by Pippa Grant
She rubs her neck, her elbow tucked into her body, her lower lips caught in her teeth while her gaze travels lower down my body, lingering on my package, which is more than happy to have the attention. Her gaze lifts and locks on mine, and I see the moment her indecision turns to determination. “You got a head start.”
I stroke a hand over her smooth, strawberry-blond hair. Her eyes go dark, that quick tongue darts out to wet her lips, and oh, fuck, yeah, she’s driving me crazy. My hand drifts lower, and my fingers caress her neck at her hairline.
“You’ll have to be patient with me,” I tell her. “I’m new at this teaching thing.”
She laughs softly even as her gaze rakes over my naked torso, then lingers on the ink on my shoulder. “Oh, I think you’ll do just fine.”
Fuck, yes, I will. But she will too.
“First, I need to know what turns you on.”
She gives those apricot lips a slow lick, and my cock bangs harder on my zipper. “You first. Tell me what turns you on.”
My gaze drops from her eyes to her wide lips, the curve of her neck, the hint of cleavage in the vee of her white blouse, the way her breasts are rising and falling with her quick, short breaths. I settle my hands on her lush hips and pull her against me so she can feel what’s turning me on. “The better question is, what doesn’t?”
Her fingers all come to rest on my chest again, a whisper-soft contact that arcs an electric current over my skin.
“That’s not me,” she whispers.
“That’s all you.”
“I’m not even dressed sexy.”
I fumble my phone out of my pocket and turn on Ed Sheeran. With the phone safely on the counter, I wrap one arm around her waist and trace her loose collar with the other. “You’re dressed perfect. I’m mesmerized by this fascinating little dip right here.”
My fingers slip into her shirt and brush the very top of the valley between her breasts. She gasps and arches into me.
I nibble her earlobe as I drop my voice to a whisper and trail my fingers lower. “I’m imagining you undoing those buttons, one at a time, teasing me and tempting me and making me desperate to touch you.”
Her breath is coming in short pants now, and she’s lifting her breasts into my touch, and the lines between student, teacher, and temporary date are starting to blur.
“That feels so good,” she whimpers.
“Just move,” I murmur in her ear. “We don’t have to take any more clothes off. Call this lesson one. You’re a sexy, desirable goddess. Feel it. Own it. And then you won’t need me at all.”
“You don’t want me to take my clothes off?”
Fuck, yes, I want her to take her clothes off. “You need to want it for you.”
She shivers. I set the beat and move my pelvis, guiding her into the smooth motion of letting her body become the music. She sways along with me, hips rolling, shoulders too, eyes on mine while Ed sings.
“Like this?” she asks.
“Just like this. Feel the music.” She’s all luscious curves, with soft skin and a slender waist and just enough self-doubt to tug at my chest. “You’re strong. You’re beautiful. You’re Jane the Jungle Dominatrix.”
She laughs. “Jane the Jungle Dominatrix?”
“Tarzan needs a Jane to tame him.” I sink my fingers into her firm ass, my hips tilting toward her. I know this rhythm, but today, it’s different. She’s different.
Not overly confident. Not coy. But not innocent either.
The intoxicating combination of smart and sexy tied up with her vulnerability and insecurity are making me feel like I need to earn her.
“Own it, kitten. Show me what Jane can do.”
Her lids drift shut, her head tilts back, and she lets the rhythm flow through her body, shoulders relaxing, her hips angling to meet mine.
“Touch your neck,” I breathe.
Her fingers obey, trailing four distinct paths down her throat to the hollow where her collarbones meet.
“Lower,” I say.
Her hand drifts lower, between her breasts, and the sight of her pink-tipped nails on the lacy white fabric between her two gorgeous globes brings my straining cock past full-mast. “Just like that, kitten. Keep going. Jane knows what she wants. Let her show me how sexy she is.”
Eyes still closed, hips rubbing my aching wood, one hand drifting down, down, down to where our bodies are touching, she reaches behind her head with the other hand. With one smooth tug, her hair comes tumbling down. She shakes her head, the waves of her hair rippling down to the center of her back.
“Oh, fuck, yes,” I whisper.
Her smile is growing more confident, and fuck me, I’m so hard I’m about to bust my zipper.
And that’s before her hand grazes the denim trapping me. She walks her fingers up my bare chest, each finger searing its print onto my skin, until her fingertips trace the edge of my tattoo. “You got a head start,” she says to my bare skin.
“Anytime you’re ready, kitten.”
I should let her go. Stand back and watch. Try to get control of myself. But I can’t bring myself to break contact with her sexy body. My hips grind into hers, and her eyes and lips part.
“How do I take my shirt off?” she whispers, almost shy.
“Slowly. Tease me.”
She tilts her head, and her gaze rakes over my chest again. “If I’m going to tease you…” Her hands settle on my bare shoulders, then glide down my arms, riding the curve of my biceps, which, oh, hell, yes, you’re damn right I’m flexing for her. I’m a primitive jungle beast. Her fingers are whisper-soft on the insides of my elbows, and she doesn’t stop until she has her hands on my hands on her ass. “Then these have to go.”
I grunt out a protest as she pulls my hands off her body and pushes them to my chest.
“Uh-uh,” she says with a finger waggle. “No touching the goods on stage.”
I groan and wonder how much longer I can stay standing with my wonder dragon suffocating in my jeans. Parker slides her hands down her front, touching her breasts, and I go lightheaded. “Lose the shirt and do it again,” I croak out.
She nibbles at her lip while she plays with the top button. It pops open, and I get a glimpse of more ivory skin dotted with freckles. One more button, and there’s peach lace. She reaches for the third button and pauses. Ed’s crooning about the shape of you, she’s against a backdrop of books, and without prompting, she drops her hands to her sides and thrusts her hips in time to the music.
I almost come in my pants.
She stops abruptly, laughs again and shyly goes back to fiddling with the third button. “I did that all wrong,” she whispers.
“The only thing wrong,” I manage, “was that you stopped.”
“You don’t have to—”
I can’t help myself. I reach for her, spin her so my crotch—and my crotch rocket—are nestled against her ass, and I start a slow grind, her hips in my hands. “Do you feel that? That’s what you’re doing to me.”
I trace my lips along the column of her neck, down to the collar. “You’re fucking sexy as hell. Keep taking that shirt off, kitten.”
She presses her ass back against my hard-on, and my balls tighten to the point of pain. “This shirt?”
Still holding our hips together, I loop a hand around her waist and sneak under the hem of her shirt, my palm flat on her soft, smooth belly. “And then the pants.”
She does as I ask, flicking the button open one-handed, the music flowing through both of us and setting her pace. Her shoulders rock against my chest, and her ass moves in time to the motion of my hips. When she gets the last button, she tilts her beautiful hazel eyes to me, reaches across herself, and tugs the shirt off one shoulder. “Like this?”
“You take it off any way you want to, so long as it comes off.” I’m vaguely aware that I’m supposed to be some kind of teacher here, but all my dick knows is that it’s go time, and it wants this sexy, smart woman stripped bare and writhing with ple
asure all around it. I need to get a grip here.
“Knox?” she whispers.
“Yeah, kitten?”
“Help me take it off.”
She turns in my arms, thrusts her shoulders back and her perfect breasts, held in a lacy peach bra, up at me, and I don’t know a man on the entire fucking planet who could’ve refused this lady in her time of need.
I raise my hands to her cheeks, thread my fingers through her long, thick hair, and as I brush her blouse off her shoulders, I don’t watch it flutter to the ground.
Nope, because instead, I’m kissing Parker Parker Elliott. Not because she’s conveniently here, or because she likes me in my loincloth, or because I like the way she was fingering her buttons.
Okay, maybe some because I like the way she was fingering her buttons.
And her own breasts.
But mostly, I’m kissing her because I have to.
Her lips are full and ripe and taste like berries, her hands resting on my bare shoulders are cool and smooth and lighting me up like Times Square, and that little whimper she makes as she parts her lips and kisses me back makes my balls threaten to explode.
I trace her shoulder blades and trail my fingers down her spine, feeling each little bump while our tongues get acquainted. She’s not shy, wrapping her arms around my neck and threading her fingers through my hair. Her leg hooks around my thigh and she grinds against me. I let my hands dip lower to those fascinating curves and squeeze her firm ass again.
She moans into my mouth and grips my hair tighter, her tongue sliding against mine. Fuck, she’s delicious. Sweet heat and spicy intrigue. I want her hands on my body, her legs wrapped around my hips, her breasts in my palms.
This isn’t stripping. It’s not dancing. It’s fucking with our mouths, hungry and greedy and desperate, and I don’t know if she went for my button first or if I was fumbling with her zipper first, but suddenly we’re pawing each other’s jeans off.
“You are so fucking sexy,” I tell her.
“Ohmygod, say that again.”
“So. Fucking. Sexy.” I nip at her neck and slip my fingers into her pants, finding rough lace and— “Hot. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Fuck me, you’re so wet.”
Her hands wrap around my cock, and I groan in her grasp. “Jesus, don’t stop.”
Bed. Couch. Floor.
Up against my bookshelves.
We need to move this somewhere where I can peel these pants the rest of the way off her and touch her and lick her and worship these curves and this smooth skin and her perfect—
The sound of my lock sliding open makes my head snap up.
“Don’t stop,” Parker gasps.
The doorknob creaks. I snatch my hand out of her pants and shove my dick back in mine as voices filter into the room.
My mother.
My grandmother.
“—All that unicorn poop is going to be so delicious,” Nana is saying.
Parker gasps and drops to the floor, crawling for cover behind the couch. I spot her shirt, snag it, and throw it at her, but—
“Knox! We thought you were…” Mom trails off as she takes in the white fabric that’s snatched off the back of the couch by a slender hand.
She and Nana give me identical expectant looks. My jeans are still unbuttoned, my barely-covered woody still thinking we’re getting some, which I’m doing my best to hide with my hands. “Hey,” I say brightly. “How’s the party planning?”
As one, Mom and Nana look back to the couch.
“Not near as much fun as what you’re doing,” Nana declares. “Is this one legal?”
“Mom.” My mother grabs my grandmother’s elbow and tries to steer her and her walker back toward the door. “We have plenty of time before the party to get Steph the pink gossamer.”
“We came all the way back for it, we’ll get it now,” Nana says.
“I’d like to have more grandchildren someday,” Mom hisses, “and it’s not going to happen if we interrupt the first date he’s brought here in two years.”
Yeah, this apparently could get more awkward.
“Well, I want to make sure she’s good enough for him,” Nana hisses back.
“Found it!” Parker pops up from behind the couch, her cheeks on fire, holding—I squint.
A glue stick?
“But you know, I thought it was bigger than this,” she continues. “Probably you need to get that shirt in the wash right away. Hey, guys. Long time, no see.”
Mom tilts her head at Parker as though she’s never seen her before, even after last night’s escapade at her party.
Nana’s dentures are in danger of slipping out. “You had a date with your old babysitter?”
“Am having,” I correct. “As soon as you two leave.”
“Don’t be rude,” Parker tells me. She waves the glue stick again. “We were having tea and this baby spit up all over him. It was adorable. The baby. Not the spit-up. I thought he could wait to get the shirt in the wash if we hit it with a stain stick, but I guess this probably isn’t up for the job.”
I look between all the women in my life. They’re all sizing each other up, and though Parker’s cheeks are still the color of an overripe strawberry—god, now I’m getting stiff as a pipe again—she’s holding eye contact. “Anyway, I should get going.”
She shuffles out from behind the couch, probably unaware that her buttons are done up crooked and her hair looks like she’s just been sexed up six ways to Sunday, and that the hint of peach lace peeking through her shirt is once again firing up my rocket even with my mother and grandmother standing here.
I snag her by the waist and pull her to my side, because hell no, she’s not leaving me like this.
That squinty glare tells me that yes, she is leaving me like this, for a reason that should apparently be obvious to me but isn’t.
Probably something to do with mortal embarrassment over being caught making out like teenagers by my mother and grandmother. And she’s still probably thinking my mother’s going to fire her from babysitting, which isn’t really a concern, seeing as I’m thirty fucking years old.
“How old are you?” Nana asks Parker, earning another hissed Mom! from my mother, who might actually be mildly uncomfortable about the former babysitter thing.
“Not as old as you,” Parker says sweetly.
I choke on a surprised laugh.
Mom glances between me and the woman who’s currently the object of my dick’s fascination.
“I always did like you,” Mom says to Parker, whose rigid body relaxes a miniscule amount.
“Pish,” Nana says. “Still a legit question if you’re worried about grandbabies.”
“Nana,” I warn.
“If you were worried about me having more grandbabies, you would’ve let me drag you out of here five minutes ago so they could get back to what they were doing,” Mom counters.
I’m considering high-fiving my mother, but Parker’s suddenly gone rigid again.
“I’m the vice president of marketing at a rapidly-growing organic grocery store chain, and I like my job way more than I like children,” she announces. “I’m never having babies. Ever. So, you can like me for me, or you can just be disappointed in Knox’s current choice in girlfriends. Deal?”
Whoa.
Is this the same woman who’s worried she looks like a dork when she’s being sexy?
Because this woman is wearing her confidence so loud even a deaf man could hear it.
Mom’s gone pink.
Nana’s frowning. “Family is—”
Parker makes a zip it noise and pinches her fingers in Nana’s direction. “Not up for debate.” She goes up on her tiptoes and presses a kiss to my cheek. “I’m about to be late for band practice. I’ll call you later. Judy, Nana, so nice to see you again. Sorry for the awkward fun. Thanks for raising him right. Enjoy your unicorn poop.”
Holy shit.
The door shuts behind her, leaving Mom, Nana, and me in shocked silence.
I’m not entirely certain what just happened, but I know two things.
One, I don’t need to worry about any of my female relatives starting to plan our wedding anytime soon.
Two, I’ve never dated a woman quite like Parker Elliott.
And I’m suddenly wondering why not. Because this is the most interesting time I’ve had in forever.
11
Parker
Yes, yes, I ran away.
I’m not proud of it, and my girly bits are flat-out pissed. That’s the most—best—action they’ve ever had from a real man, and they weren’t done.
If we hadn’t been interrupted, I’d be sprawled out on Knox’s floor right now, basking in a proverbial afterglow.
Or possibly I’d be just as disappointed, because even though his fingers knew their way around my hooha, that’s no guarantee his man meat could’ve properly stuffed my pink taco.
It’s that fear of disappointment that propelled me all the way to the subway.
Forty minutes after I left Knox’s place, my chacha’s still reading me the riot act as I stroll into Crunchy. Not headquarters, where I work and where I should probably stop by later today, but the local store down the street from my apartment. I snap a few pictures of the produce section. We grow a lot of our own greens in-house, literally inside the building, and it never gets old to see them packaged and being picked off the shelves by local customers. But right now, I head for the bakery.
Why, yes, I do like to placate my pussy with organic cheesecake from time to time. Don’t you?
My phone rings.
Knox.
I almost send him to voicemail, but that would imply something’s wrong.
Which it is, but since I’m not entirely certain what’s wrong, I figure I can fake my way through everything being fine.
“Hey,” I say, trying not to let my heart get all a-fluttery just because he called. We’re not dating. We’re doing a weird friends-with-benefits kind of thing, with a reunion-date-traded-for-blog-maintenance on the side. He doesn’t have to call me.
But he did anyway.
“I’m sorry,” he says without preamble. “Nana ran a saloon for almost fifty years and she was out burning her bras in the sixties. She should know better than to imply any woman is nothing more than a baby-making machine.”