by Elise Faber
Everything inside her body suddenly turned to molten lava.
“At least…” he added and tilted his head slightly toward her. That sly smile widening even more. “…I know I was enjoying myself.”
“It’s not that,” she blurted out and caught herself in time before the rest spilled out in an embarrassing rush.
He didn’t move closer or try to put a hand on her. Yet, with the heat radiating off his body, she imagined snuggling in close and luxuriating in his warmth. Keely ached to have those arms wrapped tight around her body, finally squeezing out the last of her fears and doubts.
“Tell me who hurt you, cher,” he whispered and slipped his hand into hers.
Oh the irony. Brock smiled as Keely’s next breath came out in a long sigh as he caressed the tight muscles in her lower back. Not a dab of the memory she described had remained in his mind. That stung. But holding her helped him connect again. He wished he could remember. Damn, did he wish that a lot.
“Are you still listening to me?” Keely asked in a husky whisper.
Her teeth grazed his ear, and the rest flew right out of his head, riding a wave of unquenchable desire.
“I think so?”
She chuckled and sucked lightly on the lobe. The sensation of being drawn into her mouth made him huff a breath in surprise as she slid off his lap to her knees.
“That’s really not the best way to help me concentrate on a conversation,” he said as she pushed his legs wider and pressed her chest between them to bend her face toward his aching body.
“We still have time for that,” she said with a wicked smile as she grasped hold of him with one hand and bent to take her pleasure, and his.
Both candles Higgins had lit were burned low as Brock’s body and mind sank deeper into the afterglow. The floor wasn’t comfortable, even lying on their robes, but he couldn’t quite stand on his shaking legs.
Keely lay draped across his chest, one finger moving around and around his belly button as if in a trance. The moon’s full face filled the window and brightened the room with silver light.
“So, you were talking about your ex-boyfriend,” he said and ran his fingers lightly over her bare shoulder.
She flinched as if he’d pinched her and growled.
“Ugh, way to ruin a perfectly good orgasm buzz, Brock,” she said and grimaced. “Yeah, yeah, Bob.” She pushed to a sitting position. “Let’s get off the floor first. No sense in being a masochist about it while I tell you about that dipshit.”
December, Eleven years ago
“His name was, Bob.” Keely hadn’t spoken her horrible ex-boyfriend’s name in two years, and yet it still tasted completely disgusting on her tongue.
“Bob?” Brock said and both his eyebrows rose. “Bob the pilot?”
“This is the real world,” she said and poked him lightly in the chest as he tried to hide his laugh. “Not Tom Cruise and Top Gun.” She also smiled a tiny bit in spite of how much talking about her ex made her nauseous. “Not all pilots can have super suave names like Brock.”
“Well, that’s true,” he said and caught her poking finger, and then his hand slipped up her arm to the wrist and pressed her palm firmly to his chest. “They reserve Brock for the very best.”
“Oh hell,” she said and rolled her eyes. “Let go.” Keely pulled on her arm but not with much effort. His grip on her wrist felt too good.
“Nope,” he said and brought her hand up to his mouth.
His lips were super warm against her palm, and the tingling kiss lingered as he pressed it over his heart again. “Not until you tell me more about Bob the dumbass pilot.”
She snorted a half laugh then. “I wish being a dumbass had been his only sin.”
He tugged again, and this time she went with him back toward the sofa. They moved together at a comfortable pace, and he lightly bumped her hip with his. That made her smile wider as she sat.
“Bob being a regular old dumbass would’ve saved me a ton of cash,” she said with a sigh and picked at one of the sofa threads.
“How so?” he asked and settled himself against the cushions.
“Bob had a very nasty gambling problem he neglected to tell me about until after about a year into our relationship. At the time, I’d a huge student loan I was killing myself to pay off. Working extra shifts, taking on more work than a body should. Dead on my feet and leaving him alone more than he preferred. All in the hope of us having a beautiful wedding in Hawaii once I was debt-free.”
“Oh dayum,” Brock said and patted the hand he still held.
“Yeah, I was going to surprise him,” she said and hated how her voice trembled.
Brock squeezed her fingers, and she cleared her throat to get on with the awfulness.
“So one weekend he freaked out, up and disappeared with my credit cards I’d just finished paying off, and hit Vegas,” she said and shook her head and made a mushroom cloud expanding motion with both hands. “He blew my whole world to hell with a round of dice.” That same old tightness of worry about bills and money and how to fix the next problem after he’d run them all sky high sped her heart. “Did I mention he utterly sucked at gambling?”
Brock snorted a laugh then sobered. “Sorry, totally not funny.”
She placed her hand back in his, and he smiled.
“I can laugh about it a little now.”
“Only a little?”
She pinched two fingers almost together and peeked at him through the sliver of space, and he smiled wider.
“Well, looks like I showed up at exactly the right time then,” he said and leaned closer.
Keely wanted so badly to back away from him, but damn he smelled so good and seemed so nice, too nice actually.
Too good to be true.
You’ll be gone soon. Karen’s voice echoed in her head. What’s one night of fun going to hurt?
His lips were right there. Waiting. Slightly pursed and looking so soft. He sucked the bottom one between his teeth for a second then let it pop free. It sat on his face, moistened and ready, and her brain filled with that crazy white noise again that said over and over, starving.
“Look, Keely,” he whispered. “I get that you’ve been hurt. But…” His thumb gently stroked back and forth over the top of her hand, and he moved to close the distance even more. Yet still gave her the space she needed to focus. “…whatever ghost you’re still wrestling with, I’m not him.”
The air in the room seemed to thin and that space between them filled with his heat. Her every breath full of the spiciness of him, as if she’d inhaled a whiff of pepper. Sparks arced where their skin touched but didn’t completely ignite. Not yet. The unknowns sent shiver-inducing vibrations racing over her body. Every nerve vibrated with anticipation, ravenous for a reason to burn.
Brock’s breath sucked in hard and fast as she gripped the back of his neck to pull him into her kiss. He didn’t resist, only smiled wider against her mouth. They fell backward into a fury of biting teeth, searching lips, and a tangle of arms and legs on the sofa.
Keely hadn’t had a fire lit in her belly that strong in so long she hardly recognized the sensation.
Brock’s hands were everywhere and nowhere all at once, holding and caressing yet respecting the boundaries of her most intimate spaces. Keely groaned in frustration. She wanted him to break her apart and melt her down so that cold, lingering knot made of pain and old insecurities could drain away.
Free me.
“Huh?” he paused and blinked eyes way gone on lust at her. “What did you say?”
Oh hell.
“My bedroom is the door on the right.”
CHAPTER NINE
The barest hint of memory tickled Brock’s brain. His hand that had been drawing lazy circles on her back paused, and he suddenly needed to adjust his position and concentrate harder. He didn’t want the memory to simply slip away without a fight. “The room had white things over the windows,” he said in a dazed sort of way as he rose up
on one elbow. “They were these sheer deals that moved when the fan turned, right?”
“Yes,” Keely said and pressed her hands to his face. “Do you really remember?”
Brock rolled over on the bed and pulled the covers up on them before tucking one hand behind his head, concentrating.
“I think so,” he said and closed his eyes, trying to picture the room again using that flash of soft whiteness and sensation of hot skin and sweat that had turned him rock hard again. “It was really late by then, I think.”
She nodded. “Close to midnight,” she said and pointed toward the window. “Like it is now.”
“There was some slinky, soft stuff on you,” he said and rubbed his fingers together, trying to coax the image closer. “Here.” He brushed a hand over her lower stomach and hip and pulled her closer before pressing a kiss over her heart. “And here, in white, or maybe a pale color, I think.”
“They were a very light pink set of silky undies,” she said with a sigh and pushed her hands into the hair on the back of his head. “Tell me what else you remember. Just let it all come back. Don’t force it.” She raised his head from the attentions he’d been giving her chest. “And I’ll act it out for you.”
He laughed. “Now that’s my kind of memory stimulation.” The rest was lost to the fact that her hands were growing busier on his body. Cupping, caressing, and taking a firm hold to guide him exactly where she wanted him.
December, eleven years ago
Typical pilot. So alpha. Keely laughed silently as Brock hopped to his feet without another word, her hand gripped tightly in his, as he led the way toward her bedroom. She’d keep it to herself just how slick her thighs were growing, since he’d find out on his own soon enough.
The lamps in the room were off, but the streetlights spilled silver through the sheers and over the floor. The gauzy material swirled and danced around the big windows, seeming to be full of a spirit all their own, with each turn of the fan. She loved to stand there after a night shift holding a warm cup of tea with the French doors thrown wide. The usually stuffy air of New Orleans turned crisp and clean after being filtered by the night, and she’d watch the sun rise on a winter morning while those curtains danced.
Brock wrapped Keely in a comfortable embrace, rocking them into the rhythm of a song only he heard, but she could sense its every beat. Each note pulsed against her bones and pushed out an echoing tingle of pressure that danced over her face and chest.
Warm puffs of air caressed her ear as if he were humming. “Is this okay?” he asked as his big, hot hands pressed against her back, one on top of the other and guided each turn. The music of their bodies melded together in each press of hips to stomach and synced with her heartbeats.
Was it okay to feel this way in the arms of a stranger? Brock didn’t feel like a stranger to her heart, and her breath sped with anticipation in a way it never had before.
“Yes, very okay,” she whispered and met him halfway to the kiss.
They turned in slow, undulating circles, and the wispy material tickled the back of her knees in each twirl. Every stroke of tongue mirrored the way his body moved against hers, gentle but with a purpose. Reverent determination. To have. His teeth raked over her lip, and she shivered. To leave his mark.
A ribbon of fear raced through her veins. This man would undo all Keely’s carefully built walls. She could feel the dynamite being placed in the cracks that would blow her to pieces with each press of lips. The smart thing would be to send him packing.
“Can you feel it too?” he whispered as they paused next to the door.
“Feel what?” She blinked rapidly to come out of the fog of desire slowly smothering her will to turn him away.
Brock unlatched the door and opened the room to the night. A lonely wail of sax floated in and tightened the knots in her belly. The flame over the door of the café across the street glittered off the horn as its master swayed. Of course it would be a love song, one she adored too. “Like we’re the only two people in the world right now,” he said and pulled her close as he rested back against the doorframe. Her breasts mounded on his chest as his knee pushed between her thighs, supporting her completely.
They rolled back and forth in a figure eight to the music, hips locked in tight, and his soft sounds of need their harmony in the song. Somehow, through all that thickening desire, Keely saw them, happy, years from this one night, and laughing as they reminisced on this moment and about how she’d blurted out the exact words he’d needed to hear in their first kiss to be brave enough to stay. Most of all, how she’d fought and lost the battle of desire and would always lose to him. And Keely did something she hadn’t done in a very long time. She took a chance.
“I feel it,” she whispered and held his face. Their next kiss held something new, the beginnings of a promise.
His smile turned wide and bright in the darkness, and she melted.
“I have a confession,” he said as his fingers traced the skin at the waist of her skirt.
Oh no.
“Let me guess. You aren’t really a hotshot pilot named Brock…” she said with a smile she hoped hid the rising panic. “…but a coon-ass-gator-wrangler that still lives with his mama and forty cats and dogs, who collects carousel horses.”
“Hell no,” he answered with a huff of laughter. “I’m totally all that hotshot pilot stuff and a bag of chips.”
“Dear Lord.” She rolled her eyes and tried not to react to how prickles of pleasure raced along her spine as he stroked each bump with lick-like flicks of his fingertips. Her shirt had started to bunch on his wrists by the time he reached her shoulder blades.
“Keely,” he breathed her name out and stilled as he met her gaze. All the heat building between them had turned to an inferno in his eyes. “This won’t be a one-night stand for me.”
Keely lost her ability to form words and had to settle for a squeaking noise and raised eyebrows to encourage him to elaborate.
“I wasn’t expecting that, you know,” he said softly and pushed her arms up over her head as they turned.
“What were you expecting?”
“A fun romp with some smokin’ little naughty nurse about to ship out.” Her back bumped against the doorframe as his hands slid higher, taking the shirt over her head. “Then a well-earned walk of shame back to the house at dawn with a hell of a story for the guys at the hangar tomorrow.” He tossed her shirt on the chair then threaded their fingers together next to her ears and pressed her to the wall. A gust tousled her hair, and his eyelids fluttered as the tendril caressed his cheek.
“Wow, your honesty makes me feel so respected,” she said and tried to wiggle free, but he had pinned her exactly right. His knee shoved between her thighs pressed up as she tried to step out of his arms, and she gasped at the friction.
“Cher, you have my complete admiration,” he said with a wicked smile as he ground the evidence against her belly. “And I plan to show you more than once exactly how much respect is involved.”
Keely opened her mouth to argue, but Brock swallowed her next smartass comment. He ravaged her mouth in a slow, deep piercing of tongue as his hips rolled against her with a moan. By the time he broke the kiss, her bra had joined the shirt along with his belt.
“Where?” he gasped as her skirt hit the floor.
She tugged on his fly, popping each button open with sharp jerks but never letting her gaze leave his face. “Outside.”
His eyebrows rose as she backed toward the little table and chairs on the balcony, clad only in the tiny pink thong. She gave him a push to sit, and he laughed. He reached behind his head and pulled his shirt off then flopped down in the chair, bringing her to straddle his lap. He pushed her arms over her head and nibbled her throat before pulling the still-warm shirt down to cover her body.
“Can’t have anyone looking at you,” he whispered and smoothed the cotton over her back. “I don’t share well.”
His arms slipped around her back to hug he
r close. Keely’s arm looped around his neck. She’d never had such a sensation of being possessed by a man, utterly and completely desired. They were bare to the sky yet totally alone in their tiny bubble of lust, now full of the little something more that kept digging its way deeper with his every kiss.
“Is this okay?” Keely teased as she reached between them and fluttered her fingertips over the thin cotton of his boxers.
“Is that even a real question?” he moaned and covered her hand with his to squeeze her fingers around his body. “Killing me, woman.”
Keely ached to rub against him. Spread too wide on his lap, all her pent-up desire perfumed the heated space between them. In that position, the thong became even more pointless. She sat exposed and wanting, hips grinding back and forth to get closer to him as he bit the bend of her neck.
Someone said, “Oh God,” as his fingers slipped inside the strip of satin and a rough knuckle traced her swollen lips. No fumbling explorations like the other times she’d been with the dumbass or a half-dozen other teenage adventurers like him. No immediate backache from doing all the damn work.
Brock had her cradled against his chest, supported, all while his hand still worked her body into a complete frenzy to let go. “You’ve never had a man wake that tiger inside,” he whispered as his finger found the ache she needed rubbed away most of all. Not a question. He just knew, and she’d never told a soul.
“No,” she said, and it came out in a high whine, almost a keening of need. “Never.”
Brock grinned on her mouth as she rolled against his hand and buried her fingers in his hair. “I’ll have you begging me to tame you.”
“Not if you can’t shut your mouth long enough,” Keely growled, and his head lolled as she gripped him harder, but his hand never faltered.
“Careful what you wish for, cher,” he said and held up a condom with two fingers between them. “Now say please.”
Keely snatched the package and ripped it open with her teeth. He started to laugh, but it ended in a huff with his shoulders hunched toward her as she roughly rolled it on.