Inked on Paper

by Nicole Edwards

  I knew in that moment that what was about to happen between us wasn’t a typical hookup. Not for me, anyway. I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing at this point, nor could I bring myself to care.

  We remained like that, sharing breaths until the elevator chimed, signaling the arrival at my floor. Taking her hand, I pulled her into the hallway, then led her to my door. Once inside, I took her coat, along with mine, and tossed them somewhere in the direction of the sofa.

  Everything that happened after that melded into one single moment in time. I backed her against the door, cupped her face in my hands once more, and stared into her eyes, waiting for her to come to her senses, to tell me she’d changed her mind. Only that never happened and the next thing I knew, my mouth was on hers. She was kissing me back, with a passion and urgency I hadn’t felt before. It was as though we couldn’t get enough of each other, couldn’t get where we needed to be fast enough.

  Neither of us said a word as she toed off her boots, and I helped her discard her leggings. I would’ve preferred to get her completely naked, but I suddenly didn’t have the patience to deal with it.

  Rather than move things to the sofa, I kept her pressed up against the door while she worked the button on my jeans free, then lowered the zipper. With our mouths still fused together and her soft hands releasing my dick, I fumbled for my wallet and retrieved a condom. Without looking, I rolled it on while she continued to work me with her hand.

  Wanting in on the action, I slid my hand between her thighs and found her wet and ready for me. Pushing one finger inside her, I teased her while I continued to kiss her, to consume her.

  When she released a soft cry, the sexy sound went straight to my head. I lifted her off her feet, and she wrapped her legs around me as I guided myself into her. Nudging the head of my cock past the tight entrance to her body, I sucked in a breath, pulling my mouth from hers briefly.

  “Inside me,” she pleaded.

  I did as she requested, pushing inside, her pussy squeezing my dick as we attempted to get in a better position. Things were moving fast, much faster than I’d anticipated, but I couldn’t slow down. There were so many things I wanted to do to her, most of them involved exploration with my mouth and tongue, but we were both frantic, desperate.

  Being inside her was the only thing I needed, and since we’d already passed go, there was no turning back now.

  “Fuck. Presley…” I hissed, the heat of her pussy enveloping me as I pushed inside her while her tongue slid against mine.

  Words weren’t spoken; the only sounds were our labored breaths and the slap of skin against skin, a few desperate moans mixed in along the way. It was quick and dirty, and still quite possibly the best sex I’d had in my entire life.

  “Don’t stop,” she pleaded when I tried to pull back, needing to look at her even if the only light was coming from the kitchen, wanting a connection of some sort to prove to myself that this was real.

  Presley didn’t allow it, her arms snaking around my neck, pulling me back to her so that our mouths were once again fused together in a kiss so erotic I damn near came from that alone.

  With one hand cupping her ass and holding her up with the help of the wall, I managed to grip her thigh with my other hand, shifting her leg and changing the angle as I thrust into her hard, fast, deep. Fuck, it was so damn good. I hadn’t a fucking clue what was different about this woman, but I knew something was. It was a feeling, something foreign that felt so right.

  Presley’s hands slid down my back as she attempted to pull me closer. Wanting to give her what she needed, I continued to roll my hips, filling her over and over as sweat beaded on my forehead.

  Damn it. I never wanted it to end. I would be content to die right here in this woman’s arms, buried to the hilt inside her while her pussy gripped me tightly.

  Pumping my hips, I picked up speed, needing to send her over before I lost the last vestiges of my control. She was more than I’d anticipated and I still didn’t know why.

  I growled her name, pulling my mouth from hers and burying my face in her neck as I felt my control snap, the tingling in the base of my spine signaling my release was inevitable. Repositioning once more, somehow, I managed to snake my hand between our bodies, my thumb finding her clit and pressing against her as she bucked against me.

  “Yes,” she cried out. “God, yes!”

  Her entire body went rigid, a strangled cry coming from her chest, and I knew she was coming. I would’ve preferred that she tell me, but I could sense that she was holding back. I grunted once more, unable to contain myself a second longer. I slammed into her one last time, coming harder than I’d ever come in my life.

  But as fantastic as those few minutes had been, I knew instantly that the night was over. There would be no more kisses, no more petting, no more … anything.

  I pulled back enough to look at Presley. She had her head turned, her attention somewhere else. Securing the condom, I pulled out of her, helped her back to her feet, then took my time going to dispose of it. I knew it wouldn’t matter if I took one minute or ten…

  When I returned, Presley was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Presley

  “Are you happy now, Blaze?” I muttered to myself as I slipped out of Jake’s apartment after hurriedly pulling on my leggings, grabbing my boots, and stuffing my panties in the pocket of my coat. Without looking back, I raced down the hall to my condo.

  I hated walking out on Jake, but I knew if I’d stayed, things would’ve been awkward.

  What had happened between us, although fantastic, had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. A lapse in judgment on both our parts and I definitely didn’t want to impose on him. Guys like Jake preferred their women gone before they had to make conversation, even I knew that much.

  An hour later, after taking a shower and putting on my pajamas, I was propped up against my headboard with my phone in my hand, reading once again, doing my level best to pretend that tonight had never happened. That I hadn’t had to deal with Adrian, that I hadn’t given in to desire and possibly ruined what might’ve been a good thing.

  Instead, I opted to lose myself in fiction.

  “Justin, please,” Jill begged. “I need more.”

  It was an understatement. Hovering on the brink, Jill knew she shouldn’t succumb to the pleasure that Justin could provide. He was her boss, for chrissakes. For all intents, he was off-limits, forbidden, yet she’d given in over the past few months, craving what he offered, despite knowing better.

  Justin’s fingers linked with hers as he dropped to his knees before her. Somehow he’d managed to strip her naked right there in his office. She’d been so fixated on his mouth, on the way he tortured her with his lips and his tongue, Jill hadn’t even thought to tell him no.

  Not that she would have. She didn’t want to tell him no. She wanted him to continue, to make her come with his mouth. Which he was dangerously close to doing.

  With their fingers linked, Justin knelt before her, holding her hands against the wall down by her thighs while he stared up at her.

  “Put your leg over my shoulder,” he instructed.

  When he released one of her hands, Jill slowly lifted her left leg, propping it over his shoulder, all too aware of how it opened her to his hungry gaze.

  “So wet,” he said, his voice a deep rumble that made her pussy throb.

  I dropped my phone into my lap. There should be warnings on these books.

  CAUTION: READ IF YOUR PARTNER IS READILY AVAILABLE TO PITCH IN.

  WARNING: HAVE VIBRATOR HANDY.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have either. Tonight’s encounter with Jake didn’t count.

  I was single and my vibrator had suffered an ill-timed fate a few weeks back when I’d dropped it on the floor while unpacking a box. For some stupid reason, I hadn’t bothered to replace it, but I was making a mental note to do that in the very near future.

  “Jacob Wild, what the fuck
?” I mumbled in the darkness, closing my eyes.

  I wondered where he was, what he was doing right then. Had he gone to bed? Or had he gone back to the club? Was he flirting with other women? I doubted he and Adrian could’ve been in one place for long before people would start recognizing them. Jacob because he was a world-famous author, Adrian because he was in an up-and-coming band that was currently taking the nation by storm.

  Not something I wanted to think about.

  For a brief moment, I allowed myself to fantasize about what it would be like to give in to Jake again. Nothing serious, just to enjoy him. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, right? To enjoy sex for the sake of sex, pleasure for the sake of pleasure. None of the crap that came with dating. Just two people, fucking until nothing else mattered but their next breath.

  God, sometimes I wished I could be that girl. Unfortunately, I wasn’t coded that way.

  Still, tonight had been about sex. Nothing more. What had happened between us had been sensational, and definitely unexpected, but I knew it couldn’t happen again. There was something about him that drew me in, and if I wasn’t careful, he would be the next guy who would break my heart.

  “Not gonna happen,” I reminded myself, trying to force the thought away.

  I let my thoughts drift back to our brief conversations in the coffee shop and that night when I’d helped Gavin. I liked him; I couldn’t seem to help myself. For the first time in a long-ass time, I feared I was starting to get hung up on him. It didn’t help that by reading his books, I felt as though I was getting a first-hand glimpse into his psyche. But I should’ve known that a man couldn’t write steamy scenes like that if he wasn’t good at it, right? And I wasn’t talking about prose.

  I want to kiss you, Presley. So fucking bad. I’ve spent hours thinking about you … about what you’d taste like.

  I wasn’t sure I would ever forget those words, or the sexy rumble of Jake’s voice against my ear. Or the way he’d felt when he fucked me, the heavy weight of his body trapping me against the door, the warmth of his lips, the way he kissed me as though I actually mattered.

  Trying to shake it off, I thought about the things I’d read about him. The fact that he dated a lot of women. A lot of women. I knew based on what I’d seen on social media that women were throwing themselves at him left and right, offering to be one of his characters, to get an up-close-and-personal glimpse of what it was like to be ravaged the way the females were in his books. Hell, even the woman who’d interviewed him on television had been ogling him.

  And I’d read about some of the women he’d been associated with. Not one of those stories had resulted in a positive outcome.

  “Ugghh.”

  I flopped over onto my side. I needed to sleep, to find a way to flip my days and nights back the way they belonged. There had to be a way to get my life back on track, to find my inspiration, and the lack of sleep definitely wasn’t helping.

  As tired as I was, I knew I could drift off any minute if I would just close my eyes.

  So why did I reach for my phone?

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jake

  Thursday evening

  Despite everything in my head screaming at me to track Presley down and talk about what had happened between us last night, I’d managed to make it through the day without doing so. It hadn’t been easy. With Gavin living right next door, I could’ve easily knocked on his door and asked him for her phone number.

  But I hadn’t.

  Instead, I’d spent countless hours thinking about her, fantasizing about all the things I wanted to do to her the next time… Only I knew she wasn’t planning on there being a next time.

  After last night, those few minutes we’d spent together… I relived them over and over again. The sweet scent of her hair tickling my nose, the warmth of her skin so close to mine, the way she’d inhaled sharply when I’d slid deep inside her body… Something had happened in that moment. It was almost as though I actually knew her deepest, darkest desires.

  Only I didn’t.

  Not well enough to fantasize about a future with her. Yet I did it anyway.

  Thankfully, there would be no thinking of her tonight. At least not for the foreseeable future.

  Thursday dinner, once a month, was a ritual with my mother. She would warn me ahead of time that she expected me to be there, regardless of what was or wasn’t going on in my life. For the past six months, I’d only missed dinner once, and that time, my mother hadn’t spoken to me for a week after that—not until I had apologized and showed up the following week in an attempt to make it up to her.

  Because having your mother ignore you was weird, I now did my best to accommodate her schedule whenever possible. Even if it wasn’t something I looked forward to. It wasn’t as though I had anything else to do anyway. Ever since I’d gotten back from New York yesterday afternoon, I’d been trying to psych myself up to write, to no avail.

  And now the only thing I seemed to want to do was see Presley again.

  Which wasn’t the same as writing.

  I couldn’t help but remember the way it had felt to get lost in the characters once again after I’d seen Presley on Sixth Street. For that brief period of time, I’d been able to write, but then, for the past week and a half, my inspiration had dried up like a creek bed in the desert. Nothing.

  The trip to New York had done nothing to help, either. Unless stirring up my anxiety and making me worry that I’d never get another book written counted. Then yeah, it’d fucking helped.

  So, now, as I pulled my Mercedes up to the big, red-brick, two-story house in the quiet suburban neighborhood where my mother now lived, I took a deep breath, trying to forget all of the other stressors in my life so I could focus on this one.

  It was only a couple of hours. I knew it wouldn’t kill me.

  I hoped it wouldn’t kill me.

  After exiting my car, I waved to one of the neighbors helping their kids out of a forest-green minivan, then proceeded up to the door, knocking twice. I glanced back at the street. Where was my sister? Why wasn’t she there to suffer right along with me?

  Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I waited, staring down at my feet.

  I looked up when the front door opened, noticing my stepfather, Alan Kapersky, staring back at me. For the record, it was difficult to think of him as a stepfather considering he was only a few years older than me. No lie.

  “Hey, son.”

  Was I the only one who found it strange that a man only three and a half years my senior referred to me as “son”?

  “What’s up?” I replied in an attempt to be polite as I stepped into the house.

  The whole “son” thing was creepy, if I was being completely honest. But I think it gave Alan a sense of authority over me, regardless of how untrue that actually was. Alan had been married to my mother, Deborah, for the past nine months, known her for almost ten. He had moved in with her after they’d been dating for two weeks, claiming his lease had been up—although I was pretty sure he’d lived with his mother—and he’d wanted to take things to the next level. According to Alan, unlike me, he wasn’t a procrastinator.

  Maybe so, but unlike me, he didn’t have money.

  Not that I had said anything to my mother or him about the whirlwind romance. It wasn’t my business. However, I had vented endlessly to my sister, Paige, and she to me about it. After all, this was husband number nine for my mother. And based on the math, I figured they had two years—three at most—before Alan was out on his ass, looking for a new place to live and another cougar to take him in.

  It was thanks to my mother’s endless pool of younger men that I’d had an interesting childhood. Lots and lots of drama. Deborah had me when she was nineteen. My father, William Wild… Well, I didn’t know him. Sure, I knew who he was, that he had three grown kids and a wife, lived in an upscale neighborhood in south Austin, but I hadn’t ever had anything to do with him. Not since I was two, anyway, which, of course, I don’t
remember. Since he’d paid his child support without complaint, my mother hadn’t had any issues with him not seeing me, so it wasn’t something I ever let bother me.

  After all, I had plenty of stepfathers to choose from.

  My sister’s father, Ronald, had been my mother’s second husband. He had come along when I was four, and he’d stuck around long enough for my sister to be born, then hit the road after a short-lived ten-month marriage. According to my mother, he was a wild one who couldn’t be tamed. Oddly, it didn’t seem to bother her, either.

  The others—Stan, Robert, Tony, Jeff, Matt, and Tim—they’d come and gone over the years, making waves on both their entrance and their exit. My mother, apparently, could reel them in, but she’d adopted the catch-and-release program. I’d never understood why she bothered to marry them, rather than simply date, nor had I ever asked.

  Following Alan through the foyer, I noticed the brand-new seventy-inch flat-screen television mounted on the wall in the room my new stepfather had commandeered as his man cave. I figured the TV was a present from me, in a roundabout way, since my mother had recently asked me for money, and I’d forked it over in an effort to help her, though I doubted she’d really needed it. Then again, I knew Alan didn’t work, so maybe she did. However, if that were the case, it didn’t appear as though she’d used it to pay any past-due bills.

  “Nice TV,” I told him.

  Alan peered into the den, a grin forming on his weathered face. “Thanks. Anniversary gift.”

  Anniversary? That was what he was going with? Really?

  Could the guy not do the math? Married nine months, together for ten. When had an anniversary occurred?

  Not that I asked. I didn’t want to know.

  “Where’s my mother?” I quickly glanced around. Since I came over monthly, I was always aware of the new stuff they purchased, and it looked as though they’d spent some time at the furniture store in recent weeks. The month before, it had been Bed Bath and Beyond.