The Complete Tempest World Box Set

by Mankin, Michelle

  “Let me go,” I hissed. “I need to get to Mel.” He didn’t release me. Instead, he pulled me toward him and because of the incline and the slippery snow I lost my footing and stumbled, my back colliding with his chest.

  He wrapped his arms around me. I felt warm and protected, my racing heart slowing to a steadier pace. It felt so good to be held. Longing that had little to do with sexual desire flared to life within my heart, and that should have frightened me more than the physical attraction. His arms tightened around me almost like he felt it, too, and wasn’t willing to let it go. I didn’t fight him. I leaned my head back on his shoulder allowing myself the luxury of the moment, deeply breathing in his intoxicating scent.

  “April?” He said my name like a question, his breath warm on my cheek and then his firm lips. I melted into him immediately wanting much more than just the comfort of being held. I wanted the strong arms clamped beneath my breasts to move higher so I could slide my chest and my hardened aching nipples against them. I wanted to roll my hips back and forth between the cradle of his thighs so I could more fully feel the length of his thick erection against my ass. All the cues were there. Wetness. Warmth. Heat. I was a fully complicit partner now. We were pressed together like lovers. If we weren’t on a ski slope, if the clothes weren’t between us, I could bend. He could move and rock into me. I could twist my neck to the side and open my lips so our mouths could fuse together mimicking the connection we would have going on below. I was suddenly desperate to find out what he tasted like. See if the rumors I’d heard about the way he kissed and the way he fucked were fact or fiction.

  He moved his arm, his hand covering my breast. I gasped. The spike of pleasure was so intense. “Dizzy, don’t.” Somehow my brain came online and I overrode the contradictory signals being sent by my body.

  “Don’t what?” He trailed a line of soft kisses onto the sensitive skin below my ear. That felt so good so sensual that I shuddered and almost came. It’d been so long since I’d been touched so tenderly by a man.

  “Bloody hell, Kitten!” he cursed his voice a raw whisper. His embrace tightened for one long delicious moment during which my convictions wavered perilously before he finally released me.

  I staggered forward fighting the gravity of the upward slope and the heavy weight of my own desire. My breath came out in short puffy visible bursts that I couldn’t and didn’t even attempt to disguise. But I finally managed to move, lifting one foot and then the other, the hard lessons of the past year having strengthened my survival skills.

  I heard him call my name, but I ignored it, gaining momentum and moving faster, weaving in and out of the crowd in my mad dash to run away from my weakness. It was emotionally dangerous for Mel to get involved with a guy like him, but for me it was worse. It’d be nothing short of virtual suicide.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Dizzy

  Folding my arms over my chest, tapping my foot, I waited out the steady stream of well-wishers for my turn to congratulate Mel while also keeping a secretive appreciative eye on her best friend. April had stuck tightly to Mel’s side avoiding me completely since I’d caught up with them at the party in the basement of the Spaghetti Warehouse.

  I got it. I understood her reluctance to continue where we’d left off. I understood the obstacles in our way, the blue haired woman beside her for one, but another that wasn’t here. The one who’d put that ring on her finger. But what the hell? It took two to dance. She’d sure seemed with me earlier. My dick got rock hard remembering the way she’d shuddered in my arms when I’d put my lips on the pulse point of her neck.

  A high pitched squeal made me cringe but brought me back into the current moment.

  “You were so awesome!” A woman just ahead of me, apparently one of Mel’s competitors jumped up and down with Mel a couple of times and then hugged her briefly before moving away.

  “She’s right.” Seeing no one else remained in my way, I nodded my head at Mel and stepped closer.

  “Did you see how fast I shot through that bowl?” Mel chimed. She’d changed out of her ski clothes, but her cheeks were still flushed from the adrenaline, her eyes bright with victory.

  “I did…We all did.” April’s furtive gaze flicked to me for a brief second and just as quickly slid away, just like her hasty escape back on the mountain.

  “You were incredible. Way to go Bluebelle.”

  She grinned and launched herself at me, her blue hair streaming back from her exuberant face. I caught her and swung her around in a celebratory circle. She turned her head her lips coming perilously close to mine, and I quickly feigned to the right so that she got my cheek instead. I kissed her on hers before setting her back down.

  “Where the hell’d you learn to ski like that,” I asked, wanting to redirect her in an effort to soften the flash of disappointment I’d noticed in her eyes. “Never seen anything like it. You blew my mind the way you blew away the rest of the competition.”

  “I could’ve been better. I was sloppy out of the gate.” Mel’s reaction to me drove home the concerns April had shared earlier. Seemed she was probably right. I was going to have to say something sooner rather than later to make sure Mel knew where we stood. Her best friend on the other hand was an entirely different dilemma. I had no idea what to do with these feelings I had for her. They weren’t going away. They were growing stronger.

  “I’m glad I got to see you race.”

  “Me, too. It means so much to me that you came.” Mel ducked her chin and turned toward April, the two putting their foreheads together and speaking softly. I took a step back fighting the pull. It was hard, but the math was real simple. I wanted April. She wanted me. The equation inevitably added up to a sum neither of us seemed ready to face. I was still hard just from standing close to her, smelling her soft floral scent, and remembering how good her sexy body had felt in my arms.

  But what to do given that eventuality, I had no clue. I had my issues. I was certainly no saint, but I didn’t want to be that guy, the one who busted in and broke up a happy marriage just ’cause he needed to get laid.

  I just needed to find someone else. Anyone else. At this point, it didn’t really matter who. I scanned the room. The party was in full swing, the room packed, everyone drinking, and the murmur of conversation occasionally punctuated by a burst of laughter. I spotted several potential candidates, right off the bat.

  I worked my way around the room, pausing to shoot the shit with Sager and King for a bit using the time to narrow my choice down to a raven haired beauty who was wearing a little bit too much makeup. She held my eyes in an unapologetic way that told me all I needed to know. I raised a brow, and she lifted her drink to me.

  Hell, yeah.

  She’d do.

  But for some reason, I didn’t walk off with her right away. I lingered, glancing over at April, mentally comparing.

  The Mine bartender was going to be tough to forget. Her soft brown hair hung straight and loose around her shoulders without her usual work time ponytail confining it. I swallowed imagining it spread out on a pillowcase with her pretty face looking up at me, and her wearing that expression of approval she’d given me earlier, adding in some heated anticipation that would make those jade eyes glow.

  She’d removed her jacket. She wore an ivory sweater that I didn’t think she intended to be so provocative, but the way it clung to her high breasts and kept slipping off one shoulder sure the hell was. Plus tonight’s faded pair of jeans outlined the shape of her legs and ass perfectly. Even before I forced my attention back to my impending conquest, I knew I was settling, going after what I could have instead of what I really wanted.

  I tried to shake off that feeling as I moved toward the exit. Told myself it didn’t make a bit of difference. Settling never bothered me before. So she and I had some serious chemistry. That’s all it was. That’s all it could ever be. I just needed to let off a little of that steam.

  I made eye contact with my target and tilted my head t
oward the door. Her lips spread into a wide compliant smile. I knew without looking back that she followed.

  So easy.

  Once we were outside, I immediately pulled her over into the darkened alleyway between the buildings.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise, in a voice that was not unpleasant, but wasn’t at all the one I wanted it to be. Her long red fingernails dug into my forearms. I preferred April’s shorter unadorned ones. She put her lips on mine, her big tits smashing into my chest, even through my tee I could tell her nipples were already hard. Same as my dick. Didn’t make a bit of difference that it’d gotten that way because of someone else. I didn’t discriminate. Not at all. Not usually.

  I rocked my dick between her thighs.

  Her lips parted, and she moaned into my mouth.

  I pulled back a little and gave her the score, the way I always did. “I don’t wanna be your boyfriend. I don’t wanna treat you like a whore, but babe, if you want me right now, I’m all yours.”

  “Yes, please,” she replied, exhaling mint tinted breath into my face.

  I trailed my lips across her cheek that wasn’t near as soft as April’s. It didn’t feel right, but I didn’t stop continuing down to the spot beneath her ear, the spot that’d made April shudder, the first of three bases I always hit during a hookup. I knew what to do. I knew what drove chicks crazy.

  She shivered.

  “Beautiful babe.” Always praise ’em. I pictured April as I swirled my tongue over her skin and blew hot breath over it. She slid her hands down to my chest, and I had to spin her around quickly, preemptively, to avoid her touching my dick. “Hands on the wall,” I demanded using the voice that always got them to do what I wanted. “Spread your legs apart.” I helped her out by firmly wedging my knee between her thighs.

  “Oh,” she whispered her breath all choppy. “You’re one of those guys.”

  I didn’t say anything to confirm or deny. I knew what she thought, that I was some kind of dominant, but it wasn’t like that at all. My kind of kink didn’t fit into the stereotypical type of mold. Sex just wasn’t an emotional thing for me. It was more something I felt compelled to do to prove that what’d been done to me, what I’d been forced to do did not in any way, shape, or form define me.

  “I’ve got protection, babe,” I spoke low near her ear, my fingers inside her bra working their magic, tugging and twisting, elongating her nipples.

  She moaned again.

  Second base.

  “And I’m gonna take you from behind,” I informed her as if she didn’t already know, but I liked them to know, just to be sure. Everything laid out in advance, always consensual.

  I rewarded her with a kiss, unzipping her jeans and sliding my hand in to palm her sex.

  Third base.

  “Please,” she begged after only a couple of premeditated caresses. She was wet and ready.

  “Sure, baby.” I got myself out of my pants, the condom rolled on, pulled her jeans down, and shoved my dick inside.

  “Oh!”

  Not her voice, that exclamation.

  I turned my head in the direction of the sound, my eyes locking with April’s wide shocked ones. Her lips parted, but her body was totally still, almost like she couldn’t move or maybe she didn’t want to. The moment grew longer, the air grew hotter, thick with the heavy musk of sex. I lifted a taunting brow pinning April with a challenging stare while giving the bitch against the wall all she wanted.

  I could feel myself getting close. I didn’t mind an audience. I’d shared chicks with the other guys in the band sometimes. I’d tried just about everything once, some that I’d liked I’d tried twice. Discovered the best for me was the way I was doing it right now.

  Even better than any of it was staring into April’s shining eyes and pretending she was the one in front of me. I groaned as I came hard, harder than I could ever remember coming, and I moaned her name.

  “My name’s Brenda, not April,” the woman taking my dick clarified while grinding against my fingers pulsing with her own release.

  April spun into sudden motion, her hair swirling around her shoulders then trailing behind her like a fleeting spectre as she fled.

  Probably for the best.

  It might have been hottest thing I’d ever experienced in my life, but I knew that it had little to do with the voyeuristic aspect, and everything to do with the woman who’d run away from me.

  Again.

  “Was someone there?” Brenda asked turning to look at the spot April had just vacated.

  “Yeah,” I replied pulling out and taking care of things on my side. Why lie? She had just let me fuck her outside against a building. I seriously doubted that it bothered her.

  But I sure as hell knew that it had unsettled April.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  April

  For me, reason seemed to take a back seat where Dizzy Lowell was concerned. I found myself taking risks and doing things I know I shouldn’t, ignoring the alarms going off in my head. I needed to figure out a way to regain control, set those things he’d made me feel aside because I had no business feeling them in the first place. I needed to be wise and mature.

  But that was hard to do. I was envious of my best friend and the freedom she had. I wished I could rewind the hands of time, be nineteen again, and free to explore the intense longings Dizzy had awakened, but that was impossible, a childish fantasy like the tales I loved to spin.

  I felt my cheeks heat up again. I’d blushed every single time I remembered the scene I’d witnessed. I’d never been into watching other people have sex. But with him, I’d been so into it I’d been frozen in place.

  Because you wished he’d been doing you, and so did he.

  I shook my head to clear it of such fanciful notions, but it was no use. He stirred something in me. Something stripped down and raw. Something more real, more passionate than anything I had felt in my own bedroom in a long time, if ever.

  I still felt edgy, frustrated and unsatisfied, as I hurried up the walk. The hours on the long train ride back alone hadn’t done a thing to alleviate the desperate ache.

  My cell buzzed and lit up as I tiptoed quietly through the silent hallway. I stopped to text Mel back once more.

  Me: I’m fine. I’m home. Have fun. xoxox

  Mel: J

  Sliding my cell back into my pocket, head down, hair in my eyes, I turned the key and let myself into my apartment closing the door carefully behind me.

  “April.”

  I was so lost in thought I didn’t even register his voice at first.

  “You wanna tell me where the hell you’ve been for the past eight hours?”

  James.

  Shit.

  I looked into eyes molten with fury. I took a step back as he moved toward me with his usual lethal precision, arms reaching, a muscle ticking in his set jaw, the rest of his body coiled tight like a cobra about to strike.

  My rear hit the door. My heart flopped around in my chest like a helpless cornered thing. “I…”

  “Don’t you dare lie to me!” he roared, grabbing me under the arms and lifting my feet off the ground. I just stared at him, and he gave me a shake that rattled my brain. I cried out in fear, my lungs drowning in the scent of motorcycle exhaust and too much booze.

  “Answer me, bitch.” He set me down, and his fingers bit into my chin as he tilted my head back. How had I ever let myself be taken in by this man?

  “I was in Whistler,” I whispered blinking back the tears.

  “I got off work early and went by the Mine to see you.” What he really meant was that since things had cooled off with Rebecca, the woman he’d been banging for months, he’d wanted me as a substitute. “Imagine my surprise when they told me you weren’t there. That you weren’t even scheduled to work tonight.” His fingers dug into my flesh, giving me more bruises I’d have to hide in the morning.

  At least it’d be a week until I saw Mom again. Hopefully they’d be faded by then.

>   “Mel had a race,” I explained weakly. “She wanted me to be there. I was afraid you wouldn’t let me go.” My tiny voice sounded far away as I pulled back into myself separating my mind from the pain of his grip. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”

  “Yeah. You sure as fuck should’ve.” My husband was a hard man now. I held stubbornly onto the delusion that there’d been a time back when we were first married that he’d been sincerely in love with me, but that definitely wasn’t the case anymore. Now there was only disdain, the fire in his eyes represented warped lust not love. “Strip off your clothes. Get in the bed. Wait for me to come to you.”

  “James, please.” I never begged. It never worked, and I had a little pride left, no matter how much he degraded me. There was a tiny part of the old me I would never let him touch. I lifted my arms, my hands settling over the ones that were still hurting me. “Make love to me instead. The way you used to.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut as if the thought was extremely distasteful to him. He jerked free and I stumbled as he took a step back. He gave me a cold emotionless glare. “You know I can’t do it that way with you anymore.”

  I drew in a jagged breath feeling as alone as I ever had in a place that used to be a home, where I once felt safe and protected. No more.

  “I look at you and all I see is failure, and what we lost.” The breath exploded within my lungs like a fireball.

  “Ok.” I gulped, choking on the bitterness and self-loathing that rushed to the surface in response to his words. Because that’s what I saw when I woke up and looked at myself in the mirror each morning. That’s why I needed my job so badly. So I could be out of the apartment. Away from that closed door. Away from a place that he would never let me forget.