Vanilla

  I’d put my shoes back on to come upstairs, but kicked them off now as I turned to face him. He tossed his jacket onto the chair. With the heels on, I was an inch or so taller than he was, but in my stockinged feet I found I could kiss him very nicely without doing more than pushing up a little bit on my toes. My arms went naturally around his neck. His, around my waist.

  I thought he might kiss me, but he looked into my eyes, instead. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I answered. My fingers toyed with the fringy edges of his hair in the back.

  Slowly moving in a circle, Niall danced with me there in front of the enormous hotel room bed. He’d taken off his shoes, too, and the soft shush-shush of our feet on the carpet was our only music, but we didn’t need more than that. He eased me closer, right up against him. My cheek found a natural spot to rest in the curve of his neck.

  I wanted him to kiss me. Morning would be here in a few hours, but it still felt as though the night stretched on in front of us, endless and full of possibility. I was fine with waiting.

  His hands moved from my hips to my ass, pulling me a little closer. Heat curled in my belly. I nuzzled his skin and let my tongue creep out to taste him.

  He shivered, and I smiled.

  “I want to kiss you again,” he said against my hair.

  I looked at him. “So kiss me.”

  “I didn’t know if I needed to ask permission or something.”

  I laughed, though I wasn’t sure if he was joking. “Why would you have to ask permission?”

  “Isn’t that how you do it?”

  Ah, we were back to that again. He was fascinated; I was horny. I stepped back.

  “This,” I said, fisting a handful of the front of his shirt, “is how I do it.”

  I turned him, and he let himself be turned. I pushed him, and he let himself be pushed. Backward onto the bed, he fell a little harder than I think he expected, but I was already climbing up to straddle him. My fingers tugged open his buttons, one by one, and spread open his shirt so I could run my hands up the smoothly muscled plane of his belly and chest. Beneath me, his cock was hard, but I didn’t touch him there with my hands. The pressure of my body was enough for now, the squeeze of my thighs on his hips.

  I put my hands flat on his chest and leaned to offer him my mouth, which I held above his just far enough that he’d have to strain a little to reach it. “Kiss me.”

  In those last few seconds, I wondered if he’d refuse. A flash of something in his eyes, a small twist in his smile. But then he was kissing me, hard, his hands all over me. Mine all over him.

  Mouths open, tongues searching. He hissed when I raked my nails down his chest, though I did it lightly, nowhere near as fiercely as I’d have done with someone else. I pinched his nipples next, and he growled.

  Yes. Growled. Low and raspy in his throat, a wolf-like noise. Both his hands came up to grip my wrists and stop me from moving my hands.

  Both of us were breathing hard, staring into each other’s eyes. Slowly, never looking away from me, Niall rolled his hips to nudge his hard cock against me. Then again. When I tried to shift, he held me so tight there was no way I could, not without truly fighting him, and I didn’t want to do that.

  The third time he rocked me against his erection, I moaned. His grip loosened a little on my wrists. I kissed him, nipping gently at his lower lip. Then licking it.

  Niall dug his fingers into my hair, pulling my head back. I gasped a little. His look of smug triumph, that gleam of satisfaction, shot a bolt of electric heat straight to my center. I might like being on top, but that never meant I couldn’t enjoy a little good old-fashioned hair pulling.

  He rolled us both until I was under him. Dress around my hips. I hadn’t dressed for seduction tonight, leaving behind my fancy garter belt in favor of one with more vintage styling. It doubled as a foundation garment to keep all the lumps and bumps of ladyhood in place. My stockings, plain nude with a utilitarian band at the top instead of pretty lace, were also not what I’d have considered sexy, but at the sight of them, Niall paused.

  “Damn.” He pushed up on his knees to get a better look.

  Pleased, I stroked a fingertip down one garter strap. “You like this?”

  “Yeah.” He ran his hands up my calves, over my knees. He stopped at the stocking tops to let his fingers touch the metal clips. “Very sexy.”

  I had a dozen far sexier bits of lingerie in my drawer at home, but I didn’t try to dissuade him. I sat up and pulled my dress off over my head then tossed it onto the chair. I almost never wore a bra, but in honor of going to synagogue I’d put on a silky, clinging bralette that did nothing to hide the fact my nipples had gone diamond-hard. Propped on my elbows, I watched Niall’s hazel eyes go dark with desire as he took me all in.

  “So fucking sexy.” He undid his belt then his trousers and shucked them off. He wore dark boxer briefs, already tenting.

  I grinned with delight. “More, more, more.”

  “Greedy.” Niall crawled up the bed to cover me with his body. Settling between my legs, several layers of clothing still a barrier, he rocked against me as he found my mouth again. Then my throat, nibbling.

  It had been a long, long time since I’d just made out with someone this way. Dry humping. It made me laugh, and he pulled away to look at me.

  “What?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing. Just...this is unexpected.”

  He ran a hand over my breasts then my belly, which jumped under his touch. “Are you okay with it?”

  It was the right question. He’d been confident to this point. Leading me, as I allowed myself to be led. But in that moment he proved himself to be a gentleman, as well, even if he was doing things to me that someone’s grandma wouldn’t approve of.

  I took his face in my hands. “Yes. Are you?”

  “Yeah.” He turned his face to kiss my palm. Then the inside of my wrist, just over the rabbit inked there. “What does this mean?”

  “It’s to remind me of something important.”

  He rolled off me to look more closely at the tattoo. I thought he’d ask me what was simultaneously so important yet so forgettable that I’d felt the need to permanently ink it into my skin, but he asked a different question. “Why a bunny?”

  “Because,” I said, rolling him onto his back so I could straddle him once more.

  He accepted my nonanswer. He did not accept when I slid my hands up his arms to pin his wrists. Laughing, he twisted to break my grasp.

  “Maybe you want to tie me up,” he said.

  I sat up, not fighting to keep him held. With my hands on his chest, I leaned to whisper in his ear, “You should stop assuming you know me.”

  Then we were kissing again, and there was no room for words with Niall’s tongue in my mouth. With his hand sliding between us to stroke me through my panties, and then inside them, his fingers finding me already wet. He groaned at that. His gaze went unfocused, and I drank in that look as I always did, gorging myself on that moment when need began to overpower rationality.

  “Slower,” I said into his ear when his fingers worked too fast.

  He slowed. “Better?”

  I shivered, closing my eyes and resting my face against his shoulder. “Yes. Like that. Oh...”

  “I want to be inside you, Elise.”

  Laughter shuddered out of me, breathless and full of need. “Yes. That, too.”

  “I don’t have anything with me.”

  His slowly stroking fingers had eased me to the edge of orgasm, but I shifted now to look into his eyes. “Hmm. That could be a problem, huh?”

  Niall rolled us again so that we lay side by side. He kept his hand in place, though he stopped moving. “I want to...”

  “Fuck me,” I breathed, watching his face for a reaction, which, oh, yes, he gave me.

  His eyes half closed for a moment before he focused on mine. “Yes. I want to fuck you.”

  I reached between us to cup his cock. “Good.”

>   He pushed into my touch and kissed me again. We wriggled around for another few minutes until he broke the kiss with a gasp. “Shit! I want you.”

  “I want you, too.” I laughed. “Why do you not have condoms with you at all times, Niall Black? How is it that you’ve managed to get through life without learning that at any time you might want to be putting your penis inside a vagina?”

  He blinked, looking taken aback for a second before grinning. “What the...”

  I kissed him, long and hard. I slid my thigh between his to rock against him. “Don’t act like it’s never happened before.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “All the time. Last week in the grocery store, some chick stopped me and wanted to bang me right there in the frozen foods aisle.”

  “Let me guess. You didn’t have a condom.”

  His fingers shifted, easing inside me again so that my head fell back. “Nope. But let’s be fair here. You don’t have any, either.”

  “This is true,” I breathed, unable to say much more than that because he was once again teasing me closer and closer to coming. “So whatever shall we do, instead?”

  Before I could move or stop him, Niall rolled me onto my back to kneel between my legs. In the next moment, he’d hooked his fingers in the waist of my girdle, tugging but unable to get it more than a fraction of an inch down my hips. I burst into laughter at his efforts. He joined me, and we wrestled for a bit, but there was no getting that thing off without a struggle. He gave up and fell back, panting.

  “Cock blocked by lingerie,” he said.

  I pushed up on my elbow to look at him. “I dressed for utility, not seduction.”

  He groaned and tickled his fingertips up my thigh. I wanted him to touch me higher. Give me more. But there’d been too much to drink, too long a day. A yawn slipped out of me, big enough to make my jaws crack. He tried to fight it; I saw the struggle. But he lost to his own yawn. With his head pillowed on my belly, Niall closed his eyes.

  I stroked his hair, surprised at my own tenderness and at how quickly this had turned from frenetic lust to something simpler. I’d been with men who, in place of the sex we’d both been aiming for, would’ve demanded a blow job and some who’d have begged for one, and I was usually inclined to deny both approaches. Niall didn’t demand, and he didn’t beg. I waited for him to move or speak, but the minutes ticked past, and his breathing slowed.

  “Niall,” I murmured.

  He snuggled closer, his fingers pushing beneath my thighs. I let my fingers drift through his hair, then to trace his ear. He shifted a little, though not in protest.

  “Feels good,” he said.

  It did feel good. Not just the kissing and touching and stroking, but...this. All of it. The way my fingers felt in his hair, the soft rise and fall of his breathing. The way he hugged me closer. Everything about being with Niall just now felt...right.

  We weren’t fucking, and I felt all right.

  I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Not fully clothed, cuddling, my face unwashed and my hair tangling around my shoulders. The lights still on. I only meant to close my eyes for a minute or so, not to drift into dreams with a stranger tucked up against me as though we’d known each other our whole lives. Considering how hard it was for me to fall asleep in my own bed with an arsenal of tricks, I didn’t think I’d be able to at all.

  I did, though. I fell fast and deep and didn’t dream. I woke sometime later, disoriented. Niall had turned off the lights, and we’d both shifted on the bed to spoon, him behind me. His arm over my hip, his hand on my belly. My garters were cutting into my thighs, and my stomach churned from not enough sleep, a little too much wine, uncompleted arousal.

  I didn’t move, slowly becoming aware of the huff of Niall’s breath against the back of my neck. Light came through the curtains, but I had no idea what time it was. Shit, had I slept through brunch?

  I slid away from him, expecting him to wake, but he didn’t. I used his bathroom to rinse my mouth and smooth my hair. I wiped away the smears of liner from beneath my eyes. I’d have to run and change in my room before heading downstairs, but at least for now I didn’t look like I’d slept under a bridge.

  Back in the bedroom, I found my shoes and didn’t bother putting them on. I leaned over him, but he hadn’t moved. I stroked his shoulder, and he still didn’t stir.

  I did not kiss him on the cheek before I left.

  27

  “Really, Elise, if you’re that hungover, maybe you should’ve just stayed in your room.” Jill held out a mimosa in my direction, but took it back when I reached for it.

  “I’m not hungover. Just tired.”

  “Well, you look it. Go put some lipstick on.” She shook her head in disapproval.

  “Jill, nobody really cares what I look like. It’s all good. You and Mom did a great job with all of this stuff, relax.” I snagged a mimosa from a passing waiter and tried to pretend I was not looking for Niall. I was starving.

  “We just wanted it to be nice.” My sister pinned me with a stare. “We wanted to make sure William had a nice party, that’s all.”

  “He had a great party. And this is a nice brunch, okay?” In that moment I was trying hard to like my sister. “Look, Mom’s in her glory.”

  She was meeting and greeting, directing people toward the buffet table laden with eggs, bagels, cream cheese and lox. I heard one confused guest asking if there was any bacon and prayed they wouldn’t ask my mother, who could not be counted on not to be snide. All in all, though, it really was a nice brunch. Mom and Jill were good at planning things. Nobody would know how they dithered over stuff, and in the end, did it matter how long it had taken them to decide if they should have vegetable cream cheese alongside the plain?

  “You look hungover.” Evan shoved a plate of eggs and bagels at me. “You want this?”

  I took it right out of his hand. “Joke’s on you, butt wad, I’m not hungover, and I’m starving. So yeah. Thanks for the plate, buddy, looks like you need to get to the back of the line again.”

  “Nice. Butt wad. Good one. What are you, ten?” My brother tried to snag his plate back. Since I couldn’t eat anything from it anyway with a glass in my other hand, I let him have it. He looked around the room. “Lot of people here.”

  “Yeah, well, there were more here last night. And in a few hours, it’ll all be over. You can go home and never have to do it again.” I grinned at him and slugged back the mimosa, put the glass on an empty table and headed for the buffet.

  I made small talk with the people in line, but my eyes scanned the crowd for Niall. I could’ve texted him, I thought. He might’ve forgotten about the brunch. Or, I thought suddenly as I caught sight of my mother, who was still queening over everything, he hadn’t actually been invited. Well, shit. That made sense. Niall wasn’t family. My mother wouldn’t have included him unless Evan had made sure to put him on the list, and really, I knew my brother well enough to know he wouldn’t have thought to do that.

  It was an excuse to text him, and I was nowhere near too proud to take it. I spelled out the details, the room location and timing, and hit Send right as I got up to the food. Tucking my phone into my purse, I loaded my plate with goodies. My stomach rumbled. As I got to the end of the buffet line and reached the spot where my mother was standing, still directing people toward the coffee and the dessert table, Susan approached.

  “What a nice brunch,” she said graciously, and, I thought, sincerely. “Thank you so much to you and Jill for putting this all together. Everything looks lovely. Thank you.”

  Watching my mother beam and my sister-in-law making an effort to reach out to her, I thought something of a miracle might be taking place. It was short-lived. Plate in hand, I eased by them on my way to an empty seat so I could check my phone for an answer from Niall, and that’s when I heard my sister say, “I’m really so glad we decided to invite your family, as well. Mom and I really felt that it was the right thing to do, to include them.”

  Oh, no
, Jill, I thought. Don’t. Just...for fuck’s sake. No.

  “Why would you have excluded them?” Susan asked, a little too quickly. A little too loud.

  My sister was still clueless, though the shift in Susan’s tone should have alerted her that she’d misspoken, if her own social graces didn’t. “Well...not exclude them, it’s just that this brunch was going to be for family only. For William, of course.”

  “My family is William’s family,” Susan said through tight jaws. “Why on earth would you not invite them to a party to celebrate my son’s Bar Mitzvah?”

  My mother might like to battle, but she only ever caused a scene when she thought it would benefit her. She snagged Jill’s sleeve to pull her back a step. “Lower your voices!”

  “Why? You don’t want any of the guests here to know that you didn’t want to invite them?”

  Oh, boy. I saw Evan on his way over to try and head off the showdown, but it was too late. My sister-in-law, who’d definitely put up with her share of hassles from my mother and Jill, had finally and spectacularly lost her shit.

  The screaming started, and I’ll give it to her, Susan had way more colorful vocabulary than I ever would’ve given her credit for. She suggested Jill perform a few actions that I’m sure were anatomically impossible, and when my mother tried in her wavering “I can’t believe how I’m being maligned” whine to defend my sister, Susan flayed her alive.

  It was kind of awesome to behold.

  Not that I disagreed that my mom and sister deserved to be taken down, but this wasn’t the time or the place. Nobody seemed to remember that William was there as those three women waged war on each other over who’d done the better job for him, but when I looked across the room at my nephew, he’d gone pale and looked shaky. I dumped my plate and went to him, tugging him out a back door into a service hallway, where he burst into horrified, mortified sobs.

  “Hey, hey,” I soothed. “Shhh.”

  “They’re ruining it all!”

  “They’re all dicks,” I said. “Don’t...William, don’t let it upset you. Shit. Yeah. Let it upset you. They’re jerks. I’m sorry, kid.”