* * * * *
It was his mother who eventually spilled the beans about Ben going to his stepfather about changing the no-fraternizing policy so she could have the job he knew she’d wanted so badly. Ben never mentioned it. And by the way he reacted when Lindsay brought it up over dinner one evening, he hadn’t planned to mention it at all. He’d fully intended to let Rachel think she’d been the one who’d made the big sacrifice for the sake of their new relationship.
It wouldn’t have stayed a secret long. By then he’d formed a committee with some of the younger staff members to amend that and several other outdated policies regarding the company as a whole. And no sooner had the board announced the amended rules than no less than three people requested a transfer because they were secretly involved with someone within the company.
There had been no keeping Ben or his mother from gloating to his dad about how right they’d both been after that.
Rachel removed her mitten and knocked on his door. Her stomach fluttered with butterflies of anticipation. She’d told him a little white lie. A couple of little white lies, actually. She’d been planning this surprise for weeks, first telling him the cast on her right hand wasn’t going to come off for another week, then telling him she was going to be busy so she could catch him off guard.
As long as he was really spending the night home she was good. If he’d changed his mind and decided to go out, her surprise was going to backfire.
She tucked her hand back in the mitten just as the lock on the other side of the door turned. And then he was there, standing in the doorway looking gorgeous in a plain white t-shirt and dark-blue, plaid pajama pants, his hair slightly disheveled.
It was the middle of summer and way too warm for the hat and mittens, so she wasn’t at all surprised by the startled but amused look on his face.
“Well, well, well.” The gleam in his eyes as he looked her over from top to bottom and back made her toes curl. “What do we have here?”
“I know you said you don’t have any leftover hang-ups about me getting up and walking out that night, you know, back in college when you couldn’t resist me any longer,” she explained with a grin, pulling herself up with much more confidence than she felt. “But I’m curious to know how things might’ve played out if I’d stayed.”
He fell heavily against the doorframe and held one hand to his stomach, fingers splayed wide over the flat surface. She was dressed exactly the way she’d been the night she’d chickened out on him seven years earlier—Northwestern sweatshirt, faded jeans and the black-and-white striped hat and mittens her mother gave her that first winter she was on her own.
She’d covered her anatomy book from massage school with a brown paper bag the way she’d covered her textbooks in high school and had written the word Chemistry in big letters across the front.
She propped it on her hip and said, “I don’t know why I’m bothering to study. There’s no way I’m going to pass that stupid exam tomorrow.”
He backed out of the doorway and let her inside.
A movie she didn’t recognize was paused on the television, the actor’s expression frozen with his mouth open in mid-speech. A lone empty beer bottle sat next to a medium pizza box on the coffee table.
She heard the door close behind her as she made her way to the couch.
“Seriously, all those letters and numbers? Periodic tables?” She sat heavily, flopped against the back and heaved a dramatic sigh. “I’ve started having nightmares about all those damn terms.”
He was approaching her slowly, his smile and careful movements predatory. She plucked her right mitten off and tossed it aside, showing him her bare hand. His smile brightened several degrees as he sat next to her. They’d learned to work around her cast during sex, but there had been a few awkward and slightly painful moments for both of them before they’d figured it out.
“I’m going to freeze up tomorrow,” she pouted, still playacting. “I’m going to throw up the moment the professor puts that test in front of me.” She tilted her head to one side. “Do you think they sell barf bags in the bookstore?”
“I’m going to marry you, Rachel Marsh,” he said, taking the book off her lap and setting it on the pizza box.
She gave him an impatient look and pulled off her other mitten, tossed it in the direction of the first with a careful flick of her healed wrist. “You’re not playing.”
He pulled her hat off and sent it sailing over his shoulder.
“I’m going to buy you the biggest diamond ring you’ve ever seen.” He was speaking quietly, reverently, as he leaned toward her, one arm on the couch behind her, the other hand sliding up her thigh. “I’m going to get down on one knee in the sappiest, most romantic place I can imagine and propose in a way that’ll make you weep every time you think about it for the rest of your life. Even after we’re old and gray.”
“I don’t see how this is going to help me pass that exam tomorrow.” Her voice was stubbornly sarcastic, but her heart was giddy with joy, her body already on fire for him.
He shifted, one knee on the couch and the other foot on the floor. “We’re going to have a ridiculously huge wedding.” He lifted her leg that was closest to him at the knee. She had to shift toward him when he moved it so it was stretched along the back of the couch and he was kneeling between her thighs. “We’re going to live in an enormous house in the suburbs and have dozens of freakishly tall children.”
“That we’re going to adopt? I hate to bring this up at such a delicate moment, Ben darling, but this body of mine isn’t having dozens of anything but orgasms.”
Emotion pricked at her eyes as he held his weight on one arm and slipped the fingers of the other around the back of her neck, laying them both back on the couch. When he lifted her free leg so she could wrap it around his waist she realized he was positioning her the way they’d been just before she panicked that night years earlier.
“I love you, Rachel Marsh,” he told her, his eyes holding hers steady.
She slipped her arms around his neck and tightened her leg as he settled his weight over her, that glorious erection of his pressed against the inside of her thigh.
“Come to think of it, an orgasm or two might help me clear my head so I can get more out of our study session.” Her eyes rolled as he buried his face in her neck. “Maybe I’ll even pass that damn test.”
“Tell me you love me,” he murmured against her skin.
She turned so her mouth was close to his ear and whispered, “I love you.”
She slid her hands in his hair as his mouth found a spot on her neck she hadn’t known existed, let alone would make her feel as though she was coming out of her skin, until he’d found it by accident recently.
He pulled the collar of her sweatshirt aside to give himself better access. “You know, studying with you is driving me crazy, Rachel,” he murmured against her skin.
She groaned and laughed at the same time. He was playing along.
“I’m trying to understand chemistry, Ben, I swear,” she said, pulling up the hem of his t-shirt and running her hands over the smooth skin and taut muscles of his back.
“It’s my fault you’re not getting it.” He lifted his head and looked at her. “I can hardly concentrate myself. All I think about is kissing that mouth,” he said, reaching between them to slide his hand under her sweatshirt. “Jesus. You’re not wearing a bra.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at his wide-eyed expression. He groaned and kissed her, his tongue plunging deep as he rubbed his cock against the apex of her legs through their clothes. He pinched her nipple roughly, making her gasp, then went up on his knees over her and pulled her sweatshirt and then his t-shirt off.
“Pants,” he said, pulling off her shoes and tossing them over his shoulder.
Rachel unbuttoned and unzipped her pants, pushed them over her hips and he pulled them off all the way. She bit the tip of one finger and gave him an innocent look.
“Be gentle with
me,” she whispered. “I’ve never done this before.”
He paused, thumbs hooked in the waist of his pajama pants. “You were…?”
“A virgin.” She gave the tented front of his pants a pointed look. “And you are…” She let the sentence go unfinished on purpose.
He dropped so his weight was supported by his hands on either side of her head.
“Well, then we’d better make this good for you on your first time, hadn’t we?”
She wanted to say he always made it good for her, but he’d taken possession of her mouth again. Rachel ran her hands up his arms slowly, enjoying the feel of the muscles in his forearms, the deep, upside-down V of his triceps, the strength in his shoulders.
He took his time with her, kissing his way down her neck and lavishing attention on her breasts, making her arch and moan when he slipped his fingers between her legs to rub her clit and suck her nipple at the same time. She watched while he knelt on the floor next to the couch, spread her legs open and gently kissed, licked and sucked her pussy as though she really was new to going all the way.
He teased her without giving her any real release until she was clutching at him, begging him to fuck her. He rose up from the floor to stand tall beside her and dropped his pants. He was incredibly gorgeous, all long lines, defined muscles, and thick cock.
She could hardly believe that beautiful man, a man she’d once considered way out of her league, had just told her he wanted to marry her someday. It was more than she would have thought possible once upon a time, but there he was. And he was hers.
Rachel hooked one foot over the back of the couch and put the other flat on the floor, opening herself wide for him. He regarded her for a moment before he covered her body with his and nudged just the head of his cock inside her.
“This might hurt a little at first,” he told her through clenched teeth, still playing.
But then he took her mouth hard and plunged deep inside her. She broke free of the kiss with a cry of pleasure and brought her hand down on his ass with a loud smack, making him chuckle darkly. And then the virgin game was over.
He drove her body hard and steady while she writhed beneath him. He kissed her neck and she tightened her fingers in his hair, pulling just the way he liked. She grazed her teeth over his shoulder and he fucked her harder. Her body was humming along nicely when her orgasm hit her hard, rolling outward from her pussy like a tidal wave of unspeakable pleasure.
Ben pushed his arms under her body, hooked his hands over her shoulders from behind, fucked her harder than she’d ever been fucked, and came with a growl the likes of which she’d never heard before. And then they were nothing more than a collapsed tangle of sweating bodies, gasping for air and clutched to one another as though their lives depended on how tightly they held on.
“I love you, Ben Richards,” she told him when she could speak. “And I’ll say yes when you ask me to marry you,” she added, speaking close to his ear. “But that rock had better be huge if you want more than two kids.”
He lifted his head, studied her with the most serious expression for a long moment before one side of his mouth curled upward and he said, “Deal.”
About Jayne Kingston
Jayne Kingston was born, raised, and has always lived in the Northwest Ohio area. Her job gives her lots of free time to let her imagination run wild – it’s boring, but she rather likes that freedom of thought – and unlimited access to paper so she can jot down ideas as they pop into her head. (Seriously, the office supply nerd in her loves that part.)
She’s an avid fan of erotic romance and erotica of all genres who’d been writing rather vanilla contemporary love stories for years. She hadn't thought to combine the two elements in her own writing until asking herself the question 'what would happen if she showed up and put her hand down his pants?' helped un-stick the rather boring plotline of a short story she wanted to write. She was off and running after that.
Jayne welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Jayne Kingston
Ink Lust
Mr. Sir
Saving the Best for Last
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Key Party
ISBN 9781419946400
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Key Party Copyright © 2013 Jayne Kingston
Edited by Briana St. James
Cover design by Syneca and Michelle
Cover photography by CURAphotography and Zadorozzhnyi Viktor/Fotolia.com
Electronic book publication June 2013
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Table of Contents
Blurb
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
About Jayne Kingston
KeyParty Page 10