Stoking the Embers (New Adult Romantic Suspense): The Complete Series

by Johnson, Leslie

  The butterflies in my stomach get butterflies, fluttering and expanding, filling my core with need and desire. They almost take up the air I need to say, “I remember everything too.”

  Running a hand through his hair, he blows out a breath. “What happened yesterday, Steph?”

  My knees feel weak and I sink into a chair, for the first time taking in my surroundings. While not a typical bachelor pad, it is still sparsely furnished, but the furniture he’s chosen was really nice. Creamy leather seating contrast with dark wooden tables with splashes of pale blue for contrast. Masculine and warm, the space suits him. Much like the fifty-inch widescreen and gaming systems.

  “I like your place,” I say, completely distracted now.

  “Thanks. Can I get you something to drink? Eat?”

  I shake my head. The politeness between us is brutal. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

  “Me too.”

  “No, that’s just it. You have nothing to be sorry for. What happened was about me and memories that came up at the wrong time. I loved what you were doing and those thoughts… I don’t know where they came from, but they scared me. But I wasn’t scared of you.”

  “What thoughts?”

  “I met Jerome as a freshman, he was the first guy really interested in me. My first boyfriend, first and only lover... until yesterday.” God, why was this so hard to say? Why did my throat want to keep closing? Why did my eyes insist on filling with tears?

  “And…”

  “At first, our relationship was really sweet and was what I now know is considered normal, but in the past year or so, things started getting really… strange. Almost brutal. He called it BDSM, said he ‘wanted to test my limits’ and I became afraid.”

  Memories slide one by one past my eyes. The ridicule when I said no. The ‘persuasion’ as he called it. The threats.

  “The really sick part is, that it really wasn’t the sex that hurt as much as the things he would say to me if I didn’t do what he wanted me to do.”

  Ken broke in, speaking gently. “Let me guess… at first he was charming and complimentary, placed you on the highest pedestal and treated you like a princess.” I nod, yes, it was exactly like that.

  “Then, he convinces you that you are soul mates. Lots of things in common, including rough childhood, same hopes and dreams.” I’m still nodding, it was exactly like that. I couldn’t believe I’d found someone so perfect for me.

  “Out of nowhere, he starts to change, starts to pull away. He may disappear and then not understand why you’re upset.” This is starting to get scary, as if Ken had watched my life on a TV screen.

  “He’s hot and cold, hot and cold and you’re scrambling around trying to please him.”

  By now, I can’t even nod anymore. How can he possibly know all these things? I ask him, “How can you possibly…”

  “Stephanie, it’s classic psychopathic behavior.”

  How could I be so stupid? The look on my face must have mirrored my question because Ken says, “No, you’re not dumb, naive, or anything like that. What makes psychopaths so dangerous is they look so normal. They blend in, they become who you want or need them to be.”

  “Are you a psychopath too?”

  Although I kinda-sorta meant it as a joke, I realize there is seriousness in there too. Ken is perfect… I thought Jerome was perfect. Ken is complimentary… so was Jerome. Ken wants to tie me up…

  I think again as to why I came here and shiver. How can I ever trust anyone… or myself… again?

  “It’s a mind fuck, isn’t it?” he asks. “I know what you’re thinking, because I’d be thinking it too. You’re worried that you can’t trust anyone if you can’t trust the person you loved, slept with, planned to marry, had already chosen names for your kids. You’re thinking about going back to your apartment and locking the door and never opening it again.”

  A tear brinks and spills. Just one but others will follow. I feel them building behind my eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I cry every time you see me.”

  He smiles. “Not every time. Just seventy-five percent.”

  I get a grip, at least a little one. “Thanks for putting up with me.”

  His eyes flick to my lips, as they so often do. It embarrasses me almost every time, knowing they’re too puffy looking and wide, a little freakish. Kids at school used to call me ‘fish face’ because of them. I pull the bottom one between my teeth to hide it.

  “The other night,” I begin, twisting my hands together, my nerves dangling inside me again. “I want to tell you now, what I was trying, badly, to tell you then. Is that okay?”

  He leans back in his chair, crosses an ankle over a knee and quickly takes it down when he remembers he’s only wearing a towel. I giggle. Yes, I totally saw his balls.

  Exhaling in an effort to focus, I start again. “After my little panic thingy, I started thinking about how I wanted to have good memories about sex. You’d given me one wonderful memory and I was going to ask…”

  “Ask what?”

  “I want you to tie me up, be rough with me and…”

  He shoots up from his chair, almost losing his towel. “Oh no… no, no, no. I don’t ever want to feel like that again. I felt like a freakin’ rapist, do you know that? I thought you were having an orgasm and you were panicking instead. I didn’t know. How can I touch you again knowing I hurt you without even knowing it? I’d always be wondering if I’m going too far.”

  “Stop!” I yell at him, standing up too. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way, it wasn’t my intention at all. I loved every moment of being with you. I’ve never felt that way before and when I panicked, I knew I never wanted to feel that way again.” I take a step closer. “You’re making this about you and it isn’t. It’s about me. It’s about me dealing with my own personal shit so I don’t feel that way anymore. I was asking about it because I want you to do more of it with me. So I can have rough sex, or crazy sex and not be tossed back into memories of a psychopath.”

  He just stares at me, absorbing my words. Then, “Wait…what? You want me to tie you to the bed? You want me to spank you?”

  “Yes.” I stomp my foot. “That’s what I was trying to tell you before you ran out. I want those things so I can have new memories. I was… badly… asking you to be rough with me.” I untie the scarf around my neck and hold it out to him. “Starting now.”

  He looks down at the scarf and back up at me. He’s shaking his head and I feel my gut clench in disappointment. Finally, he says, “Sit. I can’t be this close to you and think.”

  I return to my seat and he paces back and forth. I’m finding it hard to think too as I watch him. Finally, he turns. “Since we’re being all truthful here, there’s something you need to know about me. I don’t do relationships. I have a list of fuck buddies I call on whenever I want to blow off some stress. I don’t do pillow talk. I don’t do sleepovers and Friday night dates.”

  “Then why…?”

  “Why did I sniff after you?” he finishes for me. His hands grab into his hair, like he wants to pull it from the roots. “For the life of me, I don’t know!” He lets go of his hair and runs a hand down his face. “At first it was your ass. Then it was your tits. Then I don’t know what the fuck it was… because, quite honestly, I usually run a hundred miles an hour from chicks like you.”

  Like me? What me? Before I can ask, he plunges on.

  “You have ‘relationship’ written all over you.” He air-quotes the word. “And you have too much crazy drama going on. That’s a double whammy, you know. But, dammit, there’s just something about you that’s under my skin.”

  Even though he’s scratching his forearm like he has a flea, I brighten a bit at that, but quickly lose my inner glow when he says, “I thought I could fuck you and that would be the end of it. Fuck. Suck. Run. The end. Hell, I was already figuring out which grocery store to start going to. I was that close,” he holds his forefinger and thumb an inch apart, “to transfer
ring to another station on the other side of the city. You say you’re scared. Well, I’m fuckin’ scared. You scare the ever-lovin’ bejesus out of me.”

  He stops pacing again and stares at me. Because I can’t think of anything else to say, I shout, “Boo!”

  He points at me. “See! You’re freakin’ adorable. It’s like you have me on your hook,” he sticks a finger in the corner of his mouth, pretending to be a fish, “and you’re just reeling me in.” Now he’s pantomiming cranking the reel of a fishing rod. I’ve never seen him this animated. It’s hilarious.

  Standing up, I walk over to him. He holds up a hand to stop me. “Halt, demon woman.” I laugh, stepping closer and watch the silliness drain away from his body. His eyes shift from humor to lust.

  “Damn, you’re so beautiful,” he says and strokes a finger down my cheek. “I still don’t know about this relationship thing. Don’t be dreaming of weddings and babies and shit.”

  “Shhh…” I put a finger to his mouth but he keeps talking.

  “I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want to be hurt…”

  “Shhh…” I repeat.

  “I’ll end this before it begins if I think…” he runs out of words. He just looks down at me with those chocolate eyes.

  “Are you going to stop talking now and tie me up?”

  Taking my hand, he leads me into the bedroom and undresses me as if I were a child. Instead of using my scarf around my hands the way I imagined he would, he places it over my eyes.

  Lifting me, he carries me to the bed and lays me down so gently. Silk surrounds my right wrist, another silk surrounds my left. Soon, my arms are secured, leaving me only a couple inches to move them.

  My right foot is next, then my left and my legs are pulled apart. I’m fully exposed. Fully vulnerable and helpless. He doesn’t make a sound, I don’t even hear him breathing. I have no idea what to expect next.

  Then he’s there, his lips on mine, his tongue dipping into my mouth. I pull at my restraints, wanting to touch him. My fingers itch to dig into his skin. I nearly groan when he pulls away; the bed shifts when he leaves it.

  Unable to see, the rest of my senses come alive. Soon, I hear a plinking sound and then something cold—an ice cube—tracing over my lips before traveling down my chin, my neck and to my breast. He circles my nipple and I feel it tighten. The cold is soon replaced with the heat of his mouth. Cold. Hot. Cold. Hot. I sigh as the ice cube moves down.

  Down my stomach, my hip, my thigh and all the way to my toes. It begins a return trip, spending extra time at my inner thigh.

  I tense for it, wait for it, the anticipation is heady. Then it’s there, on my clit, and my entire world unravels. As before, the cold is replaced with hot and I buck up into his mouth. He pulls away and then he’s back, his mouth on me again.

  Hot and cold combines; he’s placed an ice cube in his mouth. Its torment and pleasure rolled into one sense-shattering moment.

  “Please.” I don’t know what I’m begging for.

  He doesn’t say a word, just sucks and licks and strokes. Two fingers slip inside me; I’d do anything to be able to clamp my thighs around his hand.

  I’m running to the edge of my climax when he stops. I groan. “Please, don’t stop.”

  Smack.

  His palm lands on my thigh and I’m too surprised to even yelp. It lands again. I arch from the bed as the pain blossoms, replaced by an ice cube soothing the sting.

  “More?”

  It’s his first word since entering the bedroom. Yes, I want more. How pain increases pleasure I’ll never know.

  I nod.

  “Say it.”

  “Yes, I want more. Make me feel everything.”

  He growls and his palm lands again. The bed shifts and his hand is between my legs, stroking me, fingers entering me, then a slap.

  I arch into the pain. “Yes.” I arch into it again. As he spanks my sex a third time, I nearly cry from the intenseness of it. The need is primal, consuming, hateful and beautiful. “Yes.” The last strike of his palm is followed by ice.

  My senses are in overload, heightening his touch. I hear his breath, I smell his skin, I feel the stirring of the air from the ceiling fan above us. His fingers enter me and he pounds me to a screaming orgasm. He gentles as I descend from my climax, his mouth on my breasts.

  The bed shifts again and he’s straddling my stomach. He presses my breasts together to form a sheath for his cock. He’s using me for his pleasure and it’s powerful. His hands knead my breasts as he penetrates the space between them.

  I want to taste him, so I dip my chin and stick out my tongue, hoping to touch his tip on his next upward thrust. I do, and taste the saltiness of his flesh. He groans and moves up my body, now straddling my breasts and feeds me what I want.

  In and out of my mouth, he fucks me. Some movements, slow and shallow, some long and deep. I widen my throat, wanting all of him inside me. His hands are in my hair, clenching and pulling. The pleasure is divine.

  He retreats, backing off me and leaving the bed. “No,” I nearly sob. The loss of his warmth leaves me feeling desolate. I hear it, the rip of a foil wrapper and a minute later, he’s back between my legs.

  He releases one foot and then another and settles an ankle on each shoulder. He leans forward, the backs of my legs stretching on his chest. He nudges my entrance, rubbing his cock up and down my wetness. Then he’s inside, he’s deep, the angle of my body giving him total access.

  First he’s slow, then faster, then pounding. He reaches up and pushes the scarf from my eyes. We lock gazes and I witness wildness in his eyes as he thrusts and thrusts and thrusts into me over and over.

  He lifts a hand, never breaking his stride and brings a palm down on my hip, the slap ringing in the air, the stings heightening my everything. He slaps me again and I buck beneath him, needing more, needing harder, faster. I’m so close, so close. A final slap tumbles me over the edge.

  He’s right behind me. I watch his face contort, the wild thrusting of his hips, the muscles rippling in his chest. Once, twice and he stills, a growl growing into a roar. He pushes my legs from his shoulders and collapses onto my body, chest heaving, lifting onto his elbows to remove some of his weight.

  He kisses me and soon we’re smiling against each other’s mouths. I long to hold him, to wrap my arms around him, to feel his weight pressing me down into the mattress. Our bodies are still joined when he finally reaches up to release my wrists and I get to do just that, hold him close to me before he decides to roll away.

  He doesn’t. He stays there, in my arms, his breath warm against the side of my neck. Neither of us say a word, no words are needed. When he finally rolls to his side, he pulls me with him, only moving to grab a tissue to dispose of the well-used condom.

  Draped over his chest, my head on his shoulder, our breaths synchronize. We lay there for the longest time in total silence, his thumb stroking my arm, his lips occasionally kissing the top of my head.

  I keep waiting for him to panic, to find a reason for me to leave. Maybe I should just go, so he doesn’t feel he’s kicking me out. Just as I begin to move away, the soft snore drifts to me. I look up in surprise, he’s fallen asleep. I shift to leave, but his hands tighten around me.

  “Don’t go,” he murmurs.

  “Sure?”

  “I’m sure.” His breathing slows again. My breating rate matches his and I fall asleep with him.

  Chapter 13—Stephanie

  The next two weeks float by in a blur of work, school and Ken. With our crazy schedules, we’re not able to see each other every day, but when we’re able, our time together is purely perfect.

  He’s taken me for a ride on his Harley, out to the desert where we made love on a blanket as the sunset turned the skies to a thousand shades of red. I’d joined a couple more ride-alongs and gotten to know the rest of the crew a little better, although we’d agreed to keep our dating our little secret.

  He met Beth, and the tw
o of them got along fabulously as the three of us had take-out at my place. In the kitchen, Beth had done an ‘oh my god he’s gorgeous and hot and sexy’ whisper in my ear as she happy danced me around the little space.

  Turns out, Beth had to pay the fine for the fire lane ticket, she couldn’t prove she was innocent. “Steph, they say I parked illegally, but I’m absolutely sure I didn’t. At least I think I’m sure. It was the day before we were supposed to fly to my aunt’s funeral and I’d gone to the mall to get a dress. I was in a hurry and couldn’t find any place to park and finally found one spot back in the corner. Would a fire lane be in a corner?”

  I’d patted her hand, trying to be sympathetic, but secretly thinking she probably just made a mistake. Police don’t give tickets for no reason, after all. Plus, she’d just learned of her aunt’s death. Mourning does crazy things to people’s minds.

  Pulling on my shoes, I glance at my watch, grateful that I have plenty of time to get to class. We get our exam grades back today and I’m anxious to know how I did. I’m nervous, I received a low C on the last test, surprising me into near shock. I’d studied like a maniac for this one and my instinct is that I did really well.

  Of course, that’s what I thought about the last one.

  Grabbing my backpack and purse, I make sure I have my keys and my phone. I open my front door and freeze. It’s Jerome, standing just beyond the threshold.

  Before I can slam the door shut, he blocks it with a foot. He’s smiling when he says, “Hi babe, aren’t you glad to see me?” He pushes his way inside. “It’s okay, I just want to talk. Don’t look so scared, I’m harmless.” He holds up his hands as to indicate his innocence.

  “I don’t have time to talk; I’ve got class and I can’t be late.” My voice is stronger out loud than it is in myself. He looks at his watch, making sure I notice it’s a Rolex, and shakes his head.

  “You have a few minutes, surely, to hear what I have to say. I came by because I wanted to tell you I’m sorry and that I love you. I want us back together. Life has been miserable without you. I have all this,” he looks down at his expensive clothes “and no one to share it with.”