Twenty Times Tempted: A Sexy Contemporary Romance Collection

by Petrova, Em

  Vanessa blew out a huge gulp of air and drew in another. Clenching her fists in her lap, she struggled to continue. “She hopped in the car, and on the way back, they were hit by a drunk driver. Dad never got over it, and he said some really nasty things to Vic and Vic left after the funeral. I haven’t seen him since. Not even for the reading of the will.”

  Relaxing a little into her chair, hard part of the story over, Vanessa felt her belly untighten a bit. “Mom left Vic and me her money to split, telling us to become men and women, respectively. I needed to get away from my dad because he was wanting me to be Mom, and I didn’t want that. That was the last straw with Ian, when he took Dad’s side and started talking shit about my brother. So I bought this house and moved here, completely against everyone’s wishes. But I know Mom would have loved this place. Even before we fixed it up.”

  Her eyes misted over as she looked around and saw her home through her mother’s eyes. Mom would have made curtains for the windows, and matching throw pillows, even before Vanessa had furniture in the place. She would have made placemats and bought her matching kitchen towels and all the stuff that made a house a home. Vanessa sniffed, realizing she hadn’t done any of that yet. There would be time.

  “I hated Tate,” Linc began softly, his face looking down at the wood planks of the porch. “I caught him sleeping with Sam and beat him up. We used to be best friends, but after that, I was done. Since I wasn’t talking to him, that meant I started hanging around the group of kids who got into trouble.” Vanessa hadn’t been finished talking, but the edge to Linc’s voice told her he needed to go next. He still wasn’t looking at her, but that was okay.

  “Around here, that’s sort of how things work. You’re either with the jocks or the thugs, and I ended up with the thugs that night. Somebody said something about wishing they had a PlayStation for the basement where we were all hanging, and I said I knew where we could get one.” He snorted. “Tate lorded that fucking PlayStation over me when he got it.”

  His voice cracked a little, but he pressed his palms to his eyes and leaned back, still talking. It was as if a dam had burst. “Amanda went with me. I think because she was hoping we could hook up afterward, I don’t know. I knew how to sneak into Tate’s house, I’d been doing it since I was twelve. Anyway, Tate’s dad caught me, red-handed, and I just ran. Amanda was already in the car and I just jumped in and took off.” Linc’s mouth twisted in a grimace, and Vanessa’s heart went out to him. “I was going too fast, trying to lose Mr. Hughes on the back roads, but that was a dumbass move. He grew up here and probably knew them better than I did. I lost control of the car and ran into a tree. I killed her.”

  He dropped his hands to his lap and looked up at the stars. His voice was choked. “I will live the rest of my life hearing her scream as it was cut off by the impact that killed her.” A huge tear squeezed from the corner of his eye, but he didn’t move to wipe it. “The rest of my life.”

  Vanessa reached over for his hand and pulled it into her lap. “You’ve had a lot longer to deal with her death than I have with Mom’s, but one thing I’ve learned is that she’s not hurting now. If she hurt during the wreck at all, it’s gone now. I know my mom is watching me, and she’s proud of me. Maybe Amanda is watching you, too? I’m not going to say trite words about moving on or anything, because I have no idea about the guilt you must go through, but I know you are a good man. You must have been a good boy. And everybody makes mistakes. It’s how we deal with them that makes us who we are. We can let them haunt us, and dictate every future move we make, or we can learn from them and become better people, right?”

  Vanessa didn’t know if her words helped or not, but she had to say them. They had to move past this if they were going to have something. And Vanessa wanted something.

  Linc was still looking at the sky, as if he would find some divine answer there. “The thing is, I barely knew her. I mean, I knew her, we’d gone to school forever. But we never ran in the same circles until right before the accident. I didn’t know a goddamn thing about her, except she smoked weed and liked to draw. If I had known her better, I might have been able to come to grips with what I’d done, and that doesn’t make a damn bit of sense, does it?” His hand was raking across the back of his neck, and Vanessa stood, walking over to stand between his legs and hold him. He clutched her waist in a desperate move, burying his head between her breasts. It was a gesture seeking comfort, not sex, and Vanessa breathed deeply into the top of his head. He smelled like Linc, and she drew comfort from the familiarity of it.

  He was finished crying, though. He only held her and breathed, his hot breath fanning across her belly with each exhale. She stroked his hair gently, providing whatever comfort she could.

  “How long were you in jail?”

  “Seven years, and please don’t ask me about it. I’m not going to tell you. It’s not something I want to taint you with, although I will tell you I wasn’t molested and I didn’t join any gangs. That’s always what people want to know. But it wasn’t a nice place, at all. I’m out, and I’m done with it.”

  “How long have you been out of jail?”

  He backed away from her, looking up at her. “Two years now. I went in when I was seventeen, came out when I was twenty-five,” he said gruffly. He peeled his hands from her waist and stood, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I’ll go. I appreciate the chance, Vanessa.” His voice was heart-breakingly sad, and he’d taken two steps down the porch before they registered with Vanessa.

  “No. Don’t go. You’re not fired. And I don’t want to break up with you. I just wanted to talk about it. That’s what couples do, you know.”

  Linc gave a harsh-sounding chuckle, and despite the conversation topic, Vanessa felt stuff bubble inside her at the sound. He was sexy even when he was sad. “No, I don’t know. I’ve never been a part of a couple.”

  Vanessa took a step toward him, and his face eased incrementally. “Never?” He shook his head. “Then I shall teach you,” she offered with a smile. He seemed to be relaxing a bit, and she was glad. It had been a rough conversation, but one long overdue, and she didn’t really want to be depressed the rest of the night because of it.

  Grabbing his hand as he stood, she swung it between them, leading him inside. She wasn’t sure why, but she wanted him in her house. Vanessa had a rough night the night before with the doll, and then with the sheriff coming over, she would admit she was on edge a bit.

  Linc’s muscles were growing softer as he relaxed into her touch. He looked at their hands, then up to her face, and his eyes smoldering on her took her breath away.

  “Come on. I’ve got some beer inside.”

  Opening the door for her, Linc’s voice lowered, “I don’t want beer.” He brushed against her body as he moved to come in, and his hardness against her curves sent a shock of desire racing through her veins.

  “Then I have—” She froze when she saw the hungry look on Linc’s face. Praise the Lord, Hallelujah. They were finally on the same page. Turning seductively, she finished with, “—no panties on.”

  Slowly, Linc closed the door behind her and locked it without taking his eyes off her. They roamed her body, heating her up from the inside out. A flame licked to life, spreading through her belly and up to her chest. She knew without looking, her chest was red, but didn’t care. “Show me.”

  “Sit on the bed and I will,” she smirked at him, toying with the need tensing his muscles. This was an abrupt turn of events from their conversation, but they both needed the release. They needed to bond this way. At least, she did.

  Still watching her carefully, Linc sauntered over to the bed and adjusted himself before sitting. Vanessa’s smirk grew as she walked closer to him and removed her shirt, doing a slow twirl for him.

  His eyes on her body made Vanessa feel so sexy. Ian had never looked at her like that. Ever. And now she was finished with her comparisons. Tonight was for Linc. Not Linc in comparison to Ian. Nope. Tonight, Linc
was in a class all his own.

  He rested his hands on the edge of the bed beside him, but when she reached behind her for the hooks on her bra, his fingers tightened into the mattress. Flashing a seductive smile, Vanessa tossed the bra at Linc’s head, which he managed to catch with a hungry grin and an athletic grace that made her squirm.

  Drawing out her strip tease, Vanessa unbuttoned her jeans and drew the zipper down so slowly she could hear the individual teeth releasing in the silence of the room, silence broken only by Linc’s heavy breathing. She opened the flaps to show him she was indeed not wearing panties, and his eyes widened.

  “Come here,” he rasped out, one corded, muscled arm outstretched. His voice abraded her skin, like corduroy, velvety smooth, yet rough at the same time.

  Vanessa felt so beautiful, so desired in this moment. There wasn’t anything she could do that would ruin this for either of them, and that was a heady feeling. Linc wanted her.

  When she took the step closer, Linc grabbed her waistband and tugged her to him. His touch was a mix of gentleness and urgency, and Vanessa liked it. The reverence and craving in his touch was undoing her, making her weak in the knees. But his whispered touches also gave her strength.

  He tugged her pants down gently, and Vanessa stepped out of them, watching Linc for her next move. She didn’t want to get grabby and ruin the moment, but it was hard. She wanted nothing more than to launch herself at him, so when he looked up at her mouth before taking it with his own, she gladly reciprocated by winding her fingers through his blond locks.

  Every kiss with Linc was different than the one before it. This kiss was the same in that it was different. His lips were soft, molding against hers with a tender urgency. They told of his need as his tongue plunged into her mouth, dueling with hers, an erotic dance only just beginning.

  His hands lifted her breasts, hefting their weight and pressing them together in his massive paws. With a groan, he broke the kiss and lowered his mouth to the two erect nipples begging for attention.

  “Tell me what feels good, Vanessa. I want to make you feel good,” he muttered between her breasts. The heat from his breath was intense, and she threw her head back, still clutching his hair, her one thread still tenuously grasping her sanity. His mouth on her breasts was pumping lust straight to her core, an aching, pulsing need she couldn’t see through.

  “Everything you do feels amazing. Just don’t stop.” Ever. Don’t ever stop. Vanessa crawled up in his lap, straddling Linc, and the ache between her legs intensified with the presence of his powerful body. To alleviate the ache, she pressed herself down, grinding against him.

  His erection was massive.

  With a low growl deep in the back of his throat, Linc tossed her over on the bed and rolled on top of her, planting his hips between her legs. “Oh, that was nice,” she giggled as he continued to kiss her chest, her breasts, her shoulders. He tasted her like she was a decadent dessert and he was a sugar-holic. His hips gyrated over her, pressing the seam of his jeans into her sweet spot.

  Realizing Linc was wearing too many clothes, Vanessa started scrabbling at his back, trying to grip his t-shirt. She tugged, and it only sufficed to get herself tangled in the material. With a chuckle, he raised himself, and in a move that made her mouth dry, whipped the shirt off in one maneuver over his head.

  She’d seen him without a shirt before, since he had a penchant for working bare-chested in her hot house. But having him hovering over her body, all those ridges and muscle bumps running town his torso, Vanessa could only gawk.

  “I like that, too,” she whispered.

  He held her breasts in his hands, running his thumbs across her nipples until they were so stiff they almost hurt. The sensations were overwhelming, and she couldn’t stop squirming under him. The corner of his mouth quirked up into a sexy smirk, and he said, “I like the way you look, too. You’re fucking gorgeous.”

  Her fingers fumbled with his jeans, but he stilled them with his hand. “Let me. I’m afraid for you to touch it,” he mumbled through clenched teeth.

  Her burst of laughter was sudden, surprising even her. “I can’t touch it? Seriously?”

  He offered up a wry smile. “Not unless you want me to let loose all over your belly, and that wasn’t quite how I planned to do this.” He slipped off the bed and removed his jeans, boots, and socks. Standing in his boxer briefs, he lifted an eyebrow at her in question. His erection tented his underwear, but she wanted to see it.

  “If I can’t touch it, at least let me see the damn thing,” she offered wistfully.

  Hooking his thumbs in the waistband, he lowered the briefs and Vanessa let loose a low whistle. “Damn.” That was all the words she could muster. Propping herself on her elbows, she examined it: long, thick, and perfect. Linc had one hand on his hip and one at the base of his erection, the member proudly jutting forward. When she looked back up at him, Vanessa managed a smile of encouragement, ready to get the show back on the road.

  The eagerness with which Linc moved gave Vanessa more confidence than anything else ever had. He seemed to genuinely want to be with her. She wasn’t just any woman with him; he made her feel special, desired.

  As he peppered her with kisses again, she felt his length press against her thigh, and she wriggled to get him in position. With his head poised at her entrance, she arched her back, desperate for him to be inside her.

  He paused, looking at her intently. “You’ll tell me what feels good?”

  “Christ, Linc. You feel good. Get in me, now,” she growled out in frustration. She’d waited for this moment since practically the first time she’d seen him and wouldn’t let him back out now.

  His arms trembled on either side of her head as he slowly pushed his length inside her with a low moan. Vanessa stretched around him, listening to his hiss of pleasure. She held her breath, feeling every ridge, every bump, every steely-smooth inch of him as he deliberately drove himself inside. His arms collapsed, and he wrapped them around her, pulling her over onto her side, cradled inside his arms as she cradled him inside her sheath.

  Burrowing his face in her hair, Linc breathed deeply. The sensations of his skin against hers everywhere—his breath on her head, his massive shaft filling her—all conspired to make her come unglued. Fortunately, from this angle, she could move with him, and she wriggled her hips to get the idea across.

  With another hiss, Linc withdrew before plunging himself back inside her. The feel of him, scraping against the walls of her core, ratcheted her up higher.

  “Oh, God… Again, Linc… Don’t stop…” He did it, moving one hand to her clit to massage small circles on it. His other arm still pressed her against him, and he looked her in the eyes as he drove her mad with his touches, continuing to thrust in and out of her. She watched his eyes, and they darkened. The restraint he was harnessing was evident in the strain of his mouth, the clench of his jaw, but Vanessa was nowhere nearly as restrained.

  Linc’s arm cradled her in a cocoon of desire, and his other hand continued its ministrations on her core. If he asked her to tell him what she liked again, she wouldn’t be able to speak. Words were beyond her.

  Arching into him, Vanessa threw her head back, lips stretched into a silent scream as wave after wave of sensation sent her climbing higher than she realized was possible. Nobody had ever made her feel this. This was something she wrote about. Something she had relegated to fantasy land. This wasn’t supposed to be possible in real life.

  Linc’s mouth latched onto her skin, first her collarbone, then he pulled a nipple into his mouth. As long as she stayed arched like this, his mouth on her skin was incredible as she wrapped her leg over his hips.

  He continued thrusting in and out, and she finally managed a squeak, “Harder,” to which he complied. The bed was squeaking, their flesh slapping together, but the sounds only heightened the sensations of eroticism. As he stopped rubbing circles and pinched, giving her clit a gentle tug, Vanessa completely fell apart.

>   The color burst into a miasma of rainbow-hued fire, burning through her in a frenzy. Linc’s eyes widened in awe and then shuttered closed as he fell into his own release. When he was finished, he cradled her closer, breathing heavily into her hair again.

  “That was… exquisite,” she managed to breathe when she found her voice.

  “Yeah.”

  Okay, so he wasn’t a master of eloquence right now. But Vanessa licked a path down his neck and snuggled up closer to Linc, wondering how long it would take him to recover before they could do it again.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Vanessa spent the next couple of days on a cloud. Linc was at her house, every day, kissing on her, making love to her when she needed or wanted it, and sort of working the rest of the time. Her house was coming along perfectly, and she felt like a new woman. She’d even ordered a couple of pairs of handcuffs to try out later. The idea of being handcuffed to the bed while Linc explored her body, or vice versa, was an insane turn on. In her head, she called Linc her ‘Research Assistant’ because he totally understood her now. All she had to do was imagine him naked, and apparently, some ‘look’ came into her eyes and he knew exactly what she wanted, even if she wasn’t sure about the specifics. It was a beautiful existence, and she wanted it to last forever.

  She had been living at her house for almost six weeks when her dad called her for the first time, ever. Vanessa had spoken to him on multiple occasions, but it was always at her instigation. So when she answered the phone and heard his voice on the other end, she was shocked.

  “Hey, Dad. Is something wrong?” she asked tentatively, almost afraid of his answer.

  “Yes.” Her heart stopped, and she waited for him to continue. Her imagination immediately went to the worst possible places, but then she reminded herself this was her dad—king of guilt trips—and he would most likely lie about what was wrong to get her to come home. Except his voice sounded really funny.