Swirl: The Complete Collection (BWWM Interracial Romance) (Books 1-3)

by Lexi Lewis

  “Hey,” he said softly, reaching out and touching her hand where it rested on the table near him. “Are you alright? You seem kinda…” Reese shrugged. He didn’t have a word for it.

  “I’m tired,” she said. “As usual. There’s…it’s just been a long week, that’s all.”

  Reese spared a minute to feel bad about basically inviting himself over and then shook his head. “Do you want to talk about it? I know I’m just some idiot who showed up at your apartment on a Friday night, but I’m a pretty good listener, too.”

  She smiled into her plate for a second and then glanced up at him. “A lot of it is kind of personal,” Eve said. “I’m not saying I don’t trust you, but…”

  “But we don’t really know each other that well?”

  Eve shrugged.

  “Yeah, I know that. But…I want to get to know you. And I want to help you out if I can. Because you…well. I dunno how to say this so it’s sweet and not creepy, but I want this to go somewhere if it can. So. I’m not gonna tell anybody what you say or anything like that. Not even Paul.”

  “Oh, well if you won’t even tell Paul,” she teased, laughing for a moment before she sobered with a sigh. “Alright. I… There’s just so much going on.”

  And from there she proceeded to tell him all of it. She told him about how busy work had been and how many patients she had seen to in the last week alone. They’d been making her work clinic hours with some of the doctors, too, so she had just been overloaded there. Really, that seemed to be the easy part for her to deal with. Once she moved from talking about work to talking about how Devin had been getting into fights and trouble at school because people were making fun of him for the things he didn’t have—the things Eve couldn’t give him—Reese wondered if he was in over his head here.

  He couldn’t even relate to something like that, since all the fights he’d gotten into as a kid were based on people trying to outdo him or him saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. He’d never really had to go without, and he could see how much it was bothering Eve to have to make her brother live like that since there wasn’t really any other option.

  But still, that wasn’t the worst part.

  The worst part was her talking about her abusive father.

  Reese had a lot of complaints about his parents, but none of them were about them being abusive or even them really mistreating him. While Eve talked about her dad and the way he had treated her and her mother, Reese thought that the food he’d just shoveled down was going to come back up. How could anyone, anyone do that to someone they claimed to love? It didn’t make sense to him, and he could hear the real fear in Eve’s voice at the thought of him coming back and trying to ruin her brother’s life the way he had messed up her mother’s.

  He had no idea what to say to that, but he could see the anxiety in her eyes. She was worried that he was going to come and ruin her little family, destroy the things she had worked so hard to build. Reese had never met her brother, but he was seized with the desire to help. Or at least to do something to reassure her.

  “That’s…wow. That’s a lot.”

  Eve chuckled, but it was dry. “Yeah. All of that’s been kinda playing tug of war for my attention lately.” She sighed. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do about any of this. I mean…there’s nothing I can really do about work, of course. I need the hours, and I need the money. Of course, it’s not so much money that it solves my problem with Devin, and who even knows where my dad is right now? I hate feeling powerless.”

  Reese could definitely relate to that. Powerlessness was one of his least favorite feelings in the world, and he could only imagine how much worse it was for her, considering how many responsibilities she had.

  “Have you talked to the authorities or anyone?” Reese asked. “Building manager? You can tell them he’s a threat and they’ll keep him out. In theory, anyway.”

  Eve shook her head. “Not yet. I don’t have a good picture of him or a clear view of what he even wants. Well, I mean, he said he wants to see Devin, but…ugh. I don’t know. My head’s a mess with all this.”

  She dropped her head into her hands, and Reese decided it was time for a change in tactics.

  “Okay,” he said. “You know what you need? A distraction. It’s time for a distraction.” He pushed himself unevenly to his feet and started gathering up the Styrofoam containers the food had come in, stuffing them inside each other and then into the plastic bag they’d come in. Reese grabbed up the plates and took them over to the sink, rinsing them and looking around for the sponge so he could wash them quickly.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, sounding amused.

  “Cleaning up. Giving you one less thing to worry about right now.”

  “But you don’t have to do that. You bought the food, so I can do that.”

  Reese shook his head. “No, let me. You get some ice cream or some wine or whatever it is you use to relax and go sit in the living room. We’re done thinking about stressful stuff for the night.”

  In the back of his mind, he remembered that he still hadn’t told her about the stressful thing hounding him, but now was definitely not the time for that. He didn’t want to add yet another thing for her to have to worry about. Not when he could handle it himself.

  Instead, he finished up the dishes and then went with her into the living room. They shared some ice cream between them, and then he couldn’t help himself. He was leaning into her, pressing his lips to hers and tasting the lingering flavor of the caramel ice cream on her lips.

  “Is this the kind of distraction you were talking about?” she murmured, eye half lidded. One of her hands came up to touch his face, and she threaded fingers into his curls.

  He grinned. “Maybe. What do you think?”

  “I think I’ve got the apartment to myself for more than an hour or so for the first time in ages. I also think that we should take advantage of that. I mean, who knows when this will happen again, right?”

  “Right,” Reese agreed, dipping back in for another kiss. “So it would be a shame to let the opportunity pass us by. And we’re smarter than that, aren’t we?”

  She laughed and nodded. “Yeah, we are. Or we should be, anyway.”

  From there, the kissing eclipsed any conversation. Reese had liked the thrill of doing this in the hospital, but there was something very good about doing it like this, too. When they knew they were alone and wouldn’t be disturbed.

  He could touch her like he wanted to, and god, did he want to. Reese slid his hands under her sweater, touching skin and finding out with a smirk that she wasn’t wearing a bra. That was a wonderful revelation, and his hands skated over the soft, warm skin of her breasts, taking time to touch and tweak her nipples and relishing the sounds she made for him.

  “I want to see you,” he murmured, pulling back and looking into her dark eyes. It was the one thing he hadn’t been able to do before (well, one of many things he’d wanted to do, he guessed), but now that they were in the privacy of her home, he could.

  Her cheeks flushed lightly, and she nodded, pushing her hair out of the way before getting to her feet. With a coy smile she began stripping, undoing the button and zipper on her jeans and pushing them down to reveal a nice pair of lacy blue panties. Her sweater was next, leaving her completely topless, and Reese’s mouth practically watered at the sight of her breasts.

  They weren’t more than a handful, but they were high and perky, topped with pert nipples the color of a Hershey’s kiss. He wanted to draw them into his mouth the same way he would with the candy to taste and suckle and make her moan for him.

  She was so beautiful. Her skin was rich and so many shades darker than his, and he could clearly see how ample her hips were now that she was just in her underwear. He reached for her, sliding hands up her sides and then back down to grip her ass and pull her closer to him.

  “I want you,” Reese was murmuring before he could help himself, but the smile he got in reply made him
pretty sure that was alright.

  “You can have me,” she replied. “For now anyway.” Her grin was impish, and Reese knew this was going to be good.

  CHAPTER 4: MORE THAN A TASTE

  The way he looked at her was enough to make her want to go to her knees and suck him off again. But they had been there and done that, and she wanted to try something new and different while she had the chance. So when he pulled her closer, she went, letting herself slip down into his lap, straddling him with a leg on either side of his body. It was an awkward position because his leg was stretched out, but she made it better by wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning closer to his chest.

  He groaned appreciatively and slid his hands up and down her back, making her shiver at the way his rough palms felt on her skin.

  “So…what all is on the table?” Eve asked, smirking and leaning in to kiss his neck. If this was supposed to be about distracting her from the things that were weighing on her mind, then she was definitely going to take her time and enjoy it.

  Reese grinned at her. “I feel like that’s the question I’m supposed to be asking since I’m the guy. Aren’t I supposed to be the one who’s all into sex and wanting to ravish you?”

  Eve snorted. “Please. Women like sex just as much as men do, Reese. Sometimes more. And it’s been too long since I’ve had sex with someone other than myself, so we are making this count.”

  “Hey, no complaints from me. I’m all about making it count. I mean…obviously the positions we can do are…limited, but I am up for seeing what we can do with what we’ve got.”

  “You’re in luck,” Eve teased, making her voice low and seductive. “This position right here is one of the ones I’m the best at.”

  The low moan she got from him at that was enough to make her laugh, and his hands came around to palm at her bare breasts, squeezing and cupping them while she kissed his neck. It felt good, and already she could feel herself getting wet between her legs. He was so hot, and he wanted her.

  How long had it been since someone had wanted her?

  Most of the men she knew these days either saw her at work or when she was at Devin’s school for meetings, which meant they knew her as a nurse or a guardian and not as a woman. Reese was the first person in a long time to care about her beyond her duties, and it made her feel good.

  It gave her a confidence she didn’t usually have, and she found herself wanting to show off for him.

  Eve rocked her hips forward, grinning when she could feel him getting hard underneath her. He groaned and pushed up, meeting her movements. It was much like the first time they had ever done anything, all those weeks ago. Except now she had no intention of running off or trying to back out of this. She wanted it.

  That was certainly apparent from the way she slid back, careful not to rest her weight near his cast, and unzipped his shorts, pulling his cock out of his boxers. It was just as delicious looking as she remembered it being, but she didn’t want to get stuck on that. Eve wanted to know how it would feel inside of her.

  “Fuck, Eve,” Reese murmured, eyes dark in the light from the lamp. “I want you.”

  “So you said,” she teased, and then she was slipping her panties to the side so she could grind against his hardness.

  She was wet and ready, and when the hard shaft of him rubbed against her clit, she moaned. Using her knees and her grip on his shoulders for leverage, she raised herself up and then hovered over his cock, sinking down slowly and tipping her head back as each delicious inch slid inside of her.

  Eve had to take a minute to adjust to the size of him since it had been so long, but he felt amazing, and before long she was pushing back up again, needing more.

  “Oh god,” Reese gasped as she moved against him. “You feel so good. Oh god.”

  It was highly flattering that she had reduced him to simple sentences, and she grinned, moving her hips in little circles as she rode him slowly at first, letting them build a rhythm before she picked up speed.

  The only sounds in the room were their gasps and groans and the wet sound of their bodies moving together. Reese’s hands were tight on her hips, and he helped her move, gathering speed and intensity as he bucked up as best he could.

  “Reese,” she panted as she felt the pleasure pooling in her. It was so much better than what she did herself with her vibrator or her fingers, usually thinking about him these days anyway. And it felt like it was going to be a delicious orgasm when it finally broke over her. Her hips moved faster, and his fingers tightened on her skin, his head tipping up to catch her lips in a messy breathless kiss.

  She ended up crying out into it as she came, shuddering hard as heat and sensation rushed through her in a heavy wave. Her breath stuttered and her movements became erratic, but apparently her going tight around him was enough to get Reese off as well.

  He moaned her name as he came, and she blushed at that, looking down at his dazed, sated expression and taking pleasure in the fact that she had caused that. She’d made it happen.

  The two of them sat there for long minutes, still joined as they panted for breath and came down from the high of release.

  “Please tell me we can do that again,” Reese said once he could talk again, getting a breathless laugh from Eve.

  “We can do that again.”

  “Thank god. I don’t think I could have managed if it was just a one-time thing,” he teased. “And I really don’t think I’m going to be able to move for at least an hour.”

  Eve smiled. “You know…you are welcome to stay the night. I’m sure Paul won’t be leaping at the idea of coming back over here in the middle of the night to pick you up, and I could drop you off, but I’d much rather you stay.”

  “You only want me for my body.”

  “Pft. That old thing,” Eve said with a smile. “It’s not even in mint condition. No, there has to be another reason.”

  Reese smiled and leaned up to kiss her. “Yeah, there probably is. No offence or anything, but this is kind of getting uncomfortable.”

  She moved off of him with a groan as he slipped out of her and her muscles protested the movement. The couch was soft under her, and she leaned into his side, content to sit there with him for the moment.

  It had been a very good distraction, though, and for the first time all week her head was clear and she could focus. The fact that she had told Reese all that stuff about her father and Devin and he hadn’t gotten scared off or distant seemed to bode well. He was still there, still seemed to want her, and she was grateful for it.

  She was also tired.

  “So I know you just said you couldn’t move, but what do you think about moving this party to the bedroom?” Eve asked.

  Reese laughed and looked at her side long. “Are you suggesting another round? Frisky.”

  “No,” Eve giggled. “Although, I mean, I’m not saying no to another round. Mostly I was suggesting getting off the couch before one or both of us falls asleep here. No offence, but I definitely can’t carry you to my bed.”

  “I do believe you’re calling me fat,” Reese teased, reaching over to tug at one of her twist.

  “No, no, never that,” she defended herself. “Just I’m delicate. And you’ve already got a broken leg. Let’s not make it worse, right?”

  “Fair enough. I can walk, anyway.” He proved it by levering himself up into a standing position, barely even wobbling as he stood there in front of her, tucking himself back into his shorts.

  Eve applauded and got up herself, stretching and going to make sure the front door was locked. She’d never used to be so anal about making sure the deadbolt was in place and the chain latched firmly, but with her father out there somewhere thinking he had some kind of rights to her brother, she wasn’t going to take any chances. That made her spare a thought for Devin, off at his sleepover, and she could only hope that he was safe.

  “Everything alright?” Reese asked, voice soft behind her.

  She smiled and turned to
face him. “Yeah. Just doing that worried parental thing, I guess. Like, I know Devin’s fine and all, but…”

  “But you worry.” He smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a good thing.”

  He held a hand out to her, and Eve smiled back and took it, letting him pull her close for another kiss. This one was shorter, softer, but it warmed her just the same.

  Bending down, she gathered her discarded clothes and headed for the bedroom with him in tow.

  It wasn’t anything lavish, just a full size bed and a few pictures on the walls, but Reese broke into a grin as soon as they walked in. “It smells like you,” he said, sitting down on the bed and working his shorts off.

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “It is most definitely a good thing.”

  Together they went through the motions of getting ready for bed, stripping out of their remaining clothes (or in Eve’s case, pulling an oversized t-shirt over her head) and making themselves comfortable in the bed.

  There was even enough room for Reese’s cast, though he apologized for how much room it took up. Eve’s response was just to cuddle closer to him, curled into his side.

  She didn’t think she had shared a bed with someone since the early days of college before her mother had died, and it was strange now but also kind of awesome. Reese was warm, and he wrapped an arm around her, dropping a kiss to her head.