by Aubree Lane
He responded by taking entire breast into his mouth and sucked hard. His fingers fumbled as he struggled to gain access inside her panties.
It felt like a lifetime since they were together, and Annie was dripping with anticipation. She wanted more, and she wanted it now. Having sex in places where you weren’t supposed had an unexpected erotic upside. Annie sat up and quickly disposed of her shorts and panties. She grabbed at Terence’s shirt while he worked on his pants. When he came back to her, she rubbed his chest and licked his nipple. The muffled groan which passed through his lips sent shivers down her spine. Annie ran her hands further down his chest and lightly brushed his abdomen with her knuckles. When she attempted to take hold of his engorged shaft, he grabbed her wrists and pushed her body back into the mattress. He pinned her hands over her head and teased her with slow, wet kisses. “You first.”
As soon as Terence released her hands, she ran her fingers through his hair. “Together,” she insisted.
He shook his head. “If you touch me now,” he said sticking his tongue in her belly button and sending waves of sensations rippling out across her body. “It won’t be together.”
His feather light kisses trailed further down her torso, and she was lost. All she was aware of was his touch and how it made her feel. His hands slid down her legs, then to her calves. He placed a million sweet kisses on the inside of her thigh. Terence drew her leg up over his shoulder, but he still avoided the one spot she needed kissed most of all.
Her entire body shook, eager for him to quit savoring the moment and get on with it. When at last he tasted her, she almost screamed with pleasure. Every nerve ending in her body was alight and excruciatingly sensitive to his touch, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted him inside her. Annie wanted the warmth and pressure of his weight on top of her, and she demanded it.
She pulled roughly on his hair until he rose over her body. Not about to be denied this time, she took him into her hands. Annie let the air out of her lungs and guided him to her. Just as he touched her entrance, she took a deep breath and sucked him deep inside her.
Terence moaned and began an equable rhythmic motion that was entirely too gentle for the amount of desire racing through her veins. She wanted more. She needed more. Annie grabbed his rear, spread his cheeks, and ran a slippery finger across his anus.
The raw animal sound that generated from his throat assured her there would be no more pussyfooting around. They moved together almost violently.
Annie reached a point where she no longer was in control of her extremities. Holding onto Terence was impossible, and her arms flopped aimlessly above her head. Her feet were locked around his waist, but the legs attached to them were made of mush. All power, energy, and sensation was concentrated low and deep within her core. The words, which were able to break through her lips were unintelligible, and raucous. When she reached the point where pleasure was confused with pain, she snapped. Her entire body clenched, and she convulsed and rocked as orgasmic-fire spread out all the way down to her toes.
Annie wasn’t aware of anything except she was drowning in the grip of complete and total bliss. She gasped for air as she rode out the powerful penetrating riptide that pulled her farther out to sea. The current took its sweet time before it leisurely released its hold and she was once again able to rest gently upon its waves.
As her breathing returned to normal, Annie became aware of Terence’s own ragged breath. A sheen of sweat glistened upon his skin as his body moved within her. They hadn’t come together, but he was close. She tangled her fingers in his hair and dug her teeth into his shoulder. He gave way and pumped his seed deep within her. Moments later, his weight crashed down upon her. She held on tight, trying to maintain their closeness. His slightest movement still sent small quakes trickling throughout her body and delighted in the feeling.
• • •
When reality hit home, it came in the form of a large vehicle pulling up in front of the house and honking its horn.
Annie stiffened and gently tried to push Terence off her. It was time to get back to work.
He pressed her shoulders back into the mattress and rose above her so he could see her face. With a sexy grin he tried to entice her to stay. “Slow down, boss lady. I think Nathan can handle that driver.”
“Yes, but since he’s back at the office, that might prove a little difficult.”
Terence closed his eyes and settled back into the bed, keeping one leg draped over her torso to prevent her from leaving. “He drove up a while ago.”
“What?” she screeched, trying to wiggle out from under him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He nuzzled his nose into her neck. “I did, but you weren’t listening. You kept saying stuff like, Oh baby, don’t stop. More, more, more.”
He was teasing, but a sense of déjà vu washed over her, and Annie wasn’t at all sure he wasn’t speaking the truth. She relaxed and burrowed her back into his chest. Annie was content to stay where she was and let Nathan run interference for a while. She pulled a pillow up under her head. “I haven’t been sleeping well, and I suddenly feel the need for a nap. Wake me up in twenty minutes.”
With his manhood safely tucked between her cheeks, he kissed the nape of her neck.
“Twenty minutes,” he whispered in her ear as she drifted off.
• • •
An hour and a half later they descended the stairs and found Nathan still there, his foot tapped in irritation, and his arms were crossed angrily over his chest. “Feeling better?”
Annie glanced suspiciously at Terrence when she noticed that Nathan directed his sarcastic question in his direction.
Terence held his hand out for Nathan to shake. “Thanks for standing guard.”
Nathan ignored the gesture. “Don’t ever ask me to do that again.” Then he turned his wrath on Annie. “Don’t you ever check your messages? Your recording says you do, but you’re just one big liar. Phoebe has been calling all day. She’s frantic. She’s convinced she won’t be able to pull off the Hawaiian B&B all by herself and she wants you to come rescue her.” He narrowed his eyes and glared. “I’ll save you the trouble of pretending to be torn over having to make such a difficult decision.” He picked up a bolt of fabric that needed to get to the seamstress. “I told her you would be there as soon as possible.” Then he sneered in Terence’s direction. “Is there any other unpleasurable task you wish me to perform today?”
Annie jumped in. “I’m not going back to Hawaii until we are caught up here.” She had almost said until I sell, but neither Terence nor Nathan knew of her plan.
Nathan rolled his eyes and headed for the door. “If you aren’t lying to me, then you’re lying to yourself. A few days with Stud Muffin,” he said flicking his head in Terence’s direction. “And you’ll be singing a different tune. Besides, he promised to connect our computers up so well I won’t even know you’re away. I’m not sure that’s necessary any longer. After a day like today, I don’t think I will ever miss you again.” He snapped his fingers, remembering another detail, and walked back into the room. “By the way, the owners of this house called. They said they can’t stand the mess and won’t be back until Monday. I called Alan. He pulled in a few favors, and we’ll be running a crew here twenty-four-seven for the next few days.” He took the screwdriver Annie used on the grout out of her hand and grimaced.
Annie smiled. “Alan’s coming back to work!”
Nathan frowned. “In two weeks, that will no longer be the case. When this job is done, he’s through with us. He has given his notice.”
Annie opened her mouth, but Nathan stormed off with the bolt of cloth under his arm. Annie let the subject of Alan drop. Right now, she had more pressing matters to deal with. She turned slowly towards Terence and planted her hands on her hips. “You conspired with my staff to get me back to Hawaii,” she flat out accused.
He shook his disheveled, just out of bed, black hair and flashed a pair of dark sultry eyes at her. “I
didn’t know anything about Phoebe. The only deal I made was for Nathan to stand guard to ensure we had a little privacy. Nothing else, I swear.” He crossed his heart with his finger. “The only thing I expect is for you and me to go back to your place and talk.” Terence reached for her. “Where we go from there is something we will decide together.” He kissed the palm of her hand and drew her close. “Just you and me.”
His eyes held her and she felt herself falling for him all over again. Nathan was probably right, a few days with Stud Muffin and she’d be singing nothing but love songs. Feeling totally lost in love for the first time in her life, she hoped her future decisions weren’t going to be off key.
• • •
Another state, another bar, and another Saturday night sitting next to David watching Annie on stage, as she mesmerized the audience. Tonight Annie was singing solo. Earlier in the day she asked Terence to take the voice track out of a new favorite song and create her own karaoke music for the evening. What he did probably broke several copyright laws and was illegal as hell, but since the odds of the group coming after him were pretty slim, he risked it just to make Annie happy.
Terence liked how the song started. The couple was reunited after a misunderstanding and distance kept them apart. Then the song took a turn Terence didn’t especially care for. The vocalist was convinced that something was going to happen to ruin their happiness.
It was the same sentiment Terence was thinking a few hours earlier. He didn’t want to listen, fearing the end might foretell where his relationship with Annie was headed, so he turned to David and struck up a conversation. “Did you know that karaoke is an abbreviation of a Japanese word meaning empty orchestra?”
David rubbed his upper lip and tried to stifle a laugh. “You’re not going to believe this, but I did know that. I’m a trivia buff. I know a little bit of just about everything. But if you asked me what the original unabbreviated Japanese word was, I wouldn’t know the answer, would you?”
He didn’t. Terence wondered what they were going to talk about next. Hopefully not more trivia since he shot his wad in that department.
David leaned back in his chair and stretched. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something. I don’t want to interfere or overstep my bounds, but what the hell, everyone else has.”
Terence chuckled. This had to be the reason he was here without Marissa.
“Something has never set well with me,” David continued. “How did Erika just happen to be standing outside while Annie was on the phone with Larry? Wasn’t she supposed to be with her tutor? Where was Miss Murphy when all this was going down, and why did she leave her charge alone on the back porch without supervision? If Larry hadn’t called, Annie would have been on her way to the airport, and you were out jogging on the beach.” David picked up his beer and took a sip. “It sounds fishy to me.”
Terence nodded. Detective Dave was on the case. It was so obvious. Terence wondered why he hadn’t picked up on it himself. “You think Miss Murphy set Annie up.”
“I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud,” David said humbly. “Personally, I think she saw an opportunity to cause trouble and took it. I don’t see how it could have been planned unless she and Larry arranged it, but I can’t see him hurting Erika that way. I know how protective Larry can be with Marissa and our kids, and I don’t think he’d risk leaving her alone after hearing such unsettling news. Anything could have happened. We were lucky Erika stayed put.”
Terence sneered into his beer. If David’s conclusions were correct, Miss Murphy purposely set out to destroy his relationship with Annie. That he could deal with. He and Annie were adults and how they chose to handle the ups and downs of their relationship was their responsibility, but Erika was a child. Miss Murphy had used her as a pawn to get rid of Annie, and she did it for her own personal gain. She purposely hurt his daughter and that was not going to go unpunished.
“There is one thing I’m completely certain of,” David said, raising his mug in salute. “You suck at hiring people.”
Terence glared at David and couldn’t help but see the irony. “You realize you are one of the people I hired.”
“I rest my case,” David snickered. Then he turned his full attention towards Annie and listened intently while she sang. “She’s really good,” he commented lightly. “I always thought Marissa carried her, but I was wrong. She’s perfectly capable of standing on her own.”
Chapter 24
David got up from his desk to greet his favorite chef and babysitter. “Eleanor, what brings you uptown so early?”
Eleanor smiled and embraced him warmly. “We need to talk some sense into those silly girls. They can’t keep feuding like this.”
David shook his head. “I’ve tried. I think we have to let them work it out on their own. Annie isn’t ready to listen to Marissa’s apology.”
Eleanor sighed, she wasn’t going to let Larry and his scheming ways come between the girls. She was well aware the girls had hung onto their high school friendship long after all the others fell by the wayside. And she understood that it may be time for them to move on, but not like this.
There was a lot of information neither David nor Annie were aware of. Eleanor was extremely disappointed in Marissa. She could wring her little neck for that nasty prank she’d played on Annie, and for what Eleanor overheard her planning to do to Terence. It was getting so you didn’t know who the good guys were.
She and Larry were just beginning to get their intimate relationship back on track when all this happened and messed it up. The day Annie called and informed Larry that Erika knew of her true parentage, she and Larry had just finished enjoying a little afternoon delight. The man she had loved and cared about for thirty years turned out to be an exceptional lover. While still basking in the aftermath, Eleanor got up to use the ladies room, and in those five little minutes all the progress they made in their relationship had been kicked backed at least twenty-five years.
Eleanor still bristled over what happened.
After Larry hung up the phone with Annie, he called Marissa. The man had actually told his daughter that it was time to bring out the big guns. He told her he was determined to gain sole custody of Erika, and he didn’t care what he had to do to get it.
Eleanor knew what that meant. She might love the man, but she wasn’t blind to his faults. She was well aware of his mistakes. He had failed to make his ill wife feel loved and protected, even while she was on her deathbed. Eleanor had been up close and personal to all the huge errors in judgment the man always seemed to make whenever Hannah Turner was around. Now it seemed that he wouldn’t hesitate to destroy Annie’s relationship with Terence if it meant getting what he wanted. It also appeared that he wasn’t going to waiver in his decision to take Erika away from the only father she had ever known, regardless of the fact that it might destroy the child in the process. He did it all while pretending to forge a relationship with Terence and telling him he would never be cut out of Erika’s life.
When Eleanor tried to talk with Larry and persuade him there was a better way, he had the gall to snarl at her and tell her that she could either get on board or get out.
Larry Wright’s shortcomings were many, but it was a rare few who had witnessed his malfeasance. Most people saw a man who would bend over backward to help a child in need. They saw a man who was kind and caring, who was both generous and supportive. They saw a man who when he loved, he loved deeply, loyally, and forever.
It was hard for Eleanor to understand why he insisted on being such a ninny when it came to Erika. Having skipped a mid-life crisis, was he now seeing his mortality creeping up on him and viewed Erika as his chance to feel young again? Eleanor was utterly baffled by his behavior, but she wasn’t going to allow it to destroy the family. A family which included both Annie and Terence.
Lawrence Wright had always been Eleanor’s weakness. She lived without his love for many years, and if necessary, she would do it again. And if Annie tho
ught Marissa could be a mama lion when it came to protecting the young, well then, the girl had better stand back because she was about to see a side of dear sweet Eleanor she had never seen before.
Caring for children was her strength. It always had been. It was Eleanor who threatened Annie’s mother with a call to social services if she and her husband didn’t straighten up and stop badgering the poor girl every moment of the day. It was Eleanor who found Annie her first car so she wouldn’t be chained to that unhealthy household, and it was Eleanor who pulled the strings that got Annie into the college of her dreams. She did it all without Annie ever knowing a thing.
Annie was not the only one who benefited from Eleanor’s benevolence. She had been a second mother to Marissa all throughout her childhood, even while her mother was still alive. Regina Wright had always been a sickly thing. From the moment of Marissa’s birth, it was Eleanor who fed, bathed, changed, and comforted the child. Regina did her best, but her best had been to entrust her daughter’s care to someone who could give her all the love and nurturing she was unable to provide. She did that by hiring her best friend and confidant, Eleanor Tresky.
For a short time in the early years, Eleanor even cared for Hannah. Alexander and Larry had been busy building their law practice when Hannah’s mother disappeared. Having nowhere else to turn until he found an appropriate nanny, Alexander Turner brought Hannah over for Eleanor to watch.
Eleanor had been instrumental in guiding all three girls through all sorts of teenage drama, and helping them discover their passion and direction in life. Then Hannah had gone her own way and rejected all the positive influence her old babysitter might have had on her.
Eleanor believed that period of her life was over and was happily enjoying the company of Marissa’s children every afternoon. She believed that Marissa and Annie no longer needed her assistance. She thought they were grown women who were able to make it on their own in the world. Obviously she’d been mistaken. All their teenage drama combined, and multiplied by four, was nothing compared to what was going on now, and Eleanor was livid about the way things digressed.
