With a smile that could scorch her panties off, he looked into her eyes. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“No. Not at all. I was just about to take a bath.” Audra shrugged, hoping to appear nonchalant. The wicked glint in his eye made her want to kick herself in the ass. Too much information had already resulted in one misunderstood invitation. God only knew where another might lead her.
“I brought your plate back.”
“Oh!” Nerves in a jitter, she reached out for the ceramic platter and grabbed thin air. She’d dropped it. Gasping, she squatted to the floor, wanting to crawl under the doormat and hide.
Without conversation, they scooped the broken shards into a plastic dustpan and disposed of them in the trash. She avoided making eye contact with him until he took her hand. “It didn’t cut you, did it?”
Staring into Kell’s eyes, Audra felt the inner stillness she experienced the night before. That lovely mind-numbing sensation washing over her, like a tide pulling her out to sea. Caressing her with his gaze, he cupped her face with his hand, and she leaned into it like a starved cat. Her pulse jumped, skipping a beat as his skin merged with hers.
The obnoxious blare of a car horn broke their stare.
She hurried through the house and peeked out the sitting room window. Her ex-boyfriend J.R. and his posse of jerks had decided to drop by unannounced.
“Who’s that?”
Audra gasped and spun around, startled to find Kell standing so close to her. “My—he’s my ex-boyfriend. He’s a jerk.”
“He sounds drunk.”
This close, she could smell fruit on his breath, not an altogether unpleasant experience but a highly distracting one. The scent transported her back in time to their kiss, and every cell of her body remembered it.
“He’s always drunk. Thus the ex in ex-boyfriend.”
Kell’s sexy mouth curved into a fleeting smile. Apparently, he liked that she was single. “Is he dangerous?”
“No. At least, not usually.”
“Audra!”J.R.’s voice bellowed from the front yard.
“I’ll be right back.”
On the way out, she felt her hand in his, not recalling the moment he’d taken it. “Don’t get any closer than you have to,” he warned.
Stunned by his concern for her, she nodded softly and walked onto the porch.
“Audra!”
She rolled her eyes, annoyed at the sight of her ex-boyfriend and his drunken friends. “It’s late, J.R. Go home. You’re drunk.”
The burly redneck plastered a goofy grin across his face. “I am home, baby.”
Alcoholism and comments like that were just a couple of the reasons she’d broken up with him. He hid his alcoholism at first, and their relationship seemed great until the truth of his addiction came out. As soon as he showed her his true self, his overbearing personality and childish behavior, Audra dumped him. Unfortunately, he never got the hint.
“Hardly. Please, just take him home before he does something he’ll regret,” she pleaded with J.R.’s trio of friends. Not one of them responded, choosing instead to gawk absently at her as though she were an alien un-boarding a spaceship in the middle of a cornfield.
“Audra.”
Kell’s voice spun her. She didn’t expect him to come outside, much less walk up and involve himself in her drama. Barefoot and minus a shirt, his appearance made her do a double-take. He was a walking, talking flashback, just as he was the night she met him lurking in her orchard. Then her gaze ran the length of him, freezing on his crotch and the unbuttoned welcome mat it advertised.
Audra came to an immediate and shocking realization. He’d strolled out looking like the very definition of coitus interruptus. She couldn’t be sure, but he even looked as if he’d tousled his hair for effect. On purpose.
“Who the fuck is this?” J.R. squinted in disbelief.
Oh sweet Jesus on a stick. She bit her lip, racking her brain for something to say that would ring true. “Um—”
“I’m two hundred and fifty dollars an hour. And you’re wasting my time.”
Now it was her turn to be in disbelief. She looked at the half-naked man standing next to her. Had he really said that?
Fuck it. She decided to go with it.”Right. So if you don’t mind.”
J.R.’s bloodshot eyes went wide with surprise. “You’re paying him? For sex?”
Her criminally sexy next-door neighbor smirked. “Well, we’re certainly not playing board games.”
A man in a camouflage hunting cap shook his head. “Bullshit. What woman in her right mind would fuck somebody like you?”
From the corner of her eye, she watched a smug expression take over Kell’s handsome face. “I can think of one off the top of my head.”
Audra didn’t like where this was going. “Please—J.R., just go.”
Her ex-boyfriend put up his hand like a stop sign. “Hold up. You mean to tell me, you’re gonna fuck this—”
Cringing, she held her breath in anticipation.
“Queer?”
Here we go. Audra braced herself for the fallout to come.
“No.” With one step, Kell closed the gap between them, slipping his arm around her waist. Their bodies fit like gloves, and he was exploiting that fact with shameless pride. “You heard the lady.”
The drunken male in the baseball cap shifted his red-eyed gaze to the blond man behind her. “I wasn’t talking to you, fairy boy.”
“But I am speaking to you.”
J.R. took his hat off and slapped his leg with it, in what appeared to be a preliminary tantrum. “Well, maybe you should mind your own goddamned business.”
“I am.” Kell pulled her taut against him as if stringing a bow. In a raw gesture of male possessiveness, his hand smoothed her shape, claiming every inch of her for his own.
“The fuck you are!” J.R. screamed in hysteria.
“Ask the lady.”
“Do what?” J.R. was like a stick of dynamite about to blow.
Kell lowered his voice, the depths of which reverberated in her ear. “I said, ask the lady.”
Ask he did.”Audra?”
Oh hell. Audra Rhoades had two men fighting over her. What were the odds? She half expected a flaming meteor to come hurling across the horizon. Either that or an Elvis sighting. Needless to say, she had a question to answer. “Look at him, J.R. He’s tall, muscular, beautiful, well-mannered. Hot.” Her cheeks flushed. Things had gone from crazy to chock-full o’ nuts.
J.R. trembled like an impending earthquake, clearly incensed by her candid description, stewing in his rage with clenched fists and lips pinched. Not that it stopped the half-dressed male behind her.
“So sweet.” Kell nuzzled her neck, his tongue teasing a path along her jaw to her ear. It was everything she could do to keep from ripping her sundress off and humping his leg like a dog in heat.”In more ways than one.”
To her surprise, a moan escaped her, palpable as the shiver that raced up her spine. His erection pressed into her backside. Her heartbeat shifted into overdrive when she realized that if J.R. and his friends didn’t leave, she would soon be the headliner in a live sex show.
“As it happens, we were right in the middle of something. So if you don’t mind, we’d like to get back to it.”Brazenly, Kell rolled his hips against her ass, scorching her backside with the heat of his arousal. Dear Lord, he was going to fuck her right where she stood! Moisture flooded her pussy at the thought of him taking her in front of J.R. and his friends. Due to JR’s performance issues, she felt like she’d been single while they were together. Not only did they rarely have sex but JR hardly touched her while he was sober. His drunken attentions were crude and sickening rather than sensual or arousing. By the time the relationship came to an end, she felt she’d been deprived of sex for years when it had only been a few months. Now her sexual imagination was running amok.
“You bitch!” J.R.’s anger soared overhead like a rocket.
But i
t was nothing compared to the atomic bomb about to go off next to her.
Chapter Three
It happened in slow motion. In a whirlwind of fury, J.R stormed up, his arm drawn back like an archer and his fist in the shape of a wrecking ball. Faster than human eyes could follow, Kell stopped him, catching his fist in the palm of his hand with a loud smack. Better still, Kell gave him a look that could have killed all by itself.
“Go home. Now. Never return.”He held J.R.’s stare for an eternity. Finally, he released his fist, smiling cordially as if they’d just held high tea with the Queen of England.
Audra was powerless to say or do anything, frozen in place. She watched J.R. and his friends pile into their late model pick-up trucks and peel out the driveway, yet she felt as though she were watching them from somewhere in the trees above her head. When the sensation evaporated, she blinked and realized they were gone. “What happened?”
“They left.”
“Really?” She brushed her forehead absently.
Kell walked her back inside, shut the door, and secured the lock.
Woozy, she leaned against the wall for support. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”
He returned a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. “And you said you didn’t know what to say.”
She smiled a little, her heartbeat flittering in her chest like the moths trapped in the overhead light.
“I should be going.”
“No.” Before she could censor herself, she was on her feet, her hand on his long, hard bicep.”Have you had a chance to go to the grocery store?” She’d never tried to bait a man into staying longer. Oh well, there was a first time for everything.
Kell gave her a look that heated her from head to toe. A look that communicated what her words did not. “No. Actually, I haven’t.”
“Let me cook you dinner. I could make a breakfast supper.” Her inner slut had returned with a bang, waving a big black leather dildo over her head.
“I’m starved,” he told her, letting his gaze roam over her body.
Evidence of her canning sat on the kitchen counter, jars of blood orange marmalade lined up in rows. “Feel free to take a couple of those.”
He looked at her, his hand on one.
“Consider it a thank you.”
The distinctive pop of one of the lids got her attention.
“You know, fruit has been symbolic for sex since the beginning of time.”
His words could singe her ears right off her head. “How so?”
“Take Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden for example. Some say it wasn’t an apple Eve offered him but a body part synonymous with fruit. Did you know the word orchard means ‘fruit garden’?”
Kell scooped out some of the red-orange jam with his fingers and lifted it to his nose. Her mouth became a desert. Unable to speak, Audra simply shook her head.
He walked around the small bar into the kitchen where she stood, keeping his gaze on her. “References to fruit and its symbolism can be found all throughout our language. While making love, a woman might let a man take her cherry, taste her forbidden fruit. He might eat from her body like a ripe peach, dripping with the juices of her arousal. The turn of phrase ‘come to fruition’ means the act of enjoying. ‘To bear fruit’ means to yield something good.”
Penetrating her with his dark gaze, he extended his hand to her. She’d never let a man feed her before. Moistening her lips, she licked the sweet sugared fruit from his fingertips.
Audra swallowed hard, noticing the heavy rise and fall of his chest.
With one hand, he brought her to him, their faces a hairsbreadth apart. Lips slack and breath intermingling with hers. He took her lips captive in a slow, appreciative kiss.
Enthralled by his touch, she let him walk her backward. He cinched her waist in his grip and lifted her onto the kitchen table. They continued to kiss, their hands frantically tearing at each other.
“Spread your legs.”
Hungry for his touch, she lifted her dress and parted her thighs.
Without reservation, he brushed the soaking-wet strip of her panties with deft fingers. “I think I found what I want to eat.”
Her cheeks felt sunburned she was so hot.
Slowly, Kell went to his knees. His hands pressed her thighs wide as he looked her over with hungry male approval. “The sweetest fruit in the world is between a woman’s thighs.”
He raked his fingers down her legs as he rid her of her underwear, leaving rivers of fire on her skin. None of her ex-boyfriends had offered to do this more than once or twice. Kell would be the first in a long time. And he proved to be damned good at it.
His touch was divine ecstasy, the hysteria of euphoria rising from within. He stretched his arms across her body, cupping her breasts in his capable hands. As he slipped the thin spaghetti straps from her shoulders, a blanket of chills broke out on her skin. With a determined tug, he pulled her dress down her body in a slow tease. Her nipples hardened to diamond points as the material brushed over the hypersensitive peaks. He pinched them between his fingers, adding to ecstasy of the moment.
Painting her pussy lips in upward flicks of his tongue, he waged a sensual war on her resolve. Once open to him, he used a finger to probe her slick heat, tonguing her clit like a tornado until she begged him to stop.
Once more on his feet, he dipped into his briefs and stroked the pointed bulge at his crotch, showing her just how ready he was for her. She almost started salivating at the sight of him.
A moment’s panic prompted her to ask an important question. “Are you safe?”
With a hand on his cock, he nodded in the affirmative. “I haven’t been with anyone in a very long time. You?”
“With J.R. a couple times. But always with a condom,” she whispered in reply.
“Good.”
Audra tasted relief on his lips and kissed him back. But the important conversation wasn’t over yet.
“One more thing.” She had a hard time resisting his charms long enough to speak.
“What?”
“I can’t have children so you don’t need to worry.” He cupped her face with the warmth of his hand and nodded. Kell sank into her, filling her with his thick heat. In a tight hold, he fucked her in long, deep, controlled thrusts. His fingers kneaded the soft mass of her breasts and tweaked her nipples with teasing satisfaction, their aching peeks soothed with an ephemeral swipe of his tongue. From the start, their rhythm was slow and steady like a drumbeat that gradually increased in tempo. She reveled in the sight of his perfectly toned body as it moved against her, holding her down and working his magic on her with nothing but the power of his finely sculpted hips.
“Fuck, you feel like heaven.”
A whimper was all the response she could muster.
Faster and faster he crashed into her. The table groaned but held under their treatment. She felt the stirrings of her climax beginning to form in her core, and all she could think about was how bad she wanted to experience his. “I want your cum.”
“Where?” He sucked his breath through his beautiful pearl teeth.
In her, on her. Everywhere. “On my tongue.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” She whimpered desperately. “Give it to me.”
In a rush, Kell brought her upright and off the table. Seized by a passionate rush, she got down on her knees and took his red-hot shaft in her hands. With expert strokes, she sucked him until she felt his imminent release take hold. His entire form tensed as if frozen in place as he surrendered to orgasm. “I hope I taste as sweet as you, Audra.”
Audra knew he would. In a series of warm jets, his cum rained down on her tongue as he braced himself against the bar. Looking up, she wanted to freeze the moment in her mind. Head thrown back and reduced to monosyllabic groans, Kell was the very image of erotic male beauty. She wanted to remember the way he looked forever.
“Come home with me.”
“Why?”she asked, her entir
e body heavy with relaxation.
“I want you in my bed.”
“What for?”Audra grinned playfully. Not that she didn’t know already. She just wanted to hear him say it. With a voice like his, who could blame her?
“Come home with me and I’ll show you.”
Without saying another word, they walked across her yard and through the orchard on the way to his house.
They only made it as far as his porch.
In a lounge chair, he pulled her into his lap. Heart to heart, she rode him toward yet another delicious climax, their bodies unified in lust. She read the features of his face, taut with desire as he put her on her back.
With her legs over his sculpted shoulders she clawed his sides as he drove his cock into her over and over. At the height of their passion, she cried out to him but somehow he knew not to stop. Seized by the powerful exchange as she was, he snarled like an animal. In a flash of pain, his teeth punctured the skin on her neck. . As she laid there, the weight of his intoxicating body pinning her to him, she faded in and out, between a state of hyper-awareness and delirium.
Minutes or hours later, she wasn’t at all certain, he took her by the hand and led her upstairs to the cool sheets and exquisite darkness of his bedroom. Unconsciousness came quickly and she descended into sleep as easy as death.
***
Kell didn’t hear her leave. Like a ghost, Audra slipped away with the dawn. What surprised him was that she did not return. In all the hours he’d watched her—and they were many, walking in and out of different rooms, living her life—he’d never seen her house so quiet and still. By nightfall, he wondered if his male pride had taken a hit because she didn’t come knocking on his door.
The day came and went, then it was night again. He sat and waited for her but she never came. Around midnight, he walked over and knocked on the door, praying J.R. didn’t appear or worse, a regretful Audra, but no one answered. It was important he see her, to know she was all right. He’d bitten her for Christ’s sake, drank her blood. No matter how she felt about him, about what happened between them, there were things he needed to explain. But he didn’t want to push, so he went back home and tried to rest.
Crimson, Volume 1 Page 13