The Other Brother Part 3: Illicit

by Lauren Hawkeye

  He just smiled and his gaze traveled my face and down my body, then back up again.

  My heart thumped just a little bit harder and faster. I swore my nipples got real hard.

  “You have got to be the sexiest damn woman I have ever seen.”

  His words were a punch to my gut. Muscles tightened in all kinds of interesting places. My thighs actually tingled. And all the man had done was speak a few words.

  Stunned, I just stood there and gaped at him. We were still on the dance floor and people were dancing around us, giving us room as if something monumental was transpiring. Maybe it was.

  I’d been hit on before, plenty of times. Any half decent looking girl out with her ladies drinking and dancing was going to get hit on. It was a universal mating ritual of all twenty something, especially those in college. Over the years I’d heard all kinds of lurid come ons and cheesy pickup lines. One of my favorites had been “My dick just died, can I bury it in your vagina?” another good one was “I'm a zombie, can I eat you out?” Needless to say I didn’t go home with either of those witty men.

  “So, are you going to buy me a drink?” I asked.

  “No.”

  Disappointment flooded me.

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s what every guy in this bar would do.”

  “Oh yeah,” I arched an eyebrow, “And you’re different?”

  He just smiled again and I could feel it deep inside. I nearly groaned out loud. I was nervous now. I usually never got nervous around guys. I knew what made them tick. I knew exactly what to do and what to say to get what I wanted. In high school I had every dude around me eating out of the palm of my hand. My girlfriends, Ivy and Violet, always called me on it. But this man standing confidently in front of me was an enigma.

  “I’m not going home with you,” I blurted, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, he had me so flustered.

  “I didn’t ask.”

  I chewed on my hangnail on the side of my thumb. “Then what do you want?”

  “This.”

  He took a step forward, and wrapped his big hands around my waist. He lifted me up and settled me onto his hips, and I immediately grabbed onto his shoulders so I didn’t fall. He was strong. His muscles quivered under the palms of my hands. I couldn’t believe how easily he picked me up, as if I weighed next to nothing. And believe me, I had some weight on me. I had big boobs and an ample sized derriere. I was no Barbie to be sure.

  Then he kissed me.

  It was a tasting at first, as if he was sampling my lips, then he deepened it. I moaned into his mouth. I couldn’t help it. The man was so fucking hot he had liquefied my insides. As our lips met, I forgot about everything around us. All I could concentrate on was him.

  I don’t know how long the kiss lasted, maybe a minute, maybe more, but it felt like an eternity had passed when he set me back down onto the floor. My lips tingled, and so did the rest of my body.

  Stunned, I brought a hand up to my mouth and touched my lips. He took a step back, and then smiled. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes sparkled in the dance floor lights. He’d definitely been drinking but it was desire that made his pupils dilate.

  “Thank you,” he said, then turned and walked away. He met up with his friends, other guys with ties and suits and they left the club. He didn’t ask for my name or my number. For the first time in my life, a guy didn’t want something from me. Well, except for that kiss. And what a fucking kiss. My knees still felt like wobbly rubber.

  Both Rachel and Fiona grabbed my arms, giddy with excitement. “What the fuck Dahl?” they said in unison.

  “Who was that?” Fiona asked.

  “Do you know him?” Rachel asked.

  I shook my head, still in shock of what just happened.

  Rachel laughed. “Jesus Christ that was hot. And he didn’t even kiss me.”

  It was hot. It was the single more erotic moment of my life and I knew it would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Read on for an excerpt from One Night With The Billionaire by Lauren Hawkeye, coming soon!

  Certifiable genius Mari Hart has spent her life focusing on school and getting ahead. Freshly out of school at age twenty, with two doctorates in hand and no idea what to do next, Mari decides to allow herself one night to be young, something she’s never done before. She’s smart, and she’s responsible—what could go wrong?

  But at Florida’s hot, kinky new nightclub she sees something that she shouldn’t, and even her incredible intelligence can’t save her—but billionaire Alexios Kosta can. One of the world’s richest men—one with dark secrets of his own—Alexi has the power to make all of Mari’s problems go away.

  The catch? To obtain full protection, Mari must become Alexi’s wife. And it isn’t long before their public displays of affection spark something far hotter than either could ever have imagined...

  This is book two of the A Virgin, A Billionaire and a Marriage series. It is a category length novel that stands alone- no cliffhangers!

  One Night With The Billionaire Excerpt

  Copyright 2015 Lauren Hawkeye

  Bang.

  Smack.

  “Oh my God, yes!”

  “Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop!”

  “You are the king!”

  Rolling my eyes, I sit straight up in bed. The pillow I’ve been holding over my ears gets tossed across the room in an uncharacteristic fit of anger, allowing the previously muffled sounds to penetrate straight to my eardrums.

  Penetrate. Bad choice of words. Because unless my ears deceive me, there is a whole lot of penetrating going on next door.

  Bang.

  Squeal.

  THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.

  “Noooo.” Covering my face with my hands, I slide over to the edge of the bed. I can’t handle this... this going on next door. I just can’t.

  Raising a fist, I briefly contemplate knocking on the wall... not loudly enough to be rude, although clearly they’ve thrown that convention out the window. No, just loudly enough to point out that maybe, possibly, some of their neighbours are trying to sleep.

  Instead, I let my hand fall back into my lap, but no matter what I do, I can’t block out the sounds. The sex sounds.

  It shouldn’t be such a big deal—shouldn’t bother me so much. I shouldn’t be straining, trying to overhear. I should just buy some earplugs and go back to sleep.

  I can’t. And it’s not logical to lie to myself, so I admit—within the confines of my own skull—that I’m actually fascinated because I’ve never been this close to... to such shenanigans before.

  The thumping stops momentarily, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Surely this can’t continue forever. This is my third night in my new apartment, and I’ve endured the nocturnal party each evening. But surely my new neighbours aren’t that... avid. Right? It’s not possible to have that kind of stamina. Surely there would be fatigue involved at some point. Possibly some chafing.

  I chose this apartment building after extensive research because it was clean, in a new neighbourhood, and represented the ideals that I wished to embody as I embarked on my career. It wasn’t cheap, but I had a substantial amount in my bank account. The funds deposited by my mother before she’d deemed me an adult and sent me out into the world were largely untouched, since I’d received full funding for school. And now, at twenty years of age, a doctorate in each hand, I had numerous lucrative paths to pursue.

  Point being, I do not find it acceptable to have to listen to the cat-like yowls of my neighbors fornicating at three in the morning, every morning. A human needs seven hours of sleep to perform at maximum capacity.

  As if they have a direct line to my thoughts, the thumping starts up again. At first it’s just a few soft bumps that could possibly be construed as the bed settling under the weight of their inhabitants.

  But then the thumping starts again. And the yowls.

  “Hold on to the headboard. If you move your ha
nds, I’ll spank your ass.” The male voice is so clear, it could be right there in the room with me, and my mouth falls open with disbelief.

  Did he really just threaten to spank her? Is she in trouble? Should I call for help?

  But within moments her mewls of pleasure answer my question. She’s not in trouble. Not even a little.

  A sense of melancholy descends into my chest, and at the same time an ache appears between my thighs. Surely it’s just a primal response to the sounds of mating. That’s what my intellect tells me.

  My body says something entirely different. If a twenty year old virgin body is to be trusted.

  Virgin. Yes, I’m twenty years old, and have never been touched. And when I say never, I do mean never. I’ve never had sex, never been kissed, never even held hands or gone a date with a boy. Starting college at fifteen hinders one’s opportunities, after all. Plus, I’ve never deluded myself—my purpose in this world is in the ranks of academia. Not in the pleasures of the flesh.

  But listening to grunts and groans of ecstasy... it’s more than I can handle.

  I’ll go knock on the door. I’ll just request that they keep their... ahh... amour to a quieter level.

  Just a few deep breaths to calm myself first. I would never survive if my new neighbours knew that my body had grown aroused from listening to them make love.

  Wiping damp palms on the thighs of my pajamas, I slide my glasses onto my nose and make my way across the hall. The ruckus is even louder out here, and I feel blood rushing into my cheeks.

  What must it be like, to not care who knows that you’re doing... that?

  None of my business. Steeling myself, I walk the few steps to the next door, and knock. If anything, the sex noises just get louder. Starting to become irritated, I knock again, harder. Still nothing.

  Finally I give in, in a way that I never do, and pound on the door with my fist. It feels good, slamming my hand into the wood, frustration dissipating with every smack.

  The noises stop, replaced by heavy footsteps. I school my face into a polite smile, ready to be a friendly little neighbour, even though that’s not at all what I feel like. I feel tired, irritated, and aroused.

  But if we all went around acting on unrestrained emotions, we’d be no better than a bunch of monkeys. And in my current circumstances, the word monkey makes me think of a slang term I once came across—monkey sex.

  Hot, sweaty monkey sex.

  Dear God, my brain is broken.

  “Do you know what time it is?” The door before me swings open, revealing...

  Oh. My. God.

  Revealing a greying man, probably in his later forties, given his physical appearance. He’s decently attractive, if you ignore the thirty some year age difference between us.

  He’s also sweaty and absolutely, completely naked. And absolutely, completely aroused.

  I have doctorates in astrophysics and medicine. I have an IQ of 182. But I have absolutely no idea how to deal with the sight in front of me.

  The man grins as my eyes stray to his throbbing member, then snap back up to his face. His own eyes rake over me, lingering in the area of my breasts, causing my hands to clutch at the lapels of my pajama top.

  “Cute.” The man smirks at my sleepwear. I feel a steel rod snap into place in my spine.

  Get a grip, Mari. Surely that big brain of yours can find a connection to your tongue!

  “What the fuck’s going on?” A sulky female voice emanates from the apartment behind the man, and then a woman is peering around him. She’s naked too, though I’m saved from that visual by the sheet that’s clutched to her breasts.

  Her hair is long and blonde, and in quite the disarray. Slumberous blue cat eyes regard me thoughtfully, lips twisting into a smirk, and I will myself to hold still.

  “Oh, it’s you. The brain trust.” Her smirk widens.

  “I... yes.” I’m surprised she—Jenny—recognized me. I taught two of her freshman classes, despite the fact that she’s a couple of years older than I am, but she skipped half of them, and was more interested in the boys sitting around her than my lectures when she was there. And even then, it had been hard not to notice that the boys were interested in her right back.

  Blonde, popular, sexy—Jenny was all the things that I was not. And now I’d seen her naked.

  Awkward.

  “What do you want?” As if just realizing that her man is naked in front of me, she shoves the sheet in front of him, which only causes her perky breasts to be revealed. I roll my eyes skyward, trying not to look at either of them.

  “I... I’m wondering if perhaps you would mind keeping it down.” I swallow thickly when silence greets my request. A silence that drags on until I can’t help but look back down.

  “What, you have a hot date tomorrow?” Jenny looks like she’s channeling Regina George, her face is so mean. “Need your beauty sleep?”

  “No.” What does that have to do with anything? “But a human woman my age needs an average of seven hours of sleep to maintain her health and mental well-being.”

  “What?” The man stares at me, incredulous, before turning to Jenny. “Did she really just say that?”

  “Yeah she did.” Jenny turns to her lover with an eye roll directed at me. Looking down his body, she fastens her gaze on his erection and runs her tongue suggestively over her lips. “Come on. Let’s go take care of that little problem for you.”

  “But she’s so sweet. It’s adorable.” The two of them examine me as though I’m a kitten, the man with something I surmise must be lust, Jenny with more than a hint of aggression.

  And then the door slams in my face. I could knock again, demand that they honor my request...

  This encounter has told me that I’m not likely to get very far. I have no choice but to turn back to my apartment and, given the late hour, return to bed.

  Alone.

  Always alone.

  If my mother was still in my life, she would have reminded me that people who spend their nights fornicating are little more than animals and that I am far above them. I have a loftier purpose.

  But she wouldn’t have said it with love, just her belief that the genes she selected for me—hers and the ones belonging to a carefully chosen, anonymous sperm donor—were superior.

  Right this moment, I can find no comfort in that. I should be celebrating, with my doctorates in hand and life before me.

  But I’m not. Right this moment, I want to be normal. I want to a fornicating animal. I don’t want to be the girl that the neighbours look at like a freak.

  Intellect can’t push my emotions aside as I stiffly return to my bedroom. I’m straightening the sheets when I again hear voices on the other side of the wall.

  “Why’d you slam the door?” It’s the man’s voice, a low rumble through the drywall. “She was cute. I wanted to ask her to join us.”

  “Do you have a nerd fetish now? I’m into role playing, but I’m not wearing those horrible pajamas for you.” I can see Jenny’s shudder in my mind’s eye, and I stand, suddenly cold, frozen in place. “Besides, she wouldn’t have a clue what to do with you.”

  “Maybe a little innocence isn’t a bad thing.” I’d have to be deaf to miss the note in the man’s voice, the fact that he’s goading her. Jenny, however, does, or else simply chooses to ignore it, secure in her own plentiful charms.

  “She has no friends, she dresses like a grandma, and unless she’s talking about astrology, she can’t hold a conversation.”

  “Astrology?”

  “Yeah. You know. The stars and shit.”

  “I think you mean astronomy.”

  “Whatever.”

  I’m slightly incredulous at the lack of brainpower of my one time student. Do men really prize breasts enough to overlook this?

  “My point is, she’s like a doctor or something, and she’s still, like, a teenager. She’s a freak. And probably a virgin, too.”

  A virgin. According to Jenny Paul, age twenty two, be
ing a virgin is a fate worse than freakdom.

  I’m not entirely sure that she’s wrong.

  “So she’s like Doogie Hauser.” The man sounds more intrigued by my lack of experience than anything, but I know that can’t be right. No man in his right man wants a girl my age who can name the parts of penis but has no idea what to do with one.

  “Who?”

  “Doogie Hauser, MD. This old show about a sixteen year old doctor... never mind.” He breaks off with a laugh. “You’re too young to know.”

  “I am young.” The promise is rich in Jenny’s voice. “Young. Supple. And don’t forget kinky.”

  “How could I forget kinky?” The man growls, and Jenny squeals. “Come to daddy. You’ve been a bad girl. You need a spanking.”

  Thump.

  Bang.

  Read on for an excerpt from Two Are Better Than One by Suzanne Rock, available now!

  “Did you find her?”

  Hannah stopped walking as she recognized Declan’s voice.

  “No. I looked everywhere.”

  Quinn. Hannah knelt down behind the dune and angled herself until both men came into view. The setting sun cast a red-orange halo around them both, creating a beautiful, romantic picture.

  “Damn Greg.” Quinn fisted his hands. “He’s such an ass.”

  “I never liked him,” Declan agreed. “Now he’s scared off Hannah and I’m not sure if we’ll ever find her.”

  Hannah stared at the men. They were looking for her?

  “I’d love to punch his face in.” The normally jovial Quinn slammed his fist in his palm.

  “Come now, you know violence isn’t the answer.” Declan sighed. “I just wish I knew if Hannah was all right.”

  “You don’t believe that she had sex with Greg, do you?”

  “I don’t think anyone believes him. He’s an ass, remember?”

  Quinn shook his head. “I’m worried about her.”

  “Me too.”

  “If only we weren’t running late. We could have stopped it.”

  Hannah stood and was about to reveal herself when she saw Declan reach out for Quinn. She hunched back down behind a sand dune and watched as Declan wrapped his arms around Quinn’s shoulders. The act was gentle and affectionate. Soothing. It seemed almost as if he was consoling a lover.