by Velvet
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
naughty
ALSO BY VELVET
The Black Door
Seduction
Betrayal
Pan Books
First published 2009 by St Martins Press, New York
This edition published 2012 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-230-76927-4 EPUB
Copyright © Velvet 2009
The right of Velvet to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases
Some people are meant to be in your life for a
season, a reason, or a lifetime! I’d like to
dedicate this book to all of the people who have
touched my life in some way!
I love you all,
acknowledgments
Naughty is my fourth baby, and as with any birth there’s a dedicated team assisting with the process. So, I’d like to thank the people who helped with the gestation of this book.
Monique Patterson, one of the best editors in the business! And the rest of the St. Martin’s Press pros who helped bring this baby to life—Matthew Shear, John Murphy, Katy Hershberger, and the rest of the team. Though she’s no longer at St. Martin’s Press, I’d like to thank Kia DuPree for her assistance!
To my agent, Sara Camilli, who’s been in the delivery room with me from book one!
To my family and friends, you guys know how to coach a sister along with encouraging words when she can’t see the forest for the trees! Without all of you (too many to list), I would be in a private suite at Bellevue . . . LOL!
And to the readers, book clubs, booksellers, Web sites, and other media outlets, thanks for spreading the word about the Black Door series! Your help has truly been appreciated!
Now it’s time to conceive another novel, so let me assume the position (fingers poised over the keyboard . . . LOL!) and get to work!
Much Love,
naughty
1
“PLEASE LET me just look at it,” Jessica pleaded, tugging on Chad’s arm.
Chad pulled away, and moved his body over to the edge of the sofa. “No,” he said adamantly.
Jessica was a woman with determination, and wasn’t about to take “no” for an answer, she wanted him badly, and would do and say anything to get her way, especially tonight. She hadn’t seen Chad in months, since they had broken up, and was desperate for some much-needed sex. She had lured him over to her apartment under the guise of being a damsel in distress, telling him that there had been an attempted break-in, and that she needed her locks changed. He had insisted that she call a locksmith. She told him that she did, but couldn’t get anybody to come out on a Sunday. She feigned tears, saying that she was afraid and pleaded with him to change her locks. Being the kindhearted guy that he was, he finally agreed. Before he got there, Jessica jimmied the locks with a screwdriver and cut the security chain. She then drank a few glasses of red wine to get in the mood, and waited for Chad to arrive. Now that he was there, her plan wasn’t going as smoothly as she had hoped. During their relationship, their sex life was explosive and they fucked at least three times a day. Jessica missed Chad’s dick, and wanted to relive old times. “Oh, baby, don’t be like that. All I want to do is have a look and say hello,” she purred, scooting closer to him and resting her hand on his thigh.
After Jessica had abruptly ended their relationship, Chad swore that he would never fall back into her arms. She had said at the time that she wanted her freedom, and didn’t want to be committed anymore. He was deeply in love with her, and the breakup broke his heart, but he had walked away like a man. Now she was trying to lure him back, and he was confused. “Look, Jessica, you’re the one who said that you didn’t want a relationship, so what’s with this attempted seduction?”
She ran her hand up to his crotch area and rested it on top of his full mound. “I was wrong,” she began, gently massaging his package. “I want you back. We were so good together,” she said, increasing her pace.
Chad couldn’t deny their chemistry. She had one hell of a tight pussy, and he missed filling her up with his rod. He didn’t want to give in to her so easily, but she was making his dick hard. He hadn’t been laid in weeks, and was horny as hell. He unzipped his pants and took out the head of his penis. “Is this what you want to see?”
Jessica looked down and swallowed hard. The tip was big, and beautiful. Just looking at it made her mouth water. She didn’t say a word, but leaned over and licked him. She flicked her tongue back and forth, the way he liked it.
Chad began rotating his hips. She was driving him crazy. He wanted to fuck now. He knew that she was manipulating him, but didn’t care. All he cared about at the moment was getting laid. He took the shaft of his dick all the way out so that she could deep-throat him. She was an expert at giving head, and he missed her mouth. “Yeah, that’s it, baby, don’t stop,” he moaned with pleasure.
She bobbed her head up and down, faster and faster. She could feel the tip of his dick hitting the back of her throat, but she didn’t gag. She just continued sucking until she tasted his sweet pre-cum.
“Stop,” he breathed. “I want to be inside of you,” he said, laying her back on the sofa and pulling down her jeans.
Jessica wiggled out of her panties, kicked one leg over the back of the sofa, and gapped her legs wide open, inviting him in.
Chad quickly dropped his pants to the floor and eased in between her thick thighs—
The phone rang before Naomi could finish reading the spicy love scene. She dog-eared the page and picked up the receiver. “Hello,” she said in a breathy voic
e.
“Were you exercising?” Kennedy asked, picking up on her friend’s lack of oxygen.
“Girl, I was reading Auld Lang Syne, and the phone rang as soon as I got to the juicy part,” she explained, sounding slightly upset.
“I see you’re living vicariously through the pages of a book again,” Kennedy teased. Naomi’s husband, Jacob, usually worked late or was MIA on an overnight business trip, which translated to a love life that was also MIA.
“Unfortunately since my husband spends more time making money than making love, I gotta get my thrills where I can,” she said with a chuckle, trying to make light of her loveless marriage. “But it’s not like you’re getting any either,” she shot back defensively.
Kennedy hadn’t been on a date in several months, not since she broke up with Lance the cop. They met one night when she was speeding down the Long Island Expressway. He pulled her over and instead of giving her a ticket, he gave her his telephone number and made her promise to call. Checking out his pecs through the blue, city-issued uniform, she thought, why not? Lance was five feet eight inches of solid muscle and his face wasn’t bad to look at either. He was chocolate brown with ripe, succulent lips. She was weak for a brother with a delectable, kissable mouth. After her first call a few days later, it didn’t take long for her to taste those lips. Their sexual chemistry was sizzling. On her days off, Lance would come over at night and ignite a fire within her that would last until the wee hours of the morning. But the flame began to fizzle when she tried to move their relationship beyond the bedroom. Kennedy was an international flight attendant who traveled the world for mere pennies. She had companion passes and invited Lance on trips to Paris, Tahiti, and even to a four-star resort in South Africa, all of which he declined, saying the only place he was interested in traveling was south of her navel. Kennedy wanted more than sex, but as usual she had fucked him too soon, and now all he wanted to do was screw. Realizing that she was never going to get a commitment out of Lance, she ended the relationship as quickly as it began and vowed to reclaim her virginity until the proverbial Mr. Right showed up with the key to her chastity belt.
“Have you started reading Auld Lang Syne yet?” Naomi asked, referring to their current book club selection.
Kennedy hadn’t even cracked the spine of the book. She leaned over, picked up the novel from the nightstand, and dusted the cover with the sleeve of her robe. The jacket looked interesting enough; an attractive couple dressed in black tie was locked in an intense embrace. The title was scrolled in gold foil. In smaller script the words “SHALL OLD ACQUAINTANCES NEVER BE FORGOTTEN” was written across their bodies. “I haven’t had a chance yet. I’ve been flying so much that when I do have extra time, all I want to do is sleep.”
“Speaking of flying, was Mr. Cutie Patootie on your flight tonight?”
Kennedy had completely put the Mystery Man out of her mind. The first time she had seen him was a month ago when he boarded a flight from New York to Johannesburg. He had sat in first class, which was her station. With the pastel pink pages of the Financial Times covering the lower half of his body, she barely caught a glimpse of his face as she asked his beverage preference before they took flight. Once the plane reached a cruising attitude of thirty thousand feet, she returned to ask whether he wanted veal with rosemary and chive risotto or salmon on a bed of field greens. When he looked up from the newspaper to answer, what greeted her was a pair of sexy, smokey hazel eyes on reddish-brown cinnamon skin and a goatee framing a pair of lips that were even more succulent than her last lover’s. “Salmon, please,” he answered in a deep voice. Her knees almost buckled. She knew it wasn’t the air pocket they had just passed through but the sexy sound of his baritone voice. Giving no indication of attraction, she remained professional and returned with his meal. The rest of the flight was uneventful as he read one newspaper after the other and she serviced the other passengers. Kennedy had seen him once thereafter but he never even looked twice in her direction. Today’s flight should have been his usual bimonthly trip, but he hadn’t been on board.
“No,” she answered with disappointment dripping off the one and only syllable.
“Did he ever say anything to you?”
“You mean besides, ‘Excuse me, miss, may I have another pillow?’ ”
Naomi cracked up laughing. “You know what I mean,” she said, after recovering from her laugh attack. “Did he ask for your number?”
“He probably thinks I’m a fixture of the plane. Most first-class passengers have that sense of entitlement.”
“You’re right, they are an elitist bunch,” Naomi agreed. “But I’m sure he’s checked out how you rock that uniform,” she countered.
“Girl, I’m not thinking about that man,” Kennedy said, picking up the Boiler Room DVD. The movie was old, but she didn’t care. “I’ve got to go because I have a date with Mr. Diesel.”
“Who’s that? Did you meet him at work? Was he on your flight tonight?” Naomi quizzed, anxious to know who this new man was.
Kennedy chuckled, and then said, “Diesel as in Vin, the actor.” She absolutely loved looking at the man.
“Oh. It’s going to be another Blockbuster night, huh?” Naomi asked, finally catching on.
“Yep,” she replied, sliding the disc into the player. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Kennedy said before hanging up.
“Okay, enjoy your movie.” After Naomi hung up, she looked at the clock on the nightstand, wondering where her husband might be.
2
IT WAS after ten o’clock and Jacob should have been home by now. Naomi started to call his cell number, but didn’t. He had scolded her too many times about blowing up his phone. He told her that when he was out entertaining clients, it was embarrassing to have to keep answering calls from his wife, as if he were a little boy. Naomi knew Jacob was a workaholic when they first met. He was a man on a mission to succeed, and it was his tenacity and drive that had turned her on, but now his late nights were getting old. She missed having sex on a regular basis, like in the beginning of their relationship. She still desired her husband and remembered the day they met as if it were yesterday.
She had been a carefree flight attendant at the time. Jacob Reed usually sat in row two, seat C, the aisle seat. He was six feet four inches tall, so the extra leg room along the aisle was an added benefit. Naomi was attracted to him the moment she laid eyes on him. He had a sweet, schoolboy quality. His mahogany skin was always shaved to perfection with no hint of razor bumps. He wore rectangle, tortoiseshell glasses that rested across the keen bridge of his nose. He kept his hair closely cropped, showing only a whisper of a natural wave pattern. The stark white shirts he wore underneath his navy suits were usually monogrammed at the cuffs with the letters J. R. It was easy to surmise that he was some type of executive.
Initially they played that coy game of cat and mouse, but his incessant ringing of the flight attendant buzzer was a dead giveaway that he was interested in more than the customary in-flight service. Naomi would sashay over, swaying her hips through the narrow aisle, and suggestively ask if she could be of service. He would smile shyly, saying that he meant to press the overhead light. This went on for months, until he finally asked for her telephone number. They began to date and she learned that Jacob was a certified public accountant and partner with Kirschner Gross, one of New York’s largest accounting firms. Not only was the brother handsome, he was making serious bank. He lived in a richly appointed duplex loft in Tribeca and drove a sleek Jaguar. She would often meet him in London after he tied up a business meeting. They would shop along Bond Street, and then stroll over to his suite at the Sanderson, one of Ian Schrager’s five-star hotels. They would order champagne and oysters from room service, and then service each other the entire night. Exhausted from a lust-filled night, they would lounge in bed until noon, before repeating the previous evening, kiss for kiss. When Jacob proposed marriage with a four-carat diamond solitaire on a weekend jaunt to Napa Valley, Na
omi was ecstatic and as bubbly as the sparkling wines they were sampling. They were truly in love. And not only was Jacob handsome, he was financially secure as well, so Naomi wouldn’t have to worry about money ever again.
Naomi had grown up in a lower-middle-class family, and though they were not dirt poor, they didn’t have frivolous luxuries either. She had always dreamed of making enough money to indulge herself, which she did from her modest salary. But marrying Jacob would put her in an entirely different income bracket. He wasn’t a millionaire, but made enough money to spoil her with diamond trinkets and designer goods. She envisioned a life of skipping across the pond accompanying Jacob on business trips to London and stopping off in Paris to do some serious shopping. But the dream was just an illusion.
The second she became pregnant after their first year of marriage, Jacob insisted that Naomi quit flying, which she really didn’t have a problem with. He made more than enough money to keep her in first class. Her plan was to resume traveling once the baby was old enough to fly. And when the baby went to preschool, she had planned on starting an interior design business. Naomi had a knack for decorating from studying endless house and garden magazines, and had planned on converting the library in the penthouse into the baby’s room, but Jacob had other plans.
One Sunday, they fueled up the Jag and went on an early-morning drive on the Long Island Expressway. After nearly forty minutes, they exited and drove through an area of Long Island that Naomi had never seen. She couldn’t help but admire the manicured lawns and spiraling driveways that led to majestic mansions, some with Corinthian columns, others inspired by modern architectural designs.
Jacob drove down a tree-lined road and pulled into the circular driveway of a stately-looking home.
“I didn’t know you had friends on the island.”
“I don’t.” He smiled slyly and parked.