I reached out and cupped her breast, caressing my thumb over her nipple. “Good job that in this scenario, I’m not your damn cousin.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
---------------------
Vesper
THE TEASING AND MRS. LESLEY dissolved.
Ryder switched from playboy to fiend.
I just gave in. There was no other way.
His hands dropped from my breasts to my waist, his fingers teasing the lace of my underwear. “Now, where were we?”
I gasped as he hooked his fingers into the lace, tugging ever so slightly. Then he stopped—an excruciating look on his face.
I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth. “What? What is it?”
He scrubbed his face. “Please, for all the love of Chiweenies in the world, please tell me you have a condom.”
Oh, crap.
“Goddammit.” His face mimicked mine with horror. “You don’t.”
“Don’t you?” I sat up on my elbows. Cursing my lack of foresight and the fact I had an incredible man naked and poised between my thighs.
He looked at his jeans on the floor where his wallet stuck out from the back pocket. “It’s…eh, been a while. I stopped carrying one around when no one in this tiny town interested me.”
“I suppose I should be flattered that you’ve decided to break your drought with me.”
He grinned, doing his best to rid the serious sexual tension we’d just created. “Especially with my cousin.”
We both laughed.
He exhaled heavily, crushing me into the couch as he collapsed on top of me.
The feel of his hot skin and the prod of his hard cock against the tiny scrap of lace preventing us from doing anything other than snuggle made me want to scream. My nerve endings had turned themselves inside out and I’d never been so wet—I could even feel a damp patch beneath me on the couch and I wasn’t even embarrassed about it because he wanted me just as much as I wanted him.
“This whole evening has been a disaster,” he muttered. “I should’ve thought ahead, taken you to a sexy dinner—even though you told me not to—and bought a thousand condoms.”
“Whoa? A thousand?” My fingers found their way into his hair. “Easy tiger.”
He nuzzled my neck. “Fuck, I want you.”
My tummy flipped. “I want you.”
He kissed his way along my jaw. “Don’t suppose you have any other form of protection?”
I sucked in a breath as he captured my mouth and kissed me slowly, languorously, sweetly but tainted with explosive lust we’d only just given into. “You mean like douching with bleach and a rusty coat hanger in case you knock me up?”
His eyes flared. “Holy shit, which university did you go to? Is that what you do to poor animals?” He ran his hand down my chest to cup my breast. “I might have to rethink bringing my rescue pups to you, you monster.”
His attempt at humour worked but didn’t. I was still so turned on, I was contemplating telling him just to stick it in me.
Not romantic, but holy hell I wanted him to stick it in me.
Lots and lots of times.
“If I was on the pill and we had the unsightly conversation of where you’ve been and where I’ve been since we lost our V-cards, then we could say screw the condom.”
His eyes lit up. “I promise I'm clean. I got an A plus in my last test.”
Dashing his hope, I sighed, “I’m in the clear too, but it’s been a while for me as well. And I’m not on the pill.”
“So we can’t—”
“We can’t.” I shook my head. “Not even one little thrust.”
He groaned dramatically. “Oh God, just the thought of thrusting inside you makes me want to come.”
“Exactly. It’s been a while for you and for me. One thrust is probably all we need and then, whoopsy daisy, I have to go to the clinic and ask for the morning-after pill and Mrs. Lesley will be there and announce to the whole town that I got knocked up by my cousin.”
He laughed. “We definitely don’t want that happening.”
“No, we do not.”
We collapsed together, fighting our bodies pounding urge to join and forcing ourselves to be sensible adults.
His tongue traced the shell of my ear. “You know…I could help you out?” His hand glided down my body. “I could at least get part of me inside you tonight.”
I bit my lip as his fingers brushed over my pussy but didn’t attempt to remove my underwear. Even now, even after dabbling with explosive chemistry, he still gave me time to grant permission.
The idea of coming on his hand was one hundred percent amazing—especially the concept of repaying his favour by giving him a hand job and watching him come for me—but it seemed like cheating somehow.
This itchy, throbbing desire and spine tingling anticipation was too good to waste. The mental play-by-play of him slipping inside me for the first time and me coming around him was to precious a golden ticket to resort to a few finger strokes.
Scissoring my legs, I shook my head. “When I come for you, I want it to be the best I’ve ever had.”
He gritted his jaw. “Fuck, Vesper. Let me make you come now. I’ll do anything you want.” He rocked his cock on my hip, smearing yet another bead of pre-cum. “Let me show you just how turned on I am.”
I shivered as he touched me again, but this time I’d made up my mind.
Unfortunately for him, once my mind was made up nothing could change it. It was why I’d finished top in my class. Why I’d opened a business rather than work for another practice. Why we had top-of-the-line medical equipment and not hand-me-down ancient torture devices. I chased what I wanted most. And what I wanted most right now was Ryder Carson.
Pushing him away, I stood up. I didn’t care I only had my underwear on. Ryder had switched from stranger to a friend who I absolutely felt safe with.
Bending down, I gave him my hand to pull him from the couch.
He stood, swaying a little as his eyes drank me in. His cock bobbed as if begging me to take pity on him.
I grasped it, jerking him into me, making him stumble. “I’m going to kick you out now before we do something stupid.”
“Stupid being letting me fuck you?”
I swallowed as another lava wave of desire made me melt. “Yes, that.” Letting him go, I scooped up his clothes and shoved them into his chest, forcing him to grab hold of them. “Get dressed, Far Too Tempting Doggy Rescuer, so I can boot you from my house.”
“Only if you promise I can see you again tomorrow.”
I nodded, ready to blurt yes, but then I remembered the long day ahead with a neuter for a house rabbit and a kidney stone removal for a cat. Afterward, I had an online conference with the veterinary society to go over a new pain reliever that had just been approved for guinea pigs. “I can’t. I’m busy.”
He threw his head back like a stubborn child. “Damn you, woman. You’re determined to kill me with this hard-on.”
“I like your hard-on.” I pressed the top with my finger, loving the way it hardened even further. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“Oh no, I always lose in deals.”
“Not in this one.”
Taking his t-shirt and fanning it out for him to place over his head, I murmured, “Don’t touch it and I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”
He backed away, snatching the t-shirt as if it mortally offended him. “When you say see me…you mean fuck me, right?”
I smirked. “Right.”
“Oh, praise baby Jesus.”
I laughed.
“And just to be clear, when you say don’t touch it...you mean, I can’t strangle the lizard, spank the donkey, milk the snake, pump the tool? Nothing?”
Where did he come up with this stuff? “Exactly. No self-mutation of any kind. That orgasm that’s driving you mad...is mine.”
His eyes flashed black with desire. “Fine. I agree to your terms.”
“Great—”
Uh oh.
I paused, waiting for my sentencing.
He smiled, running his thumb over my nipple and once again turning me deranged with need. “If I have to survive the next forty-eight hours with this pounding blue ball condition you’ve put me in, you’re not allowed to unwind whatever lust does to your insides.”
“Tangled fallopian tubes? Jackhammering uterus?”
He wrinkled his nose. “Something like that.”
We both laughed but then he turned serious as he dropped his hand and cupped me right between the legs. His fingers curled around my mound, warmed my clit, and teased my entrance. Everything inside me turned whip sharp with need.
I sucked in a moan as his fingers rocked.
“No vibrating toys of any kind, including electric toothbrushes and overzealous sitting on washing machines. No flicking your bean, no dirty girl showerhead routine, and definitely no double clicking your mouse.”
I pouted. “But—”
He kissed me. “Hey, if I’m going to be a brain dead ignoramus with a hard-on for two days, the least you can be is an air head with the hots for her cousin.” He let my pussy go to hold out his hand with a victory smirk. “Do we have a deal?”
No.
I’ll cheat.
But I knew I wouldn’t. Because the chase and the knowledge of how damn good it would feel when we finally did sleep together was worth it.
My fingers looped with his. “It’s a deal.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
---------------------
Ryder
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
They had to be the hardest (excuse the pun) and longest twenty-four hours of my life.
All day I’d been up a ladder plastering the two-story entry way to my house, and all day I couldn’t stop thinking about Vesper.
I had no calls from the shelter to collect any other mistreated animals in the tri-county area and even visiting the rescued mutts that I did have didn’t ease the maddening lust in my blood.
And she hadn’t messaged me once!
All day.
I couldn’t fucking believe it.
Was my blue balls disease a joke to her? Why hadn’t she returned my convoluted message from this morning? I’d been in the bathroom about to hop into the shower where the usual rub and tug was a no-no, and wanted to take a dick pic and send her way. To show her the state she’d left me in.
This was all her fault.
But I didn’t because I wasn’t an asshole.
But I had sent a nice cordial message instead: Morning, my sexy vet. I had a dream about you last night. You were in my bed and naked (how come you weren’t naked last night?), and I punished you for being so bloody perfect by making you scream my name while the builders were downstairs listening.
I wasn’t lying.
That dream had almost made me have a wet wake-up call for the first time since I was a damn fifteen-year-old. Normally, I would censor my messages, but this time, I didn’t.
She’d shown me what lived beneath her polite exterior and I wasn’t afraid of being honest anymore.
But that was before she ignored me.
As the day wore on, and my body became covered in plaster dust and paint splatters and David, my foreman and friend, drove me nuts with questions about why I was such a bloody space cadet, I feared I’d done the wrong thing.
At knock off time, after the workmen had retired for the night, I wiped my face with a damp cloth and sat at the second hand kitchen table—I hadn’t bought any new furniture until the build was complete so as not to damage or be overly protective—and unlocked my phone.
Bringing up the current message thread with Vesper, I typed: Just because I had a dream that involved others listening in and I spanked you last night doesn’t mean that’s all I am. I mean, shit…I don’t know what I mean. I’m not a fuck wit who’s just after sex. That’s basically all I’m trying to say.
Tossing the phone onto the table, I ran my hands through my hair. “Way to go, idiot. If she didn’t think you were a moron before, now she does for sure.”
The phone started dancing as a call came through.
Snatching it up, I didn’t look at caller I.D in my rush to talk to her. “Ves, look I’m going out of my goddamn mind. Come here. I’ll go there. I just really, really need to see—”
“Whoa, gotta stop you right there, bro. Don’t need to know anymore.” My brother’s chuckle came down the line as he sang la la la-la-lah like we used to do as idiot boys.
“You.” I slouched in the chair. “What are you doing interrupting my torture pining for the hottest girl I’ve ever met?”
“Holy shit, did I call the right number? Who are you and what did you do with my brother?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be a jerk. I remember what you were like with Gillian in high school. You walked around with a rod in your pants and moonbeams in your eyes for weeks.”
“Yes, until I tapped that, and the curse was broken. I tell you man, women are witches. They have some sort of hocus-pocus that bypasses our brains and turns our dicks into sex zombies.”
I couldn’t deny he had a point.
“So you were happy that the feelings you had for Gillian vanished once you’d been with her a few times?”
I didn’t know why I was sad about that. This thing with Vesper—whatever it was—I wanted it to last, not poof and vanish. I liked this fugue state. I loved being demented with the thoughts of getting her naked and under me, but I also couldn’t wait to get to know her mind and secrets, too. The pieces I’d grown to know I liked.
Really, really liked.
“Yeah, thank Christ. That girl was a whiner and a fake.”
“A fake?” I scratched my chin, dislodging plaster dust I’d missed. “Yeah, she’d fake her orgasms and faked her interest in me. She only wanted me for the free rides I could give her in my super fly cruise.”
“By super fly, you mean dad’s hand-me-down Chrysler?”
“The one and only.”
Rupert was two years older than me. His grades were average while mine were high. His attention to school was lacking while his interest in women was as big as King fucking Kong. Me, I was too stuck-up and too fussy. I liked girls—sure, but I didn’t like what they tried to hide.
Rupert went on to be an uber successful franchise owner. When he was seventeen, he ordered some vinyl off an Asian website and painstakingly cut out decals that said Carson Car Rides and stuck them on the wheels of our dad’s Chrysler. He got so many compliments and requests for personalised logos, he spent all his free time (and even time at school) carving letters with a pen knife and printing off different fonts on the computer to keep up with demand.
It grew so big, he became known outside the village we lived in and attracted the attention of a large investor.
Overnight, he went from a seventeen-year-old about to drop out from school to a successful business owner with a multimillion dollar backer who made him not only a national star but international too.
Now, his tyre decals, vehicle panel stickers, window logos, even shop designs and boat skins were international hits. His company morphed into Carson Creatives. And he’d been a large sponsor of the indie rally in Singapore last year which locked and loaded his career.
Our parents had been so proud, if not a little confused how little pieces of vinyl cut out and stuck on something as mundane as tyres could become a conglomerate company.
“So, spill little bro. Who is she and what has she done to you?”
I grinned. “Not telling and I still don’t entirely understand what she’s done. I do know I was naked in her house last night and didn’t get to touch her and I was spotted by a neighbour who now thinks I’m her crazy cousin—which in this town with local gossip is not a good thing.”
“Wow, sounds like an interesting one.”
I sighed. “She is.”
“Holy crap, was that a sigh? Did you serious
ly motherfucking just sigh over this chick?”
I slapped my forehead. Ugh, I sounded like a love-struck sap. “What? Hell no. Don’t be stupid.”
“You did! Oh my God-on-a-pogo, you like her. Like don’t just like her with your pleasure stick like her but like heart-icky like her.”
“Okay, time to shut up.”
“No way. I’ve got to meet this elusive unicorn. I thought you’d never find one.”
“You can talk. How many relationships have you been through now? Twenty?”
“Five long termish and I had legitimate reasons to break it off.”
“Right. You’re just paranoid.”
Rupert huffed. “You’d be paranoid too if you caught you last ex enlisting a computer hacker to crack your banking password.”
“Dude, she didn’t.”
“She did. The bitch.”
“Wow, goes to show having money doesn’t make you safer.”
“Not from the looney toons, anyway.”
We fell silent for a second before Rupe added, “Heads up, I’m coming to you in a couple of weeks. Not to spy on your new piece of ass but to have some R&R. This last conference really took it out of me.”
The thought of seeing my brother almost managed to push aside my crazy desire for Vesper. We hadn’t seen each other in two years. Not from lack of wanting to but with his hectic work schedule and the insane travel he’d been doing, it was hard to be in the same place at the same time with free space just to hang out.
“That’s awesome, Rupe. When will you be here?”
“Two weeks tomorrow. Mind if I crash at your place?”
“Hell, of course. I’ll put you to work. You still know how to use a paintbrush thanks to dad teaching us how to renovate right?”
He groaned. “This is supposed to be a vacation.”
“Vacation schmation. You can still have a beer or four. And we can chat while being productive.”
“Fine. On one condition.”
“Ugh, what is it with people and conditions lately?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” My mind scooted to Vesper and the pact we’d made about not ‘helping’ ourselves out of this mind-numbing situation.