by James, Vicki
That chest pinched again, causing me to flare my nostrils and take a long, heavy inhale to ease the ache. All I inhaled was her. That sweet, citrus perfume. That soap on her skin. That coconut shampoo in her hair. I could taste every bit of her on my tongue. She filled my lungs, and my stomach growled for more.
Julia set me free and spun around, sashaying her arse in front of me. Fuck, that arse. I blew out a breath from my cheeks, a little tension falling free. I was a seventeen-year-old virgin about to blow his load for the first time all over again.
Like this, she was an orbit of colours I’d never seen shining from her. Her hands moved in front of her chest, and she made it look like she’d written, sung, and performed this song all her life.
I stepped closer, bending my legs so my knees fit into the back of hers, and I grabbed those sweet little hips tightly. Without a thought, I yanked her to me. Fingers sinking in deep, claiming her right there under bright lights and intense heat, beside fake palm trees and strangers I’d never see again. Her arse pressed back against my groin, and my dick twitched in response…
Along with that damn chest of mine again.
Was I about to have a heart attack?
Was my face about to collapse before I had a stroke?
I couldn’t think of a better way to go.
I moved where she moved as the song switched from Homely Girl to The Way You Do the Things You Do. A gentle girly sound of excitement fell from Jules’s throat before she pressed her spine against my chest, and she slung her arm back to cradle my neck. Her head fell against my shoulder, and with it tilted, I could see her eyes had closed as she lost herself to our intimacy.
Thank God I wasn’t on anything, otherwise I’d have embarrassed us both by bending her over, tearing her jeans open at the seams, and impaling myself inside her.
My fingers dug into her flesh, and even her hip bones turned me on—so prominent. So grabbable. So tiny and perfect. I let my gaze drift over her T-shirt as we moved, swaying, gyrating, and grinding together, and I imagined the pert little nipples that lived beneath the cotton material of that shirt and her bra. I fantasised about them being in my mouth or rolling them between my fingers until her back arched from the bed.
My right hand slid around to press down on the lower part of her stomach, and her lips parted next to my jaw, letting a stream of her cotton candy breath wash over me.
Jesus.
Her mouth curled into a seductive smile, and her fingers curled into my hair at the nape of my neck. I’d already been floating from the alcohol we’d drunk, but now I was fucking high because of her.
The way she did the things she did.
I wanted to slip fingers inside her.
Let my tongue slide over her skin.
I wanted to spank her arse.
I wanted to watch her tongue trail up my dick.
I wanted all the things I wanted with a woman.
But I also wanted this. Just this. Her leaning back against my chest. T-shirt against T-shirt. Body to body. Me holding her tight, swaying from side to side. Music all around us without having to be the performer. I wanted the more, and as it turned out, the last person on Earth I imagined ever giving it to me was the woman in my arms.
Her eyes flickered open like she’d just been woken from a silky dream or a body-bruising orgasm.
I smirked down at her. “Just so you know… I now fucking love UB40.” I made my move without thought, lowering my lips to Julia’s without any thought of regret, the band, or what the morning would bring.
She was warm honey to my ice-cold life, and I tasted every drop. I swallowed her sweet breaths, wrapped them around my tongue and kissed her a thank you in return—even if I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what I was thanking her for. I wanted to bruise her with this kiss. I wanted her to feel my lips there in forty years, when she would no doubt be married to a high music exec, with two perfectly raised children, and a wall filled with framed accolades she’d picked up along the way. I selfishly wanted her to remember this moment for the rest of her life, no matter how far apart we ended up from each other. So, I kissed her firmer, pouring everything into it. I took her honey, and I gave her my poison.
Chapter Seventeen
“That one was for our favourite girl, Jules!” the guy behind the microphone cried.
We paused—my lips hovering over hers as our eyes fluttered open.
“Although she looks a little preoccupied right now,” the dude chuckled, making me look up at him from under the peak of my cap. He was a balding, older fella, probably around fifty or sixty mark. I could never really guess ages once someone hit that point in their lives.
Whoever he was, I wanted to throw him to the stage floor and hit him repeatedly with his microphone. He’d just interrupted one of the most sensually erotic experiences of my life, and the bastard knew it.
“Sorry, man,” he offered, sensing my murderous glare as Julia and I straightened up.
While I looked pissed off, she looked happy and floaty with her flushed cheeks and unstoppable smile. She pressed both hands to her mouth and blew him a two-handed kiss. He pretended to catch it before he clutched it to his heart, and a weird zap of jealousy hit me right in the gut.
“I love you, Eddie!” Jules cried out to him, bouncing on her toes.
Not one single person was looking at me.
Just her.
I frowned, not used to the anonymity, before the music flared to life again and Jules turned back to me with obviously erect nipples beneath her T-shirt, and not a care in the world who saw them.
“Who taught you to kiss like that?” I asked bluntly.
“Why?” She narrowed her eyes, her face full of amusement. “You jealous they got there first?”
“Yes.”
Jules closed the distance between us. “Best I don’t ask who taught you, hmm? That’s a lot of arses for me to beat… or send thank you cards to.”
A little smirk betrayed me. “You’re jealous?”
“No.” She laughed as if the very thought was ridiculous. “I’ve had more than enough time and visual reminders to wrap my head around the number of women you’ve had, Rhett. I’ve become numb to it.” She began to walk past me with a smile on her face, but I spun, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her back. She slammed up against me with more force than I’d intended.
My chest tightened again, and I swallowed hard to try and wash it away.
What was that?
“Does it bother you?” I asked her calmly.
“Does what bother me?”
“How many women I’ve had.”
“Do you want it to?”
Yes, because it bothers me that you’ve had other men, and I can’t even begin to understand why.
“Doesn’t matter to me,” I lied.
“Then I guess you can set me free.” She glanced to my hand around her wrist before she looked back up at me.
“I don’t want to. I want to stay here and dance all night. I want to hold you like I just held you. I want to kiss you like I just kissed you.”
“You want a lot.”
“Just you tonight.”
“Then what?”
“Then I want to take you home and fuck you, my tiny, beautiful cougar.”
Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds began to pour free, and Jules glanced over at the guy on the stage before her lips twitched. She managed to regain composure when she looked at me, and the chorus kicked in.
They were telling the whole place not to worry about a thing.
Sunshine—a foreign object—rose in my chest like a new dawn on a dark morning.
I leaned in closer. Impossibly close. Any closer and my tongue would be in her mouth again. All that sweet honey there for me to swim around in. I couldn’t wait to find out what she tasted like between her toned thighs.
Her eyes searched mine intensely. “You pretty little boys see something sparkly, and that’s it; you want it. You don’t care how dangerous it is, where it’s been, o
r where it plans on going after you. All you care about is getting it. Winning.” She yanked her wrist out of my weak grip and ran a thumb over my swollen bottom lip as she stared at it. “While cougars like me prefer to make pretty boys work for the prize. It’s more exciting for us. We’ve experienced that young lust. We’ve lost so many battles to it. Now we like to see effort.”
“I’ll work,” I whispered, my heart speaking before my brain could get involved.
“Careful, pretty boy. I’ll ruin you, and you won’t know a damn thing about it until it’s over.”
She turned to walk away, heading in the direction of a big neon sign that said Toilets, leaving me with wide eyes and an open mouth. My feet moved, desperate to find her in those toilets and get to work, but I was stopped when a familiar face stepped out into my path and brought me to a halt.
“Geoffrey,” I sighed, sounding impatient. “Hey.”
“She’s one of the best women God ever created,” he said proudly like he was her father or something.
I looked down at him, feeling my passion bleeding from me like an oil leak I couldn’t afford to fix. “What?”
“Julia.” His brows bounced. “You’re hooked, boy.”
“Says who?”
“You might be young, but don’t act it. Not around here. Youth doesn’t fool anyone except the young.”
“Listen, man, that sounds like an excellent meme to plaster all over Facebook, but I—”
Geoffrey’s face fell, and he closed the gap between us, pressing a hand to my chest. I looked down at it like he was challenging me, and my defences rose. With a raise of my brow, I set my mouth into a straight line and looked up at him.
“What? Is there a rule of no sarcasm here, too?” I challenged.
“Are you clean?”
“Excuse me?”
“Drugs, boy.”
Fucking boy. The most patronising thing a man of twenty-six could be called. “I’m clean,” I forced out through gritted teeth. “The only thing I’m high on is her.”
“Her family mean a lot to me. You’d better treat her with respect.”
“Wasn’t aware I was doing anything other than that.”
The two of us stared at each other, and it was obvious he thought I was an arsehole. Why, exactly, I wasn’t sure. Maybe the guy had gone away after meeting me, and he’d hit up Google. The opening page of my name in the search bar was usually pretty damning to be fair. Still… Julia had assured me this was a place of peace. A place of privacy. A place of the exact opposite to what Geoffrey was displaying.
“I’m just here for the peace, love, unity, dance, soul, and, what was it? Oh… music. Whatever else you think I’m here for, I’m not. So, I think we’re done.”
“Just one more thing.” Geoffrey dropped his hand from my chest and tucked it away in the pocket of his loose trousers. “Don’t tell any of your other friends about this place. We like to keep it invite only. We plan on saving one last shred of a good time before the world ruins everything with drugs, fame, and money.”
I set my jaw tight and glared at him. Judgemental prick.
He seemed to sense my irritation, and he bowed his head and began to walk away. He’d only taken a few steps when I called out to him again.
“Geoffrey?”
He turned slowly, his expression blank.
“When we first got here, what did you whisper to Julia that made her laugh like that?” I asked.
His smile grew slowly. “I said she was going to eat you alive. And she will. She already is doing.”
With that, he turned and walked away, just as Julia came back into sight. The two of them passed each other by with nothing more than a high five before she came to a beautiful blunt stop in front of me. As soon as she saw my face, hers fell.
“What’s wrong?” she scowled.
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked. “If it’s invite only. If you’re wanting me to work for it. If you’re not ready for—”
She pushed against my chest with force, making my eyes and mouth pop open. Before I knew it, I was back on the dance floor, and Julia had her arms wrapped around my neck and her hips pressed against mine.
“Don’t do it, pretty boy.”
I gasped, a little winded as I automatically reached around to grip her arse in both hands. God, she felt good, and just the feel of those denim-covered cheeks made me soften. She fit in my hands perfectly. She fit against my body like we were made for each other.
“Don’t ruin the way I see you right now.” She smiled up at me.
“How do you see me?”
“Like someone I want to rub up against a bit more. The other stuff. The serious stuff… I’m not here for that tonight,” she said, guiding us into Erasure’s A Little Respect. “I’m here for the music and to feel free for a while. Join me, won’t you?”
She was so alive in my grip, joining her was all I could do. We spent the rest of the night pressed up against one another, dancing to old tunes, kissing like old lovers and panting like new, discovering different ways to grind, cuddle, and create so much heat, I couldn’t wait to put out the fire with our own sweat later.
We took shots of tequila, wiped our foreheads free of the moisture that was gathering whenever we were together, and Julia never stopped smiling for the rest of the night. If her happiness happened to be a fatal disease, I wanted to die from it.
The more the hours wore on, the more I became a limp noodle of lust against her endless energy and limitless sexual prowess. She led, and I followed, like a lovestruck, teenage pretty boy worshipping the worldly queen. She made me hard, soft, hard, soft, then hard again all night until every part of me ached. I was coiled, ready to break free. She rubbed the seam of her crotch over my knee again and again, the gentle yet perfect rhythm making me fantasise about the moves she’d make while riding my cock. Everything I thought I knew about foreplay was destroyed in one night of reggae and old soul music.
And with my clothes still on…
I’d never been more aroused in my life.
At some time in what had to be the early hours of the morning—when the crowd had thinned, the musicians had left the stage, and we’d been left with subtle background music—Julia rose on her tiptoes in my arms and pressed her damp forehead to mine.
“You ready?” she whispered.
“For what?” I panted as we swayed to our own beat.
“Me.”
Chapter Eighteen
There’d been a taxi ride where we’d kissed in the backseat. There’d been gentle sounds of ocean waves when we’d stepped out of the car, and a faint sunrise on the horizon, but that was all I registered.
I didn’t see the colour of Julia’s front door—didn’t care to look at her house, go into another room, or see how big the kitchen was. My entire being was surrounded by a cloud of this phenomenal woman, and my fingers dug into the back pockets of her jeans as she guided me up a creaky staircase before she pushed open another door I didn’t care to look at.
I would have happily closed my eyes and let her lead me into an inferno.
“I miss kissing you,” I said against her neck as we stood in a doorway. She stretched back, opening herself for me, and I spent another minute marking her with bites and kisses. So many kisses, where my rough stubble rubbed against her perfectly soft skin.
“You say sweet things for a guy with such a sour tongue,” she whispered.
“You’re going to have a whole lot more to say about my tongue by morning.”
I spun her in my grip, hoisted her up into my arms, and I wrapped her tight thighs around my waist. She was above me, her hands knocking off my dark cap before they brushed through the longer parts of my hair.
When my feet hit the foot of her bed, I pressed my knees against the mattress and lowered her down until I was over her.
“Can I undress you?” I asked like her permission mattered when it had never mattered before. I’d always known the others wanted it. Even now, after so long of this i
ntense foreplay, I couldn’t be sure Julia wanted it. I needed to hear her agreement.
“I wish you would.”
“Uncurl your legs.”
“Make me.” She squeezed her thighs harder. Jules raised her head. “Make me do what you want me to do, Rhett. Be that bad boy of rock.”
Fuck, it was like a porno poster above my teenage bed all over again, only better. She wasn’t going to have to ask me twice. I leaned forward and pressed my teeth to the erect nipple beneath her thin bra and T-shirt. I nipped at it, drawing a loaded moan from her and an arch of her back, which made her legs loosen around me. Taking my time, I drifted over to the other breast and did the same, only this time bringing my hands up to rest in the curves of her tiny waist. I squeezed her tightly as my teeth tortured her sensitive buds.
She fits so perfectly.
Those noises she made were incredible.
“Christ, Jules,” I whispered as I trailed kisses over her chest and back up her blotchy neck. It was several shades of pink and red from hours of my passionate assaults, and those colours shone back at me like several little victory flags. I wanted to take a picture of them all to wank off to when this was over.
Her legs fell away from my waist, landing on either side of my thighs with a thud. My mouth moved up to her ear.
“What’s the most you’ve come in one night?”
“W-hat?” she rasped.
I slid a hand between our bodies, and I pressed it down over her mound, claiming and teasing her as I pushed my fingers against her heat. There was so much fucking heat. “How many times have you come in one night before, Jules? I want to know.”
“I don’t… know…”
“Can’t have been that memorable.”
“Maybe… five?”
“That’s it?” I grinned against her neck before I trailed my tongue up over her jaw, across her bottom lip and pressed a kiss to her mouth. “Fucking easy,” I breathed out.
“Hmm.” It was all the response she could give. I gripped her tighter, with a promise to return there later, replacing my hand with the desperate erection hidden behind my jeans. It rested between her legs, and that heat promised me things in return.