The Red Shoe Chronicles : A Fantasy Romance Anthology

by N. R. Larry

  All in all, not bad.

  Coherent thought fluttered away again when Corvin fluttered light kisses down the side of her neck, even as his hands and hips pushed up against hers even more firmly. The length of his erection burned her, and she strained to get even closer to him.

  Nipping gently at her bottom lip, Corvin teased Jenna’s mouth with his own for a moment before returning to kiss her deeply. At some unspoken signal, he slid his hands back down under her ass to hold her up as he stepped away from the wall and moved toward the bedrooms in the back.

  I wish I really had put on the green lingerie.

  She only had a moment to think about it, though, as Corvin was depositing her on the rough-hewn four-poster bed in his room. Stepping back, he reached up to strip off his shirt.

  Jenna watched him wide-eyed from her position on the pillows, as if she were frozen in place, like some timid virgin watching a man undress for the first time.

  Certainly the first time I’ve seen a man like that undress for me.

  When he slid one knee onto the mattress, Jenna managed to break the spell keeping her immobile long enough to sit up and reach out. Her questing fingers met the ridges of his stomach, and suddenly it was as she had passed the statue-spell along to him. A single shiver ran across his abdomen, and then he remained motionless, watching her, waiting to see what she would do next.

  For all that he could pick her up, pin her to a wall, or carry her to another room, Corvin had actually been very gentle. Even the roughest of his kisses had been designed to give pleasure, not pain.

  Now he was pausing, allowing Jenna to set the pace between them.

  A slow smile curved her lips.

  He was handing her the power, much as he had handed her the keys to his motorcycle earlier, trusting her to find her way back with it, to take appropriate care of it. To drive it, even if it was the first time she had done so—to learn how it responded to her touch and to get it home where it belonged.

  She brushed her fingertips along the hard planes of his abdomen, watching for the tiny tremor that gave away his shiver.

  I wonder how long it will take me to learn how Corvin responds?

  And what would it mean to get him home where he belongs?

  Even the slightest touch made a burning point of contact between them. Corvin could feel every single fingertip as Angelina feathered them across his stomach, and his breath caught in his throat.

  He had planned to come in here, strip the clothes away from both of them, and pound into her with everything he had.

  One look at her face when he took off his shirt, and those plans had blown away like dust. All that was left was the desire to let her do whatever she wanted to. So he sat as still as possible while she explored his abdomen with one hand, every brush of her fingers sending a jolt of electricity through him.

  Her other hand joined the first, smoothing up his chest and back down over his shoulders, sliding down along the contours of his biceps and capturing his hands. Angelina sat up until she was on both knees, then dropped his hands long enough to reach down and lift the hem of her own shirt.

  It was a nightshirt, he realized for the first time. Not the t-shirt she had worn with jeans earlier, when they had gone out on the bike. Not the red number she had worn at the warehouse, either. And her face had been scrubbed of makeup. She smelled fresh and clean, straight from the shower, though he couldn’t imagine how she had managed it before he got back to the apartment.

  Still, he was glad. This was a better look on her.

  And then all rational thought disappeared entirely as she lifted the shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor beside the bed.

  She still wore demure, white lace panties, but that was all—and under her clothes, her curves were even softer, lusher, than he had anticipated.

  She glanced up at him from under her lashes, her gaze shy, even as she leaned toward him. Without breaking eye contact, he reached out to mimic her earlier actions, brushing his fingertips across her abdomen. But instead of running his hands over her shoulders, he cupped both breasts in his hands, where they rested, heavy and warm, as he circled his thumbs around and across her nipples.

  The darkened circles peaked, and he bent over to take one into his mouth, first flicking his tongue against it, then sliding his lips across the pebbled skin.

  Angelina dropped her head back and moaned deep in her throat, and Corvin’s cock strained against his jeans.

  To hell with taking it slow.

  Chapter 10

  The slightly roughened tip of Corvin’s thumb continued circling one nipple, even as his other hand lifted Jenna’s other breast to give his mouth better access. His tongue triggered tiny sparks of electricity that seemed to shoot straight down from her nipple to pool in her abdomen, settling as a hot, heavy ache deep inside her.

  Closing her eyes, Jenna arched her back, determined to revel in every sensation.

  If this is my wild New Orleans night, I want to enjoy every minute of it.

  She had chosen the right man for it, too. Corvin’s hands and mouth were practiced, his touch deft, knowing exactly where and how to touch her to elicit the most response.

  And this is probably just the beginning.

  The thought caused her to whimper, and Corvin’s response—a deep, guttural noise—elicited an even stronger physical response from Jenna, as if their bodies were locked in an endless feedback loop, every touch the catalyst for a deeper ache. Suddenly she needed to be closer to him, skin-to-skin, with more than just his mouth and fingertips against her.

  At some point, Corvin had finished sliding onto the bed, one knee between her inner thighs. The heat from his leg, resting only centimeters away, burned through the plain white panties she wore. Pulling her nipple out of his mouth, she pushed back against his shoulders until he sat back on his heels, kneeling in front of her.

  His eyes, heavy and lidded, regarded her without giving anything away.

  The rest of his body told her everything she needed to know. He still wore his jeans, but the tell-tale bulge straining against the fabric drew her own gaze. Rising to her own knees, she leaned forward to flick her tongue against the waistband, then up the center line that ran between his abs. Again, Corvin stilled at her touch. Jenna couldn’t even feel him breathing.

  She moved with agonizing slowness, not certain if she was torturing Corvin, or herself.

  Or both of us.

  By the time she slid up high enough so that her breasts followed her mouth, grazing lightly against his abdomen on the way up, everything about Jenna felt hot enough to spontaneously combust. Twining her arms around his neck, she pressed herself against him, willing that heat to transfer itself to him and return to her with even more intensity.

  Every inch of her blazed against Corvin, and still he did not move.

  When she pressed her mouth against his, her tongue gliding across his bottom lip, Corvin finally drew in a deep breath, then gathered her in his arms, pulling her even closer to him, lifting her up and wrapping her legs around his waist, until she could feel the hard length of him pressing against him through the remaining layers of their clothing.

  When he pushed her back into the mattress and deepened their kiss, Jenna relinquished control to him.

  I’m pretty sure that’s not what Angelina would do.

  But it was what Jenna wanted. As Corvin reversed her motion, sliding his mouth down her stomach to the elastic band of her panties, Jenna decided that although allowing Corvin to take her to bed was definitely something Angelina would do, she was going to spend the next little while doing what Jenna wanted.

  And right now, what Jenna wanted was to let Corvin do whatever he had planned next.

  For all that he had planned to ignore the voice in the back of his head telling him to take it slow, Corvin had found that every nerve ending in his body felt electrified by Angelina’s delicate touch—so much so that it was all he could do to go still as she touched him, sending shocks of desi
re shooting through him. He was pinned in place by her exploration of him, in a way he never had been with any other woman.

  As much as he might want to, he wasn’t free to explore her—not fully—until the moment she slipped her tongue into his mouth and wrapped her limbs around him. He knew, somehow, that before that, she needed to be in control. She needed their encounter to be on her terms.

  He also knew the instant she handed that control back to him, as clearly as if she had said as much. She met him, touch for touch, but when she sank back into the comforter atop the mattress, she was completely and utterly his.

  Just the thought of it made him throb with need. He stood long enough to remove the rest of his own clothing. His cock stood hard, ready for her.

  And Corvin knew exactly what he wanted to do—not for himself, though.

  Not yet.

  No. First he wanted to watch her come undone for him.

  Hooking the waistband of her panties with his thumbs, he drew them down, dropping them onto the floor beside her nightshirt.

  As he settled in between her legs, raising her knees and draping them across his shoulders, the scent of her surrounded him, sweet and hot. Gently, he slicked his thumb along the folds of her, opening her to his touch and smiling as she trembled at his touch.

  This was the Angelina he wanted. Soft, hot, open to him.

  And so damned wet.

  Gently, he pressed his middle finger against her until it slipped inside. The heat surrounding his finger combined with her moan to make his cock ache, and he followed his finger with his mouth, gliding his tongue up, until it brushed against her clit, and she jerked in response.

  Yeah. That’s it.

  God, she tasted so damn good.

  Part of Jenna’s mind was busy reminding her that she had just met this man, that she didn’t know anything about him, and that this might be a bad idea—right up until the moment he slipped a finger inside her and began tracing lazy circles around her clitoris with his tongue. Her thoughts shut down, turning to heated embers that settled in the very core of her, pulsing in time with his finger slipping in and out, his mouth working against her.

  She could feel the pressure of her orgasm building inside her as Corvin played her body, stoking that internal fire with his hands and mouth. Jenna buried one hand in his hair, part of her uncertain if she wanted to touch him, too, or merely hold him in place to make sure he didn’t stop.

  To her surprise, she found she was gasping the words as she rocked in time to the rhythm he set. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

  As Corvin increased the pace and the pressure of his hands and mouth against her, the heat inside Jenna first spread throughout her body, then drew down to a pinpoint centered around Corvin’s touch against her, a bright star of concentrated pleasure too dense to be contained.

  When she came, it exploded through her like glass shattering, shards of pleasure slicing into her until she screamed Corvin’s name, then leaving her trembling in the aftermath.

  By the time she could open her eyes again, Corvin was kneeling between her legs, unrolling a condom over the length of him.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  Still shivering, Jenna considered stopping him, asking him to wait—but discovered that her orgasm hadn’t dimmed her desire for him.

  “Yes,” she whispered instead, opening herself to him. She reached out to help guide him into her, gratified by the way his cock jumped when she touched him.

  Jenna closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling of being stretched and filled as he thrust into her, pushing as far inside as he could. She lifted her hips, rising to meet him and whispering his name.

  As he slid home, a name tumbled from his mouth on a moan.

  “Angelina.”

  Jenna froze for a heartbeat. Corvin’s muscular arms rested on either side of her head, holding him up as he moved in and out of her.

  Part of her wanted to ignore it—to let Corvin take her over the edge again, screaming his name.

  But he wouldn’t ever shout her name.

  Wouldn’t even whisper it.

  This is not my night.

  It was, of course. Her night. Her body. Her shrieking orgasm.

  But as far as Corvin was concerned, she was Angelina.

  For a moment, Jenna had forgotten that.

  Not again.

  She couldn’t get so distracted by the sexy man whose bed she was sharing that she forgot to keep up her masquerade.

  What would Angelina do?

  Take control of the situation.

  “Stop,” she said. “My turn.” Carefully, she slipped out from under him, then pointed at the bed. “On your back.”

  The grin he gave her was absolutely wicked. “Yes, ma’am.” Folding his arms behind his head, he leaned back against the pillows, his casual pose belied by his hungry expression as he watched her.

  When she straddled him, his jaw clenched.

  Take control.

  “Don’t hold back,” Jenna ordered, sliding down until he again filled her. “I want to feel you come.” She rocked forward, then back, the toes of the bright red shoes digging into the mattress. “Hard.”

  With a groan, Corvin gave up any pretense at maintaining his casual pose and gripped her hips hard. With every movement, Corvin swelled inside her, matching her stroke for stroke. When she added a roll to her hips, she knew it would be his undoing.

  She watched his face as he closed his eyes and pumped harder and harder into her body, his hands pulling her ass close so he was buried as deep in her as he could be.

  But it wasn’t her name he said as he shuddered through his own orgasm.

  Chapter 11

  Jenna was awakened the next morning by the weight of an arm across her waist, coupled with the feel of an erection pressed into the small of her back. She half expected Corvin to say or do something, but his deep breathing told her that he was still mostly asleep.

  As well he should be, after last night.

  She stretched a little, enjoying the slight ache in muscles that hadn’t been used in far too long.

  Still, while he was sleeping, she needed to see if she could get some more information out of Angelina. Jenna had managed to avoid answering any questions last night, but she didn’t think her avoidance techniques would do much good in the cold, hard light of day.

  Well. Hard, anyway.

  She wiggled her ass a little, just to see if Corvin would respond in his sleep.

  Oh, yeah. Definitely.

  Part of her—a part closely connected to the bit she was pressing against Corvin—wanted to stay right where she was and continue this experiment until he woke up. But she forced herself to slide out from under his arm, carefully lifting his hand and moving it, then waiting for his breathing to grow even again.

  Stopping only long enough to grab Corvin’s t-shirt and her underwear from atop the pile of their clothes, Jenna tiptoed out into the hallway and closed the bedroom door.

  By the time she got to the front door, she had tugged the shirt over her head and the underwear up around her hips. She glanced down at her feet, still wearing the red heels, thinking about her sister’s command not to remove them.

  If last night’s games didn’t dislodge them, why bother taking them off now? With a shrug, she left them on.

  Trying not to make any noise, she slipped out onto the front porch and dialed her sister, muttering to herself as the phone rang on the other end.

  “I cannot believe you put me in this position. I do not have enough information to pull this off. Don’t you dare hide from me, Angelina.”

  By the time her twin finally answered with a sleepy, “Hello?” Jenna had worked herself up into a fury.

  “You tell me everything right now, or I swear, I will march my ass inside right now and confess everything to Corvin. You hear me, Angelina Caroline Riggs?”

  “God, Jen. Slow down. Let me get my coffee.” Angelina yawned loudly.

  “I don’t have time for your
coffee,” Jenna hissed. “Start talking, or I will.”

  “Okay, okay.” Still, Jenna could hear the sound of water running, and could tell Angelina had put her on speaker. “So the other day, I found out—”

  “Not there,” Jenna interrupted. “Start with whatever happened last night and work your way backward. I need to be able to talk about last night first.”

  “Okay.” She could almost hear the wheels in her sister’s head turning as she sorted out what to say. “Last night I showed up at a meeting where Corvin was being invited to take over some now-dead bad-ass’s illegal delivery runs through the swamp.”

  “Through the swamp?” Jenna’s voice squeaked in horror, and her stomach twisted.

  “Not through it through it.” Angelina doubled the phrase for emphasis. “Over the giant bridge that runs through the Atchafalaya swamp between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.”

  “Illegal? So he really is some kind of crook? I can’t do this, Ange,” Jenna announced. “I won’t.”

  That seemed to get her sister’s attention. “You have to. You’ve got to cover for me. Jenna, I could be in real trouble if we get caught. You could be in real trouble.”

  She dropped her voice. “Look. I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into until last night. I thought I was investigating some small-time smuggling. Then I ended up in a room with Gregor Salas and had to run with it.”

  “Do we need to go to the police?”

  “Hell, no. These guys are big-time. Even breathing a word of this to the cops could get us killed. I have to play this out and hope like hell I can find a way out of it.” A spoon clinked in a coffee mug and the sounds of Angelina taking a long first drink traveled through the phone. “I can do this. We’ll be okay. You’ll still have your great vacation. Just give me a day or two to get past this.” Angelina’s tone didn’t match the certainty of her words.