Western Ties: Compass Brothers, Book 4 (26 page)

He grinned. She clearly wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t even sure he’d call her tipsy, but she was definitely enjoying the relaxing effects of the wine.

“You strike me as the type who can handle her alcohol. And anything else that might come her way.” It was an obvious come on, but he didn’t care. There was something about her that screamed sex…and something else. Some elusive something he couldn’t put his finger on.

 
He took a sip of his Guinness. The alcohol was working on smoothing his rough edges too. His neck wasn’t stiff anymore and he was feeling looser, freer from the stress of work.

She leaned closer, her cheek still resting on her hand. “You know, I’ve always had this fantasy.”

He moved toward her. Her voice was low, husky, sexy as fuck. “Oh yeah?”

“Sex with a stranger.”

Her words hit him like a punch in the stomach and his cock filled the maximum weight recommended for his pants in three seconds flat. There was no way he could adjust them without drawing her attention to his dilemma. Then he grinned and made the adjustment anyway.

Her eyes followed the motion of his fingers.

 
“Up here, babe,” he teased, mimicking her words.

 
She laughed. “You’re really Carter’s cousin?”

“Yep, I’m Re—”

She cut him off quickly with a wave of her hand. “No. You tell me your name and we stop being strangers.”

She had a point. And a set of knockers that had him feeling lightheaded.

Taking a deep breath, he decided to go for broke. “Where do you wanna do this?”

“Follow me.”

There’s a thin line between protection and betrayal…and they’re dancing on it.

Razor’s Edge

© 2010 Jayne Rylon

Isabella’s marriage to the wealthiest man in the state looked fairytale perfect. Only she knows the truth behind the nightmare forcing her to run with the clothes on her back, the scars on her body and no one to trust. Not even her own father.

When the man hunting her has unlimited resources, hiding in plain sight is a wise choice. Isabella basks in the protection of the limelight as an instructor on a pro-am TV dance competition. Perfect plan, except her ornery partner is packing moves she never learned in any studio.

A rookie mistake in the line of duty earned Razor months of rehab and a healthy distrust of innocent-looking women. Determined to prove to his fellow men in blue his green has worn off, he goes undercover as Isabella’s dance partner to investigate her possible involvement in a sex-slavery ring. But as he attempts to cozy up for information, their instant chemistry challenges his detached composure.

An attempt on her life should have cleared the air. Instead it muddies the waters even more, forcing them both to trust each other. And depend on the one thing Razor thought he’d lost. His instinct.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Razor’s Edge:
 

Razor kneed the door shut a little harder than necessary. He carried Isabella to the couch instead of depositing her inside the entryway. Not that the two strides made much of a difference to her. His grip refused to relax until he absolutely had to relinquish his hold.

He figured he owed Lacey big time when he noticed she’d shoved his dirty laundry into one corner of the room, unpinned his Playboy calendar from the wall and cleared the scarred coffee table of the crushed cans that had littered it when he left this morning.

God, how could something so distant have been a mere twelve hours ago?

Isabella sighed when she rummaged through the floral canvas tote bag beside a note with her name on it. Shampoo, conditioner, lotion, pajamas and God knew what other feminine junk filled the sack. “Could I use your bathroom? I’d do anything for a shower right now.”

If she’d been any other woman he’d gone home with, Razor would have had a nasty suggestion or twenty starting with the two of them soaping each other’s backs. Maybe the fact that they were in his apartment, where he’d never brought a woman, had him checking his tongue.

Or, shit, maybe he was finally growing up. A little bit. That’s all, he promised himself.

Then again, maybe no woman before had mattered like Izzy did.

When he realized she sat there, gazing at him with questions in her beautiful eyes, he shook his head to clear the pesky thoughts.

“Yeah, of course. You don’t have to ask. My crappy one-bedroom apartment is your crappy one-bedroom apartment.” He spread his arms to gesture to his miserable excuse for a kingdom.

“Hey, it’s a giant improvement from Seventeenth Street.”

“That’s no joke.” He scrubbed his face to try and clear some of the visions flashing in his memory. The cracked sidewalk, Leo, boarded windows, flames shooting into the sky…

“Why? Why there? Why now?” He must be more tired than he realized if the questions slammed through his barriers. So much for the restraint he thought he’d cultivated.

Instead of granting him a smidgeon of insight, Izzy heaved a giant sigh. She slipped the handle of Lacey’s bag onto her grungy shoulder and turned toward his bedroom. All hope he’d harbored that she still intended to talk to him evaporated in an instant. “Is the bathroom this way?”

“First door on the left. There are extra towels under the sink.” Only door on the left, but whatever.

Razor crashed onto the couch with one arm behind his head, grimacing when the alluring scent of her wafted from the cushion. His cock inflated in a flash. He tried to ignore the aftereffects of adrenaline, but the patter of shower spray echoed through the thin walls, reminding him that her luscious body stood bare and dripping less than twenty feet away.

He visualized how her peaches and cream complexion would turn rosy under the warm water, steam curling around the curves of her dainty yet strong calves and thighs. The firm cheeks of her ass would tempt him to lay a teasing spank on them, jiggling the globes a little.

A groan escaped through his clenched jaw as he snuck his hand beneath the waistband of his too-tight jeans. He spread his legs, dangling one sneakered foot off the edge of the cushion to permit his engorged flesh some wiggle room. His fingers dipped into his boxer briefs to fondle his hard-on. They swiped the bead of moisture from the tip and painted it over the swollen head. His fingertips stroked his balls while his palm massaged his shaft, his breathing turning ragged.

What if they had showered together? Would Isabella notice his growing erection? Would she be generous and wild or shy and endearing this time around? It boggled his mind that she could bounce between the disparate sides of her personality. Almost as if she wanted to fly but didn’t know how. Had her husband never indulged her innate sensuality?

If he were married to a woman like her, he’d never stop her from doing as she pleased with him. He could picture her naughty smirk as she prepared to obliterate his restraint. She would lick droplets off his pecs, raking her sharp little teeth over his pebbled nipples while her fingers walked along the taut surface of his clenched abdomen.

His cock flexed as though reaching out to meet her hand. She’d wrap it around him, her grip tight as she attempted to encircle him with the delicate fingers that had tormented him for two days. Every time he’d cupped them in the awkward ballroom hold or felt them stroking his shoulder through their turns, he had a desperate urge to experience the contact under his clothes.

Isabella’s ultra-smooth skin had never known a day of work in her life. Pampered and perfect, it would caress his shaft. The sensation of her suds-filled hand stroking him would be almost as good as tunneling into her soaked pussy. Or between the unexpectedly voluminous breasts, which had overflowed his hands beneath the blanket at the crime scene earlier.

Maybe she would kneel before him, guiding his throbbing shaft to her cleavage. He’d glide between the slick mounds of her chest while she smiled up at him or bent her head to lick the salty fluid oozing from his tip. The heat of her pert mouth would tease him until he had to have more, take more.

Razor would grasp her upper arms, lifting her to her feet then higher, urging her to wrap her legs around his waist. He’d bury himself in her tight pussy with one long lunge that would leave her impaled on his cock. He’d ravage her lips—tasting the intoxicating sweetness he’d only begun to sample today—while he pumped into her heat.

Her ass would fit his hands as he raised and lowered her, grinding against her each time he penetrated to stroke her clit and drive her beyond her polite aloofness. When she cried out for mercy, scratching his shoulders with those manicured nails, he’d shift, pinning her to the molded plastic of his cheap shower stall.

After he had her where he wanted her he’d really begin to fuck.

“Izzy,” he moaned.

“Yes?”

The soft reply from the other side of the room had him yanking his fingers from his pants fast enough to burn his knuckles on the denim. When had she finished her damn shower? Had she seen him jerking off to forbidden fantasies?

He didn’t think so when she padded around the end of the couch to peer at him, head tilted to the side. The platinum strands of her damp hair hung nearly to the waist of her low-riding sweats. The cropped edge of the matching sassy top tempted him to reach out and circle her cute belly button with the tip of his index finger. Or, maybe, his tongue.

Shit! He slammed his eyes shut.

If he hadn’t already hovered on the edge of exploding, that image would have propelled him there. Razor sprang to his feet, bent over due to the steel rod in his pants. He snagged his jacket off the arm of the couch where he’d laid it, clutching the nylon to his stomach, hoping she hadn’t adjusted to the dim light of the living area after the stark white of his utilitarian bathroom.

He pinned his jeans to one hip as he limped toward the privacy of his bedroom. When the hell had he undone his fly?

“Are you okay, James?” She trailed after him, but he slammed the door in her face.

“Fine!” He hadn’t meant to shout. Hopefully she’d assume he’d raised his voice to allow it to carry, though the cardboard-quality doors wouldn’t require any extra decibels. “Be out in a few minutes.”

The second time around is even sweeter…with cherries on top.

Sweet Caroline

© 2010 Lissa Matthews

Blue Jeans and Hard Hats, Book 1

Buck doesn’t do personal projects. Until he runs into a woman wandering the aisles of the local home-improvement store, looking lost and confused. Just the way this fantasy looks at him nearly buckles his knees. In a hot second, the successful owner of a contracting company becomes a simple handyman, ready and willing to get as personal as the lady will allow.

Since her less-than-golden marriage to the local golden boy ended, Caroline’s declaration of independence includes her own business, road trips…and nipple piercings. Now it’s time to cut the last tie to her old life, but the house needs some work before she can unload it and move to her dream cabin in the mountains. Hard as it is to admit, she needs a little help.
 

Over the next few months, he shows her his toys, like hammers and drills, and she shows him hers—like floggers and paddles. And their attraction is the tinder that could send Caroline’s plans for an independent life up in flames…

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Sweet Caroline:

A five year age difference wasn’t much, but to a woman of forty, it was enough of one to make an impact. Buck hadn’t come on to her, flirted with her or touched her unless it was necessary. The only thing he’d ever done to make her think he saw her as a woman rather than a client, was that look of heat every so often when she licked her lips or curled her hair back behind her ears to keep it out of her face. She didn’t know if he’d seen the strands of gray at her temples or if he realized she had to use extra creams to keep the lines and wrinkles down to a minimum. But he wouldn’t deny there’d been something about her he liked, that brought out that bit of lust in him and it was
that
look he’d give that had her wanting to feel sexy and younger, even if she didn’t look it.

“Not a lot of work. I have a couple of baskets to put together, but they don’t need to go out until the end of next week.”

“That’s good. I know I like being busy and seems like you do too.”

“Yes. I’d rather be busy than twiddling my thumbs all day wondering what to do. I used to do that far too often when I was married.”

Buck leaned his hip against the axe handle, and she had a hard time keeping her eyes trained on his face. She wanted to look down or lean against him. She wanted to drop to her knees, press her face to his crotch and rub her cheek against his cock.

When he licked
his
lips after taking another swallow of coffee, she looked away, somewhere over his shoulder. His tongue licking the drop of coffee seemed to have the same effect on her that it had on him when she did it. And things were even hotter between them after yesterday and last night. She’d not had so much sex in one night in a long while and though she should be sore, all she could think about was getting naked with him again.