Growing and Kissing

by Helena Newbury

  I heard the door bang downstairs as Sean arrived home and ran down the stairs two at a time to meet him. I launched myself into the air when I was still four steps from the bottom, hurling myself into his arms and trusting him to catch me. Which he did—magnificently. I wound my arms and legs around him as he tilted my head back and kissed me, deep and sensual and unhurried at first...then with slowly gathering pace. I ground my groin a little harder against his abs. He could never control himself, once we started kissing, and neither could I.

  I didn’t want to break the kiss but I had a surprise planned. Coming up for air, I panted, “Can you go back out again? Just quickly? We need milk.” The refrigerator was actually full, but I needed the excuse.

  He gave just a hint of a tired sigh, but then his expression softened. “Kiss me again,” he ordered, “and then I will.” I gladly complied, running my hands up and down his back and then over his ass for good measure.

  When he eventually put me down, he asked, “Can I take your car?”

  “Sure,” I told him, trying not to grin. “It’s in the garage.”

  He strolled outside to get it and I followed behind him, wanting to see but trying not to look suspicious. I managed to contain myself until he hauled open the garage door.

  Inside, parked in front of my car, was his Mustang.

  “Took a while to track it down,” I said, slipping my arm around his waist. “It had been bought and sold a few times since Murray had it. But I got there in the end. We had just enough money.”

  Sean ran his hand over the gleaming paintwork. “Thank you,” he said at last. His voice sounded just a little bit choked up.

  “Want to take me for a drive?” I asked.

  We climbed in and I passed him the key. He started up the engine and gave a little satisfied sigh as it roared into life. Then he put his hand on the gearstick and, just like that first time he’d taken me out in it, his palm was suddenly very close to my knee. He glanced up and we locked eyes.

  “Let’s drive somewhere deserted,” he growled.

  I swallowed and nodded, that familiar heat blossoming inside me. He might have gone straight, but he hadn’t lost any of that bad boy dark charm.

  “You realize,” I said as we drove out of the garage, “that in a couple of years, Kayley’s going to want to borrow this thing?”

  “Over my dead body.”

  ***

  That evening, we were out in the garden. It was just warm enough to be comfortable, though I’d put on a long skirt so my legs didn’t get cold. We were right in the middle of the rear lawn: I’d mowed it short at the front, but at the back I’d left the grass long and sowed some wildflowers. With bees buzzing around, it was practically a meadow.

  Kayley was doggedly chasing a butterfly, trying to get it to land on her finger. Her hair had slowly started to grow back and we were already debating what sort of cut to go for, once it got long enough to style.

  Sean suddenly grabbed me around the waist and picked me up, making me yelp in surprise, bare feet kicking in the air. Then he tumbled us backwards to the ground, hauling me onto his lap so that I was sitting astride him. I blinked into the setting sun and felt him run his hand through my hair, making it catch the light. “God, you’re beautiful,” he muttered.

  I leaned forward until I was lying full length on top of him, my head on his chest. “I didn’t think this was possible,” I murmured. “Being this happy. I mean, even before it all started, back before I met you. When it was just Kayley and me...I didn’t think we’d ever be a family again.”

  Sean gave a low mmm that vibrated against my cheek. I raised my head and looked down at him because I knew that mmm. “What? What’s on your mind?”

  He gazed at me for a long time, running his fingers through my hair. “Family,” he said at last.

  “You thinking it’s time to track down your brothers?” I asked cautiously.

  He shrugged those massive shoulders. “I dunno. It’s been a long time. The whole thing’s a mess...but….”

  I waited.

  “...but yeah. Maybe it’s time.”

  I nodded and pressed my cheek to his chest again. “Then go do it. Take a weekend, take a week. We’ll be here when you get back.”

  “Hmm,” he said, the vibration buzzing through me. “I’ll think about it.” Then a big hand landed on my ass. “Right now, though, I want—” he muttered pure filth into my ear until I flushed and squirmed. And then he kissed me.

  Kayley glanced over and rolled her eyes. “I’m going inside to watch a movie,” she said. But she was smiling.

  As she disappeared into the house, Sean rolled us over so that he was on top. I giggled, loving the feeling of the soft grass under my head, and looked up at him, grinning.

  Then I saw the look in his eyes. “Here?” I asked incredulously. Sure, we were partially hidden by the long grass, but...what if someone saw? We should be sensible. We should go inside.

  Sean gazed down at me and those cobalt-blue eyes blaze, half-closed in lust. I felt the dark heat start to build inside.. and, suddenly, I was closing my eyes and parting my lips for his kiss. I moaned as his lips met mine.

  I was back to being a good girl. But I could still be bad when I wanted to.

  <<<>>>

  Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed Growing and Kissing, please consider leaving a review.

  Each of my Kissing books is a standalone featuring a new couple. You can read them in the order I wrote them (Lying and Kissing, Punching and Kissing, Texas Kissing, Kissing My Killer, Growing and Kissing) or skip around.

  The story of Sean’s brother Aedan, the bad boy Irish boxer, is told in Punching and Kissing. I’ve included the first three chapters FREE - just turn the page.

  Yes, more O’Harra brothers will appear in future books :)

  The story of how Arianna, a CIA spy on her first assignment, falls for Luka, the Russian mobster she’s meant to betray, is told in Lying and Kissing.

  The story of how Lily, a forger on the run, meets a cowboy who stops her dead in her tracks is told in Texas Kissing.

  Or discover what happens when a Russian hitman looks into the eyes of his female target…and finds he can’t pull the trigger. That’s Kissing My Killer.

  Would you like a free steamy novella about a ballerina who falls for a badass biker with a penchant for BDSM? It’s called Losing My Balance and I wrote it especially (and exclusively) for my newsletter readers - sign up to get your free copy.

  http://list.helenanewbury.com

  Preview of Punching and Kissing (Out Now)

  Sylvie

  I didn’t belong there.

  The crowd was a baying, howling mass of wild eyes and open mouths, leaning far over the concrete balcony to gawp. The heat of a hundred frenzied bodies pressed in on me from all sides until I could barely catch my breath.

  I had to get out of there but I needed to stay. I owed it to Alec.

  I stumbled through the crowd, making my way around the edge of the huge, circular room. I kept my gaze fixed on the graffiti, on the rusted pipes...anything to avoid looking at what was going on below us.

  There was a cry of pain and I glanced down before I could stop myself. One man had the other on the floor, fists pummeling his face. There was only one rule: it went on until someone couldn’t get up.

  Welcome to The Pit.

  I looked away, disgusted, and tried to move faster. Elbowing or pushing isn’t in my nature and I was the lone woman in a roomful of hyped-up, drunk men. So I muttered apologies and sneaked through gaps. Luckily, they barely noticed me—not the rich guys who’d come there for an edgy walk on the wild side, not the local guys who were one bad bet away from disaster. Everyone was going nuts, jumping and yelling and punching the air.

  No, wait. Not everyone.

  I stopped in my tracks as I saw him. He stood like a rock in an ocean, a full head taller than the people around him and moving not even an inch as they ebbed and swelled against him. His broad back was l
ike a cliff and his shoulders seemed twice as wide as mine. He was in a sleeveless top, arms folded across his chest, and the heavy swells of his shoulders and biceps led down to thickly corded forearms. Big, and ripped, as well. But it wasn’t his size or his muscles that made me stop, nor even the way he stood so still.

  His hood was raised, throwing his face into shadow. Who wore a hood, in this heat?

  I moved forward and lost sight of him for a moment. When I saw him again, I was closer. I was looking up into that shadowed face, now. I could just catch glimpses: a jaw dusted with dark stubble, a full lower lip pressed into a tight line. He was watching, but he hadn’t lost himself like the others. Maybe he was sickened by what was happening downstairs. Maybe, like me, he didn’t belong in this place.

  I passed behind him, willing myself not to look. I made it three feet beyond him before the urge got too much and I glanced back over my shoulder. At first, I could see only shadows under the hood but then—

  As one of the cheap fluorescent tubes flickered, I caught a glimpse of eyes: savagely blue and brutally hard. Starkly beautiful, they saw every weakness and gave no mercy.

  I tore my eyes away, panting like I’d just missed a speeding truck. I’d been wrong. He wasn’t immune to this place at all—he was already lost. And if I didn’t belong here; he could have been born here.

  I tried to move faster through the crowd. A drink. I needed a drink. I headed for the guy I’d seen on the far side of the room, the one who sold sodas out of a cooler at six dollars a time. He knew his market—six dollars was nothing to the guys who came here, the ones who bet thousands of dollars and then drove home in their Lexuses, speed-dialing their wives to apologize for working late. To me, six dollars was a day’s food. But I was going to pass out if I didn’t drink something.

  I bought a Dr. Pepper and ran the cool metal can over my forehead, closing my eyes, letting the chill soak into me and calm me, pushing away the remembered fear from when I’d glimpsed that guy’s expression.

  Fear and...something else.

  The eyes had been gorgeous—coldly beautiful beyond anything I’d ever seen. And that jaw, those lips, that body—the expression had sent ice down my spine but, when it reached my groin, it had turned into something else entirely. Cold had become hot. Fear had become—

  I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. Stupid. Sure, from the glimpses I’d seen, the guy might just be hot as hell under that hood. But that expression...he was like the distilled essence of this place.

  Stay. The fuck. Away.

  I popped the top and drank. The cold soda foamed down my throat like liquid sex. A calming chill soaked through me and I felt my heart gradually slowing down.

  I drained the whole can before I looked up and saw him. The hooded man. Closer, this time, no more than ten feet away.

  And staring right at me.

  The momentary cool from the soda boiled away in an instant. A wave of heat shot through me, rippling upward from my groin. I wasn’t ready for how deeply sexual his gaze was, how it connected with me right where I lived.

  I told myself, of course he’s not looking at you. I’m not much to look at. My brother’s the eye-catching one, all blond hair and muscle, like my dad. I take after my mom—small and slender, with boobs like half-oranges.

  I wrenched my eyes from him and stared fixedly into the distance, waiting for him to look away.

  But I could still feel his gaze on the side of my face, never wavering for a second.

  Aedan

  There were about a million reasons I shouldn’t be there: it was too damn hot; I had to be up early for work the next morning; I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me at one of his fights.

  But there was something that mattered more than any of that. That itch, that deep-down itch that can’t be scratched any other way but feeling your fists connect. The rush you get as you duck and weave, hands up, taking the punishment and then returning it tenfold.

  I don’t do that anymore. But the itch is still there. Watching it is the next best thing.

  By rights, indulging myself like that should have brought something bad down on me. A lightning bolt from above, maybe. But someone saw fit to send me a whole different kind of divine intervention.

  She was the only woman in the place, but she would have stood out if she’d been in some uptown club filled with supermodels. Long, black hair, maybe even darker than mine, so dark it was almost blue-black. A slender, lithe body that made me want to take the flat of my hand and run it all the way down from her neck to the curve of her calf, like stroking a cat. She was wearing a bubblegum-pink Curious Weasels t-shirt and it molded to the soft swells of her breasts in a way that made my breath catch.

  No. Not her. I wasn’t going to torture myself with a girl like that. Too beautiful. Too pure. I didn’t deserve someone like that. Oh, sure, I could grab her wrist and pin her with my Irish eyes and tell her she was coming home with me, now. Maybe she’d see what was underneath the hood and freak out, but maybe she’d be okay with it. Then we could go back to my apartment. My body between those sweet thighs, driving up into her, those cute little tits filling my hands—

  Jesus, would that really be so bad?

  Yeah, it would. In the morning, she’d realize I wasn’t some fantasy bad boy; I was just bad. Not an exciting walk on the wild side but a full-on savage, only good for two things. She’d look down at my big, calloused hands as they roved over her naked breasts and start to think about what else they’d done—how much pain and damage I’d dealt. She’d panic and make excuses and run back to her safe little life, wherever the hell that was, and it’d be over. Or, worse, she’d hang around just long enough for me to fuck up her life. I wasn’t going to risk that. No matter how perfect her tits were.

  I watched her moving through the crowd. Damn, she was just a scared little thing. Why didn’t people make way for her? I pegged her for about twenty, five years younger than me. It was only when she glanced my way again that I saw the pain in her eyes. She was about twenty, but she’d seen more bad shit than someone her age should.

  She bought a soda and ran the can over her forehead—right there, in front of me, like it was nothing at all. I drank in every detail: the slow roll of the can as it kissed her skin, the soft, long lashes as she closed her eyes in pleasure, the drop of ice water that fell from the bottom of the can and fell—

  Jesus onto her upper boob and then trickling down into the scoop neck of her t-shirt, painting a trail of moisture over the soft flesh.

  I could feel my cock swell against my thigh. Damn, she was hot.

  She opened her eyes and I finally got a look at them. Big and liquid and the color of some lush, enchanted forest grove. And her lips! Soft, perfect pillows, flawless and pink. She popped the top of the can and drank. I couldn’t take my eyes off that elegant throat, flexing and swallowing. God, she was beautiful. What the hell was she doing here? Some rich kid, slumming it? Her clothes didn’t look expensive, but she must be some rich guy’s girlfriend. What else would a woman be doing here? This was a guy’s world—women had more sense.

  And then she looked up and, for maybe half a second, she was looking right at me. A jolt went through my body, as if I’d touched a live wire. I felt every muscle go tense, my hands making fists so tight my knuckles ached. It was like I’d dropped right into a fantasy world for an instant, a heaven where I knew her, where we could be together. I felt like I was coming alive, the last few years beginning to slough off and fall away from me.

  An angel. Fate had sent me an angel.

  Then she came to her senses and looked away and I felt like an idiot for staring at her. I was pretty sure she couldn’t see much, under the hood, but maybe she’d seen. Or maybe she’d sensed what I was like and that had scared her even more.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes from her, though. I drank her in because it might be the last time I ever saw her. I watched until she finally finished her soda and headed out of the main room
, down the long, dark hallway that led to the bathroom. I caught my breath. The sight of her ass in those jeans, pert and tight and just the right size of my hands…I had a new favorite part of her.

  She disappeared into the shadows and the spell was broken. Reality returned like a punch to the side of my head. Yeah, and you’ll never even touch her, you feckin’ idiot.

  I liked her and that was why I had to stay away from her. Because if I got tempted and actually got close, all I was going to do was hurt her.

  And then I frowned, because I saw another guy watching her retreating back. Not one of the rich guys in a suit, one of the locals. He nodded to his two buddies and all three of them disappeared into the shadows.

  Oh God, no.

  Sylvie

  The Pit was some kind of industrial building, once. Most of it is just bare concrete and graffiti, but some of the fluorescent lights still work and there’s running water. The crowd has to be able to see; the organizers have to hose the blood off the floor.

  Hidden away down a long hallway, in what I guess used to be the office area, there’s a bathroom. Not many people know about it. I normally avoid it because I don’t like being off on my own in The Pit. But after draining a whole Dr. Pepper, I suddenly needed to go.

  The roar of the crowd died away as I turned one corner, then another, hurrying past disused rooms with broken windows. It wasn’t much cooler than the rest of The Pit, but at least there was space to think.

  Had that guy really been staring at me? It didn’t seem likely—no one ever looked at me. I couldn’t help thinking someone could have rolled the genetic dice better. I could have been some tall, leggy blonde with bags of confidence and my brother could have been short, dark and shy.