STORY EXCERPT

Something cold and smooth touched her skin just below her ear, an area she internally admitted was prone to hypersensitivity. His fingers? Her eyes veered to the corner. Cue stick! Talking while having his hands occupied seemed impossible a feat for the man, so she waited for him to finish his exploration with the stick. His whisper, when it came, was much too close to where the stick had been. “You’re a big girl, that’s obvious enough.”

Oh God! Was that his tongue against her flesh? No, it was too cold. She turned slightly. Beer bottle. “I’m not here to discuss my age. I must return before I am missed.”

“If you made it known you were with me, no one would be expecting you back so soon. I do not hit and run.”

The cold moisture was being wiped away by warmth. His lips? She looked again. The back of his hand. This was becoming more infuriating by the second. He was igniting a fuse within her, and she was not sure she would be able to control the inferno once the flame took hold. Who was she kidding? The flame was already raging. “Kidnapping is a criminal offense.” Her voice wavered uncertainly. This decadent tremor she was fighting was not something she was experienced at.

“You came to me, remember. What were you looking for, Lucy Hewitt?”

Her last name reminded her fully. She had gone in search of herself. Stupidly, she had thought a night of passion would clear her mind just the way cough mixture cleared away an itchy throat. But this was not a quick fix. And even though this wasn’t a solution at all, it was fast becoming addictive. “I wanted to see for myself the legendary master.”

But his touches were not so expert. For one thing, he remained both silent and motionless overlong and she eventually peeked over her shoulder. From his advantaged height, he appeared to be staring down at her bosom spilling over her top. So much for Kings and masterful seduction. He was ogling her like a schoolboy. Not that the attention was not setting off unwelcome jitters in her.

He whispered almost reverently, “He certainly did a fine job.”

Lucy blinked and followed the path of his gaze. It was still focused on her cleavage. Was he talking about God? Unsure how to respond, she chose the middle ground. “Mm.”

Suddenly his fingers trailed the length of her neck, running all the way from her ear to the tender creases at her arm. Lucy shivered. She didn’t have to look to know those were his fingers. They were callused and intensely hot. His lips lowered and followed the delicious path of his fingers. Kiss. “You taste as good as you look.” Nibble. “No, even better.” Suckle. “They feel so real.”

Lucy leaned into the warmth of his broad presence behind her. He felt better than she had expected. She allowed rational thought to intervene. What did he mean? What felt so real? Oh God! His hands were covering her breasts. She had been so focused on what his mouth had been doing she had forgotten about his hands. He could do two things at the same time. How extraordinary. She couldn’t even stand, let alone do much else. But how odd. “Why shouldn’t they feel real?” Her voice broke as her throat closed, undecided on whether it was parched but needing to swallow the dryness nonetheless.

“Guess not. Must have spent a fortune getting them just right.” His hands kneaded and cupped her heavy orbs through the tight tank top.

Hold on just a cotton-picking minute. “Are you implying that these”—she juggled her chest assets—“were fitted?”

“They ain’t made naturally this perfect.”

Well, now was there a compliment in there somewhere? Unfortunately, the somewhere proved to be too miniscule for her to pinpoint. She pushed out of his embrace. “They are as real as God made them, you jerk.”

Ryan’s eyebrows rose all the way to his hairline. At least she thought so. They disappeared beneath the rugged edges of shiny mahogany. “Are you implying you were blessed with those?”

That did it! She was not going to stand around and have her body mentally dissected and evaluated. “Get something straight, Ryan. My breasts are exactly in the state they were given to me in by God, not some needle, scissors, and thread-wielding surgeon. Now I resent…”

“Oh!” His eyes zoomed in again for what appeared to be a new analysis. “It’s just that they are the most perfect pair of hooters I have ever come across.”

Now what was she to say about that? There was definitely a compliment. Too bad he coated it in his own variety of shit first. “Take my word for it, they’re real.”

His eyes drifted further down. “And that scrumptious rump, too? How real are those hot buns?”

Whack! He must have had trouble registering the sound because he suddenly looked around. The crimson spreading across his face must have been backed with sufficient pain, giving him the vital clue he was lacking. His jaw sagged, very, very slowly. And he had had the damn audacity to call her slow. He could not even tell when he’d been slapped.

“Was that fucking real enough for you?” Irrationally, as she fled the scene of her violence, she wondered about how he conversed less vulgarly when drunk than sober. And worse still, how she was fast adapting a habit for bad language. The man was not a good influence, and he certainly fell short of what his reputation proclaimed him to be. How disappointing.

ADULT EXCERPT

He was wild and ferocious looking, and she wanted to be the game he hunted down and ravaged. Just as she thought she was going to have to beg, she felt her sweater being lifted from the sides. It was not Ryan’s hands. His were firmly gripping her thighs.

Kale. Lucy sighed as his smooth lips touched her bare shoulder blade. Staring into Ryan’s eyes, she lifted her arms as Kale pulled her top off completely. She’d opted to leave her matching bra in her drawer, and she was now so glad she did. Ryan’s eyes flared at the sight displayed before him. Lucy inhaled sharply, expecting his hands to cover the puckered nipples. God, and his mouth. But once again he surprised her.

His hands moved, but not in the expected direction. They stroked the bare skin at her hips before grabbing the loose waistband of her pants. The front was now gaping open. Lucy levered her legs, trying to help the material off, but without warning, she was lifted back instead. She was literally dragged out of her jeans as Kale pulled her all the way back to lean against a solid support, his hard chest.

Lucy stared down aghast as Ryan smiled wickedly and tossed the material aside. First his one knee hit the bed then the other. Then he was slowly making his crawl to her. She watched helplessly as he forged a path between her legs. Like a panther, sleek and graceful, he stalked.

Her eyes widened as his knees reached her center, and his hand reached out for the glass now held by Kale. Lucy blinked. When had he taken it from her? Thank God he had, otherwise she would have showered Ryan with its contents during that earth-shifting kiss. The drizzle of cold liquid down her torso stopped all further speculations as she gasped aloud.

Ryan handed the glass back to Kale. With the sly grin widening, he kept his eyes locked with hers as he leaned down and lapped at the wine that had pooled between her breasts. Lucy arched back, offering him her quivering mounds. Unable to keep the eye contact, she was bowed so high and taut and now shadowed beneath the shelter of her own mountain range, her eyes drifted shut. His tip of his tongue, now chilled by the wine, snaked its way along her concave curved body down to her belly. Her eyes sprung open. Not once had he touched her breasts.

Ryan had bypassed them as though they were not two oversized ripe-for-the-plucking papayas that sent out a desperate SOS to any hot-blooded man’s senses. She knew this because boys and men alike always ogled her lush assets, most even salivated visibly. And given half a chance, they wanted to squeeze those melons and test God only knew what. But Ryan’s reaction was something foreign to her. It was unexpected, peculiar but most appreciated. The fact that he had made his fascination with her boobs blatantly obvious, even earning a slap for his attentions previously, and his now intentional avoidance of them, made her feel like she was more than just a pair of luscious breasts and swaying ass cheeks. Another first in her life.

His tongue swirled around the recently acquired ring attached to her newly pierced belly button. His voice rumbled as his teeth latched onto the dainty silver loop. “I like this very much.”

So did she. If he would lavish as much attention on other piercings, she wouldn’t mind having her nipples and clit punched full of holes as well. Pain intermingled with pleasure as he sucked on the jewel. But all too soon, he was making his way further down.

Just as she was thanking the stars she still had her panties on, he reached for the lace edge. The elastic stretched as he pulled it down her legs. Lucy panicked. Let alone her lack of experience with two men, she had never made love with her every secret open and readily visible to a lover before. But as she attempted a futile protest, Kale’s hands crept around her rib cage.

He seemed to have no compunction with touching her breasts. His callused hands covered the swollen orbs, and his fingers immediately set about taunting the erect peaks. But he, too, deviated from her previous experiences. Men lunged at her chest, seemingly wanting to drown in it, but Kale’s caresses were tender, almost reverent. Irrationally, Lucy wondered again about the magic glass that disappeared at will. Heat speared straight from the engorged tips that were stabbing at Kale’s palms to the core of her womanhood, and instead of hampering Ryan, she was now encouraging him with urgent thrashing of her hips.

He peeled the scant scrap down her legs with infinite care, but once the fabric was successfully over her pointed toes, he contradicted his careful ministration by tossing the item over his shoulder. His patience, it seemed, was reserved only for her. His touch between her legs, when it came, was light and feathery.

Lucy writhed against Kale, falling under the spell he was casting with his hands. He placed openmouthed kisses down the side of her throat as his hands continued to work their magic on her excited nipples. The sound of a man’s harsh breaths panting in her ear while watching another so far down the length of her body was erotic beyond imagination. It reminded her fully that she was being ravished by two strapping, mouthwateringly masculine, undeniable experts in this field. They worked together, complementing and compensating each other’s moves to perfection and in rhythmic symmetry.

Ryan spread her legs further, leaving her open and vulnerable to his gaze and wandering fingers. “You once asked what Venus Butterfly was.”

Lucy swallowed. She had. He had explained but now, finally she would truly know. She nodded.

He brought up both his hands.