Suck and Blow

Let the games begin… Talent agent Frankie Winchester is a hellion. Her motto is all a girl needs is a fun time, a fast ...

Author: Couper Lexxie

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Let the games begin… Talent agent Frankie Winchester is a hellion. Her motto is all a girl needs is a fun time, a fast car and an awesome masseur on speed dial. There’s only one person who could beat her at anything. Alec. Bane of her high-school existence, a kid whose parents were as working class and loving as hers were rich and distant. When celebrity landscape architect Alec Harris spots Frankie at an exclusive Sydney house party, everything comes rushing back. The memory of being the “cheap-money” kid, trying and failing to prove himself—and impress his dream girl, Frankie Winchester. Unexpectedly partnered in a wildly sexy game, the delicious friction ignites a scorching sexual tension. But there’s more than a playing card trapped between them. Frankie refuses to admit that kiss shook her to the core. Alec wants nothing less than her full surrender. Warning: C’mon, the book’s called Suck and Blow. What more warning do you need?

eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. Samhain Publishing, Ltd. 11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B Cincinnati OH 45249 Suck and Blow Copyright © 2011 by Lexxie Couper ISBN: 978-1-60928-571-5 Edited by Heidi Moore Cover by Scott Carpenter All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: November 2011 www.samhainpublishing.com

Suck and Blow Lexxie Couper

Dedication

For Mari Carr. Because she’s Mari Carr, damn it. To the Down Under Divas: Jess Dee, Sami Lee and Rhian Cahill. You put up with my neuroses and make me laugh. For that I love you all.

Chapter One

Francesca-Maree—Frankie—Winchester, had to admit the party was a success. A wild, irreverent who-cares-if-I’m-a-grown-up-I-wanna-play-games success. She grinned. Lil always did know how to throw a party. Wonder if the supermodel’s big brother knew she’d thrown this one? If he didn’t, Frankie may have to step in and protect her client from a family blood shedding. Grinning, she reached behind her and threaded her fingers through her best friend’s slender ones, tugging Miki along as they weaved their way through the crowded house. This was exactly what they both needed. Mikaila needed to forgot about the crap the last eight years of her life had thrown at her, and Frankie needed to forget… A soft frown pulled at her eyebrows. Well, she didn’t actually need to forget anything. If she did, her whole PR business would come crashing down and the country’s most famous and infamous would be screwed. No, what she needed from this party was a chance to blow off some steam. To pretend for a little while she didn’t have the careers of almost fifty of Australia’s hottest celebrities resting on her slim but straight shoulders. To let her hair down and, in a word, go off like a frog in a sock. “I don’t think I’m dressed for this place,” Miki shouted behind her, lagging a little. Frankie flashed Miki a wide grin, pulled her closer and nudged her with her shoulder. “You look like jailbait. Perfect for this place.”

Suck and Blow

Miki snorted, but the corners of her mouth still curled. A little. “I look like a frump next to you,” she grumbled, obviously fighting her want to smile. Frankie stopped and held out her arms, refusing to let Miki’s hand go even as she did so. “Honey, I look like a skanky ho. You know it and I know it.” She looked down at her ensemble for the night—skin-tight black leather trousers, thigh-high black leather boots, a thick firefighter’s belt she’d bought at an op-shop and her favourite retro Han Solo T-shirt. The bright red one she used to wear when she was twelve. It still fit too. In a manner of speaking. Miki rolled her eyes. “A skanky ho who has the heart of an angel, albeit a pushy angel. Which brings me back to what I was trying to say earlier—I’ve got the minutes of the last Playgrounds for Hope meeting and the state government has approved your application for third-level charity status, which means—” Whatever she was going to say next was cut short by the sudden and altogether rude appearance of a man roughly Frankie’s height insinuating himself between them. A smirk Frankie knew he thought was sexy stretched his thin lips. “Baby,” he said, turning his back on Miki as he waved a dripping cocktail, complete with sliced fruit and paper umbrella, in Frankie’s face. “I’ve been waiting all night for you to get here.” Frankie cocked an eyebrow at him. “Really? Wow, that’s a bit of a surprise, ’cause I have no freaking clue who you are.” His right eye closed in a lewd wink, his smirk growing, well, smirkier. “I’m the man who’s going to take you home tonight in my Porsche and show you what a good time really feels like.” Behind him, Miki burst out laughing. Frankie studied him, a thorough head-to-toe inspection that made his smirk turn into a smug grin. Dressed in casual Armani, right down to his shoes and— she’d hazard a guess—boxers, the designer clothes came close to hiding the

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paunch squishing over his belt but failed to hide his narrow shoulders and broad arse. The watch strapped around his wrist was a Rolex, ridiculously expensive and in-your-face. She let out a steady breath. That was the trouble with parties in this part of Sydney—nine times out of ten, those attending had more money than God and thought they were just as powerful, if not more so. This guy was no exception, and by Frankie’s practiced eye, he had to be in importing. The I-candeliver attitude rolled off him in waves. Licking her top lip with a deliberately slow stroke of her tongue, she leant toward him. “I’m going to take myself home tonight in my Audi R8,” she whispered, letting the words fall from her in a husky breath. “And I’m pretty certain I’ll have a better time with my vibrator than what I’d have with you.” The guy’s mouth fell open. Frankie slid her gaze to the chuckling Miki behind his right shoulder. “But instead, I’m going to be having an even better time with my lover.” The man snapped his head in Miki’s direction so fast Frankie swore she heard his neck crack. With a roll of her eyes, she tugged on her best friend’s hand again, pulling her away from their newfound chum and his newly red face. “Lover?” Miki gave her an exasperated look. “You haven’t resorted to lover since we were in senior year at high school.” Frankie shrugged, reaching the crowded bar and elbowing a clearing for her and Miki. “What can I say? I’m a fan of the classics.” Giving the barkeep—a very cute young man who probably worked the catalogue-model route—a wide smile, she ordered two tequilas, straight up. She passed one to Miki and held hers aloft. “To reliving our youth.”

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Miki rolled her eyes. “God, I hope not. My youth was about being constantly unsure of everything. You were the one who threw caution to the wind and bucked the system whenever you could.” Frankie grinned. “Good point. In that case, here’s to living right now.” “I’ll take that one.” Miki clinked her shot glass against Frankie’s and, on the count of three, tossed the drink down in a single swallow. She then burst into a coughing fit so violent people around them stared at her with rising horror. Frankie chuckled, patting Miki on the back. “That’s my girl.” Leaning back on the bar, she rested her elbows and cast her gaze around the luxurious living room, currently packed to the rafters with a wide selection of partygoers all doing their best to forget for a few hours the pressures of adult life. Lil had done it again. The party’s theme this time was party games, the kind played by teenagers and kids when their parents had left them alone in the house for a weekend and their rampaging hormones got the better of them. There were various game stations throughout the downstairs areas of the multi-milliondollar mansion and Frankie didn’t doubt she’d find more upstairs. When it came to making memories, her client, Lillian McDermott, super-model extraordinaire, knew what she was doing. A small glow of sheer happiness warmed Frankie’s hellion soul. She’d done some insane things in her lifetime. Growing up the only child of the country’s most successful and, let’s face it, extroverted record producer and his equally as outlandish publicist wife meant Frankie had zero boundaries. Zero boundaries and way too much pocket money, but a party dedicated to the thrills and utter joy of being a horny teenager was a new one for her. God, when was the last time she’d played Twister? Or Truth or Dare? Hell, even Spin the—


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Frankie’s gaze fell on a tall man moving through the crowd. A tall, familiar man. Jesus, you’ve got to be kidding me? Her heart leapt into her throat, choking her, robbing her ability to breathe. She stared at him, her lips tingling, her stomach knotting. He still stood taller than anyone else in the room, just as he’d always done, except now the wide width of his shoulders fitted perfectly with the broad expanse of his back and muscled width of his chest most definitely absent the last time she’d seen him. His arms were just as sun-kissed brown, but now their lengths were sculpted by smooth muscles the likes found more commonly on an elite athlete or model, his biceps straining the sleeves of his crisp white T-shirt. His stomach was just as flat, his backside just as tight in his faded Levis, Levis snug enough to reveal a bulge she’d never suspected of— Frankie tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but to no avail, her stare fixed on the man striding his way across the busy living room. His honey-blond hair was still a scruffy mess, but now it looked too damn sexy for words, his cheeks and jaw were covered in a fine golden growth, the bristles doing nothing to hide the twin dimples in his cheeks when he smiled at those around him. “Alley Cat.” The nickname formed on her tongue, a soundless whisper that made her nipples pinch tight. She licked her lips, her mouth dry. What the hell was Alley Cat doing here? At a party in Avalon? And not just anywhere in Avalon, but the most luxurious house in the most exclusive street? Who could he possibly know with the social connections to be invited to a party at Avalon? A prickling heat filled her cheeks at the last question and she pulled a face. It was churlish. That kind of societal, socio-economic snobbery was beneath her.

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Her parents may have lived by it, may have bathed in its pretentiousness every day, but she didn’t. “Seriously, what the hell does a kid from Penrith think he’s doing at a school like Knox Grammar?” The snide comment Frankie had hissed into Miki’s ear over a decade ago at an interschool mock-trial competition, whipped through her mind and she swallowed. Okay, so she had lived by it at one stage of her life, but that was a long time ago. Before she’d grown up and realized how shallow it was. Before she found the notion of class discrimination distasteful. Before she started feeling…things…for Alley Cat that unnerved her to no end. She tracked his path through the partygoers, her throat tight, her cheeks warm. Aleczander Harris. The bane of her entire high school existence. The kid who had beaten her at everything. Debating. Public-speaking. State mathematic championships. Hell, he’d even beat her at freaking regional mixed-doubles tennis tournaments. If her school was pitted against his, he beat her. Every time. Alec bloody Harris. Here. In the flesh. As if he felt her stare, Alec swung his head in her direction, his brilliant blue eyes—still the colour of a cloudless summer day—finding her with ease. Her heart just didn’t thump harder in her throat, it damn near tried to slam its way out of her body through her mouth. “You spoke really well today, Francesca.” “And still you beat me.” His blue eyes widened at her sharp response, his broad shoulders pulling a little straighter, his Adam’s apple jerking up and down his throat. She drove her nails into her palms. Damn it, that wasn’t what she wanted to say. She wished she could take the words


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back, but she couldn’t. She was Frankie Winchester. She didn’t let anyone get to her. No matter how much her stomach knotted when she sees him, no matter how many times she wondered what it’d be like to kiss… “I gotta go,” she burst out, shoving the jarring memory away as she shoved her still-untouched shot glass into Miki’s hand. Half the contents splashed onto her own gazillion-dollar boots but she didn’t care. She’d deal with that later. After she’d escaped the suffocating living room. “Huh?” Miki blinked at her, expression more than a little panicked. “What do you mean go? Where? Frankie, you’re the one who dragged me to this party. You can’t leave me here alone.” She tore her stare from the man watching her from the other side of the living room. “I…I just saw…I think I saw…” “Who?” Frankie shook her head. She knew what Miki would do if she uttered the name Alec Harris. Roll her eyes and say, “Oh God, not this again.” “What the hell is wrong with you, Frankie?” She gave Miki a wobbly smile. “I just need some air. I’ll be back. Promise.” Miki’s eyebrows shot up, but Frankie couldn’t stay. Not when she was being attacked by a past she didn’t want to remember. Or own. She barged her way back through the crowd, heading in the opposite direction Alec was heading. As quickly away from him as the packed room would let her. Which in her shell-shocked opinion wasn’t bloody quick enough. Alec watched the stunning brunette with the wild curls, skin-tight black leather pants and just as tight red T-shirt barrel her way through the laughing partygoers. Holy shit, is that The Gun?

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He straightened his spine a little, turned back and stretched his neck in an attempt to track the brunette’s trajectory out of the living room. Was that really The Gun? A frown pulled at his eyebrows as he peered over the heads of those around him. The woman slipped through the crowd, dodging people with the skill of a professional rugby union player, her glossy dark curls bobbing against the back of her neck and shoulders in an excited little dance. He frowned again. Maybe it wasn’t The Gun? He hadn’t seen Francesca Winchester for close to ten years, so he could be mistaken. Francesca Winchester had straight dark hair, long enough to brush the curves of her arse cheeks and was a touch more…cuddly than the pocket-rocket darting her way through the rowdy partygoers. Yeah, he had to be mistaken. No, you’re not. A wholly unexpected tension filled his balls at the possibility, squirming up into the pit of his stomach and sending ribbons of heat down into his dick. He ground his teeth, his grip on his glass—a crystal highball half-full of some exotic alcoholic concoction—growing firmer. He wasn’t going to let his memory of The Gun affect him. He wasn’t. Ten years had passed since he’d seen her last, and he’d moved on. Gotten over her. Grown up. Sure, there was that time he’d read about her opening her own public relations

and

management

business

in

the

paper—Kerpow

Talent

Management—and had the horniest friggin’ wet dreams about her for nights after. Then there was the time one of his clients had talked about his agent and Alec had discovered it was Frankie. It had stirred emotions in him that he’d tried his bloody hardest to bury, but apart from those two times, he’d put the woman from his mind.


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Yeah, right. And pigs have grown wings and are preparing for imminent flight. Not a day goes by when you don’t think of Francesca Win— He killed the thought. It served no purpose tonight. Tonight he was here to have fun, and thinking about The Gun was not fun. Bullshit. He ignored that thought. Facing the way he had entered, Alec returned through the crowd. Mac was somewhere in the house, but his big brother could wait for a while. What he wanted to do was find the brunette and hit up a conversation with her. He’d been in the US for too long on his last trip—six months to the day doing the promo-gig for Going Bush Landscape and Design’s latest range—and he desperately needed to hear some Aussie accents. Something about the way the woman moved told him she’d have a sexy voice. What better way to reacquaint himself with the local vernacular than to hear it fall from the lips of someone who made him thing of Frank— “Fuck.” He let out a ragged sigh. The persistent thought of Frankie knocked him off kilter. Damn it. He had to get his act together. He wasn’t planning to pick up a woman tonight, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to maintain a conversation with a woman if he kept thinking about the one person on the planet who reduced him to a hormonally preoccupied imbecile. He maneuvered his way through the packed living room, searching the throngs of people as he went. The low but insistent beat of the music emanating from the house’s stupidly expensive sound system vibrated through his body into his still-tight groin. He quickened his pace, the sudden flash of untamed curls entering the house’s media room catching his eye. Passing off his mysterious drink to a bikini-clad woman tottering past him, he ducked to the left, taking the long route through the kitchen to the massive room he knew Mac and his housemates had set up as a private home theatre. From the sound of the

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cheers and guffaws coming from the supposedly sound-proof room, whatever was going on in there, it wasn’t watching a deep and profound drama, that was for certain. All but jogging down the four steps descending into the media room, Alec crossed the western threshold. His gaze fell on the brunette in the skin-tight black leather and Han Solo T-shirt just as she was inching her way between two men roughly the size of a small office block each, looking over her shoulder as if searching for someone herself. Him? If it was Frankie, would she want to talk to him? Or would her flightor-fight instincts kick in? To be honest, the last time they’d seen each other, she’d been less than impressed with him. If he stepped in front of her now, would she try and, well, fight him? He frowned at another possibility. Would she try and flee from him? Is that what the mad dash through the party had just been? Another laughing cheer rang out. The crowd around Alec jostled forward and instinctively, he jerked his stare from the disappearing woman to what was causing all the raucous joviality. A line of laughing people snaked its way through the room, an alternating pattern of male/female dissecting the floor almost in half. On either side of the line, a small crowd watched, their calls of encouragements egging on the activity of two of the people somewhere near the front. Two people who, at first glance, seemed to be locked at the lips in a rather awkward kiss. “Suck, suck, suck!” a chant rose beside Alec. “Blow, blow, blow!” another chant came from the other side. Alec narrowed his eyes and studied the kissing couple—a short man who looked suspiciously like Australia’s latest cricket captain and a willowy woman he could have sworn was Kylie Minogue.


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Except the kiss looked wrong. They weren’t kissing. There was something between their puckered mouths. Something thin and blue and… “Ahh.” He nodded, finally recognizing the playing card mashed between the man and woman’s mouths. “Suck and Blow.” Another cheer rippled through the room, followed by a hitching giggle from the possible pop-sensation as her cheeks concaved a little and she pulled away from the possible cricket captain. A tense hush fell over the room, peppered by the occasional “is she going to do it?” as the blonde slowly—gingerly—turned a complete one-eighty on her heel and leant towards the new man now standing before her, his face lowered to hers, his lips puckered, his eyes grinning. The room grew quieter, everyone holding their breaths as they watched the two drew their faces closer together. Closer…closer…closer… Bam. Their mouths pressed together, separated only by the thin rectangle of gloss-covered cardboard. “Yeah!” The cheers and laughs erupted again just as the guy sucked on the card and pulled it from her lips. The willowy blonde stepped backward in a fit of giggles, her bright blue eyes crinkling at the edges. Alec chuckled, shaking his head. He’d never played Suck and Blow as a teenager. When his parents had won the lottery and sent him and Mac to study at Knox Grammar, the most exclusive private boys’ school in Sydney, he’d never been invited to these kinds of parties because he was, to put it bluntly, cheap money. Another whoop of delight filled the room, snatching Alec from his wry reverie. He returned his attention to the line, his stomach knotting immediately. Two things became perfectly clear. One, the woman he’d followed to this part of the house was joining the game, and two, there was no question or denying who

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she was. This close, he could see the tiny smattering of light brown freckles across her fine, upturned nose. This close he could see the stormy-blue clarity of her eyes through the thick tumble of ringlets hanging over her forehead. This close he could see the straightness of her dark-brown eyebrows under that unruly fringe. This close he could see, see, the supreme confidence radiating from her in crashing waves. Couldn’t miss it. And it had the same effect on him it always had. His groin tightened and his balls throbbed. He let out a low groan, the sound swallowed by the new round of cheers filling the room. Frankie Winchester. The Gun. His long-denied sexual fantasy was all of about three sucking-and-blowing moves away from having her face plastered up close and personal with a guy dressed in designer jeans while another waited his turn behind her. Fuck. Join in. He stood still. Long enough to watch the playing card be passed from a tall guy with a tattoo of a black dragon twisting up his arm to a laughing woman who Alec was sure read the news on the leading morning variety television program. For a quick moment, the card seemed glued to Mr. Tatt’s lips then, just as his head drew closer to Miss Morning News, it fluttered downward, passing his chin in a twirling flash of red hearts and blue herringbone. The newsreader’s smiling lips pressed to Mr. Tatt’s, her eyes widening as he obviously gave her more than she’d anticipated. The watching crowd burst out laughing, as did Miss Morning News and her tattooed partner. “Scull! Scull!” came the chant as a beer glass was handed to Mr. Tatt. He threw back his head and swallowed the amber beverage in three gulps,


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then held the empty glass above his head to the cheers of the room before stooping to retrieve the dropped playing card from the floor. A husky chuckle played over Alec’s ears, making his breath quicken, and he slid his stare to where Frankie stood waiting in line for her turn. God, he remembered that laugh. It had driven him mad as a teenager. It was low and throaty. Confident and knowing. It said that she’d done things he couldn’t begin to imagine. It said that she could do things to him that he couldn’t even hope to imagine. For a split second, he was back at high school, sitting in the audience of an inter-school debating contest, listening to Frankie laugh at something one of her teammates had whispered in her ear. He’d squirmed in his seat, his trousers suddenly uncomfortably snug in the groin. And her eyes had slid to him, looking at him for the merest beat of his heart before sliding off him. His breath had caught in his throat, his trousers growing tighter in the crotch. “Don’t be a fucking loser, Harris,” the kid beside him—a fellow student from Knox Grammar—muttered, jabbing Alec in the ribs with his elbow. “Frankie Winchester’s not in your league. Shit, the chick dates movie stars. You’re nothing but cheap money.” He’d ground his teeth, his gaze fixed on Frankie where she sat a world away from him. She’d laughed again at whatever her teammate had written on a palm card, and then given Alec a quick glance from the corner of her eye. Just one. But he’d sworn to God her cheeks had filled with a faint pink tinge and her smile had reached her eyes for the first time since walking into the room. He hadn’t had the courage to approach her after the debate, slinking out of the room with his hands shoved in his pockets, hoping to hide the embarrassing effect she had on him, but he’d never forgotten that smile in her eyes. Nor her laugh.

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He looked at her now, noting with a sharp sense of irony how she seemed completely unaware of his existence in this room. Did she even remember him? Or was he just the geek from her past who kept defeating her? Find out. Now. Without letting himself contemplate his next move or question his motive behind it, he pushed his way from the crowd and stepped up to the line, coming to stop directly before the guy on Frankie’s right. “Heya, big guy,” he said with a grin. “Mind if I cut in?”


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Chapter Two

Frankie stared up at Alec, her heart thumping into her throat. So much for running away from him. She’d thought she’d lost him in the house. She thought she’d given him the slip. She’d thought he hadn’t come after her in the first place. Why would he? In all the years they’d known each other, they’d never shared anything more than a stilted word after whatever event or competition he’d thoroughly trounced her at. Why on earth would he follow her? It didn’t matter though. Rational thought had deserted her the second she’d laid eyes on him. Deserted her, and here she now was, hiding out in a game of Suck and Blow with Alec bloody Harris standing before her, showing her once again, how monumentally stupid she was. Damn him. It’s been ten years, Francesca. It’s time you grew up, don’t you think? Besides, he may not even remember you. She gazed up at him and her breath stuck in her throat. Did he remember her? Brilliant blue eyes moved to her, direct and way more confident than they’d been as a teenager. “Hello, Francesca.” Her sex constricted, an involuntary response to his stunning good looks and the sinfully sensual way he murmured her name. Had to be involuntary. Why else would she be feeling all squirming and…and… “Fuck off,” the guy beside her growled.

Suck and Blow

Alec gave him a wounded look. “C’mon, mate. This is my old girlfriend from school. I haven’t seen her for ten years.” Frankie’s mouth fell open. Okay, that’s not what she expected him to say. What the hell? With a lopsided smile, Alec raised one sublimely muscled arm, pressed one straight finger gently underneath her chin and, his grin growing wider, slowly closed her mouth. And she let him. She let him. What the hell was she doing? She let him? The guy standing beside her, a bit-role actor if she was correct—and she always was about this kind of thing—slid his own striking blue eyes in her direction. “C’mon, mate,” Alec said and, God help her, Frankie’s pussy constricted some more at the languid confidence in his voice. “Help a bloke out.” Before Frankie could say anything, or do anything—like, hmmm, slap Alec’s hand from under her chin perhaps—the guy on her right let out a disgruntled snort and stepped out of the line, holding out his arm for Alec to take his place. He gave Frankie a steady look. “I’ll be at the Twister station if you’re interested.” He flicked Alec a glower. “After Mr. Ex is done no doubt reminding you why he’s Mr. Ex.” “Oh, he was a witty one,” Alec commented, watching the man shove his way through the crowd. He swung his attention back to Frankie, giving her a wide smirk. “But a little too tame for your standards if I remember rightly?” Frankie opened her mouth again, a searing heat flaming through her. Just as Alec nodded toward something behind her back. “Head’s up, Francesca,” he murmured with a grin, closing his fingers around her shoulders just as gently as he’d pressed his finger to her chin. “It’s our turn.”


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He turned her around, in time for her to see the man next to her in the line lean forward, the ten of hearts stuck to his lips. She blinked, her ears roaring. Alec’s fingers held her shoulders with steady pressure, the warmth of his tall, lean body licking at her back. A prickle of something far too unnerving washed over her, something too aware of his maleness, his nearness, and then the man with the playing card on his mouth was pressing his lips to hers as Alec’s hands smoothed down her arms to come to rest on her hips. She sucked in her breath, the sudden gasp fixing the playing card to her lips. His fingers scalded her through the supple leather of her pants, his grip loose and relaxed and far from suggestive. So why was her heart thumping so hard? Why was her pussy fluttering like a psychotic horde of ADHD butterflies? The man currently nose-to-nose with her pushed his face a little closer, an over-powering smell of Jean Paul Gaultier’s Pour Homme slipping into her nostrils and she staggered back, Alec’s hips brushing her backside as she did so. Oh God. Her heart leapt away from her, the soft pressure of his fingers at her waist making her head swim. Or was it the fact she was holding her breath? Holding her breath with the goddamn ten of hearts stuck to her lips? Do something, woman! She didn’t have to. Alec did it for her. With a gentle push and pull on her hips, he turned her around to face him, his blue, blue eyes holding hers, his dimples flashing as the sides of his mouth curled. “So, who’s going to win this one, Frankie?” The question was asked on a low chuckle, each word making her sex constrict.

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She stared at him. Watched him lower his head to hers. Watched him draw closer. Closer. Her lungs burned. Her head swam. The room fell silent. And her breath ran out just like that, the card slipping from her lips at the loss of suction a mere second before Alec’s mouth pressed to hers. Explosive heat shot through Frankie, like she’d suddenly and inexplicably grabbed a live wire on an electrical fence. Except it wasn’t electricity charging through her, singeing her nerve-endings and making her nipples pinch hard but arousal. Instant and undeniable. A wicked ribbon of warm tension unfurled through her belly and into the junction of her thighs, and before she could stop it, a low groan vibrated deep in her throat. His lips were warm, soft. They melded to hers with perfection, slightly parted, his intake of breath drawing her exhalation into his mouth. He’d expected to feel the playing card pressed to his lips now, of that she had little doubt, but instead of pulling away as she thought he would, his lips lingered on hers. Slanting over them as his fingers on her hips curled a little more firmly against her body, tugging her closer to his body with an insistence that made her head swim just as much as her earlier oxygen deprivation. She stiffened, for the first time in her wild, uncontrolled life she was utterly and completely bamboozled as to what she should do next. Her feet stumbled over each other, her lurching forward momentum halted by Alec’s hard form. And he was hard. Very hard. All of him. Hard and big and impressive. His stomach pressed against hers like a sculpted plane of marble. His chest was hard and smooth under her palms. Her palms? Frankie’s already rapid heartbeat kicked up a notch, thumping against her breastbone like a bloody sledgehammer. When had she put her hands to his chest?


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Who cares? The brazen thought whispered through her head at the very moment Alec’s lips parted against hers and his tongue dipped into her mouth. Oh. He tasted of sinful paradise. Pineapple and coconut and rum. It was intoxicating. She wanted more. Snaking her hands up over his shoulders, she tangled her fingers in his messy crop of blond hair, opening her mouth wider to his kiss and stroking her tongue against his. She rose onto tip-toe, the elevation aligning her hips to his, the hard heat of his cock nudging at her groin. Oh. The single word was nothing but a soft sigh in her mind—a mind furiously trying to remind her just who in the bloody hell she was kissing. Alec Harris. Alley Cat, Francesca, you’re kissing Alley Cat. And he was kissing her back. And doing a superb job of it. There was nothing chaste about it. Nor was it aggressive and arrogant. His tongue danced over hers, a teasing caress that sent a shiver up her spine and a liquid tension into her pussy. It was, simply put, a kiss designed to do one thing and one thing only, make her want more. Oh, fuck, this can’t be— A munitions dump exploded around them. Or at least it sounded that way. As one, the partygoers squashed into the media room roared with deafening cheers, some stamping their feet with drumming force, some clapping with equal ferocity, others wolf-whistling and caterwauling and crying out “yeah!” like a crowd of horny teenagers. Frankie jerked backward, her lips burning from Alec’s inexplicable kiss, her heart slamming up into her throat. She stared up at him, the sight of his lips glistening with moisture—her moisture from her kiss—making her pulse pound.

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He stared back, ignoring the slaps on the shoulder and back the other men around him were giving him, ignoring their guffaws of encouragement and congratulatory chuckles. His blue eyes held hers, even as his hands slipped from her hips, his expression growing…closed. “Looks like I win again,” he said, no hint of humour in his deep voice. Someone sucker punched Frankie in the stomach. Some unseen, invisible assailant. How else could she explain the way her gut suddenly seemed to knot? Or the way her breath burst violently from her lungs. She blinked. “What?” Her face filled with heat. Not just a delicate blush, but a burning heat that didn’t just creep up her chest and neck to paint her face red, but engulfed it with a greedy ferocity. She shook her head, stumbling back another step, bumping into the guy behind her, her backside pressing against his groin. He laughed, his hands falling onto her shoulders to steady her. “Bloody hell, mate,” he said over the top of her head, and Frankie didn’t need to turn around to see his exclamation was directed at Alec, “why couldn’t I have been standing in your spot?” Frankie’s stomach knotted again. Tighter this time. He’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back. What the fuck was she thinking? “You’re lucky I didn’t knee you in the nuts,” she joked, the threat insincere at best. At worst, it sounded like a breathy pant. “Admit it, Francesca,” Alec lowered his head closer to hers, “you want to kiss me again.” Her heart thumped harder. “It’s a game, Alley Cat. That’s it.” The corners of his mouth curled. A little. His eyes seemed to twinkle. “Guess I’m not that hopeless a kisser after all.” Frankie frowned, for a second his words making bugger all sense, and then a tiny shard of memory formed, spearing into her: “I bet he’s a hopeless kisser, Miks.”


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Her jibe from that lifetime whispered through her mind. She swallowed, staring up at Alec. “You heard me?” Alec shrugged. “You were pissed off about losing to me in the regional mixed doubles semi-finals. I think the whole tennis court heard you.” She remembered the petulant anger at yet another crushing defeat…and an unsettling tension in the pit of her belly she’d not wanted to think about or acknowledge. “I bet he doesn’t have a clue what to do with his tongue.” His smile curled wider, as if he knew where her thoughts were taking her. “So, tell me, what did you think of my tongue action?” His question made her pulse quicken. She’d liked it. A lot. And, as if to really drive the point home, that same unsettling tension churned in the pit of her belly now, but this time she knew exactly what it was—arousal. She wasn’t telling him that though, no matter how much she wanted to kiss him a— She sucked in a quick breath, the taste of Alec’s kiss flowing through her. Pineapple, coconut and rum. And Alec. She tasted Alec on her breath. Damn it, the one guy she’d never in a million years dreamed of tasting. But you always wanted to. Admit it. After all these years deluding yourself, surely you can admit it now? “Scull!” the cheer went out, just as someone shoved a shot glass of something colorless in her hand. “Nah, kiss him again!” someone else yelled back. The crowd burst out laughing, feet stamping again. Alec stared at her. Waiting for her to say something. Do something. “I think—” Frankie spoke loud enough for the crowd to hear her, more than a touch dismayed at the way her voice cracked, “—we should continue with the game, don’t you?” Alec raised an eyebrow, one side of his mouth twitching. “I agree.”

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She raised the shot glass to her lips, her gaze held by his, and tossed back the drink in one mouthful. Tequila burnt its way to her stomach. Fiery and potent. And still the taste of Alec lingered on her lips, her tongue. Oh God, he tasted so fucking good. Kiss him again. Now. You’re at a party. You’ve just slammed back a tequila shot. He’ll think it’s the booze. Kiss him. Go on. You know you want to. God help her, she did. Ten years ago she’d denied that want, despising him for constantly humiliating her. But deep down inside, in the disquieting place no teenage girl wanted to go—a place far less self-centered and far more selfaware—she’d known every defeat made her a better person, even if she never admitted it to anyone, least of all herself. She wanted to kiss him back then and she wanted to kiss him now. Instead, with a cock of one eyebrow, she sank into a crouch before him, keeping her shoulders and back straight, her face drawing level with his crotch as her fingers closed around the playing card lying on the plush carpet at his feet. She wasn’t going to lose to Alec Harris again. She was Frankie freaking Winchester. She didn’t lose to anyone, especially him. Idiot. A collective oh went out from those around her, every pair of eyes trained on her where she crouched at his feet. She felt their weight like a razing heat, but none more so than Alec’s unwavering gaze that held her stare with indecipherable intensity. With a deliberate lack of haste, she straightened, her nose and lips almost, almost, skimming Alec’s groin as she did so, until she stood upright once more, hip to hip, belly to belly. “Fighting dirty, Frankie?” “Yes.”


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Lexxie Couper

“Anyone would think you’re trying to tease me.” “No. Just trying to win.” His Adam’s apple rolled up and down the smooth, brown column of his throat, and for a surreal moment Frankie wanted nothing more than to place her lips on its distinctly male shape and feel it move beneath his skin. But she didn’t. She raised her hand to her face and pressed the ten of hearts to her lips instead, sucking in enough breath to hold the playing card to her mouth, her gaze fixed on Alec’s the whole time. The crowd laughed. The woman behind Alec, a tall blonde with an expressionless, Botoxed face giggled, clapping her hands. Someone yelled, “Onya, love,” someone else shouted, “Can I have a go?” and then she was leaning toward Alec again, his clean scent threading through her slow intake of breath, the warmth of his body kissing hers, his blue eyes sparkling with unmistakable mirth. Their lips aligned, separated only by the thin rectangle of glossy cardboard. She felt their soft pressure through the card, lips only a moment ago that had moved over hers. Her sex contracted with demanding want a second before Alec removed the playing card from her mouth with his. He turned away, leaning toward to the eagerly awaiting blonde behind him. Frankie didn’t wait to see what happened next. She couldn’t. She had to get away before she threw herself at him and begged him to kiss her again. And she couldn’t do that. Frankie Winchester didn’t beg anyone. Especially Alec bloody Harris. With a quick look at the back of Alec’s head, she slipped out of the line, pushing her way through the jostling, laughing partygoers. “Frankie?”

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She heard him calling her name, his deep voice like rumbling thunder over the noise of the party. Her heart leapt into her throat, but she didn’t stop. She had to get her head around her response to him. She had to— “Frankie, stop.” Warm, firm fingers wrapped around her upper arm, halting her progress. “Will you just—?” She spun to face him, tilting up her chin to give him a bored look. “What? Don’t tell me you dropped the card already?” Alec chuckled, his hands going to his hips. “Ah, we’re going to play this game now, are we?” Frankie narrowed her eyes. “What game?” “The game where you pretend that kiss back there didn’t shake you to your core.” “Ha! Tickets on yourself, Alley Cat?” He grinned, the expression both cocky and boyishly sexy. “Tell me it didn’t then.” Her pussy fluttered, the truth of his words unsettling her. Damn it, she hated feeling unsettled. “I’ve had better kisses from a…from a…” Her mind drew a blank. “A wookie?” Alec’s response caught her by surprise. She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her breasts and the image of Han Solo printed on her shirt, fighting the urge to laugh. Okay, that was pretty clever, given the shirt she was wearing. Still, she wasn’t going to let Alec Harris know that. “Oh, c’mon—” he pulled a face, his grin growing wide, “—that was funny.” Her lips twitched. It was funny. “Can I get you a drink?”


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Her breath caught in her throat. That would be dangerous. Spending any more time in Alec’s company would completely mess with her head. She despised him. He’d made her feel like a loser for too many years. In fact, wasn’t she trying to get away from him? “No. Sorry.” “Are you here with someone?” “A friend.” “Boyfriend?” For a split second, she fooled around with the notion of saying yes. Instead, she shook her head. Alec raised an eyebrow. “Girlfriend?” “No. A friend friend.” He studied her. “So, you don’t want to have a drink with me because…” She gave him a pointed look. “I don’t like you.” He laughed—the sound genuinely relaxed and full of mirth. “Ah, we are still playing that game then.” “Go away. You’re bothering me.” His eyebrows shot up. “Bothering you? Damn, maybe you aren’t who I thought you were. The Francesca Winchester I know would have told me to go scratch about in my litter tray.” A prickling heat pressed at Frankie’s temples. “That was ten years ago.” His stare grew intense, his body still. “Yes, Frankie,” he said, his voice low. “It was.” The unspoken significance of his answer was not lost on her. Her mouth went dry. Fuck, she wasn’t prepared for this. She wasn’t ready for it. She had to go. She needed air. Like, now. “I have to—” “There you are, Al.”

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Frankie watched as a guy who looked like an older version of Alec wrap him in a big bear hug, hauling him off the floor. “About damn time you got here.” Alec laughed, trying to disengage himself from the man’s hold, even as his gaze held Frankie’s. He opened his mouth, but she didn’t wait to hear what he said—and to who. The interruption was too good to miss. Too perfect to waste. As if the fates had decided to give her this reprieve to get away. She turned from the two men and slipped into the crowd, her throat tight and her heart thumping. The house was huge, an architecturally designed residence that subtly spoke of wealth and success. The furniture—currently draped with snogging couples— was both luxurious and practical, the house’s layout—currently used to optimum effect for Lil’s party—designed to highlight the sweeping, milliondollar views of the water right at the edge of the back yard. It took her longer than she expected to barrel her way through to the back of the mansion, and by the time she made it to the open glass patio doors her temper was threatening to overwhelm her. The constant thump thump of the music vibrating through her body didn’t help. All it seemed to do was illustrate the fact her pussy was bloody well still fluttering over Alec’s unexpected kiss. Unexpected? That’s the word you’re going with? How ’bout fucking amazing? She bit back a low snarl, elbowing her way past one moaning, lip-locked couple positioned against the threshold before spilling out onto the wooden deck. It was just as crowded as the interior. The heavy humidity of the summer dusk air was threaded with the unmistakable smell of fine perfume, expensive cologne and spilt alcohol. A faint hint of coconut wafted into her nose, instantly bringing with it the memory of Alec’s tongue teasing hers.


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“Fuck,” she growled, worming her way to the deck’s railing. “Fuck fuck fuck.” Finally making it to the polished steel balustrade, she wrapped her fingers around its cool width, closed her eyes and pulled a deep, slow breath. She needed to focus herself, that’s what she needed to do. She needed to center her calm and cash in on all those years of yoga and Pilates. There was no way—no way—she was going to let herself be so freaking flustered over one freaking kiss, no matter who it was doing the kissing. Err, that would be you and Alley Cat doing the kissing, a mischievous little voice pointed out in her head, the same mischievous little voice responsible for more than one of her outlandish acts over the years. Just in case you forgot. “Shut up,” she muttered, lifting her chin higher and shaking her head in an attempt to eradicate the tension in her shoulders. It didn’t work. And it wasn’t just her shoulders that were gripped with tension. Her sex kept fluttering, her arse kept constricting, a sexual urgency she didn’t want to acknowledge taking control of her body. She let out a ragged sigh. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop replaying the moment Alec’s lips touched hers, and no matter how much she tried not to, she couldn’t stop wishing they would do so again. What the hell was up with that? It wasn’t like she hadn’t been kissed before. Thanks to her no-boundaries parents and their casual approach to her upbringing, she’d shared more than one kiss in her twenty-eight years. Hell, her first kiss—real kiss, with tongues and moans and squirmy sensations in the pit of her belly—had been at the ripe old age of twelve, with the eldest son of Australia’s most famous actor, a boy five years older than her with the preposterous name of Tallowood Hawke. Since then, she’d lost count of the times she’d snogged a guy, but it was a number high

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enough to make her feel uncomfortable. Most of those partners in salivaswapping were famous, dead sexy, or both. All of them were infamous for their sexual prowess. None of them made her body react the way Alec had with that one simple kiss. None of them. Period. What the hell did that mean? Frankie opened her eyes and stared hard at the deep purple expanse of calm water beyond the tree-lined backyard, watching with blank attention as the setting sun turned the surface to a shimmering carpet. It should have calmed her, but instead it made her think of the way Alec’s lips had glistened with the moisture of their kiss. God, what was wrong with her? She slapped her hands to the rail, squaring her jaw. Miki. She needed to find Miki. Miki would know exactly what to say. Miki would point out the lunacy of the situation with a logical, articulate argument the way she always did, using her logical, rational mind to take all this turbulent uncertainty away. Miki would fix it, Frankie was sure of that. So where was she? Where you left her when you bolted at the sight of Alec Harris perhaps? Fending for herself at a party she didn’t want to attend in the first place? Frankie’s cheeks grew hot and she let out a soft snort of disgust. The unpleasant taste of guilt coated the back of her throat. Damn, so much for being the bestest bud in the world. One glimpse of Alley Cat and she’d turned tail and run. Fuck it, what was it about that guy that always made her behave like an idiot? Argh. God, whose stupid idea was it to come to this party anyway? “Why do I get the feeling you’re not listening to me?”


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Alec started, jerking his attention from the packed room back to his brother. Mac was frowning at him, an impatient expression he remembered well from their youth whenever Mackenzie decided Alec was being annoying. “I’m sorry, Mac, I’m listening. Honest.” He wasn’t. Not really. Not just because Mac was carrying on about the contract offer made to Alec while he was in the US again, but because he was trying to catch any kind of glimpse of Frankie in the crowd. “So, tell me again why you’re reluctant to sign the contract?” Alec let out a sigh. “Did you really ask me to this party to talk about the contract?” His brother gave him a hard glare. “Well, one of us has to think about your career.” Alec laughed. “I have a career, Mac. I’m a landscaper, remember?” “With a contract offer so big dangling in front of you by the queen of American television. I think it’s time to look beyond the garden, don’t you?” “No. What I want to look beyond is this room. Can we talk about this later, bro? There’s someone I’m trying to find.” A scowl fell over Mackenzie’s face. “Francesca Winchester? When you find her, can you tell her to stop sending Lily out on jobs requiring her to wear sweet fuck all. It’s indecent.” Alec blinked. “What?” Mac huffed out a breath, dragging his hands through his hair. “Nothing.” Alec studied his brother. Mackenzie wasn’t behaving at all like the cool, ruthless lawyer he was. “Anything you want to tell me, Mac?” “No.” His scowl grew darker. “No.” He raked his fingers through his hair again, turning it into a wild blond mess. “Sorry.” Letting out another breath, he tracked someone’s path behind Alec with his eyes. His jaw bunched.

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It was Alec’s turn to frown. He pivoted on his heel, searching the crowd for whoever had caused Mac to look so flustered. No one stood out. He turned back to Mac, only to find his big brother pushing through the room after whoever the whoever was. Alec shook his head with a grin, holding up a hand. “Nice talking to you, bro,” he called out to his brother’s back. “Have fun.” Mackenzie didn’t respond, and Alec laughed again. His brother was not himself tonight, case in point, asking Alec to talk to Frankie about Lil McDermott. Why the hell Mac thought Alec would have any sway over Francesca Winchester was beyond him. Maybe he saw you two in the Suck and Blow line? Perhaps right about the time you were kissing her? And she was kissing you back? Alec’s gut knotted, his groin jerking with agreeing interest. He ground his teeth again, maneuvering through the packed living room, scanning the crowd for any sign of dark, wild, bouncy curls. Nada. Why are you so hell bent on finding her anyway? What are the odds of her letting you kiss her again? Especially after the whole I-heard-you-talking-about-kissing-me routine you gave her? Rather childish, don’t you think? You may as well have stuck your fingers in your ears, poked your tongue out and gone na-na-na-na-na. Yeah, what was that all about? If he didn’t know himself better he’d think he was deliberately trying to goad her into hating him some more. But that wasn’t the case, was it? Their history was peppered with defeat after defeat on Frankie’s side, but for him…every time he’d seen her, no matter what the contest or situation, he’d been overcome with this insane, irrational urge to show her he wasn’t just the cheap-money kid. To prove to her—this smart, witty, gorgeous girl—he was someone worth her attention. Trouble was that insane, irrational


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urge just led him to humiliating her time and again. Not really the best way to go about wooing a girl, that was for certain. Especially a celebrity’s daughter like Francesca Winchester who pretty much had her pick of the boys in just about every school in Sydney and the North Shore. Unfortunately, by his instant and immediate reaction to her tonight, it seemed things hadn’t changed. He wanted to woo her. Jesus, did he want to woo her, and instead he made her blush with dislike. He shook his head, letting out a disgusted snort. “Christ, you really are a legend, aren’t you, Harris?” He continued threading his way through the house, looking for her. He passed group after group partaking in games such as Twister, Spin the Bottle and, from what he could gather by the jostling crowd at a closed door, Seven Minutes of Heaven, all laughing and enjoying themselves, their expensive cars and massive mortgages forgotten in the night’s carefree frivolities, but Frankie wasn’t to be seen at any of them. Coming to a standstill between the formal dining room and the parlor, he let out a rough sigh. Okay, he’d have to face the fact she wasn’t here. Maybe she’s behind the closed door? Sending someone else to seven minutes of heaven? His nuts grew hard. The thought of Frankie in someone else’s arms, her lips sliding over someone else’s lips, did not just make him jealous, but angry as well. Jesus, he was a goner. He raked his fingers through his hair, staring at the game of Truth or Dare going on in the far corner of the formal dining room. The way he saw it, he could do one of two things, leave and track her down later at her office, and hope to God he could think of something witty and clever and grown-up to say. Or two,

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he could leave and forget about her. Completely. Shit, he wasn’t in her league anyways. What was he really thinking? Hoping for? Movement from the corner of his eye made him frown. He narrowed his eyes, catching a glimpse of a woman—her dark hair a mass of curls, her T-shirt bright red—unfurling herself from the floor where a circle of Truth or Dare players sat. His breath caught…a second before a man Alec knew to be Mike Wilson, the country’s biggest wanker on and off the rugby field, jostled past him, blocking his view. Shit. He moved to the right, but the woman in the red T-shirt was nowhere to be seen. Shit. He dragged his hands through his hair. “Shit. What now?” He looked about, his heart skipping a beat when his gaze fell on a woman who looked a hell of a lot like Mikaila Drummond, Frankie’s best friend. She was being led away from the Truth or Dare station by two tall guys he suspected he knew, or at least, knew of. If that was Mikaila, than Frankie had to be… He stiffened, jerking his stare back to the circle of adults sitting on the floor. Nope. She wasn’t there. No sign of her. Not a bloody— Someone ran into him. Hard. A firm, warm body slamming into his side as if the person hadn’t been watching where they were going but was in a damn hurry to get where ever it was. He stumbled to his left, a chuckle rising to his lips as he turned to face the someone, his hands instinctively reaching out to steady them on their feet, his fingers curling around biceps both smooth and firm.


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Lexxie Couper

And looked straight down into the wide, blue-grey eyes of Francesca The Gun Winchester. Oh, boy. His mouth went dry. Just like that. His mouth went dry and his breath caught in his throat. The precise moment their eyes met, ten years were wiped from his life and he was the flustered, horny teenager aching to impress the girl every guy at his school and hers wanted to date. “Errrr…” He licked his lips, his pulse quickening as he watched her gaze track the path of his tongue. Say something, you idiot. “I’m not really sure,” he murmured, his voice deeper and huskier than normal, “but I think you kiss better than I do.” The words fell from his lips, uninhibited by his befuddled schoolboy’s brain, each one making his heart beat faster. Jesus Christ, Harris, you are an idiot. He couldn’t stop looking at her. He couldn’t remove his hands from her arms. He couldn’t let her go. She was right here before him, staring at him with an expression he didn’t have a hope in hell of deciphering on her exquisite face. Her smooth skin was warm against his calloused palms, her soft, sweet perfume threading into his body with every breath he took. Christ, Harris. Do something, will you? But before he could, Frankie raised one straight eyebrow and lifted her chin. “I don’t think we can be certain based on one kiss, do you?” Alec’s heart slammed hard into his throat. “In that case,” he said, lowering his head a fraction closer to her, “you better kiss me again.” “Should I now? Maybe you should be the one to kiss me?”

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“And have you say I beat you once again?” He shook his head, enjoying their banter far too much. His balls ached and his dick was so hard it hurt. He wanted to kiss her like hell, but here he was—as usual—loving the sound of her voice. Storm-grey eyes studied him from behind half-lowered lids, a small grin playing with her lips. “Should I go find a playing card again? Will that help?” “Depends? Do you need a Ten of Hearts to hide behind?” One dark, straight eyebrow lifted. “I don’t hide from anything.” “And yet, I’m noticing a distinct lack of kissing going on here.” “Maybe you’re not as clever with that tongue of yours as you thought?” He chuckled. “To quote someone very close to me, ‘I don’t think we can be certain based on one kiss, do you?’.” Frankie’s chin tilted. “In that case, you better kiss me again.” Alec lowered his head closer still to her upturned face. “If you insist, Fran—” She didn’t let him finish. Her lips found his and there was nothing chaste or hesitant about her kiss. She dipped her tongue into his mouth, swirling it around his. Her hands slid up his chest, her fingers resting lightly on his collarbone before, with a low groan, she pressed her body to his. Her breasts crushed against his chest, sending dizzying waves of pleasure through him. Her thighs moved against his legs, their smooth, leather-encased length playing with his senses. Ten years ago those legs had been the stuff of his unbidden fantasies— legs both soft and toned he’d imagined wrapped around his waist. Now, it wasn’t just his waist he wanted them wrapped around. Now, he wanted them wrapped around his head as his tongue explored the sweet, damp slit of her pussy. Now, he wanted…


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Lexxie Couper

She rose up onto her tiptoes, stroking the stiffening pole of his cock with the soft mound of her groin, sucking his tongue into her mouth as she did so and it was his turn to groan. Jesus, she was driving him wild. His hands raked her back. He wanted to touch her. All of her. He dragged his fingers down to her arse and cupped her cheeks, each one a tight, sculpted curve of flesh against his palm. His head spun some more. It was a perfect arse. She’d been fit as a teenager—years playing soccer and studying taekwondo would have assured that—but he’d never ever touched her back then. The closest they ever came to physical contact was the day she punched his arm a minute after he’d taken the state junior open archery championship from her, beating her by two points. If he’d known then what it was like to have her body pressed to his he would have snagged her in his arms and kissed her there and then. He squeezed her backside again, tugging her harder to his groin. He was hard, very hard, and she was all soft and warm and firmly toned muscle in all the right places. Frankie nipped at his lips, the pressure both painful and exquisite, her hands tightening in his hair to pull his head back a little. He hauled her closer, plunging his tongue back into her mouth, taking possession of it. She tasted of toothpaste and tequila. The combination was intoxicating and so right for The Gun— dangerous and clinical. That was her to a T. He swirled his tongue over her teeth, her lips, enjoying the taste of her, plundering the wet well of her mouth even as he stole one hand from her arse to her breast. Her heavy flesh filled his palm with perfection and he groaned. God, his fantasies hadn’t even come close.

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Pulse pounding, balls growing heavy and full, he massaged her breast with gentle want, reveling in the way her nipple strained against the cotton of her shirt, poking between his spread fingers. He pinched it with his knuckles and she whimpered in response, rolling her hips upward to grind the hood of her sex to his erection. A wave of searing pleasure washed through him, the sounds of the party lost to the moan of his own rapture. She couldn’t miss how fucking horny he was, his dick was a bloody telegraph pole in his jeans, for Pete sake, and still she pressed her body to his. The Gun to the Alley Cat. Christ, he wanted her. Now. And it seemed she wanted him in return. Her left hand slipped from his hair, finding its way over his shoulder, down his ribcage to the waistline of his jeans. Her nimble fingers tugged at his shirt, fighting with it until its hem pulled free of his jeans. A chuckling groan rumbled low in Frankie’s chest as she slipped her fingers between his waistline and his stomach, a groan that turned into a whimper as her fingertips brushed the distended head of his cock. He tore his lips from hers, his blood on fire, his ears ringing. “Jesus, Frankie,” he gasped, staring into her half-shuttered eyes. “If you go there now…” He left the threat dangling in the air. She gazed up at him, her blue-grey eyes all but hidden behind the thick blackness of her long lashes, her breath passing her full lips in shallow pants. “That’s exactly where I want to go.” He let out a choppy groan. “Don’t play with me, woman. If this is some twisted form of revenge…” She shook her head, her eyes clear and direct. “Alec, I want to fuck you senseless. Now.” Her fingers brushed the head of his cock again. “And it has nothing to do with revenge.”


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He stared hard at her. “In that case…” Her lips stretched into a smile, her breath shallow. “I know where Lil’s bedroom is.” The unambiguous statement sent a shard of charged tension into Alec’s groin. He shook his head, his own breath as ragged at Frankie’s. “Not close enough,” he said. And pushed her backward with two long strides until her arse swung open the door to the powder room under the stairs and they were inside.

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Chapter Three

Frankie stumbled backward into the small room, her fingers hooked into Alec’s waistband, her other arm wrapped around his neck. Overhead, a soft light flickered to life, an automatic function registering their presence. Had to be automatic. Alec’s hands hadn’t left her body, one hand cupping her breast as the other squeezed her arse. Her pussy throbbed with barely controlled anticipation, growing wetter with each step Alec drove her backward. Oh God, this has to be the tequila’s fault. The disconnected thought hiccupped through her spinning head, its implication ominous and foreboding and logical. And completely false. She wasn’t drunk. Not even close. She only had one shot during the game of Truth or Dare, and it took more than that to take away control of her faculties. She’d grown up drinking, thanks to her mum and dad’s free-range parenting philosophy. Which meant everything she was doing with Alec now, she was doing of her own conscience will. What she was doing with Alec… A whimper vibrated up her chest, part terror, part rapture. She shouldn’t be doing anything with Alec. She hated Alec. She despised Alec. He showed her over and over again she couldn’t have everything she wanted, win everything she wanted to win. He turned her into a loser time and again.

Lexxie Couper

So why is your leg hooked around his hip, hmm? Why is your hand doing its best to open his fly and release his cock from his jeans? Why is your tongue mating with his? Why? Why? Because he taught her she didn’t need to win everything she wanted to win? Didn’t need to get everything she wanted? Because he made her try harder to be better? She didn’t know which was the answer. Didn’t care either. Not right now. Not when the man in question was driving her crazy with his mouth, a mouth that’d destroyed all her well-executed arguments in every debate they’d had against each other. Alec’s mouth scored a line down her throat, nipping at her collarbone, and Frankie forgot all about ten years ago. Holy crap, the guy knew how to kiss. His lips journeyed her throat, back up to her chin and jaw. He explored her body with his hands, coming back again and again to her breasts. Each time he stroked his fingers over her nipples they pinched tighter, turning into twin tips of agonizing flesh stabbing at the material of her shirt. She moaned, letting her head loll backward, her own fingers still struggling with his fly. “Let me,” he growled against her temple, and suddenly, with just a flick of his wrist, his button was popped and the head of his cock pushed against her fingers. Insistent and hot and velvet smooth. Frankie’s breath caught. She pulled away from him a little, enough to let her see the bulbous dome he’d released. Her mouth went dry. Jesus, if that was only the tip of the head… He’ll be fucking huge. There was nothing disconnected about that thought. Nor foreboding.

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Her pussy fluttered and, her hands trembling—trembling, for Pete’s sake— she snared the tiny silver zipper tag and undid his fly altogether. “Fuck.” The expletive left her in a shaky moan. His cock wasn’t just huge. It was massive. It jutted upward from his gaping fly, long and thick and demanding, its head distended and purple, a hint of light-brown curls kissing its root. “Fuck,” she moaned again. Her mouth grew drier. “Who’da thought…” She didn’t let herself finish. Instead, she wrapped her fingers around that impressive organ and gave a tight squeeze. It jerked in her grip, just as Alec hissed in a swift, harsh breath. “Christ, Frankie.” She tore her stare from his cock and looked at up him, the need to say something flippant, something sarcastic dying on her lips. His eyes didn’t just smolder with desire, they were ablaze. An inferno of desire so molten she lost all train of thought. Her sex contracted, her anus too. She pulled in a shallow breath, her head still spinning, and she realized she was drunk. Drunk on the man she’d known for almost twenty years and loathed until an hour ago. Bullshit, Francesca. You never hated him. He was the only person who ever challenged— It was Alec who killed the unsettling thought this time. Alec with his crushing kiss and amazing tongue and wicked hands. He pulled her harder to his body, pushing her backward as he did so until her backside pressed to the edge of something cool and smooth. The vanity counter, Frankie’s befuddled brain told her, a mere heartbeat before Alec hoisted her off her feet and perched her on its surface.


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He raked his hands over the back of her thighs, hooking her legs around his hips. She locked her ankles behind his arse, her fingers still holding his thick cock, her tongue dancing with his. She dragged her thumb over the tip of his erection, a shiver rippling up her spine as her skin encountered slick moisture. Pre-come. The word whispered through her head and her pussy throbbed in response. Throbbed? Who was she kidding? It bloody well was close to having some kind of convulsion. It was squeezing and constricting and pulsing like never before. She’d never been so freaking horny and they weren’t even fucking yet. Alec’s mouth slid from her lips, over her jaw and up to her ear. His teeth and lips nipped at the sensitive dip beneath it. “Keep gripping my dick like that and I’m going to embarrass myself.” His cock jerked in her hand, growing stiffer and longer as if to prove his point. Liquid heat pooled in Frankie’s core, her pulse quickening at the idea of Alec’s come spurting from his body, splashing onto her fingers. Over her breasts and lips. Her mouth watered and she let out a shaky little laugh, closing her eyes when he nipped at her earlobe. “Can I call it revenge?” “Call it what you want, sweetheart,” he rumbled, dipping his tongue into her ear, “but it’s not changing the fact I’m about to blow.” His confession made her laugh again and she tightened her legs around his hips, stroking the tip of his cock with her thumb again, smearing the beads of his pleasure oozing from its tiny slit over his taut skin. “Isn’t the sucking meant to come first?”

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He chuckled, thrusting his hips upward, pumping his erection in her hand. “You put that mouth of yours anywhere near my dick and we’re both in trouble.” Frankie laughed again, enjoying Alec’s self-deprecating humour as much as the feel of his steely length in her hand. Almost as much as the thought of that length slipping between her lips. Nowhere near as much as the thought of it buried in her sodden sex. Trouble? Yes, sir. Trouble with a big fucking capital T. “So what do you suggest, Alec?” She lifted an eyebrow, slowly working her hand up and down his erection. Her breath came from her in shallow pants. God knows, it seemed she was as close to losing control as he was. That molten desire flared in his eyes again, hotter this time, if that was humanly possible. “I suggest a different kind of sucking.” And with that, he pulled back from her, his cock slipping from her grip as he yanked her T-shirt over her head, pulled her bra aside and captured one nipple with his lips, drawing its pebbled form into his mouth with hungry pressure. Just like that. “Oh, yes,” Frankie cried, bowing her back and tangling her fingers in his hair. His tongue rolled over her nipple, flicking it inside his warm, wet mouth. He suckled a little, enough to make her whimper and squirm on the edge of the vanity counter, before nipping her nipple with his teeth and then laving it with his tongue again. Exquisite ribbons of tension twisted through the pit of Frankie’s belly, down into her womb. No, change that, her very soul. She ground her teeth, hissing out her breath as Alec’s mouth and tongue and teeth worked on her nipple. Holy crap, she’d had her breasts sucked on before—what sexually active woman


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hadn’t?—but it never had felt like this. Damn it, what was Alec doing that felt so…so… Perfect? No. That couldn’t be the answer. If it was, that meant he was the perfect lover, and he couldn’t be. Could he? The answer didn’t come. What did was another shard of delicious sensations. Building, gripping, pulsing sensations that made her shallow pants turn to ragged gasps. Lord, he was going to make her come just by sucking her breasts. Frankie’s head spun. Colours began to swirl in her vision. Her toes curled in her boots. Curled. She closed her eyes, holding Alec’s head to her breast even as she felt the base of her spine tingle. Oh, God, she was so fucking close. How did he do this? What was he, some kind of sexual maestro? Why did she not know this before now? How many years had she wasted? The questions rushed through her pleasure-fogged brain, fast and defying answers. There was no way she could conjure rational thought. Not when she felt so goddamn good. So goddamn freaking— Alec switched breasts, yanking her bra aside to suck hard on the new focus of his amazing mouth. Scalding electricity shot through all of Frankie’s nerve endings and she cried out, bucking her hips forward, her sex desperate for the thick presence of his cock. She wanted him inside her. Her clit ached with the need to feel his shaft sliding over it. Her pussy lips throbbed with the need to have its girth part them. Damn it, she was on the cusp of an orgasm and her sex was as untouched as a freaking virgin’s.

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“I want…” She swiped her tongue over her dry lips, opening her eyes to gaze at the powder room ceiling. Her blood roared in her ears. Her pulse pounded in her throat. “Oh, God, Alec, I want you to fuck me. Now.” The words burst from Frankie in a raw whisper, sending a surge of concentrated heat into Alec’s groin. He pulled away from her breast, drawing her nipple past his lips until it popped free. Her responding moan was almost his undoing. Straightening just enough to gaze into her eyes, he sucked a slow breath in through his nose, the musky perfume of her pleasure streaming into his being. He swallowed, holding Frankie’s stare. Christ, he’d never been so fucking close to erupting. And now she was telling him she wanted him inside her? “I don’t have a…” he began, but she shook her head, her fingers scraping at his scalp as she tightened her grip on his hair. Holding him as if she was scared he was going away. He wasn’t going anywhere. If she thought otherwise, she was a bloody lunatic. “Look in…the drawers.” The words were choked and broken. “This…is Lillian McDermott’s home…there’s bound to be a condom in here somewhere.” She licked her lips, her chest heaving as she reached behind her, released her bra and tossed it aside. Alec’s stare dropped to her breasts for a dangerous second. Christ, they were perfect. Not too big, not too small, the nipples topping each was dusky pink and pebbled to taut attention. He dragged the pad of his thumb over one of them, his nostrils flaring as Frankie whimpered.


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Lifting his gaze back up to her face, he let out a hoarse breath, the pressure in his balls and his dick excruciating. Condom or no, the second he sank his shaft into Frankie’s pussy he knew for sure he was going to erupt. What would she think of him then? His gut knotted and he shook his head again. “I don’t know where…” “The drawer,” she gasped, in part because he’d scraped his thumb over her nipple again, in part because she’d jerked in response and his erection—that jutting rod of horny flesh—had pressed against the spread junction of her thighs. Hot blood surged into his balls and he ground his teeth. Control. He needed to find some control. Think of England. Think of truckloads of cow shit. Hell, think of the bloody prime minster if you have to, but get some control before Frankie gets a condom. Of course, telling himself to find some control was like telling the sun to stop setting. This was Francesca Winchester grinding herself against him. Their history dictated he had zero control over his actions when it came to The Gun. He pulled open the drawer to the left of Frankie’s butt cheek, the sound of its contents rattling around doing nothing to dampen the urgent need mounting in his body. He peered inside its shallow depths, finding only an assortment of combs, clips and other hair accessories. “Shit,” he heard Frankie mutter, disgust in her voice before she twisted to the right. The sound of wood sliding over metal tracks filled the room, louder than realistically possible, followed by Frankie gasping, “yes.” She squirmed further to the right, her legs gripping his hips, her sex grinding to his cock in pleasurable torture as she leant over and snatched something from the open drawer.

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Alec sucked in a sharp breath, the feel of her damp heat against his dick like a charge of live electricity. Christ, how was he to survive this? He must have been a bloody idiot to think he could handle Francesca Win— Without warning, she shoved him backward. He stumbled away, his stare locking with hers as she slid from the vanity counter. Her boots hit the tiled floor with a solid crack, her lips parting, her eyes dilating. She tossed him a small foil square and her hands moving to her zippered fly as he snatched the condom out of the air. His cock jerked. His balls ached. Wordlessly, Frankie lowered her fly. He caught a glimpse of red lace and smooth, creamy flesh, of a pussy mound devoid of hair and a small tattoo of a handgun behind the lace of her undies, and then the door behind him swung inward, slamming into his back. “What the—?” a male voice muttered on the other side. With a low growl, Alec spun on his heel, pressed his palm flat to the door and pushed it shut. Another shout came from the hallway, an indignant curse followed by a solid thump on the door. “Oi!” The bloke shouted. “I wanna take a piss.” Before he could move his hand to the doorknob, Frankie’s arm slid past his waist, her fingers flicking the latch to the locked position. “Too bad,” she whispered, the warmth of her body radiating into his. His dick was so hard he felt sure his skin was about to split open. He turned back to her, his heart slamming faster as his hands found her hips naked. “You got out of those leather trousers quickly,” he noted, his voice hoarse. She gave him a small smile. “You know me. I never do things half-arsed.” Alec couldn’t help himself. He laughed and slid his hands over her bare backside, the lace of her G-string an exquisite friction against his thumbs as he


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pulled her close to his body. “You don’t have to tell me that,” he chuckled, right before capturing her lips with his. He kissed her, not even remotely interested in reigning in his hunger. He was about five heartbeats away from shooting his load and the second he rolled the condom down over his dick he’d be just two. He reckoned if he were lucky, he’d get one good thrust into Frankie’s heat before he’d erupt. The best thing he could do now was show her just how bloody much he wanted her, show her just how goddamn wild she made him before he embarrassed himself beyond all salvation. He fucked her mouth with his tongue, toeing off his boots as he did so. Frankie’s hands moved to his jeans and she shoved them down over his hips before plucking the condom from his fingers resting on her arse. Alec’s pulse kicked up a notch. And another when he heard the unmistakable sound of foil being ripped. Jesus Christ, this is really going to… Steady fingers found his cock. He tore away from the kiss, fighting to control his breath. Hell, he was fighting to control his bloody release. His stare found Frankie’s half-shuttered gaze as she slowly, slowly, slowly, slid the latex sheath down over the throbbing length of his cock. Ah, fuck me. For an agonizing moment, neither of them moved. They stayed motionless, Frankie’s fingers resting at the root of Alec’s erection, his hands resting on the sublime curve of her backside, their gazes locked on each other’s as their hearts seemed to beat in unison. And then he moved. His control—what little he had left—deserting him. He hauled her off the floor, driving her back to the vanity counter, one arm wrapping around her tiny waist while he grabbed at the skimpy crotch of her G-

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string and pulled it aside. He shoved her thighs apart, the action spreading her pussy wide and, with one deep thrust, he plunged into her tight, sweet heat. She cried out, her inner muscles enveloping his cock, gripping it with greedy force as he slowly withdrew and slammed into her again. “Oh, God!” Her cry bounced off the tiled walls. “Yes!” Her fingers clung to his shoulders. “Yes!” He withdrew once more, back to the point where her folds circled the ridge of his cockhead, and thrust in faster, deeper, pulling her into his penetration. Her legs wrapped around his hips, hugged the back of his thighs and she held onto him, wordless moans slipping from her lips. He speared into her again, again, his balls so swollen with his impending release every time her arse cheeks kissed them he wanted to cry out himself. Instead, he grazed her bowed throat with his lips, tasting her sweat with his tongue, drinking in her pleasure on the air with every breath he pulled. How he kept going, he didn’t know. She was all around him, squeezing him beyond his limit, her pussy a slick sheath moving up and down his cock. The condom did nothing to diminish the feeling. And still he kept pumping into her, her whimpers and moans propelling him closer to a precipice he swore he would have already fallen over. Her very heat squeezed his length, sucking at it every time he stroked in and out of her. Her hands found his shoulders, his hair. She rode him harder, her legs locking their hips together. “Fuck that feels so good,” she moaned. “So good.” His head swam, swirls of bright fog rimming his vision. Christ, he was on the edge. The condom wasn’t doing jack shit to stop the concentrated pleasure rolling through him, the tight walls of Frankie’s pussy tormenting him beyond comprehension.


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He growled, closing his eyes and thrusting harder, deeper into her. It was dangerous feeling like this. Dangerous. Had to be. How could anything else compare to this? How could living compare to the absolute rapture of their joining? How could such a base, physical act rock him to the very— “Oh, God, Alec.” The muscles in Frankie’s leg coiled, pulling her deeper onto his driving thrust. “I’m going to come.” The declaration, uttered on a breathless pant, made his balls rise up. He held onto her tighter, his fingers digging into her magnificent body, his rhythm increasing. Growing erratic. Frankie’s sex constricted, her nails raking at his shoulders through the material of his shirt. “I’m going to fucking come.” She fisted her hands in his hair, jerking his head back to gaze into his face, her pussy sucking at his thrusting dick with gripping need. Her eyes were halfclosed, her eyebrows dipped, her lips parted. She pulled in shallow, hitching breaths, each one becoming louder until a keening moan vibrated up her throat. A shudder rocked through her, she threw back her head and cried out, “Yes, yes, oh fuck me, yes.” Her sex squeezed his cock, again and again and again, his name—Alec, not Alley Cat, Alec—falling from her lips in a whimper with every powerful pulse, and it was too much. Too much. Alec came. Hard and explosive. He ground his teeth, his seed erupting from him in thick wads, filling the condom with spurt after spurt, Frankie’s pussy milking it with demanding pressure as it did so. He pumped into her, reveling in the raw pleasure surging through him as much as he drowned in the sound of Frankie’s pleasured groans and cries and whimpers. And then he was done. Spent. His body drained, his heart thumping, his balls depleted. And it was only as he dropped his head to Frankie’s neck and

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drew in a trembling breath that he realized she too was limp, clinging to him like a marathon runner after the race has ended, her breath coming from her in weak chuckles that fanned his temple in little puffs of warm air. “I think,” she said, her voice husky, “that we can declare the kissing thing a tie, yes?” He laughed, raising his head to grin at her. “Care to try for two out of three?”


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Frankie opened her mouth, the words “God yes” forming at the back of her throat before her brain could register the thought. Her pussy fluttered, the fading echoes of her orgasm squeezing and pulsing with renewed anticipation and want. Fuck, she wanted to make love to him again. Like now. Right now. Screaming, wild, oh-my-God, now. She’d never wanted something as much. Never. Ever. She snapped her jaw shut and stared up at him. Her heart slammed into her throat and she stumbled back a step, the notion of wanting Alec more than anything else hitting her like a sledgehammer. This…this…whatever this was…it couldn’t… He looked at her with a steady gaze, his eyes revealing nothing. If he’d noticed her frazzled state, he didn’t let on. But then again, he never had, had he? All those times he’d defeated her… Oh, for fuck sake, Francesca, that was ten years ago. Drop it! But she couldn’t. All those times he’d beaten her…they’d helped define her. Every time she’d come in second to his first, she’d walked away with a willful need to defy every other challenge, every other confrontation presented to her. Alec Harris had essentially fed her hellion’s need to rebel. Her need to win. Every time she lost to him she felt out of control. She won everything she had anything to do with—except when he was in the picture. He always took the reins of control from her any time they faced off and here she was now, wanting to lose herself in him again? Wanting to lose?

Suck and Blow

She took another step back, this one less a stumble and more a deliberate action. Drawing in a steady breath, she met his gaze with unblinking conviction. “I have to check on Miki.” Alec studied her, his body still. The pit of her belly twisting, she scooped her clothes up from the tiled floor, shoving her legs into the snug leather of her trousers with—as fate would have it—little difficulty. Without looking at him, she yanked her bra on and pulled her T-shirt over her head, the soft friction of its cotton on her lace-covered nipples almost making her whimper. Or was it the heavy caress of Alec’s gaze that rendered her so…so…woefully tragic? The sudden sound of rustling material told her he was dressing too, and she scrunched her eyes closed at the just as sudden sense of disappointment welling through her chest. What? You wanted him to pin you to the wall and fuck you senseless? Again? Her belly twisted some more and she bit back a growl. That’s exactly what she wanted, fuck it. “If it helps—” Alec’s smooth voice stroked over her nerve endings and she jumped, her nipples pebbling, “—I saw her with two guys earlier near the Truth or Dare area.” She opened her eyes and turned to him, doing her damndest to not notice that he was dressed again and so goddamn sexy to look at it was like visual Viagra, or whatever the hell the chick’s version of Viagra was. Oh, Francesca, you are in so much trouble. “Grant Rogers and Dayne Pearce,” she said, dismayed at how croaky the words were in her throat. She snatched up her right boot and shoved her foot into it, uncaring she’d left off her knee-high sock before donning her trousers. Her socks could wait. She had to get away from him. Now.


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Alex narrowed his eyes a second before he clicked his fingers. “I thought I knew them from somewhere. You all went to school together, didn’t you?” “Yeah,” Frankie stuffed her left foot into her boot and zipped it up with a savage jerk. “You beat them often enough on the soccer field and cricket pitch if I remember correctly.” An ambiguous stillness settled over his face, his eyes becoming unreadable. “You do.” Frankie swallowed at the lump filling her throat. Something about the tension in his body made the twisting in her stomach turn into a full-on bloody knot. “They live next door,” she blurted out for no reason she could fathom. “I’m going over there now.” The unsettling tension didn’t leave him. “Will you come back?” She licked her lips, her mouth dry. “I don’t know.” The answer was truthful. She didn’t. It was all getting too intense. Too…surreal. Alley Cat, the guy from the poor end of town with the uncanny knack of making her feel worthless was now making her feel…what? Whole? Substantial? Like she actually had worth? None of it made any sense and it scared the beejezus out of her. Big time. Was she really ready to let this go where she feared it was going? And if she did, didn’t that just mean she was wrong about him all along? Another trumping via Alec Harris? Could she deal with that? Could she? He studied her, nothing about his expression giving away his thoughts. “Okay.” He nodded. Once. “I’ll be here at the bar if you do.” “Waiting for me?” His stare held hers. “Waiting for you.” The simplicity in his statement gripped Frankie’s chest in a tight clamp. Without another word, she stepped past him and pulled open the door. The

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blaring cacophony of the party slammed into her, far too loud for her confused state of mind. A ripple of frustrated anger shot up her spine as she pushed into the crowd. When the hell was a party too…too much of a party for her? “This is all Alley Cat’s fault,” she muttered, driving her nails into her palms. “Damn it.” Threading her way through the house, she hurried for the front door. She needed to talk to Miki. However, at the sight of Mr. Porsche smirking at some pretty young thing he’d no doubt cornered in the foyer, she stopped. The young woman looked trapped and by her shell-shocked expression, was too nice to tell the jerk to go to hell. Frankie crossed to the corner, tapping the pretentious wanker on his weedy shoulder. “There’s a Porsche being towed away out the front,” she said, affecting an overly concerned tone. “Might it be—?” With a yelped, “Fuck,” Mr. Porsche took off, leaving Frankie and the pretty young thing in his frantic wake. “Oh, God,” the young woman exclaimed on a cry. “Thank you so much. I thought he’d never get the hint.” “No worries at all.” Frankie gave her a smile, welcoming the familiar wave of cynical satisfaction rolling over her. See? The same old Frankie. Dealing with dickheads and morons with casual aplomb. Nothing changed here at all. “I was worried I’d get stuck with him all night,” the woman stated with a snort. “Which would have made it difficult to track down the tall hunk of blond yumminess I saw earlier in a pair of faded jeans and…” A dull heat prickled over Frankie, pounding with unnerving force at her temples and eyes. Tall. Blond. Yumminess. Faded jeans… Rationality told her the


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chances the woman was talking about Alec were slim, but jealousy told rationality to go take a flying leap. She let out a sharp sigh, giving the damsel not-so-much-in-distress a nod and mumbled, “Have fun,” before almost stumbling out of the foyer. Jealous? Jealous? Just what the hell was wrong with her? Summer hung heavy on the night air, heating her face and bare arms as she hurried for Grant and Dayne’s house next door. That the two class clowns lived in Avalon didn’t surprise her at all. They may have spent most of their class time getting lectured by one teacher or the other for being distracting, but when it came to something they felt passionate about…well, then Grant and Dayne positively soared. And it seemed both of them felt pretty passionate about Miki. Which should have made Frankie grin. Instead, all she could think about was Alec bloody Harris. “Fuck,” she snarled, wrapping her knuckles on the solid front door of her old school friends’ rather impressive home. The door swung inward. Grant stood in the opening wearing a cautious smile, a pair of black boxer shorts and little else. “Frankie.” She narrowed her eyes. “You better quickly be telling me you’re dressed like that ’cause I just caught you going to bed alone, otherwise…” Grant raised his hand, the same good-natured chortle she remembered from school rumbling up his chest. “Miki’s safe from my lecherous lust, Frankie.” He grinned. “She passed out about a second after we entered the house.” Frankie fixed him a sideward glare. “Where’s Dayne?” Grant’s eyebrows raised up his forehead. “In the shower. Damn, woman, I know it’s been ten years and all since we saw each other, but don’t you trust us?”

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Letting out a ragged breath, Frankie swiped her hand over her face. “Sorry, Grant.” She shook her head. “Just having one of those nights.” She lifted her gaze to his face, wishing she couldn’t see his surprised concern. It made her feel…weak. “Can I see Miki, please?” Grant’s eyebrows rose higher. “Did you just say please?” “Yeah, yeah,” she growled, rolling her eyes. “Point taken. I’m a pushy cow. Now shut up and tell me where my best friend is.” With another chuckle—and a lopsided smile—Grant stepped away from the door and held his arm out to the side. “Down the hallway, second door on the right.” Before she could even register the need to do so, Frankie reached up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Rogers.” She all but ran to the room, her footfalls on the polished floorboards echoing around the long hallway like claps of thunder, her heart beating just as loudly. The door wasn’t closed when she got there and the sight of her best friend stretched out on a massive bed—still fully dressed and snoring softly—brought a relieved smile to Frankie’s lips. Trotting over to the side of the bed, she perched herself on the edge and gave Miki a gentle prod in the ribs. “Wake up, Miks,” she muttered, part whisper, part desperate hiss. Miki snored. A little louder this time. “Miki,” Frankie poked her again. “I need you to wake up. I need that logical mind of yours.” Miki snuffled, but that was it. She didn’t even flinch at Frankie’s insistent finger. “Miki?” Frankie leant forward and gently opened Miki’s right eye. White. Just white.


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Oh, boy, she’s out of it. Letting out a huffed sigh, Frankie settled back on the bed, her hand resting on her best friend’s stomach. The steady rise and fall of Miki’s chest acted like a balm of sorts, and she found herself taking deep breaths in synchronized rhythm with her sleeping friend. “What am I going to do, Miks?” she murmured, staring at the bed’s simple cedar headboard. “I just…Alley Cat…” She shook her head, drumming her fingers lightly on Miki’s flat belly. “Oh God, Miki, I just had the most amazing sex with Alec Harris in a freaking powder room. A powder room. How cliché is that? And I want to again. Maybe not in a powder room but if that is the only option I’d leap at it. It was…it was…real. Does that make any sense? I mean, I’ve had some pretty fucking mind-blowing orgasms in my time, but this…it was sex, it was fucking, but holy shit, it was so much more. It was like for the first time ever in my life someone knew exactly what I wanted. Exactly. How can that someone be Alec Harris? How?” She gave Miki a gentle shake, scowling when all she got in return was a low moan and hitching snore. “Am I truly that messed up?” she continued, her throat tight. “One look at him and I was bloody hot-to-trot. Then when he kissed me…” She stopped. Licked her lips. Dragged a hand through her hair. “When I kissed him back…I know you always told me I protested too much over Alec. In fact, I’m pretty certain you used to throw that Shakespeare line at me every time I mentioned his name…how’d it go? I think the lady doth protest too much? Something like that. But, Miks, I really need you to wake up and tell me what to do?” Miki didn’t. Damn her. With a grunt, Frankie flopped back on the bed, resting her temple on Miki’s calves. “I can’t deny the sexual chemistry between us,” she muttered.

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“But…but…” She licked her lips again. “It’s Alec Harris. I despised the guy all through school, not just because he kept beating me at everything, but because he was a challenge to…to…bloody hell, Miks, he was a challenge to my ultraalphaness. He still is. More so. The man I just made love to in the powder room will never let me do whatever the hell I want whenever the hell I want to. I can tell just by looking at him. That scares the shit out of me. Big time.” She closed her eyes, puffing out a sigh. “It’s not just Alec’s challenging personality that frightens me. It’s his strength and assurance as well. A rock-solid belief in who he is, what he wants. Do you remember that from school? God, it used to piss me off, that personality trait. So much. He’d walk into a room and own it and it didn’t matter how cheap his money was, he was sure of himself.” Miki mumbled something, shifting on the bed. Frankie gave her a little shake, but it seemed that was it. Miki lapsed back to her silent, sleeping self. Frankie stared at the window, the dark sky beyond a shimmer of black behind the gauzy silver curtain. “I mean,” she went on, flicking Miki a quick look, “my job is all about looking at someone and knowing—just from that one look—if they have it, that illusive quality that makes them…more. Alec has that. In spades. It isn’t just a star magnetism, although there isn’t a hope in hell of denying he’s the sexiest bastard in the country, but a grounded control I’ve never had in my life. Ever.” The statement filled Frankie’s chest with a dull weight. That was it, wasn’t it? One of the things that unnerved her the most about Alec Harris, right there. It wasn’t just that he was sexy and gorgeous and all together too in control of his life, it was that he had a solidity her soul knew, without doubt, she ached for. Craved. He knew who he was and wasn’t ashamed of it. He knew who he was and was fine with that. Things she couldn’t say about herself.


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She let out another sigh, this one harsher. Louder. “Do I go back to the party, Miki? Do I tell him it was a mistake? Was it a mistake? I don’t know. I truly don’t. All I know is right now, at this very moment in time, all I want to do is wrap my arms around Alec Harris’s smooth, hard body, wrap my legs around his low, lean hips and feel him against me, in me. Feel his heart beating against mine as we taste each other’s lips again and again. Hell, he challenged me to best of three, but I want to make it best of twenty. Best of forty.” She squeezed her eyes shut, the confession sending shards of decidedly agreeable tension into the junction of her thighs. Best of forty? Fuck, would that be even close to— A faint scraping sound behind her made her jerk upright, her stare snapping to the open doorway where Dayne stood motionless, his expression telling her he’d been there a while. He gave her a nervous look. “Err…” Frankie shoved herself to her feet, glaring at him. “What?” He blinked, giving himself a slight shake. “I…err…Grant said you were here. I just wanted to say g’day.” He shuffled his feet, the action incredibly boyish. If Frankie hadn’t been so flustered she would have laughed. “And check in on Miki.” She waited, knowing something else—a name, perhaps? A question?—sat on Dayne’s tongue. Both he and Grant knew of her rather edgy, over-wrought relationship with Alec Harris during school. If he’d heard what she suspected he had… “I’m still wondering,” he said instead, shaking his head and giving her a somewhat apprehensive grin, “how the hell you can party like you do, Frankie?” She wasn’t convinced. Feeling her cheeks grow hot, she strode across the bedroom floor. As much as she desperately wanted to wake Miki up, to hear her best friend put the whole confusing thing in perspective with succinct ease like

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she did with every other mess Frankie found herself in, she knew it wasn’t happening tonight. Not with Grant and Dayne waiting for Miki in the wings. Not with the way both men seemed to almost breathe Miki’s name with a reverence unlike any she’d heard. What? You mean the very way Alec spoke your name back in the powder room? That way? Like you were the very essence of his life? A heavy knot rolled in her gut. A constricting flutter claimed her sex. “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered at Dayne, pushing past him. “Whatever. Tell Miki I’ll be back to collect her in the morning.” “I can park your car in our driveway if you want. Rather than leaving it on the street,” Dayne offered, following her down the hallway. “I promise it’ll still be there when you…” he paused for a second, “…finish.” Frankie felt her cheeks fill with heat again. Finish what, she wanted to ask, although she suspected his answer would only make her want to scream. Or groan. Or both. Oh God, what a freaking joke you are, Francesca. Forcing out a steady breath, she swung back to Dayne and gave him a cheesy smile. “Thank you, Dayne, but if you think I’m letting you anywhere near my car… I remember how many times it took you to get your license.” He laughed, a deep chortle so very much like his best friend’s, and for a moment a longing memory of what was once theirs—carefree, uncomplicated adolescence—made Frankie ache. There and gone just as quickly. She fixed him with a melodramatic stare. “Oh, and Pearce? If I find Miki in any state apart from deliriously happy when I get back tomorrow morning, both you and Rogers are dead. Got it?” Dayne snapped off a sharp salute. “Yes, ma’am.” Frankie rolled her eyes. “Always the funny bastard.”


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He grinned. “That’s me.” Like with Grant, Frankie was giving Dayne a kiss on the cheek before she realized it. “Be patient with her,” she murmured against his warm skin. “She’s been through hell.” Dayne sucked in a quick breath and then gave Frankie a small nod. “We will be,” he murmured back. We. The plural personal pronoun wasn’t lost on Frankie. Nor was the clear emotion in Dayne’s eyes as he walked her to the front door. She suppressed a wry chuckle. If it had been any other two guys making obvious designs on Miki, Frankie would have torn them a new one and left them strung up by their balls from the Sydney Harbour Bridge. But Grant and Dayne… Well, if nothing else, they knew their fate if they messed up. Oh, such a tough-girl swagger, Francesca. Who would have thought it was all a façade? “Shut up,” she snarled at herself, storming back to Lil’s house. The revelry had not ended in her time away. In fact, the noise coming from the house seemed to be louder, more raucous. The word “scull” wafted from the open door and windows in various laughing chants, the low throb of music a counter beat to the fun. Frankie stood on the footpath, staring at the house. Inside, waiting at the bar in the living room, was Alec Harris. Waiting for her. Her pussy contracted. Her pulse quickened. Her nipples grew tight. Every nerve ending and fibre and cell in her body told her to walk inside, find Alec and fuck him senseless, even as her stupid, prideful brain screamed at her to call a cab. Now. Right now. Call a cab, climb in it and go home to her vibrator. The one

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that didn’t come with complication and back-story and confusion. The one that filled the need her body was craving—if only on a superficial, physical level. Her heart however… Frankie let out a strangled groan, glaring at the luxurious house before her. Damn it, when did she ever, ever listen to her heart? Alec stared at the drink in his hand, ignoring the rather agitated grumblings from his older brother to his left. Mac, it seemed, wasn’t going to let up on this US contract offer, repeating his advice for Alec to sign it as soon as possible. “Hell, Al—” he gave Alec an exasperated look ten minutes into the wholly onesided conversation, “—why are you even thinking about it? The contract is amazing. It’ll propel Going Bush Landscape and Design into a whole new stratosphere of demand. You’ll be so damn successful I’ll need to make an appointment just to talk to you.” Alec grunted a wordless reply. He didn’t feel like talking about this at all. Mac however, was like a dog with a bone. He went off on a whole new spiel about the offer from the US television talk-show queen, a spiel that at one point veered off into a highly surreal rant about Lillian McDermott’s career and the sleazy photographer shooting her latest advertising campaign before circling back to the original topic of Alec’s growing fame and fortune and success with no apparent segue. Alec couldn’t give two flying fucks about the television queen’s desires, nor the contract Mac was so hung up about. Not at the moment. He didn’t want to be famous, he didn’t want to be on television and he sure as hell didn’t want to be thinking about signing a large chunk of his life and time away. Only one thing played on his mind. One thing only. She wasn’t coming back.


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The Gun wasn’t coming back. She’d loaded both barrels, shot him straight in the chest and left him for dead. Fuck a duck, mate, how pathetic do you have to be to resort to a pun like that? Pretty bloody pathetic. Pathetic enough to wish Mac, the brother he loved with all his heart, would shut the hell up and leave him alone with his lukewarm drink and aching balls. “I can’t even find Lily,” Mac ground out, and Alec blinked, realizing his brother was back on the topic of the supermodel. “She could be anywhere…with anyone!” Alec shot him a sideward frown. “Why the hell the sudden carry on over what Lillian McDermott does? And with whom? Isn’t she just your best friend’s sister? I mean, the three of you have been sharing a house together for what, a few years now, right?” Mac let out a barely audible growl. “Don’t worry about it,” he mumbled, sounding very un-Mackenzie like, before lifting his beer to his mouth and taking a sharp pull. It was the second time tonight that Alec’s control-freak brother had come unruffled thanks to Lillian McDermott, and if Alec wasn’t so self-absorbed with his own apparent failure to convince Frankie he was worth a second go, he would have been worried. As it was now, he wished Mac would find the balls to go look for the supermodel and take the bloody US contract with him. So what? You can sit here and mope? No. So he could design his next phase of what was fast being called Project Winchester in his head. He wasn’t giving up. He didn’t give up. His parents hadn’t raised him to be a quitter, and just because Frankie hadn’t returned to him didn’t mean he would

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roll over and show his belly to defeat. Hell, he’d spent too many years of his life beating her to stop now. Okay, that didn’t sound quite as heroic and romantic as he’d intended it. But damn it, there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind that he and Frankie were meant to… He paused, gripping his glass tighter. To what? Fuck each other senseless? Be together forever? Be in love? “You okay, bro?” Mac’s sudden question—spoken with worried haste— made Alec start. Again. He turned to his brother. “I think I fucked up a chance with someone special, Mac.” Mac raised an eyebrow. “Really? I didn’t know there was someone special.” Alec snorted a wry chuckle, turning back to his untouched drink. “You remember Francesca Winchester?” “The Gun?” Alec could hear the incredulous mirth in his brother’s voice. “I thought you’d gotten over her back in high school, mate?” Alec let out a ragged sigh. “Me too. Apparently, I hadn’t.” “So when I saw you talking together earlier…” “It was the beginning of the end of my sanity.” “I’m pretty certain you lost your sanity somewhere around the time you turned fifteen,” Mac said, the words laced with laughter. “The day your balls dropped and you realized Francesca Winchester looked damn fine in a pair of tight jeans.” Alec shot his brother another sideward frown, accompanying it with a shake of head and grunt. “You’re not helping, Mackenzie.”


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Mac grinned, a wide goofy grin Alec bet no one in any courtroom in the country ever got to see. “Okay, sorry. Let me ask you a question then. If you’re designing a garden for the latest celebrity sensation—still think you need to sign that contract, by the way—and there’s a tree growing where you want to locate an arty-farty water feature, what do you do?” Alec raised his eyebrows. “Arty-farty?” Mac waved a dismissive hand, very much the ruthless lawyer for a split second. “Shut up and answer the question, squirt.” Alec chuckled. “Okay, depending on how well it fit with my design, I’d do one of two things. I’d either pull it out and replant it elsewhere, or redesign the garden around it.” Mac looked at him. “And how well does The Gun fit with your design, Alec? You know the one I’m talking about? The design that takes the rest of your life to finish? How well does she fit with that design? Are you going to rip her out of it and plant her somewhere else you don’t have to water or tend, or approach the whole…thing…from a different perspective?” “You know,” a very husky, very feminine, very familiar voice murmured behind Alec and Mac. “I’ve been compared to many things in my life, but never a tree. It’s a first for me.” Alec jumped and spun around on his bar stool to stare at Frankie standing but a mere metre away from him. Her lips curled in a small smile, her eyes holding his in an unreadable gaze. Mac laughed, rising from his own stool and dipping slightly at the waist. “And a beautiful tree it is.” Frankie’s reaction was to raise one of her eyebrows. A little.

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Mac laughed again. “And on that note, I shall leave talk of gardening to you both. There’s a supermodel somewhere in this party I need to have a few words with.” He left. Or at least, Alec assumed he did. Alec didn’t take his attention from Frankie long enough to be sure. His heart thumped in his chest as if it were a sledgehammer trying to splinter a stubborn tree root. He swallowed. She’d come back. But for the reason he hoped? Or to tell him the powder room was a mistake. Too bad. If that’s what she’s thinking, I’ll do whatever it takes to change her— “So—” she took a minute step closer to him, her smile curling wider, “—any chance you’re up for another round of Suck and Blow?” Alec stood, pushed himself from the bar and destroyed the distance between them with one step. He slid his hands over her hips to the small of her back and tugged her to him, pressing her hips to his as he lowered his face to hers. “I think,” he murmured against her lips, “there’s a very good chance.”


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Frankie pressed her hands to his hard chest, reveling in the pounding rhythm of his heart under her palms. The second she’d seen him sitting at the bar, his back so broad, so wide, his hips so lean… The second she’d heard his voice, heard its wrought frustration as he talked about gardening of all things, she’d known she wanted more of him. No, not just more of him. All of him. “How does my place sound?” She slid her hands over his nipples, her pussy squeezing when they grew taut under the material of his shirt. “I’ve got an apartment on the harbour. We could be there in…” Her suggestion faded on her lips as he shook his head. “My place.” Frankie’s heart thumped into her throat and she stared into his smiling eyes. His place… She’d never gone back to a lover’s house before. It was always her place— where she was in control. Going back to Alec’s house… “Okay,” she agreed, dragging her thumb over his hard nipple again. With a strained chuckle, Alec smoothed his hands up her arms. “I take it you found Miki?” Frankie nodded. “She’s in good hands for the night.” His lips brushed hers—a teasing caress that made her pussy flutter some more. “So are you.” Her pulse danced in her neck, her sex fluttering anew. It wouldn’t matter what his home was like. She didn’t care they weren’t going to be fucking in her massive king-size bed with its multi-million dollar views of the harbour. All that

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mattered was stripping his clothes from his body and impaling herself on his ohso-amazing cock again. Soon. “C’mon,” he said, his voice stroking at her senses, “I’m parked just down the street.” He folded his hand around hers, holding it the way young lovers do—their fingers threaded, their wrists and arms pressed together. They walked from the party without passing a word to each other, and Frankie couldn’t stop the wild rhythm of her heart increasing with each step from Lil’s house. BMWs, Mercs, an Aston Martin, even a Ferrari or two sat parked in the quiet street, each one proclaiming their owner’s wealth louder than a bullhorn. They passed Frankie’s beloved Audi R8, the black supercar somehow striking her for the first time since buying it as ridiculously ostentatious. “Think about how much fucking money I must have to drive a car like this,” it said loudly and proudly. She cast it a sideward glance, and as if Alec sensed her unexpected disquiet, his fingers squeezed hers gently before he disengaged his hand from her grip and slipped his arm around her waist, holding her close. Frankie drew in a slow breath, the sweet scent of summer night streaming into her body doing nothing to calm her nerves. Nerves? Why the hell was she nervous? “Here we are.” Alec’s calm murmur jolted Frankie from the confronting question and she looked around herself, her gaze falling on a new model, top-of-the-line ute parked beside her. “This is yours?” Alec gave her a nod. She turned back to it, a strange knot in her belly. She knew how much it was worth—close to seventy thousand dollars—yet it wasn’t the price tag that caught


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her attention, but rather the subtle business signage on the passenger’s door. Going Bush Landscape and Design. A frown pulled at Frankie’s eyebrows and she caught her bottom lip with her teeth. She knew that name for some reason. Why? She didn’t have a garden herself, living six stories above the harbour as she did—and she was lucky if she could keep a potted plant alive. So why did she know that business name? Didn’t Nick Blackthorne tell you he was getting his gardens redesigned by some hugely in-demand landscaper? Frankie narrowed her eyes, trying to remember the conversation she’d had with her client the last time he was back in Australia. The world’s biggest rock star had raved on and on about the guy, extolling his genius and talent, never referring to him as anything but the Cat. She’d thought it really odd, but in a pretty cool kind of way. Nick never settled for anything but the best, so bizarre nickname or not, the landscape designer must have been the— Her gaze fell on the logo sitting beside the business name—a scruffy-looking alley cat asleep on a fallen tree log, surrounded by lush fern fronds. Cat. Alley Cat. A heavy pressure wrapped around Frankie’s chest. She swung her stare to Alec, catching him watching her, the shadows of the dark street making it impossible to see his expression clearly. Her mouth felt dry. “This is you?” Alec nodded. Again. She looked back at the logo, the significance of the cat not lost on her. An alley cat, the very nickname she’d given to him all those years ago. A nickname once intended as a barbed insult from an immature, resentful teenager was now something else. Something far more…unnerving.

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Her name for him had become his identity. The landscape gardener to the stars, the guy Nick Blackthorne had paid forty-two thousand dollars to redesign his garden, had taken her with him into his highly successful career. Oh, God. What did that mean? “It suits me, y’know.” Alec’s low rumble in Frankie’s ear made her jump, and she pulled away from him, enough to stare up into his face. A face still shrouded too much in shadows for her liking. “I am a bit of an alley cat,” he went on, his breath a warm kiss on her flushed cheek, “unrefined, a little bit feral, more than a little bit…savage when I need to be.” She gasped, the faint sound captured by Alec’s mouth as his lips crushed hers. His hands buried in her hair, strong fingers fisting into balls to hold her head still. It was a dominating grip, exerting a possession over Frankie that normally would have pissed her off. It didn’t. Not by a long shot. The complete opposite in fact. The junction of her thighs grew wet, her pussy lips throbbing with instant response to his arrogant aggression. Fuck, what was it about the guy that made her so damn…damn…his? Who cares? Her heart smashed hard in her chest. She cared. She had to. If nothing else, she had to understand how this one man was affecting her so much? Before she let him irrevocably throw her whole world off balance. She rolled her head, needed to break the kiss, if only for a moment. Alec’s lips didn’t leave her face however, scoring a line over her jaw and down to her throat. The tip of his tongue tasted her in a series of soft flicks, his teeth nipping her skin almost gently. With a low groan, he moved his mouth


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back up to hers, dipping his tongue past her lips, teasing her with a savage swipe of her teeth before he rained a string of kisses up to her temple. “You know why you have a gun tattooed on the hood of your sex, don’t you, Frankie?” he murmured, one hand dragging from her hair to slip between their bodies. His fingers cupped her mound, his thumb stroking over the tattoo of the handgun she’d had tattooed there years ago. “Because…” she began, eyes closed. Oh, God, the pressure of his fingertips on her folds—even through the leather of her pants—was making her head swirl. “Because?” His lips journeyed to her ear, his tongue charting a line over its outer shape. She couldn’t finish. She didn’t know the answer. She’d had it done in a fit of irrational melancholy one Tuesday afternoon when she’d realized she’d spent the day throwing her influential weight around to score various clients a number of ridiculously indulgent perks. Nothing had stopped her getting what she’d demanded. No one had challenged her, and for some stupid reason that realization had left her feeling empty. Lil McDermott had called during this uncharacteristic fugue, in a tizz over some guy she’d refused to name and, with no rhyme or reason to her decision, with no analysis or contemplation, Frankie had driven them both to The Illustrated Man, a legendary tattoo artist in Sydney. Five minutes later she’d plonked herself down on one of the workbenches, unzipped her jeans and said “Give me a gun. Right there.” She’d thought it was because of her surname—Winchester. Now she wasn’t so sure. Now, standing here on the dark, quiet street of opulent Avalon, her pussy damp and her breath catching, she couldn’t help but think it had more to do with the man whose fingers so intimately cupped her sex.

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The man, who as a teenager had named her The Gun after their second face off in a mock-trail competition. A teenager who, unlike anyone else she knew, challenged her. A man who would do the same. Frankie’s head swam and a soft whimper escaped her throat, her heart not just beating hard now, but threatening to pound out of her chest. Something very close to panic slithered through her, cold fingers of apprehension she couldn’t ignore. All these years…all these years and Alec bloody Harris had been with her on a subconscious level. All these years. She shook her head. “I have to go,” she blurted, pushing her palms against the rock-hard solid muscle of his chest as she looked everywhere but at him. This was too much to take in. Too much to process. “I have to—” “No, you don’t,” he cut her off, his hands holding her still. “And you don’t need to be scared either, Francesca.” Her stare flung to his face, her lips parting to tell him she wasn’t scared, damn him. She wasn’t scared of jack shit. But the words of false bravado were lost to her. Silenced by his lips on hers in an infinitely tender kiss. A kiss so akin to reverent worship she couldn’t think anymore. With a groan, she pushed her hips to his, wrapping one leg around the back of his thigh and opening her mouth to his with greedy hunger. Their tongues mated, their breaths became one. Alec’s fingers on her sex became wicked instruments of torment, stroking at her folds through the leather of her trousers until she whimpered. He was doing it to her again. Right here on the street. He tightened his fist in her hair, tugging her head back to expose her throat to his lips. She moaned, the contact far more arousing than it should be. Her


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nipples pinched hard and she rolled her hips, grinding her pussy to his hand. “Alec…” His name fell from her in a husky breath she barely recognized as her own. “I’m going to make you come, Frankie,” he stated against the base of her throat. His fingers between her legs stroked at the concealed nub of her clitoris. “I’m going to make you come here on the street where anyone who walks past can see.” “Oh God.” Her groan was raw. His fingers pressed her clit through her trousers, massaging its swollen form. He moved his mouth up to her ear, his breath warm on her flushed skin. “I’m going to make you come against the side of my ute until your legs are too weak to hold you up.” “Christ, Alec,” she moaned, her hands clinging to his shoulders, “don’t fucking tease me like this.” He pulled away. Just enough to stare down into her face. “Who said I’m teasing?” And with those words, he pushed her backward until her arse pressed to the passenger’s door of his pickup, unzipping her fly as he did so. His fingers slipped between the supple leather of her pants and her mons, one finding her clit immediately, the others stroking her folds. “Jesus, Frankie,” he nipped at her earlobe, “you’re so wet for me.” A tight heat in her core made her tremble, and she closed her eyes, a wave of wanton need surging through her. She was wet. She could feel her juices making her crotch damp. Hell, she could smell her pleasure on the night air. “Alec,” she breathed his name, unable to articulate anything else. He pulled her head back a little more, his mouth sucking with hungry intent on the sensitive dip below her ear as he slipped one finger into her willing pussy.

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A gasp burst from her. She drove her hips forward, grinding her clit to his hand in an attempt to impale herself deeper on his wriggling finger. Alec let out a low groan, his breath leaving him in ragged pants. “Jesus, sweetheart, you’re so tight. So hot and wet and tight.” He moved his hand slightly, and Frankie hissed with pleasure as he slipped another finger into her sex. He scissored them inside her, his mouth searing over her throat, her jaw, her lips as he wriggled deeper still. Frankie couldn’t stop her keening cry, her inner muscles contracting in an exquisite pulse when his fingertips found the sweetest spot of them all within. “Fuck, yes.” She threw back her head, staring blankly at the night sky, her blood pounding in her ears as a sharp, violent orgasm claimed her. “That’s it, sweetheart,” Alec whispered in her ear, his fingers continuing to caress her heat. “That’s what I want.” He withdrew slightly, just enough to allow his fingertips to pinch her clit. Frankie bucked, shards of pleasurable pain shooting through her core. Oh God, it was amazing. Her nipples puckered, aching to be sucked. She buried her hands in his hair, bowing her back as far as the large vehicle behind her would allow, wanting him to find her breasts with his mouth. “Please, Alec,” she begged, trying to guide his head lower. “I want…” “You to come again for me,” he finished, rolling the pad of his thumb over her clit in a tiny circle. She shook her head, her breath nothing but gasping whimpers. “Please, I can’t…it’s too…” He plunged back into her pussy, three fingers squirming inside her, stretching her. Making her cry out. Concentrated pleasure unfurled through her body and she fisted her hands harder in his hair. Somewhere in the trees around


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them, a kookaburra laughed, as if Frankie’s sexual torment was the night’s entertainment. Somewhere to their right, muted voices tickled the darkness, partygoers wandering away from the house perhaps. The thought of being discovered made Frankie’s already rapid heartbeat faster. The thought of eyes watching as Alec wrought such pleasure on her, of Alec taking from her what he wanted made her hornier than she believed possible. She cried out again, a soundless plea for mercy. For more. For release. A prickling heat seared the soles of her feet. A ripple of electricity shot up her spine. Alec captured her lips with his, his tongue fucking her mouth with dominating control in the very way his fingers fucked her pussy. He owned her body. He owned her pleasure. Her second orgasm slammed into her, through her with wild force. She bucked into his hand, her nails scraping at his back. And still, Alec didn’t stop. Once again, he withdrew his hand from her sopping sex enough to work his mastery on her clit—that aching, hypersensitive, swollen button of wonderful flesh. Each caress and pinch and stroke sent pleasure so intense it almost hurt shearing through her. Each touch of his fingers made her womb heavier, tighter. Gripping tension filled her, turned her core to a thrumming heat and another orgasm rocked her, more powerful than the others. A tremble claimed her muscles. She tore her mouth from his, pulling his rigid erection harder to her spread folds. Three climaxes and it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She ached for more. She ached for his domination of her sexual needs. She ached for his control of her body. She ached for him. Just him. All of him. “Fuck, Alec,” she ground out, the shudders of her multiple orgasm turning the words to ragged pants, “I want your cock inside me so bad. Please? Fuck me here. Now.”

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With a muttered growl, Alec buried his face in the side of her neck, his hands slipping from her sex, her hair, to come to rest on her hips. “You have no fucking clue how much I want to be inside you, sweetheart,” he murmured, his lips grazing her skin, “but I haven’t got a condom. I don’t carry them on me.” The confession should have made her weep. She’d never, ever wanted a man inside her as much as she did Alec right at this point. Instead, it filled her with something far more potent. Sheer, uncomplicated joy. It told her one very clear thing: Alec Harris didn’t fuck around. He wasn’t the kind of guy she usually slept with—ready to go any time, always prepared, assuming every drink at a bar would end between the sheets. Alec wasn’t one of those guys. Alec was different. And it made her feel… A heavy pressure settled on her heart, warm and enveloping, and Frankie sucked in a breath. God help her. She wasn’t falling in love with him, was she? Already? How would you know? You’ve never been in love before. The strongest emotion you’ve ever felt for anyone apart from Miki was Alley Cat Alec, all those years ago. And as you’ve discovered tonight, you never let that Alec go, even when you thought you had. She blinked, her lips tingling, her mouth going dry. Before she could contemplate the unthinkable, Alec lifted his head from her neck and gazed down at her, his eyes unreadable in the shadows. “I’m going to take you back to my house, Francesca Winchester,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made Frankie’s pulse quicken. A promise in the words that pinched her nipples hard and made her pussy throb. He stepped away from her, slowly zipping up the fly on her pants as his stare held hers. She swallowed, all too aware the old Frankie would have said something glib and witty by now. Would have re-exerted her control of the situation by


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doing up her own fly, thank you very much. Instead, she stood still, her breath caught in her throat as his thumb grazed her flesh just above her waistline, her lips parting as she waited for his next move. He stood silent, his features almost lost to her in the night. She saw his nostrils flare, heard him pull in a deep, slow breath, and then she heard the unmistakable chirp of a car alarm deactivating—his car alarm—before he reached behind her arse and pulled on the door handle. “Let’s go.” The drive took forever. Alec sat behind the wheel, throwing mental curses at every red light they came across on the way to his home. It was as if some higher being was enjoying itself at his expense, prolonging the moment Alec could take Frankie in his arms and sink himself into her sweetness. If his dick was any harder, he’d rupture something. As it was, every time he hit a bump or pothole in the road, his balls felt close to exploding. If he knew someone on city council he’d call them up and give them a bloody damn good piece of his mind. Damn it, wasn’t Sydney capable of keeping the roads in good condition? He shot Frankie a quick sideward glance. She’d said nothing since climbing into his ute, her stare locked on the street ahead of her, a small frown pulling at her eyebrows, her teeth worrying her bottom lip constantly. He’d seen her do this very thing before, usually after she’d realized he’d beaten her once again at one school competition or another. What did it mean she wore the same expression now? Was she having second thoughts? Christ, how would he survive if she was? There was no going back from this now. Not for him. As stupid and gung ho as it sounded, this was it. His future was sitting beside him, silent and gorgeous and sexy as sin, and he couldn’t imagine anyone else in her place. He didn’t want anyone else.

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Not that he was a virgin. Hell, he’d lost that albatross way back when he was fifteen. He’d had his fair share of sexual partners since, most of them highly successful women more than happy to let their relationship develop into something more. But with the exception of two or three, Alec never let the dates go beyond a good time and a few laughs. It wasn’t that he was scared of commitment, but even those long-term relationships seemed to fade away after a year or so. It had always been Frankie. Always. No one else. Even when it wasn’t Frankie in his life, on his arm, in his bed, it was: an unobtainable woman who knew him only as the kid from the poor end of Sydney who kept humiliating her. And now she was buckled in the seat beside him, gnawing on that bottom lip he knew from personal experience was as soft and full as he’d always imagined it would be. And he knew no one else could ever take her place. As much as he wanted to pull his car over and kiss her senseless, as much as he wanted to haul her onto his lap and bury himself in her tight, wet heat, he wanted to wait until they were in his home more. In his home, where she could see who he was, what he’d achieved. In his home, where he’d imagined her being before he’d had a home of his own. Jesus, Harris. Could you fall any deeper? He gripped the wheel harder, his heart slamming with such force in his chest he swore he heard his bones creak. Yeah, he was in deep all right. And while it should have scared the shit out of him, all he could do was flick Frankie another look and wish he could fold time so they could be at his house already.


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Another intersection drew closer and, as fate would have it, the green light went black and the orange lit up. Alec ground his teeth. Fuck this. He pushed his foot to the accelerator. The powerful V8 engine under the bonnet growled, propelling the ute forward faster, straight through the traffic lights just as they turned red. Beside him, Frankie shifted in her seat, and he risked another glance at her. She sat motionless, her eyes closed, her hands balled in her lap. She looked scared. Alec bit back a muttered curse. “Are you okay?” Without opening her eyes, Frankie let out a shaky little laugh. “No. I’m so freaking horny every time you put the foot down and the G-forces hit my belly I fear I’m going to come.” Her declaration sent a surge of fresh, hot blood straight to Alec’s groin. He laughed, the sound just as ragged as hers. “Should I say sorry? Or just drive faster?” She slid him a sideward glance, her breasts heaving as she drew in a slow, deep breath. “Drive faster.” He nodded. “Okay.” Fifteen minutes later, the tension in the cabin so thick he could hardly breathe, his balls hard and his cock in agony, Alec turned into his driveway. The leaves on the ancient weeping eucalyptus trees lining the drive flared a brilliant grey-green as his lights swept over them, their colour vivid in the blackness of the night. He drew the ute to a halt without parking it in the garage, killing the engine with a turn of the key. As stupid as it was, he wanted Frankie to experience the smell and scent of his front yard as they entered his home.

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“Every minute with you is more and more surprising, Alley Cat. A home in Mosman, a celebrity client list, a failure to carry condoms on your person…” Frankie’s statement, uttered in a husky murmur made him turn to her. She was staring out her side window, taking in the lush native garden with its muted solar lighting and semi-abstract metal sculptures of kookaburras perched together on a corrugated iron pedestal beside the drive. He studied her, wishing he could see her eyes. “Are they good surprises?” “Yes.” Elation rolled over him. She swung her gaze to his. “Take me inside, Alec. Now.” For the first time in the five years he’d owned the heritage-listed Victorian bungalow nestled on the edge of the Sydney Harbour National Park, Alec didn’t give a rat’s arse about the garden’s beauty. He didn’t take the time to appreciate the sweet perfume of the native flora on the air, nor the calming calls of wild possums moving through the branches around his home or the soft song of the mating frogmouth owls. Nothing existed except Frankie. He watched her climb from his ute, her gaze touching everything around her. The smooth column of her neck as she looked up at the towering Morton Bay fig tree blanketing half the front yard made his chest squeeze. The creamy complexion of her flawless skin in the full moon’s silver light almost brought him to his knees. He wanted to haul her to his body and mark that beauty with his kiss. Brand her his with his lips so the world would know. Jesus, Harris. You’re not just in deep. You’re way over your head and still sinking. She turned to look at him, and for a split second Alec swore she looked nervous. “It’s very beautiful.”


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“Yes, you are.” The response—so damn clichéd he had to bite back a groan— slipped from him before he could stop it. Frankie lifted her chin, her stare finding his face. “If you don’t take me inside and make love to me soon, Alec Harris, I think I shall be forced to jump your bones out here in your garden.” He didn’t need any more prodding. In five steps, he was on his front porch, slamming the key into the lock and swinging the heavy polished oak door wide. Frankie stepped past him, turning on her heel as she did so to hook her fingers in the waistline of his jeans. She tugged him in to his foyer, the gentle pull on his jeans an encouragement he didn’t need at all. He kicked the door shut behind him and wrapped his arm around her waist, yanking her to his body. “Just to let you know,” he said, wriggling his other hand between their hips to unzip her fly, “I have a whole box of condoms right down the hall.” She laughed, and he caught the wonderful sound with his mouth. He couldn’t hold back. He was so bloody horny, so fucking hot for her, there wasn’t a hope in hell he could restrain himself. He shoved her to the wall, the pictures and awards hanging there rattling on their hooks as he plundered her mouth, her throat, her mouth again with kisses he knew were hungry and aggressive. He snared her wrists and pinned them beside her head as he caught her bottom lip with his teeth. She whimpered, thrusting her hips to his, her heat already teasing his erection through their clothes. He lashed his tongue against hers, a fierce battle he won by sucking her tongue hard. She moaned, fighting his grip on her wrists even as she wrapped one leg around his and ground her sex to his cock. Jesus.

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Agonizing pleasure speared through him. His balls throbbed so hard with lust and need he could barely think. Yanking her hands above her head, he ravished the side of her throat with a greedy kiss, her hoarse, “fuck, yes,” sending fresh blood to his dick. Damn, he wanted to hear her call his name with such raw rapture. With a low growl, he wrapped one hand around both her wrists and dragged his other down her arm to cup her uplifted breast. He kneaded the soft swell of flesh, loving the way Frankie moaned and panted at his touch. He pinched her nipple through her shirt, and again, her cries made his head spin. “God, Alec,” she gasped, rolling her hips to push her pussy harder to his groin, “that feels so fucking good.” He pulled a ragged breath through his nose, staring into her pleasure-etched face. “Tell me you want me to suck your nipple, Frankie.” She laughed, the sound lost on a gasp as he pinched the puckered tip again. “I want you to suck my nipple. Please. Hard.” He shoved his hand under her shirt and captured her breast, pushing the hemline up with his forearm before claiming her nipple through her bra with his mouth. “Oh fuck, yes!” He sucked hard, holding her breast with one hand and her wrists with the other. Her nipple stiffened more so under his tongue, becoming rock hard and distended. He drew it deeper into his mouth, pulsing his suction as he rolled his tongue over and over its form. Frankie’s mewling begs and wordless moans grew louder. She pushed her hips forward again, seeking his. He chuckled around her nipple, enjoying the way she tried to pull him closer to her heat with her leg.


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But he was in charge of her pleasure. Moving his mouth from her breast, he snagged his fingers under the edge of her bra and yanked it aside, watching in rapt hunger as her creamy flesh was revealed to him. “You have the hottest breasts I’ve ever seen,” he uttered, dragging his thumb over her moist nipple. A deep thrill shot through him at the feel of his saliva on her skin. It was a primitive, base response of possession and it made his erection jerk in his jeans. “Seen a few, have you?” Her question was a panted rasp. He chuckled, raising his gaze from her breast to her face. Her cheeks were flushed with pink heat, her eyes half-shuttered, her lips parted. It was the face of absolute pleasure. “Enough to know yours are superb.” He nipped at her nipple with his lips, and she hitched in a breath, her hips thrusting toward him in a move he knew was beyond her control. “Perfect.” She laughed, her eyes closing as she tried to tug him to her heat again. “Damn, you always did know the right thing to say, Alley Cat.” He shook his head, scraping his thumb over her nipple again. “Not true,” he murmured, watching the pulse in her neck beat wildly beneath her skin. “If I did, I would have told you ten years ago I wanted you so fucking much it hurt.” His confession made her whimper, her eyebrows pulling into a frown he could have sworn was one of grief. “I wish you had.” “Why?” She shook her head. “Because we could have been doing this for the last decade.” The thought made his head swim. Did that mean… He swallowed, biting back the question welling on his lips. “Let’s consider those wasted ten years foreplay, shall we?”

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Another low groan sounded in her throat. “Make me come, Alec,” she whispered. “Please, make me come.” He brushed his lips over hers, releasing his grip on her wrists as he did so. “Gladly.” His hands found her waistline and he shoved her leather pants down her hips, pushing them as far as they would go before her boots stopped them. It was enough to expose her pussy, the tattooed gun teasing him from behind her lace G-string. Lowering to his knees, he placed his hands on her inner thighs, stroked a thumb over her folds and rolled it over her clit before dipping his tongue between her legs. She shoved her pussy to his mouth, her hands finding his hair and gripping fast. He stroked his tongue over her folds, the lace of her G-string an erotic friction he both loved and despised. That she wore lace stirred something purely male and chauvinistic inside him. That the lace prevented him touching her completely pissed him off. With a grunt, he hooked a finger under the thin, skimpy crotch and pulled it aside. “Oh God…” Frankie’s exclamation danced over his senses, as did the subtle musk of her juices filling his breath. He rubbed his thumb over her sex, her cream slicking his flesh immediately. She was so wet for him. Sodden with pleasure. Lowering his head, he lapped at her pussy lips, delving between her labia with an insistent stroke before finding her clit. He sucked on its tiny form and Frankie’s hips drove forward with a brutal buck. “Shit, Alec,” she gasped, her fists balling tighter in his hair, “if you do that again, I’m going to—” He did it again. And again.


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“Fuck,” Frankie cried, the word a long drawn-out groan. “I’m going to come. God, I’m going to—” He thrust his tongue into her slit, delving it deep, swirling at around before dragging it over her clit once more. Frankie’s hips convulsed, her pussy weeping juices as her nails dug into his scalp. “Oh God, Alec. I’m…I’m…” He closed his lips and teeth around her clit. And bit. Gently. “Fuck!” Frankie’s orgasm erupted from her, sweet cream coating his tongue, his lips, his chin. She ground into his face, bucking over and over again, her cries becoming wordless sounds that made Alec’s balls rise up and his cock flood with hot, impatient need. And before Frankie could recover from her climax, he stood and threw her over his shoulder, grabbing her naked, glorious arse and holding her tight. The sounds of her breathless laughter trailed them as he strode down the hall to his bedroom, a sound he never believed he’d hear in his home. A sound he wanted to hear every damn day from now on.

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Alec’s bedroom was, as she should have suspected, a surprise. Of course, she only saw it in a blur as he tossed her onto the middle of his bed. But there wasn’t a brown, grey or black anything from the stereotypical colour scheme of the modern single Australian male to be seen. It all seemed made of glass and muted greens, with a massive painting of some lush rainforest hanging on the wall beside the bed and an equally massive painting of the desert on the wall beside the— “I may not be able to take this slowly.” The growled statement caressed her ears as Alec pressed her back to the mattress. His weight pinned her to his bed, his hands knotting in her hair, and then his mouth was crushing hers and she pretty much forgot about anything else except how goddamn amazing he made her feel. She raked her nails over his back, wishing to God he were naked. She wanted to feel his warm, bare flesh under her palms. He’d made her come so many times tonight. His mouth had explored her breasts, her throat, her sex, but not once, not once had she seen him naked. That had to change. But before she could tear her lips from his and demand he strip, he pulled back from her and climbed off the bed to stand at its base. “I think it’s time I removed some clothing.”

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The murmured observation made her chuckle, even as her pussy fluttered with impatient anticipation. She wriggled up the bed and rested on her elbows. “Y’know, I was just thinking that very thing.” He gave her a boyish grin, the action at odds with the wholly adult hunger she saw smoldering in his eyes, with the utterly manly erection she couldn’t help but see straining at his jeans. At the sight of its unmistakable hard bulge trapped behind the denim, a sudden realization dawned on her. Alec had made her come so many times tonight she’d actually lost track, but he’d only come once. Once. In the powder room. She flicked her gaze up to his face again, noticing the tension in his jaw. He must be in pain. How could he go so long in such a state of arousal? How could he give her release after release after release and not expect her to do the same for him before now? She’d never had such a selfless lover. Like…ever. Her chest squeezed tight, a wave of prickling heat pressing on her heart. “Alec…” she began. With another grin, he reached behind his head and yanked his shirt up over his body, and all thoughts of who had made whom come went out the window. Oh. God. Frankie’s mouth went dry. Her sex flooded with wet desire. He was perfection. She’d never used that word to describe a man before. She’d never met one to deserve it. And in the business she was in, and the family she was from, she’d met some pretty fucking hot guys—models, actors, singers—but Alec…well, Alec made them all look plain. There was a latent strength to his body that made her pulse quicken. Broad and well-defined shoulders spoke of hours of swinging a pickaxe, wielding a shovel or lugging rocks and bags of soil and other landscaping needs around. His torso was lean and sinewy, the ropey muscles understated and yet, at the

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same time, undeniably powerful. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, just a perfect body forged from hard physical work and manual labour. She swallowed. Bloody hell, he was like visual Viagra. A sinful smattering of soft golden hair covered his wide, hard chest before trailing down into a teasing line over abs that could have been the definition of a six-pack. A line that picked up again just below the shallow dip of his navel to disappear under the waistline of his jeans. Frankie let out a breath. Damn, she wanted to trace that line with her lips, her tongue. Wanted to follow it to its conclusion. His cock. Wanted to take that cock in her mouth and— Alec unzipped his fly, toed off his boots and removed his jeans. Before she could stop herself, Frankie was on her knees, crawling toward the end of the bed, her boots and trousers bunched around her calves like annoying shackles. An exasperated, practical part of her mind told her to stop and get rid of them, but she couldn’t. She was too impatient for Alec’s cock to bother with clothes. She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his erection, dragging her thumb over its tip, smearing the pre-come beading there. He hissed in a breath, his stomach hitching, his balls rising. “Frankie…” If he was going to say anything else the words were lost on a groan as she closed her lips over the head of his shaft and sucked, slowly sliding down his length as she did so. He was so big and long. She closed her eyes, loving the way he filled her mouth, the head of his cock pressing to the back of her throat with a nudging insistence. Bringing her other hand to his balls, she cupped each one, giving them a gentle tug as she drew her mouth back up his cock, slowly, slowly, the sound of his ragged moan turning her on more than she could ever imagine.


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The bulbous dome of his cockhead stretched her lips wider and, with a little flick at the sensitive knot of flesh under its rim, a flick that made Alec’s hips buck forward in a convulsive jerk, she slid back down again. “Christ, Frankie.” Alec’s hands brushed at her hair, pulling it back from her face and holding it in a tight fist. “Watching my dick disappear into your mouth…it’s almost as good as feeling it disappear into your mouth.” As if to prove his words true, a spasm claimed his cock, a slight twitch that pushed him farther into her mouth. She hummed her approval. She wanted to make him burn with the same pleasure he’d given her over and over again. Pulling back up to his distended head again, she drew a breath through her nose and then plummeted down his length, pushing herself past her limit until she felt the swollen form of his balls at her lips. Alec’s raw groan echoed in her ears. “Sweetheart, I’m about one second away from coming. If you don’t want to—” The hoarse words became a guttural curse as she sucked hard on his erection. His hips bucked forward, pumping her mouth full of his rigid flesh. His fists tightened in her hair. He held her still, forcing her to remain motionless. A shudder rocked through him, a quaking deep within his body. She felt his control waver. His balls contracted. Turned hard. His breath burst from him in a quick succession of shallow pants. “Christ, no,” she heard him ground out, his stomach muscles trembling. “No, I wanted…” His hands gripped her hair, “…longer…give you more…” Another shudder passed through him. “Fuck, I can’t…” A wicked beat pulsed through Frankie’s core. Her womb grew heavy. She knew what he wanted, what he wanted to give her. More. He wasn’t thinking of himself, he was thinking of her. Her.

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Ignoring the command of his hands, she sucked on his cock once again, sliding as deep as she could go. Alec came. With a raw groan and a violent thrust, he came in her mouth, his seed splashing the back of her throat, filling her with his release. She took him all, swallowing every thick wad as it spurt from him, kneading his length with the flat of her tongue as she did so. He was sweet and salty at once, like the tequila she’d consumed earlier but oh, so much more potent. So much more intoxicating. She was addicted already. With one taste, she knew she would never get enough. Knew she would want no other. Just him. Just Alec. “Christ, Frankie.” Alec’s mutter sounded above her head and she realized his hands had relaxed in her hair, his fingers stroking at the back of her neck with tender care. “I didn’t mean to…” He paused, a curse rasping in his sharp exhalation. “I wanted to…” Frankie withdrew her lips slowly from around his cock, her fingers taking their place in a gentle caress as she straightened to her knees before him. “I wanted to,” she said, giving him a smile. “So shut the fuck up.” He burst out laughing, rolling his eyes as he shook his head. “Hmm, The Gun is in charge, is she?” She nodded, enjoying the little flip-flop of delight his laughter caused in her belly. He lowered his head to hers, his lips curling in a slow, crooked grin. “Let’s see about that, shall we.” Without warning, he pressed one large hand to her chest and pushed. She landed flat on her back, her breath escaping her in a giggle as Alec yanked her right foot upward, unzipped her boot and pulled it off. He tossed it over his shoulder, his stare holding hers as he did the same to her other. She


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caught her bottom lip with her teeth, watching him crawl onto the bed enough to snare her already undone pants with his fingers. Two seconds later, she was naked from the waist down, the cool air of Alec’s bedroom rippling her heated flesh. Her nipples pinched into twin points, and she swallowed a whimper, reaching up under her shirt to cup her own breasts. “Uh-uh,” Alec shook his head again, climbing on top of her to straddle her hips. “I didn’t say you could touch yourself.” The rebuke came a second before he grabbed the hemline of her shirt and tugged it up over her head. “Now,” he said, gazing down at her. “Put your hands above your head, Frankie.” A heavy throb leapt to life between Frankie’s thighs at the arrogant order. “Why?” “Because I said so.” Whether it was the blunt dominance in his answer that made her heart quicken and her pussy constrict, or the blazing hunger in his face, she didn’t know. Or care. She did as he told her, laying her arms flat on the bed above her head, her hands loosely open, palms to the ceiling. Alec’s nostrils flared. He brushed his fingertips over the tips of her nipples, sending a shiver of pleasure through her. “Very good. Now, this is the way it’s going to go, Ms Winchester. I am going to explore every inch of this sexy, fuckable body of yours from head to toe. I’m going to put my tongue wherever I want to. I’m going to bite whatever I want to. I’m going to suck whatever I want to, and you’re not going to move.” His fingers circled her nipples this time, giving each one a firm, quick pinch. Her moan of delight escaped her and his nostrils flared again, his eyes hot with obvious pleasure at her carnal response to his touch.

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He drew in a steadying breath, and Frankie couldn’t miss the growing pressure on her belly—he was getting hard again. Really hard. “You’re going to lie here,” he continued, his voice almost a husky growl, “and let me do whatever I fucking want, do you understand?” Frankie stared up at him, her pussy, hell, her anus, constricting at the utter eroticism of his statement. “And if I do move?” A wicked gleam filled Alec’s eyes, the sides of his mouth curling into a slow smile. Devilish, that was the only word Frankie could think of to describe it. Devilish. No, there was another. Untamed. “If you move, I will flip you onto your stomach, lift your butt into the air and smack its tight, firm perfection until you beg me to fuck you.” Frankie’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened. Her pussy didn’t just constrict at his promise, it squeezed so tight so fast she almost came there and then. She’d done some wild things in her time—screwing the Prime Minister’s son on the steps of the Opera House when they were both seventeen probably took the cake—but letting Alec smack her? What would it feel like? His hand slapping her bare arse? Oh God, did she want to know? Did she? Before she could answer the licentious question, Alec slid down her body, his lips burning a path over her breasts, her belly, past her navel, over her mons, her inner thighs, until he came to her feet. She lay motionless, arms stretched above her head, gazing at the ceiling and its intricate moldings, her heart hammering, her lips parted. What was he going to do? Suck her toes?


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Warm lips touched the sole of her right foot. Just that, a light kiss on the arch of her foot and it was enough. She whimpered, the sound loud in the room’s silence. A tongue flicked over the arch of her left foot, just as light as the kiss on her right had been. Again, a whimper slipped from her, her skin rippling with an unfathomable thrill at Alec’s unexpected touch. She closed her eyes, part of her aching to move, to feel his hand on her arse, another part wanting nothing more than to feel him conquer her body one section at a time. He travelled up her calf, pushing both legs apart with his hands as his lips explored the sensitive dip at the back of her knee. She bit back a moan, her fingers curling into fists with reflex action. Damn it, how could having the back of her knee kissed turn her on so freaking much? Move. Just move. Sit up and bury your hands in his hair and make him smack— He traced his tongue over her sodden folds, over her swollen, throbbing clitoris and the enticing thought was shattered. “Oh, yes…” Her nails drove into her palms. And again when he suckled a little on her clit. She ground her teeth, a prickling wave of raw pleasure rolling through her. She lifted her backside a little off the bed, enough to grant Alec greater access to her pussy. “Are you moving, Frankie?” His low murmur made her still. Or maybe it was the feel of his thumb rubbing over her clit where his tongue had only just been. “Alec,” she whispered, “I…”

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He dipped into her slit again, bathing her folds with his moist tongue. A shudder quaked through her core—tight and insistent. She ground her teeth together, the urge to arch her back, raise her hips and push her pussy harder to his mouth almost making her move. But she kept still. For as much as the thought of Alec smacking her made her sex flutter with wanton lust, the imprisoning control he’d exerted over her body—being tied to the bed without rope or cuffs—made her heart pound and her soul sing. His control over her, his domination over her was unlike anything she could describe. If someone had pressed a gun to her head and demanded she vocalize how she felt at this very second, trapped by Alec’s words and her own desirous submission, she wouldn’t be able to. She didn’t understand the reaction. She only knew she loved it. She loved… Alec stroked his tongue up the shallow line of her belly to her right breast, flicking her nipple before nipping it with his teeth. His body hovered over hers, the turgid length of his cock nudging her thigh. Its hard pressure on her leg made her head swim, the slick sensation of his pre-come on her flesh stealing her breath. She flexed her fingers, fighting the urge to bury them in his hair. To hold his head to her breast. “Oh, God, Alec,” she murmured, another wave of pure need making her tremble. “Your mouth on my nipple feels so fucking good…so fucking right.” As if to taunt her, Alec lifted his head from her breast and grazed a path to her shoulder with his lips. He nibbled a string of kisses over its curve, working his way up to her ear, the tip of his cock drawing a line of wet pleasure up her thigh to her hip as he did so.


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“You feel so fucking right in my mouth, sweetheart,” he whispered in her ear. “I could suck on your gorgeous tits, your sweet cunt, until the sun comes up and still wouldn’t have tasted my fill of you.” She whimpered, her belly hitching. Her pussy constricted. Her womb grew heavier, swollen with hot tension and want. He continued to travel up her body, his lips scoring a path up her extended arm until they found her fingers. He unfurled them with his own fingers and pressed the tip of his tongue to the centre of her palm as he did so. Liquid shards of delight shot through her, spearing into her body from the simple contact down into her very soul. She moaned. Who would’ve thought her palm was such an erogenous zone? Now she understood all those corny movies where the hero made the heroine gasp with such a kiss. It was insanely erotic. But he didn’t linger on her palm. He slid even farther up her body to capture the pad of one of her fingers with his teeth and lips. The shift in his position aligned his chest with Frankie’s mouth and, unable to stop herself, she lifted her head slightly from the bed and closed her lips around his right nipple. The small tip of flesh pebbled immediately, Alec’s hissed intake of breath causing her pussy to squeeze again. She sucked hard on his nipple before rolling it between her teeth. “Jesus, Frankie.” Her name was nothing but a groaned growl rumbling low in his chest. “You moved.” I did, she acknowledged, but only in her head, unwilling to stop feasting on his flesh. It was rock hard under her tongue, and his groans were so raw, so carnal. He hung above her, and she sensed his stare on her face as she continued to suck. She knew any moment now he would carry out his promise. She’d moved. He would smack her—but until he did, until his hand found her arse,

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she wanted nothing more than to feel him in her mouth and have his groans of rapture caress her senses. She slid her mouth to his other nipple and he let her, his cock nudging her hip as he pressed one lean, muscled thigh to her sex. Fingers of wet electricity jolted through her at the unexpected pressure on her clit, and she bucked her hips upward, her hands flying to his shoulders. Damn it, even when she was defying him he was in control of her body. And that’s the way you want it, isn’t it? Yes. It was. Every molecule in her body needed him. Needed him with her, inside her. Needed his cock in her sex, his breath in her lungs, his scent in her nose… “Oh fuck,” he groaned, cupping the back of her head to hold her mouth to his chest. “That feels so damn good.” He was right. It did. His nipple in her mouth, under her tongue, his body pressed to hers, his pre-come on her skin…it all felt so goddamn good. So goddamn right. Without warning, and with a fluid grace that made Frankie shiver, Alec pulled away from her, breaking her worship of his nipple with a soft pop before flipping her onto her stomach. Exquisite shards of anticipation jolted through her. Brilliantly tight ribbons of excitement shot over her nerve endings to knot in her sex. She squeezed her backside, her flesh already on fire as he hooked his hands under her hips, jerked her arse up off the bed, and held her in the slightly elevated position with one arm as he smoothed his hand over her right cheek. “Christ, your arse is…” He didn’t finish. Instead, his palm found her flesh in a stinging slap.


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Her reaction was instant and explosive. Pleasure erupted through her, tearing her cry from her throat. It hurt. It burned. It felt so fucking good. She fisted her hands on the duvet, pushing her backside higher. He smacked her again. And again. And with each slapping blow, with each stinging kiss of his palm on her flesh, her pain became something she couldn’t describe. Or fathom. Something far beyond any she believed possible. Her pussy flooded with cream and she wriggled in Alec’s hold. “Oh God,” she moaned, eyes shut, fists bunched by her head. “I need to come. Make me come, Alec.” Alec stared at the bright red print of his hand on Frankie’s smooth, toned arse cheek. He’d never smacked a lover before. Hadn’t even considered it. But at the sight of his handprint branded on her flesh, his cock throbbed. Jesus, did that make him a sadist? No. It doesn’t. With this woman, with Frankie, there are no inhibitions or hang-ups. And if she wanted to smack you you’d let her. Gladly. You’d stick your arse in the air and— “Please, Alec.” Her shaky plea jerked his gaze to her profile. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her lips parted as she panted and squirmed on the bed. “Make me come now.” “With my hand?” He smacked her once more, a softer slap he felt all the way through his hand and into his swollen balls. Christ, he’d never been so hard. Frankie shook her head against the duvet with a sharp hiss. “No.” “With my mouth?” He twisted, plunging his tongue between her sodden folds. Fresh cream flowed from her pussy into his mouth and he moaned,

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reveling in the taste of her pleasure. He would never tire of it. Ever. He knew that without doubt or question. “No,” she moaned, her face etched with what he could only call rapture. He shifted on the bed, aligning the head of his shaft to the glistening lips of her sex. “Or with my dick?” he asked, parting those lips a little with one slow, steady thrust. Frankie cried out again, her anus constricting. “Tell me, Frankie,” he commanded, teasing her pussy with the head of his cock. She whimpered, new moisture dripping from her folds. “With your cock,” she all but sobbed. “Please, fuck me, Alec,” she begged, just as he said she would. “Please make me come now.” Without a word, he climbed from the bed, crossed to the oak chest of drawers behind him and yanked open the top one to withdraw a condom. His cock was an agonizing rod jutting upward from balls just as painful, both filled with the urgent need to feel Frankie’s tight heat, her hot flesh on his. One day soon he would bury himself in her sweetness without a condom, but for now…well, that thin film of latex was his only hope to last longer than one single thrust. He ripped the condom packet open and, breath held, jaw bunched, rolled the sheath down the straining length of his dick. Inside her. Christ, you’re going to be inside her. Again. And with that gloriously euphoric thought, he climbed back onto the bed, snared Frankie’s hips with his hands and thrust deep inside her, filling her to his balls. Frankie threw back her head, her spine bowing as she drove herself harder onto his penetration. Her cries and hitching breaths flayed his control just as


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much as the gripping heat of her inner muscles. She surrounded him, even as he pumped in and out of her cunt, she surrounded him. Overwhelmed him. She propelled him to a place of heightened sensation and searing response. The base of his spine tingled, but he denied the release building in his groin. There wasn’t a hope in fucking hell he was going to come yet. Not yet. Being inside Francesca, possessing her, being consumed by her…he wanted to experience the rapture until his last breath burst from his lungs. He wanted to give her that same rapture. He thrust deep into her wet heat, leaning against her body to cup one breast with a hard hand. She gasped a ragged, “yes,” and her nipple rubbed at his palm as her breast swung heavy with his strokes. He pulled a harsh hiss, the erotic contact of nipple and hand flooding his cock with fresh blood. How it was that she continued to arouse him while they were so completely joined made his mind fog. That she did made his heart pound. “Alec,” she moaned, arching her back. She reached between her legs, her fingers finding his swollen balls. She tugged them, sending a flow of dull pain into his groin. It was exquisite. He squeezed his eyes for a moment, riding the sensation as it became concentrated pleasure deep within his very core. He dragged his mouth over her back, her shoulders, sucking at the side of her neck just beneath her ear, with a hungry ferocity he knew would leave a mark. He didn’t care. She was his and be fucked if he didn’t want the world to know it. His and his alone. “Oh, yes, Alec,” she moaned, her tight pussy pulsing, gripping his dick with increasing pressure. “Yes…that’s it…that’s it…don’t stop…don’t…stop.” He pinched her nipple, burying himself as deep in her sex as his body would let him. His balls rose up, their weight still held by Frankie’s hand, growing fuller with each thrust he pounded into her. If he kept going, he would come.

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With a low growl, he jerked himself free, pushed her onto her back and silenced her cries of protest with a brutal kiss. He fucked her mouth with his tongue, fighting for control over his body, his hands fisted in her wild hair, his dick grinding into her thigh. She scraped her nails up and down his back, her legs wrapping around his. She pulled him closer to her, trying to impale herself on his length. He would let her soon. So very soon, but not until she pleaded. Not until he knew she was one thrust away from coming. Like he was. “Damn you,” she rasped when he dragged his mouth down her throat, arching beneath him. “Make me fucking come already.” He chuckled, the sound more like a shaky moan. “Impatient much?” She rolled her head, her hand joining his on her right breast. “Yes.” She closed her fingers, making him knead its full softness with something close to desperation. “Now shut the fuck up and bury that cock of yours in my cunt.” It was too much. He couldn’t fight her anymore. He couldn’t fight himself anymore either. He flipped himself onto his back, taking her with him. She let out a startled laugh, her thighs splaying either side of his hips, her hands grabbing at his shoulders as his hands snared her waist. He looked up into her face, saw exactly what was in her soul, her heart and—without need of guidance—he pulled her tightness down over his shaft. “Fuck, yes!” She snapped upright, taking him deeper still, her nails gouging at his chest. He dug his fingers into her hips, holding her to his body and then pulling her back and forth as he thrust up into her. Her pussy squeezed and sucked on his dick, her cream painting their flesh. He dragged his thumbs over the gun tattoo inked into the curve of her sex before smoothing his hands to her arse cheeks. She lifted slightly off him, as if she knew exactly what he wanted.


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“Yes,” she breathed, eyes fluttering closed. He slipped his fingers closer to her anus. Closer. “Yes, oh, yes…” Thrusting up into her drenched folds with his dick, he pressed one finger to the puckered opening of her arse…and inside its tight sheath when she slid deeper down his cock. “Fuck, Alec!” she cried, head back, eyes closed. “Fuck, yes, yes.” He couldn’t hold on any more. Not with her pussy sucking at his cock with such hungry heat. Not with her anus ringing his finger with such constricting pressure. Not when she screamed his name with such unadulterated, sheer need. He slammed into her, again, again, his finger burying in her arse, his cock pounding into her cunt. She rode him, took it all, took him all. And then, just as Frankie bucked once more with wild, uncontrolled savagery, just as her sex contracted and her release claimed her, Alec lost his tenuous battle with control and came, his seed erupting from him in searing wads, Frankie’s name bursting from him in a tearing groan.

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Something was making a noise. Something low and muffled. Something that sounded like Axel Rose wailing his way through the chorus of “Welcome to the Jungle”. Frankie opened her eyes and lifted her head, giving Alec an expectant look from where she lay slumped beside him. “Is that your mobile?” Alec nodded his head without opening his eyes, his fingers drawing lazy little circles over the base of her spine. “Yep.” “Are you going to get that?” He shook his head, his mouth curling at the edges in a small grin. “Nope.” She chuckled, dropping her head back to the bed and letting out a thoroughly wonderful sigh. Her body was one languid lump of sheer sexual satisfaction, slicked in a sheen of perspiration and other slightly more sticky bodily fluids. Her pulse still thumped much faster than normal in her throat and her pussy throbbed with the fading aftermath of the most explosive orgasm she’d ever experienced. She would quite cheerfully stay stretched on her side beside the man responsible for said orgasm until…until…damn, until the need to pee forced to her to move. She wasn’t in any hurry to go anywhere, thank you very much, and as far as she could see, neither was Alec. In fact, she’d just spent the last few minutes doing nothing but lie on his bed, her hand resting on his chest, feeling his heart slowly return to a normal pace under her palm. The complete serenity of it all was nothing like she’d ever

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experienced. It was deliciously wonderful. The thought of getting up, going and having a shower and shooing him away with a frankly laughable promise to call in a few days—as she did immediately after all her sexual interactions—didn’t remotely entice her at all. She was, for want of a better word, content. In love? Is that a better word? Or should that be two words? In. Love. Her heart, almost back to its normal rhythm, kicked up a notch at the wholly unsettling thought. It wasn’t the first time the L word had risen in her mind since finding Alec beside her on the Suck and Blow line back at the party. This time however, she couldn’t deny the legitimacy of its insistent presence. She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, staring at Alec’s profile as the sounds of Guns N Roses cut dead somewhere from the floor. She was pretty certain that’s where his jeans had ended up. She wasn’t really sure, to be honest. The whole undressing thing had happened so damn fast, in such a blur of arms and legs and panting need that she had no real idea where any of their clothing— Francesca! Stop it! You can’t ignore it forever. The mental slap made her bite harder on her bottom lip. She stared at the ceiling, her throat thick. Romantic love. An outdated emotion, as far as she was concerned, reserved only for those needing a crutch. She’d seen what love had done to Miki—had watched her best friend’s spirit and heart slowly etch away thanks to the love Miki had experienced for her self-centred husband. She’d seen both her parents fall prey to love’s terrible power. First when her dad had cheated on her mum with his secretary—how goddamn clichéd was that?—and then, after months of counseling, when her mum had extracted revenge by fucking the pool boy— again, so clichéd it made Frankie cringe just thinking about it. Full-on romantic

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love—the kind her rock-star clients sang about, the type her actor clients portrayed on film—was just there for those who didn’t know the only things one needed in life were a fun time, a fast car and a fucking awesome masseur on speed dial. That had been the adage she’d lived by for as long as she could remember, and she’d had access to a masseur whenever she wanted one since she was fifteen. It had seen her through her adult life and there was no reason it should change. Right? What this thing with Alec Harris was…well, it wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. She didn’t fall in love. She didn’t need love. She had her masseur, she had her fast car and whenever she wanted a fun time she just hit the nightclubs. She didn’t want love. Did she? Her gaze moved over Alec’s profile, over his long, thick eyelashes the colour of dark honey, over his high cheekbones and strong nose slightly turned up at the end. Over his defined lips and golden stubble roughing a jaw line far too straight and strong for any woman’s sanity… Her chest squeezed hard, a knot wrapping around her heart and pulling tight, a sensation she’d never ever experienced in her life before. No wait, that was wrong. She had experienced it before, the last time she and Alec had seen each other as school students, at the state public-speaking finals where she’d come second to his first. She’d labeled it hate back then. But now… Damn it, had she really gone and fallen in love with Alec Harris ten years ago? When she was a stupid girl full of herself and her own importance? Was she only just realizing that now? Recognizing it for what it really was? Or was what she’d felt back then just the emotions of a wild, high-strung teenager? Was what she felt now, right


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now—this overwhelming, choking, terrifying emotion threatening to undo her— was this love? Real love? Romantic love? The kind poets had written about for hundreds and hundreds of years? Was she really that weak? What other explanation did she have? And if she was in love with Alec, what did she do next? Axel Rose started wailing from the floor again, the singer’s screech shattering the silence and Frankie flinched. Alec pulled a face. “Damn it.” He folded his body together and pushed himself from the bed with a growl. “I better get it.” He turned and gave her an apologetic look. “The only person who would be calling me at this time of the morning is my brother, and if I don’t answer now he’ll just keep calling me and calling me.” He bent over to scoop his jeans off the floor, the warm light spilling into the bedroom from the hallway casting his naked body in undulating shadows. That unnerving, altogether too wonderful pressure gave a tug on Frankie’s heart again, and she swallowed, gnawing some more on her bottom lip. He was so bloody fine to look at. Surely what she was feeling was just sexual physical attraction? Yes, on a much greater level than any she’d experienced before, but that was a given with Alec—everything she’d experienced with him was on a greater level. Like love? She stared at him. Watched him dig around in his jeans’ pockets. Watched him withdraw a slim black iPhone from one of those pockets and raise it to his ear. Watched as his lips began to move, his eyes becoming distant as he began a conversation she couldn’t hear. Her brain was buzzing too loudly. Her heart thumping too powerfully. Love? Oh God, really?

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He stood beside the bed, his hair mussed and tousled and sexy, his body lean and perfectly muscled, his cock a long, thick promise of pleasure… Surely it was just physical. It couldn’t be anything else. It couldn’t be. Frankie studied him, taking in the latent strength of his physique, the confident calm of his presence. Even when he ran a hand through his hair, messing it up more so, his gaze flicking around the room as he spoke to whoever was on the other end of the connection, he oozed a relaxed assurance that made her belly flip-flop and her pulse quicken. What would it be like to look at him every day in such a natural state? To bask in his confident good-humour as she feasted on his raw good looks? To hear his voice as he bade her good morning and know he was hers? To share a shower before going to work? To meet up for dinner and watch the other women in the restaurant stare at him with greedy want? To engage in deep-and-meaningfuls as they dissected the latest film they’d watched curled up in bed together, knowing they would wake in each other’s arms the next day… Unbidden, the thought of sharing breakfast with him as they read the morning papers teased her. She pictured him drinking his coffee as she ranted about which celebrity was making a fool of him or herself. She imagined them working in the garden together, Alec attempting to teach her how to correctly prune a tree and her failing miserably and not caring because she was with him and he was with her. In the space it took her heart to thump, she lived that future. That future. A future with a man who was as intelligent and articulate as he was sexy and horny. Her throat grew thick. What would it be like to live a life, to share a life with someone who actually made her feel…feel… What?


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How does he make you feel, Francesca? She couldn’t answer that question. It was too freaking scary to even— “I don’t give a flying fuck, Mac.” Alec’s voice jerked Frankie out of her disquiet. She blinked, pushing herself up into a sitting position. “What the hell are you doing calling me at 3a.m. anyway? Don’t you have anything better to—?” He stopped, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead. “An argument? Jesus, Mackenzie, how old are you?” Another pause. Frankie frowned. She shouldn’t be listening, but then if Alec didn’t want her to hear, he would have walked from the room. “So say sorry, you jerk.” He paused again, raking a hand through his hair as he shot her a quick look. “Because I have better things to do than listen to you carrying on about a contract I’m not interested in signing.” Frankie narrowed her eyes. Contract? Alec rolled his eyes, pacing five steps away from the bed—buck naked and coiled with pent-up frustration—before turning and pacing five steps back to where he’d started. “I’m not interested in becoming a TV celebrity either.” TV? Frankie straightened, her stare fixing on Alec’s scowling face. TV? Celebrity? What was going on here? “I’m not a complete idiot, Mac. I read the contract and as far as I can tell, that kind of commitment would mean living in the US for at least four months of the year.” He gave Frankie another glance, this time letting out a snort as he shook his head. “I know California has gum trees, dickhead. That’s not the point. I like doing what I do now.” A round of excited babble fell from the phone.

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Alec scrunched up his face, his free hand clenching into a hard fist. “She can find another landscaper to host the show.” Show. At the word Frankie’s skin prickled. Show? TV? Celebrity? These were all words she used every day. All words she never would have connected to Alec Harris. “I don’t care if she owns the bloody network!” Alec burst out, and this time it wasn’t just frustration she heard cutting his voice to a rough growl. It was genuine anger. “I’m happy to redesign her garden, or anyone else’s garden in the US, but I’m not remotely interested in being the bloody host of a bloody television program.” The sound of Mackenzie’s voice spat out of the phone, a machine-gun fire of words spoken with just as much vehemence as Alec’s. Frankie blinked again. Surely she hadn’t heard the name she thought she’d heard? Had she? Her skin prickled again, a reaction she experienced whenever her nose got the scent of something…big. She studied Alec. Really looking at him. With her Kerpow Talent Management hat firmly tucked on her head. If the American female network owner was the American female network owner Frankie suspected it was…if the woman wanted Alec to be on her network… Frankie’s mouth went dry. Oh, boy. Alley Cat could be this country’s next big thing. Her heart thumped hard. Her nipples pinched tight. “Listen, bro,” Alec let out a puffing sigh, scrubbing at his face as he did so, his shoulders slumping for a split second, “I don’t know what’s going on with you at the moment, but something tells me it has everything to do with Lillian


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McDermott and bugger all to do with this whole US thing. So for the love of God, will you just go say sorry to the woman? Please? And leave me alone?” Whatever Alec’s brother said next brought a crooked smile to Alec’s lips—a smile that made Frankie’s pussy flutter with appreciation and her professional instincts stir with possibility. With his drop-dead hunkaliciousness, his distinctively Australian accent and the right agent… Frankie caught her lip with her teeth once again. “No worries, Mac,” Alec was saying into his phone, all sign of tension gone from his body. He stood by the bed, eyes grinning at her, one hand resting loosely on his low, lean hip, completely and utterly at ease with his nudity. “I know.” He shook his head again, although whether to her or his brother, she couldn’t tell. “It’s simple, mate. You fuck up, you say sorry.” Frankie guessed Mac must have said something to that. Whatever it was, Alec chuckled. “That makes two of us, brother. Now fuck off. I have a tree I need to plant.” Mac’s laughter reverberated all the way through the connection, tickling her ears even as Alec ended the call and tossed his mobile onto the mattress behind her. “Now—” he climbed onto the bed, first one knee then the other, his gaze both playful and smoldering with a burning intensity that sent another wicked flutter through her sex, “—about that planting…” “Who’s your agent?” The question was out of Frankie’s mouth before she could stop it. Or more to the point, before she realized she was actually asking it. Part of her wanted to groan. Another part of her stared at him, waiting for his answer. He cocked an eyebrow, a taciturn stillness claiming him. “I don’t have one.” Frankie blinked. “What do you mean, you don’t have one? Who does your PR work?”

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He shrugged. “I try to avoid it.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m a gardener, Frankie, not a celebrity. And as you no doubt heard, Mac’s on hand if a contract more complicated than ‘yes, I let Alec Harris and Going Bush Landscape dig up my yard’ comes my way.” The way he said it, with a flippant snort, made Frankie narrow her eyes. “So what you’re telling me is you have no one to manage your—” she searched for the right word, “—star potential? And you’re getting contract offers from—” His laugh cut her off. “Star potential?” He shook his head, his grin wide. “As I said to Mackenzie, I’m not interested in being a celebrity. Nor hosting a television show in the US.” Frankie’s mouth fell open. “But…” she began, at a loss. “But…” Alec laughed again, a low, relaxed chuckle that stroked over her senses. He dropped onto his side, stretching out beside her again to slide his hand over the length of her thigh, her hip and up to her ribcage. “I know this may be very hard for the owner and director of Kerpow Talent Management to understand,” Frankie’s eyebrows shot up at his mention of her agency’s name. How did he know what her company was called? “But I’m not remotely interested in fame and fortune.” She frowned at him, struck speechless. Her entire life had been spent surrounded by those who were famous, and those who hungered to be. Her parents—the extroverted king and queen of the entertainment industry that they were, God love them—had her convinced by the time she was five no other type of person existed. It wasn’t until she met Miki when she was eleven at the café Frankie’s mother ran as a tax dodge that she realized this wasn’t the case. In fact, if it wasn’t for Miki, and then later Grant and Dayne, Frankie could have quite possibly moved into adulthood thinking anyone not famous and rich were to be


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pitied. The irony that she’d moved into an industry that seemed solely focused on pampering the famous and infamous wasn’t lost on her. But with Alec’s looks, with his obvious talent, his already famous list of happy clients…hell, with a contract offer from the queen of US television how could he not see where the next step lead him? How could he not want it? And why, when her life’s work was all about getting that very it for her clients, was her heart so tight at the notion that he didn’t? Once again, Francesca Winchester, Alley Cat throws you for a bloody loop. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. She felt like she had to say something, but what? What did she say at this point? Do you know what’s being offered to you? Are you insane? I love you? It was Alec’s fingers brushing over the sensitive dip of her waist that jerked her away from the last thought. “My dad was a painter.” His voice was pensive, its deep timbre almost a rumble in his chest. “Not an artist painter, but a house painter. We scraped by on whatever work he could find, surviving job to job. He was good at what he did, very good, but he was too honest to make money in the building trade. Especially when the housing industry collapsed during the nineties.” He snorted a soft laugh, his fingers tracing a lazy line up the curve of her hip. “I remember him ranting often at the dinner table about this so-and-so or that so-and-so undercutting his quotes. ‘They water down their paint, boys’, he’d tell Mac and me, disgust clear on his face. ‘They water down their paint and stop at two coats when they quote three.’ He wouldn’t do that. It went against every moral, professional fibre in his body. He watched the crooks land job after job and stood by his ethics. As a kid who desperately wanted a new bike, I was pissed at him

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often for those ethics. It wasn’t until I was older, maybe fifteen, that I realized the value of them.” His gaze watched the journey his fingers were taking over Frankie’s hips, but something told her he was looking at something else. Maybe the bike he’d wanted so much? Maybe the man who’d refused to cheat those he worked for. Who refused to cheat himself? A shiver rippled over Frankie and she swallowed. How many times had she heard her own father gloat about ripping off one client or another growing up? Gloating about the deal he’d signed, about who got ‘bent over and shoved up the arse’ and who got ‘to suck the tit’? As a teenager, how many times had she felt uncomfortable listening to her mother laugh over his boasts? “‘Hard work never killed anyone, boys’,” Alec said, affecting a deeper, somehow gruff tone. “That was another of his favourites. ‘It’s not a disgrace to be poor, just an inconvenience’, was another.” Another chuckle escaped him and he gave her a quick look, a wry smile playing on his lips. “We were inconvenienced a lot while I was growing up. Well, until we won the lottery that was. Then we weren’t poor any more, but Dad still kept working. And he kept to his professional morals. The only thing that changed in our lives was the school Mac and I went to. Mum and Dad stayed the same. Hell, apart from the base model Toyota Corolla Dad bought Mum, I don’t think they even changed their cereal brand. But we were enrolled at Knox Grammar. They wanted the best for their sons, so they sent us to the best school money could buy. I never had the heart to tell them the first lesson I learnt there was what cheap money meant.” Frankie drew in a soft breath. She’d heard that term used by her parents a few times, especially after she’d spent an hour or two carrying on about how “bloody Alley Cat did it to me again” as mortified disbelief sliced at her wounded pride. Her parents had made their fortunes through hard work, hard


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work pimping the talented and talentless to a country obsessed with the notion of celebrity. The very industry she’d moved into herself. What a difference her life and Alec’s had been. So different. Worlds apart. She’d been handed everything she wanted on a silver platter—or, being that her father was the record-producer king of Australia, the platinum platter. Alec on the other hand had faced ridicule when that platter had landed in his lap thanks to a random collection of numbers and a twist of fate and luck. She licked her lips, wishing she could say sorry. “It didn’t worry me back then,” Alec said, as if knowing her very thoughts, “although Mum and Dad had been indignant I was never invited to after-school events or weekend parties. That their youngest son was ostracized upset them greatly—albeit quietly so. The Harris’s are, if nothing else, taciturn.” His attention returned to his hand on her body, his fingers drawing absentminded patterns up and down her waist. “I guess they realized their youngest son didn’t quite…mesh with the other kids at school. Mac fit in straight away so he never copped the same abuse, but then becoming best mates with Lachlan McDermott, Australia’s golden boy and heir to the McDermott Media Empire on the first day of school helped him.” He stopped, his fingers pausing on her skin for a moment. Frankie waited. She wanted to hear more. She needed to hear more. She needed to understand the man before her so much that her heart was one big aching knot of tight pain in her chest. She needed to understand because, no matter how much she tried to deny it, she was falling in love with him. Big time. Probably already was in love with him, God help her. “Mac and Lachlan tried to give me a leg-up at school.” The statement left Alec on a dry breath, his fingers resuming their journey over her waist. “During senior year I’d attended more than one social event at Rodney McDermott’s

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mansion, but I never really felt comfortable there. Too much money. Too much pressure.” “And yet here you are now,” Frankie said, her mouth still dry, her pulse a heavy thump in her temple, “a highly successful, highly sought-after landscape designer who, I’m guessing by this house, makes quite a comfortable income.” Alec shook his head, a wry chuckle rumbling in his chest. “My accountant used the word millionaire last tax time. Who would have thought it? I sure as shit didn’t.” You did, Frankie. But you could never get over your ridiculous pride and overinflated sense of importance to really see that, could you? You’d despised how he kept beating you, and loathed how you couldn’t stop thinking about him. God, what a piece of work you are, Francesca-Maree. Frankie looked at him, seeing the boy she’d known her entire high school life in the man lying beside her—a boy both grounded in a reality she’d never really had and thrust into a world of pretention and prejudice she’d known forever. That boy had pissed her off to no end—had challenged her and beaten her at everything she did to distance herself from the spoilt, rich brat deep down inside she’d feared she was. She’d hated him for that back then. Now she understood. And she felt horrible. So fucking horrible. And sick. “Fucking hell, I’m such a…a…moron.” Alec chuckled. “I wouldn’t say moron. Stubborn, maybe?” She scrambled off his bed, her gut twisted. “I have to go.” “You what?” She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. For all her peacocking about how much better she was than her shallow, superficial parents, for all her selfcongratulatory pats on the back for being so above the life she’d led, for all the


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kudos she gave herself for Playgrounds for Hope, the charity for disadvantaged kids she’d established the day she finished high school with the money her parents had given her as a graduation present, she’d been every bit the spoilt, indulgent brat she didn’t want to be when it came to Alec Harris. Shit, she’d given him an insulting nickname for fuck’s sake. She’d derided his successes and scorned his achievements, taking them all as a personal attack on herself. She’d scoffed at his situation and mocked his status when all the time he was being the very person she believed herself to be. Fuck, he didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve him. “Frankie?” She snatched her leather pants up from the floor, hugging them to her bare breasts as she searched for her shirt, her bra, her undies. Fuck it. They could stay here along with her boots. She couldn’t. She had to get away from him. Before she realized even more how completely shallow her existence was. How utterly and totally self-centered and superficial and— Strong fingers wrapped around her upper arm, pressing into her biceps with firm pressure. “What the hell is going on, Frankie?” “Nothing,” she mumbled, looking everywhere but at him. She shrugged herself out of Alec’s grip—or at least tried to. The bastard wouldn’t let her go. “Yeah, you running from my bedroom like I’m the devil is nothing.” His fingers grew harder on her arm and he pulled her to face him, his stare capturing hers. A frown creased his forehead, the expression part confusion, part irritation. “So after I just tell you everything about what was going on in my part of our backstory, you run off? What am I meant to think here? That you’ve realized you’ve just slept with the school loser? That I’m not good enough for you?” “No!” she burst out, her belly churning. “That’s not it at all.”

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His jaw bunched. “Well, I hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but that’s exactly what it feels like. You’ve just discovered my parents are blue-collar to the bone, That I was never one of the popular kids, and you’re running. You tell me what I’m meant to think?” “It has nothing to do with your parents!” She stamped her foot. “I mean, it does, but not…not like…damn it. I…” She looked away from him. Damn it, woman, say something! Tell him! “Care to explain what’s going on in that head of yours, Francesca?” She ground her teeth, giving him a flat glare. That the feel of his hand on her arm made the pit of her belly flutter and the junction of her thighs throb meant little. Yeah, right. “Nothing’s going on in my head.” He cocked an eyebrow at her rather self-insulting statement, the sides of his mouth twitching. She glared at him harder. Damn it, there he went again, making her so bloody…bloody….argh. So bloody… “Damn you, Alley Cat!” she burst out, shoving her hands to his chest and pushing him away when not a single adjective came to mind. “How do you always do this to me? Make me feel so goddamn pathetic?” He stared at her, his nostrils flaring. An unreadable expression fell over his face. “That’s not how I want to make you feel at all.” “How do you want to make me feel then, huh?” she snapped, chin jutted out, fists rammed to her hips. “’Cause at the moment, I’ve never been so fucking confused. Since meeting you at the party I’ve ranged from feeling like I was put on this planet to be your sexual slave, to believing I may actually be worth something, to finally realizing just how hollow and one-dimensional and trivial I am. And it’s your fault. If you didn’t come waltzing back into my life I wouldn’t


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be feeling so freaking messed up and confused and I hate hate hate feeling like that. I hate it. And as always, it’s your fucking f—” The rest of her raw, absurd accusation was silenced by Alec’s kiss. He’d been forceful with her more than once. He’d been gentle with her a time or two as well. But this kiss…this kiss was so sublime in its tender perfection she thought for sure her heart would stop. His lips brushed hers, his hands cupping her face with barely any contact at all. “I want to make you feel amazing,” he whispered against her mouth. “Because you are.” “No, I’m not,” she muttered. She should move away from him. She should. But she couldn’t. “Yes, you are. Stubborn at times, conceited, probably far too opinionated for your own good, likely to argue with just about anyone and everyone if they don’t agree with you, inclined to be showy and more than a touch snarky, probably inclined to drive too fast and drive me to distraction but amazing all the same.” He laughed, running his thumb over the line of her bottom lip. “I redesigned Nick Blackthorne’s Melbourne garden recently and, God knows how, but we got to talking about what the rich do with their money. He told me his agent was the invisible head of a charity for underprivileged kids and that single benevolent act gave him hope for the future. Said it made him believe the filthy rich can possess hearts and souls. I looked up Nick’s agent that night and you know who I discovered it was?” Frankie’s cheeks grew warm and she turned her head to the side, desperately wishing she could smack Blackthorn up the side of the head for revealing her secret. And feeling irrationally happy he’d revealed it to his landscaper. “Me,” she mumbled.

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Alec chuckled, returning her gaze to his face with a gentle lift of her chin. “You. The Gun. The woman I watched for six years all the way through school. I watched you laugh with Mikaila Drummond at so many inter-school events I think I could have drawn your smile while asleep. I listened to you speak passionately about confronting issues no spoilt rich kid would ever care about and saw the soul inside your flamboyant front. I saw you at your best and at your worst, Francesca Winchester. And Frankie—” he tilted her head up until she had no choice but to look at him, his eyes holding hers with an intensity she felt all the way to the tips of her toes, “—your worst isn’t going to make me run for the hills.” She stared at him, her throat so tight it hurt to draw breath. “How can you be so sure?” “You know why I kept beating you every time we faced off in school comps?” “Because you’re better than me?” It was meant to be a question, but for some reason she couldn’t help think it was the truth. Alec however, seemed to find her answer humorous. He shook his head with a grin. “No. I was showing off. Trying to impress the girl I was head over heels for.” Frankie’s belly flip-flopped. She gave him an exasperated glare. “You’re an idiot. I was always horrible to you.” He laughed again. “True. Do you remember the state public speaking finals award ceremony at the Sydney Opera House? I was this close to asking you out.” He held up his right hand between their faces, his thumb and index finger barely a centimeter apart. “You were standing alone by the buffet looking lost and confused and grumpy, and all I wanted to do was hold you. Well, and maybe kiss you.”


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She frowned, the thought of that lost possibility making her belly not just flip-flop, but flip-flop, twist in knots and churn like a washing machine. “Why didn’t you?” He gave her a wry smile. “Because I was an idiot. And a coward.” Frankie let out a ragged sigh. “And as much as I would have wanted to kiss you back, I probably would have laughed in your face.” Alec grinned again. “Probably.” Her chest squeezed tight at his response. God, she’d been such a cow. “You are too good for me, Alec. I’m shallow and selfish and way too willful. You deserve someone better.” “Do you see me walking away?” She shook her head. “Why do you like me?” His grin softened and he feathered his thumb over her bottom lip again. “There have only ever been two things I’ve wanted with one-hundred-percent conviction in my life. Two things. One I knew at a young age—to get my hands dirty designing and forging gardens from the beauty of nature. The other I knew the second I saw you all those years ago at the state debating championship, furious with me for proving your argument about ‘neighbours needing fences’ wrong. A teenage girl on the cusp of being a woman, burning so bright with life and passion and stubborn aggravation that I couldn’t think of anything else but you for weeks after. So many weeks in fact, I failed a math exam.” Frankie’s breath caught in her throat, her heart doing its best to slam its way to the same location. “What did you want, Alec? What is the other thing you onehundred percent knew you wanted? Even back then?” He pressed his forehead to hers, the corners of his eyes crinkling with a slow smile. “You. The first time I saw you, I knew I wanted to see you again. The next time I saw you, I knew for sure I wanted to get to know you better. And every

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time I saw you thereafter, that knowledge was reinforced. Reinforced so many bloody times that I eventually realized what I really wanted wasn’t just a chance to make you smile, but a life with you. A future with you. Forging pleasure from your happiness and giving it back to you tenfold.” He touched her lips with his thumb once more, his gaze holding hers. “You, Francesca. All of you. Even the argumentative, cocky bits.” She knew she should say something, do something. She knew she should. But she couldn’t. She was too stunned. And too damned deliriously happy. No, wait. Change that. There was something she could say. Something she’d never uttered to anyone before in her life. Something she needed to say to Alec right now. Right now and every day for the rest of her life. He brushed his lips over hers. “I love you, Frankie. So damn much if I had to sit a math exam now I’d fail.” His low but very clear confession slammed the wind from her lungs. She stared at him, her sex throbbing, her mouth dry, her lips parted. He loved her. Her heart thumped hard into her throat and her blood roared in her ears. He loved her. Holy fucking shit, he loved her. Her. She’d never felt so alive. So…so…shit, so gloriously, wonderfully real. And then it hit her what he’d done. With an exasperated groan, she punched her balled fists against his chest and sent him reeling back a step. “Damn you, Alley Cat.” She glared at him, slamming her fists to his chest until his legs collided with the bed and he dropped to his naked arse on the mattress. He gaped up at her. “What?” “You beat me to it again.” He burst out laughing, snared her hips with his hands and yanked her down on top of his body as he tumbled backward. “Should I say sorry?” She shook her head, straddling his hips. “Don’t you bloody dare.”


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She slid her pussy over the distended head of his cock, feeling his length grow against her. He gazed up at her, his eyes ablaze with desire, with love. The sight filled her with sheer, concentrated pleasure and she lowered her mouth to his and whispered against his lips, “This is one defeat I’m more than happy to accept.”

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About the Author

Lexxie’s not a deviant. She just has a deviant’s imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get darkly erotic romances with a twist of horror, sci-fi and the paranormal. When she’s not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie’s life revolves around her family, a husband who thinks she’s insane, a cat determined to rule the house, two yabbies hell-bent on destroying their tank and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever. Contact

Lexxie

at [email protected],

follow her

on

Twitter

http://twitter.com/lexxie_couper or visit her at www.lexxiecouper.com where she occasionally makes a fool of herself on her blog.

Look for these titles by Lexxie Couper

Now Available: Death, the Vamp and his Brother The Sun Sword Triple Dare Tropical Sin Exotic Indulgence (with Vivian Arend and Jess Dee) Savage Savage Retribution Savage Transformation

Coming Soon: Dare Me Whispers in the Night

Two men, one woman, one momentous dare

Triple Dare

© 2010 Lexxie Couper Serious and determined, Joseph Hudson isn’t Australia’s businessman of the year for nothing. So now he’s asking himself, how did he get himself lost on the side of a mountain in the Colorado Rockies—in the middle of winter—with night fast approaching? Three simple words. I dare you. Fear isn't in Rob Thorton's vocabulary. Life is for the taking, and Rob uses both hands. Challenging his best mate to take an impromptu snowboarding trip to the U.S. is just the latest in a lifetime of dares. Besides, he has an ulterior motive for the trip. And a plan… Park Ranger Anna McCarthy knows what trouble looks like, and it’s written all over the two Aussies she first encounters in the ski lodge. Instinct has her following them onto the mountain, and sure enough, they end up needing her winter survival expertise. But not even her skills can stop her body from responding to the sexy muscles she finds beneath their ski suits. Stuck in a remote cabin until the storm passes, the temperatures rise until all bets are off. And a double dare turns into a triple threat—to their hearts. Warning: Contains lots of scorching boy-on-girl-on-boy action, a heroine who knows what she wants and two sexy-arsed Australian heroes to really work up a sweat over. Oh, and a soul-deep love story with a revelation that may make you cry. Enjoy the following excerpt for Triple Dare: “So, you’re the one with the money.”

Her question, delivered in the form of a statement, sent a rush of warmth to his face. He hated talking about his money. True, he had a lot of it, a bloody lot of it, but it didn’t define him. “And Rob is the one without the sense,” she finished, the smile on her lips curling wider. She titled her head to the side, crossing her ankles in front of her. “Yeah, I can see that.” Despite himself, Joseph grinned. His cock lurched again in his trousers, enjoying their tête-à-tête almost as much as he was. He liked her dry wit. And her accent. A drawling caress of vowels and consonants that made him wish she’d say his name. “I guess I should ask your name,” he said, removing his own gloves and shoving them into his back pocket. “I should at least know who to address the thank you card to.” She laughed again, and Joseph decided there and then he could seriously become addicted to the soft, throaty sound. “Anna McCarthy. Your local saver of lost Australian lunatics, yeah, that’s me.” He cocked an eyebrow. “All Australian lunatics? Do you get many here?” Her direct grey gaze leveled on his face, a small smile playing with her lips. Lips he wanted to kiss. Soon. Real soon. “No, you’re my first. But depending how it goes tonight, I might have to find some more to save.” A low growl rumbled in Joseph’s chest at the idea of Anna McCarthy saving any other Australians but himself. “Hmm,” he said, “I think you’ll find saving Aussies is an exhausting, sweaty business.” She cocked her own eyebrow, the finely arched line of dark blonde hair moving up her forehead with smooth ease. “Is it now? Then perhaps I should take it slow to start with? Saving too hard and too quickly at this altitude could be hazardous to my health, is that what you’re saying?”

Pulse pounding in his ear, dick so hard he thought it was about to explode, he held her gaze with his own. “Too hard and too fast definitely not the way to begin. Slowly, steadily. An exploration of the terrain, followed by a wellexecuted penetration of the area, that’s the way to begin when saving an Aussie.” Her lips parted and Joseph could see the ragged way she drew breath into her body. “Then after the beginning it gets hard?” He unzipped his jacket and shucked it off, placing it on the seat beside him as he took a step closer to her. “It’s already hard. Very hard.” She swallowed. “Hard is good. I’m always up for a challenge. It’s why I like saving Aussies so much.” “Glad to hear that,” Rob said, stepping into the cabin and swinging the door shut behind him. He looked at them both over the armful of broken branches and twigs he held against his chest. “Wait. We’re talking about sex, aren’t we?” Anna held her breath, trying—in vain, she realized—to slow her heart rate down to something close to normal. Her pussy throbbed and pulsed and generally carried on in the most disturbing of ways, telling her in no uncertain terms she was horny. Damn horny. She swallowed again, her mouth dry, her throat thick. The sexual tension mounting between her and Joseph Hudson hadn’t abated a bit with Rob’s unexpected arrival. No, to the contrary, the moment he’d entered the cabin and made his presence known, she’d almost come there and then. She studied both of them, knowing one of them was going to make the first move. Joseph. Her gaze slid to the taller man, her pulse quickening when she looked at him. Damn, he was stunning. He made Brad Pitt look ugly. Not just tall and lean,

but broad shouldered and slightly scruffy, the bristles on his jaw and chin adding to the overall charm, the messy tumble of sandy-blond hair falling over his forehead heightening that charm until the crotch of her panties were sodden. Oh boy, Anna. You got it bad already. The loud thud of branches hitting the floor made her start, and she blinked, her gaze snapping to Rob just in time to see him remove his gloves and step over the pile of dead wood at his feet to close the distance between them. “Let me begin to show our appreciation for saving us,” he said, his fingers skimming her cheek as he cupped her jaw in his hand. A flutter of disappointment danced in her belly for a brief moment, like a hundred butterflies had suddenly taken flight, but she forgot it as soon as Rob’s lips brushed hers. The kiss was gentle and yet, at the same time electric. His breath mingled with hers, the tip of his tongue touching the inner edge of her bottom lip, a slow caress charting a path deeper into her mouth. She parted her lips, meeting his tongue with hers, her nipples growing hard, her pulse racing away from her. Oh… She’d been kissed before. Many times, in fact. As far as looks go, she knew she’d been generously smiled upon. But there was something about the Australian’s kiss…a delicate passion she hadn’t expected. Almost sad. The notion made her heart quicken. She moaned, the sound vibrating softly in her throat only to be swallowed by Rob’s kiss. He slid his hands up into her hair, his fingers tangling in the strands, her ponytail preventing him from doing anything more than hold her head. It didn’t matter. At this point, the feel of his lips on hers, his tongue on hers, was enough to make her pussy weep.

“Ah, fuck.” The growled curse scraped at the heated desire rolling through her. She pulled away from Rob’s kiss, her gaze moving to Joseph where he still stood at the chair. He stared at them both, his nostrils flaring, his jaw clenched tight. “Think we need to get some heat happening quickly,” Rob murmured, his hands slipping from her face as he turned back to his friend. Anna nodded, unable to find anything to say. Her body ached for more, set alight by Rob’s simple, tender kiss.

Falling for a hot guy is not in her plans. He’s got a different agenda.

Bound and Determined © 2011 Anara Bella

Nothing much ever happens in Forsythia Falls—except the only robbery anyone can remember, which leaves Asia Smith tied up in her grandmother’s antique shop. Just her luck, her rescuer turns out to be Marcus Thorne, the single most tempting morsel of male flesh she’s ever encountered. As he unties her knots, his touch sorely tests her resolve to avoid any involvement with the male species. A bestselling author, Marcus is used to women throwing themselves at him. Asia’s resistance to his charm is a whole new challenge, a temptation he has no intention of resisting. All he has to do is break down her defenses and get at the soft, willing woman he suspects is hiding inside. As chance—and her meddling grandmother—throw them together, Asia tries to remember why she shouldn’t just follow her friends’ advice to jump on Marcus and ride him until she can’t see straight. In one storm-swept night, she throws caution to the wild wind and savors pleasures she’d almost forgotten. Except some old hurts just won’t stay in the past. Marcus peels away her inhibitions with sizzling ease. But now comes the biggest challenge of all— winning her trust. Warning: This book contains a resistant damsel in distress, a sexy-as-hell hero who can cook, adventures with rope, great food, and oodles of red-hot sex. Enjoy the following excerpt for Bound and Determined: The next time she was tied up, it would only be because it was her idea.

Asia Llewellyn Smith squirmed around trying to find a more comfortable position, but no matter what she did it just wasn’t happening. She moved this way and that, contorted herself into every conceivable position until she felt like a pretzel, but nothing worked. With a frustrated groan, she gave up on the comfort thing and flopped back against the wall. What the hell should she do? Her gaze scanned the immediate vicinity but there wasn’t much to see. Trussed up like a pig ready for roasting on a spit, all she could do was take in what was directly in front of her—the backside of the cash register counter in her grandmother’s antique shop. Since she’d already checked it out thoroughly, she knew there wasn’t anything of use back here. Of course, that didn’t stop her from scouring the cubbyholes again, as if by sheer force of will something helpful would miraculously appear. But no, the slots still only held the usual paraphernalia needed for cashing out customers. It didn’t take a genius to know that neither blank receipts, paper, pens, nor ribbon were going to help her out of her current predicament. Not unless she could set fire to the paper with her nonexistent laser-beam vision and burn the ropes off her wrists. All without burning her hands to a crisp or setting the store on fire. Yeah, right. And to make matters worse, dust balls, lint and flakes of paper taunted her with their unwanted presence. Who knew it was this dirty in the back corners of these stupid cubbyholes? She made a mental note to give them a good cleaning first chance she got and refocused on looking for something that might help her escape these damned ropes. But nope. Nada. No way. Wasn’t happening.

The only thing that might have helped was the pair of scissors lying just out of reach on the countertop. But since she couldn’t stand, they may as well have been in Timbuktu for all the good they did her up there. “Damn it.” In a sudden burst of complete exasperation, she wriggled and twisted her wrists and ankles with frenzied frustration until the pain from the ropes digging in was almost intolerable. With a final freaked-out flourish she gave up and threw herself back against the wall. If she ever got her hands on the creep who’d robbed the store and tied her up, he’d be sorry he’d ever stepped foot in the door. And damn it all to hell, the stupid ropes were still digging in, as tight now as they’d been the last time she’d tried to loosen them a couple of minutes ago. She ignored the tiny voice that said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different outcome. After all, it wasn’t crazy to try to get oneself free. It’d be crazy not to. She slumped as much as she was able to in her current awkward position and tried to use her brain instead of her nonexistent brawn. Think, girl. Think. Maybe if she screamed her head off, someone walking past the store would hear her this time. It was certainly worth a try. She took a deep breath, preparing to belt out the mother of all cries for help when the friendly tinkling of the bell over the front door of Astrid’s Antiques rang out. Thank God. The cavalry had arrived. “Hello! Is somebody there? I need some help over here!” There was a slight pause and then, “Hello? Where are you?” Oh no. Why’d it have to be him? Would nothing go her way today? She gritted her teeth as the deep, ultra-sexy voice tripped down her spine, zapping

awake feelings she thought she’d conquered long ago. The fact that she wasn’t the least bit interested in feeling these kinds of feelings didn’t matter because there they were doing the fandango in her chest anyway. She clamped down on the unwanted sexual awareness with a firm determination only two years of relentless stomping could accomplish. One thing she knew for sure, men were definitely overrated. At least that’s what she kept telling herself. For a moment, she was tempted not to say anything back to her would-be savior just so she didn’t have to face him in her current predicament. Fleeting hope rose. Hell, he might even go away without looking for her. She pondered which was worse. Being hog-tied by a petty criminal or having this guy find her all trussed up? She closed her eyes and for a moment wished the earth would swallow her whole. And then she relented. Like it or not, being freed was more important than the humiliation of being caught in this totally stupid, embarrassing situation. It still took her two tries to get the words out. “Over here. Behind the cash register.” The sound of solid footsteps got closer until a handsome face, complete with square-cut jaw and electric-blue eyes peered over the top of the counter. “My God, what happened?” Oh, hell. Even in her current jam, the man’s sex appeal zapped her right between the eyes. Just like it always did. The passage of time didn’t seem to lessen the impact either. No matter how many times she saw him. He was gorgeous beyond belief. In a rough-hewn, too-yummy-for-words sort of way that looked just as good in a suit as it did in well-worn jeans.

If you liked that kind of look, that is. Which she most assuredly did not. At all. Nuh-uh, not her. She stomped on the lone dissident voice manifesting itself as a flicker of lust in her belly. Who needed men anyway? Annoyed she’d had to snuff lustful thoughts out of her head in the first place, she snapped back to attention and stiffened her spine. Metaphorically speaking that is, since she couldn’t move much so her literal spine was going to have to stay all wonky for the time being. “What do you think happened? I was robbed.” Whoa, that came out snarky. Marcus Thorne sure did have a tendency to bring out her bitchy side. Actually, all gorgeous men had that effect on her at the best of times and this wasn’t even close to the best of times for her. But Marcus got under her skin more than any other guy ever had. He put her on red alert with a vengeance every time she saw him. Yep, Mr. Hunkorama was the last person she wanted to see. Ever. And her current vulnerable state only served to make her bad mood worse. This was turning out to be one hell of a day. Starting with the coffee she’d spilled all over her morning paper right up to being robbed at gunpoint and trussed up like a calf ready for branding. And as if all of that weren’t enough, her nose itched. Not just a little bit mind you, but enough to make her eyes water. And no way in hell was she asking him to scratch it. She’d let her nose fall off first. She sighed. Yep, one hell of a day. She was uncomfortable, embarrassed and just plain mad as a stepped-on hornet. Way beyond trying to be nice to anyone. Even someone who was going to save her ass. Not when the would-be hero turned out to be the one man who was a chink in her armor. The single most tempting morsel of male flesh she’d ever

encountered in her entire life. Bar none. To say she resented the effect he had on her with all her being was putting it mildly. Hunky Boy hurried around the counter and knelt beside her. He either didn’t notice her caustic tone or chose to ignore it.

Suck and Blow

Suck and Blow

Suck and Blow

Suck and Blow

Jeff Beck - Blow by Blow

You Suck

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You Suck

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Men suck

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Death Blow

Killing Blow

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Suck and Blow

Suck and Blow

Suck and Blow

Suck and Blow

Jeff Beck - Blow by Blow

You Suck

Blow Fly

Killing Blow

Blow Fly

Killing Blow

Killing Blow

Killing Blow

Killing Blow

Killing Blow

Blow Fly

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Blow Fly

Killing Blow

You Suck

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Men suck

Suck This

You Suck

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Suck This!

Blow Fly

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Death Blow

Killing Blow

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