by Avery Flynn
“You’re so demanding.”
“You have no fucking idea. Turn around.”
She did—slowly, degree by degree—and then lifted herself up on her tiptoes, her legs spread wide, and bent over the island. Jesus. It was almost enough to make him come on the spot. She looked fucking beautiful. She was beautiful and confident and so willing to play the games that he loved because she loved them, too. That little upstairs neighbor/downstairs neighbor war of theirs had been foreplay that had led them to the other night in the parking garage and today.
“Don’t make me wait, 2B.”
Smart-ass. He smacked her on the butt. “Patience, sugar.”
But he wasn’t patient anymore, either. He lined himself up with her wet welcome and slid in without preamble, going at her as steadily as he could, considering every instinct in him was screaming for him to fuck her hard and fast, make her his. God, she was tight. Not giving in to the urge to drive forward was killing him, but he wanted to savor the curve of her spine, the lift of her hips as she rose to meet him, and the soft sigh of a moan when he finally sank balls-deep into her.
If he was a better man, he would have stayed there longer, drawn it out, but she did this figure-eight thing with her hips and he was lost. Keeping one hand clamped onto her hip, he reached forward with the other and rolled her hard nipple between two fingers, pulling the peak just enough to make her gasp with pleasure. Releasing her nipple, he grabbed her chin and quickly turned her face to the side so he could capture her lips. He plunged his tongue inside her sweet mouth, tasting her like that while he was buried inside her, his cock aching for release. Letting her go, he reached between them, brushing his fingers across her swollen clit. She bucked in response, her walls tightening around him.
“Yeah, that’s it, sugar.” He circled her clit with his middle finger, adding just enough pressure to make her cry out in pleasure. “You’re gonna come again.”
Plunging inside her and withdrawing, he kept his pace steady while increasing the speed and pressure of his finger until she cried out and her spine bowed as she came with his name on her lips. She squeezed him, milked him, and it was too much. There was no holding back now. Grabbing onto her hips, he yanked her back and forth against him in time with each thrust and retreat. It was intense and fast and borderline rough—but she gave it back just as hard. In and out, he thrust deep inside her, each stroke taking him higher and higher until the pleasure bordered on pain it was so intense. It was so damn good.
“Everly,” he managed to get out right as his climax crashed into him, and he buried himself balls-deep in her and let go.
When he could open his eyes again, he realized he was practically squashing her against the island. Withdrawing, he apologized before slipping off the used condom and tossing it into the garbage.
He watched her carefully as she grabbed her dress from the ground and slipped it on. She wasn’t talking. He didn’t like that. Everly always had a lot to say. It was quiet Everly who was dangerous.
“Everything okay?” he asked, floundering around for something better to say.
“Don’t worry, I’m not freaking out,” she said, turning to look him up and down. “Just trying to figure out if this should happen again.”
“I vote yes.” A million times yes.
She laughed. “I’m so surprised.”
“How about this?” He grabbed his wallet from the kitchen floor and took out his lucky quarter. “How about we flip for it? Heads we keep going like this for just as long as it’s fun. Tails, we walk away, no harm no foul.”
“Only as long as it’s fun?” she asked, strutting over to him.
“Exactly.” Now this was the kind of deal he excelled at. Everyone walked away a winner.
She thought it over for a second and nodded. “Flip.”
He did and just as the coin started to make its downward turn, Everly reached up and snatched it out of the air.
“Heads,” she said without even looking at it.
“That wasn’t a complete coin toss.”
Her only answer was a slight shrug of her shoulders as she turned and walked to the stairs, stopping just long enough to take off her dress again. Finally using that high IQ of his for good, he kept his mouth shut and followed her lead by leaving his shorts and T-shirt on the kitchen floor.
Chapter Nineteen
The sun bouncing off the ocean snuck in through the narrow opening between the hotel room curtains and tried its best to burrow into Helene Carlyle’s brain. A morning person she was not and never had been. She turned away from the window only to encounter a broad back and a head of silver hair snuggled into the pillow next to hers.
The pieces came together in thrilling detail. The wine followed by a walk through the downtown area. Then there was dinner filled with more laughter than she’d experienced in a while as Alberto regaled her with stories about the trials and tribulations of working in a hotel. He’d started off as a bellboy and had spent his life working hard to get to the point where he could not only buy the company but expand it into seven countries. It was so much different than her life. She’d been born into privilege and bred to adhere to the Harbor City elite code. Then there had been a ghost tour, then more drinks, and a stop at a clothing-optional rooftop bar. She hadn’t taken anything off, but it was definitely eye-opening. Finally, he walked her back to her hotel room. She’d invited him in for a nightcap and…now she was waking up with a naked man in her bed.
She should feel guilty—she was still wearing her wedding ring after all—but she didn’t. She felt…as if she’d crossed into new territory and it was exhilarating. That annoyed her. What if her boys found out? What would Michael say? Okay, that was a dumb question because he’d been gone for more than three years, but it still landed with an ice-cold kerplop in the middle of her chest because so much of what she did now centered around how she thought Michael would react. It was enough of a wake-up call to clear out any of the cobwebs and propel her into action.
Sitting up and taking the sheet with her, holding it close to her bare chest, she poked a finger into Alberto’s shoulder. “You have to go now.”
He rolled over, looking mussed and more than a little devastating. He gave her a sleepy grin but didn’t make a move to get out of bed. “Good morning, bellissima.”
“Go on.” She poked him again. “Scoot.”
Instead of getting out of bed, he sat up, letting the sheet pool around his waist, and took her hand, then landed a kiss in the center of her palm. “Such fire first thing in the morning. I love it. Are you nervous? You weren’t last night.”
Electricity zinged out from the center of her palm and up her arm, making her nipples pebble under the sheet. “I’m never nervous.”
His gaze dropped to her breasts, desire darkening his chocolate-brown eyes, before his attention traveled back up to her face, her mouth in particular. “You know it’s all right.”
Flustered by the unexplainable rise in temperature in the room, she tried to maintain as much dignity as possible while naked in bed with the first man she’d slept with since Michael died who insisted on thinking she wanted him to flirt with her—which she most definitely did not. She gave him the haughtiest look she could muster in her condition. “What is?”
“That we made love.” He trailed the back of his hand down her arm, the tip of one finger nearly brushing her puckered nipple.
“I know that.” Heat flamed in her cheeks while desire slid like warm honey through her. “I’m not an idiot.”
He shrugged and settled back against the pillows. “But you are a worrier, and right now you are worried about what others would think if they knew.”
The fact that he could read her so easily annoyed her. “You’re wrong.”
“Yes?” He leaned over and kissed her, his lips strong and demanding. “Then come to the Great Openings Gala with me when we return to Harbor City.”
A date? Her? At one of the events she always used to go to with Michael? The
fact that it was as much of a temptation as it was worried her. Damn it. She hated that Alberto had pegged her so perfectly. It brought out the stubbornness she usually laid at Michael’s feet when it was Sawyer or Hudson displaying it.
“I already have a date.”
“One of your sons?” He scoffed. “That doesn’t count as a date.”
She knew that. She’d told Hudson that specifically before he’d met Felicia, when he’d insisted on dragging his mother to events. At the time, she’d been trying to continue her mourning period well beyond when most people thought she should have been back to her normal self. She hadn’t been, but the public outings had brought back some of the joy she thought she’d lost forever. Was she ready for another boundary crossing like that? Was she ready for a date? If someone had asked her before last night, she would have told them no. After last night? She wasn’t so sure. And that really worried her.
Not sure what to do with the unfamiliar sensation of her own indecision, she fell back on what she knew best—ordering people around. “You can go now.”
If he was offended, Alberto didn’t show it. In fact, he seemed to see right through her brusque manner for what it really was, a set of defenses. Giving her a knowing smile, he got out of bed, completely at ease with strutting around her hotel room naked, his back and butt a testament to his workout regime, and strolled through the room picking up his clothes where they’d dropped last night. Once he was dressed, he returned to the bed, placing a hand on the mattress next to her hip and leaning down.
“Bellissima,” he said, his breath warm and sweet against her skin. “We’ll make arrangements when we return home.”
Anticipation skittered across her skin. “I didn’t say yes.”
“But you will.” He kissed her, strong and sure.
Alberto was too sure of himself by half, but—in this instant—he had no reason to be. Because she couldn’t say yes, and what would happen after that? She couldn’t even begin to guess.
Chapter Twenty
After Key West, the pre-winter chill hit a little bit harder when they returned a few days later to Harbor City with the art to be sold categorized and Alberto having stated his interest in hearing more about Tyler’s hotel expansion ideas and passing them along to the hotel board. Heading down Delancey Street with a bag full of groceries, Everly hunched her shoulders against the blast of wind cold enough to send the urban rats scurrying for shelter. The quicker she could get into her building, the sooner she could dig her wooly socks out from her dresser’s bottom drawer and defrost her toes. Of course, that wasn’t the only way she was hoping to warm up. There was a certain man in 2B who got her hot without even trying. Her Spidey sense tingled to life half a second before a deep, masculine voice hit her like a blast of the tropics. Forget wooly socks, she needed to go put on shorts and a tank top.
“I’ll carry that right up to my place,” Tyler said as his long legs brought him even with her.
“These are my groceries,” she shot back, relishing the easy teasing between them after another rough visit with her nunni.
He reached over and plucked the paper bag out of her arms, giving her a wink that would have decimated her panties if she’d been wearing any. “It’s easier for me to cook for you if there’s food in my apartment.”
“Oh no.” She’d let him carry the bag the final block and up the three flights of stairs, but he wasn’t gonna end her that way. “You’re not cooking for me. I have a lot to live for.”
His booming laugh warmed her as they stopped in front of their building and she punched in the entry code. For the first time since she walked out of the Lakeland Community Center with Nunni’s warning to her—well, to her mom, really—to watch out for the wrong kind of man, some of the tension leaked out of her shoulders. Tyler completely fit Nunni’s description of the wrong kind of man. He was a schemer, a plotter, a man intent on turning himself into the perfect Harbor City Richie Rich. Of course none of that mattered in their situation because it wasn’t like her mother’s. No one was falling in love and no one was going to get hurt. It was just some fun, nothing more.
“Does it make a difference if we won’t be alone?” he asked as they headed up the stairs.
“You’re moving on to cooking-related murderer with a partner?”
He flipped her off with a laugh. “No, I hired a cooking instructor.”
She slammed to a stop on the second-floor landing. “No way.”
“Yes way,” he said. “And I need a taster.”
Everly had no clue what Tyler was up to, but he was definitely up to something. The man never did anything without a plan. “What made you decide on this?”
“This horrible upstairs neighbor of mine keeps complaining,” he said as he carried her groceries down the hall on a direct path for his apartment.
Yeah, that sounded about right. She had complained—a lot—to the building’s owner, who had just happened to turn out to be her can’t-cook-a-thing downstairs nemesis. Funny how life turned out sometimes. Her gaze dropped to his ass as he turned to unlock his door. Good Lord. One of these days she was going to snag that lucky quarter of his and just bounce it off his buns. Now that was a coin flip she would enjoy whether she won or lost.
Determined to play along with their little game rather than give in to the urge to jump him in the hallway, neighbors be damned, Everly said, “What a bitch your neighbor must be.”
He unlocked his door, turned, and looked at her. “She has her positives.”
“Oh yeah, like what?” Fishing for compliments? Her? Okay, totally.
Tyler stepped closer. The paper bag crinkled, and there was enough heat in his gaze that the grocery bag being crushed between them should have caught fire. “This thing she does with her tongue.”
That thing? Oh yeah, it had made his eyes roll back in his head, so of course she’d done it again. And again. And again. Key West had been fun, that was for sure.
Everly dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “She only does that in Florida, from what I hear.”
He tsk-tsked. “Saddest news I’ve heard all day.”
The sound of someone singing off-key about having friends in low places filtered out from his apartment, snagging her attention. “Did you really hire a cooking coach?”
He took a step back and pushed open the door, and the most delicious scents in the world came wafting out of his apartment. “Come on in and find out.”
The tomatoey, garlicky aroma was the smell equivalent of when someone cancels plans when all she wanted to do was stay home anyway. In other words, it smelled like heaven. The man in the What’s Cookin’? T-shirt and khaki shorts despite the blustery weather outside was instantly recognizable to anyone with a stomach in Harbor City and probably outside of it, too. Heath Hostile was a bad-boy chef who started out as a short-order cook at a diner and ended up running one of the most successful trio of restaurants on the East Coast, one of which—Wheat & Rye—was in Harbor City. He had his own TV show where he went and rescued failing restaurants.
A little starstruck, she turned to Tyler, who was still holding her groceries. “Why is the guy from Hostile Takeover in your kitchen?”
Tyler shrugged and put the grocery bag on the island. “I’m a silent partner in his restaurants.”
“And I’m the only one who can stomach your cooking.” Heath gave her a wave before returning to the simmering pot on the stove.
Okay, this was a secret she needed to learn. “How in the world do you manage to do that?”
“Iron stomach.” Heath patted his flat stomach. “And you must be the mystery woman Frankie was talking about.”
She turned to Tyler and raised one eyebrow. “Mystery woman?”
“Ignore him,” he said, shooting a glare Heath’s way. “He’s an idiot about everything but food.”
“Speaking of which, tell me there’s pasta in that bag,” Heath said. “It’s almost time to put the pasta on now that your sauce has been simmering for four
hours.”
Tyler dug around in her grocery bag and pulled out the spaghetti, holding it up like a trophy.
“You made the sauce?” Everly asked, too shocked to think much about the proprietary way he had rooted through her groceries. “No way. He had to have helped.”
“Only if you count yelling as helping.”
“Welcome to my world, buddy,” Heath said. “If you can’t take a little heat, get out of the kitchen.”
And for the next two hours, they didn’t. The three of them laughed and told bullshit stories and watched as Tyler finally boiled the perfect pasta—on his fourth try—before eating the best dinner she’d ever had in her life. By the time Heath left, they were down two bottles of red and she was more than ready to work off some of those delicious carbs in the best way possible.
She set her half-empty wineglass down on the island and started on the buttons of her black blouse. Tyler didn’t say a word, his wineglass in a holding pattern halfway to his lips as he watched her fingers with rapt attention. Good. That was just how she wanted him—enthralled.
“That is the kind of meal that deserves a thank-you.”
He set his glass down with a thunk on the island. “Any way in particular that you’re thinking of?”
Forearms pressed against the island countertop, she leaned forward enough that her blouse gaped open, giving him an excellent view of her lace-covered breasts. “I’ve got this thing I can do with my tongue.”
Now that jerked his gaze up to her face.
“God yes.” It came out like a slow prayer, but he moved fast.
His mouth came down on hers, both of their clothes magically disappeared, and a few hours, days, weeks—who in the hell knew—later they both had pasta sauce splattered on places it normally would never touch and were too sated and exhausted to care.
She swiped her finger through a line of red sauce smeared on his shoulder and sucked it off. “I’ll never look at pasta the same again.”
“Makes two of us, sugar.” Tyler stood up and tossed her over his shoulder like a caveman claiming his woman and headed down the hallway leading to his bedroom. “Now let me soap you off before I drag you to bed with me for round two.”