by Cassie Wild
He acted like he heard it anyway, even above the music and the chaos of hundreds of bodies moving around us.
The pupils in his eyes flared, the black swallowing up the blue as he pulled me in closer, one hand leaving my hip to slide around and rest just above my butt. His fingers splayed wide, and I could feel the heat of his hand through the thin material of my dress.
Our gazes locked and held as he dipped his head to mine, brushing his lips against mine.
A first kiss is a crazy thing.
It can be a disappointment, a rush, a tease, a promise.
It can be a hundred other things and none of them.
Somehow, this kiss managed to disappoint, tease, and promise, an incongruous mix, if ever there was one.
It disappointed because he ended it too quickly.
It was a tease because all he did was rub his lips against mine and part them just enough to flick his tongue against the seam of my mouth.
Just as I opened my mouth to accept him, he lifted his head a fraction, pausing to drop one more kiss – a promise.
The taste of him swam in my head, and I swallowed it down, wishing I could capture this moment forever.
It was already gone, though, and he was looking down at me, almost like he wasn’t sure how to take me.
I wanted to take his head between my hands and haul it down to meet me, catch his mouth again and have a deeper, wetter kiss, something that would both ease and aggravate the aching emptiness that had taken up residence between my thighs.
Before I could decide on a course of action, he had me backed up against a low wall, the divider that separated the dance floor from the bar. I hadn’t even realized he’d been navigating us off the floor. But I didn’t mind. Reaching up, I laced my fingers behind his neck.
This time, I was the one who initiated the kiss, pulling his head to mine.
His mouth slanted against mine, and he groaned, opening for me when I thrust my tongue into his mouth.
I wasn’t one to wait around for what I wanted – there just wasn’t any time in my life for that.
Kian didn’t mind at all, as evidenced by the way his hand tangled in my hair, and he urged me on by boosting me up with one arm around my waist.
Ohhhhh…that was nice. It brought his cock right in line with the aching heat between my thighs, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could curl up around him, work his jeans free and just ride him–
“Come with me?”
His harshly panted words interrupted the torrid picture forming in my mind, and I stared up at him, trying to make my fuzzy brain function. “What?”
“I want to be with you.” The way he was looking at me made it clear just how he meant it too. “There’s a hotel at the end of the street. Come with me?”
It was foolish to say yes.
I knew that.
Maybe I hadn’t grown up in mainstream society, but I wasn’t isolated from it. However, this was something I wanted enough to risk it.
“Hell, yes.”
The time it took to fight our way out of the club and walk a block seemed insanely long.
The clock didn’t seem to speed up much between the time we walked through the automatic doors, and he checked us in, either. I was almost ready to just jump on him by the time we were standing in front of the room he’d paid for, and if it wouldn’t have stripped away all dignity, I might have grabbed him and started rubbing against him like a cat in heat.
My dignity was saved as he finally got the door open and we walked inside.
I’d worried there might be some awkwardness once we got inside.
He left me standing by the door, and as a few seconds ticked by, the silence swelling, I felt that oh, shit, this was stupid sensation swelling inside me.
But then music began to pulse.
I jerked at the sound of it and looked up, saw him rising from the bed.
His phone glowed in the dim light on the table behind him, and I realized what he’d done.
Music played.
It wasn’t like the club music.
It was something low and bluesy. Beautiful, really.
When he held out his hand to me, I accepted and let him draw me up against him.
“I’ve wanted to be alone with you pretty much from the very first time we danced,” he murmured against my neck. Then he raked his teeth down the sensitive arch.
I was already his, just from that one simple, erotic act.
Shivering, I arched closer, my head falling to the side. He followed the silent command and nuzzled me, seeking out the most sensitive spot, the very area where neck and shoulder joined. He bit me there lightly, and jolts of pleasure sparked through me.
He spun me around, and I gasped as he dipped me low. When he brought me back up, my hips tucked tight against his, I felt the ridge of his cock more firmly, and wet heat exploded inside me.
I wanted him.
Sliding my hands under the hemline of his shirt, I sought warm, smooth skin and sank my nails in.
His lashes drooped low, and he spun me around, tucking my back against his front.
The cut of my dress left my back mostly bare, and now nothing separated us but his shirt. I slid one hand back, twisting until I could grasp a handful of it. “Take this off,” I said.
He complied, and when he came back to me, naked skin kissed my bare back. I gasped at the shock of the contact, my nipples tightening to hard, aching points.
He gripped my hips and nudged his cock against my ass. “I think I could fuck you like this, dancing with you and listening to these sweet little sounds you make.”
“Ain’t going to happen,” I said. “I’m going to get too greedy.”
I proved my point by taking one of his hands and guiding it to my breast.
“Hmmm. Let’s hear it for greed.” He tweaked my nipple, then rolled it, listening to the sounds he apparently liked and finding how I liked to be touched. So far, he hadn’t gotten off course once.
A tug at my neck freed the halter-style design of my dress, and it sagged, then fell to my waist.
He whispered in my ear, “Look.”
Dragging my lashes up, I jolted a little to see the two of us swaying in the mirror affixed to the wall in front of me.
My breasts were lifted, one of my arms twined up and back, curled around his neck. He had one breast plumped in his hand while his free hand gripped my hip. “That’s the sexiest damn thing I think I’ve ever seen,” Kian told me.
Without giving me a chance to answer, he spun me around so we faced each other, and his mouth came crushing down on mine. Urgency replaced the almost playful seduction, and the two of us fumbled our way to the bed. As I went to my back, he came down on top of me. I braced my hands against his chest.
“You got protection?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He dipped his head and caught my mouth in another kiss. “Fuck, Suria…I could eat you alive.”
I didn’t mind the sound of that one bit.
He used his knee to spread my thighs and knelt there, reaching into his pocket for something. I saw the rubber a moment later and lay there, panting hard, the breath knocked out of me. As he freed himself from his jeans, I licked my lips, the urge to rise up and take him into my mouth massive.
But I had a deeper need to feel him in me, to feel his weight pressing me down as he rode me. Then he was on me, and I gasped as I felt the head of his cock rub against my entrance.
When he entered me, my breath caught inside my lungs and seemed trapped there as he slowly filled me, inch by inch, until I didn’t think I could take any more.
Then he pulled out and started the slow, inexorable claiming all over again.
I wanted to beg, to demand he go quicker, but I still couldn’t breathe.
Grabbing his shoulders, I pierced his skin with my nails and arched up.
He shuddered.
I raked my nails down his shoulders and rose up to bite his chest.
He thrust deeper, harder.
Finally, one smal
l scream broke out of me, the release of air an overwhelming relief, but nothing like the feel of him filling me again, faster this time. And harder.
Again, he knocked the air out of me until I was struggling for it, but this time, I didn’t care.
The orgasm that slammed into me was more powerful than anything I’d ever experienced.
It seemed like my skin was still buzzing from Kian’s touch when I slid into the house almost two hours later.
It had only taken me twenty minutes to get from the club to my house this time of night, especially on a weekend, but Kian had been…greedy, and the second time had been more intense than the first.
Now, weak-kneed and exhausted, I wanted to find my bed and drop down, sleep like the dead the way he’d been when I’d finally slipped from the room.
On quiet feet, I crept through the back of the house, avoiding the spots on the floor that creaked, and paused just outside my door to listen – that door squeaked like a bitch.
I heard my father’s voice, and I grimaced, knowing I needed to haul ass and get in my room before he came and found me dressed up like a whore – which was how he’d see it. He’d know I’d gone out, and while I didn’t really care if he did know at this point, I was too tired to fight with him.
But his voice didn’t grow any closer.
And as I stood there, I caught the sound of another voice.
Vano’s.
Shit.
Easing down the hall, I crept as close as I dared so I’d be able to hear. They had to have been talking on the front porch. If they were any closer, I would have realized Vano was there sooner.
“See, it’s a good match, don’t you think, Vano?”
“I can see why you’d think so, Gabriel,” Vano said, amusement lacing his words. “But the final decision isn’t up to you. Old friend, what do you say?”
Good match. My stomach churned at just what that might mean.
“I’ve been looking to take a wife,” the third said. “And yes, she’s beautiful.”
I wanted to puke. Who were they talking about?
A floorboard from the rickety porch squeaked, and I backed away, moving deeper into the house. Inside my room, I quickly changed out of the dress and pulled on the long shirt I always wore, grabbing a pair of yoga pants to go with it.
A good match.
Fury burned inside me, making me all but forget about the wonderful night I’d just experienced.
Who were they talking about?
And who was the third guy out there talking?
Six
Suria
“Is…?” Mrs. Joseph Banks smiled a watery smile at me over the table, her faded blue eyes so full of hope and need.
I hated jobs like this.
I wished they’d all go to one of my cousins or one of the others out in the city, because most of them didn’t care about lying to sweet old ladies like this.
But I did, and because I did, I tried to give them some sort of closure and avoid taking them for all they were worth – and then some. Maybe the guilt was the penance I had to pay for doing what I did.
I had no idea.
“Is he here?” she whispered, her eyes sketching furtively around the room.
“He is,” I said, giving her a solemn nod.
There was nobody in the room but the two of us. But telling her that wouldn’t help her, and it wouldn’t help me finish the job either. She’d just come back. I tried telling her once before that her loved one wasn’t there to talk to, and she’d insisted we try again.
So, we were trying.
And this time, I was going to make her understand. Mr. Skittles was at peace, and she didn’t need to feel bad about leaving the back door cracked the time he got out. It wasn’t her fault that he slipped outside and was hit by a car.
She was making herself sick with guilt, poor thing.
I went through the usual spiel, although my attention was more than a little divided, thanks to my lack of sleep the past night and how pissed off I was with my father.
I couldn’t believe he was trying to arrange a marriage for one of us.
“Does Mr. Skittles really want me to get a new fur-baby?” Mrs. Banks asked pitifully.
“He does. He thinks you’ve got too much love to keep it all trapped up inside you.” I gave her a consoling smile. “And he wants you to stop being so mad at yourself. He loves you. He wants you happy.”
She laughed a little then. “Mr. Skittles always did try to make me happy. He’d do the silliest things when he knew I was sad.”
Her lower lip wobbled, but just when I thought I was losing her, it firmed, and she nodded. “I’ll go to the shelter tomorrow.”
Once she was gone, I groaned and dropped down over the table. The entire day had been like this, one sad story after another, and all I could do was offer empty lies and empty condolences.
“Hey…it seemed like she was pretty content with what you told her. And Mr. Skittles is chasing milkmen up in heaven,” a familiar voice said, sounding amused.
“Trice, bite me,” I said, but I smiled as I turned to watch my cousin come into the front part of the house.
It was the nicest part, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I basically worked here, I’d prefer to spend most of my time in this warm, inviting, if somewhat shabby looking living room. We’d fixed it up as best we could, buying furniture from salvage stores and doing all the painting ourselves.
There were framed pieces of art on the walls, mostly sketches, but a few mixed media. One might almost think that they were in an artist’s studio, one that belonged to somebody with a bent toward mysticism, and that wasn’t all that out of place in a city like LA.
The art was mine. I’d started drawing young and had sold my first piece to one of the people my father swindled. At least they got something good out of their connection with us.
I did everything from pencil to mixed media and even had a potter’s wheel, although I didn’t spend as much time with that as I’d like. I didn’t have a kiln so it wasn’t ideal, but I had a couple of bowls and vases I was proud of.
There were even a few photographs, taken with a secondhand camera I’d bought on eBay.
Papa would freak out if he knew I’d taken various online courses – art history, beginning photography, anything related to art that caught my interest – and that I could afford.
Of course, he hadn’t ever minded making money off me if one of my pieces sold, but heaven forbid he actually let me invest in something I truly enjoyed.
I should be grateful I had this small space I could consider somehow…mine. Papa had let me handle making all the decisions for how this room looked once I reminded him that most of my clients were women. I managed to convince him that I had a better eye for what appealed to women, what would make her relax and feel more at home than he would.
Not that I said it in those words.
But my father knew about as much about women as he did about trying to put people at ease – jackshit.
I stared at a sketch of the Golden Gate Bridge, a piece I’d drawn last year when Papa had taken us to San Francisco so I could set up a booth at a street fair. He’d been so delighted with how much money I’d made, he let me take Joelle out for the evening – probably so he could get shit-faced without Vano knowing how much money we’d made.
We’d gone to the park near the bridge, and I’d felt…almost free.
Unlike now.
“You’re worried about something,” Trice said softly. She hit the switch for the light in the window.
I glowered at her.
“Your daddy isn’t here right now.” She made a face. “He’s probably out buying himself some more booze with the money Vano just paid out.”
“He better not be spending mine. I–”
“Relax.” Trice fished around inside her shirt. “I saw Vano’s car and came inside just as he was getting ready to pass over the goods. I was able to talk Vano into giving me my share and yours. I don’t t
hink the old bastard trusts your papa any more than we do.” A few seconds later, a neat coil of bills was placed in front of me. Trice brandished hers, a little smaller than mine. “I did pretty good this week.”
I made a face at her as I reached for mine. “We’d all do a lot better if we didn’t have to pay so much to the clan.”
Of course, if it wasn’t for the clan, I wouldn’t even be doing this. “Have you ever thought about what you’d do if we didn’t have to do…this?” I waved a hand around the living room to encompass the shabby-chic area where I pretended to know the future and tried to convince people it was okay that they’d been angry the day their grandma died.
“I’d go to college and be an art teacher,” Trice said promptly, grinning at me. “Hell, yes, I think about it.” Sighing, looking sadder now, she added, “I think about it all the time. But that’s not going to happen for us. You have a better shot at it than I do. I wouldn’t even know how to make it on my own.”
“You wouldn’t be on your own,” I said, reaching over and covering her hand with mine. “I’d take care of you, Joelle, and me.”
“It’s a nice dream,” Trice said softly. Then she shook her head. “But it’s just a dream. That’s all it is.”
Something that might have been desperation was burning inside me as I leaned in. “I don’t know. I’m starting to think I’m going to look for a way to make it happen, sweetie. Last night…”
I hesitated, not certain how much I wanted to say.
Trice misunderstood my hesitation. “Last night…oh, yeah…the hottie.” She rolled her eyes and clapped her hands over her heart. “If anybody would make me wanna run for the hills and get away from this place, it would be that guy. Kian, right?” Licking her lips, she leaned in closer. “How was it, how was he?”
Her infectious smile might have been enough to spark one from me, but I was still too worried about the other part of last night, the part that had kept me lying awake until almost dawn.
“Get your mind out of your pants, cuz,” I said, flicking my hand at her. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
But my hesitation returned, for a different reason. Trice was as sweet as they came, but I was worried to say anything right now. What if my father had just been speculating, then I go and say something and word got out? He’d feel like he had to make a wedding happen. Or he’d do it just to be mean.