What. The. Fucking. Hell.
His mother had absolutely hated every single woman he – and his brother – had ever introduced to her, Tamsin included. After witnessing a year of marital bliss, she’d reluctantly relented, but it had taken dozens of Sunday Roasts and a promise to name the first child after her.
But Alice was delightful.
“Alice Vaughan is a journalist for that quirky little magazine, you know. The one my sons have figured in,” Gia Colburn was yapping away, proving that, indeed, even at thirty-two, men could still be embarrassed by their mothers.
The members of the board nodded, as if his dating life had been of some sort of interest to them.
“She’s a delight, Patrick, a delight. When are you next seeing her, Colt, sweetheart?”
Fuck. The Dragon hadn’t looked at him with so much pride when he’d made valedictorian, or when his goal had won a championship back in school.
“Tonight, if we get through this at a decent time,” he replied, gesturing to the pile of work in front of them. It was six and they’d barely touched the surface.
“Oh, I’m sure we can leave that until the New Year, sweet. We’ve addressed every issue likely to be of importance within the next couple of weeks. How about adjourning this session, hm?”
That’s when he first thought he might have to marry Alice Vaughan. That, or he’d need to move to another state to escape his mother’s wrath when they broke up.
From: Colt Colburn
To: Alice A. Vaughan
Subject: Arabella? Ahahaha. Arabella.
Dear Alice ARABELLA Vaughan,
You’re forgiven. You’ll find contact details attached. Kindly make use of the address, first, in order to get your sweet, wet, demure little cunt here.
Sent from my iPhone.
She didn’t reply; by eight, he was itching to send a text, see where she was, whether she’d decided to come, or not. She would have just texted if she couldn’t make it, right?
Colt’s mind went a few months back, to his last breakup. “You never answer your texts,” she’d accused him, amongst the many sins he’d committed against their relationship. He’d shrugged it off. What was the point of texting when they were seeing each other three to five times a week? He’d told her what he’d needed to say when they’d met.
Well played, karma.
He looked at his phone for the seventh time, wondering if he’d somehow missed the ring or the vibration – although the bloody thing had been on loud, in his pocket.
When it became clear that, unlike every other woman he’d dated, she wasn’t going to materialize herself as soon as he beckoned her, he tried to distract himself. Shower, beer, sports channel on TV. After half an hour, he called for a pizza, ordering an extra large, just in case she ended up coming.
Jesus, he was going to grow a vagina.
Colt was just about to take a bite when the doorbell rang; he almost ran to the door.
Turned out the delivery guy had forgotten to deliver his free can of Coke.
Great.
He’d barely closed the door when it rang again; what was it, this time, fucking side salad?
He opened it with a scowl the poor guy probably didn’t deserve, and all but fell out when he took in the creature in front of him.
It wasn’t the pizza man. It also wasn’t Alice Vaughan – not the one he knew, in any case.
“Fuck me.”
“I just might,” she said, pushing past him, a little smile at the corner of her mouth.
Over the knee boots, fishnets, and her perfect legs were on display under the smallest pair of shorts, showcasing half of her freaking ass cheeks; then nothing. Her top might as well have been a bra.
Her make up was harsher than the norm – there was a black line making her purple eyes pop out, and her mouth, that delicious mouth, was deep red.
“Shit, tell me you took a fucking taxi.”
She’d gone completely overboard; it was a miracle she hadn’t been stopped in the street. She looked like a she charged for a round.
His trousers got uncomfortable as he fought between an unexpected protective strike and arousal.
Arousal won.
“Yes, I took a cab,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I also wore this.”
She was waving the long beige coat he was familiar with – it was a knee length mac.
But those boots. Fuck, everyone seeing her would have imagined exactly what he was seeing right now.
“Colton Colburn, you gave me an ultimatum earlier today. It’s my turn now. You can either come here or carry on making me feel like I shouldn’t have played with mama’s makeup. You have three seconds. Then, I’ll either blow you until my throat hurts, or I’ll be gone.”
Chapter 7
He snapped out of it quicker than expected; the instant she said she’d go if he was intent on stepping into her father’s shoes instead of her lover’s, he shook off the uppity disapproval and crossed the room, caging her in between the writing desk and his hard frame.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
That was more like it.
She pushed him off her and dropped to her knees, giddy about following up on her promise. He let her fumble with his belt, remove his zipper and smiled as she took in the massive bulge in his white boxers.
“My, my, hello there,” she said, dropping a kiss on top of the fabric.
The bulge twitched, pushing against her lips. Oh, dear.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she slid her hand on his delightfully firm ass and dropped his underwear; he kicked them off with his trousers once they were out of the way.
Hell. That was… Mh. Interesting.
She swallowed.
The dick poking out at her fit into the category she’d known as monster cocks. It was long, no doubt about it, but what was absolutely unbelievable was the width. Oh my, how thick it was. It looked angry, prominent purple veins and all. Shit, there were sextoys designed under that very model.
Alice dropped her lips on the tip, hesitantly, wondering how she was supposed to make it fit, and the thing twitched up, hitting the roof of her mouth.
Damn. She just pulled her head back and laughed.
“Something funny, Ms. Vaughan?”
Nothing. He was just going to break her in two.
What the hell. She opened her mouth as wide as she possibly could and took it in until it hit her throat.
Her hair was short, especially at the back, but Colt had grabbed most of it in his fist and winced, gently pulling her backward, cautioning her.
Fuck this. She swallowed, taking him deeper, without a care for the slobbery mess she was making when her mouth tried to moisturize itself.
She liked that wince. It was a payback for the absolutely out of this world experience he’d given her earlier that day. Recalling what he’d done, she put her hand back on his ass and carefully slid her finger between his cheeks. Another wince followed. She smiled around his cock and withdrew it from her throat to breathe – an unfortunate necessity – before pulling him back, deeper yet, while exploring deeper into the crack between his firm legs.
He pulled her hair back again, which only made her push his dick back further into her throat and her finger, deeper inside his asshole.
“Alice!” he said, his voice commanding, forbidding.
She only smiled. Her lips – her teeth – were around him. She was in charge now.
Resolving to completely ignore the slight pull on her skull when he attempted to get her to comply, she went wild, pushing her head up and down his shaft. It got deeper at each movement but unexpectedly, it reached a point where the struggle stopped, and it just slid all the way in, making her throat burn at the unfamiliar, unnatural invasion. Her lips were around the soft mount of hair, kissing his skin.
Alice didn’t like it. It was awkward, borderline painful... That being said, what felt nice was the feel of the skin contracting under her finger as she played with his ass, and the sound he made,
a growl so loud it was imitating a fucking king of the jungle. She pulled her face back and pushed it back in. And again. And again.
She removed the finger lodged deep inside his ass as she realized another part of him had been quite neglected. Softly, she took his balls, caressing, then massaging them as she took him all the way into her throat.
The screaming never stopped, not until he was contracting under her hand.
She felt the strange liquid coating her, without ever tasting a thing: he was too far from her tastebuds for that.
When she’d dislodged her face from him, she smiled at the lipstick stain around his massive shaft. Only then did she lift her eyes to his face.
She just laughed: Colt was a mess. He was sweating breathing hard, as though he’d just survived a triathlon.
“Fuck. I need to sit down.”
“Whatever you say, old man.”
He was holding his sides, puffing all the way to his massive sofa.
•
Fuck. He hadn’t signed up for this shit. Suddenly, the fuck me get up did suit her. That was a porn star blowjob if he’d ever seen one. Where the hell had she picked up skills like that? Colt knew better than to believe appearances, but he’d had a very thorough background search done on her. Underhanded, sure, but he wasn’t one to let anyone dodgy near his family. He knew she’d grown up in a nice town near San Francisco, the family was unremarkably upper-middle-class; she’d never sold sex.
Right now, it really felt like it, though.
There had been an unremarkable number of boyfriends – suitably low. Four, five maybe. Which ones had shown her that?
A question he wouldn’t normally have forgone crossed his mind. Was she clean? He’d assumed so. Now, he wasn’t sure of anything – not even that list of hers. There was no way she could have been that inexperienced and dished out heads like that. Was it some sort of plot? It wouldn’t have been the first time. Women did crazy thing to become Mrs Colburn.
He caught some sort of movement to his right and then, saw her standing up. Her coat was on. He hadn’t heard a word of whatever the fuck she’d been saying; his turn, he supposed. But one thing was clear, she was going home.
Good.
Right?
“Stay,” he heard himself say.
What the fuck! She wasn’t good news, there was more than met the eyes. Much more. He couldn’t trust her.
“I can’t. Work to do, you know.”
“It’s almost ten.”
“I work at night, mostly.”
Of course she did. Journalists in respectable firms always did, right?
Fuck, what the hell had he got himself into.
He heard a meow and looked down. Strange. Pepper never came out when strangers turned up, especially female strangers, but here she was, rubbing against Alice like she was stuffed with catnip.
“Anyway, see you later.”
And with that, she was gone. Two minutes later, he was pulled deep in an orgasm induced slumber.
It was still dark out when he awoke; something felt wrong. There was a ball of fur against him, but he’d somehow expected more warmth.
His shook his head and the events of the previous hours came back to his mind.
He felt for his phone and pulled Rhett’s number.
The background check had been as specific as one could get from the IT department without giving a valid reason; he needed more, and Rhett was his best bet.
The ex-Marine, now mysterious recluse, was running a security and surveillance agency – and he still owed him a favor or two.
Despite the time, Rhett came back to him within minutes.
“Sparkling clean. Stop finding excuses to screw up your relationships.”
Whatever. Sure, he’d had Rhett check out most of his previous girlfriends, but his fears had been founded. There generally had been the occasional skeleton – bad debts, affiliation with some competitors, undercover paparazzi.
“That was a bit quick to seem so certain.”
“Checked her out two months ago. Saw that one coming, bro. Come on, PURPLE eyes? I’ll email details. But that one’s a keeper.”
He wasn’t sure why that made him more anxious, at first.
Colt opened his laptop and opened each and every attachment Rhett sent him. He’d started all the way from the nursery down to her last Starbucks refill. Everything was there, each moment of her life. Colt shamefully clicked through, too quickly to get details, but he got the larger picture.
Sparkling clean, as Rhett said. She did work nights: to suit the kind of event she covered, her usual working pattern started at two in the afternoon, and finished somewhere around midnight.
She’d had four boyfriends. The first had cheated on her, and had consequently stalked her for three years after she’d dumped his ass. Same for the second; she got a restraining order quicker, this time. The third cheated, too, but rather than trying to get her back, he’d done the opposite, bad mouthing her so much she’d moved away from San Francisco, following some friends to LA, instead.
The last – surprise, surprise – had cheated, too, but he’d taken the separation in stride, marrying the other girl afterwards. They’d stayed friends: Alice had even made an appearance at the wedding. Guessed she was used to it, by then.
Fuck. Four relationships, over the course of ten years. Of course she’d learnt to give a head at some point. Why had he even considered anything sinister?
Colt had to stop and consider Rhett’s words, again. Stop finding excuses to screw up your relationships.
Was he really doing that? No, wrong question. Of course he was. More accurately: why the hell was he doing that?
It took a while, but he had to admit that it was because he didn’t care. He hadn’t wanted the women in his life to stay around, they’d taken up so much of his time and given him nothing but headaches.
But this time, he’d found excuses right away, way before getting bored. In fact, he was feeling the exact opposite of bored: enticed.
Yet here he was, wanting it to stop before it started.
Why?
He forced himself to consider what would happen if he let that relationship develop. Alice was the perfect mixture of sweet and feisty, so it was fairly safe to admit that he might get attached.
Then, she’d break up with him. Her last relationship did prove that she was mature enough to maintain a friendly rapport afterwards, so he’d still see her around for the occasional sit down meal at Xander’s. He’d hear about it when she moved on; hell, he might even meet the guy who’d snatched her up.
The pain was unexpectedly sharp. Ah. So it was self preservation. Better stop it now, right?
Chapter 8
Sometimes, she wished for a time machine, to go back to the day whence doorbell had been invented and shoot the guy. Seriously. It should have been considered a crime against humanity.
She dragged herself out of bed, glancing at her grandfather’s clock. Nine. Nine in the freaking morning. Everyone in this building knew better than to disturb her before twelve on a weekday.
Alice was what one would call a night owl. She normally wrote until four, five in the morning, so sleeping half the day away was par for the course.
She grumpily opened the door on a humongous bunch of flower. What the hell?
Her sneezing immediately got out of control; some flowers weren’t bad, but everything in this bouquet triggered her allergies. Seriously, carnations, chrysanthemum and lavender? Someone wanted her dead.
“Ms. Vaughan?”
She reluctantly signed but told the delivery girl to leave the bouquet on the steps – no way was that going inside the apartment.
“Could you do me a huge favor and read the card to me?”
She’d rather not get close enough to touch that.
The woman turned a deep shade of red.
“Mhh… Well, it says. My turn to blank out princess. That was a hell of a head. And it’s signed with a C. I think there’s a little x
afterwards.”
She thought?
Alice covered her nose with one hand and grabbed the card, which made her eyes water.
There definitely was something there that could be constructed as a little kiss at the end of the C.
Damn.
“I wish I got flowers everytime I gave a head,” the younger girl confessed.
Alice was still coughing, eyes burning. She wished she hadn’t.
•
From: Alice A. Vaughan
To: Colton Henri Colburn
Subject: Attempted murder.
Dear Sex Toy,
I understand there’s quite a lot we don’t know about each other. Let me be the first to offer up information. I suffer from sever pollen allergy. For that reason, I take medication about nine months out of twelve. December isn’t one of those months.
Thanks for almost killing me. Very last blowjob I ever give.
Yours sincerely,
Alice.
PS: I will not be seeing you, or anyone else, for the next week, at the very least, as my eyes look akin to a raccoon’s and I’ve been commissioned by Santa to replace Rudolf.
Shit.
How had he messed that one up? Flowers always worked.
He stared at his phone for a while, altogether ignoring Kim’s chatter, until he reached a decision which should have made him question his sanity.
The house wasn’t what he had expected. He’d assumed she lived somewhere nice – she was successful, and wasn’t carrying any school debt, but that was another level altogether. Her condo, at the very top of a long, slick Beverly Hills building, was as impressive as his. She had a doorman, there was a yard out back and parking underneath.
The door opened in front of a tall, incredible beautiful redhead and his frown disappeared. Ah. They were sharing. Smart girls.
The woman looked at him up and down, and instead of seeming impressed, as most did, she shrugged dismissively.
“Colt, I presume. I’m Emma. I work for your brother; so I suppose I work for you, too.”
Pretty Young Thing: a new adult romance box set Page 20