Anything But Vanilla
Madelynne Ellis
One girl, two guys, no strings.Lusting after more than ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? ‘Anything But Vanilla’ is the perfect read for you.Kara North is on the run. Fleeing from her controlling fiancé and a wedding she never wanted, she accepts the chance offer of refuge on Liddell Island, where she soon catches the eye of the island’s owner, erotic photographer Ric Liddell.But pleasure comes in more than one flavour when Zachary Blackwater, the charming ice-cream vendor also takes an interest, and wants more than just a tumble in the surf. Zach offers her warmth that she never felt from her fiancé, and soon it’s not just the ice cream that’s melting.When Kara learns that the two men have been unlikely lovers for years, she becomes obsessed with the idea of a threesome. Soon Kara is wondering how she ever considered committing herself to just one man.
ANYTHING BUT VANILLA
Madelynne Ellis
(http://bit.ly/KqDOG3)
Table of Contents
Title Page (#ucb8ec6fd-59bc-519d-9f2b-ca982eb554d1)
Chapter One (#u903dd8f9-c469-56d5-a7f3-255871c89c91)
Chapter Two (#u14242743-91f5-5702-9a07-203060a06fbb)
Chapter Three (#u00aa6a86-1906-5aa9-b0b3-0ad6e193c3f5)
Chapter Four (#u09d9443c-2006-52e1-80e0-b44efc025d1d)
Chapter Five (#u9edcd293-d22f-58e1-b626-82d5d070548c)
Chapter Six (#ueae678fb-59a4-5932-ae45-c5e442d28791)
Chapter Seven (#ube2da095-b8ce-5fb1-acba-874202ec67ac)
Chapter Eight (#u2e797666-6dd5-5032-9e60-4377dd4316f3)
Chapter Nine (#u18c84ba9-1051-50a0-af33-84518a01397e)
Chapter Ten (#u186d75da-0718-5b03-aea6-411ecd94e280)
Chapter Eleven (#ub86dd554-2cad-5de1-856e-5ab876968a15)
Chapter Twelve (#ub42cf507-e7ee-5a3e-b87c-2cf3b95bb496)
Chapter Thirteen (#u64c79a6b-7498-5546-97c5-4a657fbeec7f)
Chapter Fourteen (#ue46018bb-303c-52fb-887e-5ef306e8c9eb)
Chapter Fifteen (#u84411a9c-cf15-5bf4-af62-8a7c904bd9ed)
Chapter Sixteen (#u659000bd-0ee6-5791-9e63-bf2d8d288385)
Chapter Seventeen (#u35981dda-07a1-575b-9046-23845b473728)
Chapter Eighteen (#u1f0b945d-3ec7-5c59-9806-f94dcc79ff49)
More from Mischief (#u97cdda48-21ae-5225-a47d-dc69acadd14e)
About Mischief (#u427f7920-10c6-5e9d-9107-d558b359b611)
Copyright (#uc675b50a-bb30-5659-b50b-9c90571da2fe)
About the Publisher (#u4e74effe-2618-53fd-a3e9-7f4c939f3424)
CHAPTER ONE
If she’d thought about it, then it might have happened differently. Kara didn’t think. She acted. That was why she stood crushed against the railing bordering the canal with her knickers around her ankles. The sweet caress of cool air barely had time to stir against her skin before two warm fingers had replaced it. A thumb swept the line of her slit, driving her up on to toes that were already squashed into ultra-high heels. Hell, that was good. Relief swept through her muscles, replacing the tension there with sweet, sweet bellyache. She needed this. Needed it so much she was hard pressed not to grab hold of his hand and mash the whole lot against her clit. Instead, she writhed against the tease, determined to manipulate his fingers into the exact spot she needed them.
‘Eager for this, aren’t you?’ She felt his smile rather than saw it, as he mouthed along the edge of her jaw. He had an interesting smile, a bit too big and more than a little wolfish. It was that grin that made her pause long enough to accept the drink he offered her, and then to accept being tugged out on to the dance floor, where they’d bumped and ground their way into companionable bliss. When they’d walked outside, it hadn’t mattered who led, or that they’d practically spoken in monosyllables all night. Thumping club hits tended to transform anything more eloquent into a series of ‘eh?’s and ‘what?’s. Body language was key. Body language was all that mattered now.
‘Less talk,’ Kara barked. There’d been too much talk in her life the last few days. She drove her mouth hard against his lips, ready to worship their generous curves. His perfect cupid’s bow moulded to her wide mouth with charming precision. In response, he pressed into her, connecting them from chest to shin save for a little space occupied by his questing hand.
Back and forth, his thumb continued to sweep, until her moisture coated his fingers and turned the motion into a glide. She might be insane for this, but by God he knew how to treat her right. Her clit perked up, hard as a nut, until it was peeping from between the lips of her pussy all desperate for some direct action rather than the elusive pulls on the skin around it.
‘Oh, now what have we here?’ Mirth flashed from the depths of his eyes as he circled her pearl as though he were drawing a thread around it. ‘Could it be I’ve found something important?’
Oh, lord! He’d found it all right. Damn, it was almost too sweet to tolerate.
Intense arousal flushed Kara’s face. Her own need was a metallic taste in her mouth, sharp and bitter like freshly cut lime. Her nipples poked up against the fabric of her dress, desperate for a share of the action.
Jack – was it Jack? She’d never really caught his name over the pounding bass inside the club – cupped one breast. He mouthed the nipple through her dress and bra until all that remained of her was ache and need.
‘Enough with the tease.’
His eyes shone with the fact that he was on to a winner. ‘What tease would that be?’ The devil slid two fingers into her as he spoke, provoking a groan. ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to be lazy.’
‘What I want,’ she said smiling back at him, ‘is for you to put that pretty mouth of yours to better use.’
‘Yeah?’ His wing-like eyebrows briefly lifted. The quick flicker of boyish adulation in his eyes was ridiculously endearing.
Kara wrenched aside the materials covering her breast and guided his head into place. His breath tickled her skin first, then the tip of his tongue, before he fell to working the whole nipple. ‘Yes, yes, just there. Harder,’ she insisted, as she wove her fingers into the back of his hair. With a mouth this good, no way was she letting him escape. She could only imagine how his mobile lips and that tongue would feel against her clit. As it was, a spark stream now connected her nipple to her cunt, where his hand continued to work. Hell, much more of this and he’d bring her off before he ever got anything out of it.
Jack seemed to realise that too. He shook his head to dislodge her grip and shifted his feet so that he could rub up against her hip. She supposed it was quite a subtle move in the scheme of things; there was certainly something enticing about having him writhe against her like that. His erection lay like a sturdy brand behind his fly, already one hundred per cent ready to satisfy. It had to be uncomfortable all caged up like that, which just made her like him all the more for not taking his hands off her to ease his own discomfort.
‘Let me,’ Kara insisted. She might be many things, fricking crazy, jobless, homeless as of 7.30 this morning and tipsy as fuck, but to her way of thinking sex was definitely about give and take. Otherwise you might as well cosy up with a vibe and a good book.
Jack made no protest. She grabbed him hard around the arse, grinned in delight as his muscles tightened. He was tall and big-boned, but sleek as a panther beneath his black jeans and equally black top. The sort of man whom you could imagine creeping across the rooftops as a cat burglar or delivering boxes of Milk Tray. Not the sort of rogue that normally wetted her knickers. Fuck, but he tasted more delicious than any chocolate, peppery and citrous, mingled with the sharp tang of salt. It took a moment to release his buckle, less time to open his fly and expose his cock. Kara palmed him through his briefs, teasing him in the way he’d tormented her.
She couldn’t keep it up, much as she wanted to make him sweat. She was too antsy and he was already close, that much was evident from the sharp noise he made in the back of his throat when her fist tightened around his shaft. The reflection of the fairy lights strung from the trees lining the quayside glinted in the depths of his eyes. She watched their sparkle a moment, until his eyelids drooped. ‘You got something?’
His eyes snapped open immediately. ‘Back pocket. Think you can reach it?’
She copped another good feel of his butt as she wrestled the foil from his pocket.
‘Want to do the honours?’ he asked.
‘You betcha.’ She was going to go stark raving crazy if she didn’t get him inside her soon. Jack – Jack who was showing the first traces of a shadow around his jaw and who was going to feel fucking amazing inside her.
Jack sagged against her shoulder as she split the wrapper. The curve of his lips clove to the pulse point in her neck. He nibbled, began to suck. Damn! Kara bit her lip. It was difficult to concentrate when he was distracting her like that. Still, she took her time dressing him. She liked that he didn’t rush her, which meant she got to explore his whole length as she rolled the sheath into place. His cock curved sabre-like towards his body. He was uncut, the skin drawn back like a collar around the silky-smooth tip. A small tattoo of a pentacle occupied the space just below his right hip, the ink dark against the white of his skin. If there was time and somewhere comfortable – if, if, if. She wanted to explore him more thoroughly, get him properly naked. Suddenly it was important to see if the brown thatch of hair around his groin extended upwards. She followed the silky trail to his navel, shoved his ribbed T-shirt out of the way to see the rest. Golden-brown hairs circled his nipples and filled all the space between. Beneath that sign of masculinity he was tautly muscled and every bit as sleek as his outfit suggested. Part of her actually longed to step back and admire him. If she commanded him to stay would he do it? Would he stand exposed against the iron railings, with the dark, mirrored surface of the canal behind him, and let her gorge herself on the visual feast of him? Hairy men turned her on. It didn’t matter if was an unruly mass of curls upon a man’s head or just thick tawny hairs upon his arms. There was something exciting about a man with some body hair, particularly a good-looking one. So many of them shaved or waxed.
She was so done with Mr Metrosexual.
Jack, perhaps sensing a growing distance between them, shimmied right up close to her, and bent his head so they were looking into one another’s eyes on a level. ‘Ready?’
Like hell they were, she had no idea how they were going to accomplish anything in this position.
‘Hold yourself on the railings.’
Kara grasped the blue-painted metal. She gave a screech and a giggle as Jack hoisted her off her feet and dealt with her knickers. She guessed she was going home bare as they floated away on the canal. She wrapped her legs around him as he lined them up. They were in a public place, but there was nothing coy about his actions. No hesitation and definitely no embarrassment as his cock bucked eagerly at her entrance. That lack made her cheeks colour a little for both of them.
‘Tell me.’ He held them mere millimetres apart. ‘Tell me exactly how you want it.’
Was he a talker, or just making sure he stayed out of trouble? She could hardly cry coercion if she’d begged him for it.
Kara squeezed around his hips with her thighs, dragging them a fraction closer together. ‘I want you to fuck me.’
‘No – I never would have guessed that.’
Sarky bugger. Shit! He’d probably drop her over the railings into the canal if she admitted any of the stuff in her head, like visions of nipple clamps and chaining him to the railings. Surely the only things that mattered here were that he turned her on and she needed him. The whys and wherefores were irrelevant; the bounty of her inner life more so.
‘Nothing more than that to say?’ he queried, lifting one of his wing-like brows again. ‘You just want me to slide up and fill your cunt.’ The way he said cunt made her literally ache with need. ‘You’re not after anything flashy, just a straight hard fuck.’ He delivered as he punctuated the last word, filling her up so completely it took her body a moment to respond to the shock. Heavenly didn’t come close to describing it. It just felt right – so goddamned incredibly right. She clamped tight to his body as he drew back to give her what she’d apparently asked for. ‘You know, I’m kind of surprised. I never took you to be such a vanilla kind of girl.’
He was right. She so wasn’t. What sort of strait-laced girl fucked a stranger up against the backdrop of the murky canal? Why had it taken her so long to admit that to herself, instead of constantly trying to be good?
‘So why don’t you tell me what really gets you off? Shall I pretend I’m a vampire and sink my teeth in? Do you like a fingertip in your arse?’
‘Hold me tighter.’ Their position meant they were already pretty much jammed together with no space between. Kara bent her head to his ear. She mouthed around the lobe before breathing the words. ‘Come and then I want to lick you clean.’
The muscles in his face tightened into a grin, and then he picked up her and the pace again, pounding into her like it was a race they had to win.
Kara continued to mouth the side of his neck where the skin was thinnest and his pulse raced just below the surface. He was slippery and hard between her thighs. Her clit, already prepped by his earlier teasing, shot out darts of pleasure each time he made a forward thrust. Why wasn’t it always this good? Why could she only get this sort of relief with a stranger in a seedy venue? Why hadn’t her life worked out, and did that matter when she could get sex this good?
‘Ooohh!’ The buzz built and suddenly burst. She screamed, panted, scored a few lines across his back. He continued to fill her up the whole while, until the moment passed and she realised he was still hard and hadn’t come.
Kara shook herself free of his arms. She knelt down on the quayside. Took a little risk – what the heck – and closed her mouth over the length of him. She’d said she was going to lick him clean. Well, instead she was going to suck him off.
The plan met with no resistance from Jack. Nah, his knees buckled a bit, but he had some handy railings to cling to, which was good, because she wasn’t letting him go. He tasted too nice: part her, part him, the whole ridiculously sexy.
Kara steadied herself, with one palm flat against his inner thigh, the other wrapped around the base of his cock. She liked that he wasn’t too long. He was nicely proportioned and she got one hell of a kick out of roving her tongue over the flare of the head and tickling the sweet spot just below the eye. When he started trying to claw at her hair in order to drag her closer, she worked with the roll of his hips.
‘You’re good at this. Oh, sweetheart.’ His knuckles were white against the vivid blue railing.
‘Are you going to come?’ she asked, grinning up at him in a facetious manner.
‘So close.’
They were back to the depth of discourse they’d shared inside the club. ‘I want to watch.’ Actually, not just watch. She wanted to watch and do. Kara rose and stood beside him with her back to the railing. She cupped his length with one hand and shoved her other hand inside her skirt so that she could rub herself in time with the thrust of his cock through the ring of her fingers. The low-level spark of her previous orgasm rekindled immediately. They almost raced. Who could cross the finish line first? Who could ejaculate the furthest? OK, he won hands down on that one. He was beautiful as he came, his face kind of screwed up and tortured looking, eyes closed, teeth gritted, as if he was doing something painful or hideous. Yet in those few moments he belonged to her totally.
Jack opened his eyes and stared at her. ‘You’re a dirty minx,’ he scoffed as he watched her give in to a minor explosion. The second big O of the day just never lived up to the first. Then he hitched up his jeans and tucked his cock out of sight. ‘Got somewhere to go?’ he asked. By which he meant: let’s continue this somewhere more comfortable.
‘Yeah – yeah, I have. I’m good.’ She dropped a kiss upon the tip of his nose, backed off, then returned to press another to those delicious lips of his. Then Kara was off, trotting across the tarmac back towards the club. She couldn’t face an awkward parting in the morning; better that they went separate ways now. And she definitely wasn’t looking for a relationship. No way. Not for a good long time.
‘Hey, where are you going?’ He moved forward as if he were about to jog after her.
Kara laughed and waved. ‘Back to my wedding party.’ She hoped he got the emphasis on my. The girls were probably scouring the dance floor for her by now. Being tipsy and high on the aftermath of awesome sex meant she could just about tolerate the thought of being found. As far as celebrations went, this one sucked, and sucked in a truly pointless, ridiculous way. It wasn’t a hen night, a point on which she’d had to correct several people. It was the fill-in party for what ought to have been her wedding night and an orgy load of sex in a hotel room before jetting off to Hawaii. Only Gavin David ‘Tosspot’ Covey had gone and ruined that by being a clingy control freak who insisted on knowing her whereabouts 24/7. More importantly, instead of apologising when she’d called the wedding off, he’d gawped at her in horror over the deposits they’d lose. No way was she signing up for a lifetime with him. She hoped the plane carrying him and Gemma – you are so not my best friend considering how fast you jumped in to console him – over the Atlantic was hit by lightning and dropped out of the sky. It seemed appropriate punishment somehow, except that she didn’t want to hurt anyone else on board so maybe they’d have to accidentally fall out of an open door or something.
Damn! And now her good mood was gone. Time to reinstate it with alcohol. A lone tear trickled down her face as she slipped back into the nightclub via the fire exit. At least she’d just had the most glorious sex she’d had in months, far better than that painting-by-numbers crap she’d been enduring with Gavin.
‘Hey, Kara, there you are.’ Her sister clamped a hand tight around her arm. ‘You’ve about thirty drinks lined up.’
She hoped that was Karen’s usual exaggeration.
‘Come and play catch up.’
* * *
Kara woke disoriented in an unfamiliar room. Sunlight so bright she could barely open her eyes flooded in through sheet-glass walls that surrounded her on three sides. Where the hell? For a horrible moment she feared she’d taken up some fool on his offer and ended up in his bed. Only there didn’t appear to be anyone beside her. Kara shook her head to try and dislodge the grogginess. Slowly her vision corrected. Karen’s place – she was in her sister’s conservatory, huddled beneath a throw on the garden swing they’d brought inside for the winter. No wonder nausea bubbled in her stomach like she’d swallowed poison. She’d been swinging in a hammock all night, and she was always travel sick.
The wail of her phone that had woken her compounded the ache in her head. Kara flailed around and eventually wrestled it out from the pile of discarded clothes she must have torn off in the dark. Not Gavin, she prayed, as she unlocked the phone screen. She never wanted to speak to him again. She’d already deleted his number but that was no guarantee that he’d done the same.
Christopher, the caller ID flashed up. ‘What do you want, baby brother?’ she croaked. Her throat was drier than a carton of crispy fried squid.
‘Oh good, you are still alive.’
Kara resisted the urge to tell him to fuck the hell off and opted instead to swallow the water she’d had foresight enough to bring to bed with her last night, but not wits enough left at the time to drink. Didn’t he realise she was off limits today, pre-booked for wallowing in a post-my-wedding-didn’t-happen party haze?
‘I heard a rumour that you and Karen crawled in around dawn.’
Fell, was more accurate. They’d only crawled after they tripped over the doormat. Thinking of which, boy, did her knees ache. Karen really needed to get a rug to put over those tiles. ‘What did you want?’ While it was entirely possible he’d called merely to be vindictive, even that couldn’t explain the hint of excitement in her brother’s voice.
‘I got the job.’ He gave a pause so she could make appropriate noises. ‘I’m off to New Zealand for twenty-six weeks to work on that sci-fi flick I’ve been talking about. Plus, I’m focus puller not clapper loader.’
Kara pulled a cushion over her head and settled down again. The pillow smelled faintly musty, like a caravan that had been locked up for too long. However, it did allow her to open her eyes without being dazzled. The conservatory had already reached temperate and was headed for blistering within another forty minutes or so. ‘Does that mean you get to operate the camera rather than just load the film?’ she asked. Chris had explained the various camera-related roles dozens of times, but she’d never yet assimilated the facts beyond something to do with angles, trajectories and making the images crisper. ‘That’s wonderful! Great news.’ Faking exuberance only compounded her headache. ‘Couldn’t you have waited until this evening to tell me?’
‘Oh, are you hung over?’ he crowed. ‘And no, it couldn’t wait.’ The line crackled and she guessed he was in the car on loudspeaker. ‘I’ve a flight to catch. I’m on my way to the airport now, and you haven’t heard the best bit yet.’
An enormous yawn stretched Kara’s jaw as she closed her eyes and tried to relax her brain while she waited to make appropriate ‘wow’ noises over whichever major star he was going to be working with. Unless he was about to offer her a job as chief pamperer to Johnny Depp and throw in a ticket to New Zealand, this absolutely could have waited.
‘You know that place I was looking at,’ Christopher said instead, which surprised her into jolting upright, and caused the swing to start rocking. Kara bounced against the cushions and dry heaved.
‘I didn’t get it, but it’s OK, because I found somewhere else that’s twice as good.’
‘That’s great,’ she said. Somehow she managed to disentangle one foot from the throw and place it on the floor, thus bringing the swing to a tremulous halt. ‘So, you’ve bought a house but you’re flying to New Zealand.’ Hopeless timing was obviously a genetically wired family trait.
‘It’s a barn rather than a house, and it’s on an island.’
‘You mean like Lindisfarne or the Isle of Wight?’
‘Nah, smaller. More like St Michael’s Mount only with fewer tourists. It’s called Liddell Island. It’s less than a mile across.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘It’s just off the coast.’
Well, duh, she’d figured that. Where else was it going to be? She couldn’t see him moving to the Norfolk Broads.
‘Listen, K. I’ve got all the paperwork done. I just need you to pick up the keys for me. You’ll do that, right? You don’t mind.’
Of course she did. She’d rather not get out of bed today. Although, considering how much said bed kept moving, rising might not be such a bad plan. ‘Yes, I’ll do it. Just tell me where.’ She gave a sigh.
‘Thanks, Kara. Look, it needs a bit of work. I figured you could hang out there and fix it up while I’m away.’
She ought to have known there’d be more to this than just collecting some keys. Chris had a talent for layering things. He’d get you to agree to one thing and next thing you knew you were signed up for a month of hell. She was about to turn him down when he uttered the magic words. ‘I’ll pay you.’ That put an entirely different spin on things. Decorating was hardly her favourite pastime, but … ‘It has to be better than hanging out at Karen’s or going back to mum’s, right?’ Exactly, anything, bar being locked in a room with Gavin, was better than occupying a room in the family home. And since she was homeless – having sold her place to live with Gavin – and jobless – plain old economic downturn – this was likely the best offer coming her way.
‘All right. I said I’d do it. Give me some directions and tell me where to get the keys from.’ She jotted down some notes on the edge of the TV guide as Chris went through the details.
‘You’ll need to check the tide timetable before you make the crossing. The causeway floods at high tide for several hours. Once you’re on the island, you pick the keys up from Alaric Liddell at the fort.’
‘Little of Little Island,’ she joked.
‘Liddell,’ Chris corrected.
‘Yeah, I got it.’ Kara grimaced at the phone. ‘The Liddell king of the castle.’
On the other end of the line, Chris huffed. ‘Now you’re just being silly. Besides, it’s a fort, not a castle. Don’t you know the difference? I thought you did history.’
‘Evidently I missed the lesson on forts.’ Just as he’d missed the lesson on humour. ‘Is there anything else I need to know?’
‘Not that I can think of. Listen, I’m coming up to the turnoff for the airport. Skype me about the house and what needs doing and I’ll transfer you the money. Try and get there without flushing the car away. Talk to you later.’
‘Will do. Bye.’
He hung up without muttering a corresponding farewell.
‘Was that Chris?’ Karen wafted in straight from the shower smelling of lime and carrying two mugs of tea. She passed one over to Kara. ‘I had to get up. Mum phoned to nag me about you. She wants you over there later so you can have a talk. She’s still pissed off at you about the wedding.’
‘Yeah, I got that even though Gavin’s the controlling twerp, it’s still all my fault that the wedding is off. I think she actually suggested that I didn’t look after him right. Like if I baked him apple pie every night and did as I was told there wouldn’t be a problem.’
Karen’s face wrinkled in sympathy. Her lips made a tight pout. ‘I know. You don’t have to convince me. I went out with you last night to commiserate, didn’t I? That and I’ve already told you I think you were right to call it off, but you know how mum is. She was all geared up for the big day and now she’s disappointed because she doesn’t get to don her Donna Karan suit and flaunt it in front of your new in-laws. Give her time and let her have her rant. Deep down I’m sure she knows it was the only choice you had.’
It was bleeding typical of her family that everyone was worried over their mother’s disappointment and not the wreckage Gavin had made of her life. Kara scowled into her tea cup. Perhaps Chris had done her more of a favour than she’d initially thought. There was sure to be a downside – where her brother was concerned there always was, like she’d discover his new house was roofless – but anywhere would be an improvement on here.
‘Kara, I’m sorry I can’t offer you a bed here, but you know there’s not space,’ Karen started awkwardly. ‘Andrew will be back in an hour with the kids. You’re going to have to stay at mum’s.’
‘It’s OK. Chris has offered me his place.’
‘Isn’t Richard there?’
Kara shrugged and let Karen think that she was holing up with their brother’s on-off live-in lover at his rented apartment. Doing a disappearing act seemed like a grand plan. Isolating herself on Liddell Island, cut off from the mainland by the tide for hours at a time, suddenly gained magical appeal. No one would know her. She’d be able to wipe the slate clean and begin again. Maybe even have some fun. She’d made that promise to herself last night.
Karen sat hunched in her dressing gown, with her palms curled around her cup. She opened her mouth twice and closed it, before blowing the steam off her tea. ‘Where’d you disappear to last night? You were gone ages.’
‘Was I?’
‘You know you were. Was it that guy you were dancing with?’
Kara shrugged. ‘Dunno what you’re implying. Who was he?’ In God’s honest truth she couldn’t recall his name. Her memories of him were all of raw sensations, but his appearance she could only recall in the loosest sense – broad brushstrokes forming a rudimentary sketch. She probably ought to regret that, since he’d been a damn good lay.
‘Let me have a shower and then I’ll be off,’ she said, leaving her sister to brood over whatever folly she believed Kara had committed. So she’d had a one-night stand. Big deal! Get over it. She was a single girl and as long as her actions didn’t hurt anyone, then what was the problem with her having a little fun? Or even a lot of it.
CHAPTER TWO
The sky had turned indigo and the weather gloomy by the time Kara reached the Devon coastline and saw Liddell Island rising like a Titan’s throne from the ocean. A zing of anticipation jigged beneath her skin as she gazed across at its ridge of rocky spires. Karen had once said that their brother had OD’d on Dracula at too young an age and one glance at Liddell Island only confirmed that. It was a little piece of Transylvania stuck out in the ocean.
After two hundred metres of sea spray that necessitated having the windscreen wipers on full, the causeway broadened on to a shingle bay. Kara pulled up and got out of the car. A quick recce showed that the only building was locked up for the night, so she had no choice but to brave the upward trek to the fort. Orange residue stained the looming cliff face as she climbed along a gravel track. To her left a thick rope supported by iron staves formed the only barrier between her and a sheer drop. The situation worsened at the top, where a rope bridge provided the only means of crossing a vast gorge. ‘Bloody hell!’ She was going to kill Chris the next time she saw him. Kara wobbled across the bridge without looking down, only to be greeted by gargoyles and a nearly sheer flight of steps.
By the time she’d staggered to the top, ducked the portcullis, found the bell pull and rung it with all her might, she was out of breath and ready for a nice sit down. Hopefully, the owner might take pity. Then again, considering the old-fashioned iron-pinned door she was facing, she half expected Igor to answer.
Instead, the barking of dogs chorused the arrival of the human inhabitant.
‘Toby! Horace!’ A male voice boomed over the patter of paws on the floor tiles. Kara blinked into the yellow light that shone out of the open door. ‘Good evening. Are you lost?’ A bare-chested man stood before her.
Kara gave a little croak. OK, Christopher was forgiven. Whatever she’d been expecting – crooked little old man – it wasn’t this.
Long blond hair fanned over the top of his shoulders and rested at the top of his tattooed biceps.
‘The causeway’s crossable now, though I’d recommend a torch,’ he remarked without even looking at her. He released one of the huge dogs, whom he had by the collar, in order to plunge his hand into a box of LED keychain lights. He offered one to Kara which she took automatically while warily fending off the freed hound, who danced about her trying to shove its head up her skirt. ‘Um, sorry.’ He dragged the dog off while the second oversized pooch tried to worm its way between his legs.
‘I’m not lost. I’m looking for Alaric Liddell. I’m supposed to pick up some keys,’ she said as she clicked the little purple light on and off. ‘Do you know where I can find him? I was told the fort.’
The hard lines of his face softened into a tentative smile. He had pale grey-blue eyes, which made a sudden appraising sweep of her body. ‘Mrs North? I was told the buyer was a man.’
‘Oh no, I’m not married,’ Kara hastily explained, not wanting him to think she was off limits, considering the rather pleasant sexual frisson that zapped between them as he took in her windblown appearance. ‘He’s gay. My brother, I mean. I’m here on his behalf because he’s gone abroad. I’m Kara North.’ She stuck out a hand, which he declined in favour of grabbing both dogs by the collars and heaving them inside.
‘I’m Ric Liddell. Come on in and I’ll find you those keys.’ He grinned at her showing a few too many lovely white teeth. ‘I think they’re in the study. Toby. Horace.’ He pushed the dogs out of the way to allow her to enter unhindered, then stepped back so that she could walk ahead of him into the hall.
‘Thanks.’ Kara stepped warily over the threshold. Stranger-danger warnings pushed to the back of her mind in favour of the upswing in her lustometer. Ric Liddell was far too hot to be mouldering away on a fleabitten rock. She prayed he wasn’t gay and that Chris hadn’t sent her to a heterosexual woman’s idea of purgatory.
‘Have you come far?’
‘Not really. Although it’s taken a couple of hours because I had to wait for the tide.’ Kara turned to face him again only to be blessed with a glimpse of his back as he bolted the door. Strong shoulders gave way to a trim waist. His black jeans rode low over his hips, held in place by a studded belt, while a huge tattoo of an ankh, entwined within a coil of roses, decorated the length of his spine and shoulder blades.
‘Wow!’
He turned his head to look at her, his eyebrows raised in question. Now in the light, with fewer shadows to mask his features, she realised he was slightly older than she’d first assumed, perhaps five or six years her senior. Not old, but no spring lamb either. Somehow that added to his appeal.
‘Your back … it’s – wow … It must have hurt.’
He shrugged as if to suggest it was no big deal, and then took the lead again, his bare feet making a soft patter on the tiles as he crossed the hall and opened the door on to what she assumed was a study. Two of the walls were lined with books, locked way in old-fashioned wood and glass cabinets. A couple of leather armchairs sat cosily before an open fireplace and a big 38mm camera lay on one of the seats. The two Dalmatians immediately pattered over to slouch before the blaze.
Kara dutifully trooped into the room, in awe of the money that had created this place. His family had probably owned it for generations and ruled over the local populace.
Ric headed over to a bureau on the far side of the fireplace. He rummaged through a few drawers but didn’t appear to turn up anything.
‘Can I help?’ Kara asked, though she was quite enjoying watching his bum wiggle inside those low-slung jeans. Her palms were near itching to cop a good feel of him.
She hadn’t thought herself repressed in any way, but the world seemed a whole lot more attractive since her split with Gavin. Maybe that’s what being single did to you. Turned you into a compulsive flirt and left you hankering after sex any way you could get it. She’d certainly become ridiculously horny over the last few days. That guy last night – damned if she could remember more about him than how good he felt – and now she was gawping at the arse of a man she’d only just met. Chris would no doubt tell her she was overcompensating for being dumped, only she hadn’t been. Quite the opposite: she’d been coddled until she couldn’t stand it any more. Although maybe there was something to the notion of her trying to prove that guys still found her attractive.
‘No – it’s fine. They’re around here somewhere.’ Ric lifted his head and looked straight at her. For a fleeting moment Kara remained pinned by his gaze while she imagined some indulgent scene of them colliding in a sexual frenzy rather than in any romantic way. His gaze swept over her and then he gave a disarming grin. ‘Actually, maybe I left them in the studio.’ He swooped past her back into the hall. ‘Come on up.’
‘Up’ was a tightly wound spiral staircase. Kara chased him to the top, where she emerged into a vast white space that she guessed lay over the entryway. Here, blank walls loomed over her, seeming disproportionately high in the absence of decoration. At floor level, all around the perimeter, picture frames leant against the wall in piles. An impressive array of photographic equipment occupied the centre space. Ric stood raking through the pockets of a leather coat that hung on the back of a folding metal chair.
‘You’re a photographer.’
‘Yeah.’
Good one, Kara. Why don’t you state the obvious?
‘Are you the Liddell family equivalent of Lord Lichfield?’ This was some serious set-up he had here, way beyond any kind of hobby studio.
‘Nah – I think the only thing I have in common with Patrick Lichfield is that we’ve both done Harpers covers. A-list celebs don’t really do it for me.’
So, he didn’t like skinny models and glitterati. Probably explained why he chose to live out here on this godforsaken rock of an island. ‘No – what do you like?’ Kara inched towards him.
‘Porn,’ he muttered, blowing away her expectation of coastal landscapes and wildlife photography. She stuck a finger in her ear and wiggled, thinking maybe she’d misheard. Mr blond and sexy couldn’t possibly have said anything so crude. Only he had. He most certainly had and, what’s more, he didn’t even look guilty about it. ‘Here, take a look.’ He picked up a nearby picture frame and swung it round.
Kara carefully averted her gaze, having no wish to gawp at a naked woman’s pussy. Only it was hard not to catch even a teensy glimpse considering the size of the image, plus she didn’t want to appear rude, or worse prudish.
As it turned out, the picture was of a man not a woman, and was far too arty to be considered porn, though the black and white image was certainly lewd.
The model looked vaguely familiar too. Not that you could see a lot of his face.
Ric grinned at her and gave a low chuckle. He put the print down and waved her towards the stacks of framed photographs. ‘Go ahead. Take a look while I hunt these keys. If you find anything you like we can negotiate a discount, seeing as how we’re going to be neighbours. That barn needs something to brighten it up. You’ve seen it, right?’
‘No.’
‘OK.’
‘OK,’ she agreed, her voice a little dry. It felt too intimate to be going through this stuff after such a short acquaintance. That, and it seemed her apprehensions about Christopher’s impulse purchase might be on the mark.
The photos weren’t all of men. There were women and groups too, but the emphasis was definitely adult, and, more often than not, kinky. They reminded her of the bacchanalian scenes you sometimes found in old houses and castles, painted before Victorian prudery took hold. Back when people were a little more honest about sex, in the way she absolutely intended to be from now on.
The one-night stand she’d had with – Jack? – was the most honest thing she’d done in years. Ever, perhaps.
‘Do you sell much?’ Kara asked.
‘You’d be surprised.’
Maybe not. She could see the appeal of it. It wasn’t coy. It was what it was without making a pretence of being anything else, and it was beautiful because of that forthrightness and aggression. Nor did it take much imagining to envisage the response he got from buyers and gallery owners, considering how lovely he was with his strong jaw and Scandinavian pallor.
She understood his honesty in describing it as porn a little better after fanning through the images. Its intended purpose was to arouse, something it was certainly succeeding in doing to her. If Ric’s presence had a dynamic effect upon her libido, then his artwork threatened to push that to the max.
Realising that she was growing uncomfortably aroused, Kara squirmed her legs together. ‘Here’s a good one.’ Ric moved up close behind her, so that she could feel his heat even though they weren’t touching. His hand shot out to reveal the contents of another frame.
This one featured a very beautiful and liberated young woman, with masses of long hair that flowed over her shoulders and gently caressed the points of her nipples. One man bent before her in a position of submission, one hand reaching out to her beseechingly. His other hand was already clasped firmly behind his back encased in a handcuff held by another man whose erection was angled suggestively towards the submissive man’s arse. Another male figure stood behind the woman. His big hands squeezed tight her breasts, as he ploughed her from the rear. It was impossible to look upon the group and not to become caught up in the situation that had created the scene. Kara felt its power deep in her sex. It tugged at that part of her psyche that fantasised about sex with multiple men. She’d never done it. Who had? No one she’d ever spoken to, though among her friends they mostly agreed the idea was hot. Two cocks giving you pleasure instead of one, two erections to play with, so that you could suck upon one while the other satisfied the ache in your cunt.
OK, not all of her friends agreed with her on that. Some of them considered coping with one man hell enough.
Lucky girl, though, whoever the model was. As if Ric sensed he’d hit upon her fantasy, he drew her attention to another image. In this one the same four figures nestled together, their loins and bottoms all perfectly aligned so that they were joined in a lewd chain. ‘Are they?’ she asked. The men were clearly pleasuring the female model from front and back, while the third man also penetrated the arse of the handcuffed man. Kara gave a low groan. She didn’t think she’d ever been so turned on by an image before, but something about it combined with Ric’s nearness grabbed her by the guts and rode her for all its erotic worth. This one she’d definitely like to hang over her bed. Sadly, whatever bed there was in the barn, it didn’t belong to her, and Christopher didn’t share her tastes.
Ric nudged against her as he returned the picture to the floor. For just a moment she swore she felt the ridge of his cock pressing up against the seam of her buttocks. Was he turned on? Did he grow erect looking over his own work? How did he maintain his composure while working? For several seconds she literally ached with the desire to push back against him and discover the truth. If she turned around, would she see the evidence lying trapped behind his fly – would she see it in his eyes? Fleetingly, she wondered if Ric ever photographed himself and, if he did, what parts he bared to the camera.
Arousal thickened between her legs, and a rosy blush began to infuse her skin. What would he do if she pressed back or reached out and touched him? What if she were direct enough to touch his cock? Would they make it as far as the bed, or simply fuck hard and fast amidst the disarray of photographic equipment?
Kara’s mouth grew dry. She slowly moistened her lips.
She could picture it so clearly. They’d end up naked, wrapped up in exposed film, surrounded by countless dirty images.
Damn, what was she thinking? Kara risked a surreptitious glance at Ric, who gave away nothing of his thoughts, only a low-level twinkle in his blue eyes hinting at any kind of wickedness in him. What was happening to her? She didn’t routinely jump into bed with strangers, at least not since the days before Gavin. Yet here she was craving the affections of a man she’d only just met, whose nearness had rendered her knickers sopping.
It took every ounce of willpower for Kara to remain still. Every single damn ounce, because what she really wanted to do was to wriggle and cosy up against Ric’s cock, and to know that he was ready for her.
‘About those keys,’ he murmured, not quite breaking the spell she’d woven in her head, for his mouth lay just shy of her neck. If she turned now, their lips would almost certainly meet. ‘I can’t seem to put my hands on them.’
Sod the keys! Having him put his hands on her would be far more gratifying. It took a supreme effort of will to smile at him indulgently instead, like it didn’t matter that her only home at present was whatever decrepit barn her brother had bought, which she couldn’t get into until Ric produced the keys, or that her nipples were so taut they were poked up against her blouse virtually demanding his touch. It didn’t matter that her cunt was wet either, or that it ached for the sensation of something hard to fill it. Or that whatever bed she eventually made it to would be cold and empty.
‘I’ll keep looking.’ He gave her an endearing and rather knowing grin, one that suggested he guessed more of her thoughts than she cared to share, and maybe, just maybe shared one or two of them. ‘That said – it is getting a bit late to be trekking over there at this time of night. The visibility sucks and I wouldn’t want you stumbling about hurting yourself.’
‘Yeah? What are the alternatives?’ She leaned a little closer to him.
Ric’s tongue briefly wetted his lower lip. ‘I’ve a spare bed.’
‘Right. I couldn’t – I mean, I don’t want to impose.’
Damn it with the social niceties, she definitely wanted to impose. She wanted to jump right into his bed, and have him touch her between her legs, where good girls who had just broken up with their fiancés weren’t supposed to ask to be touched. Then again, she’d spent long enough pretending to be the good girl that at heart she wasn’t. Time she stopped holding herself to other people’s standards and lived a little.
‘You won’t be.’ He reached out and very briefly touched a lock of her hair where it rested against her cheek. ‘Besides, it’s my fault. I should have been more organised and had those keys set out ready.’
‘I could bunk down in my car,’ Kara ventured, not really wanting to. Her poor old VW Golf was only just windproof. Even with the heater turned to max she’d have to shiver to keep warm.
The promise of a hot body versus a crappy heater equalled no choice at all.
Maybe it was time to be bad.
People would forgive her. They’d say the break-up had sent her off the rails.
Oh, yes. She wanted to do wicked things with this man. She had no doubts that Alaric Liddell knew how to make a woman sing. He literally oozed sex appeal, like it was a pheromone, from his shirtless back to his beautiful bare toes. She wanted to do bad things, and she wanted to do them now.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He leaned closer still so that she could smell his aftershave and the musky bass note of his underlying scent. ‘It’s no problem at all.’ Her pussy clenched tight in anticipation. Her folds were already moist and swollen. Kiss me. Her entreaty rang in her head. She needed him to touch her. She wanted to come.
Instead, Ric stepped back. She’d missed her cue.
‘Come on back down and I’ll fix us a drink. I can show you over to the barn in the morning.’ His grey-blue eyes glittered with mischief. Then his arm shot out, neatly trapping her in the entrance to the stairwell. His palm lowered from the wall to caress her cheek where a few strands of blond hair clung to her skin. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t ruthlessly adhere to the old ways.’
‘Old ways?’
He laughed; the sound seemed to tickle her insides all the way down to her stomach. ‘Welcome to Liddell Island.’ He leaned in, so that her taut nipples brushed pleasurably against his chest, while his mouth closed over hers.
Kara gasped as his kisses zapped fire all the way down to her cunt. Then he took her by the hand and led her back downstairs to the study.
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