Authors: Jan Irving
Tags: #Younger Man/ Contemporary, #BDSM/ Men in Uniform/ Older Woman
“Luke already left?” Taz asked.
“Yes.”
“You look like you could use some of that coffee you dole out.”
“I’m okay. You on the other hand look like you went one round too many.” She cocked an eyebrow at his swollen eye.
“Luke.” Taz’s eyes flashed a look that was oddly pride. “He has a helluva right cross.”
“You knew he’d do that. After what you did, setting us up.”
“If you weren’t going to stick, better he knew.”
“Looking out for him.”
Taz shrugged. “You do it for your friend Dharma. I heard you’re picking up her medical expenses.” His green eyes moved over her face with a moody light. “Are you going to break his heart?”
“That’s the last thing I want.”
“Long as I knew him, Luke’s had you in the blood. He’s always felt less, like he had to grow up, grow tall, to be a man you’d want.”
* * * *
Luke found Sian sitting on her bed hours later. He’d swung by the coffee house to check on her earlier, but had found it darkened and closed up, so she hadn’t made it back.
“You saw Dharma home?” he asked, rubbing the tense muscles of his neck.
“Yes. Her mom’s come down to stay with her for a few days.”
Luke nodded. “She had a scare.”
“A brownie. She didn’t even eat that much of it.”
“It could have been triggered by anything, but caffeine, alcohol…things to watch.”
“Your captain also came by to see how she was,” Sian said, making haystacks of her bedspread. “He didn’t stay long.”
“Fred likes the way she makes him coffee. It hit you hard.”
“It scared me. I love her, she’s part of my life and…”
“She’s okay now.”
Since Luke only stood at the doorway to her bedroom, she got off the bed and went to him. He pulled her into his arms.
“Thank you for being who you are.” She pulled away. “I need a moment to do some things.”
He pulled back awkwardly, standing in the hallway, hating that he still stood out here, looking into her bedroom from the outside. It had been stupid to push her about marriage, he admitted to himself. God, he was tired. Maybe he should just let it go, go on living with her. “Sure.”
“Meet you in fifteen in the kitchen?”
“Okay then.”
Luke found some soup in the fridge and put it in the microwave. He cut some sourdough and shoved it in the toaster.
“You’re looking very handy,” Sian drawled.
“You’re still the queen of your domain, but you need to eat something.”
“You’re right, I haven’t eaten.”
He looked over his shoulder at her, and that’s when it hit him.
She was wearing that black deal, the dress she’d been wearing the night his control had broken. Sweat broke out on his hairline as he took her in, brown hair up, long, fragile bird bones, delicate neck, anxious eyes.
Those eyes were smudged with something that made them look sad and mysterious. Her lips were glossy and reddened, as if from hard kisses.
She smelt spicy, as good as one of her pastries.
She was everything he’d ever wanted and everything he was sure he could never have.
Except she was smiling at him, reaching out and gripping his hand as he just stood there.
“Your hands are cold. Shit.” He frowned.
“Always taking care of me, Luke?” She tilted her head to look up at him and he was even more aware of her perfume, of the way she’d dressed up for him on an ordinary night, a week night. She looked…
His hands slid down silky material and cupped her ass, groaning as her flexible, long body caressed him where he tented his jeans.
“Make love to me.”
She’d never initiated it before between them. Never. He’d given up hoping she would.
He lifted her onto the island that had seen previous action, reached under her skirt and found…hot, wet flesh.
She wasn’t wearing panties.
She laughed. “You look surprised.”
“You came out here to seduce me?”
Now her heavy eyes held that sadness again. She cupped his cheek. “Luke, I’ve let my fears rule me.”
“Life’s too short,” he croaked. He shoved up the dress, exposing her pink depths. He put his mouth on her and she groaned, long legs locked around him. His cock ached to shove inside her.
She was luscious under his tongue, her body rising up for each lick, vibrating like wire.
“Luke!”
He opened her, peeling back all the protective layers until her sex was under his mouth, vulnerable. He took her, wanting her taste inside him.
Sian was letting him do her. She was his now, even if she still clung to the safe life they’d lived for so many years. It would have to be enough.
He fell into familiar fantasy, picturing them living in another time and place where she was his captive, where she was his, utterly his and every time he wanted her she was brought to him.
She’d wear this dress, and her hair would be down and messy…
He reached up and ruffled it, and the long silk fell around them, making their secret world. Her hair, her scent, all around him.
“You’re mine,” he growled. “Whatever you call yourself, stepsister, friend… You’re my woman.”
“Yes, Luke!”
But he didn’t believe her. It hurt too much, facing more hesitation, more rejection. He took it out on her, laving her thoroughly so that her nails spiked into his arms and she sobbed every time he licked her folds.
He kept her like that, aching for her relief, twisting like restless fire under his touch. He let out the ruthless Dom, subduing her when she begged, imagining that his beautiful captive was fighting for freedom, but he showed her the woman who wanted to be his.
And then he opened his jeans and mounted her, took her with one thrust.
She screamed, legs hooking around his hips. He felt her contractions as she came, saw the dazed satisfaction in her eyes, the dreaminess.
He shattered it, taking her roughly, making her desperate again so her nails scored his ass as she sat up and he fucked her face-to-face. He was naked this way, looking into her eyes. He knew she had to see how much the boy had wanted her, the man wanted her now.
“I love you,” he said, not able to hold back. “But if this is it, let’s go out like a comet.”
They worked together so sweat dampened his hair and rolled down his face, so her dinner went cold and the air warmed with the scent of his straining body, with her receiving him.
He roared as he flooded into her and he hoped he’d made her pregnant. If that’s what it took to make her marry him, well, he just didn’t care right now.
She trembled in his arms—he felt too big, too low class. He cradled her, wishing he could be gentle and smooth, someone she’d take seriously.
“Luke…” She was on her feet. Still wobbly, so he braced her.
His face hardened. He could stick it out another night alone. “Go to your room, Sian,” he said, wanting it over. “Just go.”
“Okay.” But she took his hand, holding tightly.
He followed, frowning at her. “Wait. You didn’t eat. You should eat.”
“I have to show you something first.”
She walked into her bedroom. Turned and looked at him; pulled him after her when he didn’t enter on his own.
And he was there at last, her room. His heart thudded.
Sian went to her bedside table, opened it and pulled something out. When she flipped it on her bed, he saw it was the calendar. He saw himself, Mr February, in all his glory.
“The truth is… I bought it before Dharma ever hung it in Coffee Dreams. I kept it here, my secret. I looked at you every night I came home after one of my dates.” She sat on the bed, lifting her hand to him. “Marry me. Make love to me in my bed, make a baby with me. We were made for each other.”
He covered her on that bed and let her peel off his clothing and her own. Skin to skin, in her room, the way he’d always needed to be with her.
Also available from Total-E-Bound Publishing:
His Landlady
Jan Irving
Excerpt
Chapter One
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks within, awakens ~
Carl Jung
Diana Moore hesitated outside the kickboxing studio, her attention caught by a poster of the sleek body of a young male kickboxer, his leg straight up in a martial arts kick.
Although every muscle was warrior defined, it was the expression on his face that fixed her attention. He was gazing into the distance, a half smile touching his lips, a look of transcendent pleasure that didn’t make her think of the martial arts…
“Perv,” she muttered to herself. She had better things to do than stand here lusting over a beautiful man who was probably too airbrushed to be true. She adjusted her grip on her attaché case and almost walked into another young man, this one short and covered with black-and-red tattoos.
“You here for class?” he demanded. “Come back in an hour.” His street accent made the word ‘hour’ a match for ‘sour’.
Di gulped and stopped herself from taking a step back. The stranger had an aggressive energy that she could feel like a force field.
“No,” she said. “I’m strictly a yoga person.”
The man stared at her, unblinking, and Di felt as if she’d told a proud Doberman owner that she was the golden retriever type.
“We don’t do yoga here,” he said, crossing his arms.
“No, I know that…” She was flustered and it was stupid. But the studio so wasn’t her thing. “I’m the landlady of this strip mall. I’m here with some paperwork for the owner.”
“Huh.” He didn’t look impressed.
“Nath, behave!” a mellow voice interrupted.
There was a thread of laughter in it that stroked down Di’s spine.
“Hello, landlady. I’ve been waiting to meet you.”
A tanned hand was held out and when she automatically took it, callouses brushed her palm. The grip was strong, confident, and didn’t crush her fingers; this was a man with no need to prove anything.
“Uh…”
He was also the man from the poster. Except he was stripped down to black shorts and his dark hair was sweaty against his forehead. He regarded her with almond-shaped, amber-brown eyes, hinting at a slight Asian heritage while his unshaven jaw and shaggy brown hair were sexy mongrel.
“I’m Diana Moore,” she said.
“My landlady is a Roman goddess, Diana the Huntress,” he said.
Although those dark eyes didn’t move down to her full breasts, Diana felt as if they had. Her nipples peaked through her thin, blue silk tunic.
“Sloan Kent—owner and operator of Soul Kickin’.”
“Soul Kickin’,” she repeated, seeing with relief that the other man, Nath, had disappeared into the studio. He’d been a bit intense for her to handle before she’d had her morning espresso. “So you decided on a name.”
A smile tilted his perfect lips. If he’d caught her attention in two dimensions, it was nothing to the real man. The real
young
man, she reminded herself. He looked to be in his early twenties, and she definitely was not at thirty-five.
“Yeah, I know I kept you waiting. But waiting can be good.” He raised his brows as an expression that was part teasing and part earnest lit his eyes. “You gotta live in the present moment. Grab every second.”
“Ah…right.” Now she wasn’t imagining he was looking at her. She ducked her head, knowing with her curves she didn’t look as good as he did in shorts. More earth goddess than sports queen. “I brought the paperwork over.”
Sloan nodded. “Come on in,” he invited, opening the glass door of his studio for her.
She walked into what had previously been just bare brick walls, scarred from an incarnation as a sports retailer. The floors were halfway through a polish job, stripped down to sawdust and bleached maple so the scent of wood was strong and tangy.
“Nath has been doing the floors,” Sloan said, as if he’d noticed her interest.
“They were a mess,” she admitted.
In fact, she hadn’t been able to lease the space for months. She was glad she had finally managed it, despite her mild discomfort with the type of business that had taken the storefront.
When her father had given her the strip mall, she’d known he’d expected her to fail, but Diana had put a lot of extra time into it, determined to make it the basis for a stable income for herself and Jeff.
“Nath’s gone for lunch,” Sloan said, picking up a towel and wiping his face.
Diana studied the metal rails hanging across the ceiling and the heavy black bags suspended from them.
“I can’t imagine hitting something for fun,” she said.
“It’s liberating,” Sloan said. “It can give you confidence that spills into the rest of your life.”
She grazed a hand down one bag. “I’m not comfortable with aggression.”
Sloan’s expression was serene. He shrugged, and she got the feeling that while he didn’t agree with her, he was comfortable enough with himself that he didn’t need to argue about it.
His confidence was beginning to get to her. He was so young…he shouldn’t be so self-assured. She cleared her throat and opened her attaché case, sitting it on a bit of finished flooring since the room was bare of anything else.
Suddenly a pillow was thrust at her face and she froze before looking into intimidating dark eyes under straight, heavy brows. She took the lotus-shaped pillow, familiar to her from her yoga practice.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’ll need help sitting down in those sky-scraper shoes,” Sloan said, cocking his head as his gaze ran down Diana’s long legs.
He shocked her by kneeling at her feet and placing one warm, calloused hand around her left ankle, running a finger under the rim of her ankle bracelet.
His touch bypassed politeness and zapped straight to her sex, making Diana gasp.
“Hey, I just want to take your shoes off,” Sloan said, stroking the slope of her foot.
“Oh, yeah, but I can—”
“Allow me.”
Flustered, Diana watched Sloan as he slowly unbuckled each of the three black straps on her sandal. When he gently pulled her foot free, he massaged the sole, and Diana gave a heartfelt groan, but damn, that felt
good.
“Probably these shoes aren’t the best thing for your feet but they look very hot on you,” Sloan said.
He put down the liberated foot and reached for the other and, dazed, Diana allowed it, her hands on his bare shoulders for balance now, making direct contact with hot, sweaty skin.
Sloan took his time with the second sandal, caressing the underside of her foot and eliciting another moan. Her feet seemed to be directly wired into her pussy, so he might as well have been touching her intimately.
When he looked up at her, she realised he knew exactly what he was doing, the effect it was having on her.
“Sit down, Diana,” he ordered gruffly.
Bemused, Diana sat down, smoothing her short blue skirt so she didn’t flash him.
Sloan was within kissing distance as she passed him the paperwork she’d brought over. She scolded herself for noticing, but her feet—and other parts—were still tingling from the unexpected foot massage.
He reached into a pocket in his shorts and pulled out a pair of glasses, slipping them on. They were a dramatic contrast to his tangled hair and hard, glistening body. He looked up through the lenses, his eyes sober now, back to business.
“I want to put the lobby there, by the door, along with a console for handling payments from clients,” he said, gesturing towards the front of the empty studio.
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Diana said. “You’ve done a lot of amazing renovations already.”
“Motivation is not a problem for me when I see what I want.” He looked up at Diana. “Are you the same, Diana?”
She’d been chewing on her pen, something she’d broken the habit of doing as a college student. “I am definitely motivated to see this strip mall do the best it can,” she said.
“I think everything here is in order, but I’ll want some time to look it over before I send it back to you.” Sloan put the paperwork aside and removed his glasses.
“Of course,” Diana agreed. She looked at her bare feet and her shoes, feeling awkward. The charged interlude was over and she had to put her shoes back on and retreat.
“Now that that’s done with…” Sloan’s voice was gravely. “You liked it when I touched you.”
Shocked again by Sloan’s confidence, Diana could only stare at him.
“It wasn’t an accident, where I touched you,” Sloan went on. “I used to give reflexology massage. I knew how to arouse you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do. Take a moment, just breathe…”
Now he reached out and stroked her arm as if he felt the sudden spike of her anxiety. But this couldn’t be happening. She’d seen him, she’d wanted him, but he was a fantasy. This couldn’t be happening…
“Breathe…”
He was closer, sharing her breath. She couldn’t stop studying his face, those slightly exotic, earnest eyes, holding her captive.
He cupped her cheek. “You made quite an impression on me.”
She laughed when she remembered seeing his poster and the look of bliss on his face—she’d pictured him making love. Oh, yeah, he’d also made an impression on her.
“I should go.”
“Don’t.”
“This isn’t me.”
“I think it’s very much you. Ground zero.”
He lifted her onto his lap, both her legs on either side of him, her body flush against his so she could feel the blunt shape of his erection through his tissue-thin shorts. Panting, she began to tremble. His hand felt hot on the silk of her skirt as he placed it on her ass.
“Easy,” he said, still with that assured manner. This was crazy. Why was she allowing him to do these things? She was always so guarded with men, peeking at them from behind her walls. “I can get you off, get you off like you’ve never had it before.”
“Uh.”
He moved his hands from her ass and up to her breasts. When he cupped her, her eyes fell closed and she sagged against him. She could count her heartbeat in the lips of her sex.
“But you have to do something first, Diana,” Sloan went on in that same hoarse, silky voice.
She blinked and then frowned. “What?”
“Ask me to please you,” he said.
“I…”
How could she? She’d just met the man. Now she was sitting on him and he was touching her.
He moved one hand down her body and under her skirt, lifting it as he held her gaze. He brushed his fingers against her underwear, found her damp, hot for him, a stranger.
“Sloan, I never do this—”
She caught his wrist, though the feel of that broad palm cupping her had her on edge.
“I know,” he said. “You mentioned you aren’t into aggression.” He cocked a brow. “Are you going to let me touch you?”
She swallowed, beyond saying
yes.
Giving him verbal permission would make this all too real, but when he began to drag his hand away from her, she caught it again, held it to her.
She licked her lips, wishing, and a second later she got her wish.
He kissed her, his lips covering hers, male, strong, taking deeply, so she moaned as he stroked her tongue delicately. He was so very controlled, like no one she’d ever met before, completely commanding her. When he squeezed her sex gently, she gasped again, shaking in his arms.
“You need to come, don’t you?” he asked in a mild tone.
Diana’s fingernails dug into Sloan’s arms and he laughed, pulling away to stare into her eyes. “I told you I can get you off, beautiful Diana, but only on my terms.”
“You’re too young for me. This isn’t real.”
“Isn’t it?” His hair fell over one brow as he leaned close, nuzzling her.
She shivered hotly. Her body ground on his teasing hand.
“What…what are your terms?” Diana asked.
“Good girl,” he praised her. “I’m going to give you what you need. You’ll scream when you come for me.”