by Kaye, Nikky
“You staying with your parents?” I asked. Yeah, I was dawdling.
He shrugged. “It depends.”
On what?
I was torn between sprinting for my next flight and climbing into his carry-on bag and sniffing the t-shirt he’d stashed there. It was time to go though. Dammit, I should have “accidentally” packed one of his shirts in my bag.
“Well, um, see you?”
“Get some sleep, okay?” he said. “I’ll text you later.”
Quickly, I stretched to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Thanks for asking me to be your travel buddy. It was…” Mind-blowing? Stinky? “Fun.”
“Thank you.” It was another reminder I was doing him a favor with this whole fake engagement thing.
I tried to smile. “Bye.”
As I turned to begin my trek across the airport, Dev growled and grabbed my hand. Twirling me back to him, he then kissed the ever-loving life out of me.
In the back of my mind I knew that his embrace was a show for social media vultures, but he was very thorough.
His mouth was warm and hard, demanding a response from me that would be inappropriate for an airport setting. Desire welled up in me so quickly that it must have been close to the surface the whole time. I whimpered into his mouth, my body going up in flames.
It was just a kiss, but it was like oxygen to me.
We hadn’t made lo—had sex? fucked? since before Goa, and even though it was only a few days, I already missed the way Dev’s body felt against mine. The way he teased me with his tongue and fingers, his dark eyes laughing as he brought me to climax after climax, until I was begging for his cock. The way he stopped laughing when I took him in my mouth, all the way.
His carry-on bag fell to the ground as he gripped me tighter. Closer. I’d like to say he bent me back like the movie kiss I expected earlier, but I was unsteady and my backpack was tipping me over. His arms locked around my waist, embracing me so closely that I could easily feel his arousal.
Like I said, inappropriate for the airport.
It was over too soon. He stepped back. Straightened me out. Picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. He smirked at me as he swung it to the front, like a teenager hiding an erection behind a binder.
“Is that the compulsive kissing you mentioned in Vegas?” I asked breathlessly.
He gave me a crooked smile. “I guess you’ll find out next time I see you.” Then he spun me back around and pushed on my backpack to get me moving.
When I looked back ten seconds later, he was gone.
Now it was Black Friday and Dev Sharpe was the door-crasher event I’d been waiting for.
In the previous couple of weeks, I’d spent some time going through my pictures and even got up the guts to start a blog. I hadn’t told anyone yet, but I got a thrill every time my stats showed a new organic visitor. I’d written about the beginner adult traveler. I had a million air miles and only one stamp in my passport. God knows I could have used some advice before my trip; maybe I could give other newbies some tips.
I never really believed people when they talked about travel being a life-changing experience. I mean, come on—you’re the same person, just in a foreign country. So you eat strange food and see new things. It’s not like it rewires your brain or anything, right?
When I came back from India I felt different, though, and not just because of the eight pounds I lost from food poisoning. That was all water weight, anyhow.
Could anyone see a change in me? I wondered. My brother grunted and said he was just relieved I came back in one piece. Shannon gave me a big hug and then cornered me while I was unpacking to pry details out of me. Maybe it was those details that had transformed me.
Sure, I still didn’t have a job, and I was living at home again, but at least now I knew what really, really great sex was like.
My legs stretched in front of me in skinny jeans and I toyed with the cuff of my red sweater. I’d found it in the back of my closet, and I had a vague recollection of wearing it on the last Christmas Eve that Dev had come over.
When I’d flirted with him.
When I’d blushed over him.
When I’d fantasized about him in my bed that night.
Just then the man of my dreams rang the doorbell.
Through the glass in the front door, his tall form shimmered like a mirage of an oasis in the desert—and I was thirsty. Since playing it cool had never been my strong suit, I popped up and strode forward to throw open the door.
“Hi!”
Dev grinned and stepped into the house. He wore a red fleece jacket and some cargo pants. The temperature outside was hovering above freezing, but the wind made it seem colder.
“Hi, Audrey.” The friendly, brotherly half-hug he gave me was disappointing.
“Uh, can I take your jacket?”
“Thanks.” He stripped it off to reveal a long-sleeved gray athletic shirt that just skimmed his body. It was plain, modest, and probably made of Kryptonite. My cheeks heated as I hung up his jacket. He toed off his shoes then shoved his hands in his pockets.
We looked at each other. It was so quiet I could hear my mom’s old clock ticking in the adjacent living room. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Awwwkward.
“Where are Brett and Shannon?” he finally asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Where else? At the mall.”
“So we’re all alone.”
“Yup. Sor—mmmph!”
Dev swallowed my answer, striking like a snake. His mouth seized mine, devouring me, while his hands swept up and down my back and hips. Lower.
When he lifted his head he was breathless, and I was downright dizzy. I clung to him because I was afraid I would otherwise fall. My breasts pressed hard against his muscular chest.
“Too fucking long,” he gritted out. “Why did that feel so fucking long?”
“Huh?”
“Since I last saw you.”
Too fucking long was right. “I missed you,” I confessed.
He captured my lips again, this time more gently. The combination of his hot mouth and his cold hands sliding underneath the hem of my sweater made me moan.
“When…” Kiss. “Are…” Kiss. “They…” Kiss. “Coming…” Kiss. “Back?”
I tried to think. What time was it now? “Few hours, maybe?”
Under my sweater, his hands rose to cup my breasts. My nipples pressed through the lace of my bra, and I gasped as he flicked them with his thumbs.
“Bedroom, now.” It was not a request.
“Uh…”
“Unless you want to desecrate your parents’ living room, Audrey, you’d better get that gorgeous ass upstairs.” His hands fell out of my sweater and squeezed aforementioned ass.
I took his hand and led him up the stairs to my room. The sofa bed was open, the quilt crumpled at the bottom and my sleep shirt piled on the pillow.
“It’s not quite what I imagined,” he said. “Where are the Justin Bieber posters?”
I shoved him. “Bite your tongue! Bieber? Really?” But I decided not to tell him about the Twilight shrine in the closet though.
When Dev’s knees nudged the bed, it bumped the computer desk. My big brother’s screen-saver came to life—a picture of my parents.
“Turn that off,” he said as he unceremoniously peeled off my cherry-red sweater.
“They liked you, you know.” Looking at their picture, I didn’t feel as sad as I normally did. I switched off the monitor.
“I liked them too,” he said, his eyes dark as he flicked open the button of his cargo pants, “but I still don’t want them watching me fuck their little girl.”
Oh. Well. In that case…
In a flurry of activity, we got rid of our clothes.
Dev yelped as he nailed his knee on the metal frame of the sofa bed, and I winced at the creaking sound as I scooted my naked ass back on the bed.
There were no flowers, no candles, and no seductive music. Hell, the overhead li
ght was on. But when he lowered himself over me and took my face in his hands, my stomach quivered. Even if the setting was ordinary, his intentions were carnal, intimate, and romantic as fuck.
“I missed you, too,” he whispered as he sank into me.
“Oh god.” My eyes closed reflexively, my back arching as my body stretched around him. I winced a little as he swelled further inside me.
He stilled. “You okay?”
“Mmmm.”
“I gotta move, baby,” he ground out.
I opened my eyes and reached up to comb my fingers through the dark hair flopping over his forehead. His jaw was tight, his lips parted and his breathing shaky.
He was waiting for me. He’d always been waiting for me.
“Love me, Dev.” My hands clamped over his lean hips, urging him to take me with abandon—which he did.
With every stroke, my nerve endings sparked with pleasure. He reached into every part of me and pulled my emotions to the surface like tiny green shoots breaking through topsoil.
Who cared if the sofa bed springs shrieked? Who cared if he was taller than the mattress was long? Who cared if my sleep shirt fell through the crack to the floor? Our coming together felt… fated, like an adolescent fantasy come to life—only so, so much better.
“Look at me, Audrey.”
I did. It was impossible not to. The gravity in his eyes pinned me to the bed as neatly as his body did. I could have been fully dressed and still feel naked under his obsidian gaze. “Dev, I—”
“It’s real, okay? This is real.”
The lump in my throat grew. So did the tendrils of pleasure creeping through me… until it was too much. I cried out as I clutched him tightly, my orgasm choking me.
“God, you’re beautiful when you come,” he grunted. Grinned with pride as I rode it out.
He sped up, his hips moving like pistons as he chased his own climax. It seemed like he was close, but then he slowed again and snaked his hand between us.
“Can I make you come again?” he wondered out loud. More rhetorical questions.
His movements were choppier and his thrusts shallower. As he began to stiffen and swell further, his fingers frayed my oversensitive nerve endings until I cried out again. Then he let go, our pulses synchronizing in some dark, secret place inside of me.
We rocked together until our heartbeats slowed. I felt light as a bubble. I was a glass of champagne, like I had in Vegas before I first saw him again, a million years ago. After a few minutes of snuggling, I thought Dev had fallen asleep.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into my neck before rolling onto his back.
“For what?” My heart only stuttered a little. My faith in him was deepening, my self-confidence growing.
“I forgot the foreplay.”
I giggled as I put my head on his chest. I loved the way it moved up and down when he breathed. Dev glanced around the room.
“You know,” he mused, “I’m not sure which would be more of a mood-killer—Justin Bieber or your parents watching us.”
I thwacked him. “Nobody’s watching us, you idiot. I don’t even have a pet.”
“I still feel like… I don’t know… like this is naughty.”
I raised an eyebrow. We weren’t exactly playing a board game. “It is naughty.”
“No, I mean like ‘sneaking into your room in high school’ kind of naughty.”
“You never did that.” God, I wished. “Besides, you’re the exhibitionist who doesn’t care who sees your ass,” I teased.
He propped himself up on his elbows, an affronted expression on his face. “Maybe I care about who gets to see yours.”
“Awww. That’s sweet. But I wouldn’t worry.” I patted his eight-pack. “You’re the only one interested in it, unless Brett has a webcam on the computer. Maybe we just became part of some crazy, live sex channel online.”
Dev laughed.
I covered a dramatic gasp with my hand then took it away. “Think of the social media impact!” Frown. “Though I think this is more Tumblr material than Twitter.”
“Well, shit.” He gave the dark monitor on the desk a sidelong glance. “I’ll just have to do better. I didn’t make you scream enough.”
It didn’t take him long to wriggle to the bottom of the bed. He lifted my legs onto his shoulders and turned his head to nuzzle the soft inside of my knee. Then, with a devilish smirk, he burrowed back toward me.
Then he paused at the juncture of my thighs, his hot breath and anticipation making me squirm.
“But seriously, Audrey…”
I looked down at him, my chest tight. “I-I didn’t think this—” I waved my hand over where he hovered. “—was a joke, exactly.”
He grinned and bent his head for a lightning-quick taste.
“Oh!”
“Do I have your attention now?” he asked.
“Mmm hmmm.”
“Remember at the airport? When I said it wasn’t the right time or place?”
My mouth fell open. “Now? This is the time and place?”
Not that having his head between my legs was a bad place to be, but he kind of had me on the ropes here. If he said something I didn’t like, what was I going to do? When I frowned at him, he simply shrugged and touched his tongue to my dripping core again.
“Ahhh!”
“I know you said you wanted a casual thing,” he continued, “but I’d like to take things a bit more… seriously.”
My head spun. Somewhere in my mind I’d already gone past casual with him, but there was a part of me that was freaked out by the idea of a real relationship.
Dev Sharpe could hurt me way more than Darren did, and that was saying a lot. I hadn’t even been one hundred percent truthful with Dev about how everything with my ex-boyfriend went down. Surely I’d have to tell him all that before we could even try to—wait a minute.
“But you live in LA now.”
“People do long distance all the time,” he said. “Why can’t we?”
“It’s that simple, huh?” I looked up at the popcorn ceiling, not sure if I wanted to laugh or cry.
“No, but technology makes it easier. Besides, I’m always traveling anyhow.”
“So wouldn’t that make it harder to see each other?”
“You have a whole bunch of air miles,” he pointed out. “You could come with me. Take pictures. See the world.”
As unforgettable as India was, the prospect of being Dev’s second piece of carry-on luggage on every trip didn’t fill me with excitement.
“Audrey…” I felt his sigh against my core. “Shit.” Another sigh.
I looked down at him. “What?”
He reached for my hand—the one with his ring on it, in all its cubic zirconia glory. “Audrey, I’m kind of falling for you. No. No, I am. I am falling for you.”
Oh my god.
I didn’t know what to say. It was my greatest hope and fear all mixed up together. I stared at the ceiling again.
The romantic teenager in me was jumping up and down and going ‘squee!’ The woman I was now, though… Once burned, twice shy—I was afraid to love, afraid to lose.
Then again, six months ago I never would have shared my pictures or started a blog. Maybe I was becoming a different person—a stronger person—with Dev by my side. Although, at the present moment, Dev was less ‘by my side’ and more… centrally located.
Yep, my big romantic, movie moment was happening between my spread legs.
“You’re not saying anything.”
A noise that sounded almost like a laugh tripped over my lips. “You sure know how to pick your time and place, don’t you?” I smiled down at him through watery eyes.
The corner of his mouth turned up. “How about this? You can consider my proposal while I make you come again.”
Another proposal.
My eyes narrowed at him. “That’s not exactly fair.”
“Life isn’t fair. Get over it.”
And he lowered
his head and got to work.
21
Dev
I was pawing through the leftover turkey in my parents’ kitchen when my mother pinned me with a look. Like, a mom look.
“What?”
She frowned at me. “Dev, what are you doing?”
“Making a sandwich?” I stood back and surveyed everything I’d pulled from the fridge.
Instead of helping me, she reached around me and yanked the bread away. “You have a swimsuit shoot coming up.”
“Jesus, Mom, you sound like my agent.”
“At least he gets fifteen percent,” she said.
I rolled my eyes, but knew she was right. Too many carbs would make the shoot harder to prep for. A moment on the lips, a lifetime of Photoshop manips.
Someday, I thought. Someday I would make a living from my brain, not my body. Don’t get me wrong, the money was good, and it was nice to travel and all that shit. But I sure didn’t see myself still doing this in five years.
Then again, what did I see myself doing in five years?
“I mean, what are you doing with Audrey?” my mother asked.
“Huh?”
“I follow you, Dev.”
Shit. Who taught her how to use the Internet?
“Brett told me you’re not really engaged, but I don’t understand. Are you dating?”
Were we dating? Considering that I had told Audrey I was falling for her, it was a fair assumption. But what should I tell my parents? I tried to stall, carefully wrapping my turkey in a lettuce bun like it was the Shroud of Turin. If I could tell my fake fiancée I wanted something more serious, surely I could tell my mother?
When I didn’t respond, she sighed and went to the stove to get her pan for making tea. The familiar sound of her dragging her tin of spices over the counter and opening it made me think of India.
Audrey in India—the taste of her skin, her throaty laugh, and the flash of the ring on her finger.
“I guess we’re dating.” My voice rose at the end, like it was a question. What was considered “dating” these days, anyhow? I’d known people whose Facebook status was “in a relationship” even though they’d never met in person.
She made an infuriatingly non-committal sound, her back to me. “I see.”
