Summer Wine: Taste of Seduction, Book 1 (11 page)

She had to say something, had to tell him how she felt. She couldn’t exist like this anymore, couldn’t go on living this way with him. Forever friends, nothing more.

“Lucy!” His sharp exclamation snapped her back to attention.

“I love you, Seb.” It was out before she had a chance to think twice.

“I love you too, babe, but if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m taking you to the closest medical center to have you checked out.”

“No, I mean
I love you
. Like, really, love you.”

He grinned his beautiful grin. “So you tell me every time you get trashed on red wine. You love me and you think I’m the bestest friend in the whole widest world.” He tapped her half-empty wineglass. “Although you surprise me tonight. You haven’t even had one glass. Usually you have to have three or four before you start getting this sentimental.”

She bit her lower lip, sucking it into her mouth before releasing it. “I’m not drunk.”

His grin told her how much he believed her.

“I’m not,” she said again. “Truth is, I’m stone-cold sober. And the reason I haven’t been concentrating is because I’ve been trying to figure out a way to tell you how I feel.”

Seb’s smile began to fade, and his blue eyes widened as he stared at her.

“It’s changed, Seb. Everything’s changed. I’ve changed. My feelings for you have changed.” She took a deep, fortifying breath and the words tumbled out. “Y-you’re not just my friend anymore. You’re…more. I dunno what happened. And I dunno how I never felt this way before, but I…I…” She pressed her hand to her chest. “I have all these feelings for you, just sitting here, pressing on my heart, and I can’t ignore them. Can’t pretend they’re not there or they’re not real.”

Sebastian’s jaw dropped open.

Now that the words had started, she couldn’t hold them back. Didn’t want to. This was Seb she spoke to, and she could tell him anything. Had always been able to, and now was no different—even though everything was different.

“I dream about you at night. And at work, when I’m not sleeping. Dirty dreams. Filthy, really. Dreams a girl shouldn’t dream about her friend, but there you have it. And when I see you, I wish, just wish, the dreams were real. I wish you’d kiss me the way you do in my imagination. Wish you’d tear my clothes off and do filthy things to me. I wish,
wish
that you felt for me what I feel for you, and we weren’t sitting here at this very moment, drinking red wine and Earl Grey tea.”

Lucy paused to draw breath, her heart beating frantically, her cheeks burning.

Seb just gaped at her.

“I lay in the bath earlier, thinking about you. Fantasizing about you. I touched myself, wishing it was your hand. Couldn’t stop touching, until…until…” Lucy closed her eyes, mortified that she was voicing all of this, yet unable to stop. After months of keeping it to herself, the confession felt liberating. “I came thinking about you. And it wasn’t the first time. But the thing is, I don’t want to just fantasize anymore. Don’t want to just dream about you. I don’t just want to be your friend. Can’t be your friend, ’cause what I feel for you goes way beyond friendship. I’m like, wildly, crazily in love with you.”

“Lucy…” Seb’s voice sounded hoarse, scratchy. He looked dazed. “Geez, I don’t know what to say.” He drew a shaky hand over his shaved head.

Her breath caught in her diaphragm and she hiccupped. “Say you feel the same way. Or at the very least, tell me there’s a chance you could feel this way.”

“I love you too. You know I do.” Again he drew his hand over his head. “You’re my gal, my friend, my mate. ’Course I love you. Just…”

Lucy’s heart stopped beating. Or maybe her lungs stopped working. She couldn’t tell. “Just…?”

His blue gaze held hers. “Just…not like that.”

When you land in hot water, swim for safety—or let the fire burn.

Hotter Than Ever

© 2013 Elle Kennedy

An
Out of Uniform
Story

Claire McKinley has just experienced every bride’s nightmare. The groom is a no-show, and now she must face five hundred guests alone. Furious and humiliated, Claire seeks help from the most unlikely candidate—her almost-brother-in-law, who promptly whisks her away to his apartment in San Diego, where she can recover her pride in peace and quiet.

Dylan Wade is no fan of Claire’s, but no way can he leave the jilted bride in her time of need. Bringing her home seems like a good idea—until he remembers his new roommate. Dylan’s relationship with Aidan is…complicated. And with Claire thrown into the mix, life becomes even more…complicated.

Claire is blindsided by her attraction not only to Dylan, but also to Aidan, a man she’s just met. Soon they’re caught up in an all-consuming sexual storm they can’t fight even if they wanted to. Yet Claire wonders if it can last, or if she’s just setting herself up for more heartache.

Warning: This book is very dirty. Ménage a trois and man-on-man dirty. Graphic-language and explicit-sex dirty. Basically? Dirty. You’ve been warned.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Hotter Than Ever:

The worst thing about being a redhead with fair skin? It was impossible to disguise a blush. Claire’s cheeks had been a thorn in her side her whole life, and as her face heated up under Dylan’s smoldering gaze, she knew she was transmitting everything she was feeling loud and clear.

Surprise.

Embarrassment.

Arousal.

Oh yeah, there was definitely arousal thrown into the mix. Ever since they’d kissed, she’d been trying to squash the desire she felt for Dylan, but now that her misconceptions about the man had been exposed, she was having a tough time controlling her hormones. It was one thing to ignore the attraction when she’d thought he was a selfish ass who didn’t give a shit about his mother’s troubles, another one altogether when she knew he was actually a decent guy.

“Ah, relax, honey. I’m just teasing you.” His gorgeous green eyes twinkled. “I was kidding.”

She slanted her head in challenge. “Are you? Because you look pretty darn serious.”

After a second, he broke out in a grin. “Fine, so I was only half-kidding.”

“So half of you wants us to have sex?”

“Actually, about three-quarters of me wants it. One-quarter knows it’s probably a bad idea.”

“Probably?” She choked out a laugh. “I almost married your brother, Dylan.”

“And yet somehow that doesn’t seem to bother me anymore.”

“Right. Somehow.” She snorted. “It’s easy to overlook the reasons you shouldn’t do something when you want it badly enough.”

“And you don’t?”

“I don’t what?”

“Want it.” His lips quirked. “Because you’ve been giving off come-hither signals since the second you saw that box of condoms.”

“Again with the come-hither signals? You really like saying the words
come-hither
, huh?”

“And you’re deflecting. Answer the question. Do you want to have sex with me?”

His frankness was oddly thrilling. So was the way he slid closer, eliminating the distance between them. He moved the box of provisions out of the way, then scooted even closer, and Claire’s heart began to race. Their thighs were touching, his covered by sweatpants, hers bare thanks to her short-shorts, and the heat of his body sizzled her flesh, eliciting a rush of excitement that rippled through her blood.

“Yes, no, maybe?” he prompted.

It was in that moment that Claire realized how honesty might be considered a weakness rather than a strength, because the word “Yes” slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it.

But damn it, she
did
want this. Dylan had set her entire body on fire from that one measly kiss—she could only imagine what he was capable of doing to her if they were naked.

Maybe it made her a mega slut and a terrible person, but she really,
really
wanted to find out.

As his mouth curved in a satisfied smile, Dylan brought his hand to her face and stroked her cheek with his thumb.

“You’re always blushing.” He cocked his head pensively. “Is that blush limited to your cheeks, though? Or do other parts of you get nice and rosy too? Maybe here, you think?”

He glided his fingers along the curve of her neck and down to her collarbone.

As if on cue, heat suffused her chest.

“Oh, that’s nice.” His green eyes were focused intently on the flush rising just above the neckline of her tank top.

The pads of his fingers were rough, callused, creating a gentle scrape over her skin as he caressed the upper swell of her breasts.

“This is crazy,” she murmured.

“Probably.”

“Definitely.”

He withdrew his hand. “I’ll stop then.”

Disappointment spiraled through her, and God help her, but her lips formed a squeaky protest. Yes, this was crazy. Yes, sleeping with Chris’s brother would be highly inappropriate. But she wanted it to happen. She
needed
it to happen.

“Claire?” His expression was expectant.

“You know the night I caught you kissing Aidan?” she heard herself blurting out.

“How can I forget?” he said dryly.

“That night…what I saw…” She tried to articulate her jumbled thoughts. “The two of you were completely wrapped up in each other, oblivious to the world around you. It was passionate and intense and it made me kind of sad because I’d never experienced anything that even came close to that.” She swallowed. “And I was so turned on afterwards.”

He looked incredibly intrigued. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His voice lowered to a husky pitch. “Did you make yourself come when you went back to your room?”

“Yes.”

A groan rumbled out of his chest. “Aw, fuck, Claire, that’s hot. You were fingering yourself while I was in the living room twenty feet away?”

“Yes.”

She should have been mortified confessing all this to him, yet it was impossible to feel embarrassed when Dylan was looking at her with such unadulterated lust. When her gaze lowered to his groin, she made out the unmistakable ridge of his erection, and a resulting rush of moisture soaked her panties.

“Did you come hard?” he rasped. “Was it good?”

She met his sultry gaze. “It was the best orgasm I’ve ever had.”

“Hmmm. Challenge accepted.”

“Of course you’d see that as a challenge,” she said with shaky laugh. “But yeah…watching the two of you like that…it showed me what I was lacking in my own life.”

“Where are you going with this?”

She inhaled a deep breath. “I guess what I’m saying is that I want to experience…well, passion.” A wry note entered her voice. “And since we’re trapped in here for the next couple of hours, I guess having sex wouldn’t be a
totally
preposterous idea.”

“Are you trying to convince me, or yourself? Because I was on board from the second you pulled out those condoms.”

The grin he flashed her was contagious. “That’s because you’re a man. Women need some time to rationalize before they jump into things.”

“So are you done rationalizing?”

She pondered that. “I think so.”

“Good. Now come here and kiss me.”

“Come wher—” She yelped in delight as he hauled her onto his lap.

She grabbed his shoulders and clutched the sleeves of his T-shirt, moaning when he tugged on her ponytail to yank her head down. The second their lips met, heat unraveled inside her and danced along her flesh. He kissed her like a man possessed, his tongue sliding inside her mouth with a greedy thrust, robbing her of breath.

Passion. There it was. Surrounding her. Consuming her. She’d never been kissed like this before. Except…wait, that wasn’t true, because she’d experienced this very same thrill the other night when she’d kissed him. This time, however, there was no doubt in her mind that he was attracted to women—the hard cock pressing against her ass was all the evidence she needed.

Dylan continued to drive her wild with his mouth, his tongue, his teeth as he nibbled on her bottom lip before sucking on it. His hands traveled down the bumps of her spine, callused fingers snaking beneath the hem of her shirt.

She shivered as he began sliding the material up, those strong hands caressing her stomach, moving closer and closer to the undersides of her breasts.

When his exploration came to an abrupt halt, she voiced her disapproval in the form of a groan.

“Don’t worry,” he said with a chuckle. “I have every intention of playing with these gorgeous tits, but first I want to enjoy the view. Up you go.”

In the blink of an eye, he was helping her to her feet.

“What are you doing?”

A smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Me? Well, I’m going to lie here like this—” he fell back on his elbows, looking mighty pleased with himself, “—and watch while you undress.”

Her eyebrows flew up. “You want me to do a striptease? Am I supposed to dance or something?”

“Naah, no dancing required. And you don’t even have to go slow. Rip those clothes off if you want.”