“No, but I might.” Again, the wickedly teasing smile.
His heart skipped a beat. Yeah, about the guys she slept with.
“I paint,” he confessed.
Her eyebrows shot up in question, and her genuinely curious eyes begged him for more of an explanation. She was so endearing, and no one had ever taken a real interest in him before.
“Watercolour painting. The Pine Woods Art Gallery takes many of them almost as fast as I can paint them.” Which was a huge source of pride for him. His father had wanted him to join the police force, but Taylor couldn’t see the point in chasing after criminals day after day, and unfortunately, his dad didn’t understand. Painting landscapes wasn’t ‘real’ work for a man, his dad had said countless times.
“You’ll have to show me,” Celeste intruded on his thoughts. “You know you’re a work of art in your own right, don’t you?”
Taylor practically chortled. No one had ever called him that. “I’d never considered myself such.”
“Why don’t we start exploring your work of art?” she said lightly, her gaze drifting from his chest to his eyes.
Taylor could hardly wait. He had a few reservations about being in her next book, which she might simply call Studs. The Taylor Burnes chapter would be titled ‘A Work of Art’ which he didn’t think was a bad title, even if he’d thought of it himself.
Celeste imagined writing in her blog that Taylor Burnes knew how to make a woman feel powerfully seductive and helpless in his virile presence. She’d leave out his name, of course, but she wouldn’t leave out any of the juicy details. Details such as his stubble rasping against her cheek, his broad shoulders leaning towards her, his cock pressing against his jeans. Oh wow, but she was ready to drool just thinking about being naked with Taylor.
His gaze had become dreamy and somewhat unfocused as he bent his head and once again kissed her. Her panties were wet now, and oh, how she wanted him, his muscled frame over her body, taking her, possessing her. She was fascinated by him, she admitted, and all this malarkey that he needed a place to hide was just that. Interestingly, he wanted her. Without the dating or the dinner thrown in first. How many girls were lucky enough to strike out with a sexy hunk the first time around? On a Friday night?
Deftly, she unbuttoned his shirt and pulled aside the western-cut shirt. Wow, he had some hard muscles on his chest. “Do you work out?” she asked, awestruck by all that tautness.
“I’ve been known to from time to time.”
Yeah, she’d bet. In bed with other women, but for this one night, he was hers, and hers alone.
He began to unbuckle his belt, but she stopped him, placing her hands on his and giving him a pleading glance. He shrugged, giving her the impression he was willing to submit to her loving ministrations. Celeste had never had a man quite like Taylor before. Sure, she’d gone through the motions, but it had only been two bodies pretty much groping around in the dark and fumbling with the concept that two people could bond. Taylor, she knew, would be different. He’d burst into her apartment, made up some excuse to stay and offered her all he had. How much better could it get on a Friday night?
She closed the distance between their bodies and, holding her breath, placed her hands in between his bare stomach and the waistband of his jeans. She revelled in the sensation of her finger pads against the rigid muscles and slid her hands lower into his briefs.
Sighing heavily, she rested her head against his chest. Her head barely came to his chin. He toyed with her hair, raking his fingers through the strands.
“You’re hard everywhere,” she mused aloud. Trembling, she slid her hands lower and shivered as she made contact with his bulging cock.
Taylor chuckled. “I am, and I’m willing to bet, you’re soft all over. And wet,” he added in a murmur.
“Oh definitely.” Her housecoat was stiflingly warm, and her slippers were like clunkers on her feet, hindering her poetic movements. She wanted to pirouette in a lively dance on the tips of her toes, like a ballerina in majestic flight.
She was getting wetter as she inched her hands lower in his waistband and cupped his hot cock. She moaned, and somewhere, far away, she heard Taylor groan. Firecrackers exploded in her head. This was what she needed, raw sex with a feeling of feminine power.
“I’m going to come without much more provocation,” he said earnestly, nibbling at her ear and trailing burning kisses across her cheek.
“You can’t come yet,” she protested, fiery hunger consuming her. “I want all of you.” She’d never before said that to a man, although she enjoyed teasing herself and the countless unseen others on her Kiss Me blog.
He chuckled good-humouredly although she heard something else behind it. Was it criticism or was it his self-assurance coming through? She didn’t care. She only wanted more of him.
Carefully, she unzipped his jeans. The metal teeth rasped against each other in the room’s silence. She tugged the pants lower, and they fell around his feet in a whoosh of stiff fabric. His rod bulged out of his briefs and waved towards her temptingly. The tip glistened with a single drop of moisture.
Giving a breathy sigh, she pushed him on the couch. He fell backward in a graceful play of hard muscles and tormenting male angles. “I haven’t quite undressed you,” he murmured, glancing at her face.
“You don’t need to, since you’re only staying a few more minutes.”
“Long enough to get loved and thrown out,” he mumbled, his gaze flashing over her.
Pretending she was an Amazon warrior, Celeste toed off her slippers. Taylor was plain yummy, one booted foot stretched out along the length of the couch, the other dangling on the floor. His shirt was wide open to reveal his chest and abs, and yummier still, was his stiff rod.
“Oh thank goodness,” he whispered, eyeing her slippers. “I thought the battery bunny was about to make love to me.” He laughed at his own humour.
Her brows arched. “The battery bunny?” She wished he could have thought of something else to say. Something sexy and provocative and tantalising. Her slippers kept her feet warm on cool spring nights.
“The pink one that beats the drum,” he added, his lips curving in a small smile.
“Right,” she grunted. A blush heated her cheeks.
He bent at the waist to sit up, but she pushed him back down again with the heels of her palm. “You’re in my house, you play by my rules,” she told him. This new angle would go over well on Kiss Me. She was the boss during sex. She called the shots while her lover acceded to her demands.
His lips curved in a thin smile, and for a moment, she felt she’d stepped over the line. Some men didn’t like Amazon warriors making love to them. They wanted demure women who did as they were told. Celeste had vowed never to be like them. She was twenty-two, she had a mind of her own and wanted sex her way.
She frowned at her realisation. Sex was simply an intellectual pursuit on her part. There was no emotion attached to the act—no love, no commitment, nothing but cold, hard intellect driving her. But how could that be? Fifty percent of marriages ended in divorce, as her parents’ had, although her mother had gone on with her life, become a bailiff at the courthouse and now indulged her lover, the judge, in chocolate and whipped cream.
“Your way or the highway,” Taylor intruded on her thoughts with a twinkle of humour in his baby blues.
She’d continue to play the sexy vixen although, she sensed, Taylor wasn’t buying her act. What was she doing wrong? And if this was an intellectual pursuit, then why did it matter so much?
Lifting her housecoat up to her thighs, she straddled him and let the robe fall over his cock.
“Hey,” he protested. “No fair. You shouldn’t be wearing much either. I want to see you.” He lifted his hands to the belt on her housecoat.
She slapped his hands. “I’m the boss, remember?”
A trace of annoyance flitted across his eyes, but he quickly quelled it. “Yeah or else you’ll throw me out on my ear, won�
��t you?”
You’re going to go out on your ear anyway. Taking a deep breath, she rubbed his cock against her wet clit. When she heard him groan, she impaled herself on his shaft and threw back her head.
Through the housecoat, Taylor pressed his palms against her budding nipples. Without saying a word, she batted his hands away again.
“Where am I supposed to put my hands?” he pretended to whine.
She gave a half-hearted shrug and began riding him in earnest. His question was forgotten amidst the drumming of her heart and the roaring of sensuous pleasure in her veins. Yeah, she’d needed a man in a bad way. Lucky for her, Taylor Burnes had dropped in.
Celeste was not only one hot chick but a crazy one, Taylor told himself. He’d never known a woman who didn’t want to get naked with him and make out. After all, men were visual creatures, they needed to keep their eyes on breasts, nipples and cunts. Apparently, Celeste was having none of that or else she wanted to drive him out of his mind with wanting to look at her.
His thoughts faded as tension ratcheted up in his body. Who cared if Celeste was crazy as long as she did him good?
She moaned deep in the back of her throat, and he watched as she swallowed hard. Her bow-shaped lips parted and her breasts jiggled under her robe. If only he knew what she looked like underneath. Sweat dotted his forehead, and he saw a few drops of moisture on her upper lip. He desperately wanted to lick it off and taste it. Instead, he settled for planting his palms on the curve of her waist.
Celeste rode him harder. Her channel muscles clenched around his shaft, and that was all he needed to spend himself. His body shook with a cataclysmic force then he lay utterly still, his eyes closed, his ears attuned to Celeste. She breathed in short, raspy gasps of air then slowly, she stilled, bent at the waist and fell over him. Her head rested on his upper chest, and her hair spilled over onto his face. Yeah, he must have died and gone to heaven, but just as soon as Celeste regained her bearings, she’d throw him out.
* * * *
“Is this how you teach manners?”
Celeste lifted her head and gazed into Taylor’s eyes. “Emily Post wouldn’t have dared teach manners during sex. It seems that must have been a taboo subject.”
He gave her a wicked grin. “Sex is no longer taboo.” Abruptly, he lost his smile. “We forgot something,” he said as if the world were falling down.
“Geez, I can’t imagine what that would be.”
He sighed and slapped his forehead with the heel of his palm. “A condom.”
“Oh, you don’t need that with me.” She would never have children. Not after an accident when she was twelve, that had left her scarred and unable to conceive, so she didn’t have to worry about birth control. Celeste had become serious about a guy, Mark, only once, but when he’d seen her naked, his eyes had bulged in shocked astonishment, and he fled as fast as his legs could carry him. Since then, Celeste had always made love with her clothes on. The accident and its damage were also reasons behind the Kiss Me blog. On the blog, she could have a real and daring sex life even if it was only a fantasy.
His brows furrowed. “You’re on birth control?”
She saw the immediate relief in his gaze. “Yeah,” she said blithely, wishing that were true. Reluctantly, she raised her torso and slipped off him then padded to the bathroom. She’d give him a grace period—about as long as it took to relieve herself and wash her face—then she’d make sure he left the apartment.
As she washed her hands and gazed at her kiss-swollen lips in the vanity mirror, she realised she’d left on her computer monitor, and Taylor would be able to see what she’d written. Her heart sank, and her mind whirled. What did she do now? She’d been in the bathroom for three or four minutes. That was plenty of opportunity for him to read the Kiss Me page that was on the screen. Wouldn’t she die of shame if he’d read it?
She stormed into the living room, hoping to catch him in the act. He wasn’t there. With a sinking feeling, she checked the kitchen, but in her heart, she knew Taylor was gone.
Dejected, Celeste sank on the couch, tears welling in her eyes. She’d wanted to be the one to end this interlude, and the hard realisation hit her full force. Taylor had been using her. She’d known that as soon as he marched past her and shut the door. He hadn’t been in any more trouble than she was, and his excuse about hiding out had been just that—an excuse to sleep with her. If only she’d been able to make love to him without her clothes, like the other women in his life no doubt had. But her housecoat was the only protection she had against pitying looks. The few times she had sex, she kept her upper clothes on. She didn’t need to scare away the few men she slept with. Celeste wanted good memories. That’s all she’d have in this lifetime. Some good memories…
She set her elbows on her knees, cupped her face in her hands and sobbed.
Chapter Three
In the apartment parking lot, Taylor mentally slapped himself countless times. He needed a place to stay for the weekend, and now that he’d had sex with Celeste, he wanted more. But she was one crazy chick, coming on to him as strongly as she had. What bothered him the most was she hadn’t taken off her clothes.
A light drizzle began. The drops fell onto the hood and roof of his two-door car with a metallic tinkle. He leaned one hip against the front fender and watched Celeste’s apartment building. Most of the lights were out, but he counted carefully to the third floor and over six. They were still on in hers.
Once again, he was ashamed of himself. He’d run out on her. Dismayed, he breathed in the scent of rain, early grass and the coming spring—a time for making a fresh start. He’d been so hot for Celeste and getting her to make love to him, he’d hardly considered her needs. What had she been hiding under the pink robe? Taylor couldn’t begin to guess. A hard lump rose in his throat. He actually liked Celeste Heplewich, if he ignored the man-hungry reputation her mother had received. He’d heard the stories about her divorced mother, Judge Hanks, chocolate and whipped cream during sex, but they were just stories, weren’t they? Perhaps gossip for people who didn’t have anything better to do. Somehow he couldn’t imagine Celeste indulging in those items.
Taylor wanted a cigarette so badly, but when he patted his breast pocket, he found it empty. He didn’t smoke that often, only when things got out of hand. Like now. He heaved a deep sigh. Gossip could hurt families and kids. When he’d been fifteen, he’d run away from home to find his elusive mother, not for his own sake but his sisters’. Tanya and Nellie had been torn apart when they’d seen others at school with their mothers. When he’d seen their melancholy faces, it had ripped his heart in two. No child deserved to be without a mother.
He shifted from one foot to the other, comforted in the darkness and the light rain. The full moon and the twinkling stars amidst a bank of clouds provided comfort too. When he’d run away, he lived in LA for several months, but there had been no sign of his mother. Was she dead or had she remarried? Taylor had no idea. He hadn’t received a prodigal son’s welcome from his father when he’d returned, nor had he expected one. Instead, his father had soundly beaten him and told him if he wanted to disappear then he should do it permanently. The scars, both from the beating and those days in hot, humid hell, still remained on his body and his soul.
Running his hands through his short hair, he smiled grimly. Because of the coin, he was half a million dollars richer and he could begin to vanquish the sad memories. All he had to do was protect his penny. He fished in his pocket where he’d kept it by itself. Alarm began to ring in his head. The penny wasn’t there. Where could it have gone?
He remembered his jeans had fallen around his ankles in the heat of the moment when wealth had been the farthest from his mind. Had the wheat penny fallen out then? His heart was in his throat. If he didn’t find the penny, then he’d be broke again with no way of claiming his money.
* * * *
“Friday night and a man all gone,” Celeste mumbled to herself. After her crying jag a
nd several moments of self-pity that hadn’t done anything to cheer her, she’d bucked herself up, showered and sat at her computer. Then she’d remembered the cup of cocoa on the kitchen counter. It was cold, but she’d throw it out in a minute and make herself a fresh, hot one.
Men sucked, although she now had a new entry for Kiss Me. Should she write the truth or should she embellish it? If Taylor ever read it, would he be able to see himself pictured there as the man who’d made up an excuse about hiding then made out with her? She started typing:
Truth is stranger than fiction. Incredibly, Friday nights can be fun, with lots of sex. Unexpectedly, Mr. Hunk came to the door and pushed past me, claiming he needed a place to hide out. It was an excuse really. I fell in love with the looks of him, and we were mesmerised by each other. I felt like the typical girl in a romance novel—head over heels infatuated with a good-looking guy.
He said, “If your eyes, hair and ankles are so beautiful, then what does the rest of you look like?” I’ve never heard that line before, and I have to give him credit for its originality.
Want to hear some juicy details about my Friday night sexual encounter? His stubble rasped against my soft cheek, which turned me on even more. His broad shoulders seemed to be made from solid rock, and oh my, but his cock pressed hard against me through the fabric of his jeans. He really does have a big penis, all inviting, and when he thrust inside me, I just about screamed from sheer delight. I felt like a dominatrix playing her part, ordering him to play by my rules since he’s in my house. Feminine power thrilled through me. It’s a new angle for me, playing the boss during sex. I think I like it.
But he left in a hurry, without a goodbye. I went to the bathroom, and by the time I came out, he was gone, disappeared into proverbial thin air. Men use you then they dump you. Men suck. So much for Friday night.
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