Willows, Jennifer - Lust for Life [The Moreland Brothers 2] (Siren Publishing Allure)

by Jennifer Willows

  When she drove homeward the sun crested the sky as they reached Makenzie’s house.

  Once she was inside Charyn told Charli she could have the purple downstairs bedroom to get some rest before going home.

  Grateful for his thoughtfulness, she agreed, ready to pass out. Most likely she would have pulled over her car and slept for a bit before going home.

  “Thanks, I’ll take it.” Charli wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She went to her car, grabbing a pajama set complete with pants and a long sleeve shirt. The outfit was adorable, covered with cupcakes, sky-blue background, and had the benefit of fully covering her. No way was she going to disrespect her friend, in her home, by being scantily clothed. Not that it would matter. Those two were so gone on themselves and being in love that she could parade nude and most likely go unnoticed.

  When she carried her purchases inside, Makenzie and her husband had departed to their bedroom, à la sex den from the faint steps she could hear above head. She changed clothes, packing dirty garments in a Louis Vuitton bag, and as soon as she lay back, was out. She dreamt of Deven once again. This time he was with her in the small, lavender space. At first he was across the room, watching her. He was just looking at her, no words were spoken or needed, and she stared back. Then he walked away, and she was alone, again.

  Several hours later, Charli woke to loud moans and screams reverberating around her. Apparently the couple was going at it upstairs, and the screaming sex was the last thing she needed to hear as she hadn’t had an orgasm in a minute. She decided to grab a muffin from the kitchen, and leave dressed as she was. She was digging through the bread rack when she heard a thump from above. Smirking, she found a cinnamon crunch muffin and a bottle of SmartWater from the fridge. She opened the bottle, drinking half of it in long swallows. Thirst momentarily satisfied, she left the kitchen headed for the front door. As she reached out to turn the knob, car keys in her mouth, it opened. There he was. She was face to face with Deven, handsome face smiling. He was casual as usual, white tee and black boardshorts with slide-on black Birkenstock shoes.

  “Oh, hey, Deven. If you’re here to see the newlyweds they’re busy now, as usual.”

  Charli stepped back away from the sandy, beach-scented male. The couple was hard at work upstairs, tearing the house down. The moans and shameless begging her friend did embarrassed her, and she was glad to be as dark complexioned as she was. The color in her face wouldn’t show up that well. She couldn’t imagine being as loud as Makenzie. There was no way she could look herself in the eye after all the screaming and supplicating her friend did. But apparently her husband loved it, and there was a full-length mirror spanning the wall beside the bed. She wouldn’t even hazard a guess as to what the two freaky-deakies used it for. But Charli knew she’d never do half the stuff that was being done to her friend. To tell the truth, she didn’t think she wanted to either.

  She couldn’t believe how that white boy had her friend sprung off the dick. Another series of moans and groans had her grimacing. Maybe she needed to get some herself. Then she wouldn’t be so touchy. The one and only man she’d slept with in the last two years was here and ogling her dead in the face. Karma was a bitch, and it seemed as if he enjoyed the sight of how discomfited she was by the situation. She decided to play dumb as if the fucking upstairs were just loud music or a blaring TV. The blond satyr to the front of her smirked, but the effect was lost as his stomach growled. Charli laughed, asking, “Did you need anything or want something to eat? I can whip up a quick frittata or hash browns if you’re hungry.”

  Charli was pretty sure she had lost her mind. The excuse she gave her conscience was that she was tired from the small power nap she took and weak from her recurring wet dreams. The only meal Dev ate of hers was over a year ago, and he didn’t even like her. But it was said, and she couldn’t take it back.

  “I sure would. Your friend up there owes me a meal, and now she’s welching out on me. It’s shameful fucking her husband when she should be a good host and feed her brother-in-law. You willing to pay her debt?” Deven smiled, the left side of lips crooked up.

  “I pay all my debts, but as for my friend, I’ll save her just this one time. After that, she’s on her own. What do you want? To eat, that is.” She didn’t mean it how it sounded, couldn’t have.

  * * * *

  Deven knew what he wanted, would love to have her for breakfast. Number one on his list was Charli nude and spread out on a tablecloth so he could eat her for his next meal. He loved sex, everything about women. This small beauty just had a way of getting to him and sending his temperature racing. It’s just because I want her so much, too much for comfort. She was sensual, just the way she moved, the tilt of her too-large eyes. The chocolate skin was a bonus. The flavor was a treat that he swore he could taste in her sweat the single time he’d licked her. Damn his insatiable brother and his willing wife. It was their fault and he certainly was blaming his response to Charli on them.

  The couple upstairs always threw off heated sexual sparks and anyone in the vicinity of the pair was affected. Deven decided to play it cool. He certainly didn’t want to look like a cheesy bastard, just as his brother was. Charyn was so sprung on his wife that he would murder any man who even looked at her. But he had to admit, Makenzie was almost as bad off as her husband. So maybe they were both full of it. He just didn’t want to be. Deven didn’t hate commitment, per se, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted the total sharing of self that love needed to exist. He liked being one with himself and so far, it had worked well the last thirty-odd years. Mulling over his response, he heard the hellcat in front of him snap her fingers.

  “Earth to Deven...” Charli called out, snapping once more.

  “Hey! I’m not a dog. You can just speak to me you know,” Deven replied, and narrowed his eyes at her. She was treading in dangerous waters and didn’t even know it.

  “I’m trying to. Look, I know they’re getting it on, just like you do. I’m just trying to ignore it. If you need to go, that’s fine, too.” He watched her take a bite of her huge muffin, as she walked around him, trying to open the door. To be obstinate he leaned back against it and looked down at her.

  “Excuse me.” Charli’s tone had bite and a palpable frost lived in the words.

  “Nope, what’s got your panties in a twist?” Deven had to ask, though he could guess.

  “If you were somebody I liked, then maybe you could find out. But seeing how you hate me, I think it would be best if I go.” Charli put her hand on the knob, looking at him, the expression silently asking him to move. But he wasn’t letting her go anywhere yet.

  “I don’t hate you, Charli. Far from it.” His voice was pitched low, seemed deeper than usual.

  “Yeah right. We had sex once, and you acted like I didn’t exist afterward. I really hated to even ride back to my house with you. If I wasn’t out here, I wouldn’t have gotten in your car again. As nice as your brother is, Deven, you are a jerk. At least to the women that you fuck.”

  His mouth gaping open and eyes narrowed. She really didn’t expect him to believe that bullshit story, especially since she was the rude one. “I think you need to rescind that, Charli. I tried to speak to you. You were the one who was ready to fight. I’d barely finished, and there you were, raring to punch me in the eye.”

  Charli huffed and he saw that she decided to just walk away. She turned her back, walking as fast as her short legs would carry her. He couldn’t stop her from getting in her car. But she would get a nasty surprise when she got to her car as she was blocked in on all sides. He couldn’t help watching for the explosion that was surely coming after she saw her grand exit was impossible.

  “Damn, damn, damn!” When he saw her jump in the air and stomp the ground Deven smiled. Now she was going to have to ask him to move. Her compact Honda was blocked by the Hummer on the left side, and his car was behind hers. That left the right side of the car blocked by the four foot high shrubs along the drive
way. His vantage point showed her leaving the muffin and water on the hood of the compact. Deven stood there smirking wickedly and he couldn’t even stop himself, even as knew that would only make her more infuriated. She strode before him, anger evident. He knew he should get out of the way, but he liked needling the vinegar out of Charli. She was pint-sized and fiery, the combination making a hell of a woman.

  Chapter Four:

  The Slap Heard Round the World

  But even Deven didn’t expect what she did next. Charli walked up the steps and smiled back at Dev. As she approached, she jumped and slapped the taste out of his mouth.

  Deven reacted, so fast he didn’t even know he’d snatched up the woman until it was done. His hands were filled with small feminine shoulders, grip implacable. How in the hell does a five-foot-nothing slap the teeth off of a man six and a quarter feet tall? Shoot, it had just happened, and even he didn’t know how. But she was about to find out what happened when she smacked a grown man. He wasn’t the type to beat women, but she was about to regret her hasty actions. He shook the hissing woman and pulled her in the house.

  “Since when is it all right to slap somebody?” Dev asked, ready to spank the hell out of her.

  If she was going to act like a kid, he would treat her like one. Walking with his squirming bundle, Dev carried her in the dining room. He sat down, taking his feisty package and tossing her on his lap. She fought him valiantly, but the forearm across her back prevented her escape. She bit his thigh hard, and he decided he wasn’t going to go easy on her. He pulled her pants down her thighs with his free arm. Her round ass teased him, only a small string keeping her covered from full view. Deven lifted his arm and let his hand fly. He spanked her until he lost count of the strokes, until he forgot the reason he was punishing her to begin with.

  * * * *

  Charli knew she rightfully deserved this punishment, earned with her own hasty violence. If he were most any other man she knew, he would have slapped her back and probably knocked her to the ground. For that reason she was determined to be stoic and suffer in silence. She bit her lower lip, trying not to cry out. Each blow was well crafted, welling some new emotion inside her and by the time he got ten strokes in, she was biting her tongue for a different reason. His voice was gentle and filled with masculine strength as he counted each measure of her punishment.

  Her thong was wet, and each smack he gave her ass bit at her, warming her thoroughly. When he finished, twenty swats later, she was sweating, panting, and desperation evident. His hand was red, and he stroked her over the tender punished flesh. The palm was piping hot and just banked her heat higher. She wanted away from him, would do anything to get him to let her go. She didn’t want to put herself any further over, didn’t want him to get to her. If he looked at her the right way, she might just get froggy and jump his bones. Unnerved, she tried to sit up, but his arm over her prevented her escape.

  “Whoa, where do you think you’re going?”

  “Home, I accepted your punishment. Now let me go.”

  “Nope, it’s gonna take more than a spanking to get me to forgive you slapping me.”

  Charli sputtered. What the hell else did he want? He got his tit for tat, and she told him as much. His response was to release her from under the arm holding her quiescent for punishment. She arched away and slid from his lap.

  Deven’s smug face made Charli itch to let her bitch out. But she was trying to turn over a new leaf this morning. Charli knew she was overly defensive, but she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t want to wear her heart on her sleeve with this sex god and get shattered in the process. She didn’t care to be a burden to anyone ever again, not even mentally. Life had taught her early not to depend on anyone but herself. Everyone leaves sooner or later, just like her parents did.

  “You still owe me breakfast, and you tried to welch out on me too. I want eggs and bacon, and maybe some potatoes.” Deven smiled and asked for more. “And if you don’t mind, I’d like some pancakes, too.”

  “So that’s what it would take to forget this whole incident?”

  “Not quite, there is one other thing.” Deven’s smile went from his innately derived devastation to wicked seduction with one blink of his now-steely eyes. She’d noticed that the faint hint of blue always left them when he was serious or when his emotions were high.

  “Deven, don’t press your luck.” Charli was irritated, her body was hot and bothered. The heat inside her wouldn’t let her deny him, not for something to eat at any rate. “Fine, just watch some TV or something. Gimme twenty, maybe thirty minutes.”

  “You think I’m going to sit here? Nope, I want to watch. But first, come here.”

  He didn’t wait for her to respond, just shackled a wrist, and drew her close. With him seated, and her standing, they fit almost perfectly. Charli knew she was a straight jackass for letting him touch her again. He already had little respect for her, and she loathed herself for wanting him the way she did. It didn’t make any sense, the way she kept falling in his lap. She had to get away from him, there was no way she could go through this again. Shuffling backward, she attempted to climb off his lap. Charli just refused to do this again with the only man to make her explode.

  With her previous lovers, she just faked her orgasms and went on her way. The few men she slept with were used to scratch an itch, nothing more, and she would satisfy herself fully later, when she was alone. But he was intoxicating to her, in a way no other man could be. She didn’t go for white type and before him none had gotten her juices going. Stereotypes told that her that they didn’t have enough rhythm, and until Deven she would have sworn they all had small dicks, too. But he broke the mold of her expectations, being the opposite of what she thought. She was just too proud to admit it, most of all to him.

  * * * *

  He decided to reward her for her grace in admitting defeat, a hard thing for the pixie Napoleon. He tugged her back onto his lap, sitting face to face. When they were eye to eye, he kissed her. Their lips meshed together, each aggressive, wanting dominion over the moment. Charli sucked his top lip in her mouth, and Deven had her lower lip in his. She nipped him with teeth, tasted him with her tongue. Deven just nibbled her lip until it was under his control. He used his hands, first touching her breasts through the thin silk. She arched back, begging for more of his hands.

  Deven complied with the request her body gave, sliding his hands under the silk. For a woman her size, her breasts were deceptively large. His palms covered the full mounds, rocking over the nipples from soft flesh to small points. In the next moment, he undid the blue buttons fastening her shirt closed. Once she was freed from the garment, he groaned, the shirt pooling around her, concealing nothing from his gaze.

  Deven let his eyes roam over her flat belly with small delineation showing muscled torso, the minute hollows at her collarbones, and the strong heartbeat revealed in the throbbing veins of her slim throat. She didn’t have much in the way of fat on her body, and each inch of skin was perfectly even in color. He just engrossed himself looking at the parts of her that he was able to see. The rest was for later. She clenched his growing hair into fists, open lips asking for his touch, his mouth on her. He knew he was being a plumb fool by not taking what she wordlessly offered. He just didn’t want her to be disgusted with herself and him, the way she was the first time.

  But he couldn’t resist seeing the look of rapture play over her features. Charli was beautiful when pleased. Touching her now brought an onslaught of memories that he couldn’t shake even when he desperately wanted to. Deven remembered her the way she tossed her head back and the throaty moans she made when he stabbed her convulsing pussy their only night together. His brain refused to let him forget her. Somehow, the tiny terror had wormed her way into his conscious and she featured in every orgasm he’d had this past year.

  There had been numerous self-induced peaks over the last months starring one Charlene Montana Anderson. At first, he refused to masturbate. T
hat only lasted three long, hungry, hard days. After he gave in the first time to his nocturnal longings, it became a habit that he couldn’t deprive himself of. Deven found himself at all times of the day thinking about her. Innocent thoughts such as “What was she doing?” or rather, “Who is she doing?” would lead to him jerking off at the worst possible times, namely in his office. He and his brothers jointly owned a real properties company called MoreLand and Co. where he was CEO. His brother Charyn was a numbers guy and CFO, while Marq was the CIO and handled foreign negotiations as well. As bad as it might sound, he’d rubbed one out before many multimillion dollar deals, at the mere mention of going to Charyn’s house, even once on the side of a backcountry road half-way into a ride on his black Ducati Superbike. The cycle held some serious memories of the way their single ride together ended, and he couldn’t sit astride it without growing hard.

  Despite the fact her body was begging him to bring her to a massive peak her eyes were pleading him not to take what she plainly wanted to give. Deven could see panic in Charli’s face, the fact that she didn’t want to do this again, not with him. He released her and congratulated himself for his achievement. He wished she didn’t find him repulsive, but it was for the best. If only he hadn’t become complacent, forgotten to keep his guard up and let his sub-conscious desires show, he may have been able to avoid the wave of disappointment that rolled through him at her standoffish behavior.

  To change the subject, he decided to scare her, just a little bit. So she would go home but not be offended when she waltzed away. It was a delicate balance as she was a firebrand, and the hot cheeks they both wore right now proved it. He fastened the still-open shirt, burning with lust for her as he went. This was likely the only time he would see this vision again, he may as well enjoy it. Looking at her exposed chest one last time, he buttoned the last three buttons. He did linger just a few moments, seeing regret in her eyes. He didn’t know what it was for, but he could guess. Most likely she didn’t like the fact his hands were on her.