by Melissa Blue
“Enough.”
Keri lifted her hands and then put them back at her side. She fidgeted as though she was physically having a debate on what was the best way to relax while being seduced. She stilled, blew out a breath and then dragged his shirt up until it was partially untucked from his pants. She made an appreciative sound. “You must exercise a lot.”
She splayed her hands on his abs. His stomach jumped. “Enough,” he said again and that made her look up.
He could see she finally knew what he meant. They were done talking or asking questions. Despite what he said earlier, he was announcing the kiss. His cock hardened just from watching her slowly realize the truth of his words. Her pupils dilated and made the ring of brown look the shade of melted chocolate.
“I see.” She gasped.
He took that moment to finally brush his lips along hers. She trembled. Tristan pulled back for a fraction and licked his lips. He’d never thought a woman had a taste, but there was a complexity to Keri he needed to suss out. The one tease wouldn’t be enough. He wanted to taste her fully, so he took her mouth again without seduction.
Her hips jutted forward, rubbing against his engorged cock. His groan rasped out, but he kept kissing her, searching for the right word to describe her. Before he could find it, she flicked her tongue over the curve of his mouth. Something fierce and sharp-edged bloomed in his chest. He yanked her panties down her thighs. The sensation building in his stomach didn’t want foreplay—it wanted now and hard. That nagging ache in his cock wanted him to quench his desire for everything and anything he wanted.
But Keri needed something softer. The woman was made up of tells. Her gaze pleaded for something other than what she’d let herself ask for. So he lightly stroked her smooth and flat stomach before venturing lower. Tristan groaned again when he found her mound bare. She flushed whenever he touched her, if he said something even close to inappropriate, but she was bare.
He could see her legs spread wide, except it would be for him. Moaning for him. He sucked her lush bottom lip just to hear her moan now. Her nails scraped down his sides, her breath shuddered out, but no moan. Not yet.
He pressed his middle finger into the crease. Wet. Hot. She rocked against his hand, her nails digging in harder. The reaction was as loud as a spoken command. He moistened the tip of his finger with her arousal and traced the outer edge of her clit. Again and again until he heard the sound he’d needed to hear to fill out the fantasy playing in his mind.
Keri’s breath caught and when she released it on a moan, the sound reached deep into him. He had to take a breath to curtail the sudden need to push her over her limits and make her come right then.
Seduction needed to be slow and deliberate to make the woman beg for more. It was the only way to take it all during sex, everything he desired. A woman in his bed could keep her heart. He had no use for it. Everything else needed to be his. He was never satisfied until he whispered in a woman’s ear, Mine, and she moaned back, yes.
No. No. That was what he used to need. He closed his eyes to buckle that old urge down. Yet… He needed more tells to give her what she wanted, so he lifted his hand a fraction to see her response.
She ripped her mouth from his. “Wait,” she said.
Again he had to push down the fierce need, but he kept his voice even. “What do you want?”
Her lips were swollen and lids low, but her gaze was still sharp as ever. “You know what I want.”
He lowered his hand again but only let his finger rest against her clit. “Fast or slow?” Slow. He could read that answer in her eyes before she told him.
“Fast.”
So he went slow and crushed his mouth back down on hers. Her nails dug deeper as her hips followed the motion of his hand. She moaned for him and anyone listening could hear just how much she wanted it. That was the thing about attraction and sex—it never lied.
He pulled back to watch her. She tried to bury her face in his shoulder. He tugged on her hair. “I want you, but first I need to know how you fuck.”
He glanced down, a tinge of disappointment filling him. Her dress was in the way. He’d make do. Then his gaze clashed with hers. Keri’s eyes were wide.
She swallowed and the vestiges of need clouded her features. “How?”
He stiffened his finger and prodded the tip against the entrance of her sex. “Show me.”
He waited for her to tell him no or to stop, but already she was sinking down with a slight roll of her hips. He cursed softly and plunged his finger into her to meet the thrust of her hips. His cock strained painfully against his slacks. As though she could read that thought she moved her hands from beneath his shirt to his belt buckle.
“Not yet,” he murmured.
Still she brushed her fingers over the ridge. He didn’t think, just let go of her hair, grabbed her hand and pinned it above her head. His digit grew slicker so he added another. Her hips stilled and the noise she made was higher pitched than a moan. It echoed off the bare walls of the staircase. If she touched him again… He couldn’t let her. He’d lose it. Tristan curved his fingers and made a come-hither motion.
She threw her head back and crooned, “Yes.”
Almost. Every moan grew louder. Someone just might check on the commotion and put an end to this before he had his fill. She started to squirm against his hold. She was right there on the very edge. He wanted to see her shudder, her face contorted with pleasurable agony, the unbidden cries—he wanted it all before it had to end.
“Wait,” she blurted. “Wait.”
Shock stilled him at her demand. “What?”
Her breath panted out. “Give me a moment.”
He’d never heard a woman on a brink of an orgasm asking for a moment. It took another second for him to feel ridiculous with his hand up her skirt, buried two fingers deep inside her. He was harder than a rock and that wouldn’t change unless he started mentally counting kittens.
“Keri,” he started, and she shuddered. He pressed his thumb against her clit.
She rocked, probably more out of instinct than thought. “Wait. I can’t—I—I won’t come. No matter what you do, I won’t come.”
He rolled the nub beneath his finger. She trembled on a whimper. “Aye,” he assured her, “you will. Trust me,” he growled and kissed her hard.
She pulled back. “No. I won’t. Trust me.”
Tristan frowned at her vehemence, because he knew better. He could feel her cunt quickening around his fingers. There was also the usual envy and need to have his cock in his fingers’ place. She was right fucking there on the edge. He inspected her face. The doubt was clear and there was something almost like embarrassment. She needed permission. That he could give. “Then enjoy it. Love it. Moan for me whenever it feels too good.”
She gasped, her lips swollen and eyes half closed. “Yes. Okay.”
There. “You’ve got my fingers so wet. So fucking wet. You’re tight and hot.”
“Yes,” she keened softly.
He muffled the next sharp and breathless cry with his mouth. She’d kept her other hand on his stomach and it felt like her nails drew blood from the hot scrape. Instead all the blood left his head and rushed straight to his dick.
His head swam but he pushed her faster and harder for that orgasm. She wasn’t wet enough for his taste. Keri hadn’t tightened around his hand long and hard enough to make it feel like she was trying to milk him. Even then it wouldn’t be enough until she drenched his palm and then he’d fuck her, let her squeeze him dry.
Not yet, but soon enough. She tensed, tightening around his fingers. Wet. So fucking wet. Aye. He swirled his tongue around hers. She crooned for him again, coming this time. His mind filled with what he wanted to happen next. It was more than enough to appease him until he could, but first he wanted to see Keri in the throes of another orgasm. He sucked her bottom lip, tugged and met her gaze.
A glaze of satisfaction darkened her brown irises. Her hand trembled against his side, but she pett
ed at him with mindless caresses. A dangerous and unwelcome emotion, so keen he could almost taste it, buried in his gut. It went deeper than need. He’d known this woman less than an afternoon, but not once had he seen her relaxed.
Tristan doubted her straight-as-a-pin attitude was due to being stuck with him. He’d met plenty of uptight women in his life, and she wasn’t cut from the same cloth. The moment he confessed to his former occupation, or hell, even his current one, that pert nose of hers would have lifted out of disdain. He’d have needed to do a lot more wooing just to hold her hand, make her want his cock more than she cared for her principles.
Yet he wanted to see Keri look like this, so relaxed, vulnerable—and then what? He’d con her? Auch. Fuck, no. He was no longer that man. Apparently he’d spent too many years being a dobber that the two actions—seduce and con—went hand in hand. And he hadn’t known her long, but that didn’t matter. She deserved to lose her head and know the man she was losing it with. Right now she was trusting him. The last thing she should do.
Tristan released the hold on her and shuffled back. This ended now before he needed to see her like that and he didn’t give a shite about deserving. Since he’d cut out the con part, he had nothing to offer any woman, especially this one who was beautiful and nervous and smart mouthed.
He released the panic and reached deep into his patience, let it filter into his voice. “Well, lass, seems we’ve managed to turn a shite afternoon interesting.”
She blinked slowly and a smile flirted at the corner of her mouth again. “Aye.”
He’d have laughed if his balls hadn’t suddenly tightened at the husky timbre of her voice. Another second and he’d kiss that smile off her face and then she’d go pliant against him. Stairwell or no, he’d bend her over and make her come until she couldn’t walk straight. Every attendee and security guard in the hotel could watch until he finished.
Tristan released the breath he’d been holding and put on a smile of his own. Despite all the things he’d done—he was shite enough as it was—Tristan wouldn’t be callous to her now. “Aye, indeed. You have a good day.”
He put enough wickedness into his smile that whenever she thought of him she wouldn’t think of how he left so abruptly or wonder why he had in the first place. No. Remembering the salty grin would make her sigh and feel a bit wicked too.
“You too.” Doubt crept into the soft-spoken phrase.
He made his exit before her unease could settle fully.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tristan had barely started his car when his mobile rang. He cut the ignition and answered his brother’s call. “Eh.”
“What did you do?” Ian barked. “Don’t tell me nothing, because I just sat for the last thirty minutes fielding calls from the association.”
He muttered a curse. No one had interrupted them, but they’d been outed anyway. And his inherent problem? His first thought was he should have kissed her more to muffle the moans. The right answer being don’t try to fuck her on a staircase. He’d never been any good at being good. It was tiring for one. Boring for another.
Tristan replied anyway, knowing where this conversation would end. “I did exactly as you asked—win them over and make them believe Keri and I were married. Newlyweds have sex. Just for the record, we didn’t.”
“He did what?” A female growled in the background.
His brother sighed, something beeped and Tristan made the same exasperated sound as his brother.
“You dobber,” Tristan cursed. “You had me on speaker?”
“I thought Joce was in the bathroom.” His brother lowered his voice. “She sent Keri because she figured there was no way you’d corrupt her.”
Tristan laughed. “Not possible.”
“I told her I learned everything I knew from you.” His brother paused. “And that means I know you’re lying. You fucked her or close enough that Joce should be mad.”
“It’s done and over.”
Ian laughed and hard. “You arse. The association called because they’ve invited us to stay the rest of the week at the convention. On their tab. So, you’ve fucked us. Royally. Less than a full day. A few hours at best to get our foot in the door and you go—”
“And get you into your home. A thanks would be nice, but saying we’re finally even will settle that.”
This pause was longer, and Tristan didn’t need to hear the next words to know just how screwed he was. Ian cleared his throat. “About that. I told them we’d love to stay for the rest of the week.”
Tristan closed his eyes, put the phone against his head and tried to not let loose a storm of words that would scorch the earth between him and his brother. It was five days out of his life, ones he wouldn’t even have if not for Ian. Aye, they hadn’t really talked until his brother needed a best man.
But this…
His skin tightened and heated; he was suddenly alert of someone’s gaze on him. He put the phone back to his ear and opened his eyes. Keri avoided his gaze, but that wasn’t surprising when she had a pink phone up to her ear. Probably talking to Joce and being shamed for doing something so simple and natural. Nothing at all complicated about sex, probably the only thing in life that had the least amount of complications. It was when you put your heart into it that fucked it all up. It was when you used it the way he had that turned sex into something it should never be.
He focused on his brother. “And then we’re done. You don’t pull this on me again?”
“You can go back to living a worthless life after this.”
Tristan dragged his gaze away from the woman he could still taste, smell on his hand, and with just a glance had him hard again. He had a craving for her.
“Bugger off,” he said without any real heat.
“Such a way with words when you know someone else is right. You do the hard backbreaking work when you can be the paper pusher. Why?”
He wasn’t in the mood for self-reflection. “Five days and we’re done. I have to get back to Da anyway.”
Ian pffted. “Da is old, but he’s not that old. He drank more than us at the reception and wasn’t even smashed.”
Tristan ran a hand through his hair and tried not to watch Keri as she leaned against the hood of her car. “You’d know, how? You’ve been gone and I’ve stayed home taking care of him and helping him run the pub whenever I can.”
“That good old Catholic guilt won’t work on me. I know Jacob has been helping him since you left. Get whatever you need from the flat, but you’re staying at the hotel tonight. With Keri. Let her down easy. Joce will kill me if you break her cousin’s heart.”
He let those words wash over him. “You’re so whipped. It’s depressing.”
“It usually takes you at least a day to talk your way into a woman’s pants and head. A few hours…” Ian hissed. “When a women does that, she’s letting you talk her into it. I’d say watch out, but you’re too dumb to listen.”
“I’m not that dumb. I know what happened.” Because he couldn’t fight the urge anymore, Tristan looked at Keri.
The roadster was a classic. A mint. The spring sun shone off the chrome. In the morning he could probably trim away his five o’clock shadow in the reflection. The woman leaning against it held his attention. Her hair was bunched up in the back, but she’d done something to make it simply appear tousled. She’d wrapped an arm over her torso and tried to crawl back into her shell, but he knew the glaze of satisfaction in her eyes, knew what her lips tasted like while swollen and parted.
She was a complexity he couldn’t pin down. A con in heels with tight breasts and lush hips. Shy too, when he let himself really think about it. She had a touch of sharp wit and doe eyes to go along with it. Exactly the kind of woman a man with any sense would fall for.
She’d wanted him the moment he uttered “aye,” but she would have never demanded he take her. He’d made a study of women long ago to better understand how they ticked. At the time he had a vested interest in knowing the puzz
le. With Keri, if he’d crossed a line, she’d have put him back by spouting off statistics about modern-day castration just to get her point across. She’d wanted him to drag her to the dark side. What was he supposed to do with that for the next five days?
Fighting took more energy than he had of late, but he wanted her. He could turn off the phone, close his eyes and just recall the sound of her moans and get off.
Five days of fighting or succumbing?
He sighed, wishing he could smash his brother’s nose. “When it’s done, I’ll send you holiday and birthday cards wherever you are and you never speak to me again.”
Ian snorted. “Until you become an uncle and then we’ll do this again.”
The notion warmed him, but he scoffed into the phone. “Uncle?”
“Joce wants to breed and I don’t mind the idea of it with her.”
“Whipped.” He made a cracking sound just to drive the point home.
His brother laughed. “You’re a shite of a human being. Talk to you later.”
Tristan snapped his mobile shut and threw it on the dashboard. He needed a minute before he dealt with Keri. He glanced down at his lap and then shifted his hard cock. Maybe he’d need more than a minute.
*****
Appalled didn’t quite capture the essence of how Keri felt about what she’d just done, and that was before a lengthy lecture from her older cousin. When someone throws out the question “What did you let him talk you into?” and the only answer is “There wasn’t much talking,” you might have found yourself in a sticky situation. Sticky being a nicer word for letting a man get her off on a staircase.
She’d come. Fireworks, the whole shebang with a man for the first time. A man she barely knew. In a stairwell. Not exactly how she’d imagined but she sure as shit wasn’t going to complain. Her legs still felt wobbly. She couldn’t remember most of what her cousin said, because her heart refused to slow down and all the blood pumping had turned into a dull roar in her ears.
The conversation had long ended but Keri kept an expression of concentration and her phone up to her ear. She wasn’t ready to face Tristan. Yes, she was a coward for waylaying the inevitable. And…yeah. She kind of hoped he’d open his rented sedan’s car door and approach her first.