“Right back at you, bro,” Trey called.
Kiera watched her brother leave then walked over to Trey’s truck and plopped her butt against the lowered tailgate.
“I would have thought he’d have mellowed,” Trey said, taking a seat next to her. “But now I remember that your brother has been that uptight since we were in kindergarten.”
“Why do you two hate each other so much?”
“We didn’t always,” he said, grabbing a leaf from the tree branch that arched over his truck bed. “It’s not that we were ever best friends or anything, but we used to get along ok.”
“What changed?”
A mischievous grin lifted up the corner of his mouth. “I started banging his little sister.” He shrugged. “Can’t really blame the guy for hating me. If I were him, I’d be ready to murder me, too.”
Kiera groaned and pushed her hands through her hair. “I know he means well, but I swear he drives me crazy sometimes. Mason thinks he can dictate my life. He always has.”
“Looked to me like you did a pretty good job of letting him know that it’s your life, not his.”
“I did, didn’t I?” she said, feeling a surge of pride that she’d stood up to her brother.
Trey nudged her with his elbow. “You really want to piss him off?” He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Come over to my place and let me make you dinner.”
She burst out laughing. “What am I going to do with you?” She quickly put a hand up. “Don’t answer that.”
Trey pitched his head back and barked out a laugh.
“Are you going to let me cook you dinner or not, Slim? I’ve got some mad skills.” He nudged her again. “I know how to cook, too.”
She shook her head, unsure if she was on the verge of laughing or crying. With the emotional seesaw both Trey and Mason had taken her on in the last twenty minutes, she could go either way.
She knew she should say no. If she said yes, Kiera knew she would be accepting so much more than an invitation to dinner.
But she could no longer lie to herself. She really wanted that more. She wanted that so much she ached with it.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Show me your mad kitchen skills.”
***
Trey layered several slices of cheddar on the thick sourdough before topping it with the second slice of bread.
“You want me to top off your glass?” he called to Kiera, who sat with her legs folded underneath her in the leather recliner in his living room.
“I’ll finish what I have here and save the next glass for dinner,” she said, taking a sip. “It’s a lovely wine. Callie was telling Jada and I about this wine bar in New Orleans. I wonder if they carry this?”
“I’m not big on wines.” Trey shrugged, shaving off several more slices of the aged cheddar. “This bottle was a gift from Lori. She brought it back from the trip she took to Italy a few years ago.”
“Why didn’t you save this for something special?” Kiera asked as he came into the living room.
He poised a sliver of cheese before her lips. “I did save it for something special.”
Kiera regarded him with a wary look. “I thought this was just dinner, not Operation Seduction.”
A grin edged up his mouth. “My intentions are completely virtuous.”
“Uh huh,” she murmured. She pointed the wineglass at his hand. “I can see you crossing your fingers.” She leaned forward and allowed him to slip the cheese into her mouth. Her eyelids slid shut and a low, ridiculously sexy sound traveled from her throat.
“Good cheese,” she said. “Nice and sharp.”
Her satisfied moan tugged at a spot deep in his gut. It was just cheese, for goodness sake. How could watching the woman eat cheese turn him on so damn much?
“I told you I had mad skills,” he said, returning to the stove.
Kiera laughed, springing up from the chair and following him into the kitchen.
“I’ll admit I’m impressed. Most people go for the basic American; it takes a culinary genius to pair aged cheddar with sour dough.”
“Are you done making fun of me?” he asked. “I may not have a degree like you, but I’ve managed not to starve over the years.” He paused for a moment before he continued. “I’m proud of you for going back to culinary school once you finished at UNO, Slim. It’s what you wanted to do, not what Mason wanted you to do. That bastard has always had too much control over your life.”
“Don’t talk bad about him,” she said. “I know Mason was a jerk today, but he means well. He’s just trying to do what’s best for me.”
“Do you really buy that, Kiera?”
“Trey, I owe Mason everything. He’s been taking care of my mom and me since he was fourteen years old. It should have been the most enjoyable time of his life, but instead of going out and doing what other teens did, he spent it taking care of us.”
Trey gnawed on the inside of his cheek while he listened to her defend her overbearing asshole of a brother.
“He didn’t have to step up the way he did,” Kiera continued. “But he did it anyway. Does he take the whole big brother thing overboard sometimes…?”
“Sometimes?”
“Okay, a lot of the time,” she said. “But it has always been to protect me. He really isn’t a bad guy, Trey. I know you two don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, but you’ve been gone a long time, you don’t know Mason now.”
“I know what I saw this afternoon.”
“That was…”
“That was him trying to control you.”
“That was him just being him. Believe me, today wasn’t the first time I’ve had to put him in his place. But Mason doesn’t see himself as being controlling; he thinks he’s helping. In his mind, he still has to live up to that promise he made my dad, that he would take care of me and mom.”
“You’re a grown woman, Kiera. You don’t need your big brother taking care of you anymore.” Trey ran a finger softly down her cheek. She was so close. Just another couple of inches and he could have another taste of that mouth. It had been all he could think about since the last time he’d tasted it.
“The sandwiches,” Kiera said, pulling back slightly.
He suffered through the swift pang of regret that dashed through him and returned his attention to the stove. Ten minutes later, they were seated at the one-of-a-kind table he’d hewn out of old doors he’d found in a scrapyard in East Texas. He refilled Kiera’s wineglass, then took a sip of the beer he’d opted for.
“I’m being totally serious when I say that this sandwich is amazing,” she said before popping a chunk of the buttery crust into her mouth.
“I wanted to impress you, for obvious reasons. Have I done a good job?”
Shaking her head, she said, “You’re still such a flirt.”
“You used to like it when I flirted with you.”
“I used to live for it,” she admitted. She swirled her spoon around the bowl of tomato soup he’d picked up at the supermarket deli, then she looked up at him and said, “You were so bad for me in so many ways, Trey. But I loved it. Speeding down Highway 421 in your GTO, skinny-dipping in Ponderosa Pond, finishing off an entire bottle of Boone’s Farm while we watched horror movies at your house. If my mother knew I was drinking liquor at eighteen…”
He waved that off. “Boone’s Farm isn’t real liquor.”
She laughed. “I guess what they say is true, the good girls always go for the bad boys.”
He braced his elbow on either side of his plate and rested his lips on his folded hands. He hated what he was about to ask, but it had been on his mind almost as much as that kiss they’d shared.
“So, has that been the case over the years, Slim? You’ve gone for the bad boys?”
She tilted her head to the side and regarded him thoughtfully. “Actually, no,” she said. “Just the opposite, in fact. The guys I’ve dated in the past have been completely different from you.”
Now that he’d
asked, Trey wished he could take back the question. Even though he was the one who’d walked away, the thought of Kiera with someone else slayed him. After all the time that had passed, he still had a hard time thinking of her as anything but his.
Despite the sudden nausea churning in his gut, Trey continued with the questions he didn’t really want answers to. He cleared his throat, then asked, “Were any of them serious?”
She ran her finger along the rim of her wineglass. “It depends on what you define as serious.”
“I’m assuming you would have told me if you’d ever been married, but was there anyone who ever came close?”
She brought her wineglass to her lips and took a long, deliberate sip. After several torturous moments, she finally answered with a simple, straightforward, “No.”
“No?” Trey asked, wanting to make sure he’d heard her correctly.
“I’ve never come close,” she said. “I’ve had a couple of serious boyfriends, but not a single one has made me feel as if I wanted to spend the rest of my life with them.”
He should have been euphoric over her admission, but instead, Trey felt…sad. He could see in her eyes just how much she wanted that special kind of happiness. And if anyone deserved to be happy, it was Kiera.
“There’s still time.”
“That’s what I tell myself,” she said, a bittersweet smile tilting her lips. “It’s especially hard, seeing both Jada and Callie find love again, but I have to believe my Prince Charming is out there somewhere, right?”
Trey fiddled with the edge of his napkin before saying in a low voice, “Maybe he’s even closer than you think.”
The air around them hummed with expectancy as she stared at him across the table. Without giving himself time to question what he was doing, Trey pushed away from the table and walked over to Kiera. He leaned forward and threaded his fingers through the hair at her nape. Gently, he tugged her head closer.
She put up zero resistance, slanting her head to the side and running her hands over his shoulders. Her lips quickly parted and she sucked his tongue inside the moist warmth of her mouth. It was slightly sweet, slightly tart with the essence of the wine she’d enjoyed with dinner.
Back and forth he moved over her mouth, plunging and retreating, savoring her flavor. Her taste was potent; the feelings she stirred inside him drugging his senses. His fingertips tingled as he caressed behind her ear, her hair flittering softly over his skin. He stroked his tongue deep inside her mouth, gliding it along her teeth before plunging even further. He mimicked with his mouth what he wanted to do to her with his body, what he was dying to do to her.
“Damn, Slim,” Trey whispered against her lips. “Tell me now if you want to stop, because I won’t unless you say something.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to stop.”
No sweeter words had ever been spoken.
His entire body damn near trembling in anticipation, Trey lifted her from the seat at the table and carried her to the sofa. He sat down and placed her on top of him so that she straddled his hips. He could feel the heat radiating from her. It sparked an equal reaction within him. Anticipation pumped through his veins like lava, his heart turning over in his chest as his gaze traveled up her body.
He wanted her so much every fiber in his body hummed with desire.
He moved her until her hot center was aligned perfectly with his straining erection, and held her in place while he pumped his hips upward. He was hard as hell. The need to strip them both of their clothes and fill Kiera with his body was so strong, so incredibly overpowering, that he couldn’t think of anything else.
Trey tunneled his fingers underneath the stretchy fabric of her T-shirt, gripping her back. He loved the softness of her skin, the smoothness of it against the roughness of his fingertips. But taking the time to truly relish in the suppleness of her delicate skin would have to wait. Right now, his body was screaming to experience the magic that only Kiera could create.
Trey plunged his hands into her waistband and gripped her ass.
“Oh, God, Trey,” Kiera breathed. Her head fell back, exposing her neck to his lips.
As she held onto his shoulders, Trey explored the column of her neck, pulling the skin between his teeth, licking and biting and devouring her.
He needed her naked, in his bed, her legs wrapped around his hips, her hot, wet sex clutching his cock.
Trey scooped one arm under her bottom and fitted the other hand on her back. He picked her up and carried her to his bed.
Stripping his shirt over his head, he threw it behind him and then did the same with his pants. His stomach clutched with need as he watched Kiera roll her pants down her legs and fling them off her foot. She peeled her shirt off and sent it the way of her pants. Then she scooted to the center of his bed in only her white cotton undies and bra. For some reason, the innocent underwear made her even sexier than if she wore sheer and lace.
“God, you’re beautiful, Slim. So damn beautiful.”
He crawled onto the bed and covered her body with his, dipping his head down and going straight for her breasts. He sucked her through the cotton bra, soaking the fabric until her dusky brown nipples showed through.
It was hard as hell not to strip off the rest of their clothes and fill her body with his, but this was fourteen years in the making, and he wasn’t rushing it for anything. Instead, Trey took his time, revisiting every inch of her. He pressed a kiss to her flat stomach, his pulse throbbing with desire as he trailed his tongue from her bellybutton to the shallow valley between her breasts. Pleasure coursed through his veins with every lick of her deliciously feminine skin.
“I love how you taste,” Trey murmured against the underside of her breast.
He hooked his fingers in both sides of her underwear and rolled them down her hips, his lips following her panties as he peppered her smooth thighs and legs with kisses. He tossed her panties aside and made the journey back up her body.
He spotted the tiny tattoo on her hip and his chest nearly burst with the emotion that suddenly filled it.
“The rose,” Trey let out with a husky breath, staring at the miniature version of the tattoo he had on his chest. Memories of the day they’d gotten them rushed through him. Trey pressed a kiss to the symbol of the love they’d shared, his mark on her.
He trailed his lips along her skin, coming to the spot that his entire being was hungry for. Rubbing delicate circles along her inner thighs with his thumbs, Trey then used them to open her legs wide. His eyes briefly slid shut as he pulled in a deep breath.
God, he wanted her. He’d dreamed of her. Wished for her. But never thought he’d have her again.
But he did.
And he was going to eat up every single bit of her.
Dipping his head between her legs, he spread her sex open with his fingers and ran his tongue slowly up and down her center. Pleasure exploded in his brain as her familiar flavor hit his tongue.
The sexy little noise that escaped Kiera’s throat only fueled his desire to please her more. He hooked his arms underneath her thighs and brought them over his shoulders, then he tilted her pelvis so that she was at an even better angle.
Trey lost all concept of time as he made up for all the years that had passed since he’d last had a taste of her, experiencing a new high with every low murmur that escaped her lips. He continued to bathe her with his tongue, licking and sucking her into his mouth, until she came twice.
Her body was still trembling from her second orgasm when he levered himself up, rolled a condom over his erection and slid slowly and deeply inside of her.
This is what he remembered. Ecstasy. Pure, sweet ecstasy.
Trey’s head pitched back. “God, Kiera,” he released between clinched teeth.
His eyes squeezed shut; his arms strained to the point of trembling. Yet he managed to hold himself still as he soaked in the feeling of being surrounded by Kiera again. Every thought, every part of his being concentrated on the h
eat, the snug feel of her, the absolute perfect fit; it was everything he remembered.
She wrapped her legs around him, crossing her ankles at the small of his back.
“Trey…please.”
Her desperately whispered plea called to his most primitive side, but Trey held himself back. He wanted this to last; was desperate to please her.
With slow, deliberate thrusts, he began to move his hips against her, rocking back and forth, in and out, slow and long and deep.
Trey managed to keep up the unhurried pace until Kiera lifted up from the bed and started placing open-mouth kisses along the flower vine tattoo that wound it’s way across his chest. She kissed the blood red rose tattooed over his heart, the one that mirrored hers.
Trey dipped his head and glided his tongue along her neck and up to her jaw. “It still belongs to you,” he said.
Trey felt her shudder at his words and it was more than his body could withstand. He anchored his hands on her waist and drove into her with deep, rapid thrusts, circling his hips before lunging as far as he could go.
Their twin cries rang out in the small confines of the Bluebird. Trey’s head fell forward and their heavy breaths mingled together.
Several minutes passed before he managed to say, “God, that was good.”
“Better than I remembered,” Kiera breathed.
He looked down at her and grinned. “I don’t know about that, Slim. We were always good together.”
“I know,” she said. She released a heavy sigh. “Sometimes I still can’t believe it was only one summer.”
The reminder of the brevity of their time together sent a piercing ache slicing straight through him. His chest constricting with a flood of emotion, Trey said, “Maybe this time it won’t end.”
Kiera looked up at him, her eyes slowly widening in dismay. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God. What did I just do?”
“Kiera—”
Dread pooled in his stomach as he watched realization dawn in her eyes.
“No,” she said. “I told myself I would not let this happen.” She pushed at his chest at the same time she slid from underneath him and scooted off the bed. “I need to leave.”
Just A Little Taste (Moments in Maplesville) Page 8
