“C’mon,” he said, his voice stroking at her senses, “I’m parked just down the street.”
He folded his hand around hers, holding it the way young lovers do—their fingers threaded, their wrists and arms pressed together. They walked from the party without passing a word to each other, and Frankie couldn’t stop the wild rhythm of her heart increasing with each step from Lil’s house. BMWs, Mercs, an Aston Martin, even a Ferrari or two sat parked in the quiet street, each one proclaiming their owner’s wealth louder than a bullhorn. They passed Frankie’s beloved Audi R8, the black supercar somehow striking her for the first time since buying it as ridiculously ostentatious. “Think about how much fucking money I must have to drive a car like this,” it said loudly and proudly.
She cast it a sideward glance, and as if Alec sensed her unexpected disquiet, his fingers squeezed hers gently before he disengaged his hand from her grip and slipped his arm around her waist, holding her close.
Frankie drew in a slow breath, the sweet scent of summer night streaming into her body doing nothing to calm her nerves.
Nerves? Why the hell was she nervous?
“Here we are.”
Alec’s calm murmur jolted Frankie from the confronting question and she looked around herself, her gaze falling on a new model, top-of-the-line ute parked beside her. “This is yours?”
Alec gave her a nod.
She turned back to it, a strange knot in her belly. She knew how much it was worth—close to seventy thousand dollars—yet it wasn’t the price tag that caught her attention, but rather the subtle business signage on the passenger’s door. Going Bush Landscape and Design.
A frown pulled at Frankie’s eyebrows and she caught her bottom lip with her teeth. She knew that name for some reason. Why? She didn’t have a garden herself, living six stories above the harbour as she did—and she was lucky if she could keep a potted plant alive. So why did she know that business name?
Didn’t Nick Blackthorne tell you he was getting his gardens redesigned by some hugely in-demand landscaper?
Frankie narrowed her eyes, trying to remember the conversation she’d had with her client the last time he was back in Australia. The world’s biggest rock star had raved on and on about the guy, extolling his genius and talent, never referring to him as anything but the Cat. She’d thought it really odd, but in a pretty cool kind of way. Nick never settled for anything but the best, so bizarre nickname or not, the landscape designer must have been the—
Her gaze fell on the logo sitting beside the business name—a scruffy-looking alley cat asleep on a fallen tree log, surrounded by lush fern fronds.
Cat.
Alley Cat.
A heavy pressure wrapped around Frankie’s chest. She swung her stare to Alec, catching him watching her, the shadows of the dark street making it impossible to see his expression clearly. Her mouth felt dry. “This is you?”
Alec nodded. Again.
She looked back at the logo, the significance of the cat not lost on her. An alley cat, the very nickname she’d given to him all those years ago. A nickname once intended as a barbed insult from an immature, resentful teenager was now something else. Something far more…unnerving.
Her name for him had become his identity. The landscape gardener to the stars, the guy Nick Blackthorne had paid forty-two thousand dollars to redesign his garden, had taken her with him into his highly successful career.
Oh, God. What did that mean?
“It suits me, y’know.”
Alec’s low rumble in Frankie’s ear made her jump, and she pulled away from him, enough to stare up into his face. A face still shrouded too much in shadows for her liking.
“I am a bit of an alley cat,” he went on, his breath a warm kiss on her flushed cheek, “unrefined, a little bit feral, more than a little bit…savage when I need to be.”
She gasped, the faint sound captured by Alec’s mouth as his lips crushed hers. His hands buried in her hair, strong fingers fisting into balls to hold her head still. It was a dominating grip, exerting a possession over Frankie that normally would have pissed her off. It didn’t. Not by a long shot. The complete opposite in fact.
The junction of her thighs grew wet, her pussy lips throbbing with instant response to his arrogant aggression. Fuck, what was it about the guy that made her so damn…damn…his?
Who cares?
Her heart smashed hard in her chest. She cared. She had to. If nothing else, she had to understand how this one man was affecting her so much? Before she let him irrevocably throw her whole world off balance.
She rolled her head, needed to break the kiss, if only for a moment.
Alec’s lips didn’t leave her face however, scoring a line over her jaw and down to her throat. The tip of his tongue tasted her in a series of soft flicks, his teeth nipping her skin almost gently. With a low groan, he moved his mouth back up to hers, dipping his tongue past her lips, teasing her with a savage swipe of her teeth before he rained a string of kisses up to her temple. “You know why you have a gun tattooed on the hood of your sex, don’t you, Frankie?” he murmured, one hand dragging from her hair to slip between their bodies. His fingers cupped her mound, his thumb stroking over the tattoo of the handgun she’d had tattooed there years ago.
“Because…” she began, eyes closed. Oh, God, the pressure of his fingertips on her folds—even through the leather of her pants—was making her head swirl.
“Because?” His lips journeyed to her ear, his tongue charting a line over its outer shape.
She couldn’t finish. She didn’t know the answer. She’d had it done in a fit of irrational melancholy one Tuesday afternoon when she’d realized she’d spent the day throwing her influential weight around to score various clients a number of ridiculously indulgent perks. Nothing had stopped her getting what she’d demanded. No one had challenged her, and for some stupid reason that realization had left her feeling empty. Lil McDermott had called during this uncharacteristic fugue, in a tizz over some guy she’d refused to name and, with no rhyme or reason to her decision, with no analysis or contemplation, Frankie had driven them both to The Illustrated Man, a legendary tattoo artist in Sydney. Five minutes later she’d plonked herself down on one of the workbenches, unzipped her jeans and said “Give me a gun. Right there.”
She’d thought it was because of her surname—Winchester. Now she wasn’t so sure. Now, standing here on the dark, quiet street of opulent Avalon, her pussy damp and her breath catching, she couldn’t help but think it had more to do with the man whose fingers so intimately cupped her sex.
The man, who as a teenager had named her The Gun after their second face off in a mock-trail competition. A teenager who, unlike anyone else she knew, challenged her.
A man who would do the same.
Frankie’s head swam and a soft whimper escaped her throat, her heart not just beating hard now, but threatening to pound out of her chest. Something very close to panic slithered through her, cold fingers of apprehension she couldn’t ignore. All these years…all these years and Alec bloody Harris had been with her on a subconscious level.
All these years.
She shook her head. “I have to go,” she blurted, pushing her palms against the rock-hard solid muscle of his chest as she looked everywhere but at him. This was too much to take in. Too much to process. “I have to—”
“No, you don’t,” he cut her off, his hands holding her still. “And you don’t need to be scared either, Francesca.”
Her stare flung to his face, her lips parting to tell him she wasn’t scared, damn him. She wasn’t scared of jack shit. But the words of false bravado were lost to her. Silenced by his lips on hers in an infinitely tender kiss.
A kiss so akin to reverent worship she couldn’t think anymore.
With a groan, she pushed her hips to his, wrapping one leg around the back of his thigh and opening her mouth to his with greedy hunger.
Their tongues mated, their breaths became one. Alec’s f
ingers on her sex became wicked instruments of torment, stroking at her folds through the leather of her trousers until she whimpered. He was doing it to her again. Right here on the street.
He tightened his fist in her hair, tugging her head back to expose her throat to his lips. She moaned, the contact far more arousing than it should be. Her nipples pinched hard and she rolled her hips, grinding her pussy to his hand. “Alec…” His name fell from her in a husky breath she barely recognized as her own.
“I’m going to make you come, Frankie,” he stated against the base of her throat. His fingers between her legs stroked at the concealed nub of her clitoris. “I’m going to make you come here on the street where anyone who walks past can see.”
“Oh God.” Her groan was raw.
His fingers pressed her clit through her trousers, massaging its swollen form. He moved his mouth up to her ear, his breath warm on her flushed skin. “I’m going to make you come against the side of my ute until your legs are too weak to hold you up.”
“Christ, Alec,” she moaned, her hands clinging to his shoulders, “don’t fucking tease me like this.”
He pulled away. Just enough to stare down into her face. “Who said I’m teasing?”
And with those words, he pushed her backward until her arse pressed to the passenger’s door of his pickup, unzipping her fly as he did so.
His fingers slipped between the supple leather of her pants and her mons, one finding her clit immediately, the others stroking her folds. “Jesus, Frankie,” he nipped at her earlobe, “you’re so wet for me.”
A tight heat in her core made her tremble, and she closed her eyes, a wave of wanton need surging through her. She was wet. She could feel her juices making her crotch damp. Hell, she could smell her pleasure on the night air.
“Alec,” she breathed his name, unable to articulate anything else.
He pulled her head back a little more, his mouth sucking with hungry intent on the sensitive dip below her ear as he slipped one finger into her willing pussy.
A gasp burst from her. She drove her hips forward, grinding her clit to his hand in an attempt to impale herself deeper on his wriggling finger.
Alec let out a low groan, his breath leaving him in ragged pants. “Jesus, sweetheart, you’re so tight. So hot and wet and tight.” He moved his hand slightly, and Frankie hissed with pleasure as he slipped another finger into her sex.
He scissored them inside her, his mouth searing over her throat, her jaw, her lips as he wriggled deeper still. Frankie couldn’t stop her keening cry, her inner muscles contracting in an exquisite pulse when his fingertips found the sweetest spot of them all within.
“Fuck, yes.” She threw back her head, staring blankly at the night sky, her blood pounding in her ears as a sharp, violent orgasm claimed her.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” Alec whispered in her ear, his fingers continuing to caress her heat. “That’s what I want.”
He withdrew slightly, just enough to allow his fingertips to pinch her clit. Frankie bucked, shards of pleasurable pain shooting through her core. Oh God, it was amazing. Her nipples puckered, aching to be sucked. She buried her hands in his hair, bowing her back as far as the large vehicle behind her would allow, wanting him to find her breasts with his mouth. “Please, Alec,” she begged, trying to guide his head lower. “I want…”
“You to come again for me,” he finished, rolling the pad of his thumb over her clit in a tiny circle.
She shook her head, her breath nothing but gasping whimpers. “Please, I can’t…it’s too…”
He plunged back into her pussy, three fingers squirming inside her, stretching her. Making her cry out. Concentrated pleasure unfurled through her body and she fisted her hands harder in his hair. Somewhere in the trees around them, a kookaburra laughed, as if Frankie’s sexual torment was the night’s entertainment. Somewhere to their right, muted voices tickled the darkness, partygoers wandering away from the house perhaps. The thought of being discovered made Frankie’s already rapid heartbeat faster. The thought of eyes watching as Alec wrought such pleasure on her, of Alec taking from her what he wanted made her hornier than she believed possible.
She cried out again, a soundless plea for mercy. For more. For release.
A prickling heat seared the soles of her feet. A ripple of electricity shot up her spine. Alec captured her lips with his, his tongue fucking her mouth with dominating control in the very way his fingers fucked her pussy. He owned her body. He owned her pleasure. Her second orgasm slammed into her, through her with wild force. She bucked into his hand, her nails scraping at his back.
And still, Alec didn’t stop. Once again, he withdrew his hand from her sopping sex enough to work his mastery on her clit—that aching, hyper-sensitive, swollen button of wonderful flesh. Each caress and pinch and stroke sent pleasure so intense it almost hurt shearing through her. Each touch of his fingers made her womb heavier, tighter.
Gripping tension filled her, turned her core to a thrumming heat and another orgasm rocked her, more powerful than the others. A tremble claimed her muscles. She tore her mouth from his, pulling his rigid erection harder to her spread folds. Three climaxes and it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She ached for more. She ached for his domination of her sexual needs. She ached for his control of her body.
She ached for him. Just him. All of him.
“Fuck, Alec,” she ground out, the shudders of her multiple orgasm turning the words to ragged pants, “I want your cock inside me so bad. Please? Fuck me here. Now.”
With a muttered growl, Alec buried his face in the side of her neck, his hands slipping from her sex, her hair, to come to rest on her hips. “You have no fucking clue how much I want to be inside you, sweetheart,” he murmured, his lips grazing her skin, “but I haven’t got a condom. I don’t carry them on me.”
The confession should have made her weep. She’d never, ever wanted a man inside her as much as she did Alec right at this point. Instead, it filled her with something far more potent. Sheer, uncomplicated joy. It told her one very clear thing: Alec Harris didn’t fuck around.
He wasn’t the kind of guy she usually slept with—ready to go any time, always prepared, assuming every drink at a bar would end between the sheets. Alec wasn’t one of those guys. Alec was different. And it made her feel…
A heavy pressure settled on her heart, warm and enveloping, and Frankie sucked in a breath.
God help her. She wasn’t falling in love with him, was she? Already?
How would you know? You’ve never been in love before. The strongest emotion you’ve ever felt for anyone apart from Miki was Alley Cat Alec, all those years ago. And as you’ve discovered tonight, you never let that Alec go, even when you thought you had.
She blinked, her lips tingling, her mouth going dry.
Before she could contemplate the unthinkable, Alec lifted his head from her neck and gazed down at her, his eyes unreadable in the shadows. “I’m going to take you back to my house, Francesca Winchester,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made Frankie’s pulse quicken. A promise in the words that pinched her nipples hard and made her pussy throb.
He stepped away from her, slowly zipping up the fly on her pants as his stare held hers.
She swallowed, all too aware the old Frankie would have said something glib and witty by now. Would have re-exerted her control of the situation by doing up her own fly, thank you very much. Instead, she stood still, her breath caught in her throat as his thumb grazed her flesh just above her waistline, her lips parting as she waited for his next move.
He stood silent, his features almost lost to her in the night. She saw his nostrils flare, heard him pull in a deep, slow breath, and then she heard the unmistakable chirp of a car alarm deactivating—his car alarm—before he reached behind her arse and pulled on the door handle. “Let’s go.”
The drive took forever. Alec sat behind the wheel, throwing mental curses at every red light they came across on t
he way to his home. It was as if some higher being was enjoying itself at his expense, prolonging the moment Alec could take Frankie in his arms and sink himself into her sweetness. If his dick was any harder, he’d rupture something. As it was, every time he hit a bump or pothole in the road, his balls felt close to exploding. If he knew someone on city council he’d call them up and give them a bloody damn good piece of his mind. Damn it, wasn’t Sydney capable of keeping the roads in good condition?
He shot Frankie a quick sideward glance. She’d said nothing since climbing into his ute, her stare locked on the street ahead of her, a small frown pulling at her eyebrows, her teeth worrying her bottom lip constantly. He’d seen her do this very thing before, usually after she’d realized he’d beaten her once again at one school competition or another. What did it mean she wore the same expression now? Was she having second thoughts?
Christ, how would he survive if she was?
There was no going back from this now. Not for him. As stupid and gung ho as it sounded, this was it. His future was sitting beside him, silent and gorgeous and sexy as sin, and he couldn’t imagine anyone else in her place. He didn’t want anyone else.
Not that he was a virgin. Hell, he’d lost that albatross way back when he was fifteen. He’d had his fair share of sexual partners since, most of them highly successful women more than happy to let their relationship develop into something more. But with the exception of two or three, Alec never let the dates go beyond a good time and a few laughs. It wasn’t that he was scared of commitment, but even those long-term relationships seemed to fade away after a year or so.
It had always been Frankie. Always.
No one else.
Even when it wasn’t Frankie in his life, on his arm, in his bed, it was: an unobtainable woman who knew him only as the kid from the poor end of Sydney who kept humiliating her.
Suck and Blow: Party Games, Book 1 Page 7
