Sarasota Revenge: BBW Contemporary Menage Romance (Level 69 Trilogy Book 2)

by Scott, Talyn

  "A kiss?" She realized his goal. He wanted to kiss her smack in front of the house, where he'd been denied front door access. "What's the point in all of this? No one is watching, no one who actually knows us, anyway."

  He cupped the side of her face with his hand. "Where's the brave little Libby who stormed into The Easton and demanded I do something about her poor firehouse?"

  Reaching up, she gripped the back of his chestnut-colored hair, the stiff strands over managed by gel to tamp his natural waves. "I'm right here, staring up at an asshole."

  He licked his lower lip slowly. "I think you are afraid you’re going to like it."

  "I won't."

  "You're that sure?"

  She tightened her hold on his hair. "I've never been surer." He lowered his head and breathed against the side of her neck, inhaling her scent. Before she thought of pushing him away, her small, pointed nipples brushed his chest. "I despise you."

  "You despise the fact that you're still attracted to me, no matter what you think I've done." He nipped her neck with his teeth, stinging her, before he laved the pain away with his skilled tongue. She pulled his hair. Hard. But he wasn't finished. "You still fill right in my arms, Elizabeth, like you were born for me."

  He smelled too good, and suddenly they were teenagers again. Swiftly, he worked his way up her throat - probably in fear she'd change her mind - and bit down on her lower lip, tugging between his teeth. His hand dropped to the curve of her ass, and Libby's body remembered his touch, responded to it in toe curling and panty soaking way. His soft lips finally landed on hers, kissing her once, twice, and they delving hard. He explored her, deepening the kiss as the seconds flew by. In her head, she was opening her bedroom window once more, shushing him when he jumped inside the room too noisily, maybe knocking something over in his rush to get his hands down her pants. She hadn't wanted her parents to hear, but he had been worth the risk.

  At the time.

  But not now.

  Ignoring the rush of rockets zipping through her veins, ignoring the fact that she wanted his mouth lower, sucking her breasts, and also ignoring the frenzy of lust forcing her hips forward to meet his hard-on and to slide up and down his length, she yanked his hair so hard, a frightening chunk stayed in her closed fist.

  "Damn you!" He jerked back, his face clouding over in near lunacy. He speared his hair with his hands, rubbing his new sore spot. "What the fuck was that for?"

  "Sorry." Having a throwback to her teenage years was one thing, but acting on it with Trey Easton was a crime against humanity. Libby lifted her hand, opened her fist, and dropped his fur ball on the toe of his shoe. "I was hoping those old sparks between us would fly, but no." She needed to jump in an icy ocean far away from this man.

  "Keep lying to yourself, Elizabeth." He blasted her with a slow smile, lazily seductive. His eyes still appearing clearly focused, drizzling over every square inch of her, as though he hadn't forgot his favorite parts of her body. "I'll be there when you snap out of your delusions."

  "You won't be anywhere I am."

  The driver's door of the SUV opened, Drake dressed in soft-worn jeans and a navy polo shirt stepped out. He had the gleaming black hair and gilded amber eyes of a dangerous jungle cat, and he even prowled like one, his rolling gait confident and deadly. A gait that said he built big businesses and destroyed small dreams whenever he felt the urge. Libby should know. Still, no matter how she hated him, she couldn't help but notice the cinch at his waist, the way his jeans cupped his fine ass when he bent over and took three carry-ons from the back of the vehicle.

  Three.

  Carry-ons.

  "What's this, more of your surprise?" She tried to hide the edge of hysteria in her voice.

  "Well, you can't go back to the firehouse for a while."

  "I'm not moving in here!"

  "Of course you're not," Drake said, trying to lean in for a kiss, but Libby came up swinging. "Hold up." He dodged her, but managed to push her inside the house's foyer.

  "Watch yourself," Trey warned. "She started me on an early bald spot." He pointed to his head before kicking the front door closed.

  Drake chucked her chin. "She looks like an angry kitten."

  "Hmm," Trey agreed. "At least, I can see her today."

  Libby stopped snarling long enough to study him. "Your eyesight goes in and out?"

  "More out than in," replied Trey, grabbing her hand and pulling her up the stairs.

  "Maybe I should go first, T," Drake called from behind, climbing the stairs. Libby could feel the weight of his stare on her ass as it wiggled with each step.

  "I've got this." Trey called back.

  "Stop looking at my ass," Libby shot over her shoulder right as Drake slid his hand around the back of her knee.

  "Nice, so very, very nice."

  "You should be careful." She spun around, her hands fastened to her hips. "I'd hate for you to trip down the steps."

  "That sounds like a threat, Angry Kitten," his voice coiled around her nipples, stroking her the same as an intimate tongue bathing. Although he stood two steps below her, he was still a couple of inches taller, and he'd somehow kept his hand on the back of her knee. Amazingly, it felt like a brand across an erogenous zone she'd never contemplated. His free hand left the bannister and reached up to tap her bottom lip, still swollen from Trey's kiss. "Maybe you've forgotten, but Trey isn't the only one you're obligated to kiss."

  "I just don't understand why."

  He held his gaze steady, bent his head slowly - as if waiting for her to stop him, and opened his full lips. An explosion went off in her underwear and she made the mistake of mirroring him, opening her mouth, also. Instead of her mouth, he deliberately latched onto her nipple. Puckering and straining against her blouse, the fabric gliding over her velvety tip was driven by his tongue and teeth.

  "Hey," she tried to sound outraged, but found herself pressing her knees closer together. But his hand slid from the back of her knee to between her thighs. Before he hit pay dirt, she drew her strength and threw back her body, landing smack against Trey's chest. "I've just paid your kisses for a lifetime, Pal!" She spun around, shaking them off. "And as for you," she hissed at Trey, "why are we here? I'm not feeling particularly nostalgic." Not any more, at least.

  "Maybe you will be once you've seen your old room." He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her inside her old bedroom. "Did you break it off with Stephen?"

  "No." She'd decided not to indulge Trey's every wish. He was getting far too much in the deal, and he'd already taken everything.

  "You'll do so tomorrow," he demanded, settling on her old window seat. His eyes surveyed the back yard, dropping to the tree that had grown past the house's eaves. Of course, he couldn't climb trees any longer without assistance. And Libby wanted to know why.

  "I'll consider it," she offered up her lie, "if you tell me what happened to your vision."

  Drake looked startled, but then settled in a wing chair covered in yellow and white stripes. He lifted the daisy-shaped pillow from behind him and tossed it on the bed. Sitting down wasn't such a bad idea, Libby thought, so she dropped on the full-sized bed draped in butter yellow and topped with a sheer canopy. Other than the color of the walls, this room no longer held her touch, due to her original furniture missing. But sitting here with Trey messed with her head.

  "I was going to tell you anyway." He looked as though he hated tearing his eyes away from the view. Libby guessed she would too, if her sight went in and out. "You wondered what happened to me all those years ago, when we were sixteen. Well, your father happened to me."

  A chill moved over Libby's spine, when she thought of how angry her father was regarding her relationship with Trey. "I never had the courage to give you this letter I had written for you, about us...and my feelings." Her throat burned. "But I should have, because my mother went snooping in my closet." Her eyes landed on the partially opened door, where her walk-in closet used to be. "And she showed it to
my father."

  His eyebrows scrunched. "What did it say?"

  "Oh, the usual," her voice broke. "How I'd met you in the city park."

  "It was a rainy Friday," he said softly.

  "And you were wearing your baseball uniform, the hat pulled low over your eyes." She exhaled slowly. "I thought you had the most incredible eyes I'd ever seen."

  "I thought yours were the bluest, the color of the summer sky."

  "We'd jumped into the backseat of my friend's car, and you felt me up." She pulled her legs under her body, cupping her knees with her hands. "I didn't think it was fun or dirty, because I thought we were making love."

  "Maybe not that night," he amended, "but later."

  "Well, by the time my father read my confiscated note," she said, coming to the present. "We'd already done the deed several times over."

  "We were together six weeks and two days," his voice turned to pain. "Then your father had me beaten to within an inch of my life and left for dead."

  Libby's head snapped up. "What did you say?"

  "Gilda Easton found him in the foster system, the same way she did for most of her foster kids," Drake explained, while Trey bounced his knee nervously. "He had significant nerve damage from blows to the head and neck, the nerves in his eyes staying three times their normal size. But the retinas were worse, both partially torn."

  Her mind whirled against what they were saying, but she concentrated on Trey's injuries. "Torn retinas can be fixed, most times."

  "If you receive swift and proper medical treatment, yes," Drake emphasized. "Trey had been on the streets for months before he was picked up. Children's services tried to blame his beating on his grandmother. Trey denied her involvement, so they didn't prosecute her. But when he wouldn't acknowledge who'd attacked him, the authorities still kept him from her home."

  "Thank God for Gilda," Trey finally said. "I went from pauper to prince."

  She knew he was trying to play it down, but no one sought his kind of vengeance casually.

  "Gilda procured all the treatments she could for his eyes," Drake explained. "If not for her, he'd be completely blind."

  "And if not for you," Trey said to Drake, "I would have..."

  "Don't go there, not today, not on a day you can see almost everything."

  Libby had to clear the air. "What makes you so sure my father s-sent someone to do that to...a sixteen year old boy."

  Trey glared at her, heat rising in the depths of his eyes. "I shouldn't expect you to take my word, Elizabeth. But I dare you to ask your father and mother." He patted the wall next to him. "I doubt they'll be pleased to have this old house back, but they'll be grateful. After all, this is better than them moving into the firehouse with you."

  "You bastard," she said, tears threatening. "I don't believe you." But didn't she, deep down? Long ago, her father took out his stress by lifting the bottle nightly. A fifth of bourbon, which should have lasted for weeks, had lasted three days in their old household. Her mother eventually stopped making excuses for him, had also stopped hiding the bruises he'd formed on her pale skin. And the night her mother had stayed out too late enjoying a bridal shower, her father had nearly downed the entire bottle. Libby had been on the unfortunate end of his fist, and the last pummel had knocked her down the very steps they'd just ascended moments ago. Unfortunately, he'd had no other choice but to call an ambulance, since he'd knocked her bottom teeth out. She ran her fingertips over her implants, recalling when the emergency room doctor had asked her if there was any way she could be pregnant. A thousand times no, she'd thought then. But she had been, because the evidence was a pain stronger than her broken teeth had caused, and it had trickled between her thighs.

  "What is it, Libby?" Trey walked to her, holding his hand to her forehead. "You're trembling."

  "I need to register what you're saying." Her father, who hadn't taken a drink since that fateful night and had since turned his life around for the betterment of his family, had inadvertently killed their unborn child. She'd never told a soul. Only her parents knew. Could she tell Trey now, after he'd done everything in his power - and what power he held! - to destroy her father? No, she realized, pushing his head off her clammy forehead. She couldn't tell him. But Trey did deserve one thing, and she hoped she could get it right. "You broke my heart when you disappeared."

  He closed his eyes briefly. "I don't know what would have happened between us, if we'd been allowed to grow in our relationship. Who knows? We were teens. But I know I loved you then."

  "And now I'm part of your revenge against my father." She wiped away a tear. "How will your plan end?"

  His face shuttered instantly. "You'll find out tomorrow."

  "Cryptic as usual. Considering you purposely drove them back to the house they were so determined to leave years ago," she said, thinking this house held too many horrors to wash away, "I doubt they'll move back in here." She stood up, pressing her skirt with her hands.

  "Nonsense," Trey said, lightly manacling her wrist when she made to pass him. "They'll be here bright and early in the morning, so we'll have to make sure we're out of bed before they catch us." He patted the mattress, where she'd just sat.

  "I'm not spending the night here," she gasped in outrage, "with you."

  "Of course, you're not spending the night here with him," Drake added gently. "You're also spending the night here with me." He laughed when she took another swing at him. When he ducked this time, she caught his chin with her elbow. "Enough," he warned, rubbing his jaw. "I didn't say we had to share the same bed."

  "You implied it!" She reared back to kick his shin, and Trey caught her from behind.

  "Settle down, Elizabeth. Drake's just irritated because he considers our accommodations slumming."

  "I'm irritated because she's feisty and I like feisty.” He stared down at his bulging crotch. "So count on me seducing you, Angry Kitten."

  "That sounds like too much fun for me." She pulled away from Trey and stomped out the bedroom door.

  Drake called after her. "Persuasion is my specialty. I'll have you eating out of my hands soon, and you can take that promise literally."

  Chapter 10

  “It’s lovely,” Payton said, glancing around the opulent bedroom decorated in silver and cream. “You lived here as a child?”

  “This wasn’t my room, but I thought you’d like to decorate it and make it ours.”

  Avery watched fear roll across her face. She loved them, but she wasn’t ready for them coming at her like a freight train. “We can talk about it later, Dylan.”

  “I think it’s fine the way it is.” Payton piped in. Running her eyes over Avery, she reached for his zipper and released his beast, weighing the length in her hand. The way she’d taken him with her mouth earlier, he couldn’t imagine how sensitive he was, especially after years of feeling dead.

  “I can’t believe all the ink on you.”

  He smiled, staring down at her luscious mouth. “You like?

  “Major hottie points,” she confirmed. “What do the bloomless vines represent?” She slipped her hands around his back and scooted his pants down his ass, lowering them over his thighs. He stepped out of them, but lifted her off her knees, when she moved to take him back in her mouth. For the first time in nearly a decade, he was going to thrust his hungry cock into welcoming heat. And not just any heat, but the woman he loved.

  “What do the vines represent?” He repeated. “Feeling trapped, I think.”

  She visibly shivered. “In death?”

  “In life,” he corrected, while staring down at her. She was his world. “I think I’m going to be changing a few of these, though.” He lifted her, until she wrapped her arms and legs around him. He secured her with one hand beneath her ass. “I’ll add the date you marry Dylan and me here.” He pointed to his chest, right over his heart. “I’ll add the names of our children here.” He pointed to the back of his neck. “But no pressure, okay?”

  “Uh-huh.”


  “But here,” he said, flipping his wrist over so she could read the date already inscribed there, “shows the day I breathed again.”

  Payton’s eyes widened as she skimmed his inner wrist. “The date of the fundraiser, the night you first kissed me.” Her emerald eyes flicked back to his, searching, while he moved toward the bed. Dylan was already there, a tube of lube next to his thigh.

  “You’re waiting for something.”

  “Maybe a little bit.”

  She chewed her lip a second, before dropping a breathy kiss against his lips. “I love you, Avery Easton,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He eased her battered body down, furious at all the marks on her porcelain skin. But one day in the near future, he’d have her inside Level 69 and she would beg to go back again and again. For now, he’d try to climb inside her as far as he could go.