by Serena Grey
With his eyes on mine, he lifted his fingers to his lips, tasted me, and smiled. He stepped back, and my body moved instinctively to close the gap, because I still wanted him. I still wanted his touch, and I knew he wanted me too. I could see the evidence where his cock strained against his pants. “Jason…” My voice was a needy whimper.
“Daphne.” He chuckled. “My little Daphne Bird.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going for a walk,” he said calmly, as if he hadn’t just touched me in the most intimate places. “Enjoy your night.”
I watched him cut a path through the lawn, going toward the lake. I wanted to follow him, but I wasn’t any closer to figuring out where I stood with him than I’d been before he fingered me to orgasm, and I didn’t want to run after him like some desperate groupie, especially when he was obviously taunting me. I ran a frustrated hand through my hair and reluctantly made my way into the house.
Everyone had gone to bed, so it was just me and my chaotic thoughts to keep me company. Upstairs, I changed into my sleep shorts and a tank top. I could barely think of sleeping while the feeling of Jason’s touch lingered between my legs. Had he known what he was doing? Had he planned to drive me into this relentless agony of need? I imagined him walking around the lake like a god in the moonlight, knowing I was there in his childhood bedroom, frustrated and wanting to fuck him so badly it felt like no other alternative could give me release.
I went to the window and opened it, letting the night air calm my aching skin, and as I stood there, I saw Jason walking back to the house. His clothes were under one arm, and he was wearing only a dark pair of briefs. They were dripping wet, as was the rest of him.
A god in the moonlight.
As if he could feel me staring at him, he looked up and met my gaze.
My fingers curled around the blinds. Come up, I whispered silently. Come and fuck me senseless.
He laughed and raised one finger to his lips as if to taste me again.
He was mocking me. Annoyed, I tore my eyes away from his and shut the window, and as I went to bed and buried myself under the covers, I thought I could still hear his laughter from outside.
Yet, I knew if he came to my room, if he knocked, I would let him in. I would gladly spend all night surrendering my body to him. I waited, but he didn’t come, and I finally fell asleep, my dreams composed of erotic visions starring Jason and myself. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to bear another day of being around him, but by the time I woke up in the morning and went downstairs for breakfast, he had already left.
Chapter Three
I’d never been to a spoken word party before, but I was warming to it—at least I was warming to this particular one, held in the cozy living room of Candace’s spacious apartment.
A guy with long dark hair was spilling some rhythmic lines about drifting in space with no center, no weight, no gravity acting, like a particle bouncing, helter-skelter.
“What do you think?” Candace’s girlfriend, Janice, was the most stunning woman I’d ever seen: five-foot-four inches of perfection encased in creamy skin and coppery red hair that was always sleek and shiny, with beautiful green eyes that were nicely upturned at the corners.
“I like it,” I admitted. It didn’t seem as pretentious as some other performance art I’d seen. “I’m thinking it’s all a metaphor for loneliness?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“Are you performing tonight?” I knew she wrote poetry, though she made a living as a model.
“No.” She grimaced. “I haven’t written anything in a while.”
Candace joined us just as the performer finished his poem to muted applause.
“Refill?” she asked me, gesturing at my glass, which was almost empty.
I shook my head. “I’m good. I’m almost tipsy anyway, just enough that I can still walk it off. Any more and I’ll doze off in a cab and wake up in some sheik’s harem.”
Janice shuddered. “There are romance novels where stuff like that happens and they live happily ever after.”
“Well, they’re fantasies,” I explained, feeling the need to defend the genre I loved.
“Speaking of fantasies,” Candace said, “what about that hunk from the other day at the office?”
“What hunk?” I said blankly, even though I knew exactly who she meant. I’d been trying not to think about Jason. As soon as he crossed my mind, my whole body heated as I remembered his fingers deftly stroking me to climax on a moonlit night on the patio of his parents’ house. My body missed him desperately. It felt like I was permanently horny and strung out, and I needed him to finish what he’d begun that night.
“Come on,” Candace coaxed. “A guy who looked like that and you’re saying you don’t remember him? Don’t make me bust out my kung fu.”
“Oh God!” I burst out laughing. Candace could be hilarious when she chose to be. “I think you mean Jason,” I said with a light shrug as I explained to Janice. “I told her, he’s just my roommate’s brother. He gave me a ride to her exhibition and that was all.”
That was far from the truth, though. I had fucked him, and now I was as obsessed with him as a junkie in need of a fix.
“That guy was sexy,” Candace said, drawing out the word. “So, I hope you made that ride last a long time.”
I rolled my eyes, and Candace gave me an unrepentant look before moving on to talk to another one of the guests. The performances were over, and now people were just drinking and socializing over muted music from a couple of speakers.
“So, this Jason guy”—Janice gave me a look— “he was really that hot?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. He was hot—hotter than I could describe.
“And…you slept with him.”
“Is it so obvious?”
She smiled. “I watch people, you know, so maybe I’m more perceptive than most. Your whole demeanor changed when Candy mentioned him.”
“It was just a one-time thing,” I said, feeling strangely hollow talking about him, hollow and fragile. “It wasn’t serious.”
“Or it wasn’t supposed to be.” She considered me for a long moment. “Those types always get awkward.”
I was quiet. Awkward didn’t even come close to it.
“Anyway, I’m not going to let you mope.” she straightened up and waved at someone in the crowd, and he came over. He was a cute guy, a little taller than me, with short black hair and liquid brown eyes. There was something familiar about his face, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“Hey Zane,” Janice said. “Have you met Daphne?”
Recognition lit in his eyes as he looked at me. “Actually yes,” he said, a slow smile spreading across his face. “I have.”
I racked my brain, trying to remember exactly where we’d met.
“Halloween party,” he reminded me, “two years ago, or three. You were the sexiest nurse I’d ever seen.”
“Oh.” I flushed, remembering that party and the guy I’d danced with, kissed, and then taken home. It felt like a lifetime ago, like I’d been another person. “I remember now.”
“I’m going to get another drink,” Janice said, conveniently leaving us alone together, or as alone as we could be in a room full of people.
“What a coincidence? Right?” Zane was smiling. “I thought I was never going to see you again. I sent messages, but you never replied.”
“I didn’t…” I stopped. I had nothing to say. In those days, I’d never given a thought to the people I left in my wake as I took what I wanted from them and gave nothing in return. I’d been living to be alone, and it’d never occurred to me that I bruised people along the way. “We had a great time together,” I said.
“Yeah.” He blew out a whistle. “And it wasn’t me, it was you.”
I laughed. “It definitely was.”
“What’s up with you? You’re friends with Janice?”
“Yeah, and Candace. We work together.”
“Cool. I’m a freelance graphic artist who atte
nds spoken word performances in his spare time.” He laughed. “Actually, that’s not true—my roommate was reading tonight, and I came to support him.”
“Good for him,” I said.
His eyes wandered from my face as he appraised me, and I could see the spark of interest in his gaze. The person I used to be would have taken him home. The person I used to be wouldn’t have hesitated to try to use a new body to push away her fixation on Jason’s.
The person I used to be wouldn’t have had a fixation on any guy in the first place.
I was a different person now, one who only had to have the barest thought of Jason’s name for my whole body to start yearning for him.
“I was just about to leave,” I told Zane, trying to look apologetic. I appreciated Janice trying to set me up with someone to get my mind off Jason, but it just wasn’t going to happen.
“Do you still live in the same apartment?” Zane asked.
I shook my head. “I moved.”
“Okay.” He looked around. “I was about to leave too. Shaz—that’s my roommate—is probably going to be here for a while. Mind if we go down together?”
“No, of course not.” I forced a smile then went to say goodbye to Candace. I met Zane at the door, and we took the elevator to the ground floor.
“You’re walking?” he asked.
“Yup. I’m just a few blocks away.”
“My ride will be here in a couple of minutes. You want me to cancel and walk with you?”
I smiled. He was sweet, but I wasn’t there yet. “Nah, don’t. I’m fine.”
“I deleted your number,” he said.
I chuckled. “I don’t blame you, Zane. I didn’t take your calls, didn’t reply to your messages…I’d have deleted my number too.”
“Yeah…” he said slowly, “but I’d like to call you if you don’t mind.”
My first instinct was to say no. What was the point of encouraging him when I couldn’t go two seconds without thinking about Jason?
But maybe that was the point. Maybe giving some time to another guy would help me go those two seconds and maybe more.
I called out my number, and he entered it on his phone. Just then his ride arrived, and he waved to me before entering the car.
My phone buzzed.
You were the sexiest girl at the party tonight.
I smiled. Two seconds. Maybe I was making progress.
That sense of triumph lasted until I got home, opened the door, and saw Jason on his haunches, working with a screwdriver on what seemed like a pile of black metal. His white shirt was stretched over his back, showing the breadth of his shoulders and the strength of his body. He set the tool aside and rose up to his full height then bent over, giving me a perfect view of his firm ass as he lifted the black metal thingy upright.
Why did he have to be so sexy, so spectacularly, undeniably masculine that I only had to look at him to start thinking of sweet, no-holds-barred, dirty sex?
“What are you doing here?” I asked rudely, shutting the door behind me.
He turned around and gave me a once-over from beneath raised brows. “Hi, Daphne. How are you? Did you have fun at your party? Meet anyone interesting?” He rattled off the questions as if I needed a lesson in politeness.
“Hey, you’re back!” Amy waltzed into the living room, all smiles. “Jason got me some camera equipment, and he’s helping assemble this nasty tripod.”
Jason gave me a mocking smile then proceeded to show Amy how to collapse the black metal tripod so it was as small as a medium-sized handbag. There were other pieces of camera equipment on the end table, entire boxes of zoom lenses and other stuff I couldn’t identify.
“Thanks,” Amy said sweetly, giving him a hug. “I guess you’re not so bad after all.”
He snorted. “We both know I’m the best.”
“Eh! You’re my least favorite brother, but you’re okay.”
“I’m your only brother,” he said with an exasperated look.
Amy ignored him. “I thought you’d be at Candace’s for longer,” she said to me. “Jason got you something too, but I already took it to your room.”
Without waiting for me to respond, she went off to get it, and I gave Jason a quizzical glance. “You got me a gift?”
He looked uncomfortable, setting the tripod to one side as he shrugged. “It’s nothing, really.”
Amy reappeared with a gift-wrapped package. She gave it to me and I looked from the box to Jason, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. What had he gotten me that he was so embarrassed about? Why had he gotten me anything at all?
I started to peel off the wrapper.
Jason straightened. “I guess I’m done here,” he said, smoothing his hair. He gave Amy a kiss on her cheek, nodded in my direction, and started for the door.
“At least wait until she unwraps it,” Amy chided.
I felt his reluctance even as I pulled off the last of the paper to reveal the colorful hand-painted map it contained. Each location on it was beautifully drawn and labeled, from Northanger Abbey to Wuthering Heights, Milton, Manderley, Thornfield, Pemberley, and so on.
“It’s just a map of locations of—”
“Some of the greatest works of English literature.” I gazed at the intricate map, the washes of color and vibrant flowers, and then smiled at Jason. “Romantic literature anyway.”
“It’s pretty,” Amy said approvingly.
“Thank you,” I murmured, still looking at Jason.
“It was nothing,” he repeated, looking somewhat defensive. “I saw it at a sale and thought you might like it.”
It wasn’t nothing, not to me. “Thank you, anyway.”
“Where would you like to hang it?” Amy asked. “I might not be good at assembling complicated collapsible tripods, but I’m a pro at putting up frames.”
I barely heard her voice. Jason was still looking at me, and it felt like she wasn’t even in the room with us. I appreciated how personal the gift felt, like it came from someone who had taken the time to get to know me. I wanted it in my room.
Amy’s phone chirped, and as she pulled it out of her pocket and glanced at the screen, her face lit up. “Colin’s meeting ended early!” she announced with a grin. “He’s downstairs, and I’m going out.” Her tiny purse was on the kitchen counter, and she snatched it up. “See you guys.”
“Amy?” I laughed. “Hello? What about my painting?”
“Put up ya own damn frame,” she growled, and then she laughed. “Jason will help you,” she added apologetically. “Or I’ll do it when I get back.” With that, she was out the door.
Jason took a deep breath then started to laugh. “Wow!”
“I know, right?” Sometimes Amy was a whirlwind, sometimes a gentle breeze, and all of it made her the sweet person she was.
I was still holding the painting. “Let me help you with that,” Jason said.
I handed it to him, choosing not to think of all the things I’d rather have his help with…like the liquid ache between my legs that hadn’t gone away since that night at his parents’ house, an ache that only intensified the more time I spent around him.
“Where did you get it?” I asked, leading the way to my room.
“London, private art sale.”
He’d been in London the week before dinner at his parents’, so a few days after I’d told him I didn’t want to be in a relationship with him.
“Why?” I wondered aloud.
He was quiet. “I thought you might like it.”
“I do like it.” And you, very much—too much.
We entered my room, where his presence dominated the smallish space. I took a deep breath.
“How was the party?” he asked.
“It was okay.” I shrugged. “People read poetry. I had a few drinks.”
“Meet anyone?”
He was standing at the edge of my bed, his eyes intent on my face.
“You already asked that,” I reminded him.
I leaned back on the closed door and folded my arms. “Are you really interested, or just making conversation?”
He was silent for a moment. “I kind of am,” he said finally. “I’m kind of excessively interested in what you do with your body considering I spend a good amount of time lusting after it.”
My eyes fluttered closed. My body needed to take a moment before it could function again after hearing something like that.
Actually, Jason, I’m not doing anything with my body apart from wanting you with an obsession that borders on hysteria.
I didn’t say the words in my mind. The silence stretched then he exhaled and looked around the walls of my room. “Where do you want it?” he asked.
My eyes went to the bed. The last time he’d been here, we’d fucked right there. I wondered if he was thinking about that night. I only had to close my eyes to remember what it felt like to have him inside me.
He followed my gaze. Something in my body must have given away the thoughts going on in my mind because whatever signals I was giving, he read them clearly.
He placed the painting on the dresser, his movements slow and deliberate, then he was facing me. “Where do you want it?” he asked again. This time, his voice was rougher, huskier.
On the bed, on the floor, against the wall.
I licked my lips. Time to dispel this notion he had that I had gone right back to having casual sex with strangers when I rejected him. “I haven’t been doing much with my body,” I confessed, my gaze still locked with his.
His eyes narrowed, and he closed the distance between us. He reached where I was standing and curved his hand around my nape, pulling my face toward his and lowering his lips almost to mine.
“Why not?” he asked softly.
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t, because the next moment, his lips crashed into mine, and every cell in my body came alive. All the aching, the need and desire roared to life inside me and exploded in a flame I couldn’t have resisted if I tried. His hands molded me, cupping my breasts then moving down to my waist. He spread his palm over my back and pressed my hips forward, flush against his.