Blackout (4 page)

“It’s a child’s excuse. You should have destroyed the damn thing—”

Lennon’s gaze fell. “I know.”

“Or a million other things. You should have—”

“I’ve already been over the million things I should have done. What more do you want from me?”

Kenzie stared at him for a long beat, then broke off with a short, incredulous laugh. “You asshole,” she snapped. “An apology crocks up to nothing if you don’t know what you’re apologizing for. You think I’m pissed because you saw me doing…that? Sure. I’m pissed. You think I’m embarrassed because you kept watching it? Check. The fact that it cost me my job—”

“That was never my intent—”

“Means shit compared to the fact that I trusted you.”

The words immediately spawned life, forming into a mass she couldn’t control. She knew Lennon didn’t understand the significance of what she’d said at first. He blinked several times before comprehension dawned, and when it did, he seemed to have a hard time reestablishing eye contact. For whatever reason, his ostensible unease fed her courage, and Kenzie seized it before it broke away again.

“I had no reason to trust you, and trust doesn’t come easy for a woman who’s walked in on her boyfriend fucking somebody else. But you kept doing these little things…picking me up something on the way to the office, forwarding me emails you knew I’d like, sending me reviews of movies I’d told you I wanted to see. Little stupid things that I thought meant something. You can’t form trust off that, but you talked to me, not my boobs. You talked to me like I was…I dunno, someone else. And like a big damn idiot, I trusted you.”

Lennon recoiled as though slapped. “Kenz—”

“And that was why I liked you. Why I…I thought you were a friend. I thought I was more to you than just…what I ended up being.”

“Stop it. You know you were.”

“A friend doesn’t keep secrets like this, especially if you’re the subject of the secret.”

Lennon sat quiet for a moment, though she could see the wheels in his head turning. And when he did speak, his tone wasn’t as she expected.

“I’m sorry for that,” he said softly. “For betraying your trust. I didn’t mean for that to be a side-effect of what happened.” A pause. “But I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“And that makes it okay?”

“Of course not. Nothing makes what I did okay. But what I did wasn’t…” His brow furrowed, a wave of frustration crashing over his face. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t talk.”

“I didn’t realize our relationship meant as much to you as it did to me,” he said. “I wanted you the moment you walked in my office. And then I got to know you, and I wanted you more. That video…” He shot the offending tape a derisive glare. “If I could burn it now I would.”

She kept her anger close to her chest as long as she could, but the more she looked at him, the harder it became to maintain. Whatever else, Lennon genuinely hadn’t meant to hurt her. No matter what had happened, the results of his actions had been unintentional.

“You have no idea how hard I tried.”

Kenzie looked up. Lennon’s attention was somewhere on the floor between them, his shoulders slumped.

“I shelved it,” he said. “I knew I should throw it away, but I couldn’t. I wanted you, and that was the you I got.”

“You’ve told me this already.”

“I need to tell you again.” He met her eyes. “I didn’t mean—”

Kenzie held up a hand. “I know. I get so…that’s my gut reaction, Lennon. I just…I just get so angry so easily now. I think it’s Hunter—armchair self-diagnosis, but there it is. I don’t want to be like this, but I open my mouth and all this anger comes out.”

Lennon laughed outright at that. “Something tells me being upset that someone you trusted was jacking off every free chance he got to a tape of you doing the same is kinda expected.”

She nodded numbly. “I just thought you had used me, I guess. And that hurt.”

“I’d never use you.”

“I know.” She exhaled deeply. “And I’m sorry for using you. For earlier.”

“If that’s how you use a man, consider me eager for abuse.”

“Lennon…”

“You’re my fantasy, I’m yours. How about we stop apologizing for that? It’s getting a little ridiculous.”

She smiled gratefully. “You always think these things will go differently in real life.”

“Always?”

“Well, if they happen.”

“Would it be in bad taste to ask my fantasy for one thing?”

Kenzie shrugged. “Who cares at this point?”

“I do.” His eyes dropped to her mouth, and her throat tightened. “If I leave here without knowing what it’s like to kiss you, I’m gonna regret it forever.”

The seconds spanning that moment from the next blurred in a heady rush. In a blink, Kenzie found herself on the other side of the elevator, her legs astride Lennon’s thighs and his mouth on hers. First touch rendered her an addict; the soft swipe of his lips against hers—searching, finding, loving her with each caress—stirred within her something she hadn’t known existed. His fingers roamed into her hair, tugging and twisting as they had when his cock had been in her mouth, but gentler now, as though he had much more to lose. Her dampened center found his erection and strained against it, rubbing wantonly in desperate need of friction. He tasted like coffee and peppermint, smelled of his usual woodsy cologne, though under a layer of work and wear from the office. His tongue teased rather than plundered, taking delicate, tentative tastes of her own before becoming more boisterous. She captured his cheeks between her hands, needing and demanding more. Needing something she couldn’t name but would chase until she could declare it hers.

Kenzie dragged her lips away when she remembered she had to breathe, her head rocking back and her eyes fixating on the ceiling. Lennon’s lips took a detour down her throat, showering her skin with soft kisses, each of which went straight to her clit. More, more, more. She needed more. If now was all she’d have, then she’d take whatever she’d get.

“Kenzie,” Lennon growled, fisting her sweatshirt. “Stop me.”

“No.”

“I’m warning you…”

“Consider me warned.” Kenzie leveled her gaze with his and kissed him again, briefly this time. “Look at me and tell me you want me to stop you.”

He made a visible effort to obey, but those words never came. Instead, he lunged for her mouth, pushing her back until she was pressed against the floor.

Yes, this was what she wanted. Lennon—hard and fast, deep and hungry.

Perhaps once she’d had him, once she knew how he felt, she’d be able to move on.

Perhaps she’d be able to face the future without looking back.

Five

If he was asleep, the jury was out on whether this was a dream come true or a nightmare in the making. The pendulum seemed sensitive to the slightest twitch. Right now, Lennon was back on dream. Kenzie’s hot body was beneath his, warm and wiggling, gasps peeling off her eager mouth. He had already managed to wrestle one of her legs free, had already nipped at one of the yellow stars decorating her blue and pink panties. A small circle of dew had formed at her crotch, and while he was eager to rip the offending fabric aside once and for all, there was something tantalizing about having nothing but a thin strip of cotton separating his skin from hers.

Lennon palmed her pussy and pressed softly. “You have any idea,” he whispered, “how long I’ve wanted this?”

A feisty grin kissed her lips. “If I didn’t before…”

He chuckled, settling himself between her thighs. His gaze again drifted over the moist circle at her center. There were so many things he wanted to do—exploring her, tasting her as she’d tasted him, was at the top of the list. He’d pulled his cock enough nights with the image of his cheeks captured between her thighs to warrant his own Pay-Per-View channel. Yet he wasn’t sure how much of his fantasy he wanted fulfilled right now. There would be time elsewhere—time and better accommodations, at the very least.

Kenzie didn’t deserve a quick scuffle in the elevator. She deserved one of those grand romantic gestures with a price tag he’d feel for a couple months. But this moment was fleeting, and as soon as the elevator doors opened, everything would be thrown into question again. They still hadn’t reached a consensus on the Buckingham file, and she remained conflicted about the videotape. Even more so, Lennon lived in the real world. Happily-ever-afters didn’t exist, and they certainly didn’t emerge from encounters like this.

He might be enamored with Kenzie, but fantasy often crumbled when it was fulfilled. People fell in love with a person they’d created and imposed onto someone else’s face. Yet Lennon likewise attempted to keep himself grounded, focusing on what he knew rather than what he hoped or assumed. Everything he knew about Kenzie made him want to love her. Not even the crime of breaking into his home could detract from the person he knew she was. Her desperation coupled with her resentment and confusion had led her to do something she wouldn’t otherwise do.

However, he wasn’t so infatuated he’d allow himself to believe there was something after this. Kenzie had certainly given him no indication, and there was too much between them to hope for anything else.

Yet all the knowing in the world couldn’t keep him from maintaining one sliver of maybe, just maybe.

Lennon’s index finger pressed between Kenzie’s pussy lips, dipping the wet cotton against her drenched flesh. “I’ve always wondered something…”

Kenzie inhaled deeply, arching her hips into his touch. “Oh yeah?”

“In the video, you’re so wet. Incredibly wet. What did you do to get yourself excited?”

“I didn’t need anything,” she answered. “The experience…”

“You got off on filming yourself?”

Kenzie bit her lower lip, but this time he couldn’t tell if it was due to uncertainty or nervousness. Perhaps it was a combination.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Mmm. Not the film itself,” she replied. “Knowing someone would watch it. That someone would see me like that, at my most… I dunno, it did something to me.” She paused. “I wondered…what would happen if it got lost.”

Lennon hooked his fingers under her crotch line and pushed the cotton aside, baring her wet pussy to his hungry eyes.

“Did you?”

“If someone else found it.”

“And watched you.”

“But I didn’t want that,” she insisted, her voice strained. “I really didn’t.”

“I know,” he replied honestly. And he did. The sexual thrill of being watched versus the reality of being watched were two different things, especially when the person watching was one’s former boss. Lennon wasn’t one to pick apart semantics. One of his former girlfriends used to get off reading ménage erotic romances, but whenever he jokingly suggested bringing someone else into bed with them, she would spiel out a lecture that would do any law professor proud.

Fantasy and reality lived in two different worlds. Right now, for Lennon, those worlds had merged. He wasn’t stupid enough to think it would last.

Kenzie gasped, arching when the pad of his thumb settled over her swollen clit. Seeing her up close was something out of another person’s life. He felt he knew her every crevice. The birthmark on her inner thigh, the indention of her belly, the familiar way her body shook—it was like stepping into a movie and discovering details he hadn’t known to miss. The warm scent of her excitement tickled his nostrils, and his tongue was eager to delve into her flesh, lap her up from the inside out and feel its way around her clitoris.

“Yes,” she answered at last, and it took him a moment to remember what he’d last said. “The…idea of someone…watching me, and…”

“Getting hot?”

She nodded feverishly.

Lennon grinned and, unable to tease her or himself a moment longer, leaned in and dragged his tongue from slit to clit. Kenzie moaned, her eyes squeezing shut and her hands flailing about the floor as though searching for something to grab. Her liquid heat exploded in his mouth, and he knew then one taste would never be enough.

“You know how hot it got me,” he said, nuzzling her wet flesh. “I showed you.”

Kenzie nodded again. “Oh yes.”

“When you found the tape, before you got angry, what did you think?”

A ghost of a frown danced across her face. “What do you mean?”

“I mean.” Lennon sucked two fingers inside his mouth. He held her gaze and slowly dragged them out, nice and lubricated, then pushed them to her opening.

“I mean,” he said again, “did you think of me, watching you and masturbating?”

Kenzie’s eyes widened and she settled back again. “Yes.”

“How’d that make you feel?”

“Pissed.”

“Besides that.”

“Horny as fuck,” she said. “Do you have any idea how hard it is breaking the law while turned on beyond belief?”

Lennon shuddered and rewarded her honesty by licking her clit again, his fingers slipping into her cunt. She enveloped him like warm velvet, soaked and fiery hot, her body drawing him in, and in he followed. Kenzie gasped again, fisting a handful of his hair and thrusting herself wantonly against his mouth. Yet, despite his innate desire to consume her fully, drown in her juices until her taste had branded itself permanently on his tongue, he wanted the payout to be good. He wanted to drag it out as much as possible.

If this was all he had, he wanted to make the most of it.

Lennon dropped a kiss across the birthmark on her inner thigh, admiring the way her fleshy, womanly folds fit around his fingers.

“So,” he said.

Kenzie looked up again, frustration marring her face. “So?”

“You had a crush on me.”

She stared at him for a moment before snorting with laughter. “You really wanna talk about that now?”

“I do.”

“You’re an ass.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

Lennon slid his fingers out of her, pulled them to his mouth and licked them clean. She scowled at him the whole time.

“I just wanna know,” he continued, dropping his hand again to her pussy, his thumb finding her clit. “If you thought of me the way I thought of you.”

“I thought we’d…” Her brow furrowed. “Didn’t we already go over this?”

“Yeah, but it bears repeating,” he replied. “When you made that tape—”

“We’re on the tape again? I thought you were eating me.”

“There’s time enough for both.” Lennon grinned and nipped playfully at her clit, enjoying the way she tightened and trembled under his touch. “What did you think of when you were fucking yourself?”

“I told you. The thought of someone else finding it—”

“I know that’s what got the engine started,” he murmured. “What kept it going?”

The air fell thick with her heavy breaths. Her face scrunched up as if in search for an answer, and while Lennon understood her predicament—he found it rather difficult to concentrate when driven dizzy with arousal—the answer was important to him. Granted, he didn’t know why it was important until her quivering lips parted and she started speaking again.

“I…someone. I saw someone. With me. I don’t know. Someone.”

“Not Hunter?”

Kenzie made a face. “No. It was never him. He was never… When I’d imagine myself with someone, it was never him. Even when I was with him.”

Lennon nodded. “What about me?”

“I didn’t know you then.”

“No, I mean since. Have you done what you did on that tape and imagined me watching you?”

The answer was immediate and honest, the same way a defendant replied whenever presented with an easy question.

“Yes.”

“Touching you?”

Again, she whispered, “Yes.”

“Joining you?”

Kenzie shivered. “Yes.”

“I’ve wondered,” Lennon continued, “what it’d be like to watch you while you’re watching me. Not a camera. Not for someone else. Just for me.”

Another beat passed in which long looks were exchanged. Then Kenzie sat up slowly, and Lennon went with her. She scooted herself back to her side of the elevator, flattened her back against the wall, and spread her legs open wide. Her slick, swollen cunt lay completely bare to his eager eyes.

“Do it with me,” Kenzie said.

“What?”

She nodded at his crotch, and his erection stiffened under her appraisal. Lennon couldn’t move fast enough, dragging down his fly and again taking his cock into his hand. He didn’t start stroking until her fingers settled on her clit. Until she began massaging herself in an achingly familiar way—a way he could have choreographed. He felt the burn of her stare as he looked at her face, his hand pulling eagerly at his cock. A blissful, burning awareness settled through his body, as though every second he’d spent watching her do this, rewinding and watching again while desperate for the sensation of her body against his, had mounted into one tidal wave of need. Her fingers disappeared inside her body, pumping where his had been just moments ago. And then something strange happened—something he wouldn’t have predicted if he had a thousand years to consider it.

It wasn’t enough.

The kicker to getting what you wanted was sometimes discovering you didn’t actually want it at all. And fantasy was shit compared to reality. Lennon had no idea what he’d been determined to prove, but it wasn’t enough. Watching her fuck herself when it could be him, when his fingers, tongue, or cock could be buried in her pussy, when those gasps riding off her lips could be at his doing, was surprisingly hollow. The sight excited him, sure, but he wanted more. He needed more.

He needed her, and he needed her now.

“Stop,” he said, his voice hoarse.

Kenzie obeyed immediately, hurt drowning her pleasure. “What? Did I do something wrong?”

“No. No. I did.”

“I don’t understand.”

Lennon shook his head. He didn’t understand, either, but likewise felt no inclination to waste words when he’d already wasted time.

“I want you,” he said. “Not over there. With me.”

“But—”

“I was wrong. Please.”

Kenzie wet her lips and considered him. Her gaze dropped to his erect cock, and the yearning he saw on her face couldn’t be imagined. Another moment passed before she moved, pressing forward so she was on all fours, and crawled the space separating them. She still wore one pant leg, still packed on the heavy sweater. Behind her lay both the videotape and the Buckingham file. Lennon’s mind formed a line for him, separating her side of the elevator from his, and in a way, separating the past and future from the present.

Only now.

When her lips brushed his, everything else melted away. Her mouth searched and teased, caressed and yielded. Her tongue was shy, only coming out to play when beckoned with his own. The kiss remained timid only for a moment though, and gained momentum and bravado until they were battling each other. Demanding, grasping, fighting in the only language they had left.

Lennon wordlessly shuffled for his wallet to procure a condom, his lips refusing to leave hers. Kenzie, just as wordlessly, ripped the condom free of its foil prison and took his cock into her hot hands. She squeezed and stroked, teased the tip with her finger, then rolled the thin rubber over his length.

Lips parted and hot gasps filled the air. They moved together, Lennon grabbing her hips as she straddled him and angled his cock under her opening. Their eyes locked and held when she sank onto him, her vaginal walls stretching, hugging, pulling him in tight and deep. Lennon pressed his hand to her backside, a small sigh erupting from his lips. He wanted to kiss her but couldn’t bring himself to break eye contact.

Like so many other things the night had provided, this felt like a dream. Her pussy clenched tightly around him, gripping him like a glove, dragging up and down his cock in long, slow strokes. Every plunge inside her warmth sent a new wave of shivers across his burning flesh. A storm of sensation burst through his mind, riding him along with her, pressing against his lips in a need to tell her something—anything. How incredible she felt. How beautiful she was. How, how, how a thousand things. But Lennon couldn’t find his voice, and by the same token, the silence between them felt too intimate to disturb. Instead he focused on her. The beads of sweat gathering at her brow, the damp places along her sweatshirt, the shining awestruck burn of her gaze, the way she seemed to fight with words but, like him, declined to speak.