by Taryn Quinn
The words sexy brunette made a flicker of heat shoot through me. I could tell he had to fight to abide by usual niceties, so he probably wouldn’t lie out of kindness either.
“Thank you.” I ate a chunk of cheese and a thin slice of pepperoni, washing them down with the beer. That same warmth rolled through my system as before. Thank God.
I was so over being cold.
“Still watching this?” He nodded at the screen. “Anyone decent show up yet?”
“Depends what you consider decent. What kind of music do you like?”
He scratched the hair darkening his chin. It wasn’t a full beard, more like a few days’ growth. I liked the look on him.
“Harder stuff,” he said finally. “Fatal Legend, Oblivion, 30 Seconds to Mars.”
“Hmm. None of that here. How do you feel about Madonna?”
His curved lips as he tossed back his beer answered that.
We ate and drank in companionable silence through another few songs, passing the plate back and forth. When a band I’d never heard of came onstage, I glanced at Kellan again. “What do you do?”
“Do?”
“Yes, you know, for a job. I already told you I’m in school, studying criminal justice.”
“Not sure you spelled that out in so many words.”
“Close enough. I have a couple of part-time jobs too. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do.”
“Jobs doing what?”
I didn’t miss that he’d diverted me from my question, but I let him. Momentarily. “As a secretary in an accounting firm a few days a week, and I also work at Pizza Uno on weekends and the occasional extra shift.”
“Full-time in school?”
“Yes. I got started late. I have a lot of ground to cover. Of course, I’ll probably move to a bigger town like Syracuse or Albany if I intend to become district attorney someday. Probably Syracuse. That guy’s been in office forever. He usually runs unopposed.” I shook my head. “Can’t imagine no one wanting that job.”
“You actually know who the district attorney is in those places?”
“Sure.”
“Are you a nerd?”
“I watch Dr. Who and Firefly on repeat and I’ve read Harry Potter eight times so far, so what do you think?”
Again, the corner of his mouth lifted.
“Your turn,” I said lightly. “What do you do?”
“I work with musicians.”
Interesting. Explained his derision of the bands onstage, if that was his business. “You do that in Turnbull? How? Or do you travel down to the city for work?”
The city being New York, but everyone from around Turnbull knew which city I meant. No one called Turnbull anything but a town, and it was barely even that.
“No. I don’t live in Turnbull anymore. Haven’t for a few years. I live in LA now.”
“Oh.” And there was no reason at all for me to feel disappointed.
“My family’s still here obviously, so I come back.”
“How often?” Nope, that didn’t sound desperate. Okay, just a little. But shit, the first new friend—sort of friend—I’d made in how long and he didn’t even live on the same coast anymore.
Figured.
“Now and then, when I have reason to.” His gaze rested on mine for a shade longer than was reasonable before he took another slug from his beer.
“So what’s your reason? To see your parents and your sister? Old friends?”
“All the above, plus my niece. Rainy.” He smiled a genuine smile, and I found myself doing the same.
“Pretty name. How old is she?”
“Three, and she’s a total spitfire just like her mother. Smart as a damn whip. She can count to twenty already and she’s reading and everything.”
“That’s great. Takes after you, maybe?”
“Ha.” His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “I sucked in school. Only thing I aced in those days was making out with the cheerleaders. That I was an expert in.”
“Are cheerleaders better at sex than the average girl?”
“You would ask that.”
“Just wondering.”
“You wonder an awful lot. No, they probably aren’t. But the uniforms are hot.”
“So if I’d worn a cheerleader uniform instead of a snowsuit, we might be rolling around on the rug right now?”
“What rug? I have hardwood floors.”
“Just saying. Play along.”
“If you were wearing a cheerleading outfit in these temperatures, you’d be blue and suffering from frostbite. And hypothermia isn’t sexy. Not much range of motion in frozen limbs.”
“True. But some guys don’t care if the girl doesn’t move, so…”
“Tool,” he muttered again.
I smiled and sipped my beer. “So what kind of musicians do you work with? And doing what exactly? Managing them? Set work? I’m afraid I don’t know all that goes into putting on shows. I just enjoy them.”
“Managing them.”
“That must be exciting, being so close to the action.”
He shrugged and tipped back his beer. He was drinking a lot more slowly than I was. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“No? Why not?”
“Because a lot of music types are egotistical fucks with more attitude than talent. You need ego, but you also need the goods to back it up.”
“That’s true about everything, isn’t it?”
“Music attracts the vain. Some of them just want attention for as little as possible.”
I nodded sagely. “Fame whores.”
He cocked a brow. “Miss Kelly, I do believe you just said a naughty word.”
“I know a few of them,” I said before swallowing more beer, smiling around the mouth of my bottle.
“Me too. Maybe we should compare notes.”
“I think you just don’t want to watch the Luscious Lovahboys’ final set.”
“You are absolutely correct about that.”
Laughing with him felt so natural, as natural as arguing with him outside had. Normally I was shy around new people. Not so with this one. Of course, the way we’d met hadn’t been usual in any shape or form.
It was the kind of story meant to tell grandchildren one day. If I was the sort of girl who fancied romantic happy endings, which I so was not.
One-night-stand girl, reporting for booty.
“I think maybe you should share your dirty words first,” I said. “So I know how deep we’re going here.”
“Oh, I always go deep.”
Right. I gulped down beer to wet my parched throat. “You go first.”
“Tits.”
“You said that before. I can handle that.” Especially since from the direction of his gaze, he was using his X-ray vision to see mine through the blanket he’d wrapped so carefully around me.
“Making it easy on you. Pussy.”
I jerked a shoulder though it was hard to keep my face composed. “I have one. Ain’t no big.”
“Cock.”
It wasn’t so much the word itself as the rough growl of his voice. That growl turned me into putty.
I licked my lips. “Good one.”
He leaned over and shocked the hell out of me by flicking his tongue along the side of my chin. I didn’t jerk back, but it was a close thing. “Missed a drop,” he murmured as he eased back.
I rubbed my chin, mainly to hold in the warmth a moment longer. If just his tongue had caused my body to surge to life, what would his lips and hands and all the rest of him do?
I might not survive it, but I was willing to see.
“I thought you weren’t going to kiss me.”
“You think that was a kiss? Oh Red, you’ve missed out.”
It was probably his smirk that drove me over the edge. That or sheer sexual starvation. I hadn’t always been thrilled with Derek’s skills in bed, but I’d subscribed to the bread and water theory. Substandard sustenance was still enough t
o keep body and soul together. Besides, it wasn’t like I’d had much to compare him to, other than romance novels and my own remarkably dirty imagination.
Now this living, breathing cranky Adonis of a man was sitting right beside me half naked. Heat pumped from his massive body. He had a smart mouth, a snarky attitude, and mostly sucked at social niceties.
Kellan McGuire was the opposite of my ex in every way.
And he wanted me, no matter what he said. I could see it in his eyes. His gorgeous molten brown eyes. Like hot cocoa set on boil.
I glimpsed more in them than arousal. That was easy, and I’d seen it a few times from men. Not ones like him, but men just the same.
Genuine affection lurked in his gaze, and a hint of fear. Somehow little ol’ me, Magpie Kelly, had made this huge, grumpy sex god afraid.
That was the biggest aphrodisiac of all.
Carefully, I set aside the plate of snacks and my nearly empty beer. I dug out the water bottle wedged between my hip and the arm of the couch, taking a quick sip to get rid of the yeasty taste.
I wanted to taste something different altogether.
Before he could counter the move, I shifted onto his lap. His pupils flared wide and he bobbled his beer, grabbing hold of it where it now rested between my breasts. I gasped at the cold even through the layers of fabric, and a muscle in his jaw ticked, a warning I’d be foolish not to heed.
This man unleashed would be more than I could imagine. Possibly more than I could handle and come out whole.
And I did not care.
“You said you wouldn’t kiss me,” I said, brushing his hair away from his face again as I had before.
The softness was a shock just as it had been the first time. His face and body were all hard angles, but his hair and his eyes and his mouth—oh God, his mouth—appeared so soft.
He gave a minute shake of his head, that muscle in his jaw jumping once more.
Last chance to back out, Magpie. You are seriously out of your depth here.
Exhibit A, the rigid column coming to life between my legs. Straining against me where I was already wet and hot and so needy for more.
“So I’m going to kiss you.”
7
Kellan
Warm, silky lips brushed over mine. Tenderly. As if we were friends who’d met up after years of separation.
Good, chaste friends.
Fuck that. She’d ripped the lid off this thing, so now we were going for a dive.
I slid my hand into her hair and molded my lips to hers, tilting her where I wanted her. I didn’t press for entrance. Not right away. That was the kind of dick move pulled by guys who didn’t care about a woman’s pleasure.
I wanted her to open to me of her own volition. Always.
Impatiently, she fisted her hand in my hair and tugged my head where she wanted it as our slow, shallow kisses turned into more. Somehow I knew it would always be that way between us. Both of us fighting for dominance until we found our spot.
The spot where her moan poured over me like honey, tearing an answering groan from my throat. I cupped her cheek, spanning her delicate skin with my fingers, opening my eyes as her lips trembled apart for me.
She jerked forward on my lap, her grip becoming restless in my hair at the first brush of our tongues.
One taste was all it took to make me ravenous.
I wasn’t fully conscious of wrapping my arms around her and flipping her beneath me on the couch. Even less so of driving into the giving juncture between her legs, thankfully protected by layers of material. Sort of protected. The towel and the throw were all rucked up around her, and good goddamn, I didn’t think I could stop. Although I’d never fucked without a condom in my life, I wasn’t at all sure I could hold back long enough to suit up.
If I even had a rubber. Which I did not.
“Fuck.” I slammed my fist into the arm of the sofa beside her head, and she jumped, the blissed-out expression on her face vanishing in favor of sheer terror.
“I’m sorry.” I rubbed my thumb over her lower lip. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She exhaled shakily. “Can we just clarify about what? That it was…like that, or that you pinned me down and you’re so hard and huge, or that you nearly took five years off my life by shaking the couch with your meaty fist?”
It was such a crappy time to laugh. Then I stopped and stared down at her. Her nearly black hair was spread out over the arm of the sofa, her pale blue eyes blurry, her lips soft and wet from mine.
“What did you mean, like that?”
“Huh?”
“You said it was like that. Explain.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed, and I wanted to lick it. Wanted to lick her damn everywhere, to explore every secret hollow and crevice of her curvy body. She was slight some places and full in others, and I ached with the need to imprint every inch with my touch. Fuck that Smiley bastard. She was mine now.
Mine for a night. Christ. What the hell was I thinking? Had lust really addled my brain that much?
Evidently so.
“You were there, right?” Her voice quaked. “I don’t know how to explain. I just…it’s never been like that for me before. Ever. Not even the first time I kissed Derek, and he told me I looked like Snow White.”
I threw back my head and laughed. “No fuckin’ way. Lines like that work?” As soon as I asked the question, I made the mistake of glancing at her face.
Hurt expression achieved once again. Jesus. I was an asshole.
“I mean, you kind of do…”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “If you’re going to lie, I’d rather you say I look like Megan Fox. Snow White is kind of untouchable.”
I fisted both hands in her hair and ranged my body over hers, easing into that cradle between her legs as if it had been made for me. Hard to say which of us moaned louder. “You totally look like Megan Fox,” I murmured, hovering my lips over hers as I distantly registered the announcer onscreen counting down to midnight.
“Liar.” She was smiling as she placed her finger over my mouth, barely holding our faces apart. “But I appreciate the effort.”
“Maybe I want in your pants or something.”
She arched a delicate dark brow. “Or something? Can you be more specific?”
I shifted my head and spoke against her ear. “I want to slide so deep into your hot, tight pussy that you don’t have enough breath to scream.”
“Oh.” Her chest shuddered against mine. “Is that all?”
The TV announcer shouted that it was midnight. The dawn of a new year. Time to kiss the one you loved, or the one you’d love tonight.
“That’s everything.” I slid my mouth across her cheek until it covered hers.
She kissed me back with the same fervor that was burning in me. We didn’t take time to ease in. Not this time. This time it was all slashing lips and eager tongues and hungry, wandering hands.
Mine especially. If I didn’t touch her naked body, I was going to fucking explode.
I unwrapped the blanket I’d wound around her in the hopes of preventing just this. Just like the big, bulky towel, its purpose was to conceal. If I couldn’t see her long as hell legs and her tiny waist and those incredible breasts, maybe I wouldn’t throw her down like a damn savage and whisper dirty things into her ear.
Maybe not, but I hadn’t counted on her climbing onto my lap. Hadn’t counted on her in a million ways.
She wasn’t using me for my growing fame. She didn’t think I had any. I’d told her a white lie, and she’d accepted it without a blink.
A year ago, even six months ago, it had been more true than not. I hadn’t expected to step out from behind the desk. When I’d arrived in LA with a rainbow Mohawk and cockiness and energy to spare, I was solely focused on doing the best for my artists. Back then, I’d had no illusions about stepping onstage myself. I played music on the side, and I’d put that dream aside for reality.
Then my dream had become m
y life, and I’d soon found it had a dark underbelly. I might get to perform and sing my songs and play guitar for women who couldn’t get enough of me, and hell, I might even get a little coin.
But I wouldn’t get this—a woman who gazed up at me with eyes huge with excitement and wonder, wanting me for me. Not anymore. I’d sold that dream to buy another.
Except for tonight.
Unwrapping her was like peeling the paper off a gift. When I got through one layer, there was still the towel. Pulling that apart and hearing her little hitches of breath had to be the sexiest thing I’d experienced in far too long.
Maybe ever.
She was so wide-eyed, so innocent even if she wasn’t a virgin. Did it make me a bastard that I wanted to be the one to show her everything? I craved the chance to teach her every dark, depraved thing scrolling through my head.
Her fingers brushed my scruff and I flicked my gaze up to hers. One more pull of the towel and she’d be fully bared.
A present just for me.
“What’re you thinking right now?” she asked softly.
I chuckled. If any other woman had asked me that right before fucking, I would’ve aimed for the door. Sex wasn’t about thinking. It was about letting your actions do the talking.
But she wasn’t any other woman. I didn’t know why she wasn’t, but she was not.
“I’m thinking I don’t have any goddamn condoms, and I’m really pissed off about that.”
Her face fell and then she grinned. It was like being plunged from darkness into bright, sparkling light. “I do. I told you. It’s in the car.”
“The car is like ten million miles away right now.”
“True.” She chewed on her lower lip. “You could always, you know, pull out.”
“And come in my hand instead of inside you.” Sounded like the worst idea ever.
“You could come on me.” Her abused lip disappeared between her teeth again and I had to shut my eyes to keep from grabbing my dick. “Anywhere you want.”
“Fuck.” I buried my face in her hair, drawing in long, heady draughts of my shampoo. That she smelled like me was another turn-on in an ocean of them.