The Pleasure of His Company

by Lindsay Evans

  And he still didn’t know her name.

  She pressed into him, a ravenous and insistent weight, kissing him like she was devouring something she hadn’t had in a very long time. She tasted of beer and sea salt and lust. And Kingsley wanted to drink her all up.

  “I like your impulse,” he gasped into her mouth as he pushed his hips into hers again.

  She hummed and matched him movement for movement, her hips dancing against his in an arousing rhythm, hardening him even more. Her long fingers latched on to his shoulders and her nails dug in deep enough to make him gasp again. She opened up wider for him, and he sucked her tongue, licked every part of her mouth she let him have while his body grew hotter under his clothes. Her fingers dug into his chest through the shirt, then plucked at the buttons, ripping them open. Everything around them disappeared. The people. The music. The right and wrong of what they were doing.

  His shirt was open, and her fingers gripped at his skin. The intensity of her desire was merciless, and it brought his want surging up hard and tight. This was no longer some snuggling kitten. She kissed and clawed at him like she wanted to consume him, and he matched the pace of her movements, of her wants, gasping into her mouth as their bodies twisted together.

  She yanked her mouth away from his, and Kingsley growled again, this time in disappointment. What he’d done was too much. This wasn’t what she wanted from him, and he opened his mouth to apologize. But the apology became a grunt when her lips locked onto the side of his neck, her teeth on his skin, her fingernails raking over his bare nipples and the heated skin of his chest. A firestorm of pleasure exploded in his belly.

  Kingsley gripped the hair at the back of her head, pressing her mouth harder into his skin. “Do that again,” he groaned into her ear.

  She pinched his nipple and bit him again, and Kingsley’s hips surged up, once, then twice, mimicking what he wanted to do with her. The lawn chair groaned underneath them. The breeze brushed cool and lush over the wetness left by her mouth as she dipped lower to suck and bite more of his throat. Another long and low grown left Kingsley’s throat. He wouldn’t be able to last much longer. His heartbeat pounded in his chest. The blood rushed through him fast, and faster. He gasped and held on to her hips grinding rhythmically down on him. He was going to lose it right now, and there was nothing he wanted to do to stop it.

  With his fingers tangled in her loose hair, Kingsley opened his mouth to gasp her name, realized he didn’t know it and hissed out a curse instead.

  “You’re killing me!” He moaned when her hand closed over him through his shorts.

  “Not yet.” Then she bit down on his nipple again, apparently oblivious to his friends, who’d drifted out of the crowd to watch Kingsley damn near explode in her hand.

  Chapter 4

  “I think I won that bet.”

  The voice—Carlos’s—from too close made Adah jerk her mouth away from Kingsley’s chest. She tried to pull completely away, but Kingsley followed with his mouth, panting. She kept him back with a hand pressed against his chest and felt the hard and unsteady beat of his heart, the firmness of his bare muscles. Embarrassment and residual desire flushed her from head to toe.

  Carlos emerged from the otherwise anonymous crowd, beer in hand, along with Annika, who was smoking a cigarette.

  When Adah had chosen this spot to sit, it had been the most private place on the patio. Everyone else had been situated by the pool or near the wide concrete slab of the patio. But the area had quickly become swarmed with people, and—her cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the thought—she hadn’t cared when she’d climbed in Kingsley’s lap to kiss him.

  She turned back into the conversation happening near her in time to hear Annika say, “You didn’t win anything yet. They aren’t having sex. That’s just kissing.”

  They were talking about her and Kingsley. She flushed again and felt the firm touch of his hand at the small of her back trying to keep her in his lap.

  “Let me up,” she said, scrambling away from him.

  Adah was almost disappointed at how quickly Kingsley let her go, hands falling away to grip the sides of the chair. His eyes were deep pools of swirling emotion. Want and eagerness, his mouth wet from their kisses, his chest heaving under the press of her hand. She drew her hand back as if burned, not realizing that she’d still been touching him even as she fought to get away.

  She didn’t know what had gotten into her. Making out in public with a near stranger wasn’t something she ever did. She hadn’t drunk that many beers; she wasn’t that tired. But she remembered the sweet twine of the smoke from the people who had sat near them inside the house. Yes. It had to be that. A contact high making her act in a way she normally wouldn’t.

  “I need to go,” she said.

  She could still feel him on her mouth, tingling and warm, the desire pooling her lap, leaving her molten and needy. And frightened. Adah dragged the back of her hand over her damp mouth and thought she saw a flash of hurt in Kingsley’s eyes before he lowered them.

  She tugged the edges of her unbuttoned shirt closed over obviously hard nipples and stood on shaky legs, trying to control her breathing and the desire rippling through her that even now pulled her back toward him. His taste was still in her mouth. She swallowed it.

  “I need to leave here,” she said again and started toward the path curving around the side of the house to the front yard, fully intending to walk back to her hotel. The island was small. It couldn’t be that far away. She vaguely heard Annika and Carlos talking with Kingsley, then the sound of his sure footfalls behind her,

  “I’ll take you home,” he said when he caught up. “It’s not safe for you to walk at night by yourself.”

  But she kept going. It felt too dangerous to be with him. If it hadn’t been for the interruption, she didn’t know how far she’d have taken it. Kissing him had felt so damn good. She’d been moments away from begging him to slip her panties to the side and slam their bodies together. She nearly groaned at the thought.

  “What am I doing?” she muttered out loud.

  Kingsley grabbed her, and she whirled around to face him, ready to tell him to go to hell. But his hand left her arm as quickly as it landed.

  “My truck is that way.” He pointed toward the left and a sandy strip of a path leading away from the main road where the van had taken them earlier. The road was well lit and a pair of large dogs, one white and the other golden brown, settled themselves under a nearby tree and watched Adah with glowing eyes. She flinched away from the dogs and dropped back until she was walking a little behind Kingsley, prepared to use his body as a shield if they attacked.

  “You don’t have to be afraid,” he said, his voice soft and much too close. “I won’t let them bite you.”

  He sounded confident, but her experience with dogs had taught her how unpredictable they were. A neighborhood dog had bitten her sister when they were toddlers, and she never forgot it. The growling menace of the dog, the blood on Zoe’s leg, the trip to the hospital and the shots she’d had to get afterward. Keeping a close eye on the nearby dogs, Adah gripped her arms to stop herself from reaching out and grabbing on to Kingsley like a frightened child.

  “It’s this one.” He led her toward a fenced front yard.

  The house behind the low white fence was small and narrow. Smaller than the two-story house they’d just left behind with its sprawling single level, lights on in the drive, and farther back, a high wooden fence closing off the backyard from view. Details of deep green exterior walls, a wooden front door and a nearby garden of tall cacti emerged in the dark.

  An older-model truck stood small and silent in the front yard, and a set of keys jangled. “You can get in,” Kingsley said. “It’s open.”

  The passenger door opened with a squeak of its hinges, and Adah climbed in, immediately roll
ing down the windows to release some of the heat trapped inside. Kingsley started the truck after a single glance at her.

  “Where am I going?”

  She told him the name of the hotel.

  “That’s a far walk,” he said. “You would still be walking come sunrise.”

  “I’m faster than I look,” she said.

  His smile flashed. “I don’t doubt it.”

  Moonlight glinted off the curve of his mouth and revealed again the muscled flesh beneath his mostly unbuttoned shirt. Adah took deliberate and deep breaths to stop herself from crawling into his lap again. This was getting ridiculous.

  Kingsley started the truck and put it in gear. It rumbled over the rock gravel of the driveway, rolling out into the street with a full-throated growl. Silence swayed between them with each movement of the truck down the paved road.

  Although it was mostly dark, Adah could see his hand work the gearshift, a commanding and sexy manipulation of the vehicle that vividly recalled the feeling of his hands on her. She shifted in the seat and looked away from his strong, thick-veined hand. With the shuddering breath she took, Adah could practically smell the arousal wafting up from between her own thighs.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry for what happened back there.”

  He looked at her. “Are you? Why?”

  “Because...” I’m practically engaged. “Because we just met. It was inappropriate.” She winced at how like her mother she sounded. And of all the times to be thinking of her mother...

  “There’s nothing inappropriate or wrong about what we did. Nobody forced you to sit in my lap, and there sure as hell wasn’t a gun to my head when I grabbed your ass like it was mine.” He playfully leered at her. “I’m into you. And I’m reasonably sure you like me. It’s all perfectly normal.”

  Adah made a sound of frustration. Of course, it would seem fine to someone like him. He probably had women lined up every place he went. She was just the one weirdo who basically dared herself to go to a party with him, then, while potentially under the influence of a contact marijuana high, practically had sex with him in public. No, this wasn’t at all a “normal” thing for her.

  “Enjoyment is not all that determines whether or not something is wrong or right,” she finally settled on saying.

  “It’s a good place to start, though,” he countered.

  This conversation felt far too familiar, like they’d already discussed pleasure and its larger meaning before. How could she have recurring topics of conversation with a guy she just met? She shook her head at the foolishness of it all.

  “This is my hotel,” she called out with relief when she saw the familiar archway just outside her hotel’s parking lot. But Kingsley was already turning into the palm-tree-lined driveway, obviously familiar with where he was. The lot was full, an indication of how popular the locale was, especially during the summer high season. It was a great combination of luxurious and intimate with its four-star reputation and homey feel. The long and wide front veranda was one of the things that had made her love it at first sight. From now on, though, she was going to adore it a little less. The woman sitting on the veranda watched the truck with an intensity that was obvious even from so far away.

  Fighting a blush of embarrassment, Adah sighed under her breath and opened the truck’s door, aware of both Kingsley sitting silently beside her and of the woman curled up on one of the chairs on the veranda.

  “Mother, what are you doing up so late?”

  Her mother, draped in an oversize scarf and bundled up against the late evening breeze, sat on one of the rattan chairs, looking nearly half asleep but prepared to wait there all night.

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  Or you could not. Adah opened her mouth to tell her mother just how much of a grown woman she was, one who could stay out all night if she chose. But her mother looked away from her and toward Kingsley, who climbed out of the truck just then.

  She flicked her gaze to the side to look at him and bit her lip. There was nothing she could say in her defense. Kingsley looked like he’d been mauled by a wildcat. Or had been rolling around in bed with one. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest to show claw marks over his pecs and around his nipples; the board shorts sat low on his narrow hips to emphasize his undeniable maleness.

  The breath left her mother in an audible hiss, like air from a deflating tire. “Young man, you should be ashamed of yourself for carrying on with an engaged woman.”

  “Mother!”

  They both stared at her.

  “What?” Her mother looked at her with disappointment and a hint of anger around her elegant mouth. “We don’t do things like this, Adah. We just don’t.” Adah noticed Kingsley’s twitch at the sound of her name. But she couldn’t pay attention to that now.

  But I’m not engaged, she wanted to shout. I haven’t agreed to anything yet.

  Kingsley nodded like a puzzle piece had finally fallen into place. “You’re engaged,” he said. It was a statement, not a question. Like he’d known all along.

  “Yes, she is,” her mother answered for her. “And you should leave her alone. This is not very noble of either of you.”

  Kingsley winced. “Don’t worry, ma’am. If I’d known about her engagement, I wouldn’t have let things get this far.”

  Her mother’s gaze swung to Adah and over her figure as if she could see the events of the night imprinted on her. “This far? What does that mean exactly?”

  Adah cursed under her breath. She wanted to touch Kingsley in reassurance, to let him know she hadn’t hidden an engagement from him, that this wasn’t about blatant infidelity or something equally repulsive. But he was stepping away from her, abandoning the pose of protection he’d taken on once out of the truck. Like he was finished with her. Something in Adah’s chest squeezed painfully.

  “I’ll see you around...Adah.” Kingsley spoke her name like a stranger, like the Doe Eyes he’d known and caressed had disappeared completely, leaving an unknown and unappealing woman in her place. After a nod to her mother, he climbed back into the truck. He was gone before Adah could think of what to say to him.

  “What were you thinking?” Her mother stood up. What should have been a threat looked like defeat in her. Lines dragged down the corners of her mouth; her eyes looked haunted.

  Oh God. Adah pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She wanted to just sink through the floor. Her mother’s disappointment was a heavy thing, unwieldy. Something she was tired of bearing.

  This time, though, she knew she deserved it. She’d taken Kingsley up on the invitation to go snorkeling understanding that it had the possibility of leading to more, knowing that her blood turned to fire in her veins at just one look from him. Even if nothing had happened between them in the water or during the course of the night, it would only be a matter of time before she gave in to her attraction to him. And, at the back of her mind, she’d thought it would be worth it. A night of exquisite recklessness in exchange for apologizing profusely for her bad behavior. But looking into the face of her mother’s disappointment made her doubt the value of the exchange.

  “I thought you wanted to marry Bennett,” Thandie said. She adjusted the shawl around her shoulders, pulling it tightly. Like Adah’s bad decision had chilled her in a way the night’s brisk breeze hadn’t been able to. “Everything is already set for this marriage,” she said, as if she couldn’t imagine putting a stop to what had been put into motion for her daughter and for her company. A sacrifice of one and the rescue of the other.

  “Mother, I want to help you and Daddy. I really do.” Adah wrapped her arms around her own waist, holding tight to stop herself from flying apart. She barely stopped the “but” from leaving her lips. “I’m tired, Mother.” Adah sighed and took a step toward the front door.

 
“Is that all you have to say?” Thandie asked; then her look changed. She stepped closer. “Are you okay? That man didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

  “No, no. He didn’t. He was perfect.” She bit her lip, afraid of whatever else she might say about Kingsley and the time they’d spent together. “We can talk tomorrow.”

  Finally giving in to the urge for escape, Adah walked into the hotel. She didn’t remember getting in the elevator or going to her room. She didn’t recall taking a shower and getting into bed, but soon she lay huddled under the covers with her hair wet and plastered to the back of her neck and to her cheek. She stared at the chair across from her bed overcrowded with clothes, and she felt the messiness was reflective of her life.

  “I need to get it together.”

  She didn’t know if it was tears or water from her wet hair that slipped down her cheeks. But in the end, it didn’t really matter. The feeling was the same.

  * * *

  The sound of her ringing phone jolted her out of a dream that was all water, a slippery eel sliding over her arms and belly, stinging her with sweet jolts of electricity that pulled her farther and farther down into the sea. She was happy, her body more alive than it had ever been even as she sank to certain underwater death. The eel tightened its grip around her thighs and her waist, and its tender hold on her throat threatened pleasure more than anything else. She awoke with a gasp, jerking her head up, her body floating out of sleep like she was surfacing from a dive.

  “Hello?” She didn’t look at the glowing screen of the phone to see who it was.

  “Girl, are you okay?”

  The remnants of the dream evaporated with the sound of her friend’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “Selene?” The last she’d seen of her had been at the Atlanta airport, dropping her off and wishing Adah clarity to decide what to do about this marriage she’d agreed to before she’d known any better.