by Cassi Carver
As soon as they stepped into the room, Mr. Pibb bounded out of the shadows and came straight for Gavin, winding his fluffy white self around the big man’s legs as he meowed in greeting.
Gavin reached down and scratched Pibb behind the ears. “You have a cat. Good.”
Kara set her purse on the table, giving it a quick glance to ensure its contents were still hidden. “Good? You like cats?” She grabbed her battered tool belt from the kitchen counter and quickly stashed it under the sink.
He rubbed the tip of one white ear until Pibby purred. “Good, because cats keep an eye on things better than watchdogs. These apartments are unique with balconies off two rooms, but you have to admit that the building isn’t in the safest neighborhood. It’s a good thing you have a tough little cat like this.” He cooed the last part, smoothing a finger over Pibb’s whiskery face. Lucky cat.
“Yeah, he is pretty tough.” Too bad the only person he’d ever beaten up was her, earlier that morning. She glanced at her hand to see every scratch and gouge completely healed, as she’d known they would be.
She popped open a can of cola, then walked to where Gavin stood and handed it to him. He took a long drink and set it on the kitchen counter. “Thank you.”
When Kara reached down to pet Mr. Pibb, the little traitor lifted his rump and stalked away. “Fine. Be a brat. See if you get canned food with that attitude.”
Maybe Pibb was one of those morally superior felines that didn’t believe in a little self-pleasuring like she’d indulged in earlier that morning after her scorching dream. If her cat could read her mind and see what fantasies that dream had inspired—all the things she wanted Gavin to do to her with a black feather duster—Pibb’s snowy kitty fur would turn scarlet.
Kara’s phone lit up, belting out Abbey’s personal ringtone. She pulled the phone from the tight pocket of her leather skirt and touched her finger to the screen. “Hello?”
“Where are you?” Abbey’s voice was as worried as it was irritated. “I thought you were coming straight from work and you’d be to Pyro’s by now.”
Kara glanced apologetically at Gavin. “I’m giving a new tenant his keys. I’ll be a little late.”
“How late? They’re already starting to charge for cover.”
Kara frowned, trying not to get caught drooling over Gavin’s ass as he inspected the view from the living-room balcony. “Yeah, it’s only like, what…fifteen dollars?”
Abbey gasped. “Okay, who is he? If he’s worth fifteen dollars to you, I’m coming over. Does he have a friend? Can we share him?”
“Stop!” Kara laughed. “I’ll call you later.” She hung up and turned the ringer to vibrate before Abbey could call her back. “Sorry about that.”
Gavin turned around and to her surprise, the jacket he held in the crook of his arm was tenting away from his groin. If he’d been using it to mask his reaction to her, then maybe this night was looking up after all. She had to work hard to hold back her toothy grin.
“Was your boyfriend upset? I can grab the keys and let you get on your way,” he said.
She shook her head. “I don’t have a boyfriend. That was Abbey, my best friend. Seeing as we’re going to be next-door neighbors, I’m sure you’ll meet her soon enough.”
“Good.” Gavin’s hazel eyes caught the light from across the room. “That I’ll get to meet your friend, I mean. Not good you don’t have a boyfriend.”
“How about you? Anyone waiting around for you tonight after you finish with your super-secret security job?”
“No.” Gavin walked to the shelf off the dining room where a long, black cloth was draped over small, bulgy shapes. He lifted just the edge of the cloth, then looked to Kara and smiled. “May I?”
“Go for it.”
Gavin pulled back the fabric to reveal Kara’s clay sculpture collection. “Figurines? These are really good.” He paused, considering. “This one…” He picked up a white blob with blue patches that didn’t look dissimilar to a large hunk of blue cheese. “I’m not so sure.”
Kara laughed. “A girl’s gotta have a hobby.”
He slid his finger along the sculpted wings of a raven. She’d painted the entire thing black but was planning to go back through and do more intricate details on the feathers. “Amazing,” he said. “This one looks real. You’re a true artist.”
“An artist? Not quite.” She regarded the raven. “But I guess I’m getting a little better.”
On a slow day around the apartments, she was grateful for time to work on her clay sculptures. It sucked to be an artist with no talent. In fact, most people had trouble seeing Kara as the “artsy” type at all. She thought of it more as a compulsion, a need to shape and mold the images that came to her in visions.
“You could sell these.” He squinted at the blue cheese and put it back on the shelf. “Well, maybe not that one.”
“Yeah, if I could learn to do dolphins frolicking in the waves and put San Diego in glitter at the bottom, I’d be in business.” But her dolphins looked like mutant mermaids…so, yeah, money was tight. If it weren’t for having her rent covered in exchange for managing the old apartment building, Kara would have long since resorted to the worst possible fate—a desk job. The Hoolecha Inn helped. But not much.
Gavin tucked the shroud over the sculptures and reached for his drink. With rapt attention, Kara watched his throat work as he swallowed. When he was finished, he set the can on the counter. “Thank you, Kara. I’d better be going.”
“Oh! I almost forgot. I’ve been saving your Union Tribune for you.” She walked quickly to the coffee table and assembled the piles of crinkled newsprint, trying to fold them neatly on her way back to Gavin. She hoped he didn’t notice that some of the sections were currently lining her shelves under the drying clay. “Here you go.”
He eyed the disheveled stack. “How kind of you.”
Kara was an expert at pretending to be interested in a man to get what she wanted, but she didn’t have the slightest clue how to seduce someone for real. “Gavin…do you want to stay?” She tried to make her voice alluring, but it came out as a strained croak.
He stilled. “Stay?”
“With me. Here.” Kara looked down, twining her fingers together. “I thought, you know…maybe we could get to know each other a little better. Share some secrets.” God, how was it possible she could simultaneously want to die of embarrassment and rip his fucking clothes off?
Gavin swallowed, and his jacket fell limp in his grip to dangle by the tips of his fingers. “I can’t. I mean, I shouldn’t.”
He paused and cleared his throat, but the look in his eyes and the tiny dark spot soaking through the front of his charcoal slacks made her feel like she was going to spontaneously combust. She shifted restlessly, unable to quell the heat building between her thighs.
“Please?” Her voice cracked from the humiliation of it, but when he didn’t say a word, she pressed on. “I don’t want you to think I do this a lot. Actually, I never do this. But I want to. With you.”
Gavin’s hands fisted at his sides and he took a ragged breath. “I won’t try to tell you I’m not interested.” He looked down at himself with a pained grin. “But I think I’ll just ask you to unlock the door, then call it a night.”
The air left Kara’s lungs in a loud whoosh. It felt as if she’d literally been deflated by his rejection. “Sure. Of course.” She smiled at him. She could break down later. “Let me grab the other keys.”
“Kara,” he said when she turned on her heel and fled to the master bedroom.
She didn’t answer. There was nothing more to say. All she had to do was open his door, then she could find Abbey and take her frustration out on some deserving asshole who couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
But when she rounded the corner of the bed and reached down to the bottom drawer of her desk, what she saw hit her like a kick to the gut. “Holy shit!”
There, on the floor, sticking out from under her lavender dus
t ruffle, was a glossy black feather.
Chapter Three
Gavin burst through the door like he was ready to slaughter an army. “Kara!”
Kara crouched by the desk, black feather in hand, pondering what it all meant and how she was supposed to explain it to Gavin. Uh, been dreaming about screwing a guy with wings, and I think he might have left this behind. Don’t worry. My exploits are confined to dirty nighttime fantasies and luring men out of bars to kick their asses. I’m not a crazy slut. Really.
“Sorry. I, uh…overreacted. I thought maybe Mr. Pibb killed a bird or something, but… Ha.” She laughed weakly. “It’s only one feather.”
Gavin’s eyes narrowed on the feather in her hand and his nostrils flared. The expression on his face made the handsome businessman look dangerous. He strode forward, took Kara’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “May I see that?”
“Sure.” She handed it over easily, wanting to play along and get him out of there fast so she could take a cold, Gavin-less shower and process what in the hell was going on. Mr. Pibb had never stepped a paw outside the apartment in all his ever-lovin’ life, and she always left the balcony doors closed. How could he have found a feather?
“Aha!” Kara exclaimed. As she realized what was happening, her shoulders slumped in relief. “I’m going to kick that witch’s ass.”
Gavin blinked. “Pardon?”
“I mean, that bitch’s ass,” she amended. “See, Abbey put this here to mess with me. She knows how I love…birds.”
Yeah, she’d flip Abbey the bird, all right. Her best friend must have put a lust spell on the feather and shoved it under Kara’s bed. No wonder her neighbors were looking hotter and her dreams were spicier than a habanero pepper. Leave it to Abbey to take Kara’s love life into her own hands. When it came to sex, that witch had a wicked sense of humor.
Kara got the spare key from the drawer and held it out to Gavin. “Here you go. Just bring it back tomorrow after you get copies made. Sorry about the confusion tonight.” And she wasn’t talking about the time mix-up.
But to her surprise, Gavin slipped the feather into his pocket and took the key from her fingers, just to let it drop to the floor. “I’ve decided to take you up on your invitation.”
He stepped forward and took her in his arms, pressing his never-ending erection firmly against her belly. “I’ll stay.”
Her heart almost sputtered to a stop. Would it be wrong to let this go further now that she knew their feelings were based on nothing more than a charmed feather? She should have known magic was involved when a man as attractive as Gavin couldn’t look at her without his pants bulging at the seams. “Uh…Gavin. Maybe we should—” was all she got out before he bent to her mouth and crushed his lips against hers.
The moment she tasted the exotic flavor of his tongue darting into her mouth, her doubts washed away like leaves in a storm, until only one thing remained—she would die if she couldn’t have him inside her. Now.
Gavin’s fingers sank into Kara’s hip as he lashed her with his tongue. He tasted of dark, addictive things Kara had never sampled before. The force of his kiss would have rocked her back, but he cradled her head in his left hand, sucking the breath from her lungs as he consumed her.
Kara ground her pelvis against him with a whimper. “I need this.”
She reached a hand down to feel the steel of his penis beneath his trousers. For a moment, she couldn’t wrap her mind around what she was feeling, until finally, she let out a gasp. He couldn’t really be that large, could he? There was no way he’d fit.
Gavin plucked her hand away from his groin and brought it to his chest. “Not that, princess. Not tonight.”
Kara pulled away and looked at him as if he were insane. “Not tonight? What are you, some sort of pussy tease? Is that how you get your kicks?”
He stared at her from behind his dark blond lashes—and laughed! “Yes, princess, I’m a ‘pussy tease’. Here, let me show you.” He closed the space between them and lifted Kara into his arms as though she weighed less than the feather in his pocket.
“What are you doing?” She was suddenly unsure about the wicked gleam in his eyes.
Gavin didn’t say a word as he laid Kara on the center of the bed. When he stood and began unbuttoning his dress shirt, she swore if her heart beat any faster it would explode. After the dress shirt lay in a heap on the floor, Gavin peeled off his white T-shirt to reveal the most perfect torso Kara had ever seen, with wide shoulders and a broad chest almost too heavily muscled for her comfort. Around his neck he wore four leather cords and from each one hung a different pendant.
“I hate all these layers you people wear. I want to feel you against my skin.” His voice was so deep and gravelly with his desire for her, Kara could feel the rumble down to her core.
“‘You people’?”
He paused for a moment, as if she’d asked a tough question, then he shook it off. “Lie back,” he commanded as he crawled onto the end of the bed and began slowly unzipping her boots. He pulled off her socks and massaged his thumbs along the arches of her feet, squeezing them hard.
“Oooh,” she groaned, stretching out on the bed and splaying her toes. She couldn’t even complain about his opinion on women’s clothing. If he wanted her in less, she’d wear less.
“You like that?” He kissed the top of her foot. “Yes, I can tell you do. I can smell you, Kara. You’re wet for me. You want me, don’t you, princess?”
Kara glanced down to see him run his tongue along the tips of her toes. “Please, Gavin.” A bead of sweat trailed down her temple.
He smiled. “I wish I could. I want to be inside you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
What was he saying? Was he saying no? Kara couldn’t understand him. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears until she thought she’d go deaf from the rush of blood, and her pussy pulsed in time with the beat. She pulled her foot back and reached her hand out for his belt, trying to sit.
Gavin took her by the shoulders and pushed her back onto the bed. “So eager.” He kissed one knee. “So rushed.” Then trailed his tongue along the other. “Why won’t you let me take my time? Do you know how long I’ve waited for this?” But even as the words left his mouth, Gavin grasped Kara’s leather skirt around the hem and yanked it up around her belly. “Too long…” he murmured into her thigh.
With his mouth pressed to her thigh, he missed her slightly delirious gaze. “That’s hard to believe. With your looks, I doubt you wait in line at the DMV.”
A warm snicker fanned her skin. “I’ve learned the value of delayed gratification. I’m nothing if not a patient man.”
When he kissed a path to her old cotton underwear, she tensed. Pretty underwear wasn’t a requirement when she and Abbey went hunting. No one ever got far enough to see under her skirt anyhow. “I, uh, have nicer underwear. They’re in the wash.”
“Kara,” he growled.
“What?”
“Stop talking nonsense.” Gavin grasped the edge of her panties in his teeth and worked them down her thighs. “And spread your legs for me.”
The air in her room felt electric, crackling with sensual energy, and the night was cool against her heated flesh. When the tip of his tongue flicked at her mound, parting her carefully groomed thatch of hair, she squeaked.
Holy shit. He couldn’t really be going there, could he? She reached down and grasped his hair. “No. No one’s ever done that to me before.”
“Want to play games, virgin princess?” He retreated an inch and slowly licked her thigh. “I’ll play.”
Kara yanked his hair again. “No. Really.” It seemed so intimate. Too intimate. Sex was sex, but a man burying his head in her crotch was something else altogether. Finally, frustration won out. “I don’t want to be rude, Gavin, but can you just fuck me already?”
His sexy smirk faded. “You’d rather let a man ride you like a brood mare and bury his seed in your womb than allow him to pleasure you with his tong
ue?”
Kara frowned. He sounded like some guy from an old movie. “Why are you talking like that? You sound…different.” Kinky role-playing shit.
“Sorry,” he said with a smile. Any accent she thought she’d imagined was gone. “Where were we?”
“I think you were talking about riding me like a brood mare, but you can keep the ‘seed’, thanks. I have a condom around here somewhere.” Probably old and expired. And with her almost nonexistent periods, she wondered why she even bothered with the Pill.
“You are unbelievable. I think you may be purposefully ignoring my wishes and trying to take advantage of my—” he glanced at his pants and the huge tent there, “—condition.” He smiled and continued. “So let me put it this way… The only way you are going to come tonight is on my face. If you aren’t comfortable with that, tell me now so I can take the key and go.”
She narrowed her eyes at his challenge. She wasn’t about to let him walk out before putting out this fire he’d ignited in her. “Fine,” she told him, spreading her legs wide.
Gavin chuckled. “Are you sure?”
Her eyes flashed. “Do it, you son of a bitch, or so help me, you’ll never see another newspaper again.”
Kara could feel the deep rumble of his laughter against her skin as he ducked between her thighs. Her knees tensed around his head, but as the first lap of his tongue washed over her, she dissolved into a mindless puddle and let out a low groan.
“Oh, Gavin,” she murmured, reveling in the rhythmic rasp of his tongue against her clit. “Oh, right there.”
Nothing she’d ever done to herself could compare to what he was doing to her now. She thought she might die from the pleasure. Kara reached down and took his head in her hands once again, but this time she pulled him to her, not taking a chance he might escape.
His tongue beat against her again and again, and she could feel her juices flowing, wetting her channel, inviting him in. His fingers sank into the flesh of her ass, angling her against his lips. And when his tongue darted inside, licking her opening and probing her folds, she thrust against his mouth.