Color My Heart: A Red Hot Summer story. (2 page)

Her mouth felt as scorching as her pussy, and when he captured it, it was to ravage her with a violent kiss she reciprocated in kind.

Undone by lust, Billy threw his head back and roared, pounding her one, two, three more times. He felt the contractions in her pussy, the long, heavy ripples of orgasm that ran across her body, and with one more stroke, he followed her.

“
Fuck
!” Reckless, uncontrollable shudders shook him to the core. And he rode it.

Rode his orgasm. Pumping inside her with gradually decreasing jabs. Holding her as tight to him as possible.

Minutes later they remained locked together and struggled to catch their breaths. It took a moment for Billy’s mind to clear, but once it did, he had no idea what to do next.

He didn’t remember ever being in such an awkward situation before. It seemed as though neither of them wanted to be the first to pull away. Moving meant they’d have to look into each other’s eyes and face the reality of what they’d just done. And what
had
they done?

He didn’t even know her name. He’d been called a bastard on occasion, but he wasn’t completely without scruples.

His cock was semi-hard inside her and his chest heaved against hers. He smoothed a hand down her back and felt the rounded knots of her spine as he pressed a kiss to her temple. “Better now?” he thought to ask.

She made a sound against his neck, a snort maybe. Then her chest began to vibrate and she threw her head back and laughed. Billy smiled, grunted in amusement, then started laughing with her.

Guess it
was
kind of funny. In a weird way.

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Color My Heart

“Do you have a name to match that pretty face of yours?” he asked when they had sobered.

“It’s…it’s Hannah.”

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Red Garnier

Chapter Two

I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.

Henri Matisse

Hannah Myers added one last stroke of red to the canvas and stepped back to eye her masterpiece. An explosion of red, orange and yellow oil-paint stared back at her. She’d applied it with a heavy hand on purpose, adoring the sight of the bold, rich blobs over the canvas and the way they’d texture her work when they dried.

Yep. This was what she’d intended.

Let the world know she was pissed—and busy getting over Brad Kingman.

This was pure, simple “Fury”.

She smiled at both work and title, inordinately pleased. No way in hell she enjoyed making the portraits at the studio as much as the abstracts she painted at home. Portraits were so…there.

At the studio, she put a nose where a nose belonged and couldn’t diverge much from what was actually there. Unhappy customers were bad for business, after all, and Hannah needed her job badly. Portraits paid the rent, but abstracts were her life.

A loud knock at the door made her head snap toward the sound. Her heart began to pound. She checked her plastic wristwatch, realized it was 6:34, and plunked her brush with the other brushes in the watered tin can at the foot of the easel.

She untied the apron she wore, then slipped it off and draped it across the back of a couch. Her hands shook as she quickly ran them through her cropped dark hair, hoping to pretty herself up with that meager effort. Giving up when a second knock sounded, she drew in a breath and went to open up.

“Heya, doll.”

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Color My Heart

Hannah stared at the blonde out in the hall. Margie Phils was the last person she’d expected to see. Flooded with disappointment, she stole a look past the older woman’s bare, spotted shoulders.

Disconcerted, Margie turned her head one way, then the other. “Waiting for someone, hon?” she asked.

There was no one outside other than Margie. No gorgeous jean-clad hunk with a killer smile and eyes gentler than a whisper. Hannah sighed and stepped back to let Margie in. “I guess not,” she mumbled, shutting the door behind her.

But truth was, Hannah had been hoping Billy would stop by. They’d fucked yesterday. And the day before that. And the one before that. Hell, the whole month before, ever since that time she’d gone crazy and almost raped him.

But they hadn’t fucked today—and Hannah really wanted to.

Shaking her head for falling into her old ways when she swore to herself she would not, Hannah followed Margie into the living room. It was neat and cozy and bursting with color, and the adjoining open kitchen was decorated with lively pottery that hung from the ceiling.

“I just
had
to talk to someone, sweetie. I hope you don’t mind? You know Rob, the electrician? The bastard’s married. You hear? Married!” Margie dropped down on the couch with a sigh. “That motherfucker.”

Hannah took a chair across from the couch and smiled apologetically.

Margie from 103 looked like everything Hannah didn’t want to look like twenty years from now.

Margie looked so beat-up.

Her clothes permanently smelled like cigarettes. Her boobs had been lifted so many times they’d nearly lost their form. She’d suntanned so much her skin looked dry and spotted. But what most appalled Hannah was the wearied, cynical attitude, the one you got after asking life repeatedly for something and having her fling your dreams back at your face—in shards.

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Margie had been married four times, all of them to some kind of devil, and her affairs always seemed to take a turn for the worst. “You watch out for that little heart of yours, Hannah, or you’ll end up like me,” Margie had once said.

Hannah hadn’t been paying much attention. But after getting said heart broken several times, she’d decided there was some genius to those words. The way things had been heading, Hannah’s future hadn’t looked so bright either. Failed relationships. Liars.

Cheaters. Bastards. Hannah had dated them all.

She’d been left so broken, so angry after each. And it had taken the greatest bastard in the world, the one called Brad Kingman, to snap her awake—and make her realize she’d been repeating her same mistakes over and over again. She gave too much, too soon. She trusted, believed, lived in a fairy tale.

Well.

She’d changed now.

She wasn’t depending on a man ever again. Even one as wonderful as Billy.

“I’m sorry about Rob, Margie,” Hannah finally said, and she really meant it.

Margie sighed, adjusting her strapless tube top before her breasts managed to pop out. “Anyway. I didn’t come here to talk about that asshole. I came here to ask if you’re going to that thang.”

“What thang?”

“You know, the yearly good neighbors party.”

“Oh, that.” Hannah waved her hand. Truth was, she wasn’t too good with crowds.

She got nervous. Claustrophobic. She stuttered and blushed and did all kinds of no-nos.

And she had no desire to be seen with Billy in public. “I’m not sure, Margie.”

“You haven’t been to a single one since you’ve been here.”

“I know, I know, shame on me,” Hannah said, starting for the kitchen. “Do you want something?”

“Nope.” Margie mumbled. As Hannah opened the fridge and poured herself a glass of water, she heard her say, “You know, there are a lot of great catches in the building…

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Color My Heart

There’s Lance from 117. Man, that guy is
so
hot. Did you see his new Hummer in the parking lot?”

“How could I not see that yellow box?”

Margie snickered. “I’ll just bet he can fuck just like that rowdy car can take on a mountain. And then there’s also Yancey—the blond guy? He’s got quite a package, though I heard he goes both ways… I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

Glass of water in hand, Hannah made her way back to sit, vaguely amused as Margie verbally listed the whole male population of the building. “Then there’s Greg, and Phil, and the gorgeous Kent from 205. Of course why would anyone want
them
when there’s Billy?”

Hannah nearly spat out her water. She coughed, slapped her chest, then set the glass down on a small round table beside her.

Margie stared. “You okay, hon?”

“I’m fine.” Hannah went to pick up her brushes, intending to wash them while Margie talked. Billy. Just hearing the name made her skin prick and every cell in her body grow warm.

She’d barely made it to the sink and ran her brushes under the faucet when a knock came. Her heart accelerated tenfold, as though rather than standing, she were in a full run.

It was Billy outside. Hannah knew, she just
knew
, it was him.

Though every instinct cried out for her to rush to him, she went utterly still as Margie rose and crossed the room toward the door, humming a tune to herself.

“Billy?”

And then, then that rich, familiar rumble said, “Hello, Margie.”

Weak-kneed by the sound and not even breathing, Hannah watched Billy step inside—in jeans and a black T-shirt and a smile that just knocked on her heart. His walk was a confident male swagger, his grin oozed charm, and that row of white teeth flashed in a gorgeous, sun-kissed face.

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Dear lord, she kept forgetting how gorgeous he was. And the powerful effect he had on her. His dark brown hair had streaks of sunlit gold in it that brought the light out in his eyes and gifted his masculine, strong face with a friendly and approachable quality.

His nose had been broken once as a kid, he’d told her, and the slight arch to it stamped his face with even more character. His lips were plump and sensual—a perfect mouth if she’d ever seen one.

The truth was Billy was quite simply unmatched in her eyes.

Completely edible material. Beautiful, inside and out. Her knees threatened to fold as his head turned and his warm gaze locked with hers.

“Hannah.”

Hannah’s smile felt so forced it actually shook on her face. “Billy.”

The times she’d cried that name recently,
Oh, Billy, yes, Billy, more, Billy, please,
for some reason replayed in her mind and her nipples puckered under her shirt.

“Do you two know each other?” Margie asked, curiously eyeing one, then the other.

Billy grunted like it was obvious that they did. At Hannah’s pointed scowl across the kitchen counter, he then coughed and said, “Well, we
are
neighbors and all.”

“We’ve bumped into each other several times,” Hannah quickly said.

Margie’s eyebrows shot up. “Bumped into each other?”

Hannah turned red at the visual the words procured and set her brushes down on the counter. “Anything to drink, Billy?” she called, acting all nonchalant from the kitchen. At least she
hoped
she came off as nonchalant. Though one touch of her clammy hands would completely attest otherwise.

Smooth as always, Billy said, “I’m fine, Hannah. Thank you. I’m just here for some…flour.”

“Oh, I’ll get that for you in a second, I’m just getting this cleaned.” Like hell. She didn’t want him to leave. She wanted him to kiss her, hold her, touch her, make hot, noisy love to her.

“So whatcha been doing lately, Billy boy?” Margie asked.

“Not much, Margie. You?”

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While they went back and forth with idle chit-chat, Hannah made a show of wiping the kitchen counter with a bedraggled cloth. She didn’t want Margie to see them together, or to suspect anything. As soon as people thought they had a relationship, they’d start asking stupid questions like, “
When’s the wedding?”
But dammit, Hannah didn’t want Billy to leave either.

She’d been waiting for this moment all day.

He kept stealing glances in her direction, and just the way his eyes sparkled with mischief when they met hers made her hurt all over. Flushing red, she wiped the pristine, bone-colored counter with more vigor.

She wasn’t at all comfortable with the way she responded to Billy—getting all itchy, lusty and achy in his presence. Her relationships up until now had been emotional roller coasters—with crashes at the end. She had no intention of a repeat. Billy knew that.

Hannah had made it clear to him from the start. Or at least…from the second start.

And yet here she was, her panties soaked by the sight of him, her skin breaking into a sweat.

Hannah shouldn’t have even fucked Billy in the first place. If she hadn’t been so utterly devastated that time out in the hallway, she probably wouldn’t have. But she had—and for one reason or another, she couldn’t stop. But damn it, complications made for lousy company.

“So, Billy, you coming to the party?” Margie’s question snapped Hannah out of her thoughts.

“The one tomorrow, you mean?” he asked as Hannah finally relented from her task and slowly approached them.

“Yeah,” Margie said. “Hannah’s not sure she can make it, but I’ve been counting the days for months.”

Billy’s thick-lashed eyes unsettled her like two loaded guns aimed right at her. “Why can’t you make it, Hannah?”

Hannah sighed. Arguing seemed pointless when she was so clearly outnumbered—

plus she had no single, valid reason to provide. “I’ll try, okay?”

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Red Garnier

A wily smile curved his lips. “I’ll see that she does, Margie.”

“Well good.” Margie slapped his back in a manly way. “Now I’d better get back to my place. If you need anything, Billy, you come to Margie. I’ll take care of you, honey, plus my kitchen’s always stocked.”

Billy’s deep, vibrant chuckle as he accompanied Margie to the door made Hannah’s sex twitch needily. He was just so amazing. Every itty bitty thing about him.

“Bye, Margie,” Hannah remembered to say before the door closed, and she was left alone with Billy. Finally.

Feeling the heat creep up her neck, Hannah got busy and set her clean brushes beside the oil paint tubes at the foot of her easel.