by Alison Kent
She moved closer, putting her body directly in front of his. Wetting first her top lip, then the bottom, she finally squirted a shot of the creamy froth into the bowl of her curled tongue. She pressed the cold foam to the roof of her mouth, where it melted at the contact with her body heat.
“Mmm,” she hummed, and held up the nozzle toward Eric. He stuck out his tongue; she swirled a small peak onto the tip. And then, while the cream dissolved in his mouth, while his gaze remained focused on hers, steady and fixed, yet simmering, she shook the can again and drew a half moon over his chest, from collarbone to collarbone.
The chocolate syrup came next.
She squeezed a pool into the hollow of his throat. It ran down to spread out over the thick ribbon of cream. He hadn’t moved. He’d done little more than pull in a sharp breath at the first cold contact, but the tic in his rigidly held jaw, the pulse at his temple, his fingers tightly wrapped around the countertop edge were all Chloe needed.
She knew by looking into his eyes what she’d see if she dropped her gaze down his torso to his groin. But she didn’t. Instead she moved another step closer, keeping her eyes on his and bringing their bodies within inches of touching. Then she took up the largest strawberry she could find.
She dipped the point of the fruit in the chocolate pooled deeply in a bowl of creamy white. The chocolate topping was thick, but it wasn’t minutes from separating under the weight of the sauce. She grinned as she circled the plump end of the fruit with the tip of her tongue, the motion ripely suggestive, especially when she sucked off every last drop of chocolate.
The veins in the back of Eric’s hands, the tendons in his arms stood out in bold relief as he maintained a death grip on the countertop. Very nice, she thought and, her eyes at a sultry, sleepy half-mast, she pulled the fruit from her mouth, dragged it through both cream and chocolate and offered it up to Eric.
The same fruit she’d had in her mouth and teased with her lips and her tongue.
He bit into the meat, nipping lightly at the tip of her finger, which she then ran over the seam of his lips, down his chin, his neck, teasing the slight bulge of his Adam’s apple before sliding through the hollow of his throat and breaking open the dam of cream.
Chocolate syrup ran down the center of his belly all the way to the terry wrap at his waist. She hooked her fingers over the Velcro and tore it away.
Eric’s breath caught hard and he nearly choked on the fruit, but he managed to swallow. He also managed not to move, but to stand there naked without saying a word. Oh, how she longed to look down, to get a full view of what her fingers had brushed against. That brief contact eloquently spoke to the state of his arousal.
And she was no less aware and aching. Her panties were damp, her sex awash in a cream warmer than the topping spread across Eric’s chest. But she wanted to wait and wonder. To prolong the excitement, making it hard to breathe.
Scooping up a glob of topping with one finger, she painted one well-defined pectoral white. And then she leaned forward, touched her tongue to his nipple, swirling through the sweet mess to find the sensitive disk. Eric shuddered, a tremor that ran the length of his body. Chloe knew she’d hit her mark.
Blindly she reached into the colander for another strawberry and teased the flat male nipple with the tip of the fruit. She squiggled her edible toy through the melting mess of chocolate and cream, drawing a line down the center of Eric’s belly, circling his navel.
When she opened her lips over his breastbone, she was the one who was trembling, her breasts swollen and aching, her nipples hard peaks inside her jersey and bra, begging for the touch of Eric’s hands. All she had to do was ask, but she wasn’t finished with his pleasure.
She kissed her way down his midsection, lapping at chocolate and spots of cream that had slithered down his torso. She dropped to her knees then, sent her tongue chasing the strawberry in and out and around his navel as the head of his cock thrust upward into her chin.
She nibbled lower, nipping at the skin above his thatch of dark hair and moving her hands to his hips and behind to his buttocks, squeezing that solid muscle while she continued to feast, slipping her fingers deeper into the crevice between his legs, her lips drifting lower, blowing warm breath against the skin above his jutting shaft.
The wait was making her crazy, making Eric crazier still. He moved his hands to her head, flexed his fingers in her hair and pretended to be patient while subtly maneuvering her mouth into position.
As if she needed instruction. She knew quite well how to make love to a man, whether using her body or her mouth. Still, very few had enjoyed her oral talents. This particular intimacy was one she saved for the rare man with whom she shared a connection beyond the ordinary.
What that said about her feelings for Eric she wasn’t yet ready to examine, even as she took him fully into her mouth.
Eric pulled in a sharp whistling breath and held his thighs rigid. His hands returned to the counter edge for support. He uncrossed his ankles and braced both feet flat on the floor. And still his body shuddered.
Now that Chloe had him where she wanted him, his legs far enough apart for her to get her hand between, she reached back to cup the sac of his balls and hold them down and away from his body. She wanted to take her time. She wanted Eric to take his pleasure, but only when she was ready.
With long strokes of her tongue, she measured the underside of his shaft, concentrating her attention around the ridge of his glans. She took him into her mouth, from tip to base, holding her lips in a firm O as she pulled back slowly over the head until he popped free.
A tremor ran through his body. She felt it in the hand between his legs and in the one wrapped around the base of his shaft. She glanced up briefly, long enough to get a look at his closed eyes, his raised chin and his head, pressed back against the door of the cabinet behind. He blew choppy breaths out through his mouth, and Chloe sensed his slipping control.
And so she let her fingers roam, releasing his sac to play between his legs and explore the places she loved to explore. And he let her, his body taut, his legs stiff, his penis so hard it had to cause a pleasurable pain. How could skin that soft stretch to cover such an enormously hard swell?
A swell that mirrored the one pressing with a vengeance in the region of her heart. Her heart, which wasn’t supposed to factor into her association with Eric. She pushed her unwanted reaction away, recognizing the folly of too little too late and returned her concentration to working him with her tongue.
For several more minutes she teased and she played, enjoying his texture, his scent, his responsiveness and his taste. And then she could tell it was time. She knew, just as Eric knew, because he moved his hands to hold her still.
“Either you stop or I’ll come.”
But it was already too late. She could tell by the change in his taste and the way his balls had drawn up into his body. She concentrated on the rhythm of her stroke and, as he shuddered, as he groaned, she drew him into completion, easing him through the ecstasy and taking him into the calm.
When she finally let him go, he handed her the damp paper towel she’d dried his chest with earlier. Then he reached for her shoulders and pulled her to her feet.
She didn’t know what to say. For the first time in Eric’s company, she didn’t know what to say! Not a single comment from her extensive after-sex repertoire came to mind. She was…shy. This was not a good thing. This was, in fact, very bad.
He wore an expression of sleepy amazement, his lids blinking slowly as he smiled. “Come upstairs with me and shower.”
She shook her head. She had to get away. “Go ahead. I’ll wait till I get home.”
“You sure?” Uncertainty was evident in his tentative frown.
Her nod was quick and to the point. “I need clean clothes, makeup, stuff like that. I’ll wait.”
That explanation appeased him. Men rarely understood or wanted to know what went on in a woman’s toilette.
Holding t
he terry wrap in a strategic position, he backed out of the kitchen toward the rear stairway he’d descended earlier, hesitating with his foot on the first step as if he knew she planned to disappear the minute he turned his back.
She kept a smile on her face, kept her shoulders relaxed, her stance casual, certain he’d call her bluff. Please, hurry and get the hell out of here already!
“Gimme five minutes.” He glanced at the mess on his torso, then back to her face. “Better make it ten.”
“Take your time.” She shooed him away, returned the food to the fridge. She refused to look his way again until she knew he was gone.
And, once he was, she ran toward the hallway and grabbed her knapsack from the telephone table on her way out the door. Eric’s house sat only blocks from one of the city’s Metro bus routes, but Chloe knew she didn’t have much of a head start.
Her car was parked at Haydon’s. Eric could conceivably shower, dress, fire up those horses and beat her back to the bar. Maybe she’d luck out and not have to wait for a bus.
And maybe she’d luck out even further if Eric woke up to the fact that she’d left for a reason, and let her go without giving chase.
Her luck wouldn’t hold beyond tomorrow, unfortunately, because she’d see him at the gIRL-gEAR open house. She would owe him an explanation, one assuring him he’d done nothing wrong, that their kitchen encounter had been her pleasure.
And, oh, had it ever. Her body still tingled and ached. And the fact that he’d asked her into his shower brought a rush of moisture to burn her eyes.
Chloe made it to the closest bus stop seconds before the bus arrived. She climbed the steps, slid her dollar into the meter and settled into the closest blue vinyl seat. She blinked to clear her vision, but regrets were blinding her already.
Not because she’d performed such an intimate act on a man who was no more than a friend, but because she’d thought only of pleasing him, not of any pleasure he owed to her.
She’d been more aroused by this one man’s reaction than by direct stimulation from countless other men. And now, because of her, their easy friendship was a thing of the past.
But that wasn’t what had her running scared. It was the realization that at some point, while her defenses were lowered, Eric had become more than a friend.
So very much more than a friend.
5
THOUGH THE NEXT DAY’S open house wasn’t scheduled to begin until four, noon found Chloe in her office working to clean out her in box.
An in-depth marketing proposal for additions to the gRAFFITI gIRL line of medicated skin-care products was going to take more time to study than she had to spare today. And she couldn’t do anything about the lab reports on the perfume trials until tomorrow at the earliest. The rest of the memos were easily handled via instructions jotted to her assistant.
Next she turned to her office e-mail, marking her calendar for the rescheduled partners’ meeting now set for next week at Lauren’s loft, and wondering, while she did so, if Revlon’s or L’Oréal’s founders had ever conducted business in gIRL-gEAR’s unconventional ways.
Even if gIRL-gEAR was to one day enjoy a fraction of Revlon’s or L’Oréal’s worldwide success, Chloe doubted she’d be around to share the wealth or the fame. Not if she didn’t start using her head instead of using her mouth. Her language was one thing.
But what she’d done in Eric’s kitchen? To Eric? The very man who’d agreed to help her salvage her reputation?
This three-events-for-three-wishes business was obviously a big waste of time. One down, five to go, and she’d already proved that she had absolutely no desire to change her bad-girl ways. No doubt Eric had shared the joke with her skeletons, and the lot of them were laughing themselves silly at her expense. She could hear the bones rattling in the closet of her mind.
Oh, wait, no. That was a knock on her door. She looked up while saying, “Come in.”
A man entered. Tall and broad shouldered and beautiful, with hair several shades darker than her own. Just as it had always been—well, except for the shoe-black dye job he’d given himself the year he’d gone Goth. The one and only time Chloe could remember their father laying down the belt of Zuniga law across Aidan’s back end.
She was out of her chair and around her desk and in her brother’s arms before he could take another step into the room. She held him tight. He held her tighter. She didn’t know whose heartbeat it was she felt in her chest.
And then she looked up, met his mischief-filled gaze, and the four years since she’d seen him dissolve like mist. The dazzle of his smile rivaled the sweet feel of her own. Oh, how she’d missed him!
“What are you doing here?” She practically squealed the question as he swung her around. “How in the world did you know where to find me?”
Aidan finally lowered her back to the deep purple carpet. He cast a frowning glance around the room, which was decorated in bright candy colors. “You do business in here? And your stomach doesn’t heave?”
Chloe punched his arm. “Stop making fun of my office and tell me why you’re here. This is so out of the blue.”
And it was so wonderful to see him. Ten years older than Chloe, Aidan had always been her champion, her ally even while he’d been their father’s favorite son.
“Blue would’ve been a better choice, Chloe. You’re over the top with the pink.” Aidan shook his head, but he didn’t stop her from taking his hand and dragging him to one of the visitor’s chairs.
Once they were both settled, Chloe having kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet beneath her, Aidan pulled a folded newspaper from the pocket of the tweed sport coat he wore with cowboy boots and worn denim jeans.
A write-up on gIRL-gEAR in the Houston Chronicle’s business section. She wondered if anyone else in her family had seen it. She wondered why she cared.
“It would’ve been nice to hear firsthand that my baby sister is a local celebrity.” Aidan’s brows arched over his deep leonine eyes.
Chloe shrugged off the charge. “Oh, please. I’m hardly a celebrity.”
“You’re doing something right to get your name here—” he tapped a long finger against the paper “—instead of in the tabloids.”
He had no idea how close she was to becoming a tabloid headline: gIRL-gEAR Partner Blows Her Own Career.
“I’m doing all right. But I want to hear about you.” She reached for his hand and squeezed. “What’s going on in the world of quarter horses? You can’t be doing too badly—those custom-made boots on your feet cost a bundle of hay.”
Aidan studied her face for several long moments. His scrutiny unnerved her, because he’d been the only one able to see through her perfect daughter facade, the only one who’d known how miserable she’d been behind her perpetual smile.
She wasn’t even sure her smile was fooling him now.
“The boots were a gift,” Aidan admitted with a bit of a smirk. “A cowgirl who couldn’t get enough of me.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “I see you haven’t changed a bit. First it was cheerleaders. Now it’s cowgirls. Is there a female alive able to resist your drawl or your charm?”
“Only my sister,” he said, holding tight to her hand when she tried to pull free. “What’s the deal, Chloe? You wave at me across the lawn at graduation and that’s it?”
He was right. She had cut herself off from her family—all of her family—once she’d had her diploma in hand. She’d thought it the easiest way to be on her own. But now, seeing Aidan, she knew she’d been hasty when filing her emotional divorce. Still, all she could do was shrug. “I did what I thought I had to do.”
“Well, you thought wrong. I’m your brother, Chloe. I’m not our father. Neither is Colin, Richard or Jay. Dad was never easy on any of us. But, yes,” Aidan added, when her hackles began to rise, “he was especially hard on you.”
He was hard on me because he wanted me to be her. Bitterness began to seep into this moment where it wasn’t wanted. “Thank you
for noticing.”
“I noticed. You know I did.” He reached up to cup her cheek. “And even after I left home, I kept up with what was going on. The boys told me. So I knew.”
Chloe turned her head away from his touch. “You knew what they told you. You didn’t know what it was like. How hard I worked to please him. How I never got it right.”
Aidan shifted in his chair to sit forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and turning so he could hold both of Chloe’s hands. He studied her fingers, her short practical nails painted in Porcelain Prankster.
She wanted to ruffle her hands through his hair the way he’d always ruffled hers. But to do that she’d have to let go. She didn’t want to have to let go.
And then Aidan looked up. “Here’s the thing, Chloe. I do know what it was like. Colin, Richard and Jay…they were too young to remember. But I saw how Dad was with Mom. I saw it over and over for the ten years I had her.”
His grip tightened almost painfully. “And I’ve lived with the guilt for years.”
Watching his throat work scared the hell out of Chloe. She jerked her hand away and stood, her bare toes curling into the plush carpet. “What’re you talking about?”
He continued to sit forward, he continued to study her face. “I’m talking about leaving home the first chance I got and letting Dad treat you like he did Mom. I’m talking about reputation versus fact. Fantasy versus reality. Our mother was never the flawless ideal Dad led you to believe. That’s what he wanted her to be, yeah. But what he wanted would’ve been impossible even for a saint. Though God knows she tried.”
Chloe shook her head in a dazed denial she wasn’t even aware of making. The world as she knew it had turned into a carnival house of mirrors.
“It’s true, Chloe.”
She waved him off, then cupped her hands over her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear any more. “This doesn’t make any sense. He worshipped her. All I heard for seventeen years was how perfect she was.”
