Escalation Clause (Stewart Realty Series)

by Crowe, Liz

  “Yeah,” he ran a hand down his face, then jumped up, and grabbed the skimmer. He cleared the condoms, a bottle of sunscreen and three beer cans from the pool, trying to ignore her. But his baser self would not cooperate, and he had to grab a towel and fasten it around his waist to hide the damn tent in his shorts. She moved all the chairs back into their usual places and cleaned off the two glass-topped tables, finding yet another rubber in the grass near the back fence.

  “You guys sure do know how to throw a party.” She smiled at him, lifting his heart and making his damn cock pound in time with his headache.

  “Huh,” he grunted, before turning the water on to get the pool level back up and taking a reading on the chemicals. Sweat dripped off his forehead, blurring his vision. Fuck it was hot out already, and it was barely eight o’clock in the morning. She crouched down next to him, her arm grazing his, making him flinch. Crush, Brandis. Remember? She is a no-go zone. Don’t do it.

  “Those look okay,” she grabbed the testing box from him and tossed it up on the table, stripped off her tee shirt revealing a different bikini, a black one that highlighted the near-perfect shape of her long, lean frame. He looked away, heard the splash as she jumped in and couldn’t resist a peek she moved through the water. Damn he wanted her. Bad.

  She emerged, pushed her long hair back and stared at him. Her blue eyes were dark, noncommittal. “Come on in. The water’s fine.” She cocked her head and batted her amazingly long eyelashes.

  “Are you flirting with me?” He croaked out.

  “No. No way. Why would I do that?” She sank back below the water, and then climbed out, giving him a breathless glimpse of the strength in her arms and a flash of pink…dear Jesus. He sank into a chair, hand over his eyes. When he looked up, she loomed over him, the pool water dripping on his still towel-covered legs, flicking water into his face. “Seriously, Brandis, I’m not interested in messing up our friendship and somehow it feels…weird. You know? And I don’t want that.”

  He squinted up at her. Her face was backlit and hidden, but her gorgeous shape highlighted just enough. He grabbed the chair arms. “Yeah, you’re right. Who needs weird. Let’s take a breath and start over.”

  She smiled, and held out her hand. The drip-drip-drip of cold water hit the towel and shorts covering his aching cock. He tried to let it cool him. “Hey, Brandis, long time no see. I’m hanging at your parents’ house this summer but that should be okay since you live over on Church Street and Jack’s one of your roommates for the next two months. Want some help with those cans this morning? I don’t have to work until noon.”

  He smiled back at her, got to his feet, thrilled beyond measure at the way her face relaxed when he took her hand and shook it once. Then, as if he had no control over himself whatsoever he tugged her close in a quick embrace. “We always hugged hello and goodbye. No need to stop that, is there? Go all formal?” His words were lost in her jet-black wet hair. Her breasts mashed into him, and he tilted her chin up, a little alarmed to see tears in her eyes. She shook her head and when he finally touched his lips to hers, it felt like he’d been kissing her forever.

  She shifted in his arms, molded herself against him and yanked his towel off in one motion. Surprised but not unhappy about it, he deepened the kiss, parted her lips with his tongue. He groaned, cupped a breast, ran his hand down her back to her ass and up, unable to settle. He felt like a rookie. How did she do this to him? He could maneuver himself between the legs of the hottest girl in any room in an eye blink. Why did this moment with his friend Maureen…the very young sister of his overprotective friend…make him fumbling and breathless and ready to plow into her like a sixteen-year-old kid?

  “Wait, stop,” he broke away, trying to get a grip. She stared, breasts heaving, the glorious hard peaks of her nipples poking through the wet bikini top making his mouth water.

  Trying to remember his manners and fighting the voice in his head reminding him to get the hell away from her, he angled his hips away, reducing her contact with his poor, aching shaft. But she grabbed him and shoved their bodies back together, all the time staring at him as if she wanted to speak but had no words.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” she whispered. “You want this as much as I do.” She ground against him, and he bit back a moan. She kissed him then, and he let her, allowed her to lead as his brain spun with the odd twin sensations of horny and a strange sense of protectiveness. She broke away, breath ragged and eyes wild. He could smell her, the heady pheromone of her desire making him dizzy. He put a shaking palm against her face, and stepped away.

  She glared at him, arms crossed. He forced himself not to stare at her breasts, her waist, the glorious curve of her hips and thighs. This. Was. His. Friend’s. Sister. He closed his eyes a split second then opened them just as she was stepping back into his space. He moved away, maintaining the distance between them. “Mo,” his voice broke. “Mo, listen to me. I…I don’t know what’s happening here, but you know as well as I do it can’t. We can’t. We…we,” he looked up at the sky and called on every ounce of will power and self-control in the known universe. “Let’s go take the bottles back. I’ll buy breakfast.”

  She blinked at the sudden conversational shift. But her breathing had calmed and she seemed to relax. The gut-clenching realization of their situation hit him hard. She was still a virgin, headed to U of M in the fall where he had just graduated, destined for the Air Force Academy. They had, what, eight weeks together at most? Yet everything in him yearned for her. His hands itched to caress her, his lips burned with need to kiss her. It had to be the weirdest fucking sensation he’d ever felt. He shook his head. He would not be the guy to deflower this woman. No way. No how. No….

  “Oh hell.” He gasped when she pushed him back into the chair. Allowing about a half second to realize that some girl shoving him down could be seen as a little embarrassing for his future as an Air Force pilot, he groaned when she dropped to her knees, his mysteriously exposed cock deep in her mouth. His ears roared as she fisted him, sucked him into her mouth. He spread his legs, grabbed her hair and let her do it. Let his friend’s suddenly desirable younger sister bring him to the ragged edge of bliss. Her finger slipped down under his balls, teased the soft skin between them and his ass. “Ah, shit, Mo, stop or I’m gonna, unh!” His hips jerked and he let himself fill her mouth and throat, coming so fast and hard he got light headed.

  He gasped, stared up into the blue sky and calmed his breathing. Then looked down at her. She sat back on the grass, legs bent, wiping her lips the look in her eyes one of pure sex. It made him itch to have her, the urge to take her so strong he had to clutch the chair arms to keep from doing something irreversible. That look was one he was determined to see again, but only after he had paid her a similar favor. Soon.

  Her slow smile made him chuckle. “Je-sus woman, where did you learn how to do that?” He stood, his knees still wobbly, and pulled her to her feet. She kept her distance, appearing to be a little embarrassed but he tugged her close, kissed the tip of her nose, licked her lips. He loved the way she responded with a shiver and a little moan. That was a sound he planned to hear a lot over the summer. He ignored the voice in his head that made some bullshit comment about wanting more than “just the summer,” and held her close.

  “So, about that breakfast?” She sniffled and stepped away.

  Chapter Five

  Maureen floated in the pool her body sore all over from the running she’d been doing. Looking for any excuse to be around Brandis, she let him drag her out of bed at six every morning for a “solid five miler.” She groaned and flexed her feet, the ache in her calves nearly matching the one in her heart at his absence. He’d been gone for a week at some kind of stupid Air Force Academy orientation thing in Colorado. He’d called every night, and they’d shared some pretty vigorous phone sex, but her virginity remained firmly intact at his insistence.

  She shut her eyes and relived a conversation with him from a few nights ea
rlier.

  “So, thanks for that.” She’d managed to rub herself to climax using the sound of his breathless commands to spur herself on. “But, I still don’t understand why…,” she’d let her voice trail off.

  “Why what, baby?” He’d been shuffling around, obviously getting himself put back together after his own phone-inspired orgasm. “Why we can’t tell, Jack?”

  “Well, yeah, that, too.” She held back a groan at the hopelessness of it and her own aching need for him to just take her, make her his.

  “I’m going to tell him.”

  She’d sat up, surprised, and more than a little nervous at the prospect of that conversation. She adored her older brother. She always had—had spent hours with him, especially since their parents had been so lame most of the time. “So, what brought this on?”

  He cleared his throat. “Because Maureen Elizabeth Gordon. I love you.”

  “Oh.” She’d grinned and snuggled down into the covers. “Say it again.”

  “Sure. I’m not afraid to say it like some people I know. I love you.”

  She’d let the silence spin out a minute before responding but knowing the truth of the words. She’d found her soul mate and no man would ever do it for her but him. “I love you, too. So much. So much so that I don’t understand why in the hell you won’t just….”

  “Shh…shh…,” he’d interrupted her. “I told you why. I want…no, I need for it to be special. Not just some random encounter hiding from my parents or your brother.”

  “Aw, that is just sweet. And all I want is for you to fuck me. You know, hard, and a lot.”

  “Damn girl. Nice dirty mouth. And I will, I promise. Someday.”

  Mo smiled up into the sunlight, let her fingers trail through the warmish water then down over her hard nipples under her bikini top. She squirmed in the floating chair, her core doing its usual meltdown at the thought of the incredible magic Brandis had shown her. He’d taught her a thing or five about oral sex, using his amazing lips and tongue to tease more bone-shattering orgasms out of her than she could count. She’d learned how much he liked it rough, wanted her to use the dirtiest words she could come up with during their many exploration sessions. She had gotten to be an expert at pushing all his buttons to bring on mind-blowing orgasms. But, that one small detail remained. He would not penetrate her with anything but his tongue, and would not go deep with his fingers no matter how much she begged, teased, cajoled or otherwise used her skills to convince him to finish her, to just be the guy who made her truly his.

  Her favorite place to be with him was his old bedroom. Since both his parents worked long hours, and Denise spent her days as a camp counselor, they had ample opportunity to explore each other in the long hours of the afternoons after both of their summer day jobs were done. She slipped her hand into her bikini bottoms.

  He’d taught her that too, how the sound of his voice could make her react and ready for him in an instant. She rubbed herself, using a familiar rhythm, tugging her nipple, keeping her feet propped on the pool ladder for leverage. “Brandis!” She cried out at the last moment, as her pussy pulsed in her hand.

  Then, without warning, she was dumped over, coughing and sputtering with surprise and his strong arms were around her under the water, his lips pressed to hers. They surfaced, still kissing and he backed her against the edge of the pool, running his hand down her face. She grabbed his cock, loving its now familiar length and heft in her hand. He shifted so she could release it into the water, feel it against her bare stomach. He broke the kiss, stared into her eyes. “That was the hottest goddamned thing I have ever seen.” He mumbled, before nipping her earlobe and kissing his way down her neck, untying her bikini top and pulling her bottoms down and off.

  “Jesus, Brandis,” she gasped, cradling his head as he sucked her nipple, hard, just like she liked it. She wrapped her legs around his waist, let the water’s buoyancy hold her aloft. One shift of her hips and she would have what she wanted so desperately. He wanted it, too, she could tell. His hips thrust forward towards her as he gripped her ass, shoved her up against the pool wall. “Yes.” She hissed, feeling him close, nearly inside her.

  “No,” he tore away, his breath harsh, his face a mask of desire and frustration. “I told you, it’s…oh, God,”

  She pulled him back to her, flipped them around so he was the one propped against the wall. She lifted herself up, bit her lip and grabbed his throbbing shaft. This was it, goddamn it. She was going to have him inside her, where he belonged. He kissed her, making her head spin with the intensity. His tongue swept into her mouth, their teeth clicked together in clumsy urgency. A small tendril of fear teased her brain when she sensed the head of his sex so near. Then, he grabbed her waist and lifted her off, passing his hand down her stomach, grazing her clit once, twice, then rubbing hard as he pulled her nipple between his teeth, biting down as she groaned and came all over his finger that he only inserted enough, but not too far. Again.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” she sighed leaning back, her arms still wrapped around his neck. She leaned into lick the sweat from him, loving the intense tastes of him. Trying once more to maneuver herself, just enough….

  “Stop it, Mo.” He pulled away, his face serious. She grinned and grabbed his cock, moving her hand up and down, like he taught her, concentrating on the thick head, using her other hand below, caressing his tight balls, and lower, using her finger to tease and stroke him.

  “I want to taste it.” She whispered into his ear. He lifted himself out backwards, and she stood on the ledge and sucked him down, using her new found swallowing skills to deep throat him, loving how he pulled her hair and thrust his hips, fucking her mouth until he grunted, tensed and shot hot liquid down her throat. She drank him down, released his long dark cock, admiring the beauty of it. “I want this,” she kept caressing him, making him shiver as he leaned back on his elbows. “So much, Brandis. Please. You’re leaving in a week. I need….”

  “I know, baby, I know.” He pulled her up beside him and passed his lips over hers. “I’m working out some details.” A small flame of anger flared in her gut, made her stand and walk away from him. “Don’t go away mad, Mo. I missed you so much.”

  “Yeah, well, missing me will be all you will do soon, won’t it?” She grabbed a water bottle and drank, ignoring the inevitable, on rushing pain that had “Brandis in Colorado” written on it. She didn’t really know why she was putting so much stock in losing her virginity, but somehow she needed him to want it more; wanted him to take it from her. He acted like it was something he just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do. She whirled around to face him, but gasped when she realized he’d walked up behind her and was sweeping her into his arms. Tears stung her eyes. He kissed them away.

  “Friday night, Maureen. Big date. Dress up. Bring an overnight bag. Okay?” His normally deep voice sounded even lower.

  She nodded, still mad but wanting him to never ever stop kissing her.

  Brandis watched his hands, amazed that they were actually shaking as he packed for the weekend. Maureen Gordon. Of all the women in his orbit, how had he managed to fall head over heels for her? Granted, they’d known each other a long time. Had spent enough hours together growing up he already considered her one of his very best friends…other than her brother of course. He groaned, and sat on the bed, interlocking his fingers together to keep from punching a hole in the wall.

  Jack had been scarce himself over the summer, working overtime for his father’s new project downtown, claiming he needed the cash. Brandis asked him more than once how Gordon Senior felt about his only daughter no longer living at home, but Jack said it never came up. Brandis knew Jack had zero patience for his father’s bullshit and so did not doubt it “never came up.” Yet, Jack worked for his father tirelessly, earning a deep brown tan and plenty of dough to line his bank account.

  Brandis wandered out on the house’s small front porch and sat beside Jack, trying to gauge how much the guy had fig
ured out about his and Mo’s activity. They’d been out on dates, lots of movies, dinners, concerts, just like a regular couple. They had done every damn thing except fuck for weeks. And while Brandis was eager for her, to do this thing she wanted so badly, part of him didn’t want the responsibility—the part where she gave something to him that meant so much to her. And the sneakiness, hiding the fact of their relationship from Jack, had worn Brandis down. He needed his friend to know, or better yet, to accept their relationship.

  He sat, staring at the light summer traffic. “You got a girl or something, man? I never see you anymore.”

  “Yeah, kinda,” Jack ran a hand through his thick black hair, sipped his beer, his work-boot clad feet propped on the railing. “Not really. She’s fun and all but, nothing special.” Brandis matched his casual stance but his heart was going a mile a minute.

  “Is it that S and M stuff? You still doing that scene?” Brandis had no interest in it, but Jack seemed to enjoy the kink.

  “Some.” Jack kept his eyes trained on the traffic on Church Street. His body language screamed stress. Brandis let the conversation drift off.

  “You should realize that I know—about you and my sister.” His friend commented after ten minutes of silence.

  Brandis lifted his chin. Here it was. The moment of truth. “Oh?” He grabbed another couple of beers from the cooler between them, popped the caps and handed one over. Jack just stared at him, his deep blue eyes full of something Brandis wished he could read. “What is it that you know?” He tried to keep the defensiveness out of his voice but a sudden loop of pure pornographic activity that he had shared with Maureen shot through his head so fast he sucked in a breath at the strength of the images.

  A mistake, Brandis. You have made a giant error in judgment.

  But words tumbled from his lips. “I love her. Did you know that?” He leaned his elbows on his knees, let the beer bottle dangle from his fingers.