by Molly Harper, Stephanie Haefner, Liora Blake, Gabra Zackman, Andrea Laurence, Colette Auclair
“When we get home, I don’t want to fuck right away.” He has his forehead against mine, speaking in a lowered voice.
What? Is he joking? I heard the words, but they sounded nonsensical. Like crazy gibberish talk from a monk.
“Why? Don’t you want me anymore?”
Trevor shoves against me again, hard this time, and grabs my hips roughly.
“Don’t be an idiot. Does it feel like I don’t want you? I want you so bad right now, I might come just from feeling you up like this. I just want to talk things through first.”
I let my hand slide to the front of his pants and start to trace him through the material. He groans into my mouth, his tongue teasing mine, and he starts to push his cock into my hand, pressing against my fingers. Grasping around the length of him as best I can, my hand starts to move in a stroking motion.
“Talk is cheap, Jenkins. Are you really sure you can wait? What if I want to go down on you in the car first? Does that count?”
I’m all talk, of course. Although I’m the one probably lacking enough self-control to wait one single stupid second longer before feeling him inside me. The tension is unbearable and if he doesn’t touch my bare skin soon, I’ll probably implode. I want to have crazy hot sex with the man I’ve decided to love one hundred percent, and holding out is not a feasible option at this point. My body and my heart won’t allow it.
Backing away, he grabs my shoulders and holds me arm’s length away. The wild look in his eye is goading me to do more, force him to give in and just take me.
“Yes. Just give me a few minutes with your heart and mind, OK? Then I plan to screw you so goddam hard you’ll be begging me to let up. Which I won’t.”
Holy hell. I’ll wait. I’ll definitely wait.
29
Walking through the door to his house, it feels like I never left. There are dishes sitting on the counter, instead of in the dishwasher, of course. Dax is giving me wet, slobbering, smelly kisses in my ears. Trevor’s surfboard is propped against the side of the back deck. The appliances are giving me dirty looks.
“Can I get a shower before we start this important conversation you want to have? I’ve got that gross airport feeling on my skin.”
He’s watching me closely, leaning against the back of the sofa, and inspecting my every move. I move to pull off my shirt and drop it on the floor in the middle of the living room.
“Go ahead. But don’t think a striptease in the living room will get me sidetracked. I’m much stronger than you give me credit for.” He grins and crosses his arms over his chest. “After all, I waited six long, lonely, sex-deprived weeks for you to come to your senses. Even the busty coeds and naughty librarians who kept me company were impressed with my self-control.”
“We’ll see.” I bend over to slip off my kitten heels and start to slide the zipper down on the white cropped skinny jeans I’m wearing. Sauntering off in a miniscule G-string and a white lace bra, I start the water in the shower and half expect him to come running. Craning my ear toward the door, I see if I can hear him. Nothing. Damn, I’ve lost a little of my mojo. I’ll have to get that back, stat.
The water runs over my body and the way it soothes my mind and my limbs, I finally have a moment to realize what happened. In my zeal to get to him, to profess my undying adoration and convince him to take me back, I didn’t even enjoy the moment of getting every single thing I wanted. A smile creeps across my face and the pain of the last few weeks runs down off my skin.
Once I dry off and slather some moisturizer over my skin, I wander into the walk-in closet, hoping he didn’t burn all the clothes we bought at Barneys the day before I left. Flipping on the light, I take in a quick gasp. That man out there, the tough, raised-in-the-projects rock star, has taken all the clothes and hung them up in the closet in neat little rows, dividing everything up just so. Skirts here, jeans there, dresses along the far wall, shoes lined up on the racks like little expensive leather soldiers. The only thing he didn’t manage to handle was all the lingerie.
Piles of bras and tiny panties lie on top of a large island that sits in the center of the closet. Right in the middle, like a neon sign for a cathouse, is exactly what I need to get that mojo back.
Good luck with all that talking, Jenkins.
When I step out of the closet a few minutes later, I stand in the doorway between it and the bedroom. Trevor is lying on the bed, his legs hanging off the end, staring at the ceiling. I lean against the doorjamb and clear my throat quietly. He lifts his head and takes a long look at me before groaning and dropping his head back to the mattress.
“Really? I said I wanted to talk first.”
“So talk. I’m all ears.”
“You know I can’t focus with you looking like that. Fuck.” His arm waves helplessly in my direction and then drops to cover his eyes.
I’m clad in the red lace corset Kellan insisted Trevor would love, a red garter belt, and a pair of wicked black fishnet stockings. And a pair of skyscraper heels, of course.
“Go ahead and talk, Trevor. I’ll just stand here and listen.”
“I can’t. I’ve been staring at that shit you’re wearing since the day you left, getting worked up every time I went in the stupid closet to get my clothes. I’ve gotten off a million times thinking about you dressed like that.”
“Take your time. I’ll be right here, waiting for you to decide what you want to do.”
Smugly, I watch him squirm a little on the bed before he presses his hands to his eyelids and then sits up.
“Don’t lick your lips or move your hips around or anything like that, you hear me?”
I nod and smile.
“What made you come back, Kate?”
It’s hard to toy with him now. His eyes are full of needy questioning instead of the lust that was just there. His head drops as he waits for my answer.
“It’s simple. I remembered where I belong. I got off course for a second, but I found my way again and that brought me home. To you.” Trevor looks up and I can see the relief in his eyes, the burden of doubt and hurt and waiting for me, fading incrementally from his expression. “And I went on a road trip with Lacey, who was surprisingly helpful. Then your mom called me.”
“What? My mom called you?”
“Yeah. She gave me a little grief and then said some things I needed to hear. About how I was taking the easy way out. That if I came back to you, we would be invincible.”
Trevor drops his forearms to rest on his legs and stares at the floor.
“You only brought a carry-on suitcase with you.”
“I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t want to rent a moving truck just to have to turn around and go back to Crowell. But all my stuff is packed in boxes there, ready to go.”
“So you’re staying? For good?”
“Yes. If you’ll take me.”
He raises his face to see me. “Because I want forever, not just a little while or until you freak out again. For-fucking-ever. I want to marry you. At some point, I may even want to knock you up.”
My jaw drops open and I let out a gasp that sounds a little painful, like I have something blocking my airway—not exactly the smoothest way to respond when a man says he wants to make you his forever.
“Don’t worry, I’m not proposing right this second. When I do, you’ll know it, and it will blow your mind, Mosely.”
Smiling, I whisper. “I would expect nothing less from you.” With his declaration, my need, and our time apart, every part of my being wants to crash into him with my body and kiss him until we stop breathing.
“How do I know you won’t run again?” The pain I brought on him is there in his eyes again. I sigh and my throat clenches.
“Because I won’t. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove that to you. Anything.”
He looks up at me through his eyelashes and a grin plays at one corner of his mouth. He raises one eyebrow.
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
My heart starts to flutter. God, he’s so sexy and I don’t know how I got so lucky. Jackpot. We’re talking multistate lottery kind of jackpot. The life-changing kind of winning ticket.
“Come over here, baby.”
He licks his lips and sits up straight. When I reach him, he lays his hands on my legs and starts to draw his fingers over the stockings. “Will you make me those awesome cookies whenever I ask? The ones with the pistachio nuts and the dark chocolate?”
I push my hips forward a tiny bit. “Yes.”
“Will you go to the bike shop with me whenever I want?”
Lord. This one will be hard. That damn bicycle shop and all its shiny parts and crap. We should just move in there. It would save on driving time and gas.
“Fine.” The sarcasm in my voice disappears when he lays a soft, glancing kiss between my legs. Just before he draws his mouth away, his tongue darts out. Immediately, I change my answer. “Oh God. Yes, yes, yes. I’ll go to the obnoxious bike shop with you every single day if you want.”
Moving his hands to my bare ass, he caresses and cups until I can barely stand upright. His fingers slide to either strap of my garter belt and he knots his index fingers through each. Tugging on the silky material and grasping the flesh on the backs of my thighs, he shoves my body toward him and looks up at me.
“Will you let me fuck you in this bed for a good long while? Like, I don’t know, probably a couple of days straight?”
“Yes. Please. Let’s start right now.” I’m mumbling like a drunken woman, my voice drenched in obvious desperation and need.
“The thing is, Katie, I’ve got a lot of issues to work out on this hot little body of yours. I may need to bind you to the headboard for a bit in order to really work through them.” He raises one eyebrow and bites his lip.
My breath catches in my throat. If he doesn’t make good on all these erotic promises he’s yammering about, I’m going to take action. The kind of action that involves throwing him back on the bed and just taking what I need.
“Issues?”
“I’m still a little pissed at you for leaving me. I’m hurt, too. Not to mention how lonely and frustrated I’ve been since you left. Major issues.”
Standing up, he grabs me by the waist, tosses me onto the bed, and crawls over me. When we start to kiss, it’s frenzied and wild, our lips crashing into each other and tongues colliding. Suddenly he pulls away, breathing in labored gasps while pulling my hands over my head and telling me to grab one of the spindles on the headboard. Leaning back to rest on his heels, he unbuckles his belt and pulls it off. When he laces it over my wrists, he leaves it just loose enough.
“You can slip out of this and get away whenever you want.”
I arch my back up to him. “Why would I want to do that? I don’t want to get away. Ever.”
While my arms are stretched above me and my legs spread wide, he stops and cradles my head in his hands.
“One more thing.”
“Anything. Just stop teasing me.”
“This is important. Are you listening?”
My patience is waning. “Jesus, Trevor. Yes, I’m still listening to you talk and talk and talk. What?”
His eyes are on mine so intently I forget what day it is, what year it is, who the president is. I forget everything. The room gets completely still and I can hear a hint of that high-pitched buzzing in my head. Just like when we first met. I try to focus but it’s almost too much.
“Will you let me love you forever, Kate?”
This one is easy. The simplest question I’ve heard in a long time. I don’t have to think; I don’t have to question or give it one second of deliberation. I smile and pull my head up off the pillow toward him.
“Yes. A million trillion times over. Yes.”
When he smiles, I want to fall to pieces, knowing this is it.
Done.
Game over.
KM + TJ forever.
Tough-talker Devon secretly wants her own happy ending . . . but is Simon, the womanizing, guitar-playing hottie from her brother's band, the one to make her dreams come true?
True Devotion
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to my agent, Victoria Lowes, for taking a chance on me and finding the right home for this project. Thank you to Lauren McKenna for acquiring this series and to Elana Cohen for providing such thoughtful editorial guidance.
To Warren: thank you. For everything. I love you more than . . . well, you know.
About the Author
Liora Blake is a contemporary romance writer. True North is her first novel in the True series.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Liora-Blake
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
For my parents, who have raised me with equal amounts of love, support, and humor.
For Anna, Julia, and Allyson, who have helped me through some dark winters into a formidable spring.
And for Sammi Bee: your light shined so bright that the world was dark when you left, and I had to write this book to put a little light back in it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FIRSTLY, THANKS TO my agent, Joelle Delbourgo, who took on a new writer with such excitement. How I love a lady who bets on a dark horse! To my editor, Abby Zidle: you have made me the beginning of the writer I am to become, and I admire you so deeply for your sharp insight. To Marla Daniels and everyone at Pocket Star—I am honored by the extraordinary level of work, respect, and thought you have given this book; I think you all deserve to be honorary members of the Bod Squad!
Profound thanks go to the great writer Abby Sher, who made me write because she thought the world needed to hear my voice; and to the great elocutionist Anna Stone, who tirelessly read each draft and attempted to make that voice just what I wanted the world to hear. For Angela and the Highland Cork and Coffee: thank you for letting me sit for hours in your beautiful space as I wrote the majority of this book. A loving shout-out to the following people who have been of particular help in the writing of this story: Anna Stone, Allyson Johnson, Julia Motyka, Abby Sher, Sara Moss, Katie Hartke, Rachel Fowler, Erin Graham, Kathleen Moreira, Lauren Fortgang, Kim Martin-Cotten, Johanna Bell, Lisa Benner, Erin Moon, Ellen Robinson, and Ashley Hazel; the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival cast, crew, and staff; the Denver acting community; my mentor, the incomparable Jonathan Fields; my parents; and my brother, Odin, his wife, Mara, and the newest love of my life, their son, Noah Vinny.
Thank you to the authors whose work I’ve narrated—how I’ve fallen in love with your stories and how they have inspired me! And lastly, my deepest of thanks to Mike, Kat, Neil, Bruce, Sam, and Jason at Audible.com for giving me such wonderful work that has sustained me all these years.
1
SUSANNAH CARTER STEPPED OUT of the limo and looked up at the Greenwich Village town house alight with the sounds of the party within. She was dressed to the nines, all five feet nine inches of her long sleek frame suctioned into a dress she would blush to show her mother. Thankfully, her mother was in Virginia, and she would never know her daughter wasn’t in DC, on Capitol Hill, where she was supposed to be. Her job demanded discretion, first and foremost. And if she wasn’t discreet in the dress she wore . . . well . . . it was what she jokingly called job security.
The driver’s-side window rolled down, and the chauffeur smiled at her. He was a fine-looking man, dark skin, dark hair, and his hazel eyes sparkled with mischievous delight. “Lookin’ good, Susie Q.” He chuckled. “You gonna be able to walk in those heels?”
“Shove it, Jackson,” Susannah retorted. “You come near me and I’ll make sure you get a heel in just the right place.”
“Ooh . . . testy.” He smirked. “I like it. Frankly, I think I like you better like this. You’re a little too soft normally.”
Susannah took one step toward the window, and Jackson began t
o laugh. “Okay, okay . . . mercy, baby, you know I’m no match for you!”
She smiled. “Well, you said it, Jackie, not I.”
“You remember all the deets? Or do I have to go over it again?”
“Yes, I remember ‘the deets’!” she snarled. “How many times have we done this, for fuck’s sake?”
Jackson gave her a wry smile. “Still. Bossman’s orders. Say it to me.”
“Oh, fuck off.” Susannah sighed. “All right. I never go off headset. We always rendezvous at the appointed hour unless there’s an emergency. I never try to do anything we haven’t discussed. You never interrupt me for any reason unless I am in danger. I never use the code unless I am in a code 5. And I never give my real name.”
Jackson rubbed a hand over his grizzled chin. “And?”
“And what?”
He paused for effect. “And you never get personal.”
“Yes,” she grumbled, “I know. I never get personal. Unless it’s you, sweet Jackie.”
“Aw . . . you always make me blush. Take it easy, okay? I don’t like the sound of this guy.”
“Yeah, neither do I. But hopefully this’ll be a one-shot deal.”
“From your lips—” Jackson began.
“To God’s REARS. Yes, yes, I know.” She grimaced.
“See you later, kid.” He rolled up the window and drove off into the New York night.
Susannah took a minute to review her intel. She took out her cell and clicked on the private-file page of her company’s website. Her phone was outfitted with a data transmitter that allowed only her, her boss, and Jackson to open this particular file. She had worked for the company for ten years, ever since she graduated from Georgetown. She was headhunted at a frat party by John Collins Boss, the head of her company, who everybody referred to as Bossman or the Boss. The Boss had also gone to Georgetown and had graduated a few years earlier; he had come back that day to give a lecture to seniors on starting their own businesses. After a bunch of wicked banter and several vodka tonics, he asked if she’d be interested in going undercover. She was just drunk enough to mistake that for “under covers,” and they had a torrid two-week love affair. After the affair was over, he asked again. She accepted. And it had been her job ever since. She and the Boss managed to find just the right working relationship: their initial intimacy made it possible for them to be open in every way imaginable.