My Sweet Demise (Demise #1)

by Shana Vanterpool

  “Raina,” he hisses, “where is this coming from?”

  I look around the restaurant, avoiding his gaze. “Did your dad pay for your drinks last night?”

  “Yes.”

  Rage moves over me. “I’ll pay for my own lunch.”

  “Raina,” he repeats harshly. “Cut it out. I’m paying for lunch. In fact I’m taking you out to breakfast tomorrow and I’m paying for that too.”

  “Won’t you be too tired from the couch?”

  His handsome face is a reminder that I was right. Kent has a billion dollar company he’s working toward, his father is rich, and he’s got goals in life that will happen. My life is a stop along the way for him. He’s so completely off-limits I can’t stand sitting across from him.

  His eyes narrow. “Your smart mouth really wants to play with me right now?”

  “My smart mouth isn’t afraid of you, Kent Nicholson.” I cross my arms over my chest and seethe.

  “It should be.” He mimics my movements, crossing his own arms and sitting back in his chair. “Your mouth should be terrified.”

  I’m mad at him! I reaffirm with myself. Forget the buzzing attraction between us. “Well, it isn’t.” I don’t mention he wanted to kiss me last night, but I want to. “It’s not impressed or awed by anything you do.”

  “That’s it. Come here,” he orders, pushing away from the table.

  “Where are you going?”

  “We’re punishing that mouth right now.” He reaches down and grabs my hand, pulling me up from the table. “I’ve warned you too many times.”

  “What about our food?” I try and yank free but people are looking and I don’t want to get Kent arrested. I’m not that mad.

  “It can wait.”

  I allow him to lead me toward the back, balking when we get to the bathroom. He pushes me against the wall and holds me there by putting his hands on my shoulders. “Just in case you run,” he whispers, eyes burning.

  “Kent,” I whisper, losing my cool.

  “What?” he asks innocently. “Not as brave as you were a second ago?” He reaches over and caresses my bottom lip with his thumb, this slow erotic movement back and forth that makes my knees week. “I can’t wait to punish this mouth. It’s been a long time coming.”

  I may whimper. I’m not sure. When the bathroom door opens and the person inside leaves I look at it longingly.

  He chuckles to himself as he takes my hand, leading me inside and locking the door behind him.

  My bottom lip is burning from his touch and my breathing is erratic, heaving with something I’ve never felt before.

  What are you doing? I demand of myself. Leave!

  I wring my hands together as Kent approaches me. He grabs my hips and eases me backwards slowly to the sink. He slides his hands around to my ass and grips me tightly in his palms to pick me up and place me down on the countertop. I look into his eyes the entire time, unable to form coherent thoughts that do not revolve around the want between my thighs.

  “Should I go easy on you?” He grips my bare thighs, slides his fingers down to my knees, and then parts my legs so he can ease between them. My arms hang uselessly at my sides. He reaches up and grasps my neck and jaw between his hands, nestling my face gently yet firmly in his grip.

  The action feels so possessive and…hot.

  How am I supposed to answer that? I can’t let him know how much I want him. It would be detrimental to my case. “I can take whatever punishment you give me.”

  “Oh really?” He chuckles to himself. “Should I play along with those innocent hazel eyes or should I go with the heat I feel coming from between here?” His dark eyes become two gleaming pools as he slides his thumb along my inner thigh toward my core. He’s filthy right now. He reaches down and unzips his zipper. I refuse to look. “Get on your knees, Raina. I’m going to show you what I do with mouths this smart.”

  This time I know I whimper. “Kent,” I squeak, having a sudden attack of panic. I’ve never done that before.

  “That’s what I thought,” he growls. “Raina, don’t play with me. You’re not like all of those other girls so don’t try to be. The next time you use that smart mouth I’m going to make you regret it.”

  How dare he tell me who I am and what I’m capable of doing? I refuse to let him think he won.

  “I was going to ask if you could move so I could get on my knees. But if you’re too much of a coward…” I let it hang there and grab his waist, pulling him harder against me between my legs. Like last night, I can feel his erection through his shorts. I’m not the only one who’s affected here. I bite my lip to imprison my moan and meet his eyes boldly. Inside I’m quivering. I’ve never done this sort of thing with a guy before. I’m operating on instincts. The outcome could quite possibly blow up in my face.

  The promise in his eyes makes a shiver race down my spine. “Lick your lips,” he orders gruffly.

  I slowly moisten my mouth. He follows the movement. “Better?”

  He nods, running his fingers over my wet lips. He presses into my bottom lip and pulls it down, earning yet another senseless whimper. “I’m going to kiss you. I’m going to kiss this smart sexy mouth so hard you’ll think twice before you ever use it again.”

  Something akin to fire erupts inside of me. I grip his waist roughly as he tilts my head back. I realize as his lips come near me I want him to kiss me. I want Kent to kiss me so badly I am already moaning and he hasn’t even started yet.

  He smiles right before his lips touch me. “I knew you wanted me.” And then his lips consume me.

  He holds my jaw and applies a hint of pressure on my cheeks to open my mouth wider for him. His tongue slips inside immediately, and the sensation is so warm and silky in my mouth I stop thinking. For the first time in my life I am only feeling. He twists it around my tongue, earning a deep moan that rises all the way from between my legs. I arch against him and try to keep up with his lips, but he’s done this before. He’s knows what he’s doing. His lips are confident, damaging and unsympathetic as they lead me along. He kisses me so deeply the game between us is left in the dust.

  I’m like a dog in heat. I claw at his shirt and give up. I don’t even know what I want. I want it. I need it. There’s a painful need between my legs that is building, deepening, urging me on as if it knows Kent Nicholson will satisfy it.

  I’ve never been so out of control before. His mouth is insistent and rough. He pushes my legs apart wider with his hips and presses himself against me. On accident his erection touches me in the perfect spot and I break away from his lips to gasp. I wrap my arms around his neck and fling myself against him, and then I lose all hope of ever ignoring him again.

  I grind myself against his erection, and when I connect perfectly, I hump against Kent like he’s going to feed me until I’m full. I’m desperate in his arms. I’m sure I look like I’m attacking him, clawing and digging at him, but I can’t stop myself. I find his lips again and kiss him senselessly. His scent and heat wrap around me, cranking up my body temperature until I’m burning from the inside out. I can’t stop. The idea of having to stop makes me groan against his mouth.

  “Raina,” he moans. But I grab his jaw and bring his lips back down, kissing him fervently. “Raina.” He struggles to free himself. “Can I help you?” he asks, breathlessly. “I know what you want.”

  Hearing him when I feel like this is my undoing. “Kent,” I plead.

  “My name on your lips is fucking perfect.” With a growl, he takes my mouth, making everything south of my navel tremble. He sucks on my bottom lip as his eyes hold my desperate gaze. His hand slides between my legs and I gasp when I realize what he’s going to do. I watch him unzip my shorts. “Look me in the eye,” he orders. “I want to see your eyes.”

  I give him what he wants and bite my lip nervously.

  “Don’t look anywhere else. Are you nervous?”

  I nod.

  “Don’t be,” he whispers, as his fingers slip un
der my shorts and massage me through my panties.

  I moan in pure pleasure. It comes from a part of me that’s been starving for this.

  Yes, I think. That’s what I wanted.

  His touch moves over me through my panties, easing between my folds and melting me into a puddle. I grind against his fingers as they create their own insistent circle. It’s like I’m being guided by a part of me I didn’t know existed. I can’t even think straight. I have no idea how loud I am, how I look, or if Kent will ever want to see me again when we’re done. All I can feel is this pleasure, this dirty unrecognizable pleasure pulsing between my legs. It feels so wrong, but so damn good.

  I reach up and grip his shoulders, burying my face in his neck as something unflinchingly erotic and intense moves through me. I bite my lip and dig my nails into him as my pleasure becomes a damaging spot in front of me. I focus on that spot until I’m screaming and writhing against him. Something amazing convulses between my legs and my excitement dampens my panties as his fingers circle my clitoris through the thin fabric. I cling to him as it builds, burns, and then takes me over.

  For what feels like hours my orgasm tapers off and right when I think it’s done it convulses in my belly and I squeeze Kent as hard as I can. I’m falling apart, into his black eyes, and I love every single second of my demise.

  His lips connect with my mine again and this time his kiss is deeper, more sensual. I reach up and run my fingers in his hair, feeling tired and boneless as we melt against one another. His erection is impossibly harder, pushing against my sensitive spot like an arrow searching for its target. I open my legs even wider for him, wanting to give that to him, but he breaks our kiss to growl when he presses against me.

  He braces himself against the counter and attempts to calm himself. “Get down, zip your shorts back up, and go back to the table. I’ll be out in a minute.” He moves aside so I can move.

  My legs feel like rubber when I land on them. My head is spinning. I can’t believe what we did, yet at the same time I refuse to forget it. I self-consciously zip up my shorts and look at him. “Kent,” I begin.

  But he shakes his head. “Go, Raina. I’ll be out there soon.”

  I reach for the door handle and exit the bathroom, feeling rubbery and confused. The sounds of the restaurant come hurtling back to me. When I go back to our table our soup still hasn’t arrived. We weren’t in there as long as I thought. I sit down numbly and try to wipe the smile from my face. My common sense is pissed off at me. My hormones are dancing in the street. The two emotions clash, both heightening how I feel and downing it at the same time.

  As the positive aftereffects begin to wane I start to side with my common sense. How could I allow Kent to touch me like that? No man has ever done to me what he just did. It happened so fast. I didn’t have time to think, only to feel, and what I felt had nothing to do with common sense. It was passion and attraction vying for attention in a body disallowing both emotions.

  “Two large with rare steak.” The waitress sets down two steaming bowls of hot soup.

  I feel my cheeks heat. She can’t possibly know what we did. No one could possibly know. “Thank you.” I’m paranoid. It further lessens my bliss. What if someone heard me?

  What were you thinking, letting Kent touch you?

  My eyes fill with tears. All of my progress, all of my self-control, has blown apart because of one man. I don’t understand why this saddens me so much. I guess it’s because I said no so many times and the one time I said yes Kent never even asked me. He touched me because he knew what I needed. He knew exactly what I wanted and he gave it to me on a sexy silver platter.

  I squirm in my seat, remembering his fingers pressing against me. He’d parted me through my panties and touched the part of me that ached the most. I remember why I let him. I needed him to touch me.

  Without waiting for him I grab my chopsticks and dig in. Kent sits down soundlessly and does the same. We slurp our noodles, drink our broth, and the entire time I am tender with this new kind of want. Clearly touching wasn’t enough. My body expects more. My mind, however, forbids it.

  “That can’t happen again,” I speak up. I set my chopsticks down. I can’t eat another bite. I stare at what’s left of my broth, watching a cilantro leaf floating like a solitary green island. “I never lose control. I need to have control over my life, Kent.”

  “We barely touched. Relax.”

  I look up in shock. “We barely touched? I guess to you that was nothing. That was something to me.”

  “I heard.”

  I blush all over and look down. “I was kind of loud, wasn’t I?”

  “When’s the last time you got laid?”

  “It’s been a long, long time.” I refuse to reveal I’m a virgin. For some reason I know if I tell him his reaction won’t be positive.

  “I haven’t made a girl come that way since high school.” He laughs at the memory. “You were completely clothed and I have to say that was the sexiest thing I’ve done with a woman in a long, long time,” he informs me, using my words. Except he draws them out, making my mouth dry. “But if you don’t want it to happen again, then it won’t.”

  “I don’t.”

  He shrugs. “Me neither.”

  Him neither?

  I don’t let him know how much his easy agreement to never to do it again annoys me. I don’t want to confuse him. Inside I’m enraged. That couldn’t have all been me back there. He touched me. He knew what to do. Was he taking pity on me? I slide down in my seat and attempt not to succumb to the blush heating my skin. I was practically begging him for release, humping him like a horny dog. He took pity on me and gave it to me. How pathetic was I?

  I can barely meet his eyes when he tosses a twenty on the table. In the car we’re both quiet. I feel dirty all over, like some reject charity sex case. Kent took one for the team. I’m his bunt. I want to crawl into a hole. He touched me! No man had ever touched me that way. I let him, some spoiled rich daddy’s boy, touch me. And then I was all over him. I’m madder at myself than I am at him. He was being himself. I wasn’t.

  When we get to the apartment I pull up near the stairs.

  “You’re not coming in?”

  I look out my window. “I’ve got errands to run.”

  “Like what?” he demands. “Look at me. All we did was hook up in the bathroom. You weren’t even naked. I said I wouldn’t do it again. You don’t have to act like this.”

  “Get out.”

  He grabs for me but I smack his hand away. “Rain,” he says quietly.

  I try not to cry. “Becca calls me that.”

  This time when he grabs for my hand I let him take it. “’Your sister, right?”

  I nod, surprised he remembered her name. “She doesn’t want me living with you. Now I know why.”

  He rolls his eyes. “You really need to expand your horizons.”

  I try and pull free of him but he holds me tighter. “Please, Kent. I have things to do.” I need to get away from him.

  “Will I see you before you leave for work?”

  You won’t see me ever again if I can help it. “I don’t know.”

  “You know, you don’t make any sense. You played along with me and then when I play too I’m the bad guy? I could have ripped your panties off and took you in that bathroom. You would have let me too. You wanted me so fucking bad. I was trying to do the right thing. Don’t punish me for it.”

  I know he didn’t physically hurt me. But it feels like he dug his nails down my heart. All he could stand to do to me was touch me through my panties? Even the thin barrier was a good enough obstacle between him and me?

  I wrench my hand free of his and point at his door. “Get the fuck out my car.”

  His jaw opens wide. “Rain. Stop.”

  “Now!” I scream. I need him gone before I break down.

  “You’re all the same. Psycho-ass women. I don’t know why I still bother with you unappreciative assholes.” He
slams my door and leaves.

  I put my car in drive and grab my cell as tears stream down my face. “Becca,” I sob.

  “Rain, what’s wrong?” my sister demands.

  “Kent…” I hiccup and stop at a red light.

  It’s all I need to say. “What did that disgusting manwhore do to my baby sister?”

  I refuse to tell her I let him touch me. “He’ll have sex with anyone, Becca. But when it comes to me I’m like some charity case.”

  She’s silent for a second. “Fill me in. I don’t know which rant I’m supposed to be giving here.”

  “I need to cry to someone.” To prove it a sob rips me open and I cry harder than I have since Becca left for school. She doesn’t know I broke down then. She was already in California when I lost it without her. How was I supposed to live without my sister? We were a team. She was my mom, my dad, and my best friend. “I need you, Becca.”

  “You want me to come home for a couple days?”

  “I want a hug and to see you in person.”

  “Oh, Rain. Shh. I’ll be on the first flight out there.”

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  “No you won’t. Now talk to me so you can calm down.”

  Someone honks behind me. I stare at the green light and pull forward.

  “Are you driving? You know you’re a shitty driver when you’re crying. Pull over.”

  I do as she says. I park in the grocery store lot, already feeling slightly better after hearing her voice. “Are you really coming?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t. You know how I am. I get emotional sometimes. You don’t have to miss school just because your sister is a spaz who can’t handle her emotions.”

  “That’s because you always hold them in. You never let anything out. You keep yourself so tightly bound your pain starts to escape on its own. What did Kent do?”

  I sigh, watching a mother stack groceries in the back of her minivan. “Why does he have to be so sexy?”