A tense hush fell over the room, peppered by the occasional “is she going to do it?” as the blonde slowly—gingerly—turned a complete one-eighty on her heel and leant towards the new man now standing before her, his face lowered to hers, his lips puckered, his eyes grinning.
The room grew quieter, everyone holding their breaths as they watched the two drew their faces closer together. Closer…closer…closer…
Bam. Their mouths pressed together, separated only by the thin rectangle of gloss-covered cardboard.
“Yeah!” The cheers and laughs erupted again just as the guy sucked on the card and pulled it from her lips. The willowy blonde stepped backward in a fit of giggles, her bright blue eyes crinkling at the edges.
Alec chuckled, shaking his head. He’d never played Suck and Blow as a teenager. When his parents had won the lottery and sent him and Mac to study at Knox Grammar, the most exclusive private boys’ school in Sydney, he’d never been invited to these kinds of parties because he was, to put it bluntly, cheap money.
Another whoop of delight filled the room, snatching Alec from his wry reverie. He returned his attention to the line, his stomach knotting immediately. Two things became perfectly clear. One, the woman he’d followed to this part of the house was joining the game, and two, there was no question or denying who she was. This close, he could see the tiny smattering of light brown freckles across her fine, upturned nose. This close he could see the stormy-blue clarity of her eyes through the thick tumble of ringlets hanging over her forehead. This close he could see the straightness of her dark-brown eyebrows under that unruly fringe. This close he could see, see, the supreme confidence radiating from her in crashing waves. Couldn’t miss it. And it had the same effect on him it always had. His groin tightened and his balls throbbed.
He let out a low groan, the sound swallowed by the new round of cheers filling the room.
Frankie Winchester.
The Gun.
His long-denied sexual fantasy was all of about three sucking-and-blowing moves away from having her face plastered up close and personal with a guy dressed in designer jeans while another waited his turn behind her.
Fuck.
Join in.
He stood still. Long enough to watch the playing card be passed from a tall guy with a tattoo of a black dragon twisting up his arm to a laughing woman who Alec was sure read the news on the leading morning variety television program. For a quick moment, the card seemed glued to Mr. Tatt’s lips then, just as his head drew closer to Miss Morning News, it fluttered downward, passing his chin in a twirling flash of red hearts and blue herringbone.
The newsreader’s smiling lips pressed to Mr. Tatt’s, her eyes widening as he obviously gave her more than she’d anticipated.
The watching crowd burst out laughing, as did Miss Morning News and her tattooed partner. “Scull! Scull!” came the chant as a beer glass was handed to Mr. Tatt. He threw back his head and swallowed the amber beverage in three gulps, then held the empty glass above his head to the cheers of the room before stooping to retrieve the dropped playing card from the floor.
A husky chuckle played over Alec’s ears, making his breath quicken, and he slid his stare to where Frankie stood waiting in line for her turn. God, he remembered that laugh. It had driven him mad as a teenager. It was low and throaty. Confident and knowing. It said that she’d done things he couldn’t begin to imagine. It said that she could do things to him that he couldn’t even hope to imagine.
For a split second, he was back at high school, sitting in the audience of an inter-school debating contest, listening to Frankie laugh at something one of her teammates had whispered in her ear. He’d squirmed in his seat, his trousers suddenly uncomfortably snug in the groin. And her eyes had slid to him, looking at him for the merest beat of his heart before sliding off him. His breath had caught in his throat, his trousers growing tighter in the crotch.
“Don’t be a fucking loser, Harris,” the kid beside him—a fellow student from Knox Grammar—muttered, jabbing Alec in the ribs with his elbow. “Frankie Winchester’s not in your league. Shit, the chick dates movie stars. You’re nothing but cheap money.”
He’d ground his teeth, his gaze fixed on Frankie where she sat a world away from him. She’d laughed again at whatever her teammate had written on a palm card, and then given Alec a quick glance from the corner of her eye. Just one. But he’d sworn to God her cheeks had filled with a faint pink tinge and her smile had reached her eyes for the first time since walking into the room.
He hadn’t had the courage to approach her after the debate, slinking out of the room with his hands shoved in his pockets, hoping to hide the embarrassing effect she had on him, but he’d never forgotten that smile in her eyes. Nor her laugh.
He looked at her now, noting with a sharp sense of irony how she seemed completely unaware of his existence in this room. Did she even remember him? Or was he just the geek from her past who kept defeating her?
Find out. Now.
Without letting himself contemplate his next move or question his motive behind it, he pushed his way from the crowd and stepped up to the line, coming to stop directly before the guy on Frankie’s right. “Heya, big guy,” he said with a grin. “Mind if I cut in?”
Chapter Two
Frankie stared up at Alec, her heart thumping into her throat. So much for running away from him. She’d thought she’d lost him in the house. She thought she’d given him the slip.
She’d thought he hadn’t come after her in the first place. Why would he? In all the years they’d known each other, they’d never shared anything more than a stilted word after whatever event or competition he’d thoroughly trounced her at. Why on earth would he follow her?
It didn’t matter though. Rational thought had deserted her the second she’d laid eyes on him. Deserted her, and here she now was, hiding out in a game of Suck and Blow with Alec bloody Harris standing before her, showing her once again, how monumentally stupid she was. Damn him.
It’s been ten years, Francesca. It’s time you grew up, don’t you think? Besides, he may not even remember you.
She gazed up at him and her breath stuck in her throat. Did he remember her?
Brilliant blue eyes moved to her, direct and way more confident than they’d been as a teenager. “Hello, Francesca.”
Her sex constricted, an involuntary response to his stunning good looks and the sinfully sensual way he murmured her name. Had to be involuntary. Why else would she be feeling all squirming and…and…
“Fuck off,” the guy beside her growled.
Alec gave him a wounded look. “C’mon, mate. This is my old girlfriend from school. I haven’t seen her for ten years.”
Frankie’s mouth fell open. Okay, that’s not what she expected him to say. What the hell?
With a lopsided smile, Alec raised one sublimely muscled arm, pressed one straight finger gently underneath her chin and, his grin growing wider, slowly closed her mouth.
And she let him.
She let him. What the hell was she doing? She let him?
The guy standing beside her, a bit-role actor if she was correct—and she always was about this kind of thing—slid his own striking blue eyes in her direction.
“C’mon, mate,” Alec said and, God help her, Frankie’s pussy constricted some more at the languid confidence in his voice. “Help a bloke out.”
Before Frankie could say anything, or do anything—like, hmmm, slap Alec’s hand from under her chin perhaps—the guy on her right let out a disgruntled snort and stepped out of the line, holding out his arm for Alec to take his place. He gave Frankie a steady look. “I’ll be at the Twister station if you’re interested.” He flicked Alec a glower. “After Mr. Ex is done no doubt reminding you why he’s Mr. Ex.”
“Oh, he was a witty one,” Alec commented, watching the man shove his way through the crowd. He swung his attention back to Frankie, giving her a wide smirk. “But a little too tame for your standards if I
remember rightly?”
Frankie opened her mouth again, a searing heat flaming through her. Just as Alec nodded toward something behind her back. “Head’s up, Francesca,” he murmured with a grin, closing his fingers around her shoulders just as gently as he’d pressed his finger to her chin. “It’s our turn.”
He turned her around, in time for her to see the man next to her in the line lean forward, the ten of hearts stuck to his lips.
She blinked, her ears roaring. Alec’s fingers held her shoulders with steady pressure, the warmth of his tall, lean body licking at her back.
A prickle of something far too unnerving washed over her, something too aware of his maleness, his nearness, and then the man with the playing card on his mouth was pressing his lips to hers as Alec’s hands smoothed down her arms to come to rest on her hips.
She sucked in her breath, the sudden gasp fixing the playing card to her lips. His fingers scalded her through the supple leather of her pants, his grip loose and relaxed and far from suggestive. So why was her heart thumping so hard? Why was her pussy fluttering like a psychotic horde of ADHD butterflies?
The man currently nose-to-nose with her pushed his face a little closer, an over-powering smell of Jean Paul Gaultier’s Pour Homme slipping into her nostrils and she staggered back, Alec’s hips brushing her backside as she did so.
Oh God.
Her heart leapt away from her, the soft pressure of his fingers at her waist making her head swim. Or was it the fact she was holding her breath? Holding her breath with the goddamn ten of hearts stuck to her lips?
Do something, woman!
She didn’t have to. Alec did it for her. With a gentle push and pull on her hips, he turned her around to face him, his blue, blue eyes holding hers, his dimples flashing as the sides of his mouth curled. “So, who’s going to win this one, Frankie?”
The question was asked on a low chuckle, each word making her sex constrict.
She stared at him. Watched him lower his head to hers. Watched him draw closer. Closer. Her lungs burned. Her head swam. The room fell silent.
And her breath ran out just like that, the card slipping from her lips at the loss of suction a mere second before Alec’s mouth pressed to hers.
Explosive heat shot through Frankie, like she’d suddenly and inexplicably grabbed a live wire on an electrical fence. Except it wasn’t electricity charging through her, singeing her nerve-endings and making her nipples pinch hard but arousal. Instant and undeniable. A wicked ribbon of warm tension unfurled through her belly and into the junction of her thighs, and before she could stop it, a low groan vibrated deep in her throat.
His lips were warm, soft. They melded to hers with perfection, slightly parted, his intake of breath drawing her exhalation into his mouth.
He’d expected to feel the playing card pressed to his lips now, of that she had little doubt, but instead of pulling away as she thought he would, his lips lingered on hers. Slanting over them as his fingers on her hips curled a little more firmly against her body, tugging her closer to his body with an insistence that made her head swim just as much as her earlier oxygen deprivation.
She stiffened, for the first time in her wild, uncontrolled life she was utterly and completely bamboozled as to what she should do next. Her feet stumbled over each other, her lurching forward momentum halted by Alec’s hard form.
And he was hard. Very hard. All of him. Hard and big and impressive.
His stomach pressed against hers like a sculpted plane of marble. His chest was hard and smooth under her palms.
Her palms? Frankie’s already rapid heartbeat kicked up a notch, thumping against her breastbone like a bloody sledgehammer. When had she put her hands to his chest?
Who cares? The brazen thought whispered through her head at the very moment Alec’s lips parted against hers and his tongue dipped into her mouth.
Oh.
He tasted of sinful paradise. Pineapple and coconut and rum. It was intoxicating. She wanted more.
Snaking her hands up over his shoulders, she tangled her fingers in his messy crop of blond hair, opening her mouth wider to his kiss and stroking her tongue against his. She rose onto tip-toe, the elevation aligning her hips to his, the hard heat of his cock nudging at her groin.
Oh. The single word was nothing but a soft sigh in her mind—a mind furiously trying to remind her just who in the bloody hell she was kissing. Alec Harris. Alley Cat, Francesca, you’re kissing Alley Cat.
And he was kissing her back. And doing a superb job of it.
There was nothing chaste about it. Nor was it aggressive and arrogant. His tongue danced over hers, a teasing caress that sent a shiver up her spine and a liquid tension into her pussy. It was, simply put, a kiss designed to do one thing and one thing only, make her want more.
Oh, fuck, this can’t be—
A munitions dump exploded around them. Or at least it sounded that way.
As one, the partygoers squashed into the media room roared with deafening cheers, some stamping their feet with drumming force, some clapping with equal ferocity, others wolf-whistling and caterwauling and crying out “yeah!” like a crowd of horny teenagers.
Frankie jerked backward, her lips burning from Alec’s inexplicable kiss, her heart slamming up into her throat.
She stared up at him, the sight of his lips glistening with moisture—her moisture from her kiss—making her pulse pound.
He stared back, ignoring the slaps on the shoulder and back the other men around him were giving him, ignoring their guffaws of encouragement and congratulatory chuckles. His blue eyes held hers, even as his hands slipped from her hips, his expression growing…closed.
“Looks like I win again,” he said, no hint of humour in his deep voice.
Someone sucker punched Frankie in the stomach. Some unseen, invisible assailant. How else could she explain the way her gut suddenly seemed to knot? Or the way her breath burst violently from her lungs. She blinked. “What?”
Her face filled with heat. Not just a delicate blush, but a burning heat that didn’t just creep up her chest and neck to paint her face red, but engulfed it with a greedy ferocity. She shook her head, stumbling back another step, bumping into the guy behind her, her backside pressing against his groin. He laughed, his hands falling onto her shoulders to steady her.
“Bloody hell, mate,” he said over the top of her head, and Frankie didn’t need to turn around to see his exclamation was directed at Alec, “why couldn’t I have been standing in your spot?”
Frankie’s stomach knotted again. Tighter this time. He’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back. What the fuck was she thinking? “You’re lucky I didn’t knee you in the nuts,” she joked, the threat insincere at best. At worst, it sounded like a breathy pant.
“Admit it, Francesca,” Alec lowered his head closer to hers, “you want to kiss me again.”
Her heart thumped harder. “It’s a game, Alley Cat. That’s it.”
The corners of his mouth curled. A little. His eyes seemed to twinkle. “Guess I’m not that hopeless a kisser after all.”
Frankie frowned, for a second his words making bugger all sense, and then a tiny shard of memory formed, spearing into her: “I bet he’s a hopeless kisser, Miks.” Her jibe from that lifetime whispered through her mind. She swallowed, staring up at Alec. “You heard me?”
Alec shrugged. “You were pissed off about losing to me in the regional mixed doubles semi-finals. I think the whole tennis court heard you.”
She remembered the petulant anger at yet another crushing defeat…and an unsettling tension in the pit of her belly she’d not wanted to think about or acknowledge. “I bet he doesn’t have a clue what to do with his tongue.”
His smile curled wider, as if he knew where her thoughts were taking her. “So, tell me, what did you think of my tongue action?”
His question made her pulse quicken. She’d liked it. A lot. And, as if to really drive the point home, that same unsettling tension
churned in the pit of her belly now, but this time she knew exactly what it was—arousal. She wasn’t telling him that though, no matter how much she wanted to kiss him a—
She sucked in a quick breath, the taste of Alec’s kiss flowing through her. Pineapple, coconut and rum. And Alec. She tasted Alec on her breath. Damn it, the one guy she’d never in a million years dreamed of tasting.
But you always wanted to. Admit it. After all these years deluding yourself, surely you can admit it now?
“Scull!” the cheer went out, just as someone shoved a shot glass of something colorless in her hand.
“Nah, kiss him again!” someone else yelled back.
The crowd burst out laughing, feet stamping again.
Alec stared at her. Waiting for her to say something. Do something.
“I think—” Frankie spoke loud enough for the crowd to hear her, more than a touch dismayed at the way her voice cracked, “—we should continue with the game, don’t you?”
Alec raised an eyebrow, one side of his mouth twitching. “I agree.”
She raised the shot glass to her lips, her gaze held by his, and tossed back the drink in one mouthful.
Tequila burnt its way to her stomach. Fiery and potent. And still the taste of Alec lingered on her lips, her tongue. Oh God, he tasted so fucking good.
Kiss him again. Now. You’re at a party. You’ve just slammed back a tequila shot. He’ll think it’s the booze. Kiss him. Go on. You know you want to.
God help her, she did. Ten years ago she’d denied that want, despising him for constantly humiliating her. But deep down inside, in the disquieting place no teenage girl wanted to go—a place far less self-centered and far more self-aware—she’d known every defeat made her a better person, even if she never admitted it to anyone, least of all herself.
She wanted to kiss him back then and she wanted to kiss him now.
Instead, with a cock of one eyebrow, she sank into a crouch before him, keeping her shoulders and back straight, her face drawing level with his crotch as her fingers closed around the playing card lying on the plush carpet at his feet.
Suck and Blow: Party Games, Book 1 Page 2
