Enticement (12 page)

“Isn’t it?” His eyes were dancing again with warmth and humour. Too late, she realized just how close they were standing, and how their embrace was not simply comforting, but downright intimate. Kit’s leg brushed between her thighs. His palms lay spread across her rump. “Tell me ‘no’ again,” he whispered. “And I have had him. He’s got a really cute strawberry birthmark at the base of his spine.”

Having spent hours kissing that mark, she knew it existed, but that didn’t prove that the rest of what Kit was saying was true. There were plenty of ways to know that mark was there without them having been physically intimate. For that matter she remained unconvinced about the snowman too.

“I like running my tongue over it. Biting it. Do you like being bitten, Evie? You know it’s the one thing Lillianna and I have in common.”

“You do know her?”

“If giving her a hickey or two as a teen counts as knowing her, then yeah, I suppose I do.”

Could she believe a thing he said? He seemed to talk in circles, never sticking on one topic long enough for her to draw any conclusions.

“Evie,” he sighed, dragging her thoughts off in yet another direction. “I take it you realize where your hand is?”

“Hm.”
Clamped around his truly delectable butt.

“Like, inside my underwear.”

“Oh! Right… Yeah.” She hadn’t been concentrating on that, only on what he was doing. He’d turned up the collar of her coat, and still had hold of the edges, which he was using to draw her inexorably closer. Just one kiss, said his expression. You know you want to, and it won’t hurt anyone.

Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn’t. What if it were true that he and Ross were lovers? Nah, it wasn’t. How could it be? Ross had never shown any signs of being homo-curious. Her fingers curled into the bare flesh of Kit’s arse, where she’d unconsciously sought the feel of his skin and had pushed her hand under the hems of his T-shirt and jacket and inside the back of his trousers.

“Evie.” She heard him call her name as clearly as if he’d said it aloud, but his lips never moved. Instead he continued to look at her, his gaze intently focused, and his lips ever so slightly parted, so that they invited her to stretch up and taste him.

Kit had such incredibly sensual lips, slim but mobile and so expressive. Her lips tingled with the prospect of savouring him, of kissing him slowly while she raked her nails across his back. Her next breath seemed to stall in her chest. Kit continued to hold her, his touch barely there and yet curiously supportive. An image of them sat side by side in the car swam in her field of vision, her hand upon his cock, stroking him, then her leaning over and tasting him, blowing him as if it were the most natural thing in the world and not a good way to get done for public indecency.

But the montage of eroticism didn’t stop there, more images bombarded her sense, snapshots of them naked and fucking, and of Ross entwined around them.

Stop it, she thought. Take a deep breath and step back.

The trouble was…her feet didn’t want to move. Instead, the tension between them built until it virtually crackled in the air, and creeping lines of fire flowed across her skin, making her breasts tingle with the need to be touched. Still she didn’t move, and nor did Kit. Instead, he just looked at her with his deep dark eyes, right at her as if he could see into her soul and there was a light there drawing him closer.

“Evie.” This time the whisper was real. It rippled across her senses, a gentle breeze across her lips as he leaned forward. Yet it whipped tornado-like at her insides, throwing everything into disarray. Nothing made sense anymore. With a single action he’d destroyed her inner peace and wreaked abject chaos. Even so, she didn’t want to undo the kiss. No, she wanted more than that simple intimate brushing of lips. She wanted a real, all out, tongue-clashing tango.

She leaned into his body. Let the warmth of him seep into her skin. The second kiss wasn’t cautious. He struck boldly, pulling her to him, one hand upon her shoulder, the other splayed possessively across her lower back. He kissed as she imagined he would. Giving all, taking only what she willingly offered. Demanding nothing and everything. His tongue stroked hers, coaxed her further into submission.

Evie wrapped her arms around his broad back and clung to him, her fingers sliding over the contoured planes of wiry muscle beneath his clothing. Kit reciprocated, startling her with the coldness of his fingertips as they stroked upwards beneath her clothing to cup one breast.

His fingers closed upon the nipple, gently rolled it.

“Come back to the car,” she gasped.

“Best not,” he whispered. Before she could ask why, he grasped her hand and turned it so that he could press it to the swell of his cock. “If we go anywhere warm I might get ideas.” As if fondling her breasts and driving himself up against her palm weren’t already building to that. “I want you, Evie. Why do you think I got out of the car? You weren’t supposed to follow.”

“I’m still not letting you walk home in this.”

“Then what are you doing? What are
we
doing?”

He kissed her again, hard. Bruising her lips. Kit walked her backwards towards the wall. He unfastened the fly of her tailored trousers and pushed his hand inside, found the edge of her panties and pushed inside those too, so that two long fingers speared through her curls and into the dripping heat of her slit.

Evie hissed as he touched her clit. The snow-covered wall was cold against her back. Thicker flakes hung in the air around them and caught in Kit’s hair and eyelashes. She couldn’t take her eyes off him as his fingers moved, sliding back and forth in her heat and wetness, and touching her clit. She drowned in the coal-dark pools of his eyes as streamers of pleasure ran through her body. “Kit. Kit,” she sang out, clinging to him for support.

She was buzzing, steadily climbing that vertigo-inducing slope towards orgasm. Tighter… Faster… Her broad hips swaying to the dancing rhythm of his fingers. God, the heat and smell of him were too much. She wanted to rub up against him like her bloody cat.

“Oh, yes. That’s it. Ride it. Give in to it.” Just the sound of his voice growling in her ear pushed her higher.

So close now. So close. The climb was so swift. There was no time for thoughts or comprehension, only for sensation. Her thighs trembled. Her fingers curled into the toned muscles of his back, nails digging into the flesh, her hands inside his clothing. Hell, she was almost there. Just a touch farther to the right…

Kit responded as if they were psychically bound, stroking quickly and lightly, then slowing down for a few heartbeats before picking up the pace again and making her whimper.

She was going to come.

As if the realization was the requisite spark, her muscles pulled tight, and a long whimper of pleasure tore through her chest.

Kit’s fingers slowed. He pressed hard on her clit, extending the moment of pleasure into a series of crests, each satisfyingly sweet, until the last pulse died away and she collapsed against him, thoroughly spent.

“Your eyes are turquoise when you come,” he said.

The moment the endorphins and adrenaline surge passed, guilt hit her in a nausea-inducing wave. “Oh god!” Evie pulled back from him, breathing hard. What the hell had she been thinking? Was she out of her bleeding mind?

She hitched her trousers up fast.

All she could think of was Ross, his hurt. The awful sense of betrayal he’d feel. It’d be easy to lay the blame at his feet, saying he’d brought Kit into their home, and almost encouraged a close relationship between them, but Evie wasn’t so conceited that she couldn’t recognize when something was her fault. And hers entirely. She was a grown woman. She’d made her own decision, and there’d been no point at which she couldn’t have said stop.

The threat of tears stung her eyes. Evie hurriedly blinked them away.

“Say something.” Kit leant towards her, concern softening his features. “Anything. Tell me I’m a bastard if you like.”

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

“Because like everyone, I want what I can’t have. The only difference is that I’m not afraid of tumbling a few obstacles in pursuit of my goal.”

“I’m your best friend’s girlfriend.”

“So you both keep reminding me, as if that’s the most important hurdle.” Without being asked, he lifted her back over the wall, before hopping over himself and leading the trek back to the car.

Evie followed him up the slope, her mind in confusion and her heart racing. What had she done? What was going on?

“What do you want?” she asked as he fished the car keys out of the slowly thickening layer of snow.

Kit shrugged, his head still at her hip height. “Do you want taking back to work?”

“Yes, yes, I do.” She watched him straighten, broad shoulders squaring up to her and his expression setting into blank concentration. “But don’t ignore me. I asked what you wanted.”

“And I heard.” He got into the car and revved the engine.

Evie crossed her arms, her guilt transforming into anger at him. She hated the way he’d studiously withdrawn from her questions. Her mum was a pro at the tactical silence. It wasn’t a trait she looked for in her friends.

Getting back into the car with him without having received an answer felt like defeat, but she didn’t put it past him to drive off and leave her if she prodded too much. Well, maybe not leave her exactly, but she reckoned he’d think nothing of driving down the road a bit and making her jog after him.

They drove back to Melton Manor in silence. Kit pulled into the staff car park and she opened the door to get out without them having exchanged a single word, having reclaimed her phone from the glove compartment.

“Evie, wait.” Kit leant over and grabbed her wrist. “I didn’t… I wasn’t deliberately ignoring you. It’s just I don’t have a straight answer to give you. It’s complicated. I guess I want more than friendship between us.”

“That’s too bad,” she replied as she jerked her wrist free of his grasp. “Because that’s all that’s on offer.”

Having slammed the car door, she walked away with the words “fuck you” echoing inside her skull. She did want more than simple friendship. She did desire him and would savour every delicious moment of their encounter on the hilltop over and over during the coming days. It’s just that it wasn’t possible to have him and Ross without someone, perhaps all of them, getting hurt. She had to write off what had just happened as an anomaly and focus on ensuring it never happened again. Besides, she sure as hell didn’t want anyone as mutable and secretive as Kit occupying space in her heart. She couldn’t deal with anything other than openness in her relationships, which was another reason why that the line about him and Ross was obviously bollocks. Ross would have told her if anything like that had gone on, especially after she’d brought up the incident of the threesome in the tent.

Chapter Seven

Kit went straight home to Ross and Evie’s place from Melton Manor and set about clearing the drive of snow. With a spade in his hand, it was easy not to think. He could thrust, shovel and sweep on autopilot in much the same way he’d helped keep the bar clean in Tokyo. The less glamorous side of working as a host was the unfortunate cleaning chores, hours of sweeping and swilling floors, and polishing brass plaques according to the weekly rote. No one escaped it. Not even the top earners who were raking in enough to hire maids to clean their own apartments.

He hadn’t really thought about Japan since he’d got here. Maybe he was actually starting to miss the busy social whirl and easy routine of his life there. It had been the right time to come home though. He knew it in his bones, and despite endless complications he kept making for himself, it was going to work out somehow.

The phone rang, and Kit dashed inside to answer it. “Moshi-moshi,” he said out of habit. When the greeting was met with no response he added a more dubious, “Er, hello.” The silence stretched out for several more seconds, although Kit could hear the caller breathing on the other end of the line. A sense of unease rippled across his shoulder muscles making them feel tight and achy. “Who is this?” Not expecting a reply, he was just about to cut the sinister caller off, when the disconcerting breathing transformed into a sanctimonious purr.

“Christopher Skye. I know what you are. I know what you did. Don’t think you can get away with it. Justice is coming. An eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth. We’re watching you.”

Click. Kit slammed the phone back into the cradle, then pressed random buttons in order to end the call. “Damn. Damn. Fuck!” He kicked the edge of the sofa, startling Mimmy, who darted out from behind it and ran up the curtain.

The kitten looked down on him, eyes full of curiosity and scorn. “Sorry,” Kit mumbled, reaching for her. For the first time ever, the tortoiseshell moggy shied away and dug her claws into the curtain when he tried to pick her up.

Kit raised his hands in frustration and scrunched up his hair. “Okay. Okay, you think I’m a bastard too. I get it.” Overwhelmed, he turned on the spot, seeking an escape route that didn't exist, and never would as long as he stayed in Kirkley. There were no convenient magic portals and no diversion that would neatly bypass his former life here. “Sammie, why?” He stumbled forward to the fireplace until his head hit the mirror above, skin connecting to the silvered glass.

What he needed was a convenient rewind, a method of exploiting Einstein’s relativity theory so he could make different choices and say different things. Not that he was sure any changes he made would make a difference. People believed what they wanted to believe, and they’d decided long ago that he was the devil incarnate.

Sometimes he almost believed it of himself.

Kit raised his head and focused on his reflection, humourlessly checking for horns. Of course, there were none. He sighed. He wasn’t looking quite so polished anymore. The last week and certainly today had both taken their toll. Dark smudges ringed his eyes, courtesy of his screwed up sleep pattern. Adjusting to a different time zone and to daylight hours combined with more generalized fretting meant he was awake most nights until five a.m. He’d been taking afternoon naps over at Rose Cottage, but really that had to stop. It was only exacerbating the situation.

Mimmy jumped down from the curtain and settled in the basket full of logs. Kit bent to scratch her ears and this time the kitten accepted the caress.

He wasn’t going to dwell on the past, or the horrid call. Hopefully, it’d be a one off, and whatever prick it was, wouldn’t go upsetting Ross and Evie.

It wasn’t Tony. He’d seen Tony earlier. The meeting had been brief and ended in a rather inevitable fashion. He reached up and ran his fingertips over the uneven line of glue. That whack had been a long time coming.

The phone rang again. Kit snatched it up. “Fuck off, will you?” he snapped this time, letting his frustration get the better of him.

“Your phone manner sucks,” Ross remarked dryly. “Didn’t they teach you how to be polite in Japan?”

Ross. Relief relaxed Kit’s straining muscles. “Sorry. I’ve just had a wanker on the phone.”

“Salesman?”

Kit made a noncommittal grunt.

“I phoned to make sure everything had gone fine between you and Evie.”

Fine? Well, that depended entirely on your definition. He sat down and pulled his booted foot up on his knee. “’Course.”

“Really?” The question in Ross’s voice highlighted his disbelief. “That’s not quite her version of it. I’d say you’d pissed her off.”

“You’ve spoken to her?”

A snort of mirth echoed along the line. “Hardly a shocker. We are an item. She sent a text a while ago.”

“What did she say?” The fact that Ross was laughing rather than yelling suggested she hadn’t said anything too bad.

Throaty laughter still rumbled with his words as Ross replied. “She said that you’re a prize dick, whose idea of lunch is a cup of cocoa in a polystyrene mug and a bag of crisps in a lay-by. Real classy. I can only assume you left all that sophisticated charm of yours back in Kabukicho.”

“The place she wanted to go was closed, and it’s nicer up on the moors looking at a bit of scenery than it is sitting in a car park.” Heavens knows why he felt he had to justify himself. She’d been the one calling the location shots.

“I’m teasing you, Kit. How’s the head?”

Kit ran his fingers over the seam of glue again. “Aching.”

“Don’t suppose you’ve taken anything.”

“You know I don’t do drugs.”

An exasperated sigh bled into his ear. “I’m talking about a couple of frickin aspirin, not suggesting you start snorting coke. Painkillers. Headache. They work. I’m not surprised Evie thought you were a prick.”

“I’ll make some green tea.”

“’Cause that’s known for its analgesic properties.”

“It is actually.”

“Okay, okay, you win. I’ll see you in a couple of hours, take it easy. See if you can get some shut eye.”

Ross ended the call. Kit flopped against the back of the sofa still cradling the handset. After a moment or two of indecisive fidgeting, he hit recall. There were better ways to deal with stuff than swallowing a handful of pills, like using positive associations to replace the negative ones before they properly took hold.

Ross picked up on the fourth ring.

“Are you alone?” Kit asked, deliberately making his voice sound low and husky.

“Kit?” The question in Ross’s voice rang out. “I’m in the staff room. I was just getting a coffee before my next appointment. But there’s no one about. What’s up?”

“Switch the phone to your left hand.”

“What?” He wondered if Ross could detect his smile, even as he grumblingly followed the command.

“Comfortable?”

“Look, what’s this about? I’ve only got a few minutes.”

Kit deliberately didn’t answer, although maybe the pause in itself said volumes. It certainly said plenty to him about the images in his head. “Undo your fly.”

“Kit.” Ross’s voice sank to a choked whisper. The guy was no doubt surreptitiously looking around to make sure none of the veterinary assistants were going to interrupt. “Bleedin’ hell. I can’t do this right now.”

Ignoring the protest, Kit cleared his throat. “Slowly now, Ross, so that I can hear the bite of the metal teeth as you unzip.”

Tense prickles rode up his thighs as he waited for the crucial decision. Relief washed the sensation higher, into his balls, when he heard the corresponding scratch of the steel teeth parting. He grinned at the mouthpiece, his teeth clamped together. This was going well. Better than he’d anticipated.

“Ready?”

“No.”

“My head hurts for more than one reason. You should’ve let me finish this earlier.”

“Shit!”

“Now wrap that big hand of yours around that equally big boner, and let’s hear you pumping it.”

The only response he got was a grunt. Comfortably reassured by that, Kit sank back against the leather cushions and closed his eyes. Ross’s image formed crisp and whole in his brain. Dark tailored trousers, worn with a charcoal sweater that accentuated the breadth of his shoulders and narrowness of his hips, and topped by a standard issue white lab coat. He was standing, bottom to the worktop in the narrow windowless kitchen at the surgery, his mobile pressed to his left ear and his hand just covering the gash formed by his open fly. Overhead, the electric strip light made a constant, bleating whine.

“Are you doing it?”

“Yes.”

Kit’s arousal climbed a fraction higher at the affirmative. One handed, he unfastened his belt buckle and released his own fly. Beneath, his shaft had already begun to fill with blood and lay diagonally inside his underwear. His balls were pulled up tight against his body, already heavily loaded after a series of frustrating encounters. Hell, he liked to ratchet up the tension, but today hadn’t seen much relief. “Are you hard?” he asked.

“Yes.” The admission was more exciting than the touch he bestowed on himself.

“Imagine it’s my hand. Now, wrap your fist around the shaft and stroke it. Up and down, real slow, so the head peeps out between the ring of your forefinger and thumb.”

“Shit!” Ross hissed, clearly obeying.

“That’s right,” said Kit, now circling his thumb over the tip of his own cock. Concentrating became a little harder as blood surged towards his loins and shivers began to run down his now fully hard shaft.

“Are you wanking too?” asked Ross.

“Do you want me to be?”

“Yes.”

“I’m touching myself, Ross. I’m leaking a little and I’m rubbing it into the head and I’m thinking of you, and how much I want to be there with you, touching you.”

“Christ!” The exclamation sounded rough in Ross’s throat, all croaky and exhilarating. In response, Kit squeezed his cock, his fingers curling, muscles working of their own accord. Gradually, his hips started to rock too. He gripped the phone more tightly than his flesh and tried to rein himself in a little. Ross’s breathing had become light and rapid.

“I know what you taste like,” Kit continued. “And I want you to come in my mouth again, so I can drink you down. But there’s other stuff I want us to do too. Things I’ve thought about. Thinks I’ve got off thinking about all the time we’ve been apart. Have you still got that chair, Ross? You know the one I mean, the leather wingback. It’s not here in the living room. Is it upstairs in your bedroom?”

“It’s here in my office.”

“I want to lie naked in that chair, my arse up on the arm, and my legs up over my head and I want you to fuck me, Ross. It’s not something I’m prepared to do with anyone else. Do you understand me? I won’t let anyone but you take me like that.”

“Oh, god!”

“We have to do that soon.”

“Are you trying to make a bleedin’ date with me?”

“I’ll let you know a time. I guess we know the place.”

“Fuck!”

“Oh, yes. Just imagine it, Ross. Your cock swelling against my arse. Going in deep. I’m pretty tight back there and hot. And you needn’t worry about Evie, ’cause she can be right there with us, engaging that voyeuristic streak of hers.”

“Uh!” Whatever Ross was trying to say lapsed into a serious of indecipherable grunts.

“Are you going to come for me, Ross? I need you to come for me.”

Already there, Ross gave an orgasmic “huh” and a series of airless gulps as his cock gave up its load. Kit talked him through it, staying with him, embracing him with words and endearments until he’d wrung every last drop of pleasure from his friend. A loud clatter spoiled the concluding moment of post-orgasmic closeness.

“Sorry, I dropped the phone,” said Ross. “Hell, Kit, I’d better go. I need to get cleaned up. My next appointment is in forty seconds.”

Kit nodded at the phone. Despite the clipped manner of Ross’s voice, he could hear the desire still rattling around in his chest.

“We’ll talk about stuff when I get home,” said Ross.

“I can talk real dirty.”

“I know. Do I ever know.”

Kit let the phone fall from his hand, and it dropped onto the carpet. Despite the fact that his cock still lay hard in his hand, he gave a contented stretch, hands spread over the cushions with his fingers splayed. Save it, he thought, looking down at his cock, which lay flat against his belly in a small puddle of precome. A bit more self-denial would keep him stoked until Ross got his arse home. Shit! Maybe the guy would be peeling him off the ceiling after a single touch by then. His nerves were certainly pulled taut enough to strum, and his cock was just begging for a kiss or two, or better still Ross’s solid male palm wrapped around it.

Of course, there remained the issue of Evie too.

Game plan loosely in place, and having tucked his stiffy back in his pants, Kit wandered back through to the kitchen. He made a cup of tea and swallowed it while it was still scalding, before heading back outside to contend with the remaining snow on the driveway. Only, there were four large sacks of newly delivered coal sat in the way.