Exquisitely Yours: A Sin City Tale Read online

  “Dan-iel.” Both syllables are pronounced, strung low between pleasure and uncertainty. Like the other guy, the one who didn’t ask what she liked, also neglected this area of their sex life and she’s not sure if I can make her come.

  Not only can I take this beautiful woman to the top of the ecstasy peak, but I will. And when she’s shaking and limp, spent from withstanding the barrage of emotions, I’ll usher her back down to earth with a reverence typically reserved for religious spaces.

  I have no doubt that she’ll come, and beg, and if I’m lucky I just might make her squirt. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  I insert my thumb into her hot channel. Thrusting in and out.

  Testing.

  Teasing.

  And fuck, she’s tight. Her walls are a vise around my thumb, squeezing and fluttering, and it’s not a huge leap for my imagination to picture what she’d feel like stretched around my very needy, ten-seconds-from-blowing-its-load dick. Her heels dig into my back as she works herself on my hand, frustrated moans escaping because a thumb, although awesome, isn’t giving her the penetration she craves.

  “Ah, so, you do like finger-fucking?” I murmur into the soft skin of her neck. With a flip of my wrist, I bring two fingers to her plump clit, which is engorged and already sensitive to touch.

  My thumb once again finds a rhythm, one that works in tandem with my fingers on the tight bundle of nerves at her center, layering a new sensation into the mix.

  Jessica jolts at the pressure. Her nails biting into my biceps.

  The flutters around my thumb increase in frequency. The pinched eyebrows start to relax, her body opening to the promise of an orgasm, and I stop.

  Now who’s the tease?

  Edging was not part of the plan twenty minutes ago, but in this moment it feels right. So, I roll with it. Jessica’s eyes snap open, disappointment apparent in the downturned corners of her mouth and the shuttering breaths she can’t seem to control.

  “Why’d you stop? I almost…I was right there,” she says accusingly.

  “Right where?” I want to hear the dirty words in her cultured voice. I want her to drop the elegant cultivation and ask for—no, demand—that I make her come.

  “Tell me you want my fingers in your pussy,” I demand, cupping a hand over her mound. My nose nudging the neon green triangle away from her breast. Her nipple is drawn and peaked, the deep plum of freshly picked boysenberries, and it would take an act of Congress to stop me from pulling it into my mouth.

  “Daniel, please,” she hisses, hips bucking under my palm.

  “Please what?” I ask around the flesh in my mouth. “Tell me—tell me.” Tell me.

  “You—you know.” The words are stuck behind antiquated modesty while her body is practically humming with need.

  “I’ll give it to you, Jess. Ask me,” I demand again, grinding my palm into her wet flesh as I take the other nipple into my mouth.

  “Oh my God,” she moans. “Yes.”

  “It can be so much better,” I say, kissing a trail down her stomach, my tongue circling her navel. “Ask me.”

  “Fuck me,” she whispers at the same time in a barely-there voice, and immediately I plunge two fingers inside her oh-so-tight hole, this time using my thumb to massage the head of her clit. I move up her body, grinding my chest into the delicate nipples that I didn’t spend hardly enough time on, and I kiss her hard, and tactless, all my finesse dissolved into the singular function to make her come.

  And she does.

  Head tilted back. Hips riding my fingers as her walls tremble and quake in orgasm. “Daniel…” she gasps in a half growl, half moan that acts like a tuning fork to my balls, pulling ejaculate up the shaft. “Yes. Daniel. Yes,” she repeats over and over. The chant soughing the quiet desert night with the sounds of a passion fulfilled.

  Jessica comes down in increments. Her legs relax first, and then her hands, which alternately stroke and pet me. Her gaze becomes a little more focused, and her mouth pulls into a shy, flirtatious grin.

  “Damn, that was hot,” I say, nipping at her lips.

  “No one…” she says, twining long, delicate fingers through my hair. “Looks good during sex. It’s…awkward,” her husky, satiated voice insists. It’s a knee-jerk statement stemming from her age and inexperience, or the old-school moral paradigm that dictates sex is bad and dirty and should be hidden behind closed doors and done with the lights out.

  If Jessica will let me, I’ll show her how it feels to have all five senses immersed in the act.

  Her fingers have threaded up the strands of hair, the tips messaging circles into my scalp. I roll my head into her hands, encouraging her to keep it up, to keep touching me, because fuck, it feels good. So good. Much better than it probably should. Goose bumps erupt down my spine because I like her hands on me and because I’m hard, uncomfortable, and achingly erect. Right now, my body is happy with any kind of stimulation.

  “Give me five minutes to show you how not awkward it can be.”

  She stares up at me and for a long drawn-out second, I figure I have a fifty-fifty shot that she’s going to tell me to go fuck myself, but then she leans up, her lips taking mine in a kiss that’s more assertive than any of the lip-locks that came before it, and we dive back in.

  Chapter 12

  Jessica

  I jolt awake at the sound of a garbage truck rumbling past the house. The sun has barely broken the horizon, leaving the city cool by desert standards and spiritless in the gray light of almost dawn.

  I turn my head and pain zips down my neck, razor-sharp and intense.

  “Ouch,” I breathe, waiting for the pain to lessen.

  Jesus, I must’ve slept wrong. Sitting up is slow going. More than my neck is stiff. My back. My legs. Even my feet hurt when I place them on the ground.

  On the ground, not the hardwood floor in my apartment. A quick scan of my surroundings confirms that I’m outside.

  From the looks of it I’m in a backyard, Adam Beckham’s backyard with the big pool, pretty view, and designer patio furniture.

  The weed held a lot more punch than I thought. Full consciousness replaces the haze of sleep and images from last night filter through my head.

  Long black hair sliding along my skin, getting twisted in my fingers. The soft scent of apple shampoo.

  Soft lips kissing and sucking, and I think at some point during the night I might have asked him to bite me. I for sure asked him to finger me. Oh God, I asked the man to put his fingers inside me, and he did it.

  And I think by asking, actually giving voice to the words of what I wanted Daniel to do to me, might have been the hottest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

  This is bad.

  A terrible, horrible, no-good kind of bad.

  Not like the forgot-to-start-the-dishwasher-and-now-I-have-to-use-a-bowl-instead-of-a-plate-to-eat-steak kind of bad, but more my-brother-is-going-to-go-nuclear-and-destroy-everything-in-a-five-mile-radius kind of bad. More like I-just-destroyed-my-soon-to-be-sister-in-law’s-band-and-consequently-her-livelihood kind of bad.

  Please, God, do me a small favor and don’t let the warmth at my hip be Daniel Xu. Let him be gone, to his house, or car, or somewhere other than this backyard. I promise if you grant me this one thing I’ll never smoke weed again and I’ll listen to Jake and my mother. I’ll volunteer at the soup kitchen. I’ll do anything you want. Just please let me get out of this without alerting my brother or Sin or causing unnecessary drama. Please and thank you. Amen.

  A large male hand slides over my hip to give my behind a friendly tap.

  My eyes zero in on that hand. Travelling up the well-sculpted muscles of a slightly tanned forearm, to a rounded bicep. Up. Up. Up. Until eventually I see full lips parted in a smile and sleepy brown eyes that study me almost curiously in the early morning light.
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br />   I answer that smile with one of my own because I can’t help it. When it comes to Daniel Xu, I have no control or restraint, as demonstrated by my actions last night.

  “Morning, lady. You weren’t attempting to flee the scene without a civil goodbye, were you?” A big hand clutches his chest in feigned injury. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you didn’t like me.” He levels me with a meaningful look that says not only does he know that I like him way more than I should, way more than is logical, but that I was also gearing up for the walk of shame through the side fence toward my car parked in front of the house.

  “I—I, of course I wasn’t going to sneak off,” I say in a shaky voice that belies the confidence I’m trying to exude.

  I so was.

  “Okay. Let’s go with that story. You ready to get out of here? I could go for the two ninety-nine steak and eggs at the Orleans.” Dan rolls gracefully to his feet, fingers tiredly rubbing his eyes, long, dark hair momentarily hiding his face.

  “Together? You want us—” I push a finger into my chest and then point it toward him. “Me and you, to have breakfast together?”

  Okay, could this be any more awkward? Every word, every move is broadcasting my discomfort. So, what if I’ve never really had a one-night stand. Can I even call it a one-night stand if we didn’t have P in V action?

  P in V, Jess, really? How old are you, twelve?

  “Ah, yeah.” A brief frown crosses his face, uncertain eyes flit between me and the seemingly fascinating space behind me. “You gotta eat, right?”

  “Thank you for the invitation, but I should really head out—I mean, home. You should definitely go,” I say with a nervous laugh. And we can now add weirdly formal to awkward. Daniel studies me for an elongated moment. His head cocked to an inquisitive angle.

  “This doesn’t have to be a weird thing, Jess. We hooked up. Things happen. Let me take you out to get something to eat.”

  He searches the floor around the sofa quickly, donning last night’s shorts and rumpled T-shirt.

  “What do you say?” he asks, extending his hand. In the quiet space between blinks, the timbre of his voice, deep and coaxing, immediately brings back images of last night. The heated kisses, the wandering hands, our bodies heated and needy.

  I glance at that hand, palm facing up, the digits spread wide open in invitation and I want to say ‘yes, I’ll go with you to breakfast and maybe we’ll see where the rest of the day goes from there.’

  But that’s not me.

  I’m not that girl.

  I don’t hook up with strangers at backyard parties. Well, not normally.

  I’m the responsible one, the designated driver, the one who plays goalie for my brother and is a caretaker for my friends.

  I have rules, dammit.

  Like no kissing until date three, and no sex until after six months. Last night was a blip on the radar of my life. An impulsive, stupid blip that I won’t indulge by sitting across a table, eating rubbery steak and runny eggs in the wee hours of the morning, with a drummer—Daniel, whatever—pretending like this is my norm when it’s not.

  What I need is my newly acquired condo, nice and quiet, void of handsome men with perfectly coiffed morning hair and nimble fingers that do wonderfully dirty things to my lady bits.

  “I’m going to head home. I…” I look briefly into laughing brown eyes before studying the city view over his shoulder. “I have so many things—like all the things to get to this morning.” I stumble through the explanation. My cheeks heat with an embarrassed flush and I spare another look, just a small one, which of course he catches. The grin on his face spreads to a full-blown smile.

  “Thank you for the invitation.” I pick up my forgotten duffel. “Really. Um…but maybe next time.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Jessie,” he says with a barely concealed laugh. “Can I at least walk you to your car?”

  Why? I almost groan, but with a quick glance in his direction I swallow the word down. Going for the more politically correct alternative. “Yeah…sure.”

  Daniel places a hand on the exposed skin at the small of my back. Goose bumps spread up my spine and down the length of my arms as his thumb sweeps the curve at the rise of my butt. It takes everything in me to resist his caress when all I want to do is arch and press into his touch like a cat seeking affection.

  The walk to the front yard is a short jaunt. There are only two cars parked on the street. My white Panamera farther down, adjacent to the closest neighbor and what I assume is his expensive SUV at the end of the cul-de-sac.

  We’re silent as we approach my car. He stays with me step for step, somehow his presence less overwhelming than seconds ago. It’s comfortable, familiar in a way that makes me second-guess declining breakfast.

  My door clicks open sensing the key fob. “This is me.”

  I open the back door and situate the duffel on the floor behind the driver’s seat before closing the door and turning back toward Daniel. He’s close. Close enough that I get a whiff of apples and a sculpted chest in my face.

  “Nice car,” he murmurs. “Maybe next time I’ll get a ride.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  He leans forward, arms braced on the car frame on either side of my shoulders. His eyes buzz around my face, finally landing on my lips. Daniel lowers his head toward mine in increments, giving me time to stop him.

  And yeah, I don’t.

  I’m mesmerized, ensnared by enigmatic brown eyes and full lips, by the freshly minted memories that give light to apprising details like the texture of his hair and how glorious it feels sliding over my skin, and by the way he worked my body, skilled hands taking me to heights that hours before were unimaginable.

  Before the sane and sensible Jessica regains control, I lean into the reckless impulse and brush my lips against his.

  Daniel does not hesitate. Not even a little bit. One hand cups the back of my head while the other one slides down to my ass, pulling me forward until our chests are flush and our legs threaded.

  The kiss is a little wild and bruising. A ravenous exploration that ends way before I’m ready and much too soon if I never get to do it again.

  “God, you’re beautiful, and young, and so off-limits,” he pants into my mouth, forehead dropping to mine. “Maybe we can…”

  “We can’t,” I force out over the knot of desire trapped in my throat. “But thank you.”

  Am I thanking him for last night or because he thinks I’m beautiful? For all I know, he might be referring to the kiss as beautiful and me as young, making my expression of gratitude ridiculously inappropriate. Can a kiss make you attractive in a way that you weren’t before? I’m not sure it matters because either way my stomach does a little happy dance of joy.

  In the next breath, reality dampens the moment, landing heavy in the pit of my stomach, solid and dreadful.

  Walk away, girl. This man has drama and a headache practically tattooed on his forehead. “I really have to go.”

  “Is it wrong for me to say I really wish you didn’t have to—didn’t want to go?”

  Ask me to stay, I silently goad.

  What would I say if he did? Yes. Please finish what we started last night.

  Or no. Not a chance in hell.

  As what-ifs spin around the drain of my mind, Daniel opens the driver’s door. Once I’m situated, seat belt fastened, engine silently idling, hands on the wheel, he shuts me inside and bends, peering at me through tinted glass as he raises a hand in a silent goodbye.

  I offer a little wave in return, and he steps back, knocking a fist against the roof of my Panamera before stepping back.

  Slowly I pull into the street, accelerating toward the neighborhood exit gate. Before I turn the corner, I can’t help glancing in the rearview mirror, just one more time, at the shrinking image of Daniel watching me depart
from the middle of the street.

  Chapter 13

  Daniel

  “D. Stop fucking around. Please tell me you’re at Atlantic Aviation?” Adam demands. “The wedding is in three days.”

  I lean back into one of the tan leather chairs grouped around a dark wood coffee table in the executive terminal and glance through the window at the sleek G6—owned by the Hotel and by default the Hotel’s co-owner, Sin’s soon-to-be husband—pulling up at the tarmac.

  “Nah,” I bluff just to pull his chain.

  Adam is the man of honor. A duty that has him wound tighter than a two-dollar watch, and the poor dude is pecking like a mother hen.

  Do this. Bring that. Be here.

  His bossiness has taken on new levels and your boy isn’t game to follow orders. When we were kids, Adam was the de facto leader, infinitely more mature and responsible than me, or Miles, or Sin. When we first started out, he took care of us. I can’t imagine what those early tours would have been like without him.

  We’re not kids anymore, haven’t been for a long time. I just cleared my thirty-third birthday. The last thing I require is heavy-handed guidance.

  Not saying there weren’t times when I did because eighteen through twenty-seven was a super wild time. Half the time I didn’t know if I was coming or going, but that was then. Our last tour didn’t have a quarter of the shenanigans of our earlier travels, and now that I’m back home existing somewhere between career sabbatical and filial caregiver, responsibility isn’t a foreign concept.

  I will admit there’s a prankish part of me, the remaining remnants of my younger self, that enjoys stirring the pot and seeing—or in this case, hearing—him squirm.

  “The flight leaves in an hour,” he practically growls in frustration. “How long ’til you get there?”

  “Damn,” I purposefully drawl. “It leaves sooner than I thought. I guess I better hightail it back across town.”

  “Across town, D? Across…” I hear a deep inhale on the other side of the line and because I know Adam so well, I can practically see his hands pulling at the ends of his hair as he combs his fingers through the strands. “If you hit traffic, you’ll never make it in time.” Another deep, exasperated breath fills my ear. “I’ll start looking for a commercial flight. Shit, D. Of all the times to pull this shit.”