Eat Your Heart Out: A Romance Charity Anthology

by Skye MacKinnon

  His smile widens. “Disappointed?”

  “No! No, not at all. Just...surprised. How come?”

  He shrugs, but I can feel the tension in his neck, in his broad shoulders. “I’ve been working in sex clubs for a long time. I need a change.”

  “And you thought you’d find it in Valentine Lake, Montana?”

  “I did find it in Valentine Lake, Montana. A rather tumbledown ranch with about five thousand acres attached. It’s about fifteen miles from here.”

  “Old Mr. Valentine’s place. I know it. He passed away when I was about ten. There was a rumor he had kids but no one ever claimed the ranch. We all thought someone would buy it, but somehow, no one ever did. It’s just been sitting there ever since, waiting for someone to love it.”

  He leans forward, eyebrow raised. “You’re a romantic, McKenna Brooks.”

  I scoff, even though he’s right, and he knows it. “Never. I’m practical, through and through.”

  “Whatever it takes to get the job done?” He’s laughing at me now, I know, but I don’t mind.

  Why don’t I mind?

  “Running a farm is a big job. You have to know what works and what doesn’t.”

  “I look forward to finding out what works for you,” he says, and heat blooms, low down in my belly. “I want to spend all night learning what gets the job done. If you like being blindfolded, or tied down, or my hands around your throat as I thrust inside you.”

  The air leaves my lungs in a shuddering gasp. That all sounds…dear God, I can’t even put it into words. The squirming sensation in my belly can’t be stated.

  “Are you turned on yet, McKenna?”

  Oh. Turns out it can be stated. So that’s what this is. “Yes,” I breathe.

  “What do you want, McKenna?” he asks, his voice a low, rough caress.

  I swallow. “You.”

  “Good.” He stands up and places me on my feet. “Come with me.”

  I watch him head towards the kitchen, totally confused. “Did you want more wine?”

  “Get in here” is his only response. I frown but follow him anyway.

  I can’t immediately see him as I walk in, and then I gasp as something covers my eyes.

  “It’s my tie,” he says, and I reach up to touch the silk as he knots it gently at the back of my head.

  “Why are you blindfolding me?”

  “You told me you liked it. Remember?”

  I think back and realize I did, or rather, my body did. “I see.” I laugh nervously. “As it were.”

  His lips cover mine, warm and firm, but he pulls away without deepening the kiss, and I make a frustrated noise.

  “This is about indulging your senses, darling. About making sure you’re one hundred percent present in the moment.”

  “Okay.” Through the rising haze of desire, I’m aware that’s the second time he’s called me darling, but I’m too turned on to think about what it means.

  His hand curves around the back of my neck, and his mouth covers mine again, his tongue flicking against my lips until I open for him, touching the tip of my tongue to his before he pulls away again. “Your trust is a gift I don’t take lightly, McKenna.”

  He leads me forward, then his hands settle around my waist, and he lifts me up. I feel the cool kitchen counter under my ass, my dress somewhere around my hips, and then he moves between my thighs, pulling me close against him. The thick roll of his erection pressing against my pussy has me gasping, my head falling back as pleasure rolls, thick and hot, through my veins.

  Something smooth touches my lips. “Open up, McKenna,” he tells me, and the command in his voice has my lips parting as heat builds between my thighs. A cool, ripe cherry enters my mouth, and I bite down, careful of the pit, moaning as the taste explodes across my tongue.

  Something else smooth brushes against my chin, cooler than the cherry. Glass?

  “Spit out the pit,” he tells me, and I hear the tinkle as the stone hits glass. Then his mouth covers mine, and his groan tells me he likes cherry-flavored me. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, burying my fingers in his hair, holding him against me as his lips move on mine, his tongue exploring my mouth. His hands wrap around me, pushing my dress up to my waist, and I gasp as the cool counter presses against my heated skin. Then he keeps going, his hands smoothing up over my torso, taking my dress with them.

  “Arms up,” he murmurs against my mouth, and my dress leaves my body entirely. And then, he steps away.

  I reach for him but find nothing but empty air.

  I reach up to the blindfold, desperate to see where he is, if he’s gone. He wouldn’t have left me, would he? Not now.

  “Don’t,” he says, and I freeze. “Put your hands flat on the countertop.”

  I take a breath and do as I’m told. Once again, I’m taking orders from a man. Not just any man, though. This is Gibson. One way or another, I’ve been letting him order me around, at least sexually, almost since the moment we met. I still don’t know how I feel about that, but right now, my clit is throbbing and need twists in my pussy, my entire body sensitized, on edge, waiting for his touch.

  I jump when his hands brush over my hips, hooking into the waistband of my panties, drawing them down my legs.

  “You’re right,” he says. “If I’d seen you wearing these in the store, we’d never have made it to the restaurant.”

  His hands slide to my inner thighs, spreading my legs. Cool air wafts over my pussy, and somehow, it turns me on even more.

  “So pretty, McKenna. So pink and wet and ready for my touch.”

  His voice rasps over my skin, rough as gravel at midnight. I can barely breathe, just waiting for him to touch me there. Suddenly, I feel warm air on my pussy, and I know he’s there, right there, just about to—

  The warmth disappears, and I groan with frustration.

  “All in good time, McKenna. Good things come to those who wait.”

  “I’ve waited twenty-six years,” I huff, and his chuckle is utterly unrepentant.

  “If you hadn’t run away from me at Black Cherry Nimba, you would only have had to wait twenty-one years,” he points out as his hand brushes over my shoulder, the sudden contact making me gasp.

  “Is this punishment for walking away then?” I ask. I mean, I was twenty-one. And clearly stupid.

  “No,” he says, firmly. His fingers hooks into the back of my bra, releasing the hooks, and then he draws the fabric away and my nipples tighten painfully in the cool air. “This isn’t punishment, McKenna. This is foreplay.”

  “Oh,” I breathe. A few moments later, I gasp, “How long does foreplay last?”

  “Until you’re too turned on to talk.”

  “Oh.”

  His hands close over my hips and pull me forward so that I’m sitting on the very edge of the counter. His fingers caress my ankles, my knees, my thighs, torturing my body with maddeningly light touches. Every time I think he’s about to touch me somewhere I really want to be touched, he moves away, and when his hand brushes down my back, I moan with frustration.

  My skin is becoming desperately sensitive, so that every touch makes me shiver. “Please,” I beg, not really sure what I want, but completely certain I’m not getting it.

  “What do you want, McKenna?” he asks, never pausing in his light, too light, exploration of my body.

  “Please, I…please.” I can’t find the words. I just know that I need something, something only he can give me.

  “Is this what you want?” he asks, as his hand grazes one of my painfully tight nipples, making me cry out. My body jolts at the unexpected shot of sensation, a silver arrow straight from my nipple to my clit, flooding my pussy with molten heat. “Or this?”

  His fingers slide inside my pussy, and my back arches as my inner muscles clamp down at his touch. I’m right there, on the brink of coming, and yet he doesn’t move. I flex my hips, trying to find the release hovering just out of reach, but he moves with me, and I moan.


  “What do you want, McKenna?” he asks again, but this time I can’t even beg. I’m so close I can’t speak, can’t even think, can’t do anything but be aware of his fingers inside me and the roaring inferno just waiting to crash down and swallow me up.

  He eases his fingers out of me, and my cry is a long, wordless sound of loss. Then his lips touch mine, and he eases off the blindfold. I blink at him, still unable to speak. He stares down at me, and in his eyes, I see the same heat that’s still consuming my body. He pulls me against him, curving my arms around his neck, and I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries me out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  I’m still knotted up inside when he lays me down on my bed, and when he gets up, I barely have the energy to reach for him. But then he starts pulling his clothes off, and my mouth goes dry.

  He has the most spectacular body I’ve ever seen. Broad shoulders and a wide chest, heavy slabs of muscle tapering to a sharply defined eight pack. Eight? I didn’t know that was even possible. Then he slides his pants and underwear off, and I stare.

  He’s huge. I have no idea how that’s going to fit inside me, but my pussy is fluttering just at the sight. He sees me staring, and his chuckle is dark.

  “Don’t worry, McKenna. We’ll fit together just fine.”

  His voice is rough with need, and as he prowls up the bed towards me, my pussy clenches with answering desperation.

  He lowers his head to my pussy, and I gasp for breath. I know what he’s going to do, and in my current state I don’t know if I can handle it. And then his mouth covers my clit and he sucks, and my orgasm crashes over me, my body arching on a scream.

  The tidal wave of pleasure eases, but now he’s licking my pussy, spreading my legs wide and drilling his tongue into my channel. Molten fire fills me once more, sending me right to the edge again, and then his thumb touches my clit, circling it with devastating intent, and I shatter once more.

  He kisses his way up my body, now limp and boneless, licking and nipping at my flesh. I jolt against him, his touch igniting fires under my skin, and when he reaches my mouth, his tongue glides against mine as his hand wraps around my throat, and his cock slides against me, lubricating himself with my juices.

  The head bumps over my clit, and I gasp into his mouth. His hand presses against my throat, just enough for me to feel it, and it shouldn’t be a turn on, but I arch against him, suddenly wild, desperate for him all over again.

  His other hand moves to my breast, squeezing my flesh, pinching my nipple, rolling the aching bud between his fingertips, as the head of his cock presses inside me. He eases back, then presses in a little farther, then back and farther in again. The pleasure is indescribable, and my moans fill the room.

  I arch against him as he fills me deeper and deeper, the initial pain of his invasion falling away as pleasure builds. Soon, the world fades, and I’m only aware of him, his strength and power and heat and hardness. Finally, he’s buried inside me, holding perfectly still while I gasp for air, and I eventually realize he’s also shuddering.

  “God,” he groans. “So tight. So hot. So perfect.”

  He looks down at me. “Are you okay?”

  I’m still struggling to breathe. I’m so full. The pain is gone, but I can feel his cock deep inside me, and I want…more.

  I nod. “I think so. I just...I need…something.”

  His expression turns feral, a smile that looks positively dangerous. “I know what you need.” And he begins to move.

  I cling to him as the aching glide of his cock inside me threatens to drive me insane. The pressure, the friction, the sensation of every single pleasure point inside and outside my body reacting at once. It’s all too much. All I can do is cling to him, and gasp for air, and scream as my pleasure takes me over and turns me into mindless flesh, only aware of him and the slide of his body against mine and the total, mindnumbing pleasure it brings.

  I’m on the brink, right on the edge of something world-altering, and then he slides his hand down over my ass, lifting my thigh over his shoulder, and I think I’m going to die. The change in angle has him hitting entirely new places inside me, making me cry out once more. Then he lowers his head and bites my nipple, his other hand pressing tighter around my throat, and I shatter, a thousand pieces of starglass scattering across the universe, lights exploding behind my eyes as my orgasm tears me apart.

  I’m dimly aware of him growling against my breast as he comes, and then heat spurts inside me, and another orgasm seizes me in its fist, breaking me apart all over again. Waves of pleasure take me over, rolling through my body in a neverending pulse, until finally it recedes, and I lie there, Gibson’s body a heavy weight on top of me, as we both struggle to breathe.

  He rolls to the side, dragging me with him, his arms wrapping around me like he can’t bear to let me go, and I can’t remember the last time I felt this safe and secure.

  “How do you feel?” he asks, and I murmur something unintelligible against his chest. I’m vaguely aware of him chuckling before I pass out.

  Chapter 11

  McKenna, with the worst bedhead she’s ever not cared about…

  I drift slowly to wakefulness and for a moment, I can’t remember where I am or what I’m supposed to be doing. My mind is a delicious blank and it takes me a moment to remember why. Then I stretch and feel the ache in muscles I didn’t know I had, and last night comes back to me, accompanied by a blush so intense I’m pretty sure I smell smoke.

  Damn. So that’s what the big deal is about. I have to admit, it all makes sense now. The memory of what Gibson did to me with his mouth alone has my toes curling, and I reach for him, but his side of the bed retains only the faintest trace of warmth. I frown and look around, but I can’t see him anywhere. Then my stomach lets out a howl worthy of a pack of winter-starved coyotes, and I succumb to the inevitable and get out of bed, with only a bare minimum of grunting and groaning.

  Sex really is a workout.

  Mom won’t be home for hours so I decide to do something I’ve never done in my life: walk around the house naked. Since Gibson isn’t up here, I suspect he’s downstairs. Probably doing something nefarious with cherries. The memory of other things he’s done with cherries have me pressing my thighs together as I head downstairs. I catch sight of myself in the hall mirror and wince, but shake my head and keep going. If Gibson truly intends to stick around, he’s going to see my bedhead eventually. Might as well let him know what he’s in for sooner rather than later, and it’s not like anyone else is around to see it.

  There’s a low murmur of conversation coming from the kitchen and I assume it’s the radio. Until, that is, I push the door open and find myself staring at a scene from The Wolf of Wall Street.

  The kitchen table is covered with open laptops, all showing walls of text or pie charts, or various stages of Powerpoint presentations. Piles of paper are stacked everywhere else, including the countertops, and multiple flip charts fill most of the remaining space. And the room is full, but full, of people.

  I stand in the doorway, frozen to the spot, trying to figure out what I ate or drank that could make me hallucinate like this. I’ve never seen any of these people before in my life.

  They’re all dressed in full business attire, complete with shiny shoes, perfectly knotted ties, and earnest expressions as they talk about God knows what. All I can make out is the odd phrase, like ‘market share’ or ‘competitive advantage’. Would I hallucinate people talking about that? What even is competitive advantage?

  At some point, they become as aware of me as I am of them, and silence falls like an axe.

  “Who the hell are you?” I manage to say, having just remembered that I’m completely naked, but absolutely damn sure I’m not about to let a bunch of refugees from the New York Stock Exchange take over my kitchen without a fight.

  “We’re from Black Cherry,” says a guy who doesn’t look much older than me, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously as he makes a valiant effort
to look at my face and not anything lower down. “We came to help with pie analysis?”

  He holds out a jacket, and I snatch it up and wrap it around me. Thankfully it just about covers all the important bits.

  “Pie analysis?” I can’t help but stare at the biggest flip chart in the room, which is currently showing a huge pie chart. Everyone looks at it, then back at me.

  “Not that kind of pie,” he admits. “Well, kind of that kind of...um…”

  I’m very confused, and so far, talking to this guy isn’t clearing anything up for me. “Who let you into my house?”

  “Mr. Hall,” he says, clearly grateful to be back on a more solid footing. “Our CEO. We’re here to make you a winner!”

  The cheerful smile he summons to accompany these words wilts under my glare, and he turns and hides behind a pile of papers. The neon green sticky note stuck to the top reads ‘Analysis Reports’.

  “Get out of my house,” I tell them, even as fury rises up inside me. “Get out! Get out!”

  Everyone grabs what’s nearest and runs, streaming out the back door like suited lemmings. A couple of ID cards get dropped in the rush. The nearest one to me says ‘Evan Duke, VP Marketing, Black Cherry Enterprises Inc.’

  Gibson’s company is called Black Cherry. I found that out via the internet. Having got to know him, I now know it’s another nod to his mom. Which is all irrelevant. What’s relevant is that he apparently thinks so little of me that he called in his people to figure out how to make my pie better. Oh no, actually it’s more than that. He wants to make my mom’s pie better.

  On the heels of that thought comes another, even worse, one. He knows how important it is to me to have control of my life, to look after myself, and Mom, and the farm. I thought he understood that. I thought he only wanted to order me around in the bedroom.

  Giving suggestions on pie filling is one thing, if you’re a qualified chef. Flying in a bunch of complete strangers to work on something so intensely personal is something else altogether. What the hell do a load of suits know about pie anyway?