by Snow, Nicole
Her eyes are smoky, dazed, dilated, and I love it. “Sounds like a deal. Now, eat, before it gets cold.”
I sink back in my seat. She settles in hers as well, picking up her fork and pushing at the stir-fry, then peeking at me shyly. “So, you’re telling Milah I’m your real girlfriend now?”
Am I? Is that what Kenna is, now?
Fuck. I don’t know. Don’t know what she is.
Don’t know how to define this, other than a ceasefire and some really hot fucking.
And I’m afraid to admit it, but I really don’t know what I’ll do if Reb gets under my skin and then winds up hating me after she sees I really am a monster, and I’m capable of things she can’t imagine.
No matter how many times we fuck, or how deep the feelings go, they won't change the past or future. I still have a killer to find, and a lot of bad blood to drain with Crown.
“I’m not telling Milah anything. It’s not Milah’s business,” I deflect, picking up my own fork. “And I don’t care about Milah, either. I’ve missed five years of your life. Catch me up on your writing, Reb. Catch me up on everything.”
That's all I want over dinner. Just her and me and a dying sunset through the glass, two dark sleepy cats flopped out near our feet.
I need tamer, innocent words.
Something to keep me warm, when the day comes that she knows me for the monster I am.
13
Not Quite Paradise (Kenna)
Velvet and Mews shouldn’t make me wonder just how good Landon might be with children.
I’m not going there. Not yet.
Not when it’s only the morning after and I’m still sore inside and sex shouldn’t be making me wonder what life could be like with him. Yet, it’s hard not to, when right now this moment feels so good. Bright and new, comfortable and sweet, me perched in one of Landon’s oversized shirts on a barstool while he makes breakfast shirtless – and feeds more of the ingredients to the circling, mewling cats than he does into the sizzling skillet.
I prop my chin on my hand, watching him fondly. “Hey, Landon, will there be anything left for us by the time you’re done?”
He glances over his shoulder with a grin. Mews hops up on the counter and yowls, demanding more, only to purr as Landon feeds him another diced bit of smoked ham that’s supposed to go in our omelets. “Now you know why they’re so fat.”
“Are they? I couldn’t tell under all that fur.”
“It’s pretty dense, isn’t it?” He strokes a palm over Mews’ ears, burying his fingers in short but thick gray fur. “They’re British blues. Shorthairs.”
I arch both brows. “Wow. Big words for someone I didn’t even know was a cat person.”
“I wasn’t, I just...” He glances back at me again. Something like chagrin darkens his eyes. “You asked me about them before. And I shut you down.”
I offer a smile. I get it now, I really do. “If you want to tell me, I'm all ears.”
He hesitates, then laughs and ducks his head, almost boyishly. “It’s my Mom’s fault, really. My aunt passed away, and left these two behind. My mother was supposed to take them, but her condo association doesn’t allow pets, other than those yappy purse dogs.” A rueful smile bends his lips up. “Never doubt a mother’s power of persuasion.”
Never doubt a man’s power of persuasion, either, when he looks at you with soft blue eyes and lets his gaze drift over your naked body with only a thin layer of cotton in the way.
My face goes hot. Sweat beads on my brow. I can’t resist the magnetism in his stare, and I slip off the stool, padding barefoot across the floor to tuck myself against his side, picking up a bit of ham to feed to Mews.
“I think it’s sweet,” I murmur, resting my head on his shoulder as his arm slides around my waist. “And I like these little guys. I think they like me, too.”
“Mew!” Mews looks at me, giving the definitive answer.
Seriously. Is it really this easy?
It can’t be.
We’ll be fighting again by noon.
* * *
All right, so maybe it is this easy. Some days.
I can’t believe how I’m just falling into things with Landon. We click.
We got lucky, too. Milah’s latest show was delayed due to technical issues, which meant no snotty little Barbie prancing around, offended that Landon’s not drooling all over her. We don't know where she's gone since leaving his place, and thankfully, we don't need to care.
It's nice without Landon rushing off to put out figurative and literal fires. Just two weeks of quiet, sun, sand, some heavy wordcounts, and the most amazing sex ever.
Well, there was one fire.
Down on the beach, a few drunken kids started a bonfire. It spread to an old abandoned fishing shack. We got one hell of a scare when we were sound asleep, naked and tangled in each other, and heard the familiar wail of sirens.
After that, though, Landon seemed to relax more.
If those kids caused one fire, then they were probably behind others – including the one in the beach house that had him so worried about his mystery arsonist. I try to convince myself, too, slip into a convenient explanation for my strange hoodie prowler.
I like Landon relaxed. His eyes go soft in a certain way, and I remember him dreaming of stars.
Only, now he looks at me the way he looked at those stars.
I want to say I can’t fall in love with Landon Strauss.
But I’m not sure I ever fell out in the first place.
Especially when, in the early morning light, I can’t take my eyes off him. I’m awake before him, for once.
We’re both early risers, but he’s usually out for his morning swim before I’m awake. I’m downstairs making coffee before he comes in.
Last night was a little rough. As we get closer and closer to Milah’s rescheduled gig, he’s been more and more tense, and his crew has called with more problems. Last night he’d almost called the whole thing off.
And when he was shaking with anger, when he was furious and drawn taut with every line of his body hard and angry...
I’d touched his arm.
And he’d responded, wrapping me up and holding me tight. Just breathing hard and fast, until he went lax against me.
It felt strangely like sheltering him. Keeping him safe.
But he’d been so exhausted by the time he climbed into bed that he didn’t even want to touch me. Just hold me, tangled close, skin to skin, quiet in the dark.
I tell myself this isn’t a relationship. Not formally. We’ve dodged defining it for the past two weeks.
Still, it's something. Something magic as I trace the beautiful, brooding lines of his sleeping face, following the path the sunlight makes over his storming brow.
He stirs under my touch. This man doesn’t wake up like most people, snuffling and groaning and yawning.
The way he wakes up is just another part of what makes him an animal: one moment he’s still and quiet, the next he’s stone-tense and flooded with this vibrant energy. It's like switching on the lights in a darkened room.
Instant alertness. Predatory and oh-so-ready to strike at any danger.
Like now. One blue eye snaps open, assesses me, before softening.
He catches my hand and turns his head to kiss my palm, stubble rasping over my skin.
“Morning,” he rumbles. “You’re actually awake.”
“You overslept today.” I can't hide my smile.
“Bull,” he growls, though there’s a touch of drowsy laughter in it. He rubs his cheek against my wrist, raising those little shivers I love. Goose-bump prickles everywhere. “Guess I’ll be skipping my morning swim.”
“You still have time. You don’t have to deal with Milah for a few more days.”
“Mm. But if I go swimming...”
Suddenly, he's got a better idea for his wake-up ritual.
He’s tumbling me onto my back, his naked body shifting gloriously over mine, taut-stretched
and tawny and hard. His weight is hot as a furnace, burning into me.
Holy hell. There’s nothing to protect me from him; nothing to shield me from how every inch of my body electrifies just being near him.
He pins me with his bulk, barely holding himself up on braced arms that strain to hold the heaviness of packed muscle, forearms drawn tight and veins ridging against his skin, his tattoos.
And when he presses against me, his rousing cock slides against my belly, slipping lower. Teasing me until I can’t think of anything but wanting that feeling when he slides deep, takes me over, makes me wild.
“If I go swimming, Reb, I can’t do this,” he finishes, and leans down to capture my mouth, enveloping me fully in his stone-fire warmth. “We both know that'd be a damn shame. You're so fucking wet for me.”
He strokes between my legs, winning a sharp moan from my mouth. His fingers are already dangerously familiar with my body. I whimper against him, bucking my clit into his hands, which pull back to a comfortable, teasing distance.
Good morning can't even cover this. My naked breasts crushed against his chest, my entire body vulnerable, twined, until I feel like a rabbit caught in the wolf’s grasp.
And he consumes me – touching every inch of me, finding every place on my body that turns me from a woman into a lava flow of pure desire.
He’s the only one who’s ever known how to do this to me; how to possess me so utterly I just lose myself and can only cling to him for some kind of safe mooring. Always gasping for more as he traces me with his fingers, his tongue.
Sweet Jesus, his tongue.
If I thought he had a magic ability to light me up all kinds of ways with just the words bouncing off it, I've learned it isn't half of what he can do when it's against my skin.
Landon's mouth owns me. Leaves burning hot kisses and angry little bite marks over my chest, my stomach, my hips, my thighs, then delves between my legs.
There, lost in my folds, is where he pulls me apart. Sharp, clutching pleasure comes as his tongue circles my clit, traces my labia, dips inside, drinks from me like every last drop he coaxes from my flesh will leave him intoxicated.
His mouth works my pussy to the brink. Expert teeth pull me apart with a growl, make my clit a willing prisoner for his tongue, all while his stubble leaves delicious burn marks on my thighs. I ride his face for all I'm worth, before I'm whimpering his name.
“Landon!” Oh, hell. “Landon, fuck!”
I can't.
I need to come on his face, if only he'd let me. But this man knows my own flesh better than me.
By the time he lifts me up, wraps my thighs around his waist, slides his cock deep inside my body, I’m ready to fly right off the edge. He takes me in slick, deep, rhythmic strokes that make my heart race and my blood burn like napalm, turning me into someone I don’t know.
I’m not one of my heroines, wanton and sure of her sexuality.
I'm not this crazy, wild girl who becomes a complete sex addict for anyone – much less this beast shaped like a man who's swung my heart wild like a kettlebell for the past ten years.
I'm totally not surrendering every fiber of my being to Landon Strauss and all he's been: lover, hater, destroyer, protector, friend, foe, best and worst and final word.
But actually, when I'm stripped completely bare, shaking on his naked body, I can't deny the truth.
I am.
With him, I feel so much I can't escape it, can’t deny it, can’t control it – and I writhe with pure and utter abandon as he plunges deeper, harder, faster, pushing closer and closer to his end.
I watch that lost, tortured, beautiful expression taking over his face while he's holding me. I don’t even know what pushes me over – his touch, his manic strokes, or the way he looks at me – all his human wilds tethered to me.
For me.
I just know that when my body goes tight around him, when he hits the perfect spot inside that makes my vision go white and my breaths turn ragged...
He’s ruined me.
He's ruining me right now as he locks his arm tight, fisting my hair, growling his pleasure as he drives deep one more time and unloads his pleasure into mine.
He's ruined me forever.
He’s ruined me for anyone else, and I’m gladly letting myself be torn apart.
* * *
He’s also made walking in a straight line difficult.
I should be used to this, after the last two weeks, but when I get up and try to follow him into the shower my legs are pure jelly and my spine feels like cooked spaghetti.
He knows it, too, judging from the smug look he keeps giving me. Ass.
But he’s my jerk-ass.
Sort of.
I totter into the bathroom, and twenty minutes later, he’s got to lift me out of the shower after pinning me against the wall. The man's libido is relentless. I can't show a flash of skin anymore if I don't want to be absolutely ravaged – and, of course, I do.
I'm trapped face-first against cool tile while hot spray pours down over us both and my voice rings off the shower walls. He's busy making these low, animalistic sounds against my back while he ruts against me, skin to slick skin, turning my depths into a swollen-soft mass of silk that thrills at every touch, every stroke, every vicious thrust.
I stand on the tips of my toes, rocking into him, enjoying the loud slap of his balls on my skin.
I don't last long. He fucks straight through my first orgasm and keeps on going, a tattooed train of a man. “Legs apart, Reb. Take it fucking deep for me,” he whispers, thunder in his voice as he shifts my thighs open.
He holds me tighter as he pulls his pleasure from my body. My breasts sway, pendulums shaken by everything quintessentially Landon Strauss. I'm on the ledge in no time at all again, and this time, he falls with me.
The heat of his release burns into mine. I'm making sounds in the back of my throat I didn't know I could, milking his cock with everything I have. It blurs in the sweet delirium of him growling my name, his balls heaving everything into me.
Mercy.
I’m a wreck after, gasping and dizzy. He’s gentle and tender and considerate. Wiping me off with a washcloth, letting me lean against him, wrapping me up in a cozy towel and carrying me from the shower into the bedroom.
I kind of hate him for still being able to stand after doing that to me.
Twice in a row.
Jerk-ass, again. I wish I could decide if it's an insult or a show of affection. Maybe both.
He’s just setting me down on the bed when a rattle comes from downstairs, clattering and loud and a little too familiar.
Landon goes tense, eyes flashing as he stiffens with a growl.
“If that brat just came waltzing into my house again, I swear to Christ, Buddha, and Krishna...”
I groan, flopping back on the bed in a tangle of wet hair and damp towel. “I'm glad you're invoking all the major powers. Because, I don't exactly have the patience to deal with her right now.”
“Too bad. Remember, you’re my shield.” He winks, setting me a little at ease, even if there’s a tight edge to it. “Get dressed, Reb. Time to greet the company.”
I give him a sour look and kick one foot out to push at him. Not that it does any good, landing on his rock-hard stomach and not even making him tilt.
He catches my foot, lifts it up in a way that spreads me pretty embarrassingly, and then he kisses my ankle – but his eyes aren’t on my foot.
There’s no doubting where he’s looking, eyes glinting, that grin turning devilish. I squeak, yanking my foot back and drag the towel over me. His gaze leaves a delicious burn between my legs.
“Don’t you even start!” I mutter, cut off by another clatter from downstairs. My heart jumps into my throat, remembering the intruder. “Ugh. I don’t want her to hear us.”
“So, you’re possessive now? I'm liking the new you, Reb.” He winks again, then sidesteps, dodging the pillow I throw at him, laughing.
I
t’s like that the entire time we get dressed. Completely detached from the serious situation.
Teasing, stealing kisses, trying to be quick but fumbling over each other when we can’t seem to keep our hands off each other or stop laughing.
But I manage to get my jellied legs into a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a button-up sleeveless shirt that shows off my C-cups more than I normally would, the top button undone. I keep my hair loose and shower-tumbled, spilling in wild waves all around me. I skip the glasses for now, tucking them into my pocket, even if it means a bit of a blur more than five feet in front of me.
Look, I’m not preening. Or showing off.
I just want Milah freaking Holly to get a really good look at what she thinks Landon shouldn’t want.
And maybe I feel a little buzz in my veins when Landon slips his hand in mine before we head downstairs. He’s already steeling himself, his expression blanking, shoulders and jaw tight.
His hand grips mine a little too hard, but it doesn’t really hurt, and I don’t want to pull him out of what’s clearly a preparation for war. I just squeeze his fingers tighter, reminding him that I’m here, and square my own shoulders as we round the wall into the kitchen.
There's another shock waiting.
A tall, regal, graying woman stands at one of the open cabinets, murmuring under her breath in a softly cultured accent while she meticulously organizes Landon’s scattered dishware by color.
It’s been years since I’ve seen her, but I recognize her air immediately.
Shirley Strauss.
Landon’s mother.
My face blooms hot, and I let out a mortified squeak, letting go of Landon’s hand and hastily buttoning the top button of my shirt over the small glimpse of my bra I’d let out.
Oh my God. Oh my God.
Of course, I try to play the vixen and the femme fatale and the smug not-quite-fake girlfriend, and so, of course I walk in boobs out on Landon’s mother.
Wicked sense of humor doesn't describe what this universe has in store.
