Naughty or Nice

by Rachael Stewart

  Pity for all that I’ve lost.

  Even without the knowledge of what really went down between Nate and I, she will pity me. She knows too much of my past, of my childhood and of what the Beaumonts meant to me.

  ‘Tell me.’

  Her voice is soft, coaxing, and her fingers reach out to stroke along my jaw, gentle and coaxing like her voice, her eyes, and I’m falling. I can feel it just as well as I can feel her touch upon me.

  ‘Lucas, please...’

  * * *

  I’m looking up at him, cradling his face, and I’m past the sexual magnetism of his sweat-slickened body that struck me so dumb downstairs. I’m all over what I can read in his eyes, in what his keeping that photograph means.

  ‘I’ve had ten years to wait for this.’

  It’s as if some kind of screen has lifted—as if I can see him clearly now and see him clearly then. So much emotion in his face. Did he feel something deeper for me all those years ago...something akin to what I felt...is he feeling it now?

  I can see the fight in him. He won’t speak. And suddenly I don’t need words. I need him. All of him.

  ‘Lucas...’ I whisper, my lashes already lowering and my body lifting onto my toes as my head tilts back to find his mouth.

  His body turns rigid, but he doesn’t push me away. I kiss the corner of his mouth, its hard line, his five o’clock shadow grazing me. His scent is musky and all man, and I’m high on it. Every sensation teases me, even the slightest press of my lips against him.

  He stays rock solid, unmoving, but I press on. I’m ready. For this...for whatever is to come. It feels right—he feels right.

  I keep my eyes hooked on his, my hand upon his cheek as I reach for his beer bottle, taking it from his unresisting fingers and placing it on the table at my hip. Nerves rear up inside me, mixing with the thrum of anticipation, but I want this. And I think—I know—he wants it too.

  I lift myself towards him again and gently nudge his mouth with my own. So hard, unrelenting. But I persist, taking what I’ve always wanted. Repeating the move, slow and coaxing. He tastes of beer, of him...

  ‘Evangeline... Don’t...’

  He sounds gruff, pained, and I look into his eyes, see need shining back at me shrouded in fear.

  ‘Don’t what, Lucas? Press you for answers...?’ My lips brush against his as I speak. ‘Or do this?’

  I tease the joining of his mouth with my tongue and his lashes flutter closed, his body shuddering on a stilted breath. And then he comes alive. His eyes open and there’s no hesitation, no fear, just the burning heat of desire as he forks his fingers in my hair and swings me back against the wall.

  The first sweep of his tongue against mine turns my body molten, and the explosive heat swirling in the pit of my stomach is mounting the further he invades, the harder he moves over me. Hungry, fierce, possessive.

  I match him move for move, telling him with my body what I want, what I need. No games, no taking control. This is about us. I feel as if I’m drowning in a multitude of emotions and sensations and I can’t cling to a single one. I’m hungry for them all.

  ‘If we let this go on I won’t stop,’ he says, intense.

  I drag him back to me, press my body into his hardness. ‘I don’t want you to stop—not ever.’

  Christ, that’s a sweeping statement, but I’m done holding back. I’m living for this moment.

  He breaks away from me completely and I look at him, pleading. Please... Don’t stop...not now...

  His eyes blaze at me and his jaw pulses with such tension. I know he wants me. I know it. I can feel it, for Christ’s sake.

  Before panic truly sets in, he grasps my hand and starts to stride away. I don’t know where we’re going and I don’t care. As long as we’re together...as long as we complete this.

  The foyer is vast, with several doors, and he pushes open the double doors that sit at the end.

  The master suite. His master suite.

  It’s masculine, stark, moody—so him.

  He releases my hand but is still walking as he drags his sports tee over his head. I am rooted, just watching him—every muscle that ripples, the trace of sweat, the strength of his arousal as he turns to me and kicks off his shoes, his socks, his shorts, his boxers—

  Oh, God.

  Heat assaults my gut. Sheer, intense heat.

  ‘You owe me a shower,’ he grinds out.

  My mouth is so dry I don’t think I can speak. Instead I lift my fingers to my blouse in answer and begin unbuttoning it. All the while I watch him. Watch how he follows my fingers and his cock lifts. A whimper sounds in my throat. I can’t contain it. I feel as if I’ll burst if I don’t have him soon.

  He draws in a breath, flexing his fists at his sides, and then he’s across the room before I know it, his hands on my blouse, parting it, thrusting it down my body. The force of the move spikes my libido, making my tummy contract with the rush.

  ‘Too slow,’ he complains, yanking it free of my wrists and tugging me against him so hard I gasp.

  The heat of his body sears my bare skin, my breasts surge within my bra and his impressive arousal presses between us, making the dull ache down low a pulsing knot.

  He reclaims my mouth, his tongue plundering, taking my all.

  ‘I can’t believe you kept this from me.’

  He says it between kisses, as if at any moment I might pull away, and I know he’s referring to my No Kissing rule.

  ‘You feel incredible. You taste incredible.’

  He sounds like a man half-starved, and I cling to him as he reaches down my back, his fingers grazing over my tingling skin to unzip my skirt. He forces it down my hips, letting gravity do the rest as he drops his hands to cup my arse, drawing me harder against him.

  He pulses between us, a growl erupting low in his throat, and I raise my leg to hook it around him, encouraging him closer, bringing his rigid length right up against my clit. Pleasure ripples through me, and his mouth swallows my moan as he keeps on kissing me.

  And I’m kissing him back. Intense, possessive. As if we’re branding one another with our claim.

  He drops his hand to cup my thigh and goes still, his forehead pressing into mine as he twists his head to look at where his hand is on me over the lace band of my hold-ups.

  ‘Fuck, Evangeline... You’re too sexy.’

  I laugh, almost delirious at hearing those words come from his lips. I’m dreaming, surely. But his hardness, his heat, his breath as it sweeps over my chest in ragged gusts is all real. Erotic, carnal and happening.

  He grabs my other leg and hauls me up against him, wrapping them around his waist. Then he’s moving, his mouth back on mine and his eyes on the direction in which we’re travelling. He strides across the room into the adjacent bathroom and presses me up against the cold tiles. My body shivers at the chill even as I worship the sensation: the cold at my back, his heat at my front...

  He reaches out to mess with a dial.

  Water pounds the marble floor, the sound blending with the rush of blood in my ears and the moans of sheer abandon that I’m barely aware of making. I hold his face in my hands. Gripping him to me. My mouth, my tongue are unable to get enough of this. And then he sets me down and tears his lips away to trace a searing path along my jaw, down my throat.

  I lean back against the wall, my body trembling with need as I arch into him, encouraging him lower, needing him lower, running my hands over his shoulders, down his back.

  He undoes the clasp of my bra and my breasts bloom, heat rushing to their tips as he eases the cups aside and the straps down. It falls to our feet as his hands roughly cup me, his mouth claiming one pleading bud, moving tantalisingly over it, his tongue flicking before drawing it in deep.

  Christ.

  I claw at his shoulders, my desire mounting, out of control
. ‘I need you.’

  He takes in the other nipple, his hands turning more urgent, his mouth unrelenting. We move against one another, our bodies building into a crazed rhythm.

  I reach for him, desperate to feel him, to ride him. My fingers close around his cock, its heat feeding into my palm as I draw my hand upwards. He hisses, throwing his head back, and I repeat the move, watching his efforts to fend off his climax so clearly building.

  And then he grabs at my wrist, pulling away. ‘Not again,’ he bites out, his fingers rough as he yanks my thong down.

  I step out of it and he turns to my high heels, stripping them off so swiftly I’m sent off balance. But his palm is there, on my torso, pinning me against the wall as he drops to his knees. The heat of his touch contends with the intense heat swelling out of control just beneath, and then his mouth is there, at the heart of it all, his tongue sweeping over my clit and making me buck, making me cry.

  His fingers smooth around my thighs, slipping beneath the tops of my hold-ups. He rolls them down, and all the while his tongue is circling my clit, gently goading me, driving me crazy.

  He lifts one foot to pull the nylon free, then the other, but he doesn’t stand. He’s too busy feasting off me, his hands coming up to part me, to give his mouth, his tongue, deeper access, and I know I’m going to come. I can feel it building in my limbs.

  But I want him inside me. I want all of him when I do.

  I pull at him, my nails running up his shoulders. ‘No, not like this.’

  His voice rumbles over me. He doesn’t agree.

  ‘Lucas.’

  Something in my voice makes him pause and he leans back on his haunches, looking up at me. I’m wondering why the hell I stopped him, but...

  ‘I need you inside me.’

  The pulse works in his jaw and then he’s on his feet, striding away.

  What the fuck?

  He’s back in seconds, sheathing himself, and the sight of his fingers moving masterfully over his erection is so fucking erotic, even as I acknowledge that he’s had the sense to get protection when I didn’t.

  I start backing into the shower, pulling the pins from my hair, undoing my hair tie, dropping them to the floor. All the while my eyes are fixed on his, taunting him to come and get me.

  Water rushes over my body and I tilt my head back, lifting my fingers to comb through my hair. And then his own are upon mine, completing the move. His lips claim me, hard and demanding. Water runs between us, slips into our mouths, our eyes. His cock presses against my stomach, stoking the fierce ache within.

  ‘Please, now,’ I beg.

  He runs his hands down my body in answer, cupping my thighs to lift me against him.

  I encircle his waist and he takes himself in his hand between us, positioning himself, positioning me. His look of concentration damn near pushes me over. And then he’s there, his tip nudging at my entrance, and I clamp down on my lower lip as I take his sweet invasion. He’s slow, measured, his restraint taking all his effort, and I know he doesn’t want to hurt me. He wants it to be right.

  I move over him, coaxing him further, deeper, stretching to take him. More. More. Until he fills me completely and I moan, contracting around him even as he stills, his breath hissing between his teeth. He’s trembling, fighting for control. But I don’t want his control. I want his total abandon.

  I nip his lower lip with my teeth, drawing his mouth back to me, pushing his concentration away, and I undulate over him, slowly at first, using my every yoga-toned muscle to guide him, tease him.

  And then he’s moving, taking the driving seat. He forces me back against the wall, his rigid length riding my clit from within as he pumps harder, faster. Our teeth clash, our tongues twist, our kiss as erotic as the action below.

  Yes. Yes. Yes.

  Pleasure radiates from my toes up and the muscles of my legs tighten as it builds. I can’t move now. He drives it all as ecstasy renders my body immobile and then it erupts, shaking through my entire body as I cry out. He thrusts deeper, his own cry drowning out my own, and he loses it with me.

  It’s so perfect, so utterly right. But even as I come down from the crest of the wave, my legs still hooked around him, now limp with release, I know that’s a fanciful notion.

  Because whatever his words mean, whatever his keeping the photo means, whatever the cause of his fallout with Nate, it doesn’t change the fact that my family won’t accept him. They won’t accept this. I doubt even Lucas will accept it when all is said and done.

  And if that’s the case, what the hell am I doing fantasising about the impossible? Teasing myself with what if...?

  He brushes his lips against my neck, his caress soft and barely there, and my thoughts fragment, disperse as sensation takes over...

  ‘I could get lost in you, Evangeline.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I FEEL HER tense around me.

  Fuck.

  I curse my mammoth mouth.

  What the hell is wrong with me? I don’t ever speak without thinking first. Yet she’s done this to me, with the turnaround in her no kissing rule and what it means to her, to me. There’s no way in hell I would usually say anything as sentimental, as deep as that—not if I’d taken the time to think first.

  It was impulsive, reckless.

  There can be no getting lost for me in anyone. Especially her. A Beaumont. The one woman with the power to crucify me, to rip my heart out and leave me stranded. Lost. I’ve been that person. I won’t be like that again.

  ‘What did you say?’

  She encourages my head up and I shut my expression down with a grin. ‘Nothing.’

  She’s frowning at me and I spin her into the water flow. It’s noisy in here—noisy enough for her to doubt she heard me right. I cling to that, setting her down on her feet.

  ‘Let me get rid of this... Stay here.’

  I stride out of the shower, avoiding my reflection in the mirrors that run along one wall as if my reflection will only incriminate me further. There’s a bin in the bathroom but I don’t use it. I keep going until I’m in my bedroom and I can take a steadying breath out of sight, take a few seconds to gather my wits before I face her again.

  Lost...

  It wasn’t a lie.

  My lungs contract, my chest aches. I strip off the condom and toss it in the wastebin beside the dressing table. My reflection in the mirror above it catches me, and I see the torrent of emotion in my face.

  But it’s just sex. It has to be.

  Sex now. Work later. The end.

  I’d laugh if it wasn’t so brutal. So impossible to think of bringing an end to this thing between us.

  She appears in the entrance to my bathroom, a towel wrapped around her, her brows drawn together, and I shut everything down under the wave of warmth the sight inspires.

  ‘I said stay there.’ I stride towards her, swinging her up into my arms.

  She laughs in surprise, her hands hooking around my neck. ‘I thought you’d run out on me.’

  I look into her face, my grin purposefully easy. ‘Would I do that?’

  There’s a moment’s hesitation in her face and then I’m kissing her, pushing out everything else as I walk straight back into the shower, uncaring of the towel still wrapped around her.

  ‘Lucas...’ She pants as she presses me away, her eyes dancing. ‘The towel...’

  I look down at it. ‘Ah, well, too late now.’

  I set her down and strip it from her, tossing it aside as I flick my wet hair from my eyes and take her in my arms. Her flushed skin is wet, and marked where I’ve been, and a primal surge of possessiveness assaults me, winds me.

  Her eyes flicker beneath the droplets of water, as if she’s read it all, and she lifts her palm to my chest. ‘Keep looking at me like that and I’ll think it’s me you’re wanting for
dinner.’

  I comb her hair back from her face, the water with it. ‘How about actual food for dinner and you for dessert?’

  Her smile is soft, and she lowers her eyes—to avoid the run of the water or to hide, I’m not sure. And I do the one thing I know to bring her back to me and get the answer I want. I kiss her. Slow and teasingly. Until she’s kissing me back and her hands are holding tight.

  Then I break away. ‘Deal?’

  ‘Deal...’ she breathes.

  I draw her tight against me, feeling her approval upping the rush of my desire. I know I have to let the real world back in soon, but for now it can stay the hell away.

  * * *

  Reality comes sooner than I expect or want—in the shape of her blasted smartwatch again. I want to rip it from her. Insist she put it away, and her phone with it.

  We’re sitting on my living room floor, not too far from recreating a scene from our teens, with Chinese takeaway boxes strewn across my coffee table. She’s in one of my T-shirts, her hair loosely piled atop her head, her face clean and glowing from our hot shower and the multitude of heated acts since. I’m on one side of the table and she is on the other, stretched out and perfect.

  Save for that damn watch.

  She looks at it and that frown is back.

  ‘I assume it’s your watch and not the food doing that?’

  ‘Hmm...?’ She looks at me, distracted, and I lean over to touch her brow, smoothing it.

  ‘The frown?’

  She gives me a look which I interpret as an apology and wraps her legs beneath her as she takes up a spring roll. She’s forcing a calmness she doesn’t feel—I know it. But I’m silent, pressing.

  She takes a bite and the food breaks into her mouth, vegetable strands escaping as she licks them up. Her dainty tongue is efficient and far more sexual than it has any right to be. She’s doing it on purpose—trying to distract me, I’m sure.