Lust Thy Neighbor (15 page)

He filled her slowly, marveling at her warmth and the way she automatically clenched her pussy around him. He'd never felt like this during sex. When he had sex, it was all about staying in control, but Violet Kelly had him losing his mind from the very beginning. She was addictive, and he was ready for the high that her body promised.

He reached between their bodies and thumbed her clit, flicking it deliberately in time with his thrusts. She fell apart in his arms. Cried out brokenly. Made him feel like he was on top of the world. He grasped her tighter, and even after the ripples of pleasure had taken them both under, she still clutched at him, calling his name.

*

S
he awoke to the unfamiliar feeling of a hard male thigh wedged between hers, the hairs on his leg tickling her soft skin. She could feel Declan snuggled tight behind her, his bicep beneath her head and his other arm was wrapped securely around her small waist. A growing erection was prodding the curve of her lower back, and she turned to see that Declan was wide awake and staring down at her.

"Hey," she murmured.

A slow smile spread across his features. "Hi."

His voice was deeper than usual, and she felt her heart quicken when she realized how much she’d love to wake up to that sound over and over again. "You didn't sleep?"

"For about an hour or so." He slanted down to nuzzle the top of her breast while he drew back the covers. He cupped her thigh, urging her legs apart.

She gasped. "Again?" After coming to her the first time, he nudged her fifteen minutes later for round two. He had pulled her up to her knees while he took her from behind, his hand twisted in her long dark hair as their bodies frantically came together. As she climaxed that second time, he had squeezed her breast with his other hand and had whispered her name repeatedly until she could finally breathe again.

"Yes." He scooted down and flipped her up to sit on his lap. “Again.”

"Fiend!" She swept her tangled hair away from her face.

He watched from below, a familiar heat burning in his eyes that she'd come to expect. He reached over to hand her a slim package, wrapping her fingers carefully around the foil. "Put it on me."

Her fingers fumbled with it, unable to rip it on the first time. She expected him to be impatient and take it away from her to finish it himself. Instead, he stacked his hands behind his head and watched her, amusement dancing in his eyes.

When she finally rolled the condom in place, he reached for both her hands, balancing her forward on her knees to kiss her before he pushed her back gently. "Do what you want." He set her on his lower abs and she felt them contract and tighten beneath her weight.

"What?"

He grinned slowly. "Take what you want, whatever you need from me." His bent knees slid her forward so that she was cradled in the V that was created by his chest and legs.

She reached down to position him where she wanted. He was larger this way and she had to work slowly, lifting up a few times to try again.

"Mmm." The tendons of his neck stood out as he arched up, meeting her. "That's it, baby...." he murmured words of encouragement. His knees spread apart wide and she felt him surge even deeper inside her body.

She kept a steady rhythm, alternating between lifting up and down on him to rocking back and forth, stimulating her most sensitive area against his hardness. She rocked until she felt stars burst behind her closed eyelids.

As she felt him swell further inside her, his arms shot up to grip her tight on her hips. He held her still as he thrust up hard into her. Once, twice, three times...and then he released a guttural groan.

Collapsing on his chest, she tried to catch her breath and heard the thundering sound of his heartbeat. "It's so intense," she whispered as much to him as to herself in wonder. “Why is it this intense?”

His hand came up to stroke her hair but he didn’t disentangle their bodies. "I know." He sounded just as confused as she felt.

"This doesn't feel casual ... what the hell are we, Declan?”

He didn't answer and after a moment, when he laid back on the pillow and broke eye contact, she rested her cheek on his chest. Just when she started to drift off, her lids going heavy with exhaustion, she thought she heard him whisper, "I have no idea what we are anymore, sweetheart."

"V
iolet?" He circled her shoulder with his nose in a lingering inhale. God, she smelled good. "Wake up."

She squinted one eye and turned her head in his direction. "What time is it?"

"Time for me to go home." He tapped the face of her alarm clock to show her the time. "You should probably get up too. There'll just be enough time for a shower and a quick breakfast before school."

She shook her head into her pillow. "No school today. Too sleepy."

He chuckled, knowing how she felt. He was exhausted, but hell, he'd never had that much fun. His lips tugged up as he remembered every last detail of their marathon sex the night before. "Don't fall asleep again or you're going to be late." He swept aside a chunk of hair that cascaded over her pale shoulder. "Want to come over for dinner tonight? I'm doing kabobs."

She flipped over and nodded. "Sounds great."

He leaned over and laid a soft kiss on her forehead, his hand plumping her ass cheek as he whispered, "Last night was amazing."

She could only grin.

"I'll see you later." He left her sitting up in bed with her hair in a tangled halo around her face, her body weak and her expression content.

As he stepped into the morning light and walked the short distance next door, he marveled at the tiny aches in his body. He thought about how she had whispered more than once that it all didn't seem so causal to her. And truthfully, it didn't feel anywhere near casual for him either.

He knew it from the moment he saw her in the darkened bedroom, the moonlight spilling across her creamy skin, and her soft cries filling the empty space. Afterwards, when he felt her weight resting against his body, it was comforting and made him feel at peace. No woman had ever given him a feeling of peace before. In the past, he'd either be ready to go again or ready to leave entirely. But never did he feel an overwhelming sense of wanting to stay.

Not like he had last night with Violet.

As he entered through the door and tossed his shoes by the entryway, he knew that Violet Kelly, with her big blue eyes and talented hands, was going to be a hell of a lot more than casual to him.

*

W
hen Violet showered, running her hands over the sore spots on her body, she smiled and pictured his hands and mouth all over her.

She thought of him randomly for the rest of the day.

She got a flash of him caressing her inner thigh when she pulled into her normal parking space in the school lot.

She remembered the way he had throbbed against her tongue when she poured her morning cup of coffee in the teacher's lounge.

She recalled how he felt inside her when she spent her free period grading some papers from her junior class.

And when she watched her freshman class take a quiz, she reminisced how her heart had fluttered when he told her how amazing their night had gone.

*

"B
ye, Miss Kelly." She was shaken out of her memories as Jacob dropped his test on her desk. He offered her a fleeting smile.

She dredged up the closest thing to a smile she could muster, hoping that he wouldn't realize that she had been fantasizing about his older brother just a moment before. "Bye."

He nodded and left, leaving her with two remaining students who were furiously scribbling their last minute answers. The bell rang. "Okay, guys. Please turn in your papers."

The last stragglers each came up, shell-shocked expressions on their faces. She gathered up all the tests in a neat pile, watching it grow. Sighing, she accepted that she had a lot of grading to do this weekend. Maybe Declan wouldn't mind snuggling in bed while she graded papers, she thought with a giant grin.

Since the classroom was empty, she clearly heard the vibrating sound of her phone in her bag. Scrambling for her phone, she ended up dumping the entire contents of her purse all over her desk. Without looking, she accepted the call. "Hey!" She thought it'd be Declan and that by some miracle connection made possible by getting it on the night before, he'd be thinking of her at the same time she'd been fantasizing of him.

"Wow, you sure do sound chipper." Beck’s smooth tenor filled her ear instead.

"Oh, it's you."

He sniffed. "Well, hell, don't sound too excited."

“Sorry, babe.” Her lips twitched. "I thought you were someone else."

"Could that someone else be a good-looking, bronze neighbor with abs to die for?" he teased.

“Yes,” she whispered.

"Spill."

She heard voices in the background on his end of the line. "Are you at work?"

"Don't worry, I'm closing the door as I speak."

She sat down at her desk and fiddled with her cup of assorted dry-erase markers and ink pens. When Beck told her that she was safe from prying ears, she blurted, "He asked me to dinner at his house last night.”

"Wow, he cooks?"

"He was making dinner for him and Jacob."

"Right. The moody brother who walks Bear for you.”

She nodded. "Yes. So we're having dinner and after we finished we're in his kitchen cleaning up. And then we started kissing."

"Okay, sounds good."

"And then he starts with the dirty talk."

"Good god, you’re taking forever to get to the good parts. What happened?”

She released a nervous laugh. "He asked if he could come over later that night. And ... well, it was amazing.”

"Sounds like the good time you deserve."

She paused to consider the statement. "It was," she said. "Beck," she started softly. "I think I could fall in love with Declan."

"Wow. The L-word is pretty heavy, beautiful.”

"Yeah." She let out a shaky sigh. "But we said we'd keep things casual because of his brother and my conflicted feelings about Henry so there's that."

"But you're no longer conflicted, right? I thought you got the douchebag out of your system the night of your grandma’s party."

"I guess you're right. Even though I still don't feel like I have closure, I honestly haven’t given Henry much thought since Declan and I started dating.”

Beck groaned. "So why can't you make things more serious with Declan? That is, if you really do like him."

"I just don't want to turn the tables on him. He clearly told me that he couldn't afford to be serious. Jacob doesn't need more women going in and out of his life and it's obvious he's still adjusting to the fact I'm seeing his brother."

"Well, take things one step at a time. But if you still think that there might be potential for something more, talk to him. It's not fair to
you
if you want more and it's sure as hell not fair to him if you're secretly expecting more from him than he's willing to give.”

"You're right." In fact, Beck needed his own talk show.

A moment passed. "I've got a meeting with a client. I'll call you later, okay? Maybe drop by in a week or two so I can ogle your man in his backyard from your upstairs window?"

She laughed. “It’s a date.”

*

D
eclan turned another kabob on the grill and went to string up another. He heard the door slide open behind him and when he felt a heavy gaze on his back he knew for certain that it wasn't Jacob.

"Evening, neighbor," he said and turned to see her smiling shyly back.

Under his dark scrutiny, she tucked a dark strand of hair behind her ear and licked her lips. "Hi."

"Come here." He waved her to him with his spatula, and she stepped forward hesitantly.

"Where's Jacob?"

"He's still out with Bear on their walk." He let his eyes roam over her body. She was wearing tight skinny jeans and a blue tee shirt that emphasized those breasts his mouth had tasted the night before. "You're early."

"I wanted to see you."

He knew exactly how she felt. He couldn't concentrate all day at work; instead, he replayed snippets of last night on a hot, recurring reel in his mind. "Did you have a good day?"

"Good memories," she teased.

He bent down to brush her lips with hers. "God, me too.” They pulled apart when they heard the front door slam. "Fun, our chaperone's here," he sighed.

"Maybe that’s a good thing. Otherwise we’d never eat."

Declan heard the clicking of Bear's nails on the kitchen tile and then the little dog barreled out into the yard, yapping at his mistress as she knelt down to embrace him.

"Hey, baby. Did you have fun today?" Bear licked at her chin, bathing her in doggy kisses and Declan rolled his eyes.

"Is dinner ready yet?" Jacob popped the lid off a pop and gulped it down.

"Yeah," Declan brought the kabobs into the kitchen. "Get the silverware, would you?"

When they started on dinner, there was an odd lull in the conversation, a silence that no one could fill. Finally, Declan cleared his throat. "How did your test go, Jacob? The one you were studying for?"

Jacob groaned loudly. "It was a killer. It was cruel and unusual punishment." He paused and then must have suddenly realized who was at the dining table with him, because he cringed. "I mean, it was difficult but fair."

Declan laughed out loud and nudged Violet, dislodging her bell pepper off from her wooden skewer. She scowled at him. "You get off on punishing kids?" he asked.

"Sorry." She shot Jacob an apologetic smile. "Was it really that hard?"

He shrugged. "Kind of. But I guess if I studied as much on
Crime and Punishment
as I did
Romeo and Juliet
, I would've been better off."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I have to grade them all in a few days. Plus, my other classes took tests too."

"Yeah, guess it does make me feel a little better." Jacob grinned. "Are you sure you can't cut me some slack? You are dating my brother and all that."