“Yes.”
“You really are fucked up, Blackman.”
“Yeah. That’s one thing we can agree on. Maybe there’s no fucking reason for it. Maybe I’m just a screw-up. I don’t need psychoanalysis, just…”
“Psycho anal sex?”
I tried to give him my be serious face, but hell, if humour was what it took to get us back to where we needed to be, so be it.
Steven took a deep breath, so deep I saw his chest heave. “I’m going to bed now.”
Oh. So that was it, then. A conversation without end. No resolution.
“Well. Guess, I’ll—”
“I thought you were staying?”
Okay, Kit. Time to be bold. “Depends. No point bedding down on your settee if there’s a perfectly good bed at home, is there?”
He inclined his head, studied me with narrowed eyes. Maybe he was trying to figure out whether or not I was joking. I didn’t even know myself. “Get in the fucking bedroom, idiot.”
“You say the nicest things.”
“I deserve to get away with it after the way you’ve treated me.” He pushed at my back with one hand, nudging me across the threshold to his bedroom. It was strange, seeing his things in the wrong room. But he lived here now.
“So.” I turned to face him as he clicked the door shut behind us and nearly asked what now? After being the one to back off, I was the one concerned about what would happen in the morning. “I’m staying, then?”
“Looks like it.”
“And in the morning?”
“In the morning you’ll freak out and leave.” Steven sighed, and the exhalation sounded wistful, full of regret.
“How do you know?”
“It’s what you’ve always done before. But…” He shrugged, and slipped his arms around my waist. “I let you, so I’m to blame as well.”
Uh-oh. I didn’t like the way this was going. He had one eye on the morning after before we’d experienced the night before.
And now I knew how he’d felt. Served me right, I supposed.
“I could leave, but I’m still here,” I pointed out.
“Yeah. How long for, I don’t know.” His lower lip dragged over mine in a kiss that wanted to be something more. “Nothing to stop us having a bit of fun, though, right?” He inched back, and there was an unspoken challenge in his words. “I’ll regret this in the morning. Unless something changes.”
I tilted my head, but even from that angle, the expression on his face made no more sense. “If you’ll regret it, then—”
“Ignore me.” He shook his head, pulled me closer. “Just tired. Drunk too much. The stress of moving. All that. Nothing important. I promise you.” He took another deep breath and inched his hands under my untucked shirt.
I thought it was him who’d gasped but a second later realised the sound had come from my mouth. Jesus, it hadn’t been that long since he’d touched me, surely? Was I that addicted to him that his hands on my abs, then settling on my hips, made my head spin?
“Fuck, I’ve missed you.”
It took another second again for me to realise he’d spoken this time, and he startled, looked up at me sheepishly from behind his long lashes, as if he’d confessed something he should have kept secret.
Steven hauled up my shirt; maybe a button pinged off; a seam certainly threatened to tear; that telltale zip rent the relative silence, our heavy breathing the only backdrop.
“Wait.” I stopped, but Steven froze. Any obstacle I put in the way of us getting naked, in bed and fucking, must have seemed to him like a step backwards. I’d done it to him often enough. “Tiffany. In the next room. Won’t she…?” Did I have to spell it out?
“You better not have decided you fancy my sister more than me, Blackman.”
“Fuck no.”
“Thank God for that—”
“Privacy. That’s all. Nothing more than that.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. The bed’s not against the adjoining wall so I can get as violent as I like with you and she’ll sleep right through it.”
“God damn it, Kenton.” We fell back onto his bed—the covers the same, but in a different room with the door in the wrong place and his personal belongings arranged incorrectly.
He tore at my clothes, and I let him, too stunned by his speed and desperation to put the brakes on. Too worried about confusing him if I did. I’d let him do what the hell he liked to me if it convinced him I really wanted to be here.
I broke off one of his desperate kisses to catch my breath and frowned. He paused too, one hand on his shorts, ready to pull them off and watched me. Waited for the panic that never came. The only thing that worried me wasn’t coping with him looking at me. It was what I’d do if he ever turned away.
“I do want to be here, you know.”
He cocked his head, dipped his gaze to my mouth. “Really.”
Whether it was a question seeking confirmation or mere sarcasm I wasn’t sure.
“Yeah, well, ‘here’ isn’t the thing. Just…” I shook my head. “Never mind.” The unspoken ‘with you’ would have been too much. Strange that I wanted to say it, but my main concern was whether or not he’d be able to hear it.
Steven bit his lip and for a millisecond I thought I’d caused offence but all he was doing was reaching for the bedside cabinet. “Had to keep my shit on standby.” He laughed.
“Didn’t think I’d get lucky tonight, though.”
“What can I say? I’m a manwhore.”
“Only for me, I hope,” he muttered, tearing at the foil packet, glancing at me and turning away again, his face colouring slightly as he realised I’d heard.
“You’d be surprised.” I fell onto my back and waited for Steven to speak. Or touch me.
To do something, but once he had the condom and lube on in record time, he slowed right down.
“Well?” He lifted his eyebrows, nodded at me in expectation and it took a while for the penny to drop.
“Oh. Oh. “ He was waiting for me to turn over. Not this time. “Just come here, you.” I tugged his hair and, God, it felt good to be able to touch him like that.
“Are you sure?”
“Y—actually, no. But I want to.” I shrugged as best I could while horizontal and he moved over me.
Nerves tangled our limbs and made us laugh quietly, exchanging uncertain looks which silently asked are you definitely sure and replied no, but yes too. Never more so.
As soon as the tip of his cock touched me I half-groaned, tentatively held on to the knowledge we had to be quiet and discreet, then managed to turn it into a sigh.
“You okay?” He slid in easily, with little resistance even though this position was unusual for me.
“Yep.” I nodded. “Yeah, just gimme a…” I wriggled as he settled himself inside me.
“Gimme a minute to get used to it.”
Steven propped himself up on both arms and watched himself pull back an inch then slide back in.
And I watched him.
“Fuck.” He bit his lip and chanced a look at me. The shudder that ran up my spine wasn’t a result of being observed. Not anymore. “I’ve missed this.” He bent down to kiss me, or so I thought, but ended up whispering something against my lips. “I’ve missed you.”
* * * *
By the time it started getting light again I’d been awake for a while. Steven dozed beside me, one arm round my waist, and a leg hooked over both of mine as if unconsciously trying to stop me doing a bunk in the middle of the night. No chance of that. I was too exhausted. Physically so, at least. Something else kept me awake. The nagging urge to articulate that funny feeling behind my ribcage that wasn’t nerves or fear, but something that made me just as jumpy.
I stretched my legs as best I could while still tangled up with another man, and Steven’s weight shifted. He yawned, and murmured something that sounded like, “You’re still here then.”
“Uh-huh,” I said quietly. “You expected me not to b
e?”
“Was waiting for you to make your excuses and leave.”
I turned my head on the pillow to look at him, but his eyes were still closed and neither of us moved otherwise. “You honestly thought…?”
One bleary eye under a thick black brow opened. “Can’t blame a guy for wondering.”
His eye closed again and he nuzzled against his pillow.
“Why would I go? I like being here.” Fuck, fuck, fuck, that damn clot of whatever it is behind my ribs again. “I like…” Gulp. “You.”
“Hmm.” Steven didn’t open his eyes again and it must have been an occasion for unusual, out-of-the-ordinary feelings because for once I wanted him to. It wasn’t like last night when I’d accepted him looking at me. We’d both had a few beers, we got horny, I’d accepted it. Now I wanted him to look at me.
Give me something, Steven.
“You like me, eh?” Even with half his face buried in the pillow, the curve of his mouth was still visible. “That’s…that’s cute, Blackman. Real cute.”
“Hey, I’m baring my soul here, and you’re calling me cute?”
“Yeah, I guess for an emotionally-constipated hermit like you, that’s a big deal. Now shut up and go back to sleep if you’re staying.”
I tried to come up with something to say to that, but his laugh interrupted me. It wasn’t cruel, just teasing. But the conversation wasn’t over yet. In for a penny, in for a pound of humiliation, I reasoned. “I l—” Oh, fuck it. Nerves choked me, and I turned away from him, stared up at the ceiling.
“You l-what?” Steven whispered.
“Nothing.”
“Just randomly throwing L-words out there at stupid o’clock in the morning?”
“Yeah.”
“Like…llama?”
“Llama?” I echoed, laughing, and his eyes crinkled up at the corners before he muffled a snort of amusement against my shoulder. “What the fuck are you smoking, Kenton?”
“Shut up and go back to sleep, Blackman.” But even then, his shoulders shook with barely-suppressed laughter. It was a few minutes before he spoke again. “And I llama you too, you emotional cripple.”
* * * *
“Fuck, fuck, arse. Shit, sorry.” Steven slammed his mobile phone shut and collapsed back onto the bed. “Forgot to switch the alarm off last night. Sorry. Got distracted.”
I rubbed my eyes and yawned. “Time is it anyway?” I hauled myself up into a sitting position but refrained from swinging my legs over the side of the bed just yet. I’d have to get up at some point but didn’t want it to look like I wanted to get away from him. Especially given the half-asleep stupid fucking llama conversation we’d had a few hours before.
“Half seven.”
“Christ.” I fell back onto the mattress. “That’s far too early for a weekend morning.”
“Get some more sleep if you want. I know I will.”
“You’re determined to keep me unconscious in your bed, aren’t you?”
“Fuck, no. Just need you to keep your strength up for round two, that’s all.”
“Wouldn’t that require breakfast first?”
“Jesus, you expect me to feed you?”
“Either that or let me have a shower. Worked up quite a sweat last night.”
“Oh yeah.” Steven smiled at the memory.
I didn’t need to search through my mind’s eye. I had the bruises on my hips, the sore arse and a raspy throat from holding in the moans to prove I’d had a long night.
“Fucking hate the walk of shame, though,” I muttered. “Even with a shower I’ll still have to put on yesterday’s clothes.”
Steven cleared his throat. “Actually…”
“Actually what?” I frowned, but his eyes were still closed and gave nothing away.
“Ikinnagotemtostealyourshirts.”
“What?”
“I kind of…” He shrugged, only with one shoulder, the other being crushed under the weight of his body and a sizeable chunk of embarrassment, judging by the colour of his face.
“Might have got Gary to steal some of your shirts and pass them on. To me. Just for…you know…”
“You did what?”
“When we…” Still his eyes stayed shut, but his eyebrows lifted, giving him the bizarre look of someone both half-asleep and sheepish at the same time. “Arranged the invite. To the…thing. You know. Housewarming.”
“Wait. You invited Gary and Gemma last night?”
“Yeah. Course. They’re friends.”
“And you got them to steal my… Is it my fucking blue T-shirt, the one I thought I’d…?”
“There may have been some preparatory, uh, arrangements made, yes. Possibly.”
“And when did this happen?”
“A few days ago. Not that I had anything to do with it.” Steven cleared his throat again.
“All Gary’s idea. Honest.”
“But you just said you got him to—”
“All right, all right, it was my idea. Sue me.”
“Wait a minute—that means you knew all along I’d be here?”
He shrugged. And at long last opened his eyes to look at me. “Hoped you would be.”
“And you hoped I’d stay over too, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“So you made…you fucking put me through all that…made me say that…stuff.”
“About llamas? Yeah. I’m such a bastard. Cup of coffee? Croissants? I’m hungry all of a sudden. Lovely morning, isn’t it—”
“Where are they?”
“Gary and Gemma? Back at your place, I guess.”
“No. My shirts. More than one went missing. I assumed Gary had been thieving in my wardrobe again.”
“They’re…” He pointed to his own wardrobe. “Hanging up. Freshly laundered. I even ironed them.”
“You?”
“I wouldn’t let Tiff do it, would I? Have you seen the shit she wears? She wouldn’t know an iron if it smashed her in the clit-ring.”
“Tiff’s got a clit—? Look, I don’t wanna know.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed, braced myself and headed for the other side of the room.
Steven sat up in bed and watched me, bleary-eyed, sheepish and, I suspected, trying not to laugh.
“You stole my favourite shirts.” Three of them, hanging in Steven’s wardrobe. “You sneaky bas—”
“No, see, I merely re-located them. For your convenience.”
I clicked the wardrobe shut and stood for a moment with my hand on its door, before returning to stand by the bed, hands on my hips.
Steven’s gaze dropped to the one part of me that definitely wasn’t still half-asleep.
“Shame to waste it,” he murmured. “Sorry. Anyway. You, uh…shower, is it?” He ran a hand through his hair and awaited my verdict. “Or…?”
I threw myself down onto the mattress, laughing even harder at the look of pale-faced relief on Steven’s face. “Actually I quite fancy a lie-in if that’s all right with you?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” he said before pulling me against him.
Nope. I definitely didn’t need to get dressed and go home.
I was naked, and already there.
Coming Soon from Total-E-Bound Publishing:
Temporary Position
Scarlett Parrish
Released 31st October 2011
Excerpt
Chapter One
Three months ago I attended a staff dinner dance too far from home to make for a comfortable, quick drive back. Besides which, I wanted to have a drink, so I opted to book a hotel room for the night. That way I could taxi back and fall into bed within minutes of leaving my work colleagues if I fancied.
I hadn’t had too much to drink—only a few glasses of wine, and white, at that. Even one glass of red was enough to send me loopy. I’d thought I was playing it safe. Cue a casual conversation with Sebastian, a suggestion that, as he and Tyler were carpooling, they could drive me back to wherever I was s
taying…
Before I knew it, I was in a car with the two best-looking Pearson’s employees in the region, desperately chanting to myself, Don’t say anything stupid, Jess. Don’t say anything stupid.
Turned out Tyler—the Manager of his store no less—was the one to take that step. And he was the designated driver, stone cold sober.
After pulling up outside my hotel, he looked over his shoulder and smirked. “Here we are.”
“Yeah.” His smile was infectious—I couldn’t help returning it. “Here we are.” I’d not yet laid my hand on the door handle. It would have seemed rude to just hop out and go upstairs, but by the same token I had no idea how to wrap up the conversation.
“Would you think I was pulling rank if I mentioned a goodnight kiss?”
I knew I hadn’t had that much to drink, and alcohol always seemed to affect my balance and speech first of all, anyway. Not my hearing. Three glasses of white spread over the whole evening, with a meal and soft drinks, too… I definitely wasn’t tipsy enough for my ears to have stopped working. “I…what?”
“Jesus, Ty.” Sebastian, who worked in the same store as Tyler, as his menswear manager, play-punched him on the arm. “You’d take advantage of a drunk woman?”
“I’m not drunk.”
“See?” Tyler held up both his palms in a perfectly-executed gesture of innocence.
“She’s not drunk.”
“Yes, because that’s exactly what a sober person would say.”
“Are you accusing me of…?” I began, but the look on Sebastian’s face halted me in my tracks. God damn it—I’d been talking to him all night and never seen him in that light before.
The half- light as it was, from some nearby lampposts and the neon sign of my hotel.
He was leaner than Tyler, but in no way less of a presence. There was a quiet intensity to him that I’d noticed during our conversation that evening, an ability to make me feel like the only woman in the room. It wasn’t that he’d stared at me while we conversed—that would have been too aggressive. But he’d paid attention and made me feel witty, urbane, like the sort of woman who stood a chance. I’d not had much to do with him up until now—we worked in different branches of Pearson’s—but this evening had thrown us together, almost like it was meant to happen.
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