KeyParty (6 page)

“Where’s your roommate?” Rachel asked, her fingers working
the buttons on his shirt before he had the door closed behind them.

He’d gotten out of Dr. Li’s office so late he’d been
surprised that she’d answered when he called. They’d gone out to one of the
corner bars in her neighborhood, but he hadn’t really had the stomach or the
patience for the beer he’d ordered.

The consult and following discussion with Dr. Li had been
exhilarating, and Rachel was distractingly hot in the jeans and loose, gauzy
top she was wearing. She’d barely made it through her own drink when she
suggested they go somewhere else.

“Gone ‘til morning,” he answered, letting go of her long
enough to shrug out of his shirt. He reached for the button on her jeans and
popped it open while she pulled her top off over her head. “Gotta love the
roommate being on night shift.”

And then she was clinging to him again, her fingers dug into
his hair, the silky skin of her curvy body against his, her hard nipples
pressing into his chest through the soft satin of her bra. The taste of whiskey
still on her tongue and the heady smell of her was intoxicating. He got an arm
under her bottom and lifted her off her feet.

“Nice place you got here,” she said, biting gently on his
earlobe and nearly making him lose his footing.

He crushed her body to the wall in the hallway. “You’re not
even looking at my place,” he said, shifting so his cock ground against her
through their jeans.

He could feel her heat through the layers of their clothes.
She started to laugh and he took her mouth hard enough her head hit the wall
with a light but solid thump.

She dug her nails into his back. “Busted,” she panted when
he grazed his teeth along her jaw. “Oh, fuck Ben. Just take me here.”

She unwrapped her legs from his waist to stand and gave him
a little backward shove. She pulled open the fly on his jeans, then dropped to her
knees as she pushed them and his underwear to the floor. He gasped as his cock
fell free.

“Better yet,” she said, giving him a mischievous smile as
she looked up and took him in hand.

Jesus, he wouldn’t last two seconds if she put her mouth on
him right now.

He gripped her wrists and reluctantly pulled her to
standing.

“You first,” he said. She let out a laughing whoop of
surprise when he bent and threw her over his shoulder.

He had to dodge her shoes as she toed them off along the
way. In the short time it took him to kick his bedroom door shut and swing her
off his shoulder and onto the bed she’d managed to lose her bra as well.

“Aren’t you an eager girl?” He laughed, pulling her jeans
off.

Her face was flush, her exotic green eyes dark with desire.
“I haven’t been able to think about anything else but getting naked with you
again since Saturday night.”

The urge to fall on her, bury himself deep and fuck them
both mindless was overwhelming, but not nearly as strong as the need to savor
the moments with her while he still had them.

“Oh, yeah?” He knelt on the bed between her ankles. “When do
you think about it the most? In the shower? In bed, alone at night?” He arched
an eyebrow at her. “You do go to bed alone at night, right?”

She licked her lips and his cock twitched in response. “I
think about you at the most inappropriate times,” she whispered as though she
was letting him in on a secret.

He slipped a hand under her knee and kissed the soft skin on
the inside. “When?”

She sighed and spread her arms wide.

“All the time. Yes, in the shower,” she gasped when he
licked along the crease at the back of her knee. “I was being shown a massage
room during an interview the other day and my thoughts wandered off into the
most delicious fantasy of you and I. Locked in that room together. Both of us
naked.”

He sank his teeth into the inside of her thigh.

“It was just you, me and a full bottle of massage oil.”

He moved his mouth an inch higher up her thigh and sucked
hard enough to leave a mark. Her hips rolled and she laughed softly, then
groaned when he used the thumb of his other hand to seek out her clit. The
smell of her arousal was making his thoughts go pleasantly foggy. He moved
higher yet, wanting to put his mouth on her, to hear her moaning his name the
way she did when she came.

She sat up, grabbed him under his arms and tried to pull him
up. “Don’t.”

There was something that looked a lot like panic in her
eyes.

His eyebrows went up. “Why not?”

She shook her head. “You don’t need to…to do…
that
.”

He braced himself on his arms, his hands on either side of
her hips.

“Why?” He kissed her softly. Whatever was making her panic,
he needed to reverse it. Immediately. “Don’t you like
that
?”

She blushed and wrapped her arms around his neck. He let her
pull him with her as she lay back.

“It doesn’t really do anything for me,” she whispered, eyes
closed.

He fought the urge to smile. “Are you sure?”

Her eyes popped open and she looked indignant. “Yes, I’m
sure.”

“So, you were willing to suck me off in the hall just now,
but you don’t enjoy receiving.” He gave her a half smile. “You’re a guy’s wet
dream, Rachel Marsh.”

Her eyes went wide and he swallowed any protest she might
have had with another deep kiss. When she tried to push at him he easily got
hold of her wrists and pinned them over her head out of the way. He stretched
his body higher over hers and his cock jumped as it settled so close to her wet
heat. She groaned in agreement and tried to shift toward him, encouraging him
to plunge inside.

She wasn’t getting out of this so easily, and his cock was
just going to have to wait.

“Hold on.” He wrapped her fingers around the wrought iron
headboard of his bed. “Hold on or I’ll tie you down,” he added when she
resisted.

She held on.

“Let me change your mind.” He rose up on hands and knees
above her and let his gaze roam the length of her body. “Please,” he added for
good measure, nipping at her sweet, fat bottom lip.

He looked at her for an answer, but she gave none.

“You can tell me to stop at any time. Let me try.” He trailed
his fingertips down the line of her neck. “I want to taste you,” he told her,
his eyes locked on hers as his fingers moved through the valley between her
breasts and just under the swell of one. “I want to lick and kiss and suck
until you’re begging for more and pleading for mercy all in the same breath.”

Those beautiful, erotic lips of hers parted on a sharp gasp
and she shuddered.

His fingers continued to make a wide circle around her
breast, moving in smaller and smaller circles toward her peaked nipple. “What
do you say?”

“I can say stop any time?”

He rolled her nipple between his fingertips.

“Any time,” he assured her, sucking on the swollen little
nub of flesh.

Her back arched and she sighed deliciously. He slid both of
his hands up her arms and curled his fingers around hers.

“Hold on tight,” he told her, kissing her deeply, lingering
on the delicious heat of her mouth, empowered by the feel of her relaxing
beneath him, trusting him.

He used his knees to spread her legs wide, exposing her.
With just his mouth, he took his time working his way down her body. He nipped
at her neck, causing her to whimper softly. He lavished her breasts with
attention, circling her taut nipples with his tongue, getting them good and wet
before blowing on them softly and then pulling them deep into his mouth.

The feel of her body arching high into his touch and the
sound of the bedframe creaking with the strain of her pulling on it drove him
on. He trailed kisses along her side and nipped at her waist, making her jerk
and laugh, but she never let go of the grip she had on his headboard.

“Look at how beautiful you are,” he told her, settling
himself onto the mattress on his stomach between her legs, the slick pink of
her sex spread wide open to him.

Her eyes closed and she turned her head as though she
couldn’t bear to watch.

“Rachel.” He bit the inside of her thigh to get her
attention. “Watch me.”

Her eyes opened and she obeyed, looking at him down the long
line of her body. Past where her breasts trembled from the strain of her arms
pulling against the metal bars of the bed. Past where her belly rose and fell
with each panting breath.

Ben slid his hands up the inside of her thighs and used his
thumbs to open her wider, exposing her small, swollen clit. He touched his mouth
to it with a small, sucking kiss and she stopped breathing. He circled her with
his tongue, then sucked harder. The breath she’d been holding came out in a
long, ragged “
Oh
”. He covered her with his mouth again and his laughing
at her reaction made her wriggle and gasp.

“Hey.” He bit the inside of her leg to get her attention
when her eyes closed again. “I said watch.”

He waited until she did and then dove in, licking, sucking,
kissing, even using his teeth to draw out the fine line between pleasure and pain
that had her crying out beautifully in no time. The iron bedframe groaned
louder under the strain of her pulling as her body arched and bowed. He moved
his hands to the backs of her knees, pushing them up high and wide,
immobilizing her enough to keep her from either suffocating him or squirming
out from under him as he drove her body.

Lusty moans and sighs turned to desperate little gasps. She
sat up and clutched at him, whispering, “Stop. Please. I want…oh God…inside.
Now!”

The grip she got on his hair only spurred him on. He twisted
his wrist out of her other hand and buried two fingers deep inside her, fucking
her with them slowly. She fell back onto the bed and cried out as her hips
started to rock, undulating against his mouth, riding his fingers. He sucked in
time to the rhythm of her body as she started to throb beneath his mouth and
around his fingers.

He had to ease his hips off the bed to relieve the pressure
off his cock and keep himself from coming all over the comforter.

He went back up onto his knees when her body went limp. Her
pussy tightened around his fingers and she groaned as he pulled out of her. She
was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, lying there breathless with her
legs still spread for him. He was overwhelmed by the sight of her, her face,
neck and chest flushed hot with arousal, a fine sheet of sweat covering her
body and her hair a wild mess of curls.

He covered her mouth with his and let her taste herself on
his lips, his tongue.

She moaned a little when he stopped. He waited for those
killer green eyes to drift open before he asked, “That wasn’t so bad, now was
it?”

God, she’d never felt so alive. Every single one of her
nerve endings was humming with pleasure and she was close to either laughing
hysterically or weeping with joy.

Lips close to her ear, Ben said, “Tell me why you were so
afraid of that.”

Rachel cooled instantly.

“Not here,” she whispered, blushing. She could barely look
him in the eye. “This isn’t the place.”

A little frown twitched between his eyebrows, then
disappeared.

“I think we have more important matters at hand anyhow,” she
said, recovering somewhat as she curled her fingers around his erection.

The groan that rolled up out of his throat burned like
wildfire through her.

“Yes.” He shivered as she stroked him. “There’s that.”

She wet her thumb with the bead of moisture leaking from the
tip and spread it over the hot, swollen head.

“It’s your turn,” she said, shifting one and then the other
of her legs between his. His eyes went wide. A knowing smile crept over his
gorgeous mouth when he caught on to what she was doing.

He crawled a couple of feet up the bed as she shifted down
until she was lying between his legs, face-to-face with his glorious cock. She
gripped him, stroking his length, and looked up. Oh, he was watching all right.
With a smile on her face, she stuck her tongue out as far as it would go,
licked the salty slit at the tip. She was rewarded with the long, shuddering
release of his breath.

She slid her free hand up the back of his thigh to stroke
the smooth, firm skin of his ass as she sucked the head of his cock into her
mouth. The fact that he could—having the advantage of the upper position,
strength and size—at any moment plunge deeper than she was able to take him was
both wildly thrilling and absolutely terrifying.

She teased and sucked and swirled her tongue until she could
see the muscles of his stomach above her trembling with restraint. She wrapped
her hand around the base of his cock and eased the pressure off his backside,
then sucked him back in. They quickly fell into a rhythm until he was fucking
her mouth, whispering dirty, encouraging things to her, stoking the heat
between her legs as she gradually took more of him farther down her throat.

But when she dug her nails into his ass and let go of his
cock to cradle his balls, pushing them gently into his body and stroking the
sensitive skin behind them with her fingertips, he suddenly gripped himself and
pulled free.

She opened her mouth to ask what she’d done wrong, but he
grabbed her under her arms and hauled her back up the bed.

“I need more,” he panted, opening a nightstand drawer for a
condom. “No…that…you…are amazing.” He laughed breathlessly at her expression as
he tore the wrapper open with his teeth. “I don’t want to come down your
throat.” He sucked a sharp breath through his teeth as he rolled the condom
over himself. “I want to be buried all the way inside you.” He dropped to his
hands over her, kissed hard.

Her legs automatically came up around him as he stretched
his body over hers.

“Yes, baby, hold me tight,” he ground out through his
clenched teeth as he slid into her, inch by amazing inch.

She sighed out his name as he buried himself to the root,
loosened the grip she had on his waist and angled her hips as he shifted up her
body, burying himself even deeper. She pulled her legs up high and gripped his
rib cage with her knees.

“Don’t be gentle,” she told him, clicking her tongue twice
and giving him a little kick in the ass as though he were a pony.

He rolled his hips in a tight circle and she nearly came out
of her skin at the pressure of the movement on her clit.

“Hold on, cowgirl,” he chuckled, pulling back and then
slamming back into her.

She clutched at him as he drove her wildly, ruthlessly, to a
screaming climax. And when he rocked his hips through his own orgasm, the
aftershocks that rippled through her as she felt every twitch and pulse of his
body really did bring tears to her eyes.

* * * * *

“Are your parents still in Homewood?” Ben asked. He was
standing at the stove in nothing but a pair of red-and-white board shorts,
pouring whipped eggs into a pan.

Rachel was sitting at the little breakfast counter between
the kitchen and living room in his apartment, wearing one of his t-shirts and
her barely there underpants. She was wide awake despite her body feeling
deliciously loose-jointed.

“My mother moved to New Mexico to live near my aunt after I
decided I wanted to spend most of my time in London between tours on the
boats.” She fiddled with the glass of ice water he’d given her, turning it in
place in its small puddle of condensation. “She lives in a green community in a
house made out of up-cycled tires. It’s pretty cool really. All the houses are
completely off the grid as far as power usage goes. Everyone knows everyone in
her little village. Her neighbor on the one side is a retired actress who’s now
in her early seventies and writes mystery novels under a pen name.

“I can’t tell you her real name as I have been threatened
with a long, slow torture if I do.” She smiled sweetly when he gave her a
narrow-eyed look over his shoulder. “I can tell you her pen name is Max LeFevre
though.”

His eyebrows went up and he turned toward her, omelette pan
in hand.

“I’ve read all of the Gage Knight books.” He looked
incredulous. “You’re telling me a seventy-year-old woman writes those?”

Gage Knight was the main character in a paranormal mystery
series about a private investigator, who may or may not have had a legion of
God’s highest-ranking angels as well as the Devil himself in his back pocket.
The books were hip and edgy, and peppered throughout with some of the dirtiest
sex scenes Rachel had ever read.

“A seventy-three-year-old mother of three, grandmother of
seven and soon-to-be great-grandmother of one writes those,” she clarified.

He narrowed his eyes again. “You sure you can’t tell me her
real name?”

She shrugged in mock helplessness. “Sorry.”

His cool, dark eyes sharpened. “What if I torture it out of
you myself?”

“I’d love for you to try some time, but not on an empty
stomach.”

He slid the eggs onto a waiting plate. “It does kind of take
all the fun out of the game if you cave too fast because you’re undernourished
and weak,” he told her, leaning across the counter to kiss her, making the room
sway once more.

“My mom invited me out there when I told her I was ready to
come home,” she said when set the plate in front of her. “My dad’s still in
Homewood. He offered to let me stay with him too, but I really love the city.”

He nodded. “I know what you mean. Even when I start working
at the Homewood Center full time, I don’t know that I’ll move there. Not right
away, anyway.”

“You’ll be the only car on the road heading
out
of
Chicago during rush hour.”

“Which will be all right with me.” He laughed and started cracking
eggs for himself into the mixing bowl.

She dropped her fork at the sound of keys in the front door.
Ben looked at the clock on the wall above the stove, then at her.

“I didn’t realize it was so late,” he observed mildly,
picking up the mixing bowl and whisking his eggs as though his roommate coming
home while a half-naked overnight guest sat at his kitchen counter was no big
thing.

With no time to safely dash off to Ben’s room without being
seen, Rachel made sure the hem of his shirt was tucked around her so Alex
couldn’t see her nearly bare bottom.

She watched open-mouthed as tall Alex fell through the door
with tiny Bree clinging to him, both of them still dressed in scrubs. Ben,
apparently unfazed, turned and poured his eggs into the hot pan. Alex and Bree
froze comically, eyes wide and mouths agape, when they realized the lights were
on and they weren’t alone.

“Rach,” Bree chirped as the big redhead set her on her feet.
“Fancy seeing you here.” She was grinning ear to ear as she looked from Rachel
to Ben, who was busy attending to his breakfast.

“Rachel.” Alex nodded to her and dropped his keys onto the
table just inside the door. He looked at the discarded clothes she and Ben
hadn’t yet picked up off the floor and then at his roommate. “Benjamin.”

Ben flipped his omelette with a quick flick of the wrist and
waved without looking.

Alex bent at the knees and clapped his hands once.

“Up,” he said to Bree, who hopped onto his back.

“Bye, sweetie,” Bree whispered, wiggling her fingers at
Rachel as she was carried piggyback down the hall to Alex’s room.

Rachel looked at Ben. They stared at one another before he
shook his head and she started to giggle. Ben turned to pile meat and cheese
into the pan.

“It looks like Petra struck twice this time,” he said,
folding his eggs over and sliding them onto the second waiting plate.

She sat up straighter. “What does that mean?”

He got another fork from the drawer. “You mean you don’t
know?” He set his plate on the counter and sat across from her. “I find that
hard to believe.” When she just looked at him he added, “Your friend fancies
herself something of a cupid from what Jude tells me. She’s been using her key
parties to set people up. So far she’s got two engagements and one couple
buying a house together on her résumé.”

Rachel’s mouth went dry and she put her fork down, the bite
still stuck to the end.

She knew Petra had her secrets. To tell Rachel she held sex
parties without revealing she had a motive—in this case to set up friends she
thought might be well-suited for each other—was typical really. But why would
Ben know and not her?

“I thought maybe she was going for you and I this time, you
know, what with the sticker on my car key, but maybe she had someone else in
mind too.” He shook pepper onto his eggs and then pointed to her plate with the
shaker. “How’s your breakfast?”

She started and looked down at the forgotten bite, her mind
racing. She could hardly get her head around the implication of what he was
saying. Did that oh so casual comment he’d just made mean he thought Petra was
right about them or not?

She picked up her fork because he was watching her
expectantly and put it in her mouth. Her eyes rolled closed. It was nothing
fancier than eggs, ham and Swiss cheese, and it had gotten a little cold, but
it was absolute heaven nonetheless.

He was smiling when she opened her eyes. “I’ll take that as
a good sign.”

She nearly choked on her food when a high-pitched, girlie
squeal followed by deep male laughter came out of the back bedroom.

Ben hung his head and muttered, “Fucking Alex.”

“What was that?” she asked, her eyes wide.

He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I hear it way too
often.”

Rachel sipped her coffee, knowing she was going to need it.
If it was late enough in the morning that Bree was off work, it was too late to
sleep before her interview later that morning.

She cut another bite. “You’re going to be tired at work
today.”

He smiled. “I don’t have to be anywhere until late morning.
There’s still time for a power nap between now and then.” He leaned over their
plates and kissed her. “Last night was hands down worth losing sleep over.”

She could feel her heart pick up the pace and warned it to
be a little more cautious.

Sounds of talking drifted to them down the hallway. There
was a heavy thump followed by more laughter.

“Are you going to be able to sleep with the two of them in
the next room?”

“I am blessed with the ability to sleep through air raid
sirens if I’m tired enough. And if that doesn’t work…” He shook his head again
when there was yet another squeal from Bree. “I have really good earplugs,” he
assured her.

He watched her thoughtfully while they both fell silent,
eating.

“Are you ready to tell me why you have such a hang-up about
that
yet?” He pointed in the general direction of her crotch with his fork, his eyes
lit with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.

Rachel took her time chewing while she processed her answer,
but she couldn’t for the life of her remember why she’d clung to that old hurt
for so long.

“Had,” she corrected. “I
had
a hang-up about that,”
she pointed to her lap with her fork, “and the reason why isn’t important any
longer.”

He stopped chewing and gave her a long, meaningful look.

She knew she was already in deep when he grinned, looking
both charming and arrogantly pleased with himself, and said, “Good.”