Provocative (Tempting Book 3) (9 page)

N
ovember in Boston
was fucking weird. One day we could have cold that punched to your bone. The next day? A fucking sunburn after laying outside for twenty minutes in a tank top.

Despite the sunburn I was nursing, I was grateful for the warm weather as I did a short run through Nathan’s neighborhood.

I wasn’t an inherently active individual, but weeks of living on Nathan’s couch after class had only encouraged gravity’s mission to make my ass, well, the opposite of perky.

Nathan was working late again, a fact that made me sigh more than I should. He was always working late. My blowjob skills must have been lacking because he’d barely touched me all week. I was tempted to start wearing corsets to bed every night, if it would actually do anything.

When I rounded the corner back to Nathan’s house, the mailman pulled away from the mailbox. I usually let Nathan get the mail, since most of it was for him anyway. But in the spirit of trying to exist a little more loudly in his house—despite his dead wife’s presence lingering in all its corners—I opened the mailbox to see if there were any small bills that I could cover that month—despite Nathan’s insistence on paying for all the bills concerning his house.

I began opening the envelopes instinctively, not bothering to see the return addresses. Most of them were bills and I decided that I could afford approximately zero of them. The last letter in the pile gave me pause. I sat on one of the steps that led to Nathan’s house as I glanced over the wording.

It was November third, which meant the deadline was the following week. And I knew Nathan hadn’t talked to me about the party because he hadn’t talked to me about anything. I wondered why he hadn’t said anything to me about it, and if he was planning to go without me.

I folded the paper and stuck it in my sports bra so I wouldn’t forget to mention it to Nathan when he came home. As I stood and stretched, a familiar black sports car pulled up the curb. The stereo was blasting, its bass turned up far enough to rock the concrete under my feet. I looked behind me at the front door, deciding not to walk through it so I wouldn’t have to chase him around the house again.

Elias exited the driver’s side door, checked his phone and then raised his gaze. “Oh, hi.”

I wondered if Nathan had spoken to him since he’d last visited, but I just crossed my arms over my chest as I watched him make his approach. He was dressed head to toe in black, and with all that dark hair covering his head and around his mouth, he looked like some plain clothes assassin.

Luckily for me, his eyes didn’t have the anger they’d held before.

“Let me guess, Nathan isn’t home?”

I looked pointedly at the empty driveway before meeting his gaze again. “Did he talk to you?”

“He did.” Elias tucked his hands in his pockets, but it didn’t make him look any more approachable. The guy radiated intimidation—from the dark fucking aura he had and the bulge of his muscles under his tight t-shirt.

“Well, he’s not here yet and I don’t feel comfortable letting you in, sorry.” It sounded bitchier than I meant it.

“Understandable. I’m Elias, by the way.” He put his hand out to shake and I realized we’d never had a formal introduction the first time we met.

I looked at his hand for a beat before placing my hand in his. “Elias,” I acknowledged, meeting his eyes.

“And you are?”

“Adele.” I swallowed past the awkward lump in my throat. “Nathan’s girlfriend.”

“Ah.” He let go of my hand and I wanted to rub my palm over my yoga pants. There was something dangerous about him. And though I was completely faithful to Nathan, I’d have to be in a coffin not to notice how sexy danger looked on Elias. “The girlfriend.”

He said it like he knew things about me and it made me pull my shoulders back. “The one and only.” I realized too late that this was the brother of Nathan’s late
wife
and bit on the inside of my cheek out of guilt. Wanting to change the subject, I nodded at his car. “Mid-life crisis?”

Elias laughed. “I hope thirty-three isn’t mid-life. Maybe I just like to go fast.” He stopped laughing and pinned me with a stare that made me squirm. “But I don’t usually come fast.”

What the mother of all fucks was that? If I was someone who blushed, I probably would after a comment like that. Where was Nathan? With a pained smile to Elias, I said, “Congratulations. I’ll send Nathan a text letting him know you’re here.” I pulled my phone out, shot him a quick text,
Elias is here
and tucked my phone back away in my arm holster.

Elias seemed amused by the way I’d distracted myself momentarily, pulling his sunglasses down to shield his eyes from the late afternoon sun. “I’m sure he’ll speed to get here then.”

He was confident, that was for sure. But I noticed a slight tick in his jaw—at least what I assumed was a tick. It was hard to see much under all that facial hair. He looked like someone who lived off the grid, hauling around axes like they weighed nothing, chopping wood and then building fires with his bare hands.

“He said he’d be here to meet you?” I asked, putting my hand up to my brow to shield the brightness.

“Yeah, he said he’d be home for dinner and I could come back then.”

I looked at my watch. “It’s four-thirty. That’s a little early for dinner.”

Elias shrugged, looking not the least bit concerned. “Nathan’s always been a little geriatric.”

I laughed easily. “Oh trust me, he’s the opposite of geriatric,” I said, and began to continue to defend Nathan when I noticed Nathan’s car pulling into the driveway. The laugh died as I saw the thunder on Nathan’s face when he shoved the door of his car open.

And after he slammed it closed and stalked to me, I stopped breathing at the way he looked—like he was ready to light Elias on fire and then piss on his pile of ashes.

Oh, yeah, Nathan was fucking livid. And hot.

H
e made her laugh
.

He
made her laugh.

Elias made Adele laugh. Something I hadn’t seen in weeks. Maybe even months.

What didn’t help was that she looked fucking incredible in her running pants and sports bra, sweat making her tight stomach glisten in the sun. Naturally, it meant that I’d have to dismember him, since he saw her looking like this.

Not only saw her, but talked to her long enough to say something that made her laugh.

Fuck.

The roaring caveman part of me want to shove him backwards, knee him in the balls, kick him off of my property just for looking at her like that. For talking to her. But then he’d win.

I didn’t even look at him. Not for a single second.

Adele shifted in my direction, the look in her eyes screaming at me that she knew precisely what I was feeling. Among the things that she and I shared in common, a healthy amount of jealousy and possessiveness of each other were definitely high on the list. The last time she saw me speaking to a colleague at Harvard that was roughly my age and moderately attractive, she’d practically screwed me blind in the driver’s seat of my car before we could even make it into the house. In fact, if I remembered correctly, she had hiked up her skirt and started climbing in my lap before I’d even put the car in park.

“Welcome home, honey,” she said right before I reached her. I wrapped one arm around her sweat-slicked waist, anchoring her against me. With my other hand, I gripped her ponytail and pulled on it, which tipped her face back. I sealed my mouth to hers, not giving one flying fuck that Elias was watching. Maybe as little as a month ago, I wouldn’t have done this in front of Diana’s brother.

But Adele was mine.

And if he had enough of a death wish to come to my home and try to sweet-talk her, all bets were off. Adele whimpered when I angled my head and swept my tongue through her mouth, rubbing it against hers. My pulse pounded in my ears when she gripped a hand in my shirt, but after a second I realized it was because she was trying to pull me back.

Blinking out of the kiss, I was breathing heavily and fully hard. Adele kept her eyes downcast and wiped a hand under her reddened lips. Elias cleared his throat behind me and that was enough to finally make her meet my eyes. The look she gave me, with a lifted eyebrow, was
seriously, Nathan
?

Holding her gaze for another second, not wanting to break the moment, I finally slipped my hand off her waist and followed the smooth line of her arm so I could weave my fingers through hers. That softened her annoyed look, but only slightly. And as much as I wanted to keep ignoring him, I turned to face Elias.

He looked mildly amused, which did about as much for my mood as Adele’s embarrassment.

“Welcome home, honey,” he repeated, with a shit-eating grin on his stupid fucking face. Honestly, I never cursed so much in my own head as I did when I was around Elias. He and I never got along when Diana was alive, but in the five years since her death, any cordiality had slowly burned away. All that was left was the barest thread of civility. Sometimes not even that, apparently.

“I have the stuff ready,” I said while I brushed past him, keeping Adele’s hand gripped in mine so that she had no choice but to follow. I heard Elias push off his car, but I glanced at him over my shoulder. “You’re not coming in, shithead. I’ll bring it back out.”

He grinned again and I resisted the urge to flip my middle finger up at him. In order to unlock the front door, I had to drop Adele’s hand. From behind me, I could practically feel the waves of her annoyance at me. But that could be dealt with after Elias was gone. Once we were inside the house, I marched back to my office and grabbed the paper box that I’d stored Diana’s camera and portfolio in. Adele was perched on the arm of the couch, her arms folded over her chest while she watched me walk back through the room. Yeah, the look she gave me told me we were definitely not done with what had happened outside.

In other words, it did nothing to lessen my erection, because these types of possessive outbursts typically ended in spectacular orgasms for both of us. Usually multiples for her.

When I cleared the front porch, Elias straightened from his car. No smile to be found this time. Probably because Adele wasn’t out here anymore. God, that made me want to punch him.

I held the box out, just far enough away from him that he’d need to take a step in my direction. He held my glare longer than I expected him to, then finally took the step necessary to pluck the box from my hands.

Elias jerked his chin at the house. Or his beard, since nobody had seen his chin since roughly 2005. “Adele seems like a nice kid.”

I snorted. “Adele isn’t a kid.”

“Yeah,” he drawled, giving me a slow, deliberate nod. “I guess I’d noticed that.”

Deep breath in, slow breath out.
It simply wouldn’t do for me to get into a fist fight in my driveway. “So we’re done here? I can stop anticipating more of your little visits for a while?”

With narrowed eyes, Elias seemed to ponder that. I sighed and looked up at the sky.

“I can’t make any promises, Nathan. It’s just so fun to come here and piss you off. Pretty much the highlight of my week so far.”

“Yeah?” I tsked my tongue and glanced back at the house. Adele had moved up to the front window. The thin white curtains were drawn across the length of the glass, so I couldn’t see her face, just the outline of her perfect body. “That’s a shame, man.”

“You think so?”

It was too easy. I smiled at Elias. He instantly looked suspicious. “If this is your highlight? Yeah. I do. Because I’m about to walk in the house and fuck Adele against the wall next to the front door. Maybe if you stick around out here you could pick up some tips. But then again, probably not, because all you’ll hear is her screaming my name.”

And then I turned my back on him. I may have even whistled when I walked up the front steps.

When I shut the door behind me, Adele was still looking out the window.

“What did you just say to him?”

Her tone wasn’t accusing, just curious. I made my way around the loveseat so I could stand behind her. But instead of looking out the window like she still was, I looked at her. I laid both hands on her shoulders, sliding them up and down her upper arms.

“Why?” I whispered into her hair, then took a deep breath of her scent.

Her voice was a little unsteady when she answered, but I took it as a good sign when she melted into my touch. “Because when you walked back into the house, he gave you a look that should’ve killed you on the spot.”

My hands slid back up her shoulders to toy with the thick straps of her sports bra. Goosebumps popped up on her skin, and I used my thumbs to put pressure on the base of her skull so that she’d tilt her head to the side. When she did, I dipped my head to kiss along the back of her neck.

“Nathan?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you,” she paused, sinking back against me when I traced a finger along the edge of her sports bra before dipping in the front to palm one breast, “oh, God, that feels good.”

“Did I, what?” I said next to her ear before I licked the shell.

“Did you know that Elias is still standing in the driveway?”

My answering chuckle sounded devious to my own ears, so I couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like for her. With two fingers, I plucked at her nipple within the tight confines of her bra. Her hips made tiny swivels, pressing her ass against my rock-hard cock.

“Brace your hand on the window,” I said into the skin of her shoulder. It still tasted like the salt from her sweat. I bit down on the bone, just enough that she jumped. But she still hesitated.

“He’ll see.”

So maybe my girl wasn’t into voyeurism, and I didn’t know that I was either. But if Elias thought I was screwing with him about what I was going to do, he’d learn pretty quickly.

Pushing my other hand down the front of her yoga pants and beneath the cotton of her underwear, I ran my pointer finger along her slit. She was so wet for me, so slick and slippery.

“Oh, fuck,” she moaned, dropping her head back onto my shoulder. “Nathan, he’ll see. He’ll know.”

Just long enough to torture her, I pressed my finger down on her clit. Adele tilted her hips up to seek the friction she needed to get off. When she did, I pulled my finger away. One of her hands gripped my wrist and tried to move my hand back into place. The other reached behind her to palm my cock, rubbing against the front of my pants.

“I know he’ll see,” I hissed. “He’ll see what’s mine. He’ll see exactly who you belong to. And who I belong to, too.” I said it right before I plunged two fingers into her pussy. She cried out and lurched forward, the rough movements of my fingers causing her momentum to shift. Her hand smacked against the window while she started fucking my hand.

The roar of Elias’ car engine made me smile, even though he hadn’t squealed out of the driveway yet, so I pulled my hand out of her pants so that I could yank them down her hips. He thought I was kidding.

I wasn’t.

But he’d know that soon, if he didn’t take the hint and leave. And he’d never dare try anything with her after this. Adele’s hand moved to take the place of mine between her legs. She was so shameless in chasing her own pleasure, and I fucking loved it. With efficient hands, I opened my belt and shoved my pants and boxer briefs off my waist. Adele was bared in front of me, only the bright blue of her sports bra covering her flawless skin.

Reverently, I smoothed a hand down her spine, which made her back arch up like a cat. Then I took both hands and palmed the firm flesh of her ass. She whispered something that I couldn’t hear. When I stepped closer and dipped my knees so I could feed my cock in between her legs, she dropped her head down.

With slow rolls of my hips, I worked my dick along the lips of her pussy. “You got the all-clear from your doctor?”

“Yes,” she groaned, trying to work her hips so that I’d slip in. “God, this is crazy. He’s right there, Nathan.”

“Does it make you hot? That he might see us?”

She started shaking her head, but I pulled my hips away and we lost contact.

“Fine,” she all but yelled, and I fed her just the tip in reward. I had to close my eyes at how amazing she felt after abstaining for so long. She only had a couple inches of me right now, but the tight, hot, wetness of her cunt felt like heaven. But I didn’t thrust in, not until my dirty girl admitted what I knew. So I made tiny rocking motions with my hips. In and out, in and out. She smacked the window with her palm. “Fuck, Nathan. Yes! I want him to see. I want him to see how good it is between us. How fucking hot we are together.”

Good girl.

I snapped my hips and gave her every fucking inch of me as hard as I could. She screamed, bracing her other hand on the window. The squeal of tires down the driveway barely registered in my ears, because all I could handle was Adele. She was all I could smell and see and taste and hear and fuck and love. Just her.

Mine.

I gripped her hips with both hands and hammered at her. There was no finesse, no sweet, steady motions designed to build slowly. This was raw fucking. A claiming. A branding.

Mine.

With each thrust, her tits bounced and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from where she took me. My hands tightened around her bones and her flesh, and I wanted to bruise her. I wanted to be able to see the marks of my fingers on her flesh for days.

Her pussy tightened and I clamped my teeth down. “Don’t ever be embarrassed if I kiss you in public like that again.”

“I won’t,” she moaned, and I felt her fingers move along her clit. Then she split them in a V shape, and when my cock slid in and out of her, I could feel her fingers on either side. “Oh fuck, I missed you, Nathan.”

“I missed you, too.” In and out, in and out, sweat covered her back, covered my whole body. “Come on, baby, come with me.”

Heat gathered and spread, flooding my legs and toes with prickling heat. She moaned, tightening around me again. I lifted a hand and cracked it on her ass, once, twice and three times when she screamed and fisted around me in waves. I pulsed into her, breathing her name as I curved around her back and thrust a few more times. With her hands still on the window, I placed my fingers in between hers on the cool material of the curtain.

My forehead landed on her shoulder and I rolled it back and forth, like if I transferred her sweat onto my skin, she’d stay inside of me forever.

“I love you,” I said quietly, feeling more in sync with her now than I had since before she got pregnant. Maybe it was a false, post-coital sense of security, but it felt so good that I didn’t care.

“I love you, too,” she said back and motioned to stand up. I pulled out and heard her suck in a breath when wetness slipped down her leg. It almost made me hard again, knowing that she could feel me falling down the inside of her thighs. The look on her face told me she knew exactly what I was thinking. So I grinned, leaning down to place a kiss on her lips.

She smiled into the kiss, weaving her arms around my neck. I heard a crinkle when she did and I leaned back.

“Ha. Oops,” she said with a sheepish smile. She pulled a folded up piece of paper out from the side of her bra that I hadn’t groped.

“What’s this?”

She waved a hand and went to pull her pants up, but the flush on her cheeks told me she was legitimately embarrassed that I found it there. I hummed when I read the letter.

“Ahh, yes. I forgot that I’d be getting this.”

“Sounds like it might be a fun party.” Adele said it easily enough, but I could hear something underlying in her voice. Not detached, but close enough. I closed my eyes in understanding. We’d never talked about this type of stuff. Public appearances as a couple now that she wasn’t my student.

“I guess we’ll find out, huh?”

Her eyes flicked up to mine, the hopeful light about slaying me. “You want me to come with?”

“Who else would I bring to keep it interesting?”

She smiled. “You could always bring Elias.”