by Linda Verji
“Is baby sulking?” she asked. He ignored her. “Nathan.” Her lips touched his forehead, then the tip of his nose. “Naaaaathan.” Kisses on his cheeks, his jaw, the side of his lips.
“Go away,” he mumbled even though that was the last thing he wanted.
“No.” She pressed her lips to his then licked the seam of his mouth. It was enough to get him to open his mouth for a deeper kiss expecting her to take advantage. Instead, the air moved above him then suddenly it was empty. His eyes snapped open only for him to find Shakira standing at the edge of the bed grinning.
“You tease!” He lurched off the bed to grab her but she took off giggling.
She didn’t get far. He ambushed her in the hallway, bracketing her against the wall with his hands beside her head and his body holding hers hostage. So close to him, her womanly scent teased and tempted him.
“Think you can just tease your man like that, don’t you?” He bent his head to press his lips to hers but just as he was about to, she turned her head to the side.
“No,” She said, but then let her eyes fall to his hard cock pressed against her stomach. She bit her lip.
“No?” he cocked an eyebrow as he let one hand fall from beside her head. She didn’t protest when he fit it beneath the hem of her towel and inched upwards. She was already wet. He flicked at her clit. “You bad, bad girl.”
“Ah.” Shakira arched her back, pressing her head against the wall as her eyes widened in pleasure. He loved watching her react to his touch. He toyed with her, strumming her nub, rubbing her wetness around before dipping one finger into her pussy.
Her response was priceless. Her eyelids fell, her mouth opened in a soundless scream and she hiked her leg on his thigh. Her walls grasped around his digit like a warm moist glove urging him to fit another finger in. And he did. By the time he started fucking her with his fingers, Shakira was delirious. Her fingers sifted through his hair desperately as she tucked her head into his throat. Her breath came in shallow mewls in time to the movement of his fingers inside her.
There was nothing more he wanted than to lift her against the wall and plunge his cock into her. He could already imagine her warm sheathe clasping him deep into her and sucking him. But this was meant to be a lesson. So just when her moans got louder and he knew she was about to come, he stopped.
“Nathan,” she protested as her eyes snapped open.
“Uh uh.” He shook his head as he dipped his fingers still coated with her honey into his mouth. God, he loved her tasted. Why was he refusing her again? Oh yeah. “Don’t tease me if you can’t handle it yourself.”
“No,” she complained as he disentangled her arms from around his neck. “Please.”
“Nope.” He shook his head despite the fact that her tempting breasts were rubbing up against his chest and the knot above them looked loose enough that one tug and he’d be able to get a nice view. Stay strong, Nathan. He repeated, “No.”
“Are you serious?” Her eyebrows knotted together in anger before she slapped him on the chest and shoved him away.“Fine. I didn’t want your ass anyway.”
“Lies,” he called after her as she started towards the room and he stalked her.
Her response was to flip him the bird.
He chuckled, shaking his head as unbidden, the words rushed out. “Damn, I love you.”
He stuttered in his steps. What had he just said? I love you. What the hell? Thankfully, it seemed Shakira hadn’t heard his words because she entered the bedroom leaving him rooted in the hallway. I love you. Was his mouth playing with his subconscious or was it ahead of the game? Could he be in love with Shakira?
Nathan had no idea what it felt like to be in love with someone considering he’d never been inclined to let anyone get that close to him. But the tenderness and protectiveness he felt for Shakira told him that there was definitely something there. Love?
Before he could fully process his thoughts, Shakira peeped from the doorway of the bedroom and brandished his cell-phone. “Baby, phone.”
Shoving his confused thoughts and feelings to the back-burner, he strode forward. After handing him the phone, she walked back into the bedroom. He followed her in while swiping his phone then pressing it to his ear. “Hollis.”
“Nathaniel, why haven’t you called Miguel?” His mother’s clipped tones filled his ear. “How is he supposed to prepare your room if he doesn’t even know what time you’re getting in?”
“Goodbye, Mother!” He cut the phone-call before she could get another word in. It was too damn early in the morning to deal with her.
“Did you just hang up on your mother?” Shakira stared at him in open mouthed fascination.
“Yeah!” He tossed his phone on the bed.
“How?”
“What do you mean how?”
“How do you hang up on your mother?” She looked genuinely interested as she unknotted her towel. His heart picked up its rate when she let it fall to the floor with a soft rustle. The naked body revealed underneath temporarily incapacitated Nathan’s vocal muscles.
He had to clear his throat before saying, “It’s easy. You just press the end call button.”
“I wish I had your balls.” She shook her head as she made her way to the vanity table and reached for the bottle of lotion. “Eve would get on a plane and come slap the taste out of my mouth if I ever hang up on her.”
“You’re too old for your mother to be slapping you anywhere,” Nathan said distracted by her hands seductively skimming over her silky limbs and chocolate skin.
“I’m not that old,” Shakira was all business as she lotioned up. His position gave him the perfect view of her apple bottom and glimpses of her pert breasts and toned stomach. It was enough to make his dick hard and begging for her attention. She bent forward to spread some lotion on her leg. “And she’s still my mother.” Her bending had the effect of giving him a sneak peak of her pussy.
All right that was too much. Nathan started moving even before he realized he was doing it. He came up behind her, the jasmine scent of her lotion immediately imbuing his senses.
The moment she felt the naked warmth of his chest on her back, her gaze met his in the mirror and she straightened up. Her tone was dismissive as she said, “Uh, uh. You missed that train, buddy.”
In a bid to distract her, he said, “At least your mother isn’t forcing you to go to her wedding.”
“Yet.” Shakira scoffed. “I bet you in about a week she’ll call me to say they’re in Vegas.”
“She’d do that?” Nathan snaked his arm around her waist, subtly rubbing his still towel clad dick on her ass.
“You have no idea.” Shakira returned his subtle grind with a slow wind of her own hips, but slapped his hand away when he tried to cup his breast. She added, “And then in seventeen hours she’ll probably ask for a divorce and half his money.”
Nathan had to chuckle at that. Eve was something else. But right now she wasn’t the woman on his mind or in his arms. His hand crawled up Shakira’s body again and this time she let him mold his palm over her breast.
Voice hushed, she said, “I think you should go to the wedding.”
Distracted by the bounty in his hands, he asked, “What?”
Shakira took a sharp gasp of breath when he flicked her tight nipple. When she spoke again, there was a tremor in her voice. “I think you should go to the wedding.”
“Nah.” He punctuated his words with a nip on her earlobe. While the fingers on her breast continued to taunt her aching tip, he slid his other hand lower down her body.
“I mean aren’t you curious abou…..ooh.” She tensed when he cupped her heated mound. “Naaathan.”
“Yes?” He tapped her thighs urging her to widen up for him. She did. Fitting himself harder against her ass, he rubbed his fingers over her pussy lips. She was already wetter than a faucet,
“Aren…aren’t…you…you curious about…’bout…ooh Lord,” she whimpered as her fingers clasped around
his wrist tightly.”Ooh….sss…Baby, right there.”
Her juices coated his fingers as he teased, around, forward, backward, flicking, plucking; he had her dancing on his fingers in less than five minutes. He’d even forgotten what they were talking about but apparently Shakira was determined to continue the conversation. “D…don’t..you want t…t…to…know…why she wants…wants you the…there?”
“Who?” He pushed a finger into her tight warmth.
“Naaathan?” He didn’t know whether her cry was in protest over his distracting her or a plea for more. He went with the latter, withdrawing his finger then pushing it in again.
“Shit.” Shakira set her hands on the vanity table and spread her legs wider. He couldn’t believe how hot and tight she was. Her walls clasped onto his finger like a well-fitted glove.
“What were you saying?” he asked pressing a kiss on the back of her neck.
“Should go…mother’s wedding,” she stuttered the words as her body bore down on the finger playing a tune in her and to grind her ass harder on his dick. Finally unable to bear the teasing anymore, he let his own towel drop.
“Don’t feel like.” He pressed a hand on her shoulder blade to push her lower as he placed the head of his dick against her entrance.
“Just there.” She moaned as Nathan pushed into her tip by tip, letting her coat him with her wetness and filling her completely. Everything about her was spellbinding from the way her walls clasped over him tightly to the way she pushed her body pushed back to meet him halfway. They both groaned when he was completely encased in her, her pussy pulsing in excitement over his shaft.
When he started to move, it was almost like he’d been transported into a whole other world where only Shakira and her body existed. She gripped the hot length of him hard, loathe to let him go each time he retreated and eager to swallow him up each time he entered.
“Harder.” She lifted her leg to the table to get him to hit it just right. With her words, Nathan let the beast in him out slamming into her hard. The table creaked in protest but was too strong to crash. Stroke for stroke he pleasured her, each length designed to please her until the only sounds in the room were her whimpers, his groans and the rhythmic slapping of skin.
Eager to shatter her even further, he slid his hand to her slit. With his fingers he stroked her pleasure point in time to his strokes until finally he drove her over the edge of madness. Her walls clamped tightly over his shaft as she came.
“Kira,” Nathan groaned her name as his strokes sped up and he followed her in.
“I’m serious,” she insisted thirty minutes later as they lay on the bed recovering from their energetic bout. “I think you should go.”
“No.” He shook his head. “She’ll think I’ve forgiven her.”
“And?” Shakira questioned. “I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”
“You don’t know my mother.” Nathan scoffed as he smoothed down her hair. Their activities had puffed it out again. “She’ll find a way to use it.”
“And you won’t let her because you’re not the same eighteen year old she tricked,” Shakira insisted. “Wouldn’t you like to know why she’s so interested in you right now?”
“Not, really,” he denied.
“I know you are.” Shakira rose and kissed his cheek. “Maybe she’s just trying to apologize for what she did.”
Edya. Apologize? When chickens started flying!
“No wonder Eve runs circles around you. You’re too soft, Baby.” Nathan lowered his lips to hers to ease the sting of his words. “My mother tried to destroy my career.”
“But she didn’t.” Shakira traced her thumb along his lips. “And I don’t think she even tried that hard to.”
Nathan drew his head back, cutting his eyes at her. “Are you serious?”
“Not that I’m saying what she did wasn’t awful. But think about it.” Shakira eyed him. “If Edya really wanted to destroy your career she could have. She could’ve paid off all those other people who you auditioned for after you quit college. She could’ve sabotaged the jobs you got. She could’ve held back your trust fund so you couldn’t start Extreme Expressions. Even now she can probably find a way to kill it if she wants.”
The horror. He’d never really thought of it that way. But it was true. Edya had enough power in her fingertip to turn everything he was into ash if she so wished. Why hadn’t she? And why hadn’t she even threatened it? It was very unlike her to ignore leverage like that.
“In her own weird way she let you follow your dreams,” Shakira said.
“You mean in her own wicked way.”
“Go find out what she wants,” Shakira urged. “Besides wouldn’t you like to be able to see Zeke and Danny without sneaking about around Edya?”
Nathan didn’t answer, but he knew that Shakira was right. Though it was a choice he’d made, it still felt like he was a kid pressing his nose against the glass window and staring into the candy shop he wasn’t allowed into. Once in a while his brothers would come outside to give him a piece of candy, but then they’d go back in leaving him standing out there – alone.
As if she could read his mind, she said, “It’s not weak to want to be part of your family again.”
“Are you sure she’ll be okay with me coming with you?”
“She better be,” Nathan dismissed, his eyes on the large black gates. Though his face was an expressionless mask, the rapid tapping of his fingers on the steering wheel was anything but calm.
Shakira wrung her hands nervously as she watched the gates slowly slide open. If she’d known he was going to insist that she come with him, she’d never have suggested that he come to his mother’s wedding. Eve was crazy but his mother was crazy. Shakira had no interest whatsoever of being sequestered anywhere with Edya for a whole night and day.
Shakira’s eyes widened as the gates opened revealing the estate behind. A large expanse of well manicured lawns and a concrete driveway yawned inwards leading into the estate. On the eastside of the driveway, several workmen dressed in white, were putting up tents and arranging seats, but what caught Shakira’s attention was the impressive mansion at the end of the driveway.
The closer Nathan drove towards it, the grander the three-storied Victorian manor seemed. It was like a work of art marring the startling blue skies. Reflected sunlight glinted over the long windows that lined the top floors of the house. Two white pillars sculpted as Grecian goddesses held up the awning to the house’s entrance.
She was still staring open-mouthed at the house when she felt Nathan’s hand close around hers. “Don’t be nervous.”
Yeah, right! Because that was possible! She gave Nathan a smile anyway. “I have you, don’t I?”
“You do.” He leant forward and pressed his mouth to hers. His tongue eased into her briefly to soothe her with a deeper kiss. When he finally lifted his head Shakira was feeling much better. Her eyes traveled past him to the entrance of the house.
Edya stood at the door staring at them with an unreadable expression.
Shakira’s anxiety returned full force.
Oh boy!
CHAPTER 18
As the veteran of warped mother-child relationships, Shakira counted herself as jaded, but even she was surprised by the level of tension between Nathan and Edya. Where she came from, family members could hate each other, but when company came over they pretended like they were attached at the hip. These two didn’t even bother.
“Nathaniel,” Edya greeted.
“Mother.” Nathan nodded shortly.
Who calls their mother, Mother? Shakira stood silently beside Nathan watching the exchange with curiosity. But then again, who calls their mother, Eve?
“I see you came.”
“It would seem so,” Nathan returned tersely.
“I didn’t know you were coming with a guest.” Edya’s words were for Nathan but her eyes were on Shakira.
“Well, I did.” Nathan caught Shakira’s hand in his,
tagging her just the slightest bit closer as he introduced, “Mother, this is Shakira Dalton, my girlfriend.”
Shakira didn’t even have a chance to absorb the ‘girlfriend’ tag; not with Edya’s eyes narrowing into thin slits as they took her in. The older woman’s gaze flickered downwards to their intertwined hands and then back up to Shakira’s face. “Is she?”
“It’s nice to meet you…Ms. Landa-Hollis,” Shakira remembered the Ms. just in time. Nathan had told her how his mother had reacted when his assistant had called her Mrs. Hollis.
Edya didn’t answer. She stared at Shakira silently and unsmilingly as she subjected her to another head-to-head toe inspection. By the rise of her perfectly arched eyebrow, it was obvious that Nathan’s mother didn’t approve. Nathan’s grip on Shakira’s fingers tightened. Shakira mentally winced, but did not pull away.
“Welcome,” Edya finally said, though the ice dripping from her tone was nowhere near hospitable.
They were saved from any further discomfiture when a tall swarthy-complexioned man in a dapper black suit, snow white shirt and black tie, strode out of the house. Edya turned to him. “Miguel, good. You’re here.” She instructed, “Get Nathaniel’s bags to his room and prepare a guestroom for the girl.”
“Yes, Ms. Landa-Hollis.” Miguel bowed his head slightly before making his way towards the trunk of Nathan’s car. With one last lingering glance at Shakira, Edya entered the house. Nathan’s tension seemed to ease with his mother’s exit. Though his back was still as straight and stiff as an ironing board, he let out a small hiss of breath that only Shakira heard and his hold on her fingers relaxed.
“She doesn’t like you,” Nathan muttered.
“She doesn’t like anyone, remember?” She didn’t want Nathan even more anxious than he was. Bumping his shoulder and adding a teasing note to her voice, she said, “Don’t worry I’ll survive it.”
“You shouldn’t have to survive anything.”
