Manhattan Sugar (From Manhattan Book 1)

by V. Theia

  Junk food in general. The greasier the better.

  But cereal was my number one passion.

  I’d never met a Fruity Pebble I didn’t love.

  Truth be told if anyone looked in my pantry at home right now they’d see a neat row of cereal boxes all from the sugary aisle of the grocery store and not much else in the way of food.

  Don’t judge me.

  Again, when I looked at him he was already looking at me. My belly rolled over, all lovely and warm. Stupid alcohol. I dropped the chips, pushed aside the coffee and went for my half empty shot glass. “You sure you want that?” He asked in a steady tone. My eyes narrowed.

  Gorgeous he may be; boss of me, he was not.

  I stared and let him watch me down the rest of the tequila.

  Ignoring the fact, it curdled all the way and made me instantly regret my decision.

  Gray smiled a little and took the glass from my tightly clasped fingers. Pushing the coffee closer to me again.

  “I shouldn’t have text you.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  I snorted. Sure, he was. Who wanted to be drunk text and then cried all over? He was either stupid or hard up for a fuck and with that face of his he must be getting sex regularly.

  Instantly as soon as the thought entered my mind I got a sharp pain of jealousy. Another woman with her hands on his gorgeous face? Another woman knowing how it felt to have him wrench her legs far apart to fit his build? Now I really did feel sick. “Do you remember offering to be my sugar daddy?”

  A dark brow raised, and a smile flittered on his lips. God, what I wouldn’t give to lean in and bite that one lip. Would he push my drunk ass away?

  “Did I?”

  “Yes! Don’t you remember?”

  “As I recall you asked if I wanted a sugar baby, and then I asked if you needed someone to take care of you.”

  My heart throbbed. He’d remembered nearly word-for-word. Who did that?

  How can I be this turned on when knowing how completely and utterly out of my lane he is?

  I swallowed. My fingers twitched around the hot coffee cup just to give them something to do. “Do you have another sugar baby?”

  A full grin now and the power of it had me wet. “That suggests you want the position, sweetheart. Is that right?”

  I spluttered. I hadn’t meant that at all. Had I? I was too full of alcohol to give it some serious analysis. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I’m not in a relationship, as I told you. I was around the corner having dinner and I deserted my band mates to come here to you.”

  Come here to you. Why was that suggestive? He’d dropped everything to come to me.

  Wait. Hold up. My eyes widened. “You’re in a band? You?”

  Oh, god. My ovaries began throbbing.

  The man was hot, seriously fucking delicious with a touch of badness lurking behind his slate eyes, the kind of badness that might come with spanks and husky spoken commands. He owned the worlds shoes and now he was a sexy rock star?

  I couldn’t take it.

  Crossing my legs from one to the other, lips pressed together, I waited with baited breath for him to tell me it was a church choir or something equally unappealing then I could relax again.

  “I have a band with a couple of friends. I play bass guitar. We were grabbing a bite to eat after our gig.”

  Oh, dear god.

  I was screwed.

  I was so going to fuck Gray Ellison.

  His lips stretched in that smirky-know-it way when I looked up again ten hours later after falling into a sex fantasy so depraved I was now soaked and my boobs hurt, and would he give them a little hold if I asked him to?

  “Why are you smiling at me?”

  “Because I can almost hear you thinking.”

  “If you knew my thoughts.” I clamped my mouth shut.

  What was I saying? Shut up, drunk, India and go home!

  Gah. I didn’t want to go home. Here at the bar I had no worries, and a hot rock star shoe-man to look at and smell and he both looked amazing and smelled incredible so why would I want to go home ever again?

  Home was for suckers and bitches who’d tossed five years’ worth of a career down the toilet.

  “You can tell me tomorrow,” he said with a smile.

  “My thoughts?” He nodded. “Why not right now?”

  “Because you’re rolling your head on your neck, sweetheart, so I’m guessing you’re not going to remember much of this tomorrow and I’d really like you to remember so, I can wait.”

  He planned to see me tomorrow?

  “You want to see me again?”

  “I want to see you again. Tomorrow.”

  “Grayson,” I laughed. “You’re kinda crazy, you know that?” He answered with a smile.

  I loved that he seemed content to just sit next to me.

  “What music do you play?”

  “Soft rock, some jazz.”

  “Do you sing?”

  He grinned. “Fuck no. I’d clear the place. My best friend is on vocals and another friend on drums. It’s just for fun in between the careers.”

  “Hot rock star.” I murmured, my eyes flickering closed, my head back on the seat.

  He moved then, sliding out of the booth, and he had me on my feet before I could speak. “Come on, sweetheart, you’re tired. I’ll get you home.”

  “Is this where you will serial killer me?” I didn’t much care at this point. Not that I was suicidal, but I kinda just wanted his hands on me. I got my wish a second later when his arm slipped around my waist, helping me to walk towards the door through the thinning crowd.

  “I’ll try not to since I want to see you again, remember?”

  God, he was so sweet.

  I didn’t know sweet Manhattan men existed.

  He opened the door for me, ushered me out and kept me against his side.

  Just a sweet man. Who played guitar and smelled good. And looked like he fell out of the roman god’s century with chiseled cheekbones I desperately wanted to rub my face over.

  Without thought—I was pretty daring without the aid of alcohol, so I was over the top with it coursing through my bloodstream—I pulled both sides of his jacket and yanked him until Gray bumped into my chest.

  The feeling was incredible to have his weight.

  My back against a wall and the gorgeous, sweet man flattening my boobs.

  “Kiss me.” I issued with each pent-up breath I took.

  I was screaming inside to be kissed and owned and dominated by lips that had driven me crazy all night. All-fucking-year long to know what they felt like over mine … taking.

  If Gray was surprised by my request he didn’t show it. I wished so hard I could see his eyes, to check if they’d turned smoky with lust.

  “India, let’s get you home to sleep.”

  Undeterred I leaned up on my tiptoes, his pouty lips my target. “Please, kiss me, Gray…just once. So, I know…” I urged, not caring I was breathing toxic fumes all over him and when he didn’t dip his head to meet my mouth I frowned and fell back to my feet.

  Of course, he wouldn’t want to kiss me.

  I was a fucking mess.

  But then he sighed loudly, his head lowered, knocking hair over his eyes and his mouth brushed mine.

  Once.

  Twice.

  “Gray … please.” I begged.

  His breath fanned my mouth and it tasted sweet and inviting and I needed more. “I waited a year… I need to know.”

  I heard him groan lightly before he pressed harder. My hands wound tighter in his jacket. I opened, and he slanted his mouth and it was like falling into heaven.

  Gray’s lips were smooth, but not soft in any way that I feared he didn’t know how to kiss. The man knew kissing. His mouth was incredibly powerful.

  Too demanding. Too dominant over mine to be measured as soft.

  His tongue? Perfect as it glided in and stoked fires in me.

 
He dragged it across my bottom lip, a purr came from my stomach. Then he moved that tongue to my top lip. I caught the hint and opened my mouth wider, so he could slide in and devour me.

  His larger size crowded me against the brick wall pressing me between unyielding slabs of muscle. I felt a moan of pleasure bubble out of my throat. The cold brick chafed the back of my exposed thighs, but I didn’t pay it any attention. Fitting us together, it was unashamedly indecent for a first kiss, his knee widened my legs until I was almost riding his thigh.

  I immediately felt his arousal, thick at my belly. Oh, Jesus.

  My breasts crushed against his chest in a way that felt sinful and divinely perfect simultaneously and every catch of breath caused my nipples to scrape through the material and made those little beasts ache for attention. His attention.

  But it was his mouth moving over mine rendering me dumb and horny.

  Had a kiss ever been so perfect or was my brain looking through tequila-soaked glasses?

  It was a hot, shooting type of torment. My heart pounding so fast, beating inside my chest so hard I caught the pulse of it in my ears, the echo of it matched my greedy pants between his lips.

  “Is this the kiss you wanted, India?” His voice came out in a hoarse rasp, bathing me in sexual heat from the tips of my eyelashes right down to my curled toes. God, he even sounded like sex. “Is this the kiss you would have given me a year ago had you called me?”

  “Yes.” I whined, pulling him closer, though it was impossible for us to be when hips smashed into hips and our chests breathed in sync.

  Hot, needy breaths panted from my lips as I angled in for more.

  I would have kissed him that day in public over the café table.

  I would have given him a first, second and more kisses as many as he’d wanted and tasting him now—feeling how skilfully he’d moved his tongue over mine I regretted every decision the last year not to contact him.

  My world tipped over on its axis when he cupped under my chin, holding me lightly by the throat so he could skim kisses over my face. “You should have called me, India.” His grated, low voice sent shards of electricity directly to my clit and I had instant fantasies of listening to that same tone as he pounded into me and growled for me to give it up to him.

  I agreed bobbing my head. God, that felt good when he kissed around my throat. Pleasure, foreign and incredibly intense became white noise screaming through my ears. “I wanted to so much,” I confessed.

  I felt the shockwave go through him and he groaned and that’s when our kiss became something other worldly.

  He was such a selfish kisser, biting and licking when he wanted to, making my mouth chase his, controlling how much I had of him. And I loved it.

  The kind of kiss you see in romantic movies and read about in romance books. The kind of kiss that blew the top of my head off and left a Gray Ellison stain on my heart forever. An animalistic sound ripped from his throat as his hips notched resolutely between my thighs.

  “More. More. More.” The pleading was coming from me.

  With one kiss he’d taken all my problems and crushed them in his strong fist, replaced by the masculine taste of the sexiest guy I’d ever kissed before. And when the first thrust of his hips came my cry was swallowed by his tongue licking inside my mouth, his hand still around my throat, the move dominant and sure and so fucking sexy I moaned as he again hit my crotch with his hips, pressing his swollen cock in the apex of my softness.

  My head detonated when suddenly I was lifted into the air, my skirt hiked higher as he encouraged my legs around his waist, pressed into the wall, our lips locked.

  My hands grabbed him everywhere, unable to let go, begging him with longing fingers speared into his hair to keep going. He’d judged correctly somehow what I needed and was giving it to me with short, sharp stabs of his body, the friction was delicious, my insides already escalated into a hot frenzy like a runaway train rushing pleasure through me. I bit his lip, sucked and heard his grunt.

  God. We were dry-fucking outside on a busy street.

  All rationality fell from my mind, replaced by the crushing sensation gathering in my lower half, my legs squeezed. Gray’s fingers tightened on my thighs, his mouth ate at mine slowly, almost tenderly.

  He kissed me through a flash orgasm with his hardness driving through my clothes, swallowing my cry into his lips.

  I lost grip on the present, sights and sounds fell away, sensations crashing within like a ticking time bomb. I hugged his hips between my legs and rode out the orgasm.

  Oh, god, it was incredible.

  I couldn’t see. I’d lost all feeling in my eyebrows. Gray’s hands dug into the flesh of my butt, holding me to the hard wall and the big hardness pumping up against my damp panties, I was probably soaking the front of his pants too. My hips bucked and then just like that my entire body sagged, air shunting out of my mouth pressed to his shoulder. The come-down just as severe as the flight.

  I would have fucked him right there outside of O’Dooley’s bar in front of everyone. That was the truth.

  It was Gray who stepped back first, taking his gorgeous lips with him and leaving me boneless.

  “I waited a year for that.” Corrosion stained his voice when he rested his forehead to mine. “Fuck. I knew once I kissed you I’d be done. You’ve wrecked me, India.”

  I whimpered, raising my shaking fingers to my own lips.

  Beneath my skin and alcohol-drenched blood my bones trembled out of order.

  Back on my own feet I wobbled, only to be caught by the sweet man again.

  I didn’t embarrass easily, or ever. Yet my cheeks flamed as his arm curled my waist once more to hold me up. Eyes penetrated, stealing my air and every shaken second of his eyes on me I felt it somewhere deep that’s never been awoken before. Hurricanes of color darkened by the second, my heart kicking up speed, he slaked his lip with his tongue.

  God, that was hot.

  Taste me there. I wanted to say.

  “I’ll take you home, sweetheart.” Was his voice huskier?

  Before I knew it, we were at a big black Bentley, and I knew it was the latest edition of Bentley because before my dad became deadbeat he was big into cars and he’d take my brother and I to car shows every summer. If I needed proof of how different our leagues were, there was a tall blond guy holding open the back door. He had a fucking driver?

  “This is Josiah.” Gray said. Blond guy nodded.

  I bet he was handsome in the daylight with his sharp shoulders under the black bomber jacket and form fitting jeans, but he looked scary as hell under the cloudy shadows. I cuddled unconsciously closer to Gray’s side.

  Inside the warm car, the smell of leather and heat hit me.

  My head swam a little and reality crashed in. I was going home.

  The huge back seat was plenty big enough for someone of Gray’s size to sit comfortably and not touch me, but I slid across the seat, seeking his closeness, his arm instantly came around my shoulder and I was grateful for it.

  “I don’t want to go home,” I told him.

  I didn’t mean I wanted sex.

  I just couldn’t face my apartment and the mounting problems waiting for me. Not to mention the memory of calling my mom that morning as I always did on Jack’s anniversary and her sobs still echoed in the living room.

  I just couldn’t face it.

  Maybe the way I gripped the front of his shirt, or something in my eyes conveyed my desperation, but Gray nodded compassionately.

  “Take us to my place, Joe.”

  The car began to pull from the curb and I sighed. Relieved.

  Warm car, soothing sounds of the purring engine and the man holding me close. I closed my eyes for just a second and knew no more.

  GRAY

  She snored.

  And it was fucking adorable.

  Down the hall and to the right in a spare bedroom the woman I’d been fascinated with for a year was still snoring softly. The blond reaso
n I hadn’t gotten laid in more than a year—because no other woman interested me—had a charming little muffle noise you might get from a sleeping feline.

  I’d poked my head into the room more than three hours ago to find she was curled on her side, hair over the pillow, hand under her chin looking like a fucking goddess had fallen from the sky.

  My aching cock told me to get out of there and stop watching her sleep like an old creeper.

  Since I was a nice guy who was only interested in her wellbeing—her smile, her incredible body and suckable lips, the bottom one slightly plumper—my intentions were true.

  They were also deviant in tenor, but we didn’t need to focus on that.

  It was bad enough within hours of going to meet her at the pub I was dry-nailing her into the wall like a fucking predator.

  I never lost control that way with women.

  Or I never used to.

  I wondered if she knew how her eyes pleaded. A silent plea from a strong woman. I had every intention of answering.

  I didn’t believe in instant anything, I believed hard work and dedication got you anything, but this girl was changing all my rules. I was seeing in colors of instant-everything.

  Seeing India again pushed fire into my belly and as I listened to her tipsy rambling and heard how devastating her day had been. The moment her chin quivered seconds before she dissolved into tears I swear I still felt the hit of protectiveness surge through me. The sobs savaged her, and I’d curled her in tight enough to protect her modesty from the crowd all the while my fucking heart roared to offer her anything that would stop her from crying.

  Just like that, my heart was involved.

  It wasn’t only the way I noticed the slim slope of her neck when she angled her head back with a smile, or the way her fingers brushed the shoulder length honey colored hair from her eyes, or even the seductive fragrance she was wearing.

  I’ve felt attraction and immediate lust before.

  This with India was a whole other level.

  Her text. Christ.

  It came out of the blue, I only read the first line when I was on my feet. I’m not proud of how fast I abandoned my friends for her. Something in her words, though intended as a joke, that much was clear enough, caught at my insides, and told me of her truth.