Stranded

by Chance Carter

  “Tell me you don’t want to and I’ll leave it alone,” I challenged. I knew she wouldn’t be able to do it.

  We were like two caged lions on opposite sides of the ring. Her consent was the only thing keeping us locked up, and the second she gave in to the ache between her thighs, we’d be on each other like the snarling beasts we were.

  The firelight cast shadows over Frankie’s features, but her eyes burned brightly. She took a breath and her expression transformed from one of uncertainty to something statuesque and fierce.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” she said fluidly. “I still think you’re an asshole.”

  “Fine with me, sweetheart.”

  No more words.

  I placed my palms on her shoulders and pushed her back, jamming my hips between her legs as my mouth descended on hers. I kissed her hard, plunging my tongue into her waiting mouth. I had every intention of moving things to the bedroom, but she moaned, and it was so goddamn sexy that I wondered if I would make it that far.

  Frankie kissed like she did everything—no holding back, no compromises. She tangled her fingers in my hair and hung on tight. I palmed one of her breasts, flicking her nipple through the fabric of her t-shirt.

  “You’re not wearing a bra,” I murmured against her mouth. “Naughty girl.”

  “It got wet.”

  I chuckled and nipped her bottom lip. “Whatever you say.”

  Frankie opened her mouth to complain but I pinched her nipple, and a moan came out instead. She was putty in my hands, just like I always thought she would be. I slid my hand under her shirt and squeezed one of her fleshy globes as I ground my bulge against her.

  Frankie’s hands moved down my back. She scratched a path to the base of my spine, and a shiver ran through me. I wanted her hands everywhere. My ass. My chest. Wrapped around my swollen rod. There wasn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for this woman at that moment if she asked.

  I kissed down her neck as my hand skimmed her belly and found the button on her jeans. Frankie arched up toward me like a purring cat. My head spun. It was taking everything in me not to rip her clothes off and toss her over the back of the couch for a quick, wild fuck, but I wanted to make this sensational for her. If I never got to feel this woman’s hands on me again, I wanted to make sure she remembered mine.

  My fingers dove into her heat and Frankie’s nails dug into the muscles of my back. I growled against her neck, so turned on I thought my cock might bust out of my jeans. She was hot and amazingly wet. Her silky folds parted for me like butter, and I drew circles around her clit that made her breaths turn ragged.

  I backed away just far enough that I could pull her shirt off. She had amazing breasts, but that was no surprise. Soft and round, with dusky nipples that made my mouth water just looking at them. I took one into my mouth and began to suck, sliding one finger into her sex.

  “Oh my god,” Frankie moaned. “That feels amazing.”

  “You feel amazing,” I said, letting her nipple fall from my mouth. Her breast bounced enticingly. “You’re slick and ready for me. It’s so fucking hot.”

  Her eyes, half-lidded and dark with want, found mine. Knowing her, she was probably about to say something snarky. I didn’t give her the chance. I grinned and pressed another finger inside, twisting until my fingers rubbed against her g-spot. Frankie’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she mewed with pleasure.

  The feeling of urgency returned, and I shoved my face between her breasts, biting and sucking her ripe flesh as I pleasured her with my hand.

  Frankie surrendered herself to me completely. She whimpered and shook as I pushed her relentlessly. I wanted to see her undone. Shattered. I wanted her to find heaven now because when I finally got inside of her, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold back. All my fantasies of this moment didn’t even touch on how charged I felt when the real thing happened, like a direct surge of electricity was running from her pussy to my balls. She might not know how badly I wanted her, but I was going to show her.

  Frankie’s moans grew, and her face contorted with ecstasy. I could tell she was close. I worked her other nipple, sucking in time with my probing fingers. A little longer and I’d have her.

  “You’re so sexy Frankie,” I growled. “Cum on my fingers, sweetheart. Show me how good I make you feel.”

  She mumbled a litany of curses, and I rubbed faster on her clit. Frankie began to thrust against my hand. I let her control the pace, riding my fingers to her climax. She opened her mouth in a wordless scream, those pillowy lips forming a perfect O, and then her whole body convulsed. She cried out and it was music to my ears. Her pussy clamped down on my fingers, sending a hot shiver through me as I imagined her cumming like that on my cock.

  I rewarded her with a firm kiss on the mouth, and through her panting breaths, Frankie made her first demand of the evening.

  “Are you going to fuck me now?”

  I groaned. “God, you have no fucking idea.”

  Frankie pulled my shirt off and ran her fingers down my chest and abs. I stopped her before she reached the button of my pants. If she touched me now, that would be it. She would end up with carpet burns on her face. Ignoring the confusion on her face, I pulled Frankie to her feet and grabbed her chin in my hand, looking her square in the eye.

  “I want you to go to the master suite,” I said. “Take your clothes off and lie down on the bed.”

  She licked her lips and nodded, then was off without another word. I made a pit stop in my room first, grabbing a condom from the box Garrick had jokingly bestowed on me. Hell, maybe it hadn’t been a joke at all.

  I stripped off on my way to the master suite, meat throbbing at the thought of Frankie waiting in there for me.

  Like a fantasy come to life, she was lying on the covers when I came into the room, legs spread to show off her pink, juicy pussy. I stopped dead in my tracks and something like a groan escaped my lips. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at me.

  “You are ripped,” she observed. Her eyes dipped below my waist, and I watched her eyebrows shoot up.

  I loved watching women react to the sight of my cock. Though not aggressively long, it was thick with a bulging pink head that never failed to satisfy. As beautiful as my dick was, though, Frankie was miles prettier. Her curvy form was a smorgasbord for the eyes. Flaring hips. Thick thighs. Supple breasts. She was everything I’d ever hoped for.

  “You are gorgeous,” I said, imitating the way she’d complimented me. “I always knew you had a tight body underneath those pencil skirts of yours.”

  I climbed onto the bed on my knees and rolled the condom over my length. Frankie watched me, swallowing.

  The sight of Frankie spread out before me like this, a curtain of dark hair fanning the pillow, was something I never wanted to forget. The image would keep me going for weeks. There were so many things I wanted to do to her, and I only wished I had the time. I wanted to wrap those shapely thighs around my head and feast on her, wanted to fuck her slow, fast, hard, and soft and everything in between. At that moment, no other woman would do. It was Frankie and only Frankie, and my lust for her seared deep into my skin like a brand.

  “You ready, sweetheart?” I asked.

  Frankie nodded. Her expression turned fierce. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  Oh, would I ever.

  I dug my fingers into the flesh of her hips and pulled her down the bed, flinging her legs over my shoulders and plunging inside in one smooth thrust. Frankie moaned. The hair on my head stood on end. For a moment, I blanked right out of existence.

  Frankie felt divine. It was like her body was built for my cock, her canal squeezing me all the way to the base. I pulled out and thrust in again. And again. Before I knew it, I was pistoning in and out of her with so much intensity that the bed shook. Her breasts jiggled frantically beneath me. She grasped one in each hand and squeezed them together, and a tendril of liquid fire licked my balls.

  Frankie was beautiful.
She’d always been beautiful—but she’d never been so sexy. Her lips swollen from kissing. Her pupils dilated. Her cheeks kissed with fire. It was everything I could do not to cum in those first few thrusts, but the thought of how good she would feel clamping down on my cock as she spun into the abyss was enough to keep me going. I reached between us and rubbed her clit with the pad of my thumb, and she cried out in rapture, tossing her head back against the blankets and squeezing her tits even harder.

  I bent over and kissed her between rasping breaths. Our bodies found a rhythm together as our tongues and lips mingled and fought for dominance. Frankie raked her nails down my back, then grabbed the firm muscles of my ass and squeezed, pulling me in tighter.

  I wouldn’t last much longer. Frankie bit down on my lower lip, and a growl rumbled in my throat. She felt so good. She tasted so good. Pleasure churned in the pit of my stomach, and I rammed into her harder and harder. Frankie whimpered. Her mouth fell open.

  I rubbed faster on her clit, and she thrust up against me. We became wild, primal beasts with no capacity for speech or civility, thinking only of our manic pleasure. Sweat prickled my brow and I sank my teeth into Frankie’s neck. I couldn’t hold back any longer.

  Frankie screamed and her pussy squeezed me in a vice-like grip. It was the most blissful feeling I’d ever experienced, and I immediately came, roaring against the skin of Frankie’s throat as one of the most intense orgasms I’d ever had split me open. My mind went black. For one glorious moment, I was drifting in space, and the entire universe opened up for me.

  I came back to earth with Frankie’s sweat-streaked body quivering beneath me. I opened my eyes and stared down at her, memorizing the bliss carved into her features. She was beautiful.

  Frankie’s eyes drifted open and stared into mine. She cleared her throat. “Uh. Wow.”

  “Uh, wow, indeed.” I chuckled and fell beside her, yanking off the condom and tossing it into the waste bin beside the bed.

  Frankie began to roll to the edge of the bed, but I stopped her, threading my arms around her waist and hiking her back. “Where do you think you’re off to?”

  I nuzzled into her neck and inhaled deeply. Her scent was an intoxicating mix of vanilla and female sweat.

  “I figured we would—that is, we wouldn’t...” She stumbled over the words. “I don’t know...”

  “Shh.” I trailed my fingers down her side, goosebumps forming in their wake. “Let’s go to sleep.”

  She relaxed against me. “Okay.”

  I smiled into her hair.

  I couldn’t say what compelled me to do it—to fall asleep with her. I normally preferred to sleep alone, but whatever instinct had driven me to kiss her in the first place urged me to hold her now. I only hoped that when I woke in the morning I would be able to let her go.

  Chapter 16

  Frankie

  I drifted slowly into consciousness, one heartbeat at a time. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that my body rested on something soft and my head on something hard, and that the faint drum of a heartbeat that wasn’t my own pulsed through my ears.

  In my half awake, half dreaming state at first it didn’t matter to me whose chest I was lying on. I was sleepy. He was comfortable. End of story. But as the events of the night before threaded together in my mind, a feeling of dread settled into my stomach.

  The arms wrapped loosely around my torso belonged to Levi. My sworn nemesis.

  My eyes flicked open, and I glanced from his sculpted, tattooed chest to his head, propped up on the pillow. His eyes were closed, lips slightly parted. He was still peacefully asleep, and from the darkness of the room, I surmised it was early out.

  I had sex with Levi. I had amazing sex with Levi. I could hardly believe it.

  Tawdry memories from the night before flooded my mind and filled my core with heat. It was everything I could do not to wake him up and go for another round, but it was bad enough that we’d done it once already.

  Sure, I agreed that I’d finally satisfied a craving that had been pestering me since I’d first laid eyes on his gorgeous face, but now what was going to happen? I couldn’t face the inevitable awkwardness of us waking up in the same bed together. Actually, awkwardness wouldn’t be the worst result. Worse would be if he woke up and was cold to me, like we’d done nothing more than shake hands. I was the one who’d said that us having sex wouldn’t change anything, but I couldn’t face seeing indifference in his eyes after he’d looked at me last night like I was the most beautiful thing in the world. I definitely couldn’t deal with it while I was naked.

  I slowly extricated myself from his grip, inching back until my feet met with the edge of the mattress. Levi let out a sigh but otherwise didn’t stir. I wondered if he would even show it if he did wake up or if he’d just pretend so that he wouldn’t have to face me either.

  I fumbled through a strange array of emotions on my way to my bedroom. Part of me longed to crawl back into his arms admitting that last night had changed something, but I feared his rejection more than I feared my own loneliness. I wondered if I’d given into my lust too easily, but remnants of that lust still burned under my skin and I knew it wasn’t that simple. Things between Levi and I were intense. It was like we’d uncapped a bottle, and a whole hurricane came roaring out. Now I was in the middle of the rubble trying to figure out what the hell happened.

  I tiptoed into my room and put on some clothes, then grabbed my laptop and made for the door. I didn’t let myself breathe audibly until I reached the hallway.

  It was too early to go to the bar, so I followed the signs to the hotel’s café near the lobby. I found a cheerful, bustling room, filled with the sounds of clinking plates and the hissing of the espresso machine. At the far side of the room, a collection of mismatched armchairs formed a fan around a majestic stone fireplace, in which a fire burned steadily and filled the room with dry heat. I ordered a coffee from the counter and found a table near a window. It was still snowing outside, though what could I expect? Now that Levi and I had had sex it would probably never stop. We’d be stuck up here together for the rest of eternity. No amount of sledding would be able to stop us from killing each other if that came to pass.

  I booted up my laptop and checked the comments on my last blog post while I waited for my coffee to cool. My tips on handling a cranky member of the wedding party were a hit. I’d kept it simple, reminding my readers that everyone had their own set of problems. Sometimes those problems bled into their behavior. Getting to the root of a miser’s moodiness was better in the long run than going on the attack.

  Funny that instead of taking my own advice, I had sex with my cantankerous groomsman. I wondered if I should add a note to the article warning readers not to do that. Then again, it remained to be seen whether our affair had affected Levi’s attitude. Maybe he’d wake up a new man.

  Heh. As if.

  I opened up a blank Word document and considered what to write about next. After several minutes of staring at the steam twirling above my coffee mug, I came up with nothing. At least, nothing blog-worthy. I thought about weddings and clients and anything that might inspire me to write, but Levi’s black gaze kept flashing in my mind instead. I saw his muscled chest above me, the wrought-iron bars he called arms flexing as he thrust into me. I could almost taste his kiss. His sweat.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I jumped. My heart raced as I dug it out, wondering if Levi was calling to find out where I’d gone. Valerie’s name was on the screen instead, and I answered.

  “You are just the person I need to hear from today,” I said.

  I still hadn’t even gotten to the issue of whether I should tell Val what happened with Levi or not yet. Part of my conscience warned me not to, both for professional reasons and personal ones. The fewer people I told, the less real it felt. Then again, I could never keep anything from Valerie. I didn’t think she would want me to either.

  “Things not going so well up there?” Val asked. �
��I am so sorry, by the way. You wouldn’t be alone up there if it weren’t for me. When I found out the roads were closed, well, suffice it to say I was pissed at my dad for calling me in.”

  I could practically feel the aftershocks of last night’s orgasms still rattling through me. If my vagina were in charge of speech, it would answer that things were going very well, thank you very much. The rest of me was in despair.

  “Something…happened last night.”

  “Oh no,” she gasped. “Did you kill Levi?”

  “No! Of course not!”

  “Don’t take it off the table as an option,” she replied. “Garrick and I have a bet going for who’s going to make it out alive.”

  “That’s not very nice.”

  “Hey, at least I’m rooting for you.”

  A smile scored my lips.

  “So what happened last night?” she asked. “If not murder most foul?”

  My smile vanished. I took an anxious sip of my coffee and tried to decide how best to approach the topic. Did I ease into it? Gauge her reaction to a lesser sin first? Or did I just go for it?

  In the end, I’d always been more comfortable with taking a direct approach to my problems.

  “Levi and I had sex is what happened.”

  I tensed, waiting for her reaction, but she went silent. Had I given the poor girl a heart attack?

  “Val?”

  “Woah!” she boomed. “You had sex with Levi?”

  I had to pull my phone away from my ear in order not to go deaf. A woman at a nearby table peered up from her newspaper, and I quickly looked out the window.

  “Could you say that a little louder?” I grumbled. “This time for the NASA satellites on the other side of the planet.”

  Val laughed. “Sorry, just…wow. I was not expecting that.”

  “As you shouldn’t have,” I replied. “It was completely unprofessional of me, and I feel horrible.”

  “Unprofessional? Please don’t ever worry about being unprofessional with me. You’re a dynamite wedding planner, and I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without you. If it were anyone other than Levi I’d be throwing you a parade.” She sighed. “I only wish that man deserved you.”