by Amy Andrews
He lifted his head. A smear of icing on his nose was the only trace left of his handiwork. He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m a little busy, down here.” Then he turned his head to nuzzle her inner thigh.
“I want you inside me.”
He grinned. “Like this?” His right shoulder moved and suddenly there was the prod and the slide of something hard. A finger. Then another. Val moaned, her head falling back against the table again. The plunge of his fingers was good—really good—but still not enough.
“Fuck.” His breath was hot on her inner thigh as he kissed her there and murmured. “You’re so wet.” His words vibrated against her skin and buzzed all the way to her clit.
She moaned, her head rolling from side to side on the table. “No. Your cock. I need it.”
It was true. She did need it. More than air, more than water, more than living one more minute.
“Later, baby.” He grinned at her despite the way she’d twisted her hands in his hair. “Can’t you see I’m eating?”
He lowered his head again. But Val was desperate. Blindly, unreasonably, insatiably desperate. For the feel of his cock parting her, rocking her, driving her into oblivion. Something reckless had her under its control, her heart beating to the drum of something almost feral.
It was more wildling than voodoo at the moment.
She yanked on his head and glared at his amused face framed by her thighs. “Now.”
He shook his head. “Condoms are in the bedroom, and I’m not moving from between these thighs until the neighbours know I’m a legend in the bedroom as well as the rugby field.”
Val was pretty sure they knew that already, but that was neither here nor there. “You can pull out.” Having sex without a condom was not something she’d ever done before, but why not? She’d been intimate with him long enough to know he didn’t have any diseases, and if he withdrew, then pregnancy wasn’t an issue.
Or at least she was prepared to risk it for the sake of her cravings.
He blinked. “What?” He was obviously startled by the request, but there was a glitter in his eyes that told her he wanted it as much as she did.
“Fuck me.”
His fingers dug into the flesh at the tops of her thighs as the hard ridge of his dick pressed into her. “Bare? You want me bare? Are you sure?”
She wanted this man now. Any way she could get him. “Yes. I’m sure. I want your big, beautiful, bare cock inside me.”
He stared at her like she might have lost her mind for a moment. Like he wanted to, but was worried she might suffer a bad case of remorse once their ardour had cooled.
Val lay waiting, her breathing heavy, her body screaming for his. “Do you need me to draw a picture?”
He grinned at her then, his mind obviously made up. “Hell fucking no.”
He’d yanked the front of his shorts and his underwear down in the blink of an eye, and Val just caught a flash of his taut girth before she felt it thick and real and oh-so-good sliding through all her slickness and notching at her entrance. She moaned at the feel of it and gasped as he thrust inside her, her back almost arching right off the table from the thick stab of his possession.
Yes. God, yes.
“Fuuuuck.” His hands bit into the flesh of her thighs, and his head rolled back a little, his eyes closing briefly on a low groan. “You feel incredible. So hot. So tight.”
“Kyle.” She reached for him, and he leaned into her a little, her hands sliding up his arms, her palms wrapped around the meat of his biceps. “Hard. Fuck me hard.”
And he did, her head rocking, her breasts shifting with each snap of his hips, his pubic bone grinding so damn good against the tight knot of her clit.
“Harder?”
“Yes.” She gasped as he slammed into her. “Give me everything.” She wanted it all.
He was magnificent, looming over her fully clothed, while she lay in nothing but the ruins of his shirt. His jaw clenched tight, his biceps bunching hard beneath her hands, his gaze fixed on hers. He was all raw, male power, his fingers biting into her hips, the veins at the sides of his neck pulsing and prominent, and it was enough to push her over the edge.
Val lost her breath as muscles deep and low started to quiver. Her arms and thighs began to tremble. Her nipples peaked. “Oh god,” she whispered, gripping his arms hard, her heart fibrillating against her rib cage, her lungs grabbing for air.
“Christ, yesss.” Kyle’s hiss was triumphant. “I can feel you.”
She could feel herself, too, the sudden clamp of her internal muscles as everything went impossibly tight for one second, two, then went loose in an eruption of pleasure that stole her breath. Val shook her head from side to side, her eyes widening as it ripped through her body like a shock wave, forking up her spine like lightning and bowing her back.
Kyle didn’t miss a beat, though, fucking her through the contortions of her orgasm, her body his to control as he hammered inside her. “Jesus. You’re so…damn…tight.”
And he was so damn big. Every thrust the most delicious invasion, stretching her, filling her, completing her. Prolonging the pleasure until she thought she might just die from it before it started to twist and ebb and loose her from its grip.
Until he groaned, deep and low, his fingers biting harder.
“Jeeeesus.” His voice was rough as sandpaper, stiffening her nipples to diamond points. “You’re making me come.”
Val moaned, dizzy with the pleasure that still echoed through tissues and sizzled in cells and the kind of feminine power only affirmed when a man is hard and helpless between a woman’s legs.
He thrust twice more, then pulled out on a strangled groan, one hand still gripping her hip, the other fisted around the slick, hard length of his cock, pumping up and down the length of it, his hips rocking forward with each tug.
Val lifted her head off the table to watch, mesmerised by it. Mesmerised by the way he touched himself, by the firmness of his grip, the whiteness of his knuckles, the deep purple blush of his domed cock head and the slackness of his mouth as he watched himself.
He came on a shout, thrusting into his hand one last time, his hips jerking to a halt as the first jet of ejaculate shot from him. His hand moved again, stroking over and over, splattering her breasts and ribs and belly in his warm, musky seed, until there was nothing more to give and his hand slowed to a stop.
Val had never seen anything more male in her entire life.
His gaze wandered up her body, and she was gratified to see his eyes were still a little glazed over when they met hers. “I wonder if you know just how sexy you look right now.”
Val gave a half laugh. Sexy? Her head thunked back against the table at the thought. “I must look a bloody wreck, in a torn shirt covered in cupcake icing and come.”
He shook his head as he eased his hand off his dick and tucked it back in his shorts. His tawny eyes never left hers, glittering with what looked very much like possession.
“My shirt. My icing. My come. Is it wrong to admit how hot it is knowing I’m the one who wrecked you?”
Val’s heart turned over in her chest. Now that was pretty damn hot. “No.” If any man was going to wreck her, she’d choose him.
Always.
His hand slid from her hip and sought hers, intertwining their fingers and bringing their joined hands to his mouth. He kissed her knuckles before running his gaze over her again. “You’re going to need a shower. You’re kinda…sticky.”
Val looked down at herself. “You think?”
“Or I could just tie you to this table and keep you like this forever.”
His nostrils flared as he spoke, and there was a part of Val that practically sat up and begged at that prospect. “I think they might miss me at the bakery.”
He sighed. “No more Chelsea buns would be a tragedy.” Then he tugged on her arm and pulled her up into a sitting position, claiming her mouth in a deep, lingering kiss as he drew the edges of his shirt together across her che
st. “Go.”
He stepped back, out of the bracket of her thighs, and Val’s heart did a funny little giddy-up at how reluctantly he did so.
She knew exactly how he felt.
Chapter Fourteen
Kyle had been worried about Val meeting his family. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of them or where he’d come from, they were just a little different to what she was used to. Val had essentially been an only child, brought up by divorced parents mired in a quagmire of unspoken grief, self-recriminations, and guilt.
The Leightons didn’t do anything quietly or unemotionally. They fought loud, they played loud, they loved loud.
All of them.
And they were a plentiful, fertile bunch.
He was one of five. His father one of eleven. There were a lot of aunts and uncles and cousins and grandchildren and second cousins and partners of all the above. And good lord, there were babies. Lots and lots of babies. Every time Kyle turned around, there was another little Leighton coming in the world.
Which meant birthday parties and christenings. Also weddings—the shotgun and the normal kind—and the odd funeral or two. Although the Leightons had longevity in their genes and had proven exceedingly hard to kill.
Val had grown up with a father who’d earned a lot of money during his career and had provided financially for her. He’d brought her Sticky Fingers, for crying out loud. The Leightons were battlers, descended from convicts—some were still at it—and proud of it. They happily played up their underdog status, especially to newcomers, and were self-described bogans.
They liked loud music and loud cars and open houses where family spilled out into the yard and the street and could come and go as they pleased. His mother still had last year’s Christmas lights up on the front of the house. But they hated pretention and were suspicious of anyone who looked like they’d had things come a little too easy.
Or anyone who was getting a little too big for their boots.
Including shit-hot rugby stars. Being with his family helped keep Kyle grounded. But he was used to them.
Sure, he’d brought dates home to his mother before, because she’d missed him when he’d moved out, and he knew she liked all the girly gossip crap and being kept in the loop. But none of them had been a patch on Val, which only made this day so much more important.
He was in love with this woman. And bringing a girlfriend home had never meant this much.
He wanted Val to like his family. Because he loved them and he didn’t know if he could bear it if she didn’t. But, possibly even more telling, he really wanted them to like her.
Not that he should have worried…
They were utterly charmed by his new ranga girlfriend. Gav, his brother, had been the first to use the Aussie term of affection for a redhead, to her face. “Hellz, bro. You scored yourself a ranga.”
Kyle had tensed a little, hoping Val would take it in the spirit it had been intended—he knew some redheads were sensitive about their colouring. She did, laughing like it was, by no means, the first time she’d ever heard the term and giving back as good as she got.
“Better a ranga than a mullet, Gav.”
And it only got better. It seemed everywhere she went she sprinkled a little ranga magic. The guys loved her because she could speak fluent footy, and the women loved her because she loved clothes and shoes and makeup and knew what Lincoln Quinn’s ass really looked like close-up.
And hell if those cupcakes didn’t make her queen of the kids. There was always some little niece or nephew or cousin following her around adoringly. His father thought she was a top chick and his mother was grinning like a loon.
“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?” she murmured as they stood and watched her pushing Bailee—sporting a headband with a unicorn horn—on the old swing set they’d had when he’d been a kid.
Kyle took a long drag of his cool beer. “Yes.” He didn’t see the point in denying it. He was ass over tit in love with her.
“Does she know?”
“No.” She’d dismissed him the night he’d blurted it out and he knew she thought he hadn’t meant it.
“Are you going to tell her?”
He chuckled as he put his arms around his mother’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Yeah. Eventually.”
“You shouldn’t let that one slip through your fingers, baby.”
Kyle was the only one of her offspring who wasn’t yet settled down and producing grandbabies. She was proud of his pro rugby career—she was his biggest supporter—but grandbabies, apparently, beat everything.
“It’s…complicated.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “She’s Griff King’s daughter. We have to…tread a little carefully.”
Especially now Griff was making overtures toward Val. Kyle didn’t underestimate the threat Griff could be to his career if he found out Kyle and Val were seeing each other, but mostly he didn’t want to torpedo their father/daughter reconciliation.
His mother frowned. “Oh baby, why you gotta go and live on the edge all the time?”
Kyle laughed. It was the last thing he wanted where Val was concerned. But it was complicated.
“She sure is pretty.”
Kyle nodded. Although pretty seemed far too tame a word for how hot she looked in those jeans and that loose floral top with the sleeves that sat just off her shoulders exposing the freckles he loved so much. He knew she didn’t have a bra on under that top, and she’d be damn lucky if she got through this party without him pushing her into a dark corner somewhere and yanking it down.
With her hair loose and a bunch of thin silver bracelets on one arm she was like Tinkerbell, jingling wherever she went, spreading her fairy dust. Hell if his dick didn’t twitch every time he heard them.
Bailee wanted off the swing, and Val let her down, laughing as the birthday girl ran off after some bubbles that were being blown. She headed to him, and Kyle held his hand out to her as she approached. She slipped hers into it and smiled at him and his mum.
“You’re a natural with kids.”
Kyle rolled his eyes. “Mum.”
But Val just laughed. “Who doesn’t love a two-year-old who thinks she’s a unicorn?”
Kyle squeezed her hand gratefully. He should have known she’d fit in with his family because Val was pretty fucking amazing. But he was still relieved.
“Kyle tells me you own a bakery and your Chelsea buns are better than sex.”
Kyle, who’d just taken a mouthful of his beer, almost choked on it as Val laughed and his mother patted his back. “I did not say that.”
“I was paraphrasing,” she said as she poked him in the ribs. “All I can say is that they must be good if a boy from the western suburbs admits to eating buns with pink icing.”
Val laughed again, obviously not insulted by the implication that Chelsea buns were somehow unmanly.
“Kyle says your dad is his coach. He must be proud of you and your business.”
If Val was affected by the clueless blunder from his mother, Kyle couldn’t tell. “He is. He’s quite partial to my croissants, actually.”
There was pleasure and a strand of excitement in her voice, and Kyle’s chest ached for her. “I think its cupcake time.” He didn’t want his mother to pry any more. Just in case she really stepped in it. He kissed his mum on the forehead and gently tugged on Val’s hand, leading her to the platter of cupcakes.
It was impossible to look at them and not remember what he’d done to her on the table, and he smiled and raised an eyebrow as he picked one up and handed it to her. Then, very deliberately, he stuck out his tongue and slowly licked the top off the rosette.
“Mmmm,” he murmured, sliding a hand onto her hip. “Not quite as good as licking it off you, but not bad.”
She gave him a look that said behave, we’re at a kid’s birthday party. But he didn’t care. All he could think about was how he’d iced her like a cupcake and how much he wanted to pull down that top.
Her eyes
widened slightly as he took another slow swipe, running his tongue over his lips. “Kyle.” The warning in her voice was lost to the huskiness. She flicked a glance sideways. “Practically everybody here is watching you.”
He grinned. “Good.” He devoured the cake in four bites, then kissed her. “You want to see my trophy collection?” he asked, his lips buzzing hers.
Val laughed. “I bet that line always worked for you, didn’t it?”
He shrugged nonchalantly, but a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I wouldn’t like to brag.”
He took her hand again and was steaming her toward the house when someone stepped in their path. It took a second for Kyle to realise it was his cousin Danny and he stiffened.
Who the fuck invited him?
“Wassup, bro?” A cigarette hung from his bottom lip like he was a fucking gangster. Kyle really hoped some glowing ash would fall into his bushranger beard and set it alight.
“Danny.” Kyle would like nothing more than to tell his cokehead cousin to fuck off, to forcibly evict him. But his aunt was here, and he didn’t want to make a scene in front of her. It wasn’t her fault her kid had listened to every ego-stroking fool stuffing his pockets full of money and drugs and telling him his shit didn’t stink.
Danny’s gaze flicked to Val. “You didn’t introduce me to your girlfriend.” He held out his hand to her. “Hi I’m—”
“I know who you are.”
Kyle smothered a smile as Val politely dismissed him and coolly shook his hand at the same time.
“And your Griff King’s daughter, right?” Danny whistled, not waiting for confirmation. “Bro. You playin’ with fire or what? The old man can’t be too pleased about that.”
Kyle didn’t realise how tense he was holding himself until Val squeezed his hand and he forced himself to relax.
“You always did have a set of brass ones.” He dragged on the cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke, squinting at them through it. “My suspension is up in a couple of months. There’s a hearing before the rugby executive soon to decide my career future. You’ll put in a good word for me?”
