by Cara Bristol
Shit. Lon rested his elbows on his knees and slumped forward. This was the first time in almost a month that he’d spent the evening at home. Most nights he’d had to work, for which he was grateful. On his rare evenings off, he had hung out with friends, pumped iron at the gym, anything to avoid his apartment, which retained too many memories of Dana, of her sucking his cock, tying him to his bed, straddling his face, taunting him with her adorned breasts.
He’d slept on the sofa for a month. He hadn’t gone to see his parents or his brothers for fear of running into her.
The woman’s giggle from the pool stirred memories of how he and Dana had joked together, how he’d loved the sound of her laughter, how he loved her.
Lon couldn’t blame Dana for going back to her ex. How could he? She and Roger Markus shared almost as many years together as Lon had been alive. Roger needed aftercare, and who better to provide it than the woman with whom he shared a history and a daughter?
Katie. Lon knocked back a gulp of beer. A piece of work, that one. She’d disliked him from the second she’d met him. As he’d replayed the hospital scene, little things about the encounter kept nagging him, among them Katie’s avoidance of direct eye contact and her stiff posture. Patients lied to him all the time—about taking their medication, following their diets, exercising. He was getting good at reading people, and if he didn’t know better, he’d swear Katie had been lying to him.
But he did know better.
He was confusing desire with reality; his own foolish heart wanted Katie to be lying, so he was reading nefarious motives into her behavior. Her father had suffered a heart attack; it was normal for stressed people to act oddly. Besides, the conversation between Dana and Roger he’d overheard had proven Katie correct.
Can we make it work?
I would like that.
The two events—Katie’s announcement in the hall and the tail end of the conversation—corroborated each other. Without one, he would have disbelieved the other because he loved Dana and had believed his feelings were reciprocated.
But what if one was false? For instance, what if Katie had fabricated a story?
Though his heart begged him to avoid ruminating about Dana, he continued to play devil’s advocate. If Katie hadn’t planted seeds of doubt, it would have taken some mighty compelling evidence to convince him that Dana had reunited with her ex. He would not have assumed from the snippet of conversation he’d overheard that they were reconciling. They were divorcing and had many things to “make work.”
And if that was true, that meant Dana hadn’t dumped him. He’d broken up with her.
Lon shot to his feet. Could he have fucked up that badly? Reason argued the most likely explanation was probably the truth. His desire notwithstanding, the circumstantial evidence indicated that Dana and her husband had reunited.
But circumstantial evidence wrongly convicted people all the time.
Did he want to chuck his happiness on a probably—on the possible pejorative testimony of a girl who disliked him?
Fuck, no!
Decision ignited a flicker of hope and fueled determination. He refused to quit without a fight. He bolted into his living room, grabbed his keys, dashed to the door, yanked it open—and almost tripped over his own feet.
Katie hovered in the hall, about to knock. “Oh. Uh, hi.” Her eyes rounded, and she lowered her raised arm. She bit her lower lip as some indefinable emotion flitted across her face. “You’re leaving,” she said.
“Yes. I am,” he agreed tersely. Katie was the last person he wanted to see on his way to the person he most wanted to see. He pushed forward and forced her to move out of the way.
“Could I, uh, talk to you for a moment first?”
Not unless hell froze over. Katie already had said enough, and he would not allow her to derail him by seeding any more doubt. “No. Excuse me.” He slammed his apartment door shut and quickly locked it. Conscious of her eyes boring into his back, he strode down the interior hall for the stairs.
“I lied.” The two words arrested his flight.
Slowly, he twisted and cocked his head. “What did you say?”
“I lied to you.” Katie knotted her hands. “My parents aren’t getting back together. I wanted them to, so I told you something that wasn’t true.”
It was pretty much what he’d finally figured out, but his optimism skyrocketed. Hope swelled his chest until he feared it would burst. If Dana would forgive him, he had a chance!
He would not tell Dana the role Katie had played in their breakup. He had no desire to cause friction between a mother and daughter. Besides, he blamed his own idiocy—if he had trusted his initial instincts, none of this would have happened. He should have had the guts to face Dana and talk to her. He cringed as he recalled how abruptly, cruelly, he’d cut her off, dumped her. He’d acted like a coward, and they both had paid for it.
Lon’s eyes met Katie’s. “Thank you for telling me,” he said. He didn’t know if he would ever trust her, but he gave her credit for coming clean.
“Don’t give up on my mother,” she said. It was the closest thing to a blessing he’d be likely to receive.
“I don’t intend to.” Lon bounded for the stairs.
Lon experienced a moment of panicked dismay when Dana did not answer her door, but lights glowed inside her house, and her car sat in the drive. On a hunch, he tiptoed to the backyard through the side gate. His stomach lurched with relief at the sight of her floating in the pool. Dana’s eyes were closed, and she appeared as relaxed and as beautiful as he’d ever seen her. She was naked, her iridescent skin lit by the brilliant moon. The water hardened her nipples to berry pebbles and darkened her flowing hair to near black. Love swelled his chest; desire hardened his cock.
Lon ducked into the shadows of her patio to watch her without attracting her attention while he gathered his composure. Every word of the speech he’d practiced during the race to her house vaporized as heat rose within his body. His mouth had gone as dry as the cracked Mojave floor in August. He had one opportunity to repair the damage he’d done and convince her he wasn’t the idiot he’d acted like.
He’d no sooner stepped out of sight than Dana opened her eyes and glanced at the tree house. Lon held his breath and prayed she wouldn’t notice him. He sighed when she closed her eyes again.
Dana gracefully raised a hand and scratched her cheek, then laced her fingers behind her head. The pose arched her breasts, and he had to stifle the groan of need that threatened to erupt.
Lon eased out of his clothing, padded to the pool, and slid in carefully to avoid creating a splash.
Dana wiggled her nose at the tickling pinpricks of sensation. For a moment, she’d feared the fort was occupied, but it was still silent and dark. No flashes of light, the way there had been that one evening, and she relaxed into the water’s healing embrace. Already she felt more centered than she had in ages. Instead of avoiding the pool, she should have used it every day. She inhaled and exhaled a calming breath and let the pool work its restorative magic on her battered heart.
A small wave kissed her stomach. Another caressed her breasts. She didn’t think it was possible for wet hairs to stand up, but the ones on her nape did, and her body hummed with…awareness? She opened her eyes.
“Is this a private pool party, or can anyone join?”
Dana screamed and beat the water with her arms and legs.
Lon caught her before her head went under, and she found herself held against the length of his body—his hard-muscled, naked, aroused body. She didn’t know what pissed her off more—that he’d scared her death or that he’d waltzed into her pool with a massive woody, assuming he could pick up where he’d left off.
“You…you have no—”
Lon silenced her sputtering protest with a kiss. He slid his lips over hers and took advantage of her jaw-dropping shock to delve inside her mouth with his tongue. He clamped a viselike arm across her back. She raised her hands to slap at his
shoulders but clutched at him instead, kissing him back with feverish intensity, all the while silently cursing her weakness. His touch applied a pepper-laced balm to her broken heart, soothing her pain on contact but then inflicting a vicious after burn.
Holding her against his body, he kept his mouth fused to hers and swam, dragging them both to shallower water. Dana’s feet touched the pool’s floor, and all her hard-fought composure sank to the bottom as well.
She could not endure a rebound dalliance. To kiss Lon and have him walk away again would rip her into shreds just when she’d started to heal. Ache spiked to a piercing pain, and she tore her mouth away from his.
“Let me go.” Dana flattened her palms against the wall of his chest and pushed. He didn’t budge. She wanted to smack him, but her hands were seared to his skin by the need to touch, to stroke, to capture a few final memories. Her throat thickened with sadness.
Lon gripped her shoulders. “I’m not going to let you go. I love you.” His gaze glowed in the moonlight.
Enough electrified shock bombarded her body to light a small city. She gaped at him, her mouth working soundlessly until she managed to find her voice. “Are you insane?” A white-hot righteous anger rolled through her. She, more than anyone else, knew full well the agony wrought by trusting joy and hope. “Or are you an asshole who enjoys fucking with people?”
“Not an asshole.” He shook his head. “A moron. An idiot. A fool. I’m all of those things. But I love you.”
Pressure swelled in her cheeks, behind her eyes, and she trembled with the desperate desire to believe him. “Then why, Lon? Why did you break it off?” She couldn’t stop shaking.
“Because I thought you and Roger had reconciled.”
“What? Why would you think such a thing?”
“I found out Roger had a heart attack and went to see you in the hospital. I overheard you two talking about making it work.”
Dazed, Dana shook her head and pressed a hand to her racing heart. “We were talking about being friends, letting go of the bitterness.” She balled a fist and thumped him on the shoulder. “Why the hell didn’t you ask me about it?”
“I told you I was an idiot.”
“Yes, you are!” She smacked him again, and her tears burst forth.
“Don’t cry.” He wiped her wet cheeks with the pad of his thumb, then traced her quivering bottom lip. “I don’t want to make you cry.” He closed the minute space between their bodies and pulled her against him.
Dana locked her legs around his hips and smashed her breasts against his chest, craving contact. She clung to him as he kissed her, unable to get close enough to soothe the ache his absence had wrought. His erection grazed her cunt, and she shifted her hips to take him inside. Maybe that would be close enough.
Lon cupped her ass to assist with alignment and then drove his cockhead inside with a rapid thrust. The time without him had tightened her muscles. Pain and pleasure mingled, her pussy quivering as it struggled to accommodate the sudden invasion, but Dana wanted all of him. She tried to lower herself on his cock despite the discomfort.
“Tell me you love me,” he commanded, his strength holding off her efforts to take him deeper.
Desire and need raked over her like a clawing animal. The emptiness inside was beginning to fill, but her emotional tank was nowhere near topped off. She clamped her muscles to absorb him into her body.
He granted her another scant inch. “Say it.” His lips pressed against her ear. The warm silk of his throaty breath flowed over her. “Please.”
Feelings suppressed would no longer be denied. “I love you.” Dana exhaled. “I love you!” she shouted, needing to say the words as much as he needed to hear them.
Lon surged inside to the hilt, and she gasped at the fullness, the sense of completion. “I missed you so fucking much,” he groaned, his cock pulsating, radiating heat. He ravished her mouth with punishing kisses, but Dana gave as good as she got, sucking on his lips, his tongue, and nipping at him to devour him whole and sate the hunger that still threatened.
He roamed her body with rough hands that squeezed her ass, kneaded her breasts, pinched her nipples, and ravaged her clit. Her head reeling with painful pleasure, Dana wasn’t aware Lon had moved until the rough cement edge of the pool abraded her back.
Lon trapped her between the pool and his body and drove his cock into her, all the while kissing her eyes, her cheeks, her throat, expressing his yearning in guttural groans.
Tension coiled into a knot. “I need…I need—” she gasped, and Lon homed in on her clit, rubbing his fingers roughly, quickly, to heighten her rapture. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, afraid he might evaporate, and she’d be left with nothing again.
“I need. I need your cunt. Your tits. Your ass. You. I need you.” His grating voice and searing breath filled her ear; his hunger permeated the empty spaces of her heart. His desire filled hers.
The spring unwound with a snap. Orgasm erupted, ignited in her clit, rippled in waves within her pussy, and burned into her womb. She arched her neck to suck in more air, and the luminous moon overhead swelled and overtook the sky as she rode Lon’s cock on a wave of ecstasy.
“Ohfuckohfuck,” Lon groaned. His body jerked in climax, and he spilled himself inside her.
Dana floated on a cloud of bliss, her face nestled against Lon’s neck as he stroked her wet hair. At last she pulled back to look at him, and her eyes widened at what she’d done.
Three long crimson welts from her raking fingernails had torn his shoulder. “Oh God, I scratched you.” Gingerly she touched the gouges.
He shrugged as if his injury was inconsequential. “On another occasion, you bit me. I’m cognizant I put my life at risk when I’m with you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, still aghast even though he downplayed it. What was it about this man that turned her feral?
Lon grinned, and his beam of happiness arrowed straight into her heart and ignited a glow that warmed her down to her toes. He stroked her cheek with the back of a finger. “Bite me, scratch me—I would bear it all and more to be with you.”
As she would for him. No relationship was perfect, and they would encounter bumps in the road other couples didn’t face, but together they would overcome them. Dana glanced up at the glowing full moon. It seemed to wink at her.
She smiled at Lon. “Feeling reckless, are you?”
Loose Id Titles by Cara Bristol
Reckless in Moonlight
Unexpected Consequences
Cara Bristol
Cara Bristol writes the kind of romance she likes to read: spicy tales of love and lust that are fun, sexy, and stirring. She believes a touch of taboo or a hint of kink only makes a love story that much hotter.
When she’s not whipping up erotic stories, Cara loves to travel the world with her husband, walk the beach of the Pacific Northwest island where she lives, and though she hates to admit it, watch reality TV shows. Oh, and she reads—erotic romance, of course.
Cara loves to hear from readers! Check out the links below to find out how to contact her.
Main Web site: http://carabristol.com
Blog: http://romancewritersbehavingbadly.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/#!/CaraBristol
Email: [email protected]
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Loose Id Titles by Cara Bristol
Cara Bristol
hive.
