GRIPPED (Romance Mystery & Suspense Box Set)

by Abbott, Alex

  He untangled the scarf and laid it onto the seat beside me. Then his hand returned to my shoulder, and fiddled with the strap of my dress. “I’d like to take this off you too.”

  “Yes,” I whispered, feeling suddenly lightheaded. Wet between my legs. Wanting him to strip me naked. And yet, the moment he began to peel the strap down my shoulder, exposing my strapless bra, which he then slowly unhooked, exposing my breasts to the air.

  Then, sitting with my underwear in my lap, I felt the stares of a dozen men in the room turn my way. They knew I was new to the club. And though I tried to pretend they weren’t looking, I felt acutely exposed. Embarrassed. Dying a little inside.

  Turned on beyond measure.

  I shivered when Jeremy’s thumb stroked down my neck, over my collarbone, and traced the contours of my breast. “Beautiful,” he whispered. “You are so beautiful, you could bring a man to his knees. But I’m going to bring you to yours. I want to see you on your hands and knees sucking cock.”

  My nipples hardened visibly at his touch and his dirty talk. And he liked that, I could see, because while I gasped softly, he asked, “Have you ever been shared by two men?”

  I tried to say no, but the word wouldn’t come out, so I shook my head. And then he gauged me. Truly. His eyes swept across my face, then down to my nipples, as if noting the deepening color. His thumb traced the goosebumps on my skin as he continued his questions. “But that’s what you fantasize about, isn’t it? More so than another girl?”

  This question made me feel more exposed than the fact that my dress was down around my waist. Again, I couldn’t answer. I could only nod. And when I did, he smiled. “I can make that happen for you, Caprice. Is there—is there a man you see here that you’d like to touch?”

  You, I thought.

  But what I said was, “You choose.”

  He flushed with arousal. I saw it. He told me he liked to be in control, and I had unwittingly given it to him. My reward was that he drew my hand to his lap where I felt his cock so hard beneath my hand that it was almost painful to touch. “You make me so fucking hard for you. Do you feel that?”

  I did feel it. And it made me groan even though I couldn’t look up from the table. I was too embarrassed by my own arousal. Which is probably why I’m not exactly sure how things happened as quickly as they did next.

  I think men in the initiation room must have had some signal. Because not long after, a stranger approached us. A ginger-haired man wearing a white shirt open at the collar. I didn’t know him. Didn’t ask his name. Didn’t offer mine. I only know that he had incredibly blue eyes, and that his hands felt rough as he wordlessly caressed my shoulders at Jeremy’s invitation.

  Holy crap. I was doing this. Me. The girl who never did anything that anyone could ever say was slutty. The girl who ran away from every fantasy so that nobody could ever compare me to my mother.

  Now I was letting a complete stranger touch me.

  Just as I began to panic, Jeremy leaned forward and sealed his mouth over mine in a kiss. We’d kissed before, but this was primal. Entirely sexual. Both commanding, and lurid, and I wondered if Jeremy Kenyon was some kind of ancient sex god who could elicit from a woman the kind of forbidden feelings and thoughts that were best left unexplored.

  “Touch him,” Jeremy said, softly, between kisses, guiding my hand to the stranger’s lap. And I thought I was going to hyperventilate. My hand slipped over the fabric of the stranger’s slacks then my fingertips felt his bulge. I turned on the stranger. And so was Jeremy. His breath quickened. His pulse was thumping at the base of his throat. The both wanted me. And that turned me on so much I rocked slightly in my booth, pressing my thighs together.

  Jeremy gave me a soft smile and whispered in my ear. “I think you like that. And I want to give you everything you like. I want you. So fucking much.”

  “I want you too,” I admitted, wondering what I was supposed to say to the other guy whose erection I was now stroking. Instead, I just blurted. “Your accent is killing me.”

  Sure, I’d been hearing British accents for years, but it had never sounded sexier when Jeremy was whispering it in my ear.

  And I was so nervous that it’s the first thing I could think to say.

  “American?” the stranger asked, vaguely, before his mouth fastened on my neck. Though I liked it, liked the sensation of it, the forbidden nature of it, it felt like an intrusion.

  I wanted Jeremy. Only Jeremy. Or at least, mostly Jeremy.

  But I was willing to do this to get what I wanted. Thankfully, I was about to get it. Jeremy’s mouth trailed down my chin, to my neck, so that both men were kissing me there, in front and behind.

  Then Jeremy’s hands worked between my thighs, pushing my dress up, his fingers slipping beneath my panties.

  Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

  I was so wet. And it made him sigh. “You’re so hot here, slippery. I want to lick you. I want to taste you. I want to tease you. But I think you’re too needy for that. Am I right?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. Because licking and tasting and teasing were part of lovemaking. And I didn’t want lovemaking right now. I wanted fucking.

  While the stranger reached round me to play with my nipples, Jeremy pressed his finger deep into me, eliciting a sigh of relief. Then he pulled it back out and circled my clit, which was pulsing and jumping in anticipation and need.

  And Jesus Christ, I’d never felt anything like the way he touched me. The total confidence of it. Like he knew every trick in the world to bring a woman off. And as he fingered me, I felt trapped between them, mastered and controlled.

  I liked it.

  I also didn’t care who was watching.

  The whole world had narrowed to just the three of us.

  “Why don’t you get up onto your hands and knees,” Jeremy said, gently, but I knew that though he’d phrased it as a question, it was actually a command. And though I wanted desperately to do what he told me to, my knees had also turned to jelly.

  “I—I,” I said, starting to panic a bit.

  “We’ll help,” Jeremy said, and the stranger guided me by the hips up onto the booth and stripped the rest of my dress down, letting my panties fall to the floor, too, until I was naked.

  Then I realized that the stranger’s fly was open, and what was meant to happen. I was meant to kneel and suck him off. And the shock of that expectation nearly unraveled me. I don’t care, I told myself. I don’t care that he’s a stranger.

  But I must’ve hesitated too long, because Jeremy’s big hand squeezed softly at the base of my neck. “Are you alright?”

  “Yes,” I answered, then felt the light pressure as he pushed my head down into the stranger’s lap. Jeremy didn’t force me to do it. He just helped me do it. And somehow that made it easier to bend and suck the man.

  Made it easier to admit to myself that I wanted it. I wanted this. I wanted this because it was making me forget everything else.

  My lips closed over the stranger’s cock, and he moaned with pleasure.

  Then I became aware of Jeremy moving behind me. Heard him unzip and tear open a condom. Felt him press the head of his erection against my opening. And though I felt some regret over the fact that I was finally going to be fucked by Jeremy Kenyon, it was going to happen without my having even seen the cock I wanted so badly…

  That was bit of regret was overcome completely by the sensation of complete fullness as Jeremy pushed his hips forward and thrust inside me. Fuck. It felt good. It felt amazing. And those expert fingers of his reached under me to tap a beat on my clit that brought me so swiftly to the edge, I began moaning around the stranger’s cock in my mouth.

  Buffeted between them, back and forth, filled first in my mouth, then in my pussy, then in my mouth again, I realized how quickly I was going to come. The crowd assembling around us realized it too. A few people cheered their encouragement. And when I started screaming with my orgasm, I didn’t care if this was all unhealthy avoidan
ce or twisted or wrong.

  Because this felt good.

  This felt like salvation. This felt like oblivion.

  Until it didn’t.

  ~~~

  JEREMY

  Kate’s body was everything Jeremy ever hoped it would be. The sounds she made. The ways she moved. The tightness of her cunt as it squeezed around him when she came. It was all so mind-blowing that he could fuck her for hours, but he wanted to come inside her. He was close. Especially when he realized how much being shared by two men turned her on. He felt it in every reaction of her body.

  Deep down, Kate was a dirty girl.

  And that made him want her even more than before.

  But she was also a scared girl.

  And he felt her start to freak out just about the time that the stranger gripped her hair and started spurting into her mouth. She swallowed it and she never pulled away. She continued to make little sexy mewling sounds as Jeremy pistoned in and out of her body from behind. His hands left imprints on her hips, because he was holding her so hard, but he’d realized that at some point he didn’t have to hold her still to fuck her.

  Because she’d gone still. Frozen, completely, underneath him.

  That pushed him back from the edge of orgasm. “Caprice?”

  She didn’t answer.

  And his erection died completely.

  “Let’s take a little break, shall we,” he said, to the stranger, who was already zipping up. These things sometimes happened at initiations. Girls who thought they were ready—well, they weren’t. Jeremy had seen it before.

  But he’d never been so devastated by it, or felt so personally responsible. He’d brought Kate here. She’d said that this was what she’d wanted. What she’d needed. And he’d believed her, because he’d wanted to believe her. Because he’d wanted her.

  But what if he’d taken advantage of her?

  What a selfish fucking monster he was!

  Jeremy was fastened and upright, helping Kate back into her dress even before the crowd dispersed. But they did disperse. It was clear the fun and games were over. “Talk to me sweetheart.”

  He’d used the term of endearment because he didn’t want to use her name. But also because he meant it. He felt it. He felt everything about this in his heart. Because he was now sure as he’d never been before: Kate was in his heart.

  ~~~

  KATE

  I was making a complete ass of myself. But I couldn’t help it. Something about orgasming in front of a bunch of people while sucking on one man and being fucked by another had jostled something loose, and now the emotions I’d been suppressing were flooding forth in a storm. “I just—I just need a moment. Is there, is there a bathroom? Is there somewhere, I don’t know. Where we can go alone? I need to be alone with you. Right now!”

  I worried he’d refuse me. That he’d tell me it wasn’t part of the initiation. Because I knew that Jeremy didn’t do one-on-one time. But instead, he picked me up. He literally picked me up into his strong arms and carried me out of the piano bar area. He was so steady and it made me feel so safe, and that helped to calm me down as I held onto his neck and buried my face in his chest.

  He took me into one of the quiet alcove rooms off to the side. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to be done in them, but there was a sign that said not to close the door. Jeremy apparently didn’t care, because he kicked it closed. “Tell me what’s happening, love…”

  Love? Was it possible that he could love me? I was afraid to believe it. “I don’t know. I wanted to do this. I did. But for all the wrong reasons. I’ve fantasized about this, sure. I’ve fantasized about doing what we just did, and more. I liked it. I want to do it again. I want to do it with you. But not just to get into a fucking club.”

  He swallowed. I could see he felt guilty. Which he shouldn’t. Because this had been my idea. Shit, this had been my very bad idea. And Jeremy hadn’t even finished…

  “Let’s go,” Jeremy said. “I’ll take you home right now.”

  “But I’m in, right? Because of what we just did…they’ll let me into the Black & Blue so I can ask about my mother’s lover?”

  Jeremy gripped a fist of his own hair. “Bloody hell, woman. Yes. They will. But why the fuck it so damned important to you to find this guy?”

  “Because I think he killed my mother.”

  Jeremy’s face went slack, as if the bottom of his world just dropped out from underneath him. “What did you just say?”

  He thought I was a crazy person. And maybe I was. I’d convinced myself to stop obsessing about bizarre theories, but I met his eyes directly, scrutinizing his face, wondering if I could trust him. Deciding that he was the only one I could trust. “My mother was a health nut who watched every single thing that went into her body. She wouldn’t have accidentally downed a bunch of prescription pills. And I’m not so sure she’d have done it on purpose, either. I think she was killed.”

  I waited for him to laugh at me. Or to give me that pitying look that tells me someone thinks you’ve gone totally round the bend. But instead, he lowered his head into his hands and said, “I think so too. And I think my brother did it.”

  ~~~

  JEREMY

  Jeremy had never told this story before. Not to anyone. And he knew every word of it would hurt coming out of his mouth. There wasn’t a syllable that wouldn’t feel like betrayal. But he’d been carrying around this secret for so long he was half-convinced that he would die if he held it in one moment longer.

  “Lane never wanted a younger brother,” Jeremy began, in a voice that sounded not entirely like his own. “Growing up, my mother used to joke about it. That Lane loved her so much he wanted her all to himself. He was bigger than me. Better than me in every way. And my father…my father doted on the heir apparent. I always felt like an intruder. With everybody but my mother. Which is why I always was clinging to mum. Why I wanted special time with her, just the two of us.”

  A lump formed in his throat and he wondered if he could speak over it, but for Kate, he had to try. “You know, I can’t remember her face. Not without looking at a picture of her. But I remember how she smelled when she hugged me. She had this shampoo. It was like strawberries. And I used to bury my face in her silky hair and smell it…I was five years old when she died, and that’s all I’ve got left of her. Strawberry and silk.”

  Kate reached for him, twining her fingers with his, softly coaxing him to speak. “What happened, Jeremy…you can tell me.”

  He shook his head. He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell anyone. Hadn’t told anyone. But had to tell her. He had to, or he was going to crack open and there’d never be any putting himself back together again. “Lane was seven years old at the time, and he would get so jealous. If my mother and I were cuddling, he’d have to get in the middle and pry us apart. He used to say I was greedy with her attention. And maybe I was.”

  His voice broke on the word greedy. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to turn back into that scared five-year-old boy who hated fighting with his older brother. “We argued about it. The way kids do. Poking each other and bickering all day. But Lane—he was in rare form that day. The fucking tantrum he threw. My mother was so sick of it; she finally went up for a bath. And I waited for her to come tuck me into bed. I waited, and I waited, and then the lights flickered.”

  He heard Kate swallow, audibly, as if she had some clue where this was going but wanted to believe it even less than Jeremy did. Squeezing his hand tight, she whispered, “My mother said your mom died of a heart attack, in the bath. That she had some congenital defect. Are you saying that’s not what happened?”

  “If it was a heart-attack, it was brought on by the hair dryer that was dropped into her bathtub,” Jeremy said, with such a rush of sudden rage, he smashed his hand against the leather sofa in the alcove. Again, then again, and again until the pain finally registered in his knuckles, and he found himself nearly breathless with it. Gasping with his rage, he explained
, “I remember there was a scream—my brother’s scream, or my father’s or both of them. I’m not sure. But when my father came into my room to tell me what happened, he was so pale and shaky I was terrified. I started to cry even before he said a word. Because I’d never seen my father like that before. Never before, or since. He seemed—I dunno—near the edge of madness. He told me that my brother killed her. If Lane couldn’t have our mother to himself, then no one else could. So he killed her. He killed her!”

  Jeremy had never said these words aloud. And now that he had, he felt so sick he was going to vomit. He needed air, and maybe Kate realized it, because she gave him a bit of space to breathe.

  “Oh, Jeremy,” she said, softly, with tears shining. “But how—”

  “How did Lane get away with it?” Jeremy asked. “Because he was seven years old. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was just a kid, and if we told the authorities what really happened, his whole life would’ve been ruined. I’d have lost both my mother and my brother in one day. So my father paid off the coroner and swore us both to secrecy all our lives.”

  “My god,” she said. “And you’ve all been living with this…”

  Jeremy’s heart was filled with despair. “Well, it hasn’t killed me yet. But I feel like it’s going to. As for my father, I think His Lordship has been punishing us both all this time for costing him my mother. I don’t think he ever really loved either of us again after that day. And Lane…well. Lane has amazing powers of denial. I think it’s what makes him such a great businessman. Sometimes I think he doesn’t even remember what he did. Maybe that’s the only way he lives with it.”

  She took his face in her cool hands, as if she knew what sort of pain he was in. “Jeremy. If what you’re saying is true—”

  “Do you think I’d fucking lie about something like this?”

  She kissed him softly at the corner of his mouth. “What I’m trying to say is that Lane was just a little boy. I can see why my mother’s death would dredge all this up again for you, but do you really think Lane is a monster? That he’d killed once…so he’d do it again?”