One Cruel Night

by K. A. Linde

  My body was on fire, and this moment with him only coaxed the flames.

  His lips moved to my cheek, then my ear, and then down my neck. He turned me in place, trailing light kisses across my shoulder. Goose bumps erupted on my skin when he hit one spot, and I couldn’t stop the gasp from leaving me.

  “Here?” he asked, kissing me again.

  “Oh,” I panted.

  His tongue darted out and caressed my neck. My whole body shuddered. It was a total trigger. Something so romantic and erotic that just set me off.

  His fingers deftly slid to the zipper on my dress, and he moved down my back and over my ass. I inhaled sharply at the cold air on my heated skin. But I didn’t want him to stop. I was glad that I’d had a glass of wine so that I had the courage to keep going. I wasn’t as drunk as I’d been at the club. I wanted to remember this night after all. But a little liquid courage didn’t hurt anyone.

  I leaned back against him, pressing our bodies together. Then, he slipped the sleeves of my dress off of my shoulders. It eased down my body, over my breasts, and then my hips before pooling at my feet, leaving me in nothing but my black strapless bra and matching lace thong.

  “Fuck,” he muttered. “The things I want to do to your body.”

  He ran his hands down my bare skin. My heart rate accelerated with every touch. He kissed that spot again, and I shivered.

  “Wha-what do you want to do?”

  He popped the hook and eye on my bra, and it fell to the ground, my breasts hanging pert and exposed.

  “This.”

  He caressed my breasts, gently kneading them until I felt wetness pooling in my panties. He pinched one nipple before bringing the other up to his mouth.

  “Oh my god,” I breathed.

  “And this,” he said, tugging the comforter down and pressing me back into the bed.

  He ran his mouth down my stomach until he reached the lace of my thong. Biting into the material, he pulled my panties off and hoisted my legs up onto his shoulders. My cheeks flamed at the positioning as he kissed his way up my inner thighs.

  I sat up as embarrassment coursed through me. I’d had guys go down on me before, but it had always been an afterthought. Something to do after I gave a blow job. And Penn had already given me an incredible orgasm. I should probably reciprocate that before we got any further.

  “Penn, maybe I should…” I sat up, trying to stop him from continuing.

  He eased me back into a lying position. “No one’s ever complained about multiple orgasms.”

  And really, I couldn’t argue with that.

  A kiss on my knee. My thigh. Up, up, up. Traveling north. My legs quivered in anticipation. My core throbbed with each kiss, with every inch he moved closer to the exact spot I wanted him.

  He licked once, tasting, testing. I thought I was going to come already. Just that one easy movement had me aching to release.

  “This is what I want,” he told me. Our eyes met between the V of my legs. “I want to eat your pussy until the only taste on my lips is you.”

  My jaw dropped, and my whole body flushed. No one had ever talked to me like that. It wasn’t like high school guys were in it for more than theirs. Penn was different. He was older, more mature. A man.

  Then, he did exactly what he’d said he was going to do. He licked and sucked and lapped at me until I was shaking nonstop. He inserted a finger and then another, owning my body and curling up inside me.

  Noises escaped me that I hadn’t known it was possible for me to make. Little animals mewls and gasping, “Yes, yes, yes!” that felt like it shook the rooftops.

  My orgasm hit me afresh. Clamping down on his fingers, practically holding him in place. His soft laugh registered through the buzzing in my ears. It was clear that he also was enjoying the high that I was riding. Enjoying it immensely. Enjoying it so much that I was going to need to do something about it.

  Chapter 9

  His erection jutted hard against his suit pants, and with ease, he popped the button and slid the zipper. His pants were a puddle on the floor. Now, he was just in boxer briefs, and then those were gone, too. My eyes bulged slightly when I got a good look at him. He was…he was…wow, well endowed. Maybe this was the real reason for all the warm-up. Not that I was complaining. Not in the least.

  For a second, I recognized that the song had changed. “Lay Me Down” by Sam Smith replaced whatever had come before it, and I knew that I’d never hear the song the same after this.

  He popped open the drawer of the nightstand and produced a condom.

  “I…I have one,” I offered. It felt like the right thing to do.

  “Next time,” he said with a grin that melted me back into the sheets.

  He slipped the condom on and then crawled forward until he was hovering over me. My body tensed, waiting and wondering. My nerves, which had shattered under his tongue, were back. But he just pressed my hair back and brought his lips down onto mine.

  “See how good you taste?” he asked.

  I laughed. “You like how I taste?”

  “I could eat you all day.”

  I felt the first touch of him against my opening and gasped. He wasn’t even inside me, and already, he felt good.

  Oh dear god!

  “I love all the noises you make,” he said, kissing his way back down my neck. Then, his dick ran up and down between my slick folds. My eyes slammed closed. “So vocal.”

  “Am-am I?” I squirmed under him in response, wanting him inside me so desperately. Maybe I should want to wait, but here in this moment, I wanted nothing more than him.

  “I want to hear you scream,” he breathed in my ear.

  His dick pressed forward inside me. Just the tip. Easing his way in slow and steady. Taking his time to savor me. I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out already. Between his movements, the throbbing in my pussy, and the dirty talk in my ear, I was a wanton woman, ready for whatever he was going to give me.

  “Fuck,” he growled. “Oh fuck, Nat.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  I pushed my body upward, trying to get more of him inside me, but he grasped my hip in his hand and held me down. I tightened around him hard and tried to shift for more. Tried to ease the ache building inside me. He pulled back and then pushed just the tip in again.

  “You’re so tight. So fucking tight. Shit.”

  “Please,” I heard myself beg. “Please, Penn.”

  I’d lost all semblance of self-control.

  He reached out and grabbed my arm, holding it tight over my head. Control was completely given over to him, and I didn’t even want it back.

  He kissed the tip of my nose. “Open your eyes.”

  They slowly fluttered open to meet his big blue eyes. Then, as he stared deep into my eyes, he thrust forward into me. I might have been tight, but I was soaking wet from two orgasms, and he met little resistance from me. Just pushed forward until he was balls deep inside me.

  He rested his forehead forward onto my shoulder. “Forget Aristotle and Plato, this is all the philosophy I need.”

  My hand tightened around his, and my knees came up to his sides as I felt the full pressure of him buried deep. Then, he lifted his chin, captured my lips once more, and started moving.

  Everything faded into the background. There was just me and Penn. The quick yet unhurried movements as our bodies slapped together over and over again. The heated gazes that spoke volumes. The warmth that was suffusing my entire body unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my life. This was a first for me, and I was almost fucking certain nothing else would ever compare. I had no frame of reference, but it felt impossible to consider anyone else would worship me like him.

  He sat up and hitched one of my legs over his shoulder. Then, he started the rhythm even faster. My eyes bulged at the depth he reached each time he bottomed out inside me.

  “So deep,” I groaned. “Oh my god! Oh god!”

  “Too deep?” he asked with a conspiratorial s
mirk.

  “No.”

  “Should I slow down?” He proceeded to ease out of me so dangerously slow that I thought I’d combust, and then he went back in one millimeter at a time.

  “Dear god, no, don’t stop,” I begged.

  “Faster, love? Is that what you want?”

  I whimpered.

  “Rougher?”

  I clenched all around him. I couldn’t believe I was even holding on. I was right on the edge. Everything felt like it was going to collapse at any second.

  “Please.” He must have seen where I was because he smiled. “Please.”

  He obliged. He finished his slow pull out, and then he thrust hard, fast, and deep into me. I cried out. And he did it again and again and again. Until those screams he’d requested burst from my mouth, and I exploded.

  Spots filled my vision. I hit the ceiling and floated back down to earth on cloud nine. Everything felt like I was swimming. Barely in my body as I hovered over it all. And I didn’t really want to come back to reality. I wanted to stay in this moment of satisfaction forever.

  Penn thrust twice more inside me, and then I felt him finish along with me. He grunted his own euphoria as he came deep inside me. He collapsed forward over me. The force of his orgasm knocking him over. Then, when he finally finished, we both lay, panting from exertion. Sweat lined our bodies, and it didn’t even matter.

  I reached out and gently ran my fingers through his dark hair. I felt like I’d just run a marathon and could probably sleep for the next twenty-four hours. He nearly purred at my touch. He clearly liked getting his hair played with.

  He kissed my shoulder once and then withdrew. I gasped at the absence of him. How I’d felt so full, and now, I felt so bereft. It was definitely too soon for more. I already felt sore, but damn, maybe it would be worth it.

  He removed the condom and strode into the bathroom to clean up. I followed suit when he was finished. Then, I came back into his room and sprawled out next to him. He didn’t say anything as he lay against my stomach.

  “I can still feel your body pulsing,” he said.

  I blushed. Despite all we’d done, talking about it, when we weren’t in the heat of it, embarrassed me.

  “That would be because of you.”

  He kissed my stomach. “You’re welcome.”

  I laughed. “Cocky much?”

  “Confident,” he corrected.

  I slid my fingers through his hair again. “I wish we’d met earlier this summer.”

  “Don’t leave then.”

  “What?” I asked in surprise.

  “School doesn’t start until after Labor Day. I’m here until then. You could stay with me.”

  Fuck did I want that. But I couldn’t imagine, in any universe, anyone in my life being okay with that. My parents would pitch a fit. Amy would drag my ass onto that plane tomorrow. I wanted to stay, but I knew I couldn’t. Still…I didn’t want to break the fairy tale.

  “Maybe I will.”

  “We’ll figure it out tomorrow,” he said, kissing me again. “We have something else to do tonight.”

  “Oh, yeah? We didn’t see enough of Paris already?”

  He slid back up my body, kissing every inch of me as he made his way to my lips. Then, he flipped me over so that I was on top of him. His erection jutted up between us. My body already pulsed at its nearness again.

  “I was thinking, round two,” he said. His hand slid between my thighs and caressed my clit. “You on top this time.”

  Chapter 10

  PENN

  “F uck, I need a shower,” I grumbled.

  I slid out of my bed and stared down at the naked blonde from last night. What an excellent choice. Who knew that Harmony’s horrid party was going to work out so well for me?

  I tossed a sheet over her. We probably should have showered the sex off of us last night. But she had literally passed out after round three. And I wasn’t going to wake her up after that. Shower could wait until the morning.

  I blearily checked my phone. Six o’clock in the fucking morning.

  Jesus Christ! Couldn’t I sleep in anywhere?

  We’d been up until the wee hours of the morning. It would have only been fair to get to sleep in until at least ten. Noon would have been even better. But no.

  I flung irritable curse words at nothing and moved into the adjoining bathroom. The smell of sex clung to everything in my room and on me. It was probably pointless to wash it all off, considering I had every intention of waking her up with my head between her legs and then flipping her over on her stomach and taking her from behind. But I should probably be a little more generous with her than my fucking brain was with me and let her sleep in.

  The water was near boiling, and steam billowed from the glass shower as I stepped inside. I let the jets beat down on me before scrubbing last night’s escapades off of my body and shampooing my hair.

  My skin was red from the intense heat when I stepped out of the shower. I dried off my hair and then slung the towel low around my narrow hips. After brushing my teeth, I went in search of a cup of coffee. It was too early for the housekeeper to be here. So, I knew I’d have to make my own. Better coffee than no coffee in my book.

  I set up a French press and left it to steep while I decided how long I would have to wait before waking Natalie up.

  A good, long fucking in the morning was almost a better way to wake up than coffee.

  Maybe I’d just write while she slept.

  Lord fucking knew that I had way too much to get on paper. I’d come to Paris to try to silence all the shit I had been dealing with in New York. I loved my friends—the crew—but they didn’t get why I was pursuing a PhD. They wanted to party and have sex every night. My eyes slid back to the bedroom. Well, maybe I did, too. But I still had work to do. An entire philosophy dissertation that I had to write that would change the world of ethics as we knew it.

  I rolled my eyes at myself. Narcissistic much?

  I hadn’t proven to anyone yet that I was a better producer of philosophy than I was a consumer. And, until I got to that point, no one would take me seriously.

  Especially not as a Kensington.

  My mood soured at my name. That stupid fucking name that got me in wherever I wanted and left me a trust fund in the nine- to ten-digit range. The name that made people get out of my way. The name that made people wonder why in the hell I was getting a philosophy degree when I could be working with my father. The abusive bastard.

  The name I had purposely not told Natalie last night.

  I’d told her I wanted to be someone else, and she’d let me. It was a privilege I wasn’t usually afforded. Never in New York or at Harvard where all of the vultures circled me, hoping, one day, they’d be the one to take me off the market.

  No matter that I wasn’t even twenty-five, had no intention of taking over my father’s business, and had sworn off marriage long ago. If it was anything like my parents’ arrangement, then count me out.

  Natalie was oblivious to me wandering around as I changed into chinos and a button-up that I rolled to my elbows. I snagged my phone and notebook from the nightstand and went back to my precious coffee.

  I opened my notebook to the latest blank page and started in on my night with Natalie. I considered the title and then wrote, It All Started on a Park Bench in Paris.

  My phone buzzed, and I checked to see who the hell was calling me this early. My mother. Just what I fucking needed. Why the hell was she calling me anyway? It was nearly midnight in New York. She was a state senator in the New York State Assembly. She worked even more obscure hours than I did and cared even less about what I thought about her. She was a ballbuster and notoriously impossible to work for. Try having her as a mother.

  I let it go to voice mail, but when it immediately started ringing again, I sighed and picked up. “Hello?”

  My mother was crying.

  My mother was crying.

  My mother…was…crying.


  I couldn’t fathom the fact that Leslie Kensington was actually in tears. On the phone. With me.

  Then, I heard the words she had been blubbering into the phone.

  I froze.

  The blood drained from my body.

  I couldn’t process everything else she was saying.

  I just stood there.

  In disbelief.

  “I’m coming home,” I said and mechanically hung up.

  I was in shock.

  Then, I didn’t think. I just acted. I took my notebook, phone, and MacBook. I slid my feet into shoes and then was out the door and in a cab to the airport before I could even stop to process the fact that I hadn’t woken Natalie up.

  Chapter 11

  Light streamed in from white-curtained windows. The sun was shining, birds were chirping…or were those cars driving by below? I blinked rapidly, trying to wake up, and a huge yawn escaped me.

  “What time is it?” I murmured into the empty space.

  Then, my eyes adjusted.

  Blue comforter.

  King-size bed.

  Clean bedroom.

  I bolted upright and stared around the room. “Oh god,” I hissed.

  Last night came back to me in a rush. Meeting Penn at the party, wandering the city with him, the club, his bed.

  Oh god, his bed.

  I was still in his bed.

  And he was not in his bed.

  The things we had done in his bed.

  I shook my head to try to dispel the series of images that floated to the surface. His hands gripping my hips, his tongue on my clit, my hands running through his hair, the yells for more, him giving me more, more, more. I closed my eyes. Had that really been me?

  Who even knew that I was that much of a sexual animal?

  It wasn’t like I hadn’t been interested in having sex before this. I’d always wanted to, but despite dating several people, I’d never felt attracted or into anyone enough to go through with it. But last night…I’d been eager. Not just eager, I’d asked and had seconds…and thirds.

  And now, he wasn’t in his room. Of course, there was probably a perfectly normal explanation for that. Maybe he was writing in his notebook, which was missing from the nightstand. Maybe he’d gotten up before me and decided not to wake me. Lots of reasons.