by Nikky Kaye
“Yeah, I think you do. I think you wish someone’s tongue was in your pussy. I bet you’re getting wet just thinking about it.” Fuck, I was getting hard thinking about her thinking about it.
I moved closer to her side, my chest rubbing up against her shoulder. Her eyes flew open, but she stared straight ahead. “I-I-uh…”
“If I reached into your pants right now, what would I feel? I’m betting you don’t have any panties on.”
At the thought, more than just my chest rubbed against her. My cock felt like it was forged from steel. The tiny shake of her head made me grin.
“Bad girl, Annie.”
I cupped her breast through her loose cotton top, the swollen tip of her nipple pressing against my palm. It was a rash, reckless thing to do—but she didn’t stop me. It wasn’t the first time I’d copped a feel, but this was the first time my hand tingled, all the way up my arm.
“Fuck, yes!” Evie cried out. Apparently Dom’s tongue was hard at work. My mouth felt dry, and I swallowed hard.
Annie had leaned closer to me without realizing, turning her body toward me until only a couple of inches separated us. My dick surged in my jeans, instinctively seeking her—her heat, the flat plane of her belly, the warm, damp path down to her entrance. I thumbed her taut nipple, my hand curving around the underside of her tit.
“Jake, I—” she breathed, sucking in a breath when my fingers slid down to the waistband of her borrowed PJs.
I paused, waiting to see what she’d do. What she’d say.
When no reproach was forthcoming, I was emboldened to discover how she’d feel. How she’d taste and smell.
A whimper drifted over her lower lip as I slipped my hand under the hem of her soft shirt and brushed against her even softer skin.
Slowly, my fingertips skated over the quivering purgatory of flesh between her navel and the top of her mound.
The sounds of Dom and Evie making love assaulted our breathy silence. It was as if we mutually understood that speaking would shatter the moment. The heated path of my touch scalded my fingers, until only the dampness of her arousal could bring relief—or so I thought.
“Yes…” she hissed quietly as my index finger parted her lips below a delicate patch of hair. Her head lolled back, her pulse visibly jumping in her long neck. “Jake—”
Was it a warning? A demand to stop? I hesitated, painfully aware of her turgid, slippery clit under my finger. Oh fuck. She was throbbing, but our only point of physical connection was my hand in her goddamn pants and our breath on each other’s faces.
Until she grabbed my wrist.
My stomach flipped. With a sigh, I began to pull away—but she panted and urged me closer.
“No. More.”
Yeah, I did a mental fist pump. What kind of red-blooded man wouldn’t?”
“You are so wet.” I could smell her desire like a cloud between us as I dipped my finger into her.
In the other room, Evie’s guttural cries signaled that she was close to coming. Judging by the curses Dom was snarling, he was trying to get her there before he shot into her.
Her head lolled to the side, her slightly almond-shaped eyes dark and wide as she my gaze directly.
My stoicism—hell, my motherfucking patience—was at an end.
CHAPTER FIVE
ANNIE
I had never been so turned on in my entire life—and I was wearing pajamas covered in puppies.
“What is it, Annie?” Jake whispered in my ear. “You want more? More fingers? You want me to fuck you with my hand, until even the spaces between my fingers are slippery with your come?”
Yes, please!
As his words grew dirtier, his caresses lightened. His forefinger circled my entrance, nudging just enough for my muscles to spasm in an effort to lure him inside.
“I can’t really blame a guy for wanting you,” he said. “You’re kind of addictive—you know that? You’re like… I don’t know… eating fresh pineapple.”
“Pine-a-apple?” I stuttered.
He nodded. “It’s so fresh and juicy and sweet. It’s like eating sunshine, and you feel like you just can’t get enough—until you eat so much that your mouth burns afterward.”
“I-I-“ I licked her lips. “I’m burning you?”
“Honey, I’m damn close to going off like a firecracker,” he admitted.
I shivered as he bent over and ran his tongue from the base of my throat up to my jaw. His finger dragged over my clit at the same time.
My hips jerked and rolled. “Oh god, I’m going to—no, I can’t!” Sweat broke out at my temples as I struggled against my desires.
“Let it happen, Annie.”
I shook my head, frightened by the idea of losing control—even in pleasure. Of course, I’d already lost that battle—we still stood in the foyer.
Jake’s hand moved between my legs, his breath was hot in my ear, and my pants were halfway down my thighs.
His thick wrist flexed as I clutched at him.
“You wanna help?” he asked, his own breath shaky. I looked down at the prominent bulge nudging my hip. My hand brushed against him, and I was shocked by the heat and heft hidden by his clothes.
His groan took me by surprise. Maybe I thought that I was the only one affected here—that this was some kind of one-sided seduction.
“I can’t take that kind of help.” He tilted his hips away from me. “I don’t want to embarrass myself.”
Of course, it was perfectly fine for me to be embarrassed. My face felt as hot as the rest of my body. His lips on my cheekbone and the corner of my open mouth didn’t cool me down.
“I’m going to make you come so hard,” he promised. “You’ll feel so damn good. Just stop fighting it.”
My gaze shifted to his hand undulating against me, in me. The fleshy mound below his thumb was shiny with my juices.
His jaw was tight with the strain of holding his own pleasure back, his lips pressed together in concentration, and his gaze penetrated me just as mercilessly as his fingers.
I knew—somehow—that if I told him to stop he’d step back and… well, that part I didn’t know. Lick his fingers, maybe? That realization was enough for me to stop pushing down the intense pleasure trying to travel through my body.
So I stopped fighting my shocking, primal need for him. Hell, I embraced it like it was coming home for the holidays. Sagging against him, I nodded.
“Please, Jake. I-I really want—oh oh oh!” I lost my ability to form real words as he drove me over the edge.
He held me together as I shattered, mending my broken pieces with his own harsh exhalation and soft cursing. Probably, I wasn’t the only one with damp pants at that moment. That helped me feel less… exposed and vulnerable—knowing that his self-control had also wavered.
Was I embarrassed? Yes, yes I definitely was.
It didn’t help that the sound of someone clearing their throat snapped my attention over to Evie and Dominic, now dressed, leaning against the hallway wall. Watching us. Evie’s eyes shone, but Dom’s expression was inscrutable.
Oh my god. I tipped over the edge from embarrassment to utter mortification, faster than I’d climaxed.
Jake chuckled in my ear. “You still want to take your chances here?” The tip of his tongue touched my earlobe, like he couldn’t resist tasting me. He withdrew his hand and tugged my pants back up.
With his hands around my waist, he turned us so that I couldn’t see my best friend and her fiancé. “Looks like you’re between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “Stay here, or stay with me.”
“I could go ho—”
My alternative proposal was shot down by his lips on mine.
Finally.
He kissed me hard—hot and demanding—and it took me a split second to remember that this was the first time.
Our first kiss.
In some ways, it was a step backwards from his… well, his finger fucking me. In other ways it was a mile ahead in terms o
f intimacy. Now this was the control I feared losing.
His head lifted slightly. “Here or with me,” he repeated. Those were apparently the only options.
Hoo boy. Should I take the rock or the hard place?
“The mattress is on the firm side,” Jake told me as I sat on the edge of the bed. He shrugged. “It hasn’t been used much.”
I tilted my head. “You don’t have house guests?”
Jake’s condo was smaller than his brother’s, but I was willing to bet that his en suite bath was still bigger than my whole studio apartment. The minimalist design made it seem even bigger—all straight lines and unforgiving surfaces.
“Not ones that stay in the guest bedroom.” His grin showed all his straight, white teeth.
I held up a hand. “Sorry I asked.” I really, really was. Jake was a bit of a player—I’d guessed that much. But it was kind of tacky of him to remind me of that after fingering me into a rocketing orgasm. “Your business is your business.”
“I mean that Stella has her own room.”
“Oh.” There was an awkward pause between us. “Can I see it?”
“Her room?”
I nodded. It was stupid of me to ask, but I kind of wanted to see it. How would a single man like Jake—a cocky, wealthy, ex-military man—decorate his toddler daughter’s bedroom?
He led me down the hall and opened a door. I looked at his face, wondering if I was being too intrusive, but he didn’t seem fazed at all.
I peeked inside. Smiled.
Stella had a princess bed. Not the floofy pink kind but an old-fashioned kind with heavy embroidered curtains around it. It was the kind of bed you saw in old castles, where you’d be surprised at how small it was. It was the perfect size for a three year-old, though. But something was off…
“No little stairs?”
“I don’t want her falling in the middle of the night if she gets out,” he explained. He rubbed the back of his neck, frowning. “We’re working on potty training.”
That was definitely a sentence I never expected to hear coming out of Jake Stone’s mouth. Judging by the way his ears were turning pink, it was a surprise to him as well.
“That’s some pick-up line.”
He laughed. “Hey, sometimes dirty talk literally is dirty talk.”
“Aw, can’t wait to be done with the diapers, huh?” My gaze swept around the room, taking in a dollhouse, bookshelf, and a neat stack of paper and crayons on a fun-sized table and chair set.
It was too tidy.
“How often is she here?” I asked quietly.
“Not often enough.” His voice was tight. He stepped back into the hallway. The tour was over. So was the joking mood.
Damn. As attractive as the intense, provocative Jake was, I liked the devil-may-care part of him more. Right now, he could use more caring than from just the devil. Loneliness shrouded him when he wasn’t kidding around.
As we walked to the open-plan kitchen and living room, I poked his arm. “Admit it. You know all the lines in Frozen, don’t you?”
The tension in his jaw eased up a bit, but not enough.
Hmmm. “Who do you think is hotter? Elsa or Anna?”
Silently, he opened the fridge. “Beer or wine?” was all he said.
“Wine, if you have a bottle open.”
He nodded. The broad muscles of his back shifted tantalizingly under his t-shirt as he reached for some glasses. As he was getting them down from the cabinet, his gaze shifted to a framed picture of Stella on the counter by his phone charger.
His shoulders slumped.
This was going to take some industrial-scale making a fool out of myself. I took a deep breath then began to sing—badly.
“The snow glows bright on the mountaintop—”
“Tonight,” he interrupted, turning back to me to place the glasses on the island between us.
“What?”
“The snow glows white on the mountain tonight,” he said. He looked at Stella’s picture again, like a reflex.
Okaaaay. It was worth trying again. “Let it go, let it go…” Shit. I was flat.
He cocked his head, his lip twitching. “Can’t hold it back anymore...”
Fresh arousal snaked up my spine. Somehow he made the Disney musical sound like dark, dirty, sexy rock and roll.
“Let it go, let it go,” I warbled as he poured two glasses of white wine. Those were the only words I really knew.
The lines on Jake’s face relaxed as stared into my eyes. He paused, searching me for… something, then sang to me in a low, husky voice.
“Don’t let them in, don’t let them see. Be the good girl you always have to be… Conceal, don’t feel; don’t let them know. Well now they know…” he trailed off, as though prompting me to repeat the chorus.
I couldn’t. The lyrics stabbed me in the chest right where my heart was supposed to be. They were too true, too close to home.
Struck dumb, I wrapped my fingers around my glass then whirled around to stumble toward the couch. Took a long drink.
Then another.
On the floor by a huge television, I spied the disc case for the movie. Either he had a lazy housekeeper, or he’d been watching it by himself.
Jake Stone was a lot more complicated than I thought he was. And my life was already complicated enough.
My brain knew this.
My body was clueless. It wanted him, more and more every time I saw him.
But my heart was getting stuck between the rock and hard place.
CHAPTER SIX
ANNIE
I couldn’t move. I fought the rising panic and tried to regulate my breathing, but I still. Could. Not. Move.
“Good, you’re awake.”
The voice was rough and masculine, but without the ability to even turn my head, I couldn’t place it.
Breathe. My chest hurt, like something heavy was on it. When I looked down, I was horrified to see that I was wearing the outfit that had arrived on my doorstep—well, half of it, anyhow. The matching bra and panties didn’t quite fit; the cups were too big and the waistband tight. With nothing else on, I lay shivering on the… bed? Couch? Where the hell was I?
Frozen. I was frozen. I tried to scream, but couldn’t even part my lips.
“I’d offer you a blanket,” the voice said. “But I like seeing your nipples stick out like that.”
The flush of embarrassment drove away some of my frigid fear, but not much. I flinched as, from behind me, he viciously pinched the headlights I still sported. The sudden jerk of my chin and elbows was a relief, though. I was regaining some control over my body!
“But I suppose,” he said with regret, “that won’t do for the pictures.”
In what seemed like a flash, the gown was on me. Long, white satin, it resembled a negligee more than a dress. My shoulders were bare, but the silky material brushed against my ankles.
Then I felt the weight on my chest increase, and my whole body felt like it was caving in on itself. I couldn’t stop my eyelids from drooping, and in my mind I was clenching my hands into fists. Then, darkness—like he’d snuffed out a candle inside me.
When I woke again, I was sitting in a big armchair, my hands neatly folded in my lap. They looked strange. When had I gotten a manicure?
“You look beautiful.” The voice came from behind me. “It turned out exquisitely. Don’t you think?”
A picture landed on my lap, in a heavy silver frame. My gaze slid up the image from the bottom, as I recognized the gown I was wearing.
But it wasn’t me. It was a wedding picture of Evie and Dominic. What? I didn’t understand.
“Annie!”
At first I felt paralyzed again, then my whole body tensed. My hands flew out to brace me against the bed, as though as I had just fallen backwards.
The bed? Wasn’t I in a chair?
I jackknifed up, nearly head-butting Jake.
“Whoa!”
Looking down, I saw the tank top and underw
ear I went to sleep in. After the tour. After the impromptu concert. After the wine. After…
Jake gripped my hand where it clawed against the mattress. “Bad dream?”
I looked at him, still trying to focus. Nodded. My ribs ached.
“Breathe, honey,” he instructed.
Oh. I was dreaming. I’d been dreaming that I was Evie? Or was it me? And who was the faceless man? My secret admirer?
“You’re cold,” Jake said.
I looked down to my nipples poking out from my tank, reminding me of the dream. Broken flashes skipped through my mind, like a strobe light.
The weight of Jake’s thigh, where he sat on the edge of the bed beside me, grounded me. Warmed me.
It wasn’t warm enough.
He grunted as I launched myself at him. He was big, hard, and hot, and enclosed me in the circle of his arms.
“Hey, hey.” One of his hands stroked up and down my spine, the other keeping a similar rhythm on my upper arm. This was the father in him coming out, the protector and soother. Lucky Stella. “Must have been some fucking dream,” he said.
Presumably that wasn’t what he would say to comfort Stella.
He was too much taller for me to dig my chin into his shoulder, so I turned my face into his chest—his bare chest.
“Shit, even your nose is cold!” He chuckled and held me tighter. My nose flattened against his pectoral muscle, my short, hot breaths trapped by the curve of my upper lip.
He smelled… warm. Like hot, sugary tea. Despite only wearing some skintight boxer briefs, he radiated heat like a furnace.
Wait, boxer briefs? “I woke you.”
My head joggled along with his shrug. “I wasn’t sleeping much anyhow.”
“Evie—” I mumbled.
“Yeah, I’d have nightmares after seeing that, too.”
I shook my head slightly, not knowing how to explain. The tip of my nose was warming up, but his back arched a little as my lips brushed against him.
Huh.
Curious, I pursed my lips together again and pressed them to his chest just above his nipple. It stiffened.
Now the muscles of his six-pack flexed as well, as I dragged my hands over his abdomen.
“Annie, what are you doing?” There was a warning in his voice.
