Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (Eight Fun, Romantic Novels by Eight Bestselling Authors)

by Violet Duke

  “This isn’t some casual thing,” he continued, voice ragged from fighting how much he wanted to touch her, unable to remember the last time he’d been this turned on. “You’re my friend. I care about you. This could ruin our friendship. Forever.”

  “So you don’t find me attractive, is that what you’re saying?” Maddie asked, hurt flashing in her eyes. “Is that it? Because if it is, just say so, Jamison and I’ll—”

  Jamison reached out, capturing her around the waist and pulling her against him, moaning when the soft curve of her stomach connected with where he was as hard as the shells beneath their feet. “Does that feel like I don’t find you attractive?” he asked, heart racing as Maddie leaned into him, her breasts pressing against his chest.

  Her mouth was so close he could feel her breath feather across his lips when she sighed and her arms twined around his neck.

  “I want you so much it’s killing me,” he said, pulling her closer, groaning when her leg looped around his waist and his cock responded with enough enthusiasm to make his balls ache. “But this is a bad idea, Maddie. A bad, fucking idea.”

  “Speak for yourself,” she said. “I think fucking is a great idea.” She rocked her hips forward, grinding against him, and Jamison forgot about childhood friendships, and logic, and every other woman he’d ever held in his arms.

  He crushed his lips to Maddie’s, his tongue swirling through her mouth as if he were determined to devour her from the neck down. She tasted like heaven, a mix of whiskey and Coke and a salty, sexy taste that was all woman, all Maddie, and more intoxicating than any alcoholic beverage.

  Her kiss was delicious. It made him hungry to take his exploration further, to see if the rest of her skin was as addictive as her sweet, hot mouth.

  “Jamison.” She moaned his name, her fingers threading through his hair as he shifted his attention to her breasts, cupping her in his hands as he teased his tongue across her tightened flesh.

  Her breasts were a revelation, things of such beauty Jamison couldn’t get enough of them. Couldn’t get enough of her softness and the sweet smell of her skin, of the way she arched into him, offering her body to him with complete trust, complete abandon.

  He swirled and sucked and nipped at her until her breath came in desperate pants and the mewls escaping from the back of her throat began to sound more pained than pleasured. Only then did he bring his mouth back to hers for another bruising kiss as he ran his palm down her stomach, over the curls between her legs, to push two fingers inside her.

  “Maddie,” he breathed against her lips, hand trembling as he felt her slick heat coating his fingers. Even with the ocean swirling around their legs, he could feel how wet and ready she was, how much she wanted him.

  “Yes,” she said, fingernails digging into his shoulders. “Yes, Jamison. Now.”

  Without another word, Jamison lifted her into his arms. Her legs parted, wrapping around his hips with a desperation that matched his own. And then she was rocking into him, her body fitting against his as if they had been custom made to give each other pleasure. He felt her core pressing against the head of his engorged length and then, a moment later, she shifted, driving her hips down until he was completely encased in her tight, wet, heat.

  “God, Maddie.” Jamison moaned, arms tightening around her, feeling like he couldn’t get her close enough. “You feel so good.”

  “So do you,” she breathed, eyes meeting his, holding his gaze as he gripped her hips. “I didn’t think…”

  “You didn’t think what?” Jamison asked, marveling at how right it felt to be inside Maddie, to be so intimately connected to a woman he’d considered purely friend material until a few short months ago.

  “Nothing.” She gave a slight shake of her head. “I don’t want to think.” She leaned in, capturing his lips, destroying his ability to concentrate on words as she circled her hips, grinding against him.

  Jamison let her set the pace, matching her thrust for thrust until they’d established a slow, sensuous rhythm that mimicked the rise and fall of the waves. The water flowing in and out between them made it impossible to move too fast, a fact Jamison relished as tension built in a slow, steady burn at the base of his spine.

  Still, it wasn’t long before Maddie moaned into his mouth and pulled away from their kiss with a ragged breath. Her head fell back, her features contorting with pleasure as she neared the edge.

  She was even more beautiful like this, wild and abandoned. It was almost more than Jamison could take.

  He circled his hips faster, the desire building inside him nearing the breaking point when Maddie dug her nails into his shoulders and came with a soft cry. He felt her body gripping his cock in waves that threatened to send him over the edge along with her, but he fought the need to come, waiting until Maddie’s orgasm began to ebb before giving in and allowing pleasure to sweep him under.

  He cried her name as he pulled out, pressing his aching length against her soft belly as he came in fierce jerks, clenching his jaw as he fought to keep from making too much noise. Even with the waves crashing onto the shore, he knew there was a chance someone might hear if he gave in to the urge to roar Maddie’s name to the stars blinking in the sky above their heads.

  “You didn’t have to pull out,” she said a moment later, breath still coming fast as she pressed a kiss to his neck. “I’m on the pill.”

  “I didn’t know.” He hugged her closer, not feeling the slightest urge to pull away from his partner the way he usually did once the main event was over. “I figured better safe than sorry.”

  “Thoughtful,” she murmured, bringing her lips back to his and kissing him with her next words. “That was…amazing.”

  “It was,” he said, brushing the damp ends of her hair over her shoulder, clearing the way for his hand to cup her breast in his palm. “I can’t wait to make you come again.”

  Maddie’s breath rushed out as his thumb swept over her nipple. “Give me a few minutes to recover. I haven’t come that hard in years.”

  “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” Jamison said sincerely, brushing his thumb across her tightened flesh again, making her shudder and a moan escape her lips. “You are fucking beautiful when you come like that. I want to see it again. I want to watch your face when you get off.”

  Maddie’s tongue slipped out to dampen her lips. “Jamison…”

  “What, Mad?” he asked, teasing her nipple between his finger and thumb before dropping his hand back between her legs, summoning a soft cry from her throat that Jamison immediately decided was the sexiest sound he’d ever heard.

  “Nothing,” she said, biting her lip as he began to circle her clit, gradually intensifying the pressure until she trembled in his arms. She leaned into him, burying her face against his shoulder, but Jamison was having none of that.

  “Look at me, Maddie,” he whispered into her ear. “Let me watch you.”

  A moment later she pulled back, whimpering as she met his eyes with such a vulnerable, naked look Jamison felt like he had crawled inside her skin. He could almost feel her pleasure rocketing through him as she came a second time, clutching his arms, making more of those sexy little sounds that absolutely destroyed him.

  By the time she’d ridden out her pleasure on his hand, he was halfway to being hard again, and all the way to being sure he didn’t want this to be a one-night stand.

  “Come back to my tent with me,” he said, cupping her bottom in his hands, relishing the way her curves completely filled his palms.

  Maddie blinked up at him, obviously still a little dazed. “But what about your friends? Won’t they be able to hear us?”

  “My ten
t isn’t that close to theirs,” Jamison said. “As long as we’re quiet they won’t hear anything.”

  “I don’t know if I’m capable of being quiet.” Maddie’s tongue swept out to dampen her lips, making visions of its pretty pink length teasing over his skin dance through Jamison’s head.

  “Well…you said you were interested in a blindfold,” Jamison said. “How about I tie something around your mouth instead?”

  Maddie shivered and laughed a wicked, husky laugh that finished the job of reviving Jamison’s arousal. “But then I wouldn’t be able to kiss you, and I like kissing you.” She drove her fingers into his hair. “So maybe you should just cover my mouth with your hand, and I’ll do my best not to bite too hard.”

  Jamison pulled her closer, resting his forehead on hers. “Don’t worry about the biting. I like biting.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Maddie said, smiling against his lips as he kissed her.

  She might not be surprised, but Jamison certainly was. He rarely met a woman who could wear him out in the bedroom, but by the time he and Maddie finished rolling around in his sleeping bag two hours later, Jamison was so spent he could barely move.

  “Are you always like this?” Jamison whispered as they were drifting off to sleep, Maddie’s head on his chest and her warm body snuggled against his side in a way that felt just right. “Or was that the whiskey fucking me within an inch of my life?”

  She answered him with a snore, a soft, feminine snuffle that was so cute Jamison couldn’t keep from smiling up at the roof of his tent. He knew he should wake Maddie up and help her sneak back to her own tent before they were caught, but he wasn’t ready to let her go. It was too nice, lying there with her so warm in his arms, running his fingers through her hair, feeling her breath puff in and out against his bare chest.

  He promised himself he’d wake her up in a few more minutes, still long before the rest of the camp would be stirring, and closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, the sun was turning the orange walls of the tent a glaring tangerine and Maddie was gone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE WALK OF SHAME had never been so shameful.

  Maddie skulked across the campground in the hazy morning light, gaze glued to the ground, refusing to make eye contact with the smattering of people already stirring outside their tents, poking fires to life and nursing mugs of coffee. The coffee looked—and smelled—amazing, but Maddie didn’t dare stop to ask any of the strangers where they’d scored the caffeine. She was too mortified.

  Not only was she wearing her clothes from last night, but her semi-damp hair had dried into a rat’s nest of brown curls, her eyes felt gritty with smudged mascara, and her mouth probably smelled like a wild animal had peed in it. She hadn’t gone to bed without brushing her teeth since the last time she drank whiskey.

  That time, Naomi and Mick had rolled her up in a sleeping bag and sat on her until she swore not to go hiking up a mountain in the middle of the night. Her sister and brother had been afraid she’d wander off a cliff in the dark, and tumble to her death.

  Now Maddie wished she’d done something as relatively harmless as wander off a cliff. Instead, she’d had a drunken sexcapade with one of her oldest friends. She and Jamison had done it. And not just done it once or twice, but four times, over and over again, continuing to bang like bunnies long after Maddie should have sobered up and had the sense to make a run for her own tent.

  But she hadn’t been able to sober up last night, she’d been too drunk on orgasms and the feel of Jamison’s strong body leveraged over her in the dark, driving that amazing love-rod between her thighs.

  You just called Jamison’s penis a love-rod. What is wrong with you!?

  Maddie cringed at the volume employed by her inner voice.

  Didn’t it know her head was already pounding?

  She wasn’t hideously hung over, though she probably should be considering how much whiskey she’d drunk last night, but the backs of her eyes throbbed and her temples felt bruised. She needed water, coffee, and aspirin, in that order, and she needed them stat.

  Maddie crept quietly into her own campsite, relieved to see all four tents zipped up tight. She was congratulating herself on not getting caught by anyone who might carry the sordid tale of her walk of shame back to her family—and plotting a trip to the showers with fresh clothes and her toiletry bag—when slow deliberate clapping started up from her far left.

  Maddie spun to see Piper and Dawn beaming at her from camp chairs settled around the fire pit where they sat with steaming mugs of coffee and cinnamon rolls laid out on folding tables beside them.

  “Bravo!” Piper exclaimed, her clapping picking up speed. She reminded Maddie of a supporting character in the final scene of one of those underdog sports movies, the ones where the plucky young athlete triumphs against all the odds and renews everyone’s faith in miracles. “We’re so proud.”

  “So proud!” Dawn seconded, wiping an imaginary tear from her eye. “We always knew you could do it!”

  “Oh hush,” Maddie said, motioning for them to cool it before the entire camp woke up and heard them talking. She glanced around, making sure their nearest neighbors were still asleep before hurrying over to Piper and Dawn. “You got any more coffee where that came from?”

  “I filled my thermos; it’s in my tent,” Piper said, standing and motioning for Maddie to take one of the empty seats. “I’ll get you some—on the condition that you don’t start debriefing until I get back.”

  “Debriefing what?” Maddie settled into the chair, her best “who me?” expression on her face.

  “Don’t play dumb, Whitehouse.” Piper narrowed her eyes at Maddie. “You’ll debrief or you won’t get any coffee, or the yummy aspirin I was going to offer you.”

  Maddie sighed. “Throw in a bottle of water and you’ve got a deal.”

  Piper chuckled—an evil chuckle, born of taking pleasure in other people’s walks of shame—before hurrying over to her tent.

  “You don’t have to debrief,” Dawn said softly. “I mean, you obviously already debriefed Jamison, but…”

  “Har, har,” Maddie whispered.

  Dawn grinned. “But you don’t have to kiss and tell. If you want to keep your steamy sex adventures with Jamison the Smolder God to yourself, we’ll understand.”

  “Who said I was with Jamison?” Maddie’s cheeks heated as she prayed she and Jamison had been as quiet in the tent as she thought they’d been.

  “Shelly saw you run off to go skinny dipping with him,” Dawn said, sending a wave of relief coursing through Maddie. “We connected the dots from there. We decided not to interfere since Shelley said Jamison was sober, and you obviously had a thing for him before we even got here.”

  Maddie’s shoulders relaxed. Thank. God. If they’d heard her moaning clear on the other side of the campground, she would have had to hitch a ride out of here before breakfast. No way could she look any of these strangers in the eye if they’d heard her orgasm. She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to look Jamison in the eye—despite the fact that she’d stared straight into his soul while she’d come last night.

  But that had been last night. This morning was this morning, and things looked different in the light of day, without any Jack Daniels to soften the edges or blur the lines.

  “But you’d better get the aspirin from Piper before you decide not to share,” Dawn added in a whisper as Piper emerged from her tent. “Otherwise, she’ll withhold your pain reliever. She believes torture is a valid interrogation technique.”

  “One or two?” Piper asked, juggling a palm full of pills, a gently
sweating water bottle, and a steaming thermos-top full of coffee that smelled utterly delicious.

  “Two please.” Maddie held out her hand, sighing with relief as two white pills rolled onto her palm. She took the water bottle Piper offered and swallowed, feeling better almost immediately, though she knew the medicine took time to work.

  “And you can have your coffee, too,” Piper said, holding the thermos top just out of reach. “As soon as you tell us if Mr. Sexy is as good in the sack as he obviously thinks he is.”

  Maddie blushed, but she wanted that coffee in a major way. “Better,” she said, blushing harder as Piper cursed and Dawn giggled.

  “More details.” Piper handed over Maddie’s coffee before settling into the chair next to her. “You have to tell me everything because there is no way I’m getting laid while we’re here.”

  “What about the two lawyers?” Maddie asked, hoping she could get the conversation onto less treacherous ground. She wasn’t ready to talk about Jamison. The night still seemed surreal, both too good to be true, and too scary to dwell on for more than a few seconds at a time.

  What if Jamison never talked to her again? What if their one-night stand ruined their friendship? What if it didn’t ruin their friendship, but Jamison simply never wanted to get his cock anywhere near her ever again?

  Maddie wasn’t sure she could handle that final possibility, either. Last night had been the best sex of her life, bar none. The thought of never feeling Jamison moving inside her, never having his strong arms braced on either side of her head as he thrust into her with sensuous rolls of his hips that stoked the fire within her to ridiculous heights, was soul crushing. It was like finding out Santa wasn’t real and her husband gay at the same time.