Anything but Ordinary
Anything but Ordinary
Madelynne Ellis
Their ‘no strings’ affair is about to get complicated.The Sequel to ANYTHING BUT VANILLA.One disastrous marriage was all it took for Ric Liddell to give up on commitment, so when his ‘no strings’ arrangement withZach Blackwater and Kara North hits the rocks due to a plague of interfering busybodies, he retreats to what feels safe — sex, filthy sex, and even more filthy sex, in no particular order.Zach wants Ric, and not just for their connection in the sack. When his lover hurts him, he’s willing to look elsewhere for the stability he craves — and he doesn’t have to look far, because Kara’s right there.The guys are hot, and the sex is dirty, but for Kara, caught in the middle of Zach and Ric’s emotional absurdity, it’s painfully clear their threesome just can’t last. Unless they can somehow set their fears aside and accept they need one another to be whole.
Anything But Ordinary
MADELYNNE ELLIS
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental.
Mischief
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
The News Building
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London SE1 9GF
www.mischiefbooks.com (http://www.mischiefbooks.com)
An eBook Original 2015
1
Copyright © Madelynne Ellis
Madelynne Ellis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 978-0-00-814879-9
Version: 2015-11-03
Contents
Cover (#ubfdf54ce-ac0f-5ff2-9337-58cbcbd95866)
Title Page (#ua6ac5966-ffca-5579-bfca-9b4b87b23318)
Copyright (#ue490a83a-c4ba-55f4-93e2-15bbb9c53b4c)
Prologue (#uab8f95f0-eadf-5737-aa2b-25b584f87d7f)
Chapter 1 (#u720979ad-169d-5e55-ac08-65d3773b789a)
Chapter 2 (#u71f17ac6-213c-5c02-999c-abc7e1062836)
Chapter 3 (#u65d70a16-3109-509c-919e-cd1edb073fab)
Chapter 4 (#u34f6691a-e239-5725-a949-c738cfe9c145)
Chapter 5 (#u6c846b1d-9d1a-52c9-87e9-237c68fd76dc)
Chapter 6 (#ue1ec7442-f8de-5927-922d-8ba4d07a776a)
Chapter 7 (#u20cf8af7-a2c1-550b-97e0-136428957fd5)
Chapter 8 (#u6b42b327-f3ff-539b-b3e2-8600e12703cb)
Chapter 9 (#ua8c2a55b-ba06-57ff-a4e4-20fb92edccbc)
Chapter 10 (#u7f2ea321-8afc-5b8b-bc00-50677183d7a4)
Chapter 11 (#u976ac04d-75f7-56c3-bb9f-adbbba8cbf95)
Chapter 12 (#ua30695dc-3ecf-59c2-b4ce-b62db83069c8)
Chapter 13 (#u469b03b0-033b-5ee3-8a22-827622c0cdbc)
Chapter 14 (#u4f86c773-614c-5921-a929-baaef8ec7cee)
Chapter 15 (#u99cbc56e-17b4-51fb-842e-1f78a6974e26)
Chapter 16 (#ud7ba6273-7631-58fd-b189-683468ae343f)
Chapter 17 (#u53a98b81-0c5b-5cc4-964d-97b2b8a9bfa3)
Chapter 18 (#u744521fd-b264-5c34-a276-67275dbb9e06)
Chapter 19 (#uded35c82-88c0-5841-a362-040ac4b848a4)
Chapter 20 (#u868f1994-f8d3-584c-b950-b7634b930fd8)
Chapter 21 (#u5bb02921-9258-5e8e-a59e-576c8535bf79)
Chapter 22 (#u176449dd-b4de-50f7-a305-0f2c27d46c72)
Chapter 23 (#u12ac6306-172e-5c8d-aea8-f62a8e90497c)
Chapter 24 (#u527eecfa-fbd4-535e-a682-05b81f4ae3c8)
Chapter 25 (#u05a2c880-c05c-5cba-95bd-5b9e47f71de9)
Chapter 26 (#u6e050b04-771b-54f3-aa59-5fd0092154d6)
Chapter 27 (#u7584d6a2-38c7-52c9-8564-1518944f4a29)
Chapter 28 (#u68f2e728-e917-5d3b-be8e-ac0458275be3)
Chapter 29 (#uc9390730-c7f3-5249-a9b7-495c7ccf9f03)
Chapter 30 (#u334680bc-2cf5-51fd-a572-53c63dfe52e2)
Chapter 31 (#u395ccf96-ee99-51b7-96e0-bd68a92736ea)
Chapter 32 (#u3900488a-d8ef-5e95-a41d-f82f7f1bfa60)
Chapter 33 (#u077bfd8d-e4f6-54fe-ab30-c44284f3decb)
Chapter 34 (#u1adaca2c-3255-54ea-b916-d7e1b4392334)
Chapter 35 (#u37a26656-9e78-5a6c-bff1-370dd67106a9)
Chapter 36 (#ufd66e228-5870-55d4-b375-128ed4bc359d)
Chapter 37 (#u53292424-0877-59b4-b640-ac03f54819a8)
Chapter 38 (#u5d39e468-7ceb-58f1-a6d8-cc7d37819726)
Chapter 39 (#ub187a3e7-32f4-556f-bc37-92c608b3b4a1)
Chapter 40 (#ucaa19b8f-4534-5dfc-8a3c-c1327ff449dd)
Chapter 41 (#u18fcac71-8c9f-5658-b066-ca9d6985b7f3)
Postscript (#u1fe549e7-1d9a-5a7f-8e9a-ea8db866b2f1)
About the Publisher (#u840c6659-9856-5c45-a995-f51764375466)
Prologue (#uba1295ed-7a16-51c4-b77b-05c896c3efb9)
It reminded Kara of the night it all began. Standing pressed against the railings bordering the canal, with her panties around her ankles and the caress of cool air stirring against her skin. Except this time it was the sea breeze blowing across the bay, ruffling her skirt, and in place of cold iron and inky water stood the sea wall and a thin stretch of white sand.
Two fingers rode the line of her slit, making her hips punch forwards in eager anticipation of the touch reaching her clit. She needed this, after the last two weeks of hell, when everything had fallen apart and she’d wondered how it would ever be righted. Zach had fixed that with his presence alone. Explanations were unnecessary, likewise apologies given in words.
The aching tension that had knotted Kara’s muscles slowly began to unravel as his touch reached the desired destination and worked its magic. He teased his fingers back and forth in her moisture.
‘I’m glad you came,’ she whispered, as her lips found the soft stretch of skin between his ear and the line of stubble upon his jaw. Not that ‘glad’ really encompassed what she felt. No one word could, nor even a thousand. You couldn’t sum up love with words. It was something you experienced deep down on a cellular level. It had the ability to raze and savage, heal and nurture. Love destroyed and elevated, wrought bliss and panic. She’d felt every one of those emotions over the last few days, but now, at last, everything had come full circle. And maybe the fact that it was hard won made the high she was sailing towards that bit sweeter.
‘Not half as pleased as I am.’
Joy radiated off him like heat, and was made manifest in numerous other ways: in the metre of his voice – soft yet pleasure-laced – and in the way the worry lines that had etched his skin were wiped away.
Zach turned his head, forcing her lips from his ear in order to drive his mouth down hard upon them. He worshipped their curves, before pressing inside and stroking his tongue against hers.
Kara’s arousal spiked, sending a shiver down through her tensed limbs, while the touch of his fingers caused an upwards sweep of excitement. The twin sensations pooled in her belly, leaving her overeager and poised on the tips of her toes. Off balance, Kara grabbed hold of Zach’s belt and held on tight. He knew how to do right by her. She couldn’t think of a single occasion when he hadn’t delivered. Zach was the ultimate giver. He gave now, circling her clit with the tip of his thumb, so that it perked up, eager for direct action.
‘Like that, do you?’ He pursed his lips, expression one of bemused contentment.
‘You know I do,’ she sighed, giddy in anticipation of that hot stroke across her clit. Her nipples stiffened, breaking the smooth line of her dress. Immediately, Zach’s gaze dropped, followed by his head, so that he could rub his cheek against the protruding points. His stubble rasped against the fabric and sent a sharp flash of lightning zipping through both breasts and down to her sex, provoking a groan.
So damn good.
Somehow she always forgot exactly how good he was. Great enough that she longed to feel his mouth against her bare skin and to hell with the possibility of being seen. If her dress would have allowed it, she’d have wrenched the fabric aside without a second thought. As it was, she could only tilt her head back and arch her spine so that her breasts were thrust forwards in offering.
If it had been Ric out here with her instead of Zach, then he’d have had a hand in her hair by now, and would be pulling, urging her to give a little more. Zach invariably proved the gentler of the two men. Her two lovers…
A broad grin stretched wide across Kara’s face.
Two lovers – every time she considered those words it felt like her nerves were powered with rocket fuel.
What’s more, they were rock-solid again. Ric would join them soon enough. Then they’d prove triangles weren’t only mathematically strong, they worked emotionally too.
‘How long do you think he’ll be?’ she asked.
‘Why, are you in a hurry to get somewhere?’
Only to get off. She didn’t need to say that aloud for Zach to hear her. He read it straight from her thoughts.
‘We don’t need Ric for that.’
He claimed the rigid peak of her nipple, sucking hard and flicking it with his tongue, while his hand remained curved against her pussy. He was right, of course. Ric’s assistance wasn’t required. Zach had only to keep up his current teasing and she’d come all over his fingers. The only thing that held her back from writhing hard against his hand was the desire to get him a whole lot closer.
The stroke of his fingertip almost brought her off anyway.
‘Nooo,’ she squeaked. ‘Not yet. Not yet. I want more…closer.’
She tugged at the waistband of Zach’s formal trousers, but they didn’t budge from his waist.
‘You can have more. I’m not going anywhere. Let me give you this, Kara.’
‘Oh, God!’ she gasped, voice no more than a croak, as he drove her into the white void ready to topple. ‘I’m gonna…’
‘Shh!’ He nuzzled her neck. ‘Just let it come. You know I like it when you’re slick and smooth, and you get my cock all wet when I rub against you.’
Kara dug her teeth into her lower lip, trying to hold the imminent explosion inside. She couldn’t do it, not when he was stroking her like that, touching her in just the right place, in exactly the right way.
‘I’ll give you everything you want, Kara. You know that. No tricks. No false promises. Just let it come.’
Let it…She couldn’t hold it back if she tried.
Fuck…fuck…fuck! That was good. That was so fucking good.
Zach held her as his fingers beat a rapid tattoo against her clit that matched the drum of her climax.
Spent, she sagged in his embrace, limbs boneless.
Zach held her steady, as aftershock upon aftershock rippled through her and she breathed in his heavenly scent.
‘That was cruel, Mr Blackwater.’
‘Cruel?’ Twin furrows appeared between his wing-like brows. ‘What’s cruel about getting you off?’
‘Spoiling me for other things.’
‘That’s not spoiling you. It’s just warming you up.’
Yeah, she was warm, all right. Heat suffused her cheeks, and he’d left an inferno raging between her thighs.
‘For what?’
‘I think you know.’
‘It better not involve a wait.’
‘You don’t think a delay or two makes things sweeter?’
‘Chocolate sauce makes things sweeter.’
‘Sadly, I don’t have any of that on hand.’
She’d painted him with it, the second time they’d met, and then licked it from his cock until he’d been rabid with need.
Kara’s climax hadn’t lessened her desire for him. If anything, the craving to have him thrust inside her had tripled that need.
‘No more tricks, Zach. Show a little mercy.’
‘Tricks?’ A grin stretched his lips wide, showing off his pearly whites. ‘Uh-uh. Now you’re mistaking me for Ric.’
That was true. Zach was honest to the core, straight-up and straightforward. There was no guile to him. What you got was what you saw. Ric was the one with the mad manipulation skills.
‘You know I’m all for calling a spade a spade.’
And a cock a cock.
‘So if I wanted you to do something unspeakably rude, then I’d only have to spit it out?’
‘Aye, though it’s not like you to spit.’
She spluttered out a laugh, then covered her mouth with her hand.
‘The general sentiment sounds good though.’
The two fingers he’d been using to tease her clit dipped down into her pussy. Kara’s muscles clenched tight, welcoming them, trying to draw them deeper. Hell, yes, that’s what she wanted: something to hold on to.
Zach kissed her brow, then stole a kiss right off her lips. ‘Name it, Kara. You know I’d give you the world if I could.’
‘I’m not really after that.’ Her desires weren’t nearly that lofty. All she wanted was to feel the staff currently bruising her thigh poking her somewhere wet and warm. ‘I thought maybe you could do something with this.’ She scratched a fingernail over the long obscene wedge.
Apparently that made it his turn to shiver.
‘Yeah? Then maybe you’d like to give me a little breathing room.’
‘Maybe I’d like to go a step further, and get on my knees and suck you.’
‘You don’t think that might prove too risqué an exhibition even for this place?’ They were poised across the road from one of the country’s most prestigious art galleries.
‘I thought they were all for modern art. You’ll have to make sure you come artily.’
‘How about I paint you a pearl necklace?’ he asked, quirking one thick brow.
She could picture that. Her on her knees, him with his back to the sea wall, facing the gallery entrance, his trousers coiled at his feet and all the buttons of his dress shirt undone save the top two so that the ridges of his torso were on display along with the diamond of hair on his chest and the line that led right to his assets. His tie would still be in place, though skewed to one side, his fingers clawing the stone to his rear, eyes closed but mouth open, framing a bone-deep sigh. Hell, there was a picture she’d hang on her wall. Where was Ric when you needed him to be about to take it?
Kara popped Zach’s button and drew down his fly. His shirt tails were tucked around him, like he’d walked straight out of the eighteenth century. He wore no underwear, a fact she damn well loved him for. Give her easy access over Calvin Kleins any day. And the less said about boxers the better.
Long and stiff, Zach’s erection filled her hand and then some. She didn’t exactly give him breathing room, but then she didn’t actually believe that was what he wanted. There was barely a hair’s breadth between their bodies as she sought his kiss again. The man had a mouth made for sin, and a body she intended to sin with.
‘Know what I’d really like to happen now?’
‘I’m sure I can’t imagine.’
‘Turn me round. Lean me over that wall. Shove up my skirt and fuck me.’
‘Right now? It’s gonna be really obvious what we’re doing if anyone walks past.’
‘Fucking is always obvious.’ Sex always looked like sex, no matter how you tried to dress it up. Hiding under the biggest beach towel on the planet wouldn’t disguise what they were doing if their bodies were moving. Not that she gave a damn if they were seen.
‘I don’t remember you being so squeamish about being seen the first time we met.’
‘I didn’t have a hotel with a hot tub waiting for me that night. And in any case, I didn’t imagine I’d ever see you again.’
Nor had she. He’d been an easy pickup, a soothing balm to rub onto an open wound. That night was supposed to have been her wedding night. The best thing she ever did was cancel that debacle and find herself a damn good lay instead. Gavin, the ex, had been terrible in bed and out of it.
Blissfully, wedding bells were now off the agenda for good. You weren’t allowed to marry two men. Apparently it was considered greedy or something.
‘Pull up my skirt and let me feel you,’ she insisted. Sometimes it took a little repetition to get her point across. Unless it was Ric she was talking to. He’d have been kneeing her legs apart before she’d even finished the request. The man had no shame, but neither did she, not when it came to the men she loved. Fuck waiting until they reached the hotel. Really, fuck even dragging him down the promenade steps and onto the sand where they could pretend they were invisible by lurking in the shadows.
‘Fuck me, Zach.’ She turned, wriggled her arse at him, then peeped back over her shoulder to gauge his reaction.
He stood gaping at her, fever in his eyes, erection pointing at her like a heat-seeking missile.
‘You’re so goddamned dictatorial.’
She pursed her lips. Maybe so, but she’d learned good things came to those who were honest about their wants.
Kara grasped both sides of her skirt and began to inch it upwards, stopping only when the hem sat just below C-level.
‘You’re gonna get us both busted for public indecency.’
‘So snuggle up close so there’s nothing to see.’
‘Like this?’ he asked. Not really closing the gap at all. Only his cock touched her. He drew the head of it along the crease between her cheeks before angling it down so it lay parallel to her slit. Somehow him being so near and yet so far, further fanned the flames that already had her scaling sheer rock faces in her mind. She wriggled some more, this time trying to tempt him into position, while thoroughly enjoying his determination not to gratify her too swiftly.
One of his large palms settled against her bare skin, stilling her jigging and forcing her to wait for it.
It wasn’t fair of him, not when she was already so wet. There was dew all over her lips and even the tops of her thighs were starting to feel a little damp.
‘God, you’re wet.’ His quick gasp buffeted the back of her neck as he leaned into her, just lodging the head of his cock where she so desperately needed to feel it. ‘I love it when you’re this desperate. You’re fucking insatiable, aren’t you, Kara?’
‘For you,’ she agreed.
‘For Ric too.’
‘I’m not going to deny it. You can’t either. You love him. It’s why you’re here. It’s why we’re both here. It wasn’t right, the three of us being apart.’
Zach’s teeth grazed her shoulder. Ahead of her, sea foam lapped at the line of pebbles.
‘There’s no Ric involved in this.’
He filled her, forcing the release of the breath she’d been holding.
‘This is just us, Kara. It’s just us. What you can feel is my cock in your cunt. It’s me giving you this. Ric’s still schmoozing arty types.’
It might be true that at this moment it was just the two of them, but when Ric emerged from the gallery he would blend seamlessly into their game, take out his phone and capture them on film. Or he’d stand to the side, place one hand on Zach’s arse and slide the other between her pussy and the wall. His fingers would brush her clit every time Zach’s thrusts jerked her forwards. He’d make himself part of this even if he wasn’t doing the fucking.
‘Do you think he’s going to be long?’
‘I don’t care if he takes all night.’ Zach’s fingers clawed upon her hips. ‘Ever consider that I might like that it’s just us out here doing this?’
He bucked forwards again, filling her up, then gliding back, the motion so smooth it made the whole of her lower body tingle. Then he was back inside her again, pounding away at her hard like there was a point he had to make.
‘Zach! Oh, God!’
That was ridiculously, fantastically good, but also a little too much, a little too fast.
‘It’s not a race.’
‘Isn’t it? Maybe I need to get you off before he makes himself a part of this. Maybe I need to prove I can make it good for you all on my own.’
‘Shit, Zach! You already did. It wasn’t the night air that made me this wet.’
‘Wanna go all the way with you.’
They were going to be in free fall over the edge of the sea wall if he didn’t cool it a little. Shame she didn’t have the breath to tell him that. And maybe, truthfully, she didn’t want to. The buzz built rapidly, sending shock waves out across her body. It was all she could do to hold herself steady, clinging with her fingers to the sloping top stone, while her upper body clove to it. Zach fucked like a demon – no let-up, no restraints. It was a sprint he absolutely intended to win.
Damn if she wasn’t cheering him towards the finishing line too, her pussy eating up his thrusts and going crazy for more. She pushed back against him, making their naked flesh slap. He rode his thumb up along the length of her spine, the soft caress sending out pleasure spikes of a different kind. His grip curled around her shoulder, then he reeled her in, bringing her upright and back against the hard slab of his body.
Cradled, he held her, one arm locked beneath her breasts, the other slicking dew over her red and hungry pussy. Yet his need to possess her didn’t ease.
‘Are you gonna come for me, Kara? I need you to come.’
Her pulse fluttered wildly in her neck where his lips pressed against the skin.
‘Wanna feel you explode.’ He sucked, obliterating what was left of her rational mind. All that remained was one living, breathing, aching spiral of need as Zach was driving towards a cataclysmic impact.
Her orgasm broke, dragging an inarticulate moan from the depths of her soul. Kara shuddered, surrendered and let the beat of her body dictate everything.
Zach had nothing to worry about. There was no reason for him to believe he wasn’t every bit as amazing as Ric. Their talents were just for different things. They were each artists in their own way. What they did have in common was the ability to make her come so hard it was impossible not to weep afterwards.
Scalding tears trickled over her cheeks and hit her swollen lips. Kara licked the salt away as she rested, reclaiming her breath, while Zach continued to hold her upright.
Eventually, they’d have to break apart. Gravity was already doing its evil work and speeding them towards that moment. His softening cock slipped from her. Ejaculate trickled down her thighs.
Zach stood behind her a moment, strangely quiet as he zipped up. She half expected him to tidy her clothes too. Maybe even produce a handkerchief and dry her off a little. Instead, he turned her around so they stood facing once more. Then he knelt on the pavement and dragged his tongue over her still smouldering sex.
Shock loosened her tongue. There was no way of holding back her cries, other than by biting down hard on the heel of her hand. She couldn’t come again. Not yet. It was too soon, but her body responded with aftershocks and she absolutely didn’t call him off from showing his appreciation. As his mouth soothed, Kara laced her fingers through the strands of his brown hair. He was going to scuff the hell out of the knees of his tailored trousers, kneeling down before her like this.
‘Kara.’
Zach gazed up at her, dark-brown eyes like molten pools of chocolate. The night sky and a million stars were reflected in their surface, overlaid by her own shadowy silhouette.
‘Yeah,’ she replied, stroking the line of his jaw.
‘I wondered…’
He broke off to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, removing the smears of moisture there.
‘That is, I hope this isn’t too much of a surprise, but will you marry me?’
‘What? Don’t be silly.’
‘I’m being serious.’
He was too. His earnestness shone all too clearly in the twisted turn of his mouth and the worry-lines scrunching up his brow.
‘I know I’ve kind of sprung this on you, but…’
Holy fuck!
Kara clamped a hand across her mouth. The next minute seemed to stretch out infinitely long, before time snapped back on itself. Marry him! Where the damned hell had that come from? She’d been a runaway bride the night they’d met. When she’d made the decision to ditch Gavin, admittedly not quite at the altar, she’d sworn to herself that marriage was firmly off her life agenda. Given she now had two lovers, how could she even contemplate anything different?
‘You don’t have to give me an answer right now.’
Yes, she did. She absolutely did.
While Gavin had never understood her, and their union would have been an unmitigated disaster, she couldn’t say the same of her and Zach. They had everything in common to make such a binding work, including the one thing that made it impossible to say yes.
‘What about Ric?’
Zach bowed his head, seeming to focus on a spot on the pavement between her feet. ‘I guess I ought to have realised you’d prefer to have him over me.’
‘No,’ she insisted, shaking her head. ‘No, Zach. That’s not it. It’s not about me having a preference. I won’t choose one of you over the other. You both matter.’
Why did he even imagine she’d contemplate doing so? All she’d ever wanted – once they’d hurdled over the no-strings bit – was for them to be equals.
‘If I could marry you both it’d be different, but that’s not an option. Why are you even asking this? Did you think it through? Tell me you didn’t think it through, and that it’s just a stupid spur-of-the-moment thing.’
He raised his head, reached up and attempted to hold her hand. ‘I’m asking because I love you.’
Kara covered her ears. ‘You love Ric.’
‘And you.’
‘Stop it,’ she said, pushing away from the wall and taking two unsteady paces along the promenade. She dragged her skirt back into position.
‘Why is that so hard to believe?’
She swung around to face him, to find him rising to his feet.
‘Because I know how you feel about him. Zach, don’t do this. Tell me this is a joke. We’ve just found each other again, why would you want to break it up?’
‘I’m not trying to break anything up.’
‘Can’t you see that’s exactly what will happen if I agree to this? It’s like we’re all on a seesaw together and you’re trying to tip it in one direction.’
He dragged his hand across his mouth, scratched at the shadow already scuffing his jawline.
‘That’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to keep us together.’
‘Drop it, Zach,’ she pleaded. ‘I don’t want to hear anything else about this now. I can’t hear it. I’m going to pretend the last few minutes didn’t happen.’
‘You wouldn’t be saying that if he’d asked.’
‘He has sense enough not to ask. But the answer would be the same. Tying that sort of knot would unbalance everything. It’d ruin everything.’
The sound of approaching laughter made them both turn to face the art gallery entrance. The last few stragglers were now emerging from the building.
Kara covered her mouth with her fingers to silence herself. This conversation was done with, over now. She didn’t even want Ric to know it had taken place. Ric led the parade of be-suited, cravat-wearing bohemians jogging down the steps. His long hair rested on his shoulders. His sleeves were rolled back to his elbows and the neck of his shirt was undone. Damn, he still had the power to steal her breath. Tears prickled in her eyes, but she blinked the sensation away.
Ric crossed the narrow road to reach her. Slid one arm around her back and drew her close. The scent of champagne lingered on his breath. ‘Ready to go?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
He made the couple of strides that separated her from Zach, tugging her along for the ride. ‘Zach, you’re coming too, right? Or did you book a room somewhere?’
Zach shook his head.
Shadows swam in his dark eyes, which Kara prayed Ric was too drunk to notice.
‘Thank fuck for that,’ Ric blurted. ‘I want you in bed next to me, not in some room halfway across town.’ He kissed his lover full on the lips. ‘Hmm, nice, somebody tastes of somebody else. Have you two being having fun without me?’
‘You seemed to be having fun without us.’ Kara nodded to the group he’d come out with, who were still chatting outside the curved, whitewashed walls of the gallery.
‘Good guys,’ Ric acknowledged, saluting the small congregation. ‘See you all around.’
They waved, then turned away and headed off in little groups.
Ric positioned himself between her and Zach. He hooked an arm around each of their waists and jogged them into motion. ‘Hotel? Or do you want to take in the Island view first?’
‘Hotel,’ they replied synchronously.
‘Too right,’ Ric agreed. ‘There’s no view on earth that can compete with the sight of you two naked.’ He slid his hands upwards to cup the back of their heads, urged them to turn inwards and attempted to engineer a three-way kiss. It didn’t work. All they did was bump noses and chins. ‘Good job fucking’s easier than kissing. I want to get inside you both.’
‘I don’t think you can do that simultaneously either,’ Kara whispered.
‘One after the other then,’ he replied, giving her a wink. ‘I think you know my stamina’s up to it.’
‘Your libido might be,’ Zach said, finding his voice again. His tone suggested he’d swallowed any awkwardness their recent conversation had caused, though there were still shadows lingering in his eyes. ‘But how much booze have you had?’
‘Less than the amount of spunk I intend to have as a chaser.’
Kara snorted.
Ric ran his tongue over his teeth, while a blush heated Zach’s pale cheeks.
‘The fact you even said that proves you’re wasted.’
‘I’m not wasted.’ Ric laughed. ‘Just a little merry.’ He squeezed Zach’s arse. ‘And I’ve missed you enough to want to suck you off.’ His expression sobered as he faced Zach square on. ‘I really fucking missed you, man. When are you coming home?’
‘As soon as you give me back my key.’ Zach kissed Ric hard upon the lips. ‘I’ve missed you too.’
Chapter 1 (#uba1295ed-7a16-51c4-b77b-05c896c3efb9)
Three weeks earlier
‘No, no…Don’t you dare!’ Kara screeched as Zach crashed into her, knocking her off balance. She landed with a splash amongst the surf, with pebbles digging into her bottom and salt water in her eyes. None of that seemed to matter a second later, when Zach’s mouth closed over hers and he proceeded to drown her with hungry kisses. Their hips aligned perfectly, and the hillock between them hinted at pleasures still to come. Eager for all of it, Kara stopped squirming and hooked her legs around his thighs.
‘Nice…Oh, yeah, very nice…’
Shut up, Ric, she mentally chastised. Using her actual verbal skills was out of the question given her tongue was sparring with Zach’s and there was no point in objecting to Ric photographing them. That was what he did – all the time. The camera was a natural extension of him. He always snapped first and waved the consent forms around afterwards. She’d signed so many of them now, he had to have a drawer full of them.
‘Wet T-shirt, love it. Just hook your thumb in the back of his shorts, Kara.’
Obviously hoping they could make out without a running commentary was too much to hope for.
Ric moved in close. As always when he was in the zone, his face was drawn into seriousness, lips sealed, blue-grey eyes gleaming.
‘Just roll with it,’ Zach whispered, having momentarily broken them apart in order to breathe. ‘You know he gets off on ordering us about.’
Yeah, and she got off on groping Zach’s arse, so she supposed there was nothing to get her knickers in a twist over. It would be different if Ric insisted she couldn’t touch, and that it had to be all smouldering looks, but the man had dirty engrained in his every cell. Actually, scratch that, he went beyond dirty, all the way to filthy and well on the way to whatever it was that came next. She’d yet to find a consensual sex act that Ric got squeamish over: toe sucking, if you insisted; bondage and discipline, he preferred to give but was up for taking too; gay sex; threesomes or moresomes; DP; nipple clamps, absolutely, bring it on. He’d never expressed an opinion on fisting, but hell, it wasn’t as if she wanted to go there. She’d bet he’d photograph it though. It was just what he did.
‘Now inch them down a bit. Come on. I want to see nails biting into his flesh, and sea spray clinging to his skin.’
‘I want to see you tied to that rock.’ There were even convenient metal rings attached to it. ‘Doesn’t mean either of us is going to get what we want.’
Ric cast a brief glance at the old iron bands bolted to the cliff face. ‘If anyone is getting tied up, it’ll be me doing the tying.’
He’d once suggested that he liked to shackle wayward tenants there in order to pay their tithes. It didn’t take any imagination to figure out what that might involve. Alaric ‘Ric’ Liddell was the most sexual being Kara had ever met and, as the owner of Liddell Island, he’d been born to the role of master. If she pushed him, he might well chain her up. That was if Zach didn’t volunteer in her place. Not because Zach especially liked being restrained. It was more that he enjoyed the energy that power differentials generated. Oh, and he definitely got off on the idea of her and Ric drinking down the visuals of him all hot and horny and unable to do anything about it.
Kara defied anyone to look at Zach and not get turned on, want to rough him up a little and then get down and dirty. There was a reason he was Ric’s muse. Zach wasn’t classically handsome, but his wing-like brows and soft, melting brown eyes certainly made him arresting. He was big-boned too, in an oddly wiry way that gave the impression of youth. Most importantly though, he was a giver, and that fact was written into every inch of his being. He radiated that warmth.
He was heating her this very moment with it.
His hand slid under the bottom edge of her bikini top and claimed her right breast. Kara sighed a welcome. The heat of his hand made a sharp contrast to the chill of the sea. It crinkled her already steepled nipple, which he rubbed with the centre of his palm, while he used his teeth to lift the other side of her bikini. That nipple he claimed with his mouth, sucking it deep, sending sharp pulses of pleasure down through her abdomen.
Where she had been wet, now she was sopping. Zach wound a teasing pathway down to her pussy, pressing a kiss here, another there. He flipped up her skirt and teased the top of her thighs, tantalising her with his nearness, letting the tension inside her build until all she wanted was to grab hold of his hair and guide him into place. When he relented and sucked her, he did so through her panties, which only served to amplify her need. Kara softly moaned and pinched her own nipples, kindling further sparks of pleasure that connected and formed a circuit with her pussy each time Zach’s tongue flicked across her clit.
And still the whirr of Ric’s camera melded with the birdsong and the noise of the ocean lapping at the shore. She didn’t mind him taking pictures. Ric could turn even her into a spectacular work of art, but she did fantasise about him discarding the camera on the sand and it being washed away by the tide. With his hands free, he’d then kneel by her head, jeans glued to his skin by the weight of the water, fly undone, and press his cock to her lips, and Kara would lose herself between the two men.
‘Put down the camera and come kiss me,’ she mouthed, vocal cords so tight from mewling in response to the tickle of Zach’s tongue that they didn’t seem to want to function.
Ric pursed his lips. ‘And why would I want to do that?’
Despite their commitment to one another, he still insisted on maintaining an air of detachment, as if by doing so he could deny he was as emotionally entangled as she and Zach had become. The truth was that he was every bit as devoted.
‘Don’t look at me to twist your arm,’ Zach muttered. He breathed hot air onto her skin, and traced his tongue along the lacy edge of her panties. ‘Less of you means all the more for me.’
‘As I see it, all you’re doing is toying with her. Why don’t you suck her properly? Rip that scrap of lace off and show me and that pussy some red-hot loving. Prove you’re not just a big fat tease.’
Kara groaned her agreement. Yes, please. She relished the idea of Zach’s tongue running along the split of her sex, then making direct contact with her clit. He’d make her ache so good that when he sucked, she’d be so desperate with need, even an earthquake wouldn’t move her as much.
Instead, Zach sucked her through the lace, driving her into a state of frenzied desire, where everything was overwrought and hypersensitive. She ached with the need to feel him get closer, push his tongue inside her, fuck her with it and then with his cock. She reached for him, tangling her fingers in the longer brown strands of hair that normally flopped over his brow. What she really wanted was for him to shimmy up over her again, drive his cock against her mound, push inside, and make them both so hot they cried out, demented and desperate, as they strained together, strove together, until they were right there, hanging on the brink of orgasm just a finger’s breadth away from total collapse.
For some reason she opened her eyes at that moment, perhaps needing the connection to Ric that proved they were a threesome before dying in Zach’s arms.
Ric was intently focused upon them, brows subtly furrowed, blond hair tickling the tops of his shoulders and that magic gleam still in his eyes.
‘Come,’ he mouthed to her, tracing his tongue over the tip of one canine. ‘Keep looking right at me and come. Let me see it all, Kara. Everything. Don’t hold anything back.’
He might as well have asked her to give him her soul. Sex stripped away barriers. By its very nature it was up close and personal. You couldn’t hide when you were riding a tide of bliss towards orgasm. She knew everything she felt would be right there on her face, scored into every line, written into every millimetre of skin. Ric would capture that and print it for the world to see. Her agony and ecstasy all rolled into one.
Perhaps she had become as enamoured as Zach of being immortalised, because she did look at Ric. Stared straight at him, and might even have come if it wasn’t for a shifting shadow that made her turn her head.
Subconsciously, she’d been aware of the niggling sound that didn’t make sense for a minute or so. It was the gentle whirr of gears turning, and the repetitive ping of digital wizardry being made by something that wasn’t Ric’s stupidly expensive camera.
Conclusion – there was a second photographer.
‘No!’ she shrieked in alarm, on glimpsing the figure. ‘Oh, God. Fuck, no. Get off me, Zach. Get off me now!’
Obedient to the core, Zach raised his head. ‘What?’ His eyes had been closed, but they flickered open now. His pupils were widely dilated and riddled with confusion. ‘What is it?’
He had his back to the intruder. In all honesty, that was probably a godsend, given the kid had to be all of eight. He was posed, mimicking Ric, right down to the angle at which he held his camera.
Kara tugged her bikini top back into position, while Zach dragged his shorts up so they covered his arse.
‘Stop him, Ric.’
‘Hey, kid.’ Ric made a vague swatting motion, as if to chase the boy away, but the little blighter kept on staring at her and Zach through his camera lens. ‘Stop that. You can’t go taking photographs without permission. Where are your parents?’
On seeing that his words weren’t evoking a response, Ric skipped in front of the lad, so as to block him from taking any more shots. The lad didn’t seem to notice, given his camera kept on whirring away, presumably capturing some epic shots of Ric’s abs.
‘Give me that.’ Ric snatched the camera from his grasp, and held it out of reach.
‘Nan…Nana!’
Christ the kid had lungs.
‘Nana, the rude man’s taken my camera.’ The little dynamo aimed a kick at Ric’s shins, missed and targeted a punch towards his groin instead.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Ric planted a hand on the boy’s head and held him at arm’s length, while he browsed through the illicit images with his thumb and repeatedly hit delete.
Kara curled her hand around his bicep when she noticed the kid’s grandmother appear from around the curve of the bay. The old woman saw them huddled around her still flailing charge and hurried over, chiffon scarf waving in the breeze.
‘What on earth are you doing to my grandson? Get your hands off him.’ She inserted herself between Ric and the boy, whom she sent scuttling towards a line of young relatives who’d just appeared from the same direction she had come.
‘Nan?’ they enquired.
‘I’m fine, dears.’ She flapped them towards the shore. ‘Go…play…’
Gentle with her charges, her gaze turned cold as she turned it upon Ric. ‘Who do you think you are, laying a finger on him? You’ve no right, none at all.’
‘He was taking pictures of things he shouldn’t have been.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ The woman’s sun-browned face scrunched into a web of lines. ‘Is that his camera? How dare you take it off him? Give that back.’ She snatched it out of Ric’s hand. ‘And you’ve been deleting his pictures. Oh, my God.’
‘Would you rather I’d left the topless shots on there?’
‘Well…’
Ric scratched the faint golden stubble around his jaw. ‘Or the ones of them shagging?’ He shot sidewards glances at both Zach and Kara, who had positioned themselves at either side of him. ‘Maybe you’d prefer it if I’d just allowed him to carry on.’
Mouth slack, the woman seemed momentarily lost for words. She blinked at Ric.
‘Preposterous. He would never do such a thing. You meant to steal his camera. It was a birthday present, I’ll have you know.’
Somehow she seemed to have missed the expensive camera hanging from a strap over Ric’s shoulder, and hence had failed to realise how ludicrous her claim was.
‘My phone has a better lens than that thing,’ Ric scoffed. ‘Stealing? You’re off your rocker, lady. Instead of casting aspersions, maybe you ought to go and ask your grandson why he felt it necessary to take pictures of strangers. And maybe you’d like to ask yourself how he was allowed to wander off without you knowing where he was or what he was up to.’
‘I did know where he was. Just ahead of me. And there’s only your word to suggest he was doing anything wrong.’
‘Not only my word.’ Ric tapped his index finger against the viewscreen of the boy’s camera. ‘Don’t think I quite got them all, if you’d care to look.’
The woman’s gaze dropped from his face, travelled along the length of his arm to his finger. ‘How am I supposed to know what button does what?’
Ric helpfully tapped the back button.
A blush fanned across the woman’s cheeks. Yet again her mouth fell open.
‘Well…I…never…That’s…Are you?’
She flicked a hurried glance at Kara, clearly appalled.
‘This is disgusting.’
The remaining few images only consolidated her outrage.
‘What sort of person films this filth on a public beach, or performs it?’
Ignoring Ric a moment she levelled another glance at Kara. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’re married.’
Kara wiggled her fingers, displaying the absence of any sort of ring.
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, the three of you.’ She shut off the camera and deposited it in her cream-coloured handbag. ‘Nasty, that’s what it is, and clearly what you are.’
‘This isn’t a public beach,’ Zach pointed out, but the woman wasn’t listening. She was staring at the sunlight dappling Ric’s naked torso, and the spray slowly trickling over his abs. One droplet clung to his stomach just above the waistband of his extremely low-slung jeans. Kara had to clench her fists and dig her feet into the sand to stop herself from falling onto her knees and licking him. The old woman would probably faint dead away if she did that. Well, perhaps after she’d given them another lecture on propriety.
It occurred to Kara that her own sense of decorum had skipped out of town some nine months ago, right around the time she’d arrived on Liddell Island, and definitely by the first time Ric had fucked her in the arse in the open air. It’d happened on the cliff top, just above this cove. The memory put a hugely inappropriate smile on her face that she struggled to hide. Thankfully, there’d not been an audience that night.
‘For heaven’s sakes, cover yourself up. There are children about.’
‘They shouldn’t be here.’
Kara cast her gaze along the shore. Several kids ranging in ages from approximately seven to seventeen were now splashing about in the waves.
She didn’t need to see Ric’s expression to know his thoughts. Ire was radiating off him.
‘Really, it’s not appropriate. At least pull your trousers up.’
‘This is private property.’
Kara quickly inserted herself between Ric and the woman, just in case he did anything rash. She’d never known him to deck a total stranger, or strike a woman – discounting occurrences during consensual sex – but everyone had their breaking point and Ric had seemed alarmingly close to his for weeks now.
His mouth formed a nasty scowl.
‘Let’s go, Ric. We don’t need to hang out here,’ she counselled, tactfully failing to mention that it wouldn’t kill him to cover up a little under the circumstances. It wasn’t necessary for him to stroll around half naked, even if the fact he did meant she got to drink her fill of his stellar body.
‘Go where? I shouldn’t fucking need to go elsewhere. And no, I won’t put a fucking shirt on, and neither will he.’
Clearly he’d forgotten that Zach was technically dressed. It was an easy mistake to make, given that their roll in the surf had left him sodden and his cotton T-shirt see-through. Kara could see Zach’s nipples, puckered by the cold, quite clearly, along with the ridiculously pleasing cut of his abs, and those cute lines that formed a V either side of his hips that drew the eye downwards to…
She stopped herself looking, aware that the belligerent old woman was still present. The only reason her own clothing wasn’t as transparent as Zach’s was that she’d worn dark colours.
‘Let’s head up to Kara’s place,’ Zach suggested. Beachcomber Barn was only a little way along the cliff top, and at least there they wouldn’t be interrupted.
‘Why should we?’
Ric had a point. A valid point. This was his island. His property. Liddell Island had been owned by his family for centuries. The woman and her charges were only here because he chose to allow it. If he wished, he could force every one of the island’s visitors to leave immediately without giving any reason at all.
‘Come on, Ric.’ Zach clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s not worth it. Let the kids play in the sun. I can live without sand in intimate places and sunburn on my arse.’
He was rewarded with dual withering glares: one from the tourist, presumably over his language, and the other from Ric, who clearly considered it a matter of pride to stand his ground.
‘Really, man? It’s so not worth it.’ Zach half turned him and gave him an encouraging little shove in the right direction, which at least got him moving.
Ric grumbled under his breath all the way up to the top of the cliff and the way-marker stone. ‘It’s my fucking cove!’ he yelled back at the holidaymakers, giving them a two-fingered salute.
Kara doubted the folks on the beach heard him. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction and they were all too busy enjoying themselves to worry about a strange man prancing about on a clifftop.
Oh, well, so much for them chilling out on the beach together for the afternoon. Still, the day wasn’t done, and there were other places they could cosy up together.
‘First man to the barn gets a blowjob,’ she said, tapping Ric on the shoulder. That would hopefully get his attention. She didn’t wait to find out, but took off along the narrow track, agile as a mountain goat, despite the headland wind roaring in her face.
Zach followed, easily matching her pace with his impressive stride. He slowed a little as they neared the wood and wire fence that encircled her property. ‘I think I’d better let grouchy bear win. He looks as if someone stole his porridge.’
‘I’ll blow him. You can rim him,’ Kara suggested. ‘If that doesn’t lighten his mood nothing will.’
Zach stuck his tongue into his cheek. ‘Somehow I don’t think we’re going to get to dictate terms. He needs to reassert his authority, and you can bet we’re about to feel the full force of it.’
Kara let a grin stretch across her face. ‘Sounds good to me.’ She always enjoyed herself when Ric got masterful.
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Madelynne Ellis
Their ‘no strings’ affair is about to get complicated.The Sequel to ANYTHING BUT VANILLA.One disastrous marriage was all it took for Ric Liddell to give up on commitment, so when his ‘no strings’ arrangement withZach Blackwater and Kara North hits the rocks due to a plague of interfering busybodies, he retreats to what feels safe — sex, filthy sex, and even more filthy sex, in no particular order.Zach wants Ric, and not just for their connection in the sack. When his lover hurts him, he’s willing to look elsewhere for the stability he craves — and he doesn’t have to look far, because Kara’s right there.The guys are hot, and the sex is dirty, but for Kara, caught in the middle of Zach and Ric’s emotional absurdity, it’s painfully clear their threesome just can’t last. Unless they can somehow set their fears aside and accept they need one another to be whole.
Anything But Ordinary
MADELYNNE ELLIS
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental.
Mischief
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
The News Building
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.mischiefbooks.com (http://www.mischiefbooks.com)
An eBook Original 2015
1
Copyright © Madelynne Ellis
Madelynne Ellis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 978-0-00-814879-9
Version: 2015-11-03
Contents
Cover (#ubfdf54ce-ac0f-5ff2-9337-58cbcbd95866)
Title Page (#ua6ac5966-ffca-5579-bfca-9b4b87b23318)
Copyright (#ue490a83a-c4ba-55f4-93e2-15bbb9c53b4c)
Prologue (#uab8f95f0-eadf-5737-aa2b-25b584f87d7f)
Chapter 1 (#u720979ad-169d-5e55-ac08-65d3773b789a)
Chapter 2 (#u71f17ac6-213c-5c02-999c-abc7e1062836)
Chapter 3 (#u65d70a16-3109-509c-919e-cd1edb073fab)
Chapter 4 (#u34f6691a-e239-5725-a949-c738cfe9c145)
Chapter 5 (#u6c846b1d-9d1a-52c9-87e9-237c68fd76dc)
Chapter 6 (#ue1ec7442-f8de-5927-922d-8ba4d07a776a)
Chapter 7 (#u20cf8af7-a2c1-550b-97e0-136428957fd5)
Chapter 8 (#u6b42b327-f3ff-539b-b3e2-8600e12703cb)
Chapter 9 (#ua8c2a55b-ba06-57ff-a4e4-20fb92edccbc)
Chapter 10 (#u7f2ea321-8afc-5b8b-bc00-50677183d7a4)
Chapter 11 (#u976ac04d-75f7-56c3-bb9f-adbbba8cbf95)
Chapter 12 (#ua30695dc-3ecf-59c2-b4ce-b62db83069c8)
Chapter 13 (#u469b03b0-033b-5ee3-8a22-827622c0cdbc)
Chapter 14 (#u4f86c773-614c-5921-a929-baaef8ec7cee)
Chapter 15 (#u99cbc56e-17b4-51fb-842e-1f78a6974e26)
Chapter 16 (#ud7ba6273-7631-58fd-b189-683468ae343f)
Chapter 17 (#u53a98b81-0c5b-5cc4-964d-97b2b8a9bfa3)
Chapter 18 (#u744521fd-b264-5c34-a276-67275dbb9e06)
Chapter 19 (#uded35c82-88c0-5841-a362-040ac4b848a4)
Chapter 20 (#u868f1994-f8d3-584c-b950-b7634b930fd8)
Chapter 21 (#u5bb02921-9258-5e8e-a59e-576c8535bf79)
Chapter 22 (#u176449dd-b4de-50f7-a305-0f2c27d46c72)
Chapter 23 (#u12ac6306-172e-5c8d-aea8-f62a8e90497c)
Chapter 24 (#u527eecfa-fbd4-535e-a682-05b81f4ae3c8)
Chapter 25 (#u05a2c880-c05c-5cba-95bd-5b9e47f71de9)
Chapter 26 (#u6e050b04-771b-54f3-aa59-5fd0092154d6)
Chapter 27 (#u7584d6a2-38c7-52c9-8564-1518944f4a29)
Chapter 28 (#u68f2e728-e917-5d3b-be8e-ac0458275be3)
Chapter 29 (#uc9390730-c7f3-5249-a9b7-495c7ccf9f03)
Chapter 30 (#u334680bc-2cf5-51fd-a572-53c63dfe52e2)
Chapter 31 (#u395ccf96-ee99-51b7-96e0-bd68a92736ea)
Chapter 32 (#u3900488a-d8ef-5e95-a41d-f82f7f1bfa60)
Chapter 33 (#u077bfd8d-e4f6-54fe-ab30-c44284f3decb)
Chapter 34 (#u1adaca2c-3255-54ea-b916-d7e1b4392334)
Chapter 35 (#u37a26656-9e78-5a6c-bff1-370dd67106a9)
Chapter 36 (#ufd66e228-5870-55d4-b375-128ed4bc359d)
Chapter 37 (#u53292424-0877-59b4-b640-ac03f54819a8)
Chapter 38 (#u5d39e468-7ceb-58f1-a6d8-cc7d37819726)
Chapter 39 (#ub187a3e7-32f4-556f-bc37-92c608b3b4a1)
Chapter 40 (#ucaa19b8f-4534-5dfc-8a3c-c1327ff449dd)
Chapter 41 (#u18fcac71-8c9f-5658-b066-ca9d6985b7f3)
Postscript (#u1fe549e7-1d9a-5a7f-8e9a-ea8db866b2f1)
About the Publisher (#u840c6659-9856-5c45-a995-f51764375466)
Prologue (#uba1295ed-7a16-51c4-b77b-05c896c3efb9)
It reminded Kara of the night it all began. Standing pressed against the railings bordering the canal, with her panties around her ankles and the caress of cool air stirring against her skin. Except this time it was the sea breeze blowing across the bay, ruffling her skirt, and in place of cold iron and inky water stood the sea wall and a thin stretch of white sand.
Two fingers rode the line of her slit, making her hips punch forwards in eager anticipation of the touch reaching her clit. She needed this, after the last two weeks of hell, when everything had fallen apart and she’d wondered how it would ever be righted. Zach had fixed that with his presence alone. Explanations were unnecessary, likewise apologies given in words.
The aching tension that had knotted Kara’s muscles slowly began to unravel as his touch reached the desired destination and worked its magic. He teased his fingers back and forth in her moisture.
‘I’m glad you came,’ she whispered, as her lips found the soft stretch of skin between his ear and the line of stubble upon his jaw. Not that ‘glad’ really encompassed what she felt. No one word could, nor even a thousand. You couldn’t sum up love with words. It was something you experienced deep down on a cellular level. It had the ability to raze and savage, heal and nurture. Love destroyed and elevated, wrought bliss and panic. She’d felt every one of those emotions over the last few days, but now, at last, everything had come full circle. And maybe the fact that it was hard won made the high she was sailing towards that bit sweeter.
‘Not half as pleased as I am.’
Joy radiated off him like heat, and was made manifest in numerous other ways: in the metre of his voice – soft yet pleasure-laced – and in the way the worry lines that had etched his skin were wiped away.
Zach turned his head, forcing her lips from his ear in order to drive his mouth down hard upon them. He worshipped their curves, before pressing inside and stroking his tongue against hers.
Kara’s arousal spiked, sending a shiver down through her tensed limbs, while the touch of his fingers caused an upwards sweep of excitement. The twin sensations pooled in her belly, leaving her overeager and poised on the tips of her toes. Off balance, Kara grabbed hold of Zach’s belt and held on tight. He knew how to do right by her. She couldn’t think of a single occasion when he hadn’t delivered. Zach was the ultimate giver. He gave now, circling her clit with the tip of his thumb, so that it perked up, eager for direct action.
‘Like that, do you?’ He pursed his lips, expression one of bemused contentment.
‘You know I do,’ she sighed, giddy in anticipation of that hot stroke across her clit. Her nipples stiffened, breaking the smooth line of her dress. Immediately, Zach’s gaze dropped, followed by his head, so that he could rub his cheek against the protruding points. His stubble rasped against the fabric and sent a sharp flash of lightning zipping through both breasts and down to her sex, provoking a groan.
So damn good.
Somehow she always forgot exactly how good he was. Great enough that she longed to feel his mouth against her bare skin and to hell with the possibility of being seen. If her dress would have allowed it, she’d have wrenched the fabric aside without a second thought. As it was, she could only tilt her head back and arch her spine so that her breasts were thrust forwards in offering.
If it had been Ric out here with her instead of Zach, then he’d have had a hand in her hair by now, and would be pulling, urging her to give a little more. Zach invariably proved the gentler of the two men. Her two lovers…
A broad grin stretched wide across Kara’s face.
Two lovers – every time she considered those words it felt like her nerves were powered with rocket fuel.
What’s more, they were rock-solid again. Ric would join them soon enough. Then they’d prove triangles weren’t only mathematically strong, they worked emotionally too.
‘How long do you think he’ll be?’ she asked.
‘Why, are you in a hurry to get somewhere?’
Only to get off. She didn’t need to say that aloud for Zach to hear her. He read it straight from her thoughts.
‘We don’t need Ric for that.’
He claimed the rigid peak of her nipple, sucking hard and flicking it with his tongue, while his hand remained curved against her pussy. He was right, of course. Ric’s assistance wasn’t required. Zach had only to keep up his current teasing and she’d come all over his fingers. The only thing that held her back from writhing hard against his hand was the desire to get him a whole lot closer.
The stroke of his fingertip almost brought her off anyway.
‘Nooo,’ she squeaked. ‘Not yet. Not yet. I want more…closer.’
She tugged at the waistband of Zach’s formal trousers, but they didn’t budge from his waist.
‘You can have more. I’m not going anywhere. Let me give you this, Kara.’
‘Oh, God!’ she gasped, voice no more than a croak, as he drove her into the white void ready to topple. ‘I’m gonna…’
‘Shh!’ He nuzzled her neck. ‘Just let it come. You know I like it when you’re slick and smooth, and you get my cock all wet when I rub against you.’
Kara dug her teeth into her lower lip, trying to hold the imminent explosion inside. She couldn’t do it, not when he was stroking her like that, touching her in just the right place, in exactly the right way.
‘I’ll give you everything you want, Kara. You know that. No tricks. No false promises. Just let it come.’
Let it…She couldn’t hold it back if she tried.
Fuck…fuck…fuck! That was good. That was so fucking good.
Zach held her as his fingers beat a rapid tattoo against her clit that matched the drum of her climax.
Spent, she sagged in his embrace, limbs boneless.
Zach held her steady, as aftershock upon aftershock rippled through her and she breathed in his heavenly scent.
‘That was cruel, Mr Blackwater.’
‘Cruel?’ Twin furrows appeared between his wing-like brows. ‘What’s cruel about getting you off?’
‘Spoiling me for other things.’
‘That’s not spoiling you. It’s just warming you up.’
Yeah, she was warm, all right. Heat suffused her cheeks, and he’d left an inferno raging between her thighs.
‘For what?’
‘I think you know.’
‘It better not involve a wait.’
‘You don’t think a delay or two makes things sweeter?’
‘Chocolate sauce makes things sweeter.’
‘Sadly, I don’t have any of that on hand.’
She’d painted him with it, the second time they’d met, and then licked it from his cock until he’d been rabid with need.
Kara’s climax hadn’t lessened her desire for him. If anything, the craving to have him thrust inside her had tripled that need.
‘No more tricks, Zach. Show a little mercy.’
‘Tricks?’ A grin stretched his lips wide, showing off his pearly whites. ‘Uh-uh. Now you’re mistaking me for Ric.’
That was true. Zach was honest to the core, straight-up and straightforward. There was no guile to him. What you got was what you saw. Ric was the one with the mad manipulation skills.
‘You know I’m all for calling a spade a spade.’
And a cock a cock.
‘So if I wanted you to do something unspeakably rude, then I’d only have to spit it out?’
‘Aye, though it’s not like you to spit.’
She spluttered out a laugh, then covered her mouth with her hand.
‘The general sentiment sounds good though.’
The two fingers he’d been using to tease her clit dipped down into her pussy. Kara’s muscles clenched tight, welcoming them, trying to draw them deeper. Hell, yes, that’s what she wanted: something to hold on to.
Zach kissed her brow, then stole a kiss right off her lips. ‘Name it, Kara. You know I’d give you the world if I could.’
‘I’m not really after that.’ Her desires weren’t nearly that lofty. All she wanted was to feel the staff currently bruising her thigh poking her somewhere wet and warm. ‘I thought maybe you could do something with this.’ She scratched a fingernail over the long obscene wedge.
Apparently that made it his turn to shiver.
‘Yeah? Then maybe you’d like to give me a little breathing room.’
‘Maybe I’d like to go a step further, and get on my knees and suck you.’
‘You don’t think that might prove too risqué an exhibition even for this place?’ They were poised across the road from one of the country’s most prestigious art galleries.
‘I thought they were all for modern art. You’ll have to make sure you come artily.’
‘How about I paint you a pearl necklace?’ he asked, quirking one thick brow.
She could picture that. Her on her knees, him with his back to the sea wall, facing the gallery entrance, his trousers coiled at his feet and all the buttons of his dress shirt undone save the top two so that the ridges of his torso were on display along with the diamond of hair on his chest and the line that led right to his assets. His tie would still be in place, though skewed to one side, his fingers clawing the stone to his rear, eyes closed but mouth open, framing a bone-deep sigh. Hell, there was a picture she’d hang on her wall. Where was Ric when you needed him to be about to take it?
Kara popped Zach’s button and drew down his fly. His shirt tails were tucked around him, like he’d walked straight out of the eighteenth century. He wore no underwear, a fact she damn well loved him for. Give her easy access over Calvin Kleins any day. And the less said about boxers the better.
Long and stiff, Zach’s erection filled her hand and then some. She didn’t exactly give him breathing room, but then she didn’t actually believe that was what he wanted. There was barely a hair’s breadth between their bodies as she sought his kiss again. The man had a mouth made for sin, and a body she intended to sin with.
‘Know what I’d really like to happen now?’
‘I’m sure I can’t imagine.’
‘Turn me round. Lean me over that wall. Shove up my skirt and fuck me.’
‘Right now? It’s gonna be really obvious what we’re doing if anyone walks past.’
‘Fucking is always obvious.’ Sex always looked like sex, no matter how you tried to dress it up. Hiding under the biggest beach towel on the planet wouldn’t disguise what they were doing if their bodies were moving. Not that she gave a damn if they were seen.
‘I don’t remember you being so squeamish about being seen the first time we met.’
‘I didn’t have a hotel with a hot tub waiting for me that night. And in any case, I didn’t imagine I’d ever see you again.’
Nor had she. He’d been an easy pickup, a soothing balm to rub onto an open wound. That night was supposed to have been her wedding night. The best thing she ever did was cancel that debacle and find herself a damn good lay instead. Gavin, the ex, had been terrible in bed and out of it.
Blissfully, wedding bells were now off the agenda for good. You weren’t allowed to marry two men. Apparently it was considered greedy or something.
‘Pull up my skirt and let me feel you,’ she insisted. Sometimes it took a little repetition to get her point across. Unless it was Ric she was talking to. He’d have been kneeing her legs apart before she’d even finished the request. The man had no shame, but neither did she, not when it came to the men she loved. Fuck waiting until they reached the hotel. Really, fuck even dragging him down the promenade steps and onto the sand where they could pretend they were invisible by lurking in the shadows.
‘Fuck me, Zach.’ She turned, wriggled her arse at him, then peeped back over her shoulder to gauge his reaction.
He stood gaping at her, fever in his eyes, erection pointing at her like a heat-seeking missile.
‘You’re so goddamned dictatorial.’
She pursed her lips. Maybe so, but she’d learned good things came to those who were honest about their wants.
Kara grasped both sides of her skirt and began to inch it upwards, stopping only when the hem sat just below C-level.
‘You’re gonna get us both busted for public indecency.’
‘So snuggle up close so there’s nothing to see.’
‘Like this?’ he asked. Not really closing the gap at all. Only his cock touched her. He drew the head of it along the crease between her cheeks before angling it down so it lay parallel to her slit. Somehow him being so near and yet so far, further fanned the flames that already had her scaling sheer rock faces in her mind. She wriggled some more, this time trying to tempt him into position, while thoroughly enjoying his determination not to gratify her too swiftly.
One of his large palms settled against her bare skin, stilling her jigging and forcing her to wait for it.
It wasn’t fair of him, not when she was already so wet. There was dew all over her lips and even the tops of her thighs were starting to feel a little damp.
‘God, you’re wet.’ His quick gasp buffeted the back of her neck as he leaned into her, just lodging the head of his cock where she so desperately needed to feel it. ‘I love it when you’re this desperate. You’re fucking insatiable, aren’t you, Kara?’
‘For you,’ she agreed.
‘For Ric too.’
‘I’m not going to deny it. You can’t either. You love him. It’s why you’re here. It’s why we’re both here. It wasn’t right, the three of us being apart.’
Zach’s teeth grazed her shoulder. Ahead of her, sea foam lapped at the line of pebbles.
‘There’s no Ric involved in this.’
He filled her, forcing the release of the breath she’d been holding.
‘This is just us, Kara. It’s just us. What you can feel is my cock in your cunt. It’s me giving you this. Ric’s still schmoozing arty types.’
It might be true that at this moment it was just the two of them, but when Ric emerged from the gallery he would blend seamlessly into their game, take out his phone and capture them on film. Or he’d stand to the side, place one hand on Zach’s arse and slide the other between her pussy and the wall. His fingers would brush her clit every time Zach’s thrusts jerked her forwards. He’d make himself part of this even if he wasn’t doing the fucking.
‘Do you think he’s going to be long?’
‘I don’t care if he takes all night.’ Zach’s fingers clawed upon her hips. ‘Ever consider that I might like that it’s just us out here doing this?’
He bucked forwards again, filling her up, then gliding back, the motion so smooth it made the whole of her lower body tingle. Then he was back inside her again, pounding away at her hard like there was a point he had to make.
‘Zach! Oh, God!’
That was ridiculously, fantastically good, but also a little too much, a little too fast.
‘It’s not a race.’
‘Isn’t it? Maybe I need to get you off before he makes himself a part of this. Maybe I need to prove I can make it good for you all on my own.’
‘Shit, Zach! You already did. It wasn’t the night air that made me this wet.’
‘Wanna go all the way with you.’
They were going to be in free fall over the edge of the sea wall if he didn’t cool it a little. Shame she didn’t have the breath to tell him that. And maybe, truthfully, she didn’t want to. The buzz built rapidly, sending shock waves out across her body. It was all she could do to hold herself steady, clinging with her fingers to the sloping top stone, while her upper body clove to it. Zach fucked like a demon – no let-up, no restraints. It was a sprint he absolutely intended to win.
Damn if she wasn’t cheering him towards the finishing line too, her pussy eating up his thrusts and going crazy for more. She pushed back against him, making their naked flesh slap. He rode his thumb up along the length of her spine, the soft caress sending out pleasure spikes of a different kind. His grip curled around her shoulder, then he reeled her in, bringing her upright and back against the hard slab of his body.
Cradled, he held her, one arm locked beneath her breasts, the other slicking dew over her red and hungry pussy. Yet his need to possess her didn’t ease.
‘Are you gonna come for me, Kara? I need you to come.’
Her pulse fluttered wildly in her neck where his lips pressed against the skin.
‘Wanna feel you explode.’ He sucked, obliterating what was left of her rational mind. All that remained was one living, breathing, aching spiral of need as Zach was driving towards a cataclysmic impact.
Her orgasm broke, dragging an inarticulate moan from the depths of her soul. Kara shuddered, surrendered and let the beat of her body dictate everything.
Zach had nothing to worry about. There was no reason for him to believe he wasn’t every bit as amazing as Ric. Their talents were just for different things. They were each artists in their own way. What they did have in common was the ability to make her come so hard it was impossible not to weep afterwards.
Scalding tears trickled over her cheeks and hit her swollen lips. Kara licked the salt away as she rested, reclaiming her breath, while Zach continued to hold her upright.
Eventually, they’d have to break apart. Gravity was already doing its evil work and speeding them towards that moment. His softening cock slipped from her. Ejaculate trickled down her thighs.
Zach stood behind her a moment, strangely quiet as he zipped up. She half expected him to tidy her clothes too. Maybe even produce a handkerchief and dry her off a little. Instead, he turned her around so they stood facing once more. Then he knelt on the pavement and dragged his tongue over her still smouldering sex.
Shock loosened her tongue. There was no way of holding back her cries, other than by biting down hard on the heel of her hand. She couldn’t come again. Not yet. It was too soon, but her body responded with aftershocks and she absolutely didn’t call him off from showing his appreciation. As his mouth soothed, Kara laced her fingers through the strands of his brown hair. He was going to scuff the hell out of the knees of his tailored trousers, kneeling down before her like this.
‘Kara.’
Zach gazed up at her, dark-brown eyes like molten pools of chocolate. The night sky and a million stars were reflected in their surface, overlaid by her own shadowy silhouette.
‘Yeah,’ she replied, stroking the line of his jaw.
‘I wondered…’
He broke off to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, removing the smears of moisture there.
‘That is, I hope this isn’t too much of a surprise, but will you marry me?’
‘What? Don’t be silly.’
‘I’m being serious.’
He was too. His earnestness shone all too clearly in the twisted turn of his mouth and the worry-lines scrunching up his brow.
‘I know I’ve kind of sprung this on you, but…’
Holy fuck!
Kara clamped a hand across her mouth. The next minute seemed to stretch out infinitely long, before time snapped back on itself. Marry him! Where the damned hell had that come from? She’d been a runaway bride the night they’d met. When she’d made the decision to ditch Gavin, admittedly not quite at the altar, she’d sworn to herself that marriage was firmly off her life agenda. Given she now had two lovers, how could she even contemplate anything different?
‘You don’t have to give me an answer right now.’
Yes, she did. She absolutely did.
While Gavin had never understood her, and their union would have been an unmitigated disaster, she couldn’t say the same of her and Zach. They had everything in common to make such a binding work, including the one thing that made it impossible to say yes.
‘What about Ric?’
Zach bowed his head, seeming to focus on a spot on the pavement between her feet. ‘I guess I ought to have realised you’d prefer to have him over me.’
‘No,’ she insisted, shaking her head. ‘No, Zach. That’s not it. It’s not about me having a preference. I won’t choose one of you over the other. You both matter.’
Why did he even imagine she’d contemplate doing so? All she’d ever wanted – once they’d hurdled over the no-strings bit – was for them to be equals.
‘If I could marry you both it’d be different, but that’s not an option. Why are you even asking this? Did you think it through? Tell me you didn’t think it through, and that it’s just a stupid spur-of-the-moment thing.’
He raised his head, reached up and attempted to hold her hand. ‘I’m asking because I love you.’
Kara covered her ears. ‘You love Ric.’
‘And you.’
‘Stop it,’ she said, pushing away from the wall and taking two unsteady paces along the promenade. She dragged her skirt back into position.
‘Why is that so hard to believe?’
She swung around to face him, to find him rising to his feet.
‘Because I know how you feel about him. Zach, don’t do this. Tell me this is a joke. We’ve just found each other again, why would you want to break it up?’
‘I’m not trying to break anything up.’
‘Can’t you see that’s exactly what will happen if I agree to this? It’s like we’re all on a seesaw together and you’re trying to tip it in one direction.’
He dragged his hand across his mouth, scratched at the shadow already scuffing his jawline.
‘That’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to keep us together.’
‘Drop it, Zach,’ she pleaded. ‘I don’t want to hear anything else about this now. I can’t hear it. I’m going to pretend the last few minutes didn’t happen.’
‘You wouldn’t be saying that if he’d asked.’
‘He has sense enough not to ask. But the answer would be the same. Tying that sort of knot would unbalance everything. It’d ruin everything.’
The sound of approaching laughter made them both turn to face the art gallery entrance. The last few stragglers were now emerging from the building.
Kara covered her mouth with her fingers to silence herself. This conversation was done with, over now. She didn’t even want Ric to know it had taken place. Ric led the parade of be-suited, cravat-wearing bohemians jogging down the steps. His long hair rested on his shoulders. His sleeves were rolled back to his elbows and the neck of his shirt was undone. Damn, he still had the power to steal her breath. Tears prickled in her eyes, but she blinked the sensation away.
Ric crossed the narrow road to reach her. Slid one arm around her back and drew her close. The scent of champagne lingered on his breath. ‘Ready to go?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
He made the couple of strides that separated her from Zach, tugging her along for the ride. ‘Zach, you’re coming too, right? Or did you book a room somewhere?’
Zach shook his head.
Shadows swam in his dark eyes, which Kara prayed Ric was too drunk to notice.
‘Thank fuck for that,’ Ric blurted. ‘I want you in bed next to me, not in some room halfway across town.’ He kissed his lover full on the lips. ‘Hmm, nice, somebody tastes of somebody else. Have you two being having fun without me?’
‘You seemed to be having fun without us.’ Kara nodded to the group he’d come out with, who were still chatting outside the curved, whitewashed walls of the gallery.
‘Good guys,’ Ric acknowledged, saluting the small congregation. ‘See you all around.’
They waved, then turned away and headed off in little groups.
Ric positioned himself between her and Zach. He hooked an arm around each of their waists and jogged them into motion. ‘Hotel? Or do you want to take in the Island view first?’
‘Hotel,’ they replied synchronously.
‘Too right,’ Ric agreed. ‘There’s no view on earth that can compete with the sight of you two naked.’ He slid his hands upwards to cup the back of their heads, urged them to turn inwards and attempted to engineer a three-way kiss. It didn’t work. All they did was bump noses and chins. ‘Good job fucking’s easier than kissing. I want to get inside you both.’
‘I don’t think you can do that simultaneously either,’ Kara whispered.
‘One after the other then,’ he replied, giving her a wink. ‘I think you know my stamina’s up to it.’
‘Your libido might be,’ Zach said, finding his voice again. His tone suggested he’d swallowed any awkwardness their recent conversation had caused, though there were still shadows lingering in his eyes. ‘But how much booze have you had?’
‘Less than the amount of spunk I intend to have as a chaser.’
Kara snorted.
Ric ran his tongue over his teeth, while a blush heated Zach’s pale cheeks.
‘The fact you even said that proves you’re wasted.’
‘I’m not wasted.’ Ric laughed. ‘Just a little merry.’ He squeezed Zach’s arse. ‘And I’ve missed you enough to want to suck you off.’ His expression sobered as he faced Zach square on. ‘I really fucking missed you, man. When are you coming home?’
‘As soon as you give me back my key.’ Zach kissed Ric hard upon the lips. ‘I’ve missed you too.’
Chapter 1 (#uba1295ed-7a16-51c4-b77b-05c896c3efb9)
Three weeks earlier
‘No, no…Don’t you dare!’ Kara screeched as Zach crashed into her, knocking her off balance. She landed with a splash amongst the surf, with pebbles digging into her bottom and salt water in her eyes. None of that seemed to matter a second later, when Zach’s mouth closed over hers and he proceeded to drown her with hungry kisses. Their hips aligned perfectly, and the hillock between them hinted at pleasures still to come. Eager for all of it, Kara stopped squirming and hooked her legs around his thighs.
‘Nice…Oh, yeah, very nice…’
Shut up, Ric, she mentally chastised. Using her actual verbal skills was out of the question given her tongue was sparring with Zach’s and there was no point in objecting to Ric photographing them. That was what he did – all the time. The camera was a natural extension of him. He always snapped first and waved the consent forms around afterwards. She’d signed so many of them now, he had to have a drawer full of them.
‘Wet T-shirt, love it. Just hook your thumb in the back of his shorts, Kara.’
Obviously hoping they could make out without a running commentary was too much to hope for.
Ric moved in close. As always when he was in the zone, his face was drawn into seriousness, lips sealed, blue-grey eyes gleaming.
‘Just roll with it,’ Zach whispered, having momentarily broken them apart in order to breathe. ‘You know he gets off on ordering us about.’
Yeah, and she got off on groping Zach’s arse, so she supposed there was nothing to get her knickers in a twist over. It would be different if Ric insisted she couldn’t touch, and that it had to be all smouldering looks, but the man had dirty engrained in his every cell. Actually, scratch that, he went beyond dirty, all the way to filthy and well on the way to whatever it was that came next. She’d yet to find a consensual sex act that Ric got squeamish over: toe sucking, if you insisted; bondage and discipline, he preferred to give but was up for taking too; gay sex; threesomes or moresomes; DP; nipple clamps, absolutely, bring it on. He’d never expressed an opinion on fisting, but hell, it wasn’t as if she wanted to go there. She’d bet he’d photograph it though. It was just what he did.
‘Now inch them down a bit. Come on. I want to see nails biting into his flesh, and sea spray clinging to his skin.’
‘I want to see you tied to that rock.’ There were even convenient metal rings attached to it. ‘Doesn’t mean either of us is going to get what we want.’
Ric cast a brief glance at the old iron bands bolted to the cliff face. ‘If anyone is getting tied up, it’ll be me doing the tying.’
He’d once suggested that he liked to shackle wayward tenants there in order to pay their tithes. It didn’t take any imagination to figure out what that might involve. Alaric ‘Ric’ Liddell was the most sexual being Kara had ever met and, as the owner of Liddell Island, he’d been born to the role of master. If she pushed him, he might well chain her up. That was if Zach didn’t volunteer in her place. Not because Zach especially liked being restrained. It was more that he enjoyed the energy that power differentials generated. Oh, and he definitely got off on the idea of her and Ric drinking down the visuals of him all hot and horny and unable to do anything about it.
Kara defied anyone to look at Zach and not get turned on, want to rough him up a little and then get down and dirty. There was a reason he was Ric’s muse. Zach wasn’t classically handsome, but his wing-like brows and soft, melting brown eyes certainly made him arresting. He was big-boned too, in an oddly wiry way that gave the impression of youth. Most importantly though, he was a giver, and that fact was written into every inch of his being. He radiated that warmth.
He was heating her this very moment with it.
His hand slid under the bottom edge of her bikini top and claimed her right breast. Kara sighed a welcome. The heat of his hand made a sharp contrast to the chill of the sea. It crinkled her already steepled nipple, which he rubbed with the centre of his palm, while he used his teeth to lift the other side of her bikini. That nipple he claimed with his mouth, sucking it deep, sending sharp pulses of pleasure down through her abdomen.
Where she had been wet, now she was sopping. Zach wound a teasing pathway down to her pussy, pressing a kiss here, another there. He flipped up her skirt and teased the top of her thighs, tantalising her with his nearness, letting the tension inside her build until all she wanted was to grab hold of his hair and guide him into place. When he relented and sucked her, he did so through her panties, which only served to amplify her need. Kara softly moaned and pinched her own nipples, kindling further sparks of pleasure that connected and formed a circuit with her pussy each time Zach’s tongue flicked across her clit.
And still the whirr of Ric’s camera melded with the birdsong and the noise of the ocean lapping at the shore. She didn’t mind him taking pictures. Ric could turn even her into a spectacular work of art, but she did fantasise about him discarding the camera on the sand and it being washed away by the tide. With his hands free, he’d then kneel by her head, jeans glued to his skin by the weight of the water, fly undone, and press his cock to her lips, and Kara would lose herself between the two men.
‘Put down the camera and come kiss me,’ she mouthed, vocal cords so tight from mewling in response to the tickle of Zach’s tongue that they didn’t seem to want to function.
Ric pursed his lips. ‘And why would I want to do that?’
Despite their commitment to one another, he still insisted on maintaining an air of detachment, as if by doing so he could deny he was as emotionally entangled as she and Zach had become. The truth was that he was every bit as devoted.
‘Don’t look at me to twist your arm,’ Zach muttered. He breathed hot air onto her skin, and traced his tongue along the lacy edge of her panties. ‘Less of you means all the more for me.’
‘As I see it, all you’re doing is toying with her. Why don’t you suck her properly? Rip that scrap of lace off and show me and that pussy some red-hot loving. Prove you’re not just a big fat tease.’
Kara groaned her agreement. Yes, please. She relished the idea of Zach’s tongue running along the split of her sex, then making direct contact with her clit. He’d make her ache so good that when he sucked, she’d be so desperate with need, even an earthquake wouldn’t move her as much.
Instead, Zach sucked her through the lace, driving her into a state of frenzied desire, where everything was overwrought and hypersensitive. She ached with the need to feel him get closer, push his tongue inside her, fuck her with it and then with his cock. She reached for him, tangling her fingers in the longer brown strands of hair that normally flopped over his brow. What she really wanted was for him to shimmy up over her again, drive his cock against her mound, push inside, and make them both so hot they cried out, demented and desperate, as they strained together, strove together, until they were right there, hanging on the brink of orgasm just a finger’s breadth away from total collapse.
For some reason she opened her eyes at that moment, perhaps needing the connection to Ric that proved they were a threesome before dying in Zach’s arms.
Ric was intently focused upon them, brows subtly furrowed, blond hair tickling the tops of his shoulders and that magic gleam still in his eyes.
‘Come,’ he mouthed to her, tracing his tongue over the tip of one canine. ‘Keep looking right at me and come. Let me see it all, Kara. Everything. Don’t hold anything back.’
He might as well have asked her to give him her soul. Sex stripped away barriers. By its very nature it was up close and personal. You couldn’t hide when you were riding a tide of bliss towards orgasm. She knew everything she felt would be right there on her face, scored into every line, written into every millimetre of skin. Ric would capture that and print it for the world to see. Her agony and ecstasy all rolled into one.
Perhaps she had become as enamoured as Zach of being immortalised, because she did look at Ric. Stared straight at him, and might even have come if it wasn’t for a shifting shadow that made her turn her head.
Subconsciously, she’d been aware of the niggling sound that didn’t make sense for a minute or so. It was the gentle whirr of gears turning, and the repetitive ping of digital wizardry being made by something that wasn’t Ric’s stupidly expensive camera.
Conclusion – there was a second photographer.
‘No!’ she shrieked in alarm, on glimpsing the figure. ‘Oh, God. Fuck, no. Get off me, Zach. Get off me now!’
Obedient to the core, Zach raised his head. ‘What?’ His eyes had been closed, but they flickered open now. His pupils were widely dilated and riddled with confusion. ‘What is it?’
He had his back to the intruder. In all honesty, that was probably a godsend, given the kid had to be all of eight. He was posed, mimicking Ric, right down to the angle at which he held his camera.
Kara tugged her bikini top back into position, while Zach dragged his shorts up so they covered his arse.
‘Stop him, Ric.’
‘Hey, kid.’ Ric made a vague swatting motion, as if to chase the boy away, but the little blighter kept on staring at her and Zach through his camera lens. ‘Stop that. You can’t go taking photographs without permission. Where are your parents?’
On seeing that his words weren’t evoking a response, Ric skipped in front of the lad, so as to block him from taking any more shots. The lad didn’t seem to notice, given his camera kept on whirring away, presumably capturing some epic shots of Ric’s abs.
‘Give me that.’ Ric snatched the camera from his grasp, and held it out of reach.
‘Nan…Nana!’
Christ the kid had lungs.
‘Nana, the rude man’s taken my camera.’ The little dynamo aimed a kick at Ric’s shins, missed and targeted a punch towards his groin instead.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Ric planted a hand on the boy’s head and held him at arm’s length, while he browsed through the illicit images with his thumb and repeatedly hit delete.
Kara curled her hand around his bicep when she noticed the kid’s grandmother appear from around the curve of the bay. The old woman saw them huddled around her still flailing charge and hurried over, chiffon scarf waving in the breeze.
‘What on earth are you doing to my grandson? Get your hands off him.’ She inserted herself between Ric and the boy, whom she sent scuttling towards a line of young relatives who’d just appeared from the same direction she had come.
‘Nan?’ they enquired.
‘I’m fine, dears.’ She flapped them towards the shore. ‘Go…play…’
Gentle with her charges, her gaze turned cold as she turned it upon Ric. ‘Who do you think you are, laying a finger on him? You’ve no right, none at all.’
‘He was taking pictures of things he shouldn’t have been.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ The woman’s sun-browned face scrunched into a web of lines. ‘Is that his camera? How dare you take it off him? Give that back.’ She snatched it out of Ric’s hand. ‘And you’ve been deleting his pictures. Oh, my God.’
‘Would you rather I’d left the topless shots on there?’
‘Well…’
Ric scratched the faint golden stubble around his jaw. ‘Or the ones of them shagging?’ He shot sidewards glances at both Zach and Kara, who had positioned themselves at either side of him. ‘Maybe you’d prefer it if I’d just allowed him to carry on.’
Mouth slack, the woman seemed momentarily lost for words. She blinked at Ric.
‘Preposterous. He would never do such a thing. You meant to steal his camera. It was a birthday present, I’ll have you know.’
Somehow she seemed to have missed the expensive camera hanging from a strap over Ric’s shoulder, and hence had failed to realise how ludicrous her claim was.
‘My phone has a better lens than that thing,’ Ric scoffed. ‘Stealing? You’re off your rocker, lady. Instead of casting aspersions, maybe you ought to go and ask your grandson why he felt it necessary to take pictures of strangers. And maybe you’d like to ask yourself how he was allowed to wander off without you knowing where he was or what he was up to.’
‘I did know where he was. Just ahead of me. And there’s only your word to suggest he was doing anything wrong.’
‘Not only my word.’ Ric tapped his index finger against the viewscreen of the boy’s camera. ‘Don’t think I quite got them all, if you’d care to look.’
The woman’s gaze dropped from his face, travelled along the length of his arm to his finger. ‘How am I supposed to know what button does what?’
Ric helpfully tapped the back button.
A blush fanned across the woman’s cheeks. Yet again her mouth fell open.
‘Well…I…never…That’s…Are you?’
She flicked a hurried glance at Kara, clearly appalled.
‘This is disgusting.’
The remaining few images only consolidated her outrage.
‘What sort of person films this filth on a public beach, or performs it?’
Ignoring Ric a moment she levelled another glance at Kara. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’re married.’
Kara wiggled her fingers, displaying the absence of any sort of ring.
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, the three of you.’ She shut off the camera and deposited it in her cream-coloured handbag. ‘Nasty, that’s what it is, and clearly what you are.’
‘This isn’t a public beach,’ Zach pointed out, but the woman wasn’t listening. She was staring at the sunlight dappling Ric’s naked torso, and the spray slowly trickling over his abs. One droplet clung to his stomach just above the waistband of his extremely low-slung jeans. Kara had to clench her fists and dig her feet into the sand to stop herself from falling onto her knees and licking him. The old woman would probably faint dead away if she did that. Well, perhaps after she’d given them another lecture on propriety.
It occurred to Kara that her own sense of decorum had skipped out of town some nine months ago, right around the time she’d arrived on Liddell Island, and definitely by the first time Ric had fucked her in the arse in the open air. It’d happened on the cliff top, just above this cove. The memory put a hugely inappropriate smile on her face that she struggled to hide. Thankfully, there’d not been an audience that night.
‘For heaven’s sakes, cover yourself up. There are children about.’
‘They shouldn’t be here.’
Kara cast her gaze along the shore. Several kids ranging in ages from approximately seven to seventeen were now splashing about in the waves.
She didn’t need to see Ric’s expression to know his thoughts. Ire was radiating off him.
‘Really, it’s not appropriate. At least pull your trousers up.’
‘This is private property.’
Kara quickly inserted herself between Ric and the woman, just in case he did anything rash. She’d never known him to deck a total stranger, or strike a woman – discounting occurrences during consensual sex – but everyone had their breaking point and Ric had seemed alarmingly close to his for weeks now.
His mouth formed a nasty scowl.
‘Let’s go, Ric. We don’t need to hang out here,’ she counselled, tactfully failing to mention that it wouldn’t kill him to cover up a little under the circumstances. It wasn’t necessary for him to stroll around half naked, even if the fact he did meant she got to drink her fill of his stellar body.
‘Go where? I shouldn’t fucking need to go elsewhere. And no, I won’t put a fucking shirt on, and neither will he.’
Clearly he’d forgotten that Zach was technically dressed. It was an easy mistake to make, given that their roll in the surf had left him sodden and his cotton T-shirt see-through. Kara could see Zach’s nipples, puckered by the cold, quite clearly, along with the ridiculously pleasing cut of his abs, and those cute lines that formed a V either side of his hips that drew the eye downwards to…
She stopped herself looking, aware that the belligerent old woman was still present. The only reason her own clothing wasn’t as transparent as Zach’s was that she’d worn dark colours.
‘Let’s head up to Kara’s place,’ Zach suggested. Beachcomber Barn was only a little way along the cliff top, and at least there they wouldn’t be interrupted.
‘Why should we?’
Ric had a point. A valid point. This was his island. His property. Liddell Island had been owned by his family for centuries. The woman and her charges were only here because he chose to allow it. If he wished, he could force every one of the island’s visitors to leave immediately without giving any reason at all.
‘Come on, Ric.’ Zach clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s not worth it. Let the kids play in the sun. I can live without sand in intimate places and sunburn on my arse.’
He was rewarded with dual withering glares: one from the tourist, presumably over his language, and the other from Ric, who clearly considered it a matter of pride to stand his ground.
‘Really, man? It’s so not worth it.’ Zach half turned him and gave him an encouraging little shove in the right direction, which at least got him moving.
Ric grumbled under his breath all the way up to the top of the cliff and the way-marker stone. ‘It’s my fucking cove!’ he yelled back at the holidaymakers, giving them a two-fingered salute.
Kara doubted the folks on the beach heard him. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction and they were all too busy enjoying themselves to worry about a strange man prancing about on a clifftop.
Oh, well, so much for them chilling out on the beach together for the afternoon. Still, the day wasn’t done, and there were other places they could cosy up together.
‘First man to the barn gets a blowjob,’ she said, tapping Ric on the shoulder. That would hopefully get his attention. She didn’t wait to find out, but took off along the narrow track, agile as a mountain goat, despite the headland wind roaring in her face.
Zach followed, easily matching her pace with his impressive stride. He slowed a little as they neared the wood and wire fence that encircled her property. ‘I think I’d better let grouchy bear win. He looks as if someone stole his porridge.’
‘I’ll blow him. You can rim him,’ Kara suggested. ‘If that doesn’t lighten his mood nothing will.’
Zach stuck his tongue into his cheek. ‘Somehow I don’t think we’re going to get to dictate terms. He needs to reassert his authority, and you can bet we’re about to feel the full force of it.’
Kara let a grin stretch across her face. ‘Sounds good to me.’ She always enjoyed herself when Ric got masterful.
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Madelynne Ellis
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Эротические романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 17.04.2024
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О книге: Their ‘no strings’ affair is about to get complicated.The Sequel to ANYTHING BUT VANILLA.One disastrous marriage was all it took for Ric Liddell to give up on commitment, so when his ‘no strings’ arrangement withZach Blackwater and Kara North hits the rocks due to a plague of interfering busybodies, he retreats to what feels safe – sex, filthy sex, and even more filthy sex, in no particular order.Zach wants Ric, and not just for their connection in the sack. When his lover hurts him, he’s willing to look elsewhere for the stability he craves – and he doesn’t have to look far, because Kara’s right there.The guys are hot, and the sex is dirty, but for Kara, caught in the middle of Zach and Ric’s emotional absurdity, it’s painfully clear their threesome just can’t last. Unless they can somehow set their fears aside and accept they need one another to be whole.