by Jess Bentley
My insides leap at the thought. The truth is, it’s been almost two years and we’re still all over each other.
“Hmm… I shouldn’t let her sleep too long now, then,” I joke and he snuggles me close.
“You might have a point there,” he says. “Hey Imogen, wake up,” he smiles. “Mommy and Daddy are going to need some personal time again tonight!” He gives me that look that makes me melt. “And maybe this afternoon,” he growls, and kisses me again.
“Kanen!” I laugh.
“Chastity,” he whispers. “My gorgeous girl.” He kisses me and suddenly looks serious. “Never leave me, okay, baby?”
“Not as long as I live,” I answer. “How could I?” And I know it’s true, because being with Kanen is the best thing that ever happened to me.
Deleted Scene
Together. Finally. Every cell in my body is electric – electrified by Kanen and his passion. The Wrecker. I hope he doesn't wreck me. Like Lacey said, he can wreck my pussy but not my heart. Keep him away from that.
I've never been with a man like this… neither the furtive kisses in high school, or the kisses with my husband were anything compared to the way he's kissing me now, our tongues intermingling, twining together, as his hands squeeze me closer to him. He’s cupping my ass cheek, the other hand in my hair.
I can feel it. He's claiming me — he's taking me. He wants me, and I want him more than I wanted anyone in my life. His hands trace the hem of my shirt and pull it up over my head. The silky fabric slides over my skin followed by his sensitive, large, callused hands. He's making me tingle all over. I squirm in his arms, barely able to control myself when his hand slips underneath the waistband of my jeans and when it makes contact with the lacy thong I wore, he moans and pulls on the thin fabric. His other hand cups my breast learning his thumb over my nipple. He’s kissing me. His lips are soft, but his kisses are strong. I'm just trying to hold tight onto him, feasting my hands on his beautiful body, that I’ve wanted to touch so many times. Every ripple of his musculature, the softness of his taut skin, the growing heat between us. It's all making me wild. And I grind up against him, seeking the pressure of his hard length against me. His hand sneaks under the lacy edges of my bra and he pushes it aside to take reveal my hard nipple and take it in his mouth. Every swipe of his tongue sends electricity down to my core, making me wetter and wetter. I wonder if he knows how ready I am for him right now. But he's taking his time. He knows he's in complete control and doesn't need to rush. He's taking every second to enjoy each thrill that he's sending through me, each jolt of electricity. My knees are getting weak to the point I can barely stand. He pushes me against the wall, and as he kisses my breasts, he begins to undo my jeans. I wiggle out of them and they fall into a puddle on the floor.
I can't take it anymore — I need to see him naked. I pull off his shirt, and he stretches his arms over his head, showing his six pack and broad shoulders. And giving me a perfect view of his tattoos. My tongue swirls over his chest, his skin hot and salty in my mouth. I start to kneel down but he pulls me up.
"No," he says. "We can do that later. I'm going to give you pleasure first." Dragging me over to the bed, he lays me down unhurriedly, and kisses down the length of my body to the edge of my song.“"little bit, kissing the skin he reveals I rounded sides. I'm almost squealing, he's got me so excited. His tongue is hot and wet soft, insistent. And when it plunges into me, it's beyond any pleasure I felt. He works his tongue over my soft folds, lapping at my clit, before picking his head up and smiling a crooked grin.
“You taste great," he says. "Amazing… And he pulls my thong down fully and opens my legs before burying his face between them. My hips are bucking wildly as he sucks expertly, and when he cocks one finger and pushes it inside me, I can feel a hot core of energy building and building until he pushes me over the edge in complete abandon. I'm screaming his name, writhing, bucking. I come again and again, but it only makes my hunger for him to enter me that much stronger. I pull his arm up finally to get his attention and he lays beside me, his hair falling in his face.
You’re so sexy," he says. “The way you smell… the way you taste.” He’s kissing my neck as he says this. I squirm closer to him and grab his ass cheek, demanding more of him. I’ve never acted this way in my life but I’ve never had anything so good.
“We're not done yet," I say.
“No we’re aren’t done yet," he agrees, grinning. "I'm going to fuck you like you've never been fucked before.” With these words, just words, I can feel myself getting so wet. I'm almost ready to beg him. What the fuck, I might as well.
“Take me, Kanen, please?" I say softly, pleadingly. "Don't make me wait…” And he doesn’t. He rolls on top of me with a grin. His nine inches of cock press against me, the head seeking my soft pink petals. "You sure you can take this?" He says.
"Damn right I can," I say. "And if not I’ll die trying." He laughs, puts my leg over his shoulder and in one graceful motion slides into me. It's the most exquisite feeling, his body next to mine, his cock, so huge, stroking me slowly from the inside. His eyes, dark and intense, boring into mine. Our breath heavy, trembling, in sync with each other.
He keeps his head down and kisses me. This time it's soft and gentle, or at least it starts that way. But before long, we’re devouring each other.
Excerpt from Heat
Chapter One
JANIE
I take a deep breath, and unclench my fists. Looking down at the stinging in my palm, when it opens I see the deep crescent indentations of my fingernails. Since I was a little girl, that sight was more or less the definition of home.
Inside the little brick single-level cottage, behind the yellow, ratty yard, I can already hear my stepfather screaming. I’m still on the sidewalk, so chances are everyone else within a three-house radius can hear him as well. Why he was there when my mother called me, I can’t imagine.
Mom called me about a panic attack.
George is pretty much the opposite of helpful for that.
No one knows I’m here yet. I look back at the car—I could still leave. No one would know. I could just say I got busy, or that someone quit at the restaurant and I have to cover. That’s what the owner does; what I always do. They’d believe me.
But no amount of fantasizing actually will make that dream a reality. Pushing the chain-link fence gate open with a sigh, my heels tap up the cracked walkway through the dead yard and up to the screen door where I don’t bother to knock. It’s not locked.
Besides, Gloria’ll just tell George that I’m lying if I try to make something up. And George would ask. George is an asshole.
“Jesus Christ, Gina,” George is barking when I open the door to the scene. “You said you were dying! You get a little nervous on your own. Can’t you just piss in a corner like a dog instead of—what the fuck are you doing here?” He turns on me the moment I close the door.
I give George a long, flat look. It‘s better not to engage. So instead I turn my eyes more softly on Gina. “Sorry it took me so long, Mama,” I say. “You know you didn’t have to call anyone else.” I shoot George another brief, flat glare.
Gina takes my hand when I’m within arm’s reach, her pale lips widening into a wobbly smile. Her eyes are still wide, her pupils small, and it doesn’t look like she’s showered today. After almost fifteen years, George still can’t tell the difference between “nervous” and a full-blown panic attack by looking at it. The sleeve of Gina’s sweater is frayed from constant picking, which she’d have been doing for hours before the worst of it finally peaked.
“Oh, Janie,” my mother breathes, her bony hand squeezing mine as she says my name like a prayer. Probably a prayer for deliverance. Her eyes are red and puffy from crying, but by now her cheeks are dry. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called you. George… he came over, so… I just never see you and I think this time I… I just missed you and you know how I get. I just—”
“Shh, it’s okay, Ma
ma.” I let her draw me close, until she kneels by the old recliner she’d been sitting in and smiles up at me.
It’s not true; I drop everything to come and help her manage panic attacks sometimes as often as twice a week. During really bad weeks, it can be three or four visits. But she rarely retains much in the way of clear memories of the worst attacks.
This time looks to be one of the easier ones, George’s outburst notwithstanding. I’ve come through for my mother on everything from flies wriggling through the window and porch screens, to checking every closet in the house to assure her there’s no one lurking in the dark corners of the house. Once, I had to check the gas lines in the basement and prove that the house wasn’t in imminent danger of burning down.
Every time I do it, I know I’m enabling her, letting her get through another attack without having to self-manage the symptoms the way her many therapists have taught her to do. But I’m a problem-solver; a chronic micromanager. It’s true at the restaurant, it’s true at Mom’s house. Hell, it’s true of ordering takeout and getting my clothes dry-cleaned.
“Come on, Mama,” I urge as she stands, tugging her up to her feet. “You’ve got to be exhausted. Let’s get you to bed.”
“Yeah, right,” George grumbles. “I come all the way home from work, and you tuck her in for a nap. I ain’t on salary, you know.”
I roll my eyes and ignore him.
“You come in here when there’s a problem, sure,” he goes on. “Now you’re a big shot, you can’t be bothered to come spend time with your mother. That’s why she gets these fucking attacks in the first place. On account of you think you’re better than us. How do you think that makes her feel, you coming in here in your fancy dress and high heels like you’re—”
Drawing myself to my full height, with said heels on, I’m at least at eye level with my stepfather, and when I want to I can put the fire in my eyes. When I turn them on George now, his teeth click shut. I force my hands to relax, again.
“The least you could do,” I say, struggling to keep calm and rein in my fury at the man, “is not be a complete bastard when she’s vulnerable like this, you self-centered son of a bitch. Go the fuck back to work. I can take care of my mother.”
In the typical fashion, George sneers at her, but says nothing. When George Acropolis speaks, people listen… or he pretends not to have spoken in the first place. What a keeper.
“Janie,” my mother whispers.
I bite the inside of my cheek, and draw her toward the back of the living room, to the hallway where the bedrooms are. “You’re okay, Mama,” I say as she clutches her arm for the trip. “Do you have your pills here?”
Gina hesitates before she gives a nervous affirmative.
“Mama, you have to take your pills,” I sigh. “If you take them like the doctor said, this won’t happen.”
“George doesn’t like me on them,” she says. “He says they make me lazy. And they do.”
“No, Mama,” I say, trying not to grit my teeth, “they make you normal. George is… he just needs to understand that.” It doesn’t matter what I say about George, or how often I air my opinion of him to my mother. All it does is make her more agitated.
Almost the same time I open the door to my mother’s room, the front door slams, startling us both. George is going back to work, at least. Hopefully it’s one of the days he works overtime. Or, maybe he has a mistress. I don’t even care as long as it keeps him away long enough for Mom to get some much-needed rest.
As she takes her slippers off and lies down on top of the blankets, I dig through the bedside table for her pills. I find the orange bottle nearly empty, and as I tip one of the little pills out and hand it to my patient, I frown. I grab a plastic cup from their bathroom, fill it with water and bring it back to the bedside.
“Take your pill, Mama,” I say.
She does, and then lies down on the bed, still breathing heavily but no longer quite so pale. It’s like the life comes back into her when George is gone.
He’s the reason she’s been having more and more frequent panic attacks. I get called for the worst of them, but the lesser ones, the attacks she just needs to hear a voice to get her through them—for those she calls my brothers—one of the twins, Chris or Derek. They answer about half the time.
Not for the first time and likely not for the last, I have to remind myself not to try and convince her to leave George and come stay with me. She’d just go back to George in just a few days, claiming they’ve worked it all out and that his temper won’t be an issue again.
No. All I can do is what I’m already doing—being supportive, and helping her cope with her growing list of irrational fears. A list that I worry is one day going to encompass everything.
Chapter 2
JAKE
It no longer surprises me to find my father defiling one room or another—any room with a flat surface, at least—with someone who’s not his wife. Once, it did surprise me. The first dozen or so times, in fact. After that, it went from being shocking to merely offensive. That’s what I feel when I slide open the door to the grand dining room on my way to the garage.
I don’t recognize this one. Reginald Ferry manages his regular flings the way some people manage their wine cellars. You drink a fine bottle slowly, and when it’s all used up, you toss the useless glassware that’s left and order in a new bottle from somewhere exotic. This girl looks vaguely South American. Probably a twenty-year vintage. I doubt she can buy her own drinks—not that she probably ever needs to—though she at least looks like she’s legal. Reginald is a narcissist, not an idiot.
My father spots me a heartbeat after I enter the room, but before he can backtrack. He smirks, and pinches the girl’s nipple so she barks a plaintive, but obviously pleasure-filled curse in Spanish.
“Close the door,” Reginald pants, not even slowing down, or letting go of the girl’s tits to cover anything up. “Give us a little privacy, will you?”
With the greatest enthusiasm, I do as I’m told. Then I shove the disgust I feel for the old man far, far down, like I have countless times before. Shocked? No. But I’ll probably never get used to it. Not like my stepmother, Toia. Or “Toy” as my father likes to call her.
Toia had once considered herself the lucky one. Reginald actually married her—with a pre-nup, of course, that left out any mention of fidelity on his part. Once, early on, Toia had run into one of his playthings, and then another, and another. There had been a fight about it and for a moment I thought she might actually leave him.
But she didn’t. Instead, she fell into her place naturally, the way any grateful, over-thirty supermodel who knows there‘s a clock ticking on her figure would do. At least, one with little to no self-respect. A daily diet of spas, champagne, Valium, and yoga probably helped as well.
Now, she probably does much the same thing as I do. Shrug, and move on with life. Reginald’s not about to change for anyone.
There‘s another route to the garage, but it’s long. Three elaborately decorated sitting rooms, two gilded hallways, and one pink marble staircase later, and I’m free.
Sure, I grew up with money. The Ferry estate is pointlessly massive, slathered in gold leaf and marble and antiques that sometimes are hundreds of years old, and carpeted with handmade carpets of fine wool that have to be specially cleaned by people that fly in from across the country once a month.
All of that is just set dressing. I’ve seen people go wide-eyed and gush over one object or feature or another; I know it’s impressive to people who’ve never lived in it before. Those people have never known the confusion of a kid who didn’t understand why they couldn’t sit in a single chair in a sitting room. A chair that was worth three of him. But to me now, the billionaire life is just “life.”
But if there’s one thing I genuinely fucking love about this life, aside from the bottomless credit card, it’s the cars.
The garage is large enough that when I flip the lights on, they don’t all
come up at once. Row by row they come to life, illuminating the long line of sports cars near the house, all the way down to the black SUVs at the far end, used by the help when they’re needed.
I’m just here to get the Benz, and the sight of my father’s trembling ass hasn’t dislodged that intention. If anything, it solidified it. That baby gets zero to sixty in just a hair over two seconds, the kind of speed that you can feel in your chest.
I make damn sure the tires screech on my way out.
In the early evening hours, it’s time to get the night started. My father’s newest lounge is both a place to do that as well as something of a PR job. I’m required to show up at least a few times a week to be seen, shake hands with whatever celebrities have been invited—assuming they show up—and generally make it look like Reginald gives a shit about the place.
Fact is, Reginald has only walked through the doors of the Ferry Lights lounge three times. Once before it was built out, once after, and once for the grand opening. After that, it became my job. It’s not a hard job—show up, be social, get fucked up, pick a girl from the inevitable lineup, go home, get up the next day and do it all again.
No, the job’s easy. It’s just distasteful. It’s right across the street from Janie Hall’s up-and-comer, Red Hall Eatery and Lounge. I watch the place as I drive past it to get to the VIP valet curb in front of my father’s lounge. It’s not dead—but it sure isn’t as busy as it had been before Ferry Lights opened, either.
And for what? Another drop in the bucket that is the Reginald Ferry diversified assets? When you have the kind of money Reginald does, driving small, high-profile businesses out of town is the closest thing to a hobby you have. If you’re an asshole.
Reginald is that. Ferry Lights’ location isn’t an accident. My father had passed up a significantly larger, far more flexible waterfront property to take this one. He did it on purpose.