by Laura Kaye
Next to her, the car door opened.
“You okay there?” Billy asked, his big body filling the breach.
She laughed. “Just dropped something.” He held out his hand and helped her out. “Very chivalrous of you, Mr. Parrish. Unlike your earlier hoarding of the cheesecake.” They both stepped aside to allow him to close the door, which had the unintended consequence of him damn near pinning her to the rear door.
Standing almost chest to chest, their gazes collided. And if Shayna’s heart had beat hard before, now it downright pounded. Especially as his gaze ran over her face.
“I’m glad you were there today. With me. At fight club and after.”
“Me, too.” Shay hoped her voice didn’t sound as breathy to him as it did to her own ears.
“You have a knack for making things fun.” It was a sweet thing to say, and Shayna wasn’t sure how to reply. But she couldn’t have even if she’d had the words, because just then he tucked a few of her curls behind her ear. And then a second time when one sprung free again. Goosebumps rushed down her neck, sending a shiver through her whole body.
“I enjoyed your friends,” she finally said.
His eyebrow arched. “Just my friends?”
Her stomach went on a loop-the-loop even as she batted her eyelashes and played coy. Because she still couldn’t read the situation between them and it was driving her crazy. “Am I forgetting someone?”
Billy smirked and shook his head. On a rueful laugh, he stepped back, both of their gym bags in his hand. “Come on, let’s go in.”
She reached out a hand for her bag. “I can take that.”
“It’s no problem.”
Not saying another word, they walked side by side around the corner. Down their street. Up his sidewalk. Billy unlocked the door and gestured for her to go first. She hit the lights for the living room, and he dropped their bags onto the living room floor next to the door.
She turned and frowned, because it wasn’t like him to—
Billy’s hands were suddenly in her hair and his forehead was against hers. “You drive me fucking crazy, Shayna.”
“I-I do?” she asked, totally caught off guard but nearly euphoric at his words. “Good crazy, o-or—”
He nodded. “Good crazy. Even though, fuck. I should resist wanting you. I know I should.”
“No, no you shouldn’t,” she said, nearly breathless. “Why should you?”
His eyes were dark fire as they bore into hers. “You’re just starting out in life. Everything ahead of you, full of possibilities. But me…I’m a busted, used-up soldier without an army or a war. And I’m supposed to be looking out for you, not taking advantage of you.”
Shayna didn’t know what to respond to first. She hated that he saw himself that way. Shaking her head, she grasped at his wrists, holding him to her. “We had that conversation already. You can’t take advantage of someone who wants what you’re doing. And I…I do. God, you have to know how much I crushed on you when I was younger. Living with you has only made that stronger, Billy. Nothing about you looks busted or used-up to me. Nothing at all.”
He came closer, close enough that they touched everywhere, and he searched her eyes. “Ryan wouldn’t approve of this, of me.”
The closeness made it clear just how turned on he was, and the demanding press of his erection against her belly nearly stole her breath. “Ryan doesn’t get a say…” Her words trailed off, because as much as she believed them in this moment, they resurrected a memory she didn’t want to recall.
Of a time she’d uttered nearly those exact words to Dylan. And the consequences had been catastrophic.
“What do you want then?” Billy asked, pulling her from a lane of memories she didn’t want to go down. “I don’t want to assume, and I don’t want you to feel pressured into anything because you live in my house. Jesus, just saying that makes me feel like a lecherous asshole.”
“You’re not. And I don’t feel pressured. I just want you.”
Suddenly, Billy’s lips were on hers and his tongue was in her mouth and his hands tightened in her hair. She moaned at the suddenness of it, at the goodness of it.
He walked her backwards towards the steps. “Is this okay?”
“Yes,” she whispered around the edge of a kiss.
His hands moved to her waist and went to the hem of her white tank top. “Can I see you?”
Shayna nodded, pulling away from their kisses only long enough for the shirt to pass over her head, leaving her standing there in a lacy white bra and her jeans. He dropped her top to the floor.
“So fucking beautiful. Can I touch you?”
“Yes,” she whispered, sucking in a breath as he spread out his big hand against her throat and then dragged his fingers downward until he was cupping her breast.
He caught one of her bra straps and dragged it off her shoulder until he bared her nipple to his fingertips. He hauled an arm around her waist, bringing them closer even as he leaned down to kiss her exposed flesh. “Can I taste you?”
Jesus, those questions in that deep rasp were so freaking sexy that she could hardly stand it. “Please.” His tongue stroked over her nipple, once, twice. Her fingers wound into his hair, then tightened as his lips closed around the sensitive peak and sucked her into the heat of his mouth.
And after their dinner and their flirtation and the tension that had been building between them, Shayna felt herself get instantly wet between her legs.
“Oh, God,” she rasped.
He unclasped her bra and dropped that to the floor, too.
When Billy lifted his face to hers, his expression was a total stunner. Eyes hot with lust. Tongue dragging against his bottom lip as if he were still tasting her. He arched a brow. “I want you in my bed.”
Shayna’s pulse raced so hard the room started to spin around her. “Yes.”
He lifted her so that her legs surrounded his hips.
Clutching his neck, she threw her head back on a laugh. “You don’t have to carry me.”
He kissed her neck and started up. “I don’t want to stop touching you.”
She didn’t want him to either.
Shay shivered as the kisses and licks and little nips continued until they were in the darkness of his room. He lowered her feet to the ground and reached to turn on the lamp on the nightstand. But true to his word, he kept one arm around her while he did it.
And then Billy was kissing her again. Her mouth. Her throat. Her chest. His tongue went to her breasts again, and then lower as he dropped to his knees. The scruff on his jaw made her chuckle as he dragged it against her stomach, and then his hands went to her fly and his gaze lifted to hers.
Holy crap, seeing him on his knees in front of her, eyes full of desire and hair a sexed-up mess, was like a dream she never knew she needed to have.
Shayna didn’t make him ask this time, though. “Take them off,” she whispered. She tugged at his sleeve. “Your shirt, too?”
Nodding, he pulled his shirt off in that one-handed way guys did, further mussing his dark-blond hair. Then he was all about undressing her, which he did like he was unwrapping a present, eager and impatient. The second her shoes and jeans were free from her feet, he held her by the hips and buried his face against her lower belly. She gasped and braced against his bare shoulders, making sure not to grab the nearly healed cut.
Billy kissed her through the satin of her panties, ripping a moan from her when his lips grazed her clit. “I need my mouth on you, Shayna. Lay down.”
Words she would never, ever forget.
On a shaky breath, she sat on the edge of his bed and started to recline, and then he was on top of her, encouraging her to scoot back and laying her out.
His weight came down on top of her. The total freaking pleasure of that sensation floored her, and Shayna immediately clutched at his back. At his scars. Belatedly remembering, she pulled her left hand away.
“It’s okay. It didn’t hurt,” he said, kissing and
breathing into her ear. “I want you to touch me. Just maybe save your nails for my ass.”
She grinned. “Duly noted.”
He kissed his way down her curves again, lingering over every place that made her moan or squirm or roll her hips. Where her shoulder met her throat. Her nipples. Her hip bones. And then he pushed her thighs apart and settled his big shoulders in between like he was getting good and comfortable.
And Shayna had thought seeing him on his knees was sexy.
Nothing was freaking sexier than Billy Parrish’s ravenous expression as he lowered his face between her legs. He licked a firm drag of his tongue right over her clit. Her fingers immediately knotted in his hair.
“That’s it,” he said right against her most intimate flesh. “Let me know you like it.”
“God, I do,” she rasped.
He held her ass in his hands and tilted her hips so that her core was laid out right in front of his mouth. And then he dragged his rigid tongue through her wetness on a groan that made her even wetter.
“Billy.” It was a plea. A request. An urgent, needful demand.
“I got you.” And then he didn’t tease. Didn’t go slow. Didn’t hold back.
Billy Parrish feasted on her.
He alternated between penetrating her with his tongue and sucking on her clit until she was moaning and arching and grinding against this face. And when he latched onto her clit again and worked his tongue over it in a succession of fast, tormenting flicks, she grasped the back of his head with one hand and held him there.
“Gonna…gonna c-come,” she said as the orgasm shuddered through her so hard and so good that her thighs shook and her heart thundered and her hips couldn’t help but ride his mouth in a series of instinctual thrusts.
And though he didn’t stop licking her, his ravishment slowed and gentled. Dark eyes peered up her body as his torment drew her orgasm out.
“Stopstopstop,” she finally pleaded.
He kissed the inside of her thigh and looked at her with a little smile playing around his wet lips. Smug and gorgeous. “I could eat you all fucking night.”
“Jesus,” she whispered, overwhelmed by how much she suddenly felt in that moment. Not just intense sexual satisfaction, which she did, in spades. But also desired. And, even more, cherished.
She had no idea what to do with those feelings, or whether she was letting her emotions run too far from what this night with Billy might actually mean—after all, he’d said he wanted her. As in, desired her sexually. Not that he wanted a relationship with her.
So she made light of the moment. “I’d never survive it. But what a way to go…”
On a chuckle, Billy climbed onto the bed and sprawled out all along her side. He propped his head up on his hand and peered down at her, his expression one of hot masculine satisfaction. “I’m trained in CPR. I’d resuscitate you.”
Shayna grinned. “Good to know.”
He leaned his face against hers. “You’re stronger than you look, though. I think you’d survive it.” He kissed her then, and the sweet, sweet words played with more of what was happening in her chest.
Something bigger and more intense than her decade-old crush, that was for sure.
She turned onto her side, aligning their bodies in a way that allowed her to feel that he was still rock hard. Palming him through his jeans, she met his still-heated gaze. “Well, it’s my turn anyway.”
Something flashed behind his eyes. Something hesitant and unsure. For a moment, she was almost certain of it, and then it was gone again and there was just the sexy, naked desire he’d worn since they’d walked into the house.
So she wrote off what she thought she’d seen and pulled at the button to his fly.
Billy’s hand grasped and stilled her wrist. “Don’t.”
“I mean, there’s no rush,” Billy said, a war raging inside himself. A war between what he wanted and what was right. Desire still stirred through his blood but making her come so damn beautifully was its own kind of satisfaction, and his arousal was at a low roar now compared to the frenzy of before.
Making her come could be enough. He could stop it here. Before he’d taken anything for himself. Or, at least, anything more.
They’d careened way the hell over the line—and that was on him. But there were other lines he could keep them from crossing. That he could keep himself from crossing.
Uncertainty flickered through Shayna’s wide eyes, and he hated himself for it. He really did. But she brazened it out like the brave woman he was discovering her to be. “Can’t blame a girl for being eager.”
He chuffed out a laugh despite himself. “Is that so?”
She grinned as her hand unzipped his jeans and slipped into his open fly. Then under his boxers. Until she held his cock in the warmth of her grip.
“Fuck,” he groaned, watching a new line get blurrier and blurrier until he could barely see it at all.
Don’t was on the tip of his tongue again. Say it, Parrish. Fucking do the right thing and say it.
But all he did was close his eyes at the goodness of her touch. At the way she stroked him. Root to tip, root to tip. At the way her palm circled around his sensitive head. At the way her thumb found and spread the pre-come at his tip.
At the way she kissed down his chest, his pecs, his abs, her chin and her hair nuzzling his cock.
He fucking loved it. Of course, he did.
Billy ate up Shayna’s desire for him like it was the air he needed to breathe. But that just proved he was a greedy, selfish, self-centered sonofabitch. There was so much she didn’t know about him. So much he would never tell her either.
About how he thought others had deserved to live more than him. About how he sometimes wished he’d died in their places. About how he used sex and fighting to escape the pain of his guilt and his loneliness and his insecurity and his massive nerve damage from the burns.
And about how, once, he’d used his pain meds to escape that pain—too many of them. Enough that it’d left his mother to find him unconscious and apparently barely breathing.
In his heart of hearts, Billy still wasn’t sure whether or not he’d done it on purpose. Or whether his intent had been more than a temporary escape. Either way, he’d nearly thrown away—carelessly—what some of his brothers had lost forever.
With that thought, the line he’d been struggling not to cross got a helluva lot clearer again.
He opened his mouth to put an end to this, except that was the exact moment that Shayna’s mouth closed around his cock. Wet and hot and deep.
Billy nearly shouted at how good it felt. And in the wake of coming up against the mental edge of his greatest failings and his most shameful weaknesses, feeling anything good was a goddamned miracle.
He couldn’t end it. He couldn’t pull away. He couldn’t avoid letting them cross the line. Again.
Instead, his hands went to the back of Shayna’s head, resting there, at first, as her mouth moved over him again and again. Then urging her on with the slightest pressure. Her hair was so soft against his fingers and her mouth was so intense around his dick and her humming moans were so sweet in his ear.
“God, Shay, your fucking mouth,” he gritted out as his hand fisted in her curls.
She pulled off long enough to gasp a breath. “Show me what you like, Billy,” she rasped before taking him in deep again.
Her words shot sensation into his balls, and all he could do was obey. He drew his hips back and then rocked forward again, fucking her mouth in a long, slow in and out.
“Aw, yeah,” he said, the words repeating with each torturous stroke. “Aw, yeah, Shay.”
Gripping his hip in her hand, she moaned and opened her mouth wider, her tongue sticking out to just bathe his balls.
“Yes, take it deep,” he rasped. “Roll onto your back.” When she did, he kicked off his jeans and boxers and then braced himself atop her, knees next to her shoulders, his cock finding its way between her lips again. Except t
his time he had an absolutely mind-blowing view as he peered down and watched his length disappear inside her mouth. “Yes, take it.”
Those sea-blue eyes flickered backward, towards him, and their gazes collided.
All at once, his orgasm was a freight train barreling down his spine and nailing him in the ass. His balls went tight and his hips jerked and he had just enough time to pull free of her heat as he yelled, “Christ, I’m coming.”
His release shot through him in tormenting pulses that lashed at Shay’s cheek, her throat, her lips. Which was when Billy realized that she held her mouth wide for it, her hand directing his head inside again. So she could drink him down.
Peering up at him once more, she licked at where he’d spilled on her cheek and, not quite able to reach it all, she swiped at it with a fingertip and drew his cum to her mouth. Her lips ovaled around the wet finger.
He wasn’t sure if it was the eye contact when he felt so fucking raw. Or if it was the decadence of her willingness to not only swallow his cum but drink even what he’d spilled. Or if it was the way she hummed in pleasure as she did it.
All he knew was that it unleashed an absolute roar of possessiveness inside him.
One he had no goddamn right to feel.
Chapter Eleven
Shayna stretched out on the bed next to where Billy lay looking absolutely wrecked. After lusting over him for so long, she could barely believe what they’d just shared and how thrilling it’d been to make him fall apart. Or that she had the ability to look her fill of his naked body, sprawled out beside her like a freaking god.
Now, she wasn’t sure what to do or how to play it.
Were they done? Would he want more?
In a delicious display of masculinity, his cock lay semi-erect against his hard belly. Jesus, he’d been a delicious and slightly overwhelming mouthful. And just that one thought made it clear that she was game for more if he was. Then again, she was the one with the possibly run-away feelings.
Not just possibly, Shay.