by Reina Torres
She shook her head with a soft laugh. “Hardly,” her smile was infectious, “I don’t think I’ve ever had a guy in my room before.”
“You don’t know?” He freed a hand and trailed his knuckles down the soft curve of her shoulder. “Then let’s make it a definite yes. Because I want you, Stella, if not tonight, then whenever you say.”
She turned the knob and pushed the door open, stepping into the room with a smile. “Then now it is,” she gave him a sassy grin as she put out her hand, “and I’ll take that shirt.”
He flipped on the light switch. “My shirt?” He handed it to her with a shrug. “But what are you going to do with it?”
“Maybe I’m making up a collection.” Stella tossed it onto her chair that she kept before the window and then turned, holding her hand out to him again. “I’ll take your shorts, please.”
He shook his head, his eyes trailing down her body. “You first, Stella.” And in his voice was a challenge. “You said I’d get to see all of you.”
And that’s what she gave him, hooking her thumbs into her waistband she tugged her shorts down over her hips, wiggling them down at the widest, and then sliding them down to her knees, stepping out of them, leaving them a pile on the floor.
She didn’t have to ask him again. By the time she looked up, he had already tugged his shorts down, low on his hips.
Stella felt her breath leave in a rush, her lips had gone numb along with her knees. And when he pushed them over his hips, he did her one better, dropping briefs and all to her hardwood floor.
Her words barely made it past her lips as she struggled not to swallow them down into her throat. “You’re a hard act to follow, Kyle O’Malley, but I’m going to try.” She turned around and reached for the hooks on her bra and with a subtle shrug it slid down her arms and on to the chair with his discarded clothes. It did her good to see it. No longer the plain white lingerie that would have doubled for an oversized swimsuit, Stella had advanced to some of the more adventurous lines at the Boulder Holder, spending hours with Clovis to choose just the right ones.
And if the feel of Kyle’s hands on her body, and the sweep of his tongue along her neck, was any indication she’d made the right choice. She felt the bite of his fingertips into her hips, then the pluck of elastic snapping against her skin as he grabbed hold of the waistband and pulled it down.
The fine cotton felt like silk as it rolled over her skin like the caress of his hand, and maybe it was her imagination but she thought she felt his breath tickling the backs of her knees as she stepped out of her panties one leg at a time. But there was no mistaking the touch of lips on the back of her thigh.
Her legs buckled but his hands took hold and held her in place, and when he stood up slowly, she felt his teeth mark the curve of one cheek.
“More,” she breathed, as she felt his hands slide up and over her backside, his callused palms molding her flesh as he stepped behind her. When he managed to sweep a hand over the swell of her hip and low across her belly, he pulled her back against him, pressing her curves against the hard planes of his muscles. When his other hand moved over her ribs and cupped the fullness of her breast, she arched back and laid her head on his shoulder.
It felt so good to be touched, and Kyle’s hands were exceptional.
“You know you’re talking out loud, right?”
She felt her cheeks flush with heat and she wiggled against him. “I don’t care if you don’t.”
He groaned at the sudden brush of her skin over his erection. “Oh I care,” he leaned forward and lightly scraped her shoulder with his teeth, “I like what you say when you think it’s all in your head.”
Kyle adjusted his hands, drawing his second hand from the curve of her belly, and upward to her other breast, teasing both nipples into hard peaks with a subtle brush of his palms against her sensitive flesh. She reached a hand back, her fingernails, even as short as they were, bit into the hard curve of his ass, until his hips curled tighter against her body, pressing his length tighter against her.
She told him, in no uncertain detail, what she wanted him to do with that part of him.
He rocked his hips against her again. “In a minute, but right now, I want to do something else.”
She tensed up and heard a little chuckle near her ear. “Don’t worry, gorgeous, you’ll like this too.”
Stella huffed. “I better.”
Kyle caught her nipples gently between his fingers and gave them just the slightest pinch that left her gasping and so delightfully wet. “I love it when you challenge me.”
Reaching her arms up, she wrapped them around his neck, pushing her breasts firmly against his hands. “Then you’re about to be ecstatic.” She caught sight of his wallet on her bed, and realized he’d left it there for a reason. Loosening her arms from his neck, she bent over to grab the wallet, hoping he’d been prepared for anything. But it was only when she had the leather billfold in her hand that she realized Kyle had tensed up behind her.
And it was perhaps a few seconds later that she realized why. Her wiggling around had done more than make him harder, it had also put his fingers in direct contact with one of her scars.
As she stood, stock still, she felt his fingers trace the long curved scar along the outside of her breast.
She felt a tremor through his chest where it was pressed tightly against her back.
“Is there another one on the other side?”
Stella had gone quiet and so he turned her around in his arms, searching her eyes.
“What happened?” She was sure he knew what the scars were from, but it meant something to her that he asked and didn’t just assume, she’d had her share of that.
She lifted her hands and traced the scars with the tips of her fingers. He watched her and she felt as if it were his hands on her body, his touch laying her bare. “I had cancer,” she told him the truth with a smile that spoke volumes, “it didn’t have me.”
He looked down into her eyes and she lifted her chin to meet his gaze with her own.
His grin was lethal, predatory, and so damn hot. “I like the way you think, Stella.”
“I like the way you touch me,” she licked her lips, under his watchful gaze, “but I want more.”
He heard the challenge in her tone, and he took it, swiping the foil packet off the bed and tearing it open with his teeth. “You’re going to like this.”
With one sure stroke of his hand he was ready and crawling onto the bed after her. Settling between her thighs he hooked one leg around his arm and Stella helped, setting the other leg in place, baring her body to his hungry gaze. A moment later, he was buried inside her.
And this time it was Kyle that seemed to lose his filter. With each stroke, each long deep thrust, he let her know just how much he wanted this… wanted her.
Chapter 10
Dawn came too soon for Kyle. It was a curse really. That first ray of light that came in the window was like an alarm clock on crack. When he was with his pararescue team, he'd had to cover the windows if he needed to sleep during the day. But even now, several years out of the service, it was the same.
Sprawled out in bed beside him, Stella was passed out, taking deep even breaths beneath the blanket he’d pulled up over her body. It was strange. Given all the time she spent over-sharing the thoughts in her head, he would have thought she'd be someone who tossed and turned in bed.
But ever since she'd fallen asleep with his hand tracing broad circles on her back, she'd stayed right where she was.
And now, while he sat up, his back against the headboard of her bed, he wondered just how awkward the morning after was going to be.
Sneaking a look at the clock he knew he could let her sleep in a little bit more before he took her back to the hospital. Sure, they'd have to run by his place first. Doing the ‘walk of shame’ while you're going to visit the father of your-
And that's what drew him up short. His what? Girlfriend? Friend with Benefits? Or ma
ybe more accurately what Stella had called them when she was falling asleep, Frenemies with Benefits?
As far as he knew, they were still locked in a battle of wills over the construction project. He wasn't stupid enough to think that just because he'd spent the better part of an hour tangled up in Stella’s arms that she would just give in and let him have his peace and quiet, but he also had a little hope that they might be able to work something out that didn't involve screaming at each other in a parking lot.
Stella drew in a long lingering breath before letting it out in a sigh, and at the end, when her body settled just a little deeper into the bed, she mumbled a few unintelligible words, ending in, “Kyle.”
Reaching out, Kyle gently finger-combed a twisted knot from the hair at the back of her head. It was slow going for a minute, carefully working through the lengths of inky black hair that looked like thick corkscrews. It was bad enough that he’d once made fun of Dax for learning how to braid hair. This was something he'd never mention to him, ever.
And that's when it hit him. Would he be doing ‘this’ ever again?
The feeling that moved inside of his chest could have come from any number of places. He just wasn't in the mood to name any of them.
“Hmm, morning.”
His hand froze, his fingertips tangled in the ends of her hair. “Hey, Babe.”
And again, he froze, but she didn't seem to notice. Rolling onto her side she stretched, the blankets sliding down her body. His eyes followed the downward progress of the worn patchwork quilt, until it held, draped over her like she'd been carved in marble and put on display in a museum.
But then again, he'd never come across any art in a museum that made him hard.
And Stella was one inch of skin away from finding herself under him, gloriously naked, and he just might be willing to beg for it. Things certainly had changed overnight. And if the look in her eyes was any indication, she knew it.
“Hey, Kyle?”
He tensed, waiting for things to blow up in his face.
Grabbing a hold of her blanket, holding it over her breasts, she sat up on the bed and gave him a broad grin. “Relax.”
He felt the pull of tight skin across his lips and smoothed his tongue over them to ease the tension. “I’m fine.”
Her laugh made a mockery of his words. “You’re one ‘I love you’ from running for the door.”
Kyle felt the blood drain from his face.
She rocked backward, sending her unbound hair slipping back over her shoulders, and the blanket clutched loosely under her arm pulled even lower. “You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to ask you for a ring or anything like that.”
When she managed to ease off of her laughter, drawing in her breaths, each one slower than the last, she waved him off and slid her legs over the edge of the bed and onto the floor.
“You should see your face.”
Oh, he didn’t need to see it, he had a pretty good imagination of the blind panic on his face.
“Wow, you really don’t know me, do you?” She stood and struggled with the patchwork blanket, it was too long to take with her easily and after a few sharp tugs Kyle realized that the end of the blanket was underneath him.
Before he could move to extricate the blanket from underneath his leg, she’d already figured out the solution. Dropping the blankets at her feet, Stella moved across the room to her closet and pulled open the left door.
“Really, you can just take a breath. I’m not planning on anything where it comes to you.” She looked over her shoulder at him, and he knew by the twist of a smile on her lips that she was enjoying herself. “Last night was good, no, it was amazing.” Pulling a few pale purple wisps from her top drawer, Stella pulled on a bra and reached behind to hook the clasp together.
Kyle was struggling to focus on her words, especially when the shape of her bare backside, visible just beneath the ends of her lush curls, was the perfect example of the description ‘heart-shaped.’
“I know this may sound a little weird around St. Helena, but not every woman is ready to jump into the whole relationship package.” She turned slightly to the side and stepped into her bikini briefs one foot at a time and then pulled it up her legs, pausing to wiggle the little piece of fabric over her hips. “But even though I’ve been in remission for nearly five years, I still treat every day like one more gift. One more step forward.” She picked up a hairband off of the top of the cupboard and quickly pulled her hair back from her face so that she could bind it into a single ponytail behind her.
She wasn’t trying to seduce him, he could tell that at a glance, but the simple act of binding her hair had raised her breasts up, displayed them before his eyes in such a way that he could still see her scars, both along the sides of her breasts but also a separate one under each arm. She didn’t try to hide them from him and he didn’t care about them one bit, but he was glad that she’d chosen lingerie that obviously made her feel sexy. And he found that the style had grown on him.
“What do they call that?”
She stopped, her hands dropping slowly to her sides. “What?”
He swallowed and bunched up the sheet that was covering his legs, hoping that the layers of fabric would hide his visceral reaction to her. “That bra. Adam goes on and on, babbling about these fancy names for the bras in Clovis’ shop.” Something lodged in his throat and still he managed to speak. “That one looks like sin on you, Stella. I want to know what you call it.”
Stella blushed, her thighs pressing lightly together as she looked down at the lilac colored demi-cups. Another breath and he watched as the rounded swells of her breasts came dangerously close to spilling out over the tops. “Harper said it’s called ‘Delicate Display.’”
“I bet.”
It wasn’t something he’d planned on, but there was no denying the urge when it happened. Flipping the sheets off, discarding it on the bed, he didn’t even bother to pick up his briefs, but he did pick Stella up and pulled her tight against his chest.
Her gasp of surprise was lost in his kiss, but when he slowly lowered her down to the bed beneath him, he heard her delicious sigh.
“Does it come in more colors?”
Drawing his lips along the lacy edge of one of the cups, he brushed his teeth over the tip of her breast and smiled when her fingers pushed through his hair.
Kyle pulled slightly back, enjoying the bite of her fingers on his scalp. “Well does it?”
She blinked back at him, her eyes wide and perhaps irritated from the delay. “The bra? Yes, of course… half a dozen or so, I think.”
“Oh good,” his stubble rasped against the silken swell of her breast, “because I’m going to buy you one of every color… panties too.”
Stella moaned, her eyes darkening as she watched him pull the lilac colored bikini panties down her legs. When he dropped them on the floor and met her eyes again, she licked her lips. “What for?”
Kyle smoothed his hands up the inside of her legs, slowly spreading them as he lowered his mouth to her thigh. “Because I like taking them off you, Stella. And I’d like to see the whole damn rainbow on the floor.”
Chapter 11
“Nope.” Niko folded his arms across his chest and turned to stare out the window, ignoring Velia’s sharp look and Stella’s pained wince when she sat beside him. “Not going to stay here. So you might as well bring me the paperwork to get me released, or I’m just going to walk out of here on my own without it.”
“Papa, please.” Stella reached out a hand and he pulled his arm away from her.
“Nico, stop.” Velia made her way around the bed to stand between him and the windows. “You’re being childish.”
He tried to look around her slender form and when that didn’t work he closed his eyes and leaned back against his cushions. “Ow, damn it!” His eyes opened and met his doctor’s eyes. “Don’t you dare laugh!”
The man wisely kept quiet, his hands lifting in the air.
; “Papa, you have to listen to the doctor. If he says you need to stay-”
“No, Steller… I can’t.” He sank back against the pillows, as if his body itself was deflating somehow with the loss of his attitude. “You know why I can’t.” He turned away again, and his eyes weren’t looking at anything at all, at least not anything physical. Stella leaned forward and put her hand on his arm, a touch he allowed this time.
“I know, Papa. Believe me, I know,” she leaned closer, her other arm resting on the bed beside him. “But I know that Mama would want you to get the care you need. She wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself just because of what happened to her.”
Kyle leaned back against the wall and watched the scene unfold. He’d just walked in a moment before, but he’d heard the conversation from down the hall. Most likely the whole floor had heard it. For a smaller man, Nico Vincenzo could certainly make his voice carry.
He hadn’t needed to hear the story from Stella, his grandfather had told him the story years before. It had happened when he was too young to really understand the whole situation, so his grandfather had filled in the holes of the story. When Constanza had been diagnosed with breast cancer, the diagnosis had almost come too late for any kind of treatment. She had been an active woman, vastly younger than her husband, but she had been as wildly in love with him as he had been with her.
The two worked side by side day in and day out to make the olive grove a success, even as he worked his regular job for the DeLuca vineyard. While Nico worked his regular job, she’d been the primary caretaker of the olives and their young daughter.
She’d known there was something wrong, but she’d pushed the signs aside, keeping her hours in the orchard and then keeping their home running smoothly. When they found the cancer, all that was left was the most aggressive treatment they could give her and even then, it wasn’t enough. The disease, once it was named, seemed to gain steam and energy, taking hours from her life like a child with candy, gobbling it relentlessly one after another.
