The Complete Tempest World Box Set

by Mankin, Michelle

  He handed me a glass and I took a sip watching him open the cartons and fill up paper plates for both of us. He was playing the part of a perfect gentleman, and though he wouldn’t like me saying so, he did it really well.

  “When did you get the black heart tattoo?” I asked as he set the plate of food and chopsticks on the blanket in front of me.

  He chewed and swallowed a bite before answering. “A long time ago. In high school. Bryan and I went together and got our ink at the same time.”

  “Oh, I thought…”

  “That I got it after they both screwed me?” he surmised. “No, Sweetness. I haven’t been a big believer in the whole love gig for a long time.”

  That bit of depressing news settled in the pit of my stomach like the grease from the Chinese food would probably do later. I took another sip of champagne and slid my pair of chopsticks out of its crinkly paper wrapper. I managed to capture a big bite of Lo Mein and get it into my mouth without mishap. It was delicious, the noodles firm, and the sauce had just the right amount of garlic.

  We ate in silence for a bit, each watching the other, comfortable, companionable, almost like we were long time lovers.

  “What?” I finally asked when he continued to stare and I’d almost cleaned my entire plate.

  “You’re pretty good with those chopsticks,” he commented conversationally.

  “Thanks. I’ve had a lot of practice. We do lots of takeout on the set.”

  “Hmm. I’ve noticed you have a really good appetite, too. You don’t seem into the rabbit food like a lot of chicks.”

  No I wasn’t. I watched my diet religiously back when I first started the show. Now that I was older and my work schedule had gotten busier, I had become less compulsive. “You saying I’m a pig, Warren Jinkins?”

  “No.” He laughed. “But you are messy.” He leaned forward and wiped a little drip off the side of my mouth. Instead of being embarrassed like a normal person, my hormones kicked right in and my body instantly flushed with warmth. My eyes remained on his and I held my breath as he took his time dragging his thumb slowly from one side of my mouth to the other. Then I nearly came unglued when he stuck that same thumb in his own mouth and sucked it.

  My stomach fluttered. I wanted to jump him. Wanted him to jump me. Either or. I’m sure that desire flared in my eyes, but I tried to look cool and collected.

  The surface of his own eyes shimmering with corresponding heat, he grinned. “Breathe, darlin’.” His tone was playful and his grin deepened.

  Gorgeous.

  “Finish your food and drink your champagne,” he continued. “We’re of a like mind, but we’ve got plenty of time for that later.”

  I did two things he suggested. Oxygen first, a necessity, then I sipped my champagne. I wasn’t hungry anymore…for food.

  When we both reached the bottom of our glasses, Warren refilled them and then put our empty plates on the coffee table. He stretched out on his side and then crooked his finger, inviting me over. “Come here,” he said softly. “I want to touch you again.”

  I moved closer and using his flat abdomen as a pillow, angled my body so I could look at him. The lights of downtown flickered in the windows behind him, a romantic backdrop to the dreamy man in front of them.

  “Tell me about your new band.” I was curious. He never talked about it.

  “Not much to tell. They suck.” He took a sip of champagne. “And we suck even worse together.”

  “I’m sorry. Is there any chance you might get back together? With Tempest that is? Bryan and Lace seem to want to make amends.”

  “No way.” His dark brows came together. “Why in the world do you think that could ever work out?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but I think it could, if you wanted it to. I assume bands have their ups and downs just like any relationship.”

  His face got hard, and he looked like he was getting ready to cut me off, so I rushed on to explain. “You don’t have to like someone to work with them, right? I have to work with actors all the time that I can’t stand.”

  His jaw tightened and so did the stomach muscles underneath my head. “I was sick on Lacey’s prom night.” His voice was scary quiet as he shared. “I trusted Bryan to take her in my place. And how was that trust repaid? My so called best friend fucks my woman.”

  “Oh.”

  “Right.” He chin dipped. “So the way I feel about him goes a little deeper than dislike, babe. Living on a tour bus twenty-four seven, writing songs together, that shit ain’t happening after something like that.”

  “He slept with her all that time and you didn’t know,” I mused out loud. “No wonder you hate him. Hate them both.” I was starting to get angry on his behalf.

  He took my hand, his gaze taking on a faraway glaze as he absently unwound my tightly fisted fingers. “That’s not exactly how things went down. It was only the one time, and Lace was with another guy before we started up again, but…” He stopped abruptly an uncertain look on his face. I got the feeling he hadn’t meant to share nearly that much information. He let go of my hand. I don’t think he realized he’d been gently stroking it. “All that’s yesterday’s news, darlin’. I really don’t care to rehash it.”

  “I’m sorry.” I looked away. “I thought maybe talking about it might help.”

  “I get that.” He bent at the waist and caressed my cheek with his finger. “I’m getting that it’s that sweet heart of yours that motivates nearly everything you do.”

  Whoa. Said sweet heart skipped a beat.

  “Never met a woman even half as sweet,” His eyes were glittering with captivating intensity.

  “Then you must not get out much,” I quipped unsettled by his praise.

  “Oh, I get out plenty. Think that’s been established.” His gaze swept over me, his languorous mood seeming to suddenly switch gears. “You want any more of that champagne?” His eyes had changed over to that telltale mahogany. Heat flushed my cheeks, and I shook my head.

  He put his glass on the table and offered me one of his hands. I took it and he pulled me into him. My palms landed on the hard wall of his chest and he gave me a moment to explore. When I began to trace the black outline of his tat with my finger, feeling the drumming of his heart beneath it, apparently deciding time was up, he lifted my chin.

  “What does your tat mean?” I asked, though I was afraid I might know.

  “It’s pretty self-explanatory, Sweetness.”

  “But I don’t understand. You said you got it before the trouble with Lace and Bryan.”

  “Yeah I did, but I learned that love’s not worth the hassle a long time ago. What’d it get my mom but a daily reminder of her biggest regret? What’s it gotten me but more of the same?”

  I swallowed back the wave of sadness that crashed over me. I knew he wouldn’t appreciate me feeling sorry for him. For the boy who never had his mother’s love or for the man who’d likely never accept a declaration of love from me even if I was ever brave enough to lay it at his feet.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  War

  I saw it, the flash of disappointment before she lowered her lashes to hide it. I knew what she wanted. What every woman wanted. What she deserved. The one thing I couldn’t give. Not ever again.

  “Shaina,” I breathed, framing her pretty face and tilting her head back so I could look her in the eyes. “Listen, if you…”

  “It’s ok,” she whispered back, a fleeting ghost of regret crossing her features. I told myself I didn’t see it. Truth was I didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to acknowledge that she was settling for the less I was offering. I wanted her too much to turn back now even if I had been a better man. “I’m not going to change my mind, Warren. I want you. I want this.” She stood on her tiptoes and brushed a soft sweet kiss across my lips.

  I stared down at her, eyes locked on hers trying to convey that I wanted her too. More than I ever wanted anything in my life. More than I’d ever thought it possible to wan
t another woman again. So much so that I was currently weighing the pros and the cons of taking her right now, right here on the floor. I decided against it. Even though my heart was as black as the one tattooed on my chest, I wasn’t completely insensitive. And I refused to have her next time be like that. I knew the difference between fucking and making love. And I was going to show her.

  “Ok, darlin’. Talkin’ time is done.” I tugged on her hands and led her toward the bedroom.

  When I had her at the bed, I put my hands on the belt of her robe and untied it while she watched me with wide liquid green eyes. I slowly peeled it from her shoulders. It slid silently down her arms and dropped to the floor. I stared at the Venus revealed before me.

  A fuckin’ goddess.

  Long tendrils of her hair had escaped her braid and curled around her breasts like swirling frames. Perfectly shaped. No sharp angles. Rounded in all the right places. Utterly feminine. I didn’t think I was ever going to get over the awe of looking at her like this.

  “Warren,” she whispered, peering shyly up at me through her lashes.

  “Just enjoying the view, Sweetness,” I explained.

  “Ok, but I’m naked now and you’ve still got too many clothes on… again.” She reached for me.

  I stopped her before her hands reached the buttons on my jeans. “Let me set the pace. I promise this time I’ll make it good for you.”

  “You made it good the last time,” she mumbled, eyes focused on her feet.

  She had no idea. She was so innocent. I got that unfamiliar tight feeling in my chest again when I thought about the magnitude of the gift she had given me. “Trust me. The best is yet to come.”

  She looked up, her mouth parted as if she didn’t quite believe me. My gaze dropped to it. I had to have another taste. Sliding my hands into her hair carefully to avoid catching her hair in my rings, I got her at the perfect angle and lowered my head to press my lips to hers. I felt the soft sigh of her surrender at the same time that I felt her warm hands wrapped around me settling low on my back. Searing heat flashed through my blood from just those two simple acts.

  I deepened the kiss, tasting the champagne along with that unique sweetness that was her. She let out a deep moan that made my dick even harder.

  I lifted my head.

  Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were wet. She stared back at me, awe of her own glittering from darkened eyes. When she looked at me that way she made me feel as if I were somehow the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  No one had ever looked at me that way.

  “I…I love your hair.” I reached behind her back, removed the band holding the braid together, and began to work my way up it, separating the strands and then spreading them out loose around her bare shoulders.

  She shivered and swayed closer.

  When I was done it fell around her body like a shimmering copper, gold, and platinum waterfall. I tunneled my fingers deeply into it, sifting through the thick layers closest to her face. “I want you on top with that hair all around us.”

  Her lips forming a seductive smile, she scooted to the center of the mattress.

  I prowled in right after my temptress. Arms braced on either side of her, I leaned in to lay another long wet kiss on her, groaning as I enjoyed her taste.

  Making a sexy sound, she twined her arms around my neck, and tugged me closer so she could rub her breasts against me. Her nipples felt like they scored my skin. My breath hitched. She had me so turned on that I was close to spilling in my jeans. I’d been mistaken thinking keeping them on would slow down the pace of things for me.

  I swept my tongue in deep and then softly teasingly touched the tip to hers one more time, and that was it, that was about all the foreplay I could take. I lifted my head. Her chest was heaving just like mine, and her hands were now clinging to my hips, her fingers digging in with a sense of urgency.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you stopping?” she asked. Her eyes were dark and confused.

  “Just need to take off my pants, darlin’.” I unbuttoned my jeans and slid them off along with my boxer briefs while she leaned back on her elbows and watched me. Normally I was the one who liked to do the watching during sex. But with her, my mind was open, and my body was in complete agreement.

  She was staring, and her focused gaze made it bounce. “Wow.”

  “Baby.” I grinned at her innocent praise and with the foil packet in hand I moved back toward her, wanting to be inside her desperately now.

  She came up on her knees, meeting me halfway but put a hand on my chest stopping me from getting any closer. I looked down at it, then back up at her, feeling my brows rise.

  “Just wanna enjoy the view for a minute, Warren,” she teased, her voice a raspy whisper.

  I laughed, something else I’d never done in bed.

  Ever.

  I opened the packet, set it carefully to the side and grabbed her, wrapped my arms around her, and rolled us, so I was on the bottom and she was on top. Her hair formed a soft curtain around us just the way I’d imagined it would be, only as it seemed to always be with her, my imagination couldn’t do the reality any justice.

  • • •

  Shaina

  I came up, arms braced, hands flat on his hard chest. I lowered my lids taking in a longer look at the turned on man beneath me. I wasn’t completely naïve. I’d seen pictures of naked men before. I’d just never seen one so...exceptional.

  No wonder it’d hurt the first time.

  He gave me a moment before he moved, taking me with him so that his back rested against the upholstered headboard. Then his hands lifted softly following the long fall of my hair, arranging it carefully almost reverentially around us. My throat tightened. The warm look on his face as he stared up at me unraveled any lingering concern about size or anything else for that matter. It was just him and me and what I felt building between us.

  Settling his hands on my hips he squeezed before skimming them up my sides, his long fingers a gentle glide, a whisper soft caress dipping into my waist and then sliding over my ribs. I shivered, my body awash in warm sensation.

  He hooked his hands under my arms and tugged. I grabbed the top of the headboard for balance. In this position, straddling him I could feel the hot hard promise of him between my legs but was too inexperienced and too shy to take the lead in the sensual dance we’d begun.

  Head bowed I looked down into his heated dark eyes and melted even more. Hanging over him, my hair seemed to undulate of its own accord, stray tendrils swishing against his smooth glorious chest, the rest spilling russet and golden on top of the white sheets all around us.

  He lifted his head and his warm mouth and his wet wickedly talented tongue swirled around my nipple. Warmth like a shimmering crystalline cascade moved directly south from my breast to that spot between my legs that blossomed with want. The muscles of my arms grew taut stretched above his head, my fingers curling tightly, my nails digging into the headboard.

  What he was doing with his mouth felt so incredibly good that I never wanted it to stop. I moaned my pleasure and shifted, desperately needing him to do all those seductive things to the other side. I felt his lips smile against my sensitive skin before the wet drag of his tongue traced down the slope of one breast across the valley of my breastbone and up the slope of the other. I moaned again when his mouth latched on. My arms began to tremble. The suction of his lips felt beyond amazing. I couldn’t see his face just the back of his head, but I could feel, and I felt hot and dark and deliciously desired.

  I threaded my fingers into his soft silky hair and began to arch my back into each thrust and drag of his warm wet tongue. “Warren,” I breathed his name my hips undulating more provocatively than my hair had as he slowly traced his mouth over the pendant between my breasts moving back and forth over it his breath hot, his fingers kneading my back with experienced hands.

  “Please,” I begged. “I can’t…I need…” It was building again, that elusive fe
eling, that sparkling utmost need to which I was the lock and he was the key. It had built so fast this time that I could barely think.

  “That’s it, baby,” he praised, his voice a low approving rumble. He hauled me higher by the armpits totally in control now as I lost my grip on the headboard. He laid a wet titillating teasing kiss low on my abdomen. The wide open mouthed back and forth drag of his lips over my hot skin made my heart pound hard and in time with the pulsing ache slightly lower.

  Without warning, he suddenly rolled us again. So he was on top now. He slid a hand down between our bodies, touching that swollen spot between my legs as he kissed me again.

  My tongue danced with his while his fingers continued to circle and tease me in a maddening frustrating pattern. I whimpered into his mouth, the hot flames of desire licking me into a crazed frenzy.

  We broke apart both gasping as we tried to catch a breath. His face was as taut as his arms that were now braced on either side of me.

  I could feel the hot smooth velvety tip of him pressing urgently against me, close but not where I needed and wanted it most. He stared at me, looking like there was something he wanted to say. I waited a moment, but when he didn’t speak, I did instead, saying what I thought he wanted to hear, “Make love to me, Warren, please. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

  He closed his eyes. I wished he’d reopen them. I loved looking into those mahogany depths. They spoke poetic volumes, telling me things I didn’t think he wanted me to know. Things I missed when I couldn’t see them.

  But the moment passed, his secret thoughts remaining his own. He reached for the condom he’d set aside earlier rolled it on, and then he moved, finally filling me. My eyes slid closed, and I set my mind on how good he felt, how right. His long hard measured strokes stoked the fire inside me higher. I felt so close to flying apart yet wished somehow to delay it, wanting to be his sole focus like this forever.