secrets in them he was going to reveal. “I’m going to be blunt because I believe that’s what you want. When I came home today, I needed to write a phone number down, and I flipped open your notebook. To grab a sheet of paper,” he said, and my heart raced rabbit fast. My pulse sped off the charts.

  “I wasn’t prying, Nina, but I saw a list you’d written,” he said, like he was laying out the facts he desperately wanted me to believe.

  A white sheet of shame descended over me. Mortification took on a new meaning.

  But inside my embarrassment something else formed—a kernel of anger. Red and glowing.

  “That was personal,” I said, my jaw tight, as I moved away from him. “You shouldn’t have looked at it. You shouldn’t.” Maybe if I said that enough, he’d forget what he saw, erase it from his mind.

  “I know I shouldn’t have,” he said, gravel in his voice. “And I’d like to say I feel terrible for invading your privacy. But . . .”

  I furrowed my brow, confused. “You don’t feel bad? Then why are you telling me?”

  He shook his head. “I wanted to feel bad, but I couldn’t find it in me to.”

  I shot him a stare. “Then why are you telling me?” I asked again, more bite in my tone. I stood, heading to the kitchen to clean the counter—anything to get away from the embarrassment of my most private fantasies revealed, right alongside my deepest secret.

  His footsteps echoed across the floor, and in seconds he moved behind me. “I’m telling you because of number ten.” His words rumbled across the air.

  I knew what number ten was.

  Number ten was the linchpin of the whole list.

  Number ten would be the hardest item to accomplish.

  His body was inches from mine, so close I could inhale his scent, like the winter woods, and a sliver of desire thrummed in my veins, surprising the hell out of me.

  The hairs on my neck stood on end. My mind went on high alert, racing through possibilities as quickly as I’d cycled through fantasies about Marco and Evangeline.

  Was he about to say what I thought he was?

  But Adam wasn’t that kind of guy, I reminded myself.

  I waited for him to speak next, to fill the pulsing silence, even though the noises in my head were so damn loud they nearly drowned out any words.

  Adam dipped his face closer, brushing his mouth over my ear, and whispered, “Ask me, Nina. I’ll be the man to do all those things to you for the first time.”

  He spoke in a command. Like me asking him was an instruction. No, it was an order.

  He’d given me a command.

  That shiver turned into a full-body shudder.

  6

  Nina

  Adam was never in the cards.

  For all the reasons I laid out in my head when Miss Sheridan had inquired. She wasn’t the only one in my life who’d nudged me about Adam. My friend Lily had at her wedding, tugging me aside and asking when I was going to go for it. Your wedding is making you loopy, I’d teased. My friend Kate had simply arched a dubious brow.

  Had they seen something in him I hadn’t?

  What would I see if I turned around?

  Would I see sunshine, as I always saw with this man?

  Or would I see midnight? Another side of Adam?

  Part of me was terrified; another part was thrilled.

  My mind raced through the myriad possibilities—what would happen to us if I asked him to bite me, have me, take me? Discover me on the bed and watch me touch myself? For once in my life, I wanted to be the one who was seen. I wanted to be watched. I craved the chance to say things like watch me strip, watch me tease, watch me taunt. Then I’d add, Tie me up and make me take it hard.

  With Adam?

  My pulse beat between my legs, the first sign.

  But there were so many what-ifs to Adam as number ten.

  We were frozen, poised on the edge of a building, staring down at the ground below, so far away. If we jumped, would there be a safe landing?

  I licked my lips and pushed out words. It felt as if I were speaking for the first time. “What happens if I ask you?”

  It was an open-ended question. He could answer it in many ways.

  A low growl was his first reply, a dirty hum that sent a new wave of tingles all over me.

  His mouth was dangerously close to my ear as he gave the rest of his answer. “Then I’d say yes. Then we’d work through your list. I’d fulfill all your filthy, fantastic dreams. You’d say no whenever you wanted. You’d set the rules, you’d set the boundaries, and I’d respect them,” he said, and I trembled from the intensity of his words, the depth of his understanding. I shuddered, too, from his touch, because as he spoke, he slid a hand down my side, curling it over my hip. His touch was electric. Sparks thrummed through me.

  “And what happens after I set the boundaries?” I asked, breathless and so eager, too, for more of his answers.

  With a rasp I’d never heard from him before, he said, “Then I’ll tell you to get on your knees and suck me so deep you feel it in the back of your throat. Or I’ll bend you over the table and tie your wrists above your head so I can have my wicked way with your sweet pussy. So I can tease you and taunt you and deny your orgasms till I say you’re good and ready to come.”

  A gust of breath escaped my lips. My knees wobbled. Those were my fantasies. Those were on my list. He’d read it, and he wasn’t running. He was closing in on me, wanting. I could feel his desire. I could feel the heat radiating from his body.

  Adam was turning me on in ways I’d never anticipated.

  But dirty words weren’t enough. Sharing desires wasn’t sufficient either.

  I needed to know we’d be okay. I needed to be certain we’d stay friends. That mattered more than this exquisite ache between my legs.

  “But what happens to us?” I asked, while I longed to grab the counter, bend my body into an L, and beg him to yank down my jeans.

  “What happens after dark, stays after dark,” he said, a play on the city’s famous motto. “Sex is sex, and friendship is friendship, and we call the shot
s. We set the ground rules. Here’s mine: Consent comes first. You come second, third, fourth, and many more times. You come hard, you come relentlessly, you come when I say you come, you come again and again on my face, on my cock, on your toys, tied up, pushed down, with my fingers in you, however the hell you want. Then I come. Then we stay friends. How’s that for ground rules?”

  I quivered, and the ache between my legs turned into a throb. A demanding, heavy throb that insisted on being answered.

  Maybe Adam was in the cards.

  Maybe he was all the cards.

  “Promise we stay friends?” I asked, my voice featherlight and laced with burgeoning desire—desire I hadn’t seen coming. Desire I’d never expected.

  What was happening to me? Had Evangeline and Marco’s passion unleashed a lust monster in me? Had Aphrodite done this? Sent my fantasies into overdrive with my best guy friend?

  Adam.

  Charming, clever, thoughtful Adam.

  Adam was the guy next door.

  But tonight, he was the man gripping my hip, digging his fingers hard into my flesh.

  My cells cried out for his touch.

  For his command.

  And for his rough edge that I hadn’t known existed.

  He was showing it to me, just as I was revealing to him my secrets. He hadn’t asked either—hadn’t inquired why I was a virgin. It wasn’t a state secret, but I didn’t want to serve up my choices at this moment. I’d share that story with him another time.

  “Damn straight we stay friends,” he growled. “Isn’t that what we were at dinner? Isn’t that what we are all the time?”

  “Yes. Yes, we are,” I said with no reservations.

  “And do you trust me?”

  I blinked. “How can you ask me that? You have a key to my home. I trust you completely.”

  His shoulders relaxed. “Good. I always want to be the man you trust. And that’s the kind of man you need for number ten.”

  “That is what I need.” I took a beat, considering the enormity of the step we were taking. But then, everything made perfect sense. I didn’t want a stranger. I didn’t want a hookup. I wanted to feel safe as I explored. “So that’s it? Those are the rules of engagement for my sex list?” I asked, because my logical brain liked to raise its hand at the most inopportune moments.

  Like when Adam’s thick erection pressed against my ass. The weight of his hard-on even through all these layers of clothing was intense.

  “Those are the rules of engagement for your dirty, delicious, enticing, sexy-as-sin list. Unless you have any you want to add,” he said, then rubbed the scruff of his jaw against my cheek.

  My body screamed for contact. My mind loved the way he’d elaborated on my list, how he’d referred to it.

  But there was one more rule to establish. “Protection,” I whispered.

  “I have condoms. We’ll use them every time. No questions asked,” he said, and I smiled privately.

  I loved that he assumed I wasn’t on protection already. If I were him, I’d assume that too. “I’m on protection and have been for years.”

  “You are?” His tone was laced with question. Understandably. But now was not the time to dive into why.

  “Yes. If you’re clean we don’t have to use condoms,” I said. “Are you? Have you been tested?”

  His groan lasted for several carnal seconds. “I am. Clean bill of health at my last physical. I haven’t been with anyone since.”

  I broke the hold he had on my hip. I spun around and took a few steps backward to the kitchen counter, feeling naughty, daring.

  From a few feet away, I stared at my friend with new eyes, drinking in the cut of his jaw, the fire in his eyes, the expanse of his hard chest.

  My eyes roamed over him. He was fully dressed, but fully revealed too. The outline of his arousal was visible through his pants. Thick and firm.

  My mouth watered as I stared at the shape of it.

  But tonight I wanted something else.

  Something for me.

  I didn’t need to start at the beginning of my list. The first three items set the tone. I’d cross them off as I worked through the others.

  I knew where to start.

  “Okay, then. Now that we’ve tackled the rules of engagement, I’d like to try number four, please.”

  7

  Nina

  I wasn’t ready for sex tonight.

  But I was primed and eager for touch.

  And for restraint.

  Aphrodite’s advice rang in my ears.

  Don’t be afraid to be specific. Communication is key in any relationship, especially in an intimate one. Lay out your wishes. Speak your dreams. And hey, every now and then, you might want to present a detailed diagram or specific to-do list. There is nothing wrong with clarity. In fact, clarity can be incredibly sexy. Do you want your lover to bend you over the couch, bind your wrists, and kick your ankles apart? Then make it clear. Use your words, because words are as sensual as touch.

  Yes. God yes. Those things, and more.

  With a deep breath and a dose of goddess bravado, I parted my lips and said, “And here’s how I want it.”

  Then I told him the basics of number four. “What do you think?” I asked, a touch of nerves in my voice.

  His eyes seared me. “I think you’re going to get everything you want. And everything you deserve, dirty girl.”

  A naughty smile tugged at my lips at the impromptu nickname. Lately, I’d felt like one, and like I’d needed to hide that side of myself. But the way Adam said those words made me feel like I could own the moniker at last. Like I could revel in it, rather than tuck it away, unseen.

  He stalked over to me, closing the few feet between us, his eyes narrowed, shining with pent-up desire. Had that desire been there before or had I unleashed it in one night?

  I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know.

  All I wanted was number four.

  But before he followed my detailed instructions, he clasped my cheek. “I’m going to give you all that you want, but there’s something I need to do before I turn you around and fuck you with my fingers.”

  I shivered with anticipation. “What is it, Adam?”

  His eyes blazed with lust as he brushed his finger across my top lip. “Kiss those luscious, sexy, pouty lips.”

  My eyes widened. Yes. I nodded, took off my glasses, and in less than a second, his lips were on mine.

  He didn’t prime me. Didn’t kiss me gently.

  Instead, he took.

  He seized the kiss, his lips consuming mine in the span of a heartbeat. With one hand on my cheek, another on my hip, he pushed me back against the counter and held me in place, devouring my mouth.

  I’d never been kissed like this.

  The others before Adam, and there weren’t many, were soft and sweet.

  They kissed like they were testing the terrain.

  Adam was not tentative. He was resolute.

  And this kind of kiss was so foreign, I wasn’t sure what to do with my hands, my body. I stood rigid, even as my insides melted.

  Was I supposed to touch him too? To run my hands up and down his chest? I had no idea, so I tried to focus on his moves, as if the camera of my mind was recording them to replay later.

  He barely used his tongue. He was all lips and heat and strength, and absolute control. He slid his thumb to my jaw, his fingers to my chin, and yanked my head back. Kissing me harder. Making everything clear. He owned this moment, and he owned me.

  My neck was exposed, my kisses were his as he whispered, “Do you need to be kissed like a dirty girl?”

  That was when I relaxed fully. That was when I turned to liquid. I knew what to do with my body. Give in.

  All of me melted.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Dirty girls get kissed like this,” he said, tilting my head and licking a line across my lips.

  Holy hell.

  He was showing me how he’d kiss
me in other ways. At the corner of my lips, he flicked his tongue. Then he drew a long, lingering line across my lips again, murmuring as he went, like he was going down on me. When he stopped, his eyes blazed with desire. “You taste so damn good, and I bet you’re going to taste even better when you show me how much you like coming on my face.”

  Electricity shot across my skin, traveling up and down my body. “I bet I will,” I said, feeling emboldened.

  Something like a growl seemed to rumble up his chest as he shook his head. “But not tonight. You know why?”

  “Why?” I asked, nerves and desire thrumming through me.

  He dipped his face near mine. “Because I know how you want number five. I know how you want me to eat you out. You’re going to get number five when you show me how good you can beg for my mouth, like the dirty girl you are. You’re going to have to plead before I bury my face between your legs.”

  Flames licked across my body. I was an inferno, and he was my oxygen. I wanted him to fan the flames of my fire. “Do I have to beg you tonight?” I asked, and the possibility thrilled me.

  He brushed his thumb along my chin. “No. Not tonight. We’ll get to that. But you will do as I say right now. Is that clear?”

  I nodded, pleasure tripping through me, making me wetter.

  He issued a command, saying, “Answer me with words, Nina.”

  I gulped. “Yes. I understand.”

  “Good,” he said, absently running his hand over the outline of his erection. So hot. “Tell me something.”

  “Yes?”

  He lifted his chin, his eyes roaming over me, lingering on my breasts. I glanced down, took in my erect nipples poking through the soft fabric of my shirt. I arched my back, the material straining further as he asked, “Are you wet from the way I kissed you?”

  I nodded. “So wet.”

  “Are you aching for me to touch you?”

  Oh God. I wasn’t going to last long. “So ready,” I said, breathless.

  “Good. Now turn around and put your hands on the counter.”

  Swiveling around, I did as I was told, gripping the edge. His hands were fast, practiced.