Suck and Blow: Party Games, Book 1 (3 page)

Oh God.

Her heart leapt away from her, the soft pressure of his fingers at her waist making her head swim. Or was it the fact she was holding her breath? Holding her breath with the goddamn ten of hearts stuck to her lips?

Do something, woman!

She didn’t have to. Alec did it for her. With a gentle push and pull on her hips, he turned her around to face him, his blue, blue eyes holding hers, his dimples flashing as the sides of his mouth curled. “So, who’s going to win this one, Frankie?”

The question was asked on a low chuckle, each word making her sex constrict.

She stared at him. Watched him lower his head to hers. Watched him draw closer. Closer. Her lungs burned. Her head swam. The room fell silent.

And her breath ran out just like that, the card slipping from her lips at the loss of suction a mere second before Alec’s mouth pressed to hers.

Explosive heat shot through Frankie, like she’d suddenly and inexplicably grabbed a live wire on an electrical fence. Except it wasn’t electricity charging through her, singeing her nerve-endings and making her nipples pinch hard but arousal. Instant and undeniable. A wicked ribbon of warm tension unfurled through her belly and into the junction of her thighs, and before she could stop it, a low groan vibrated deep in her throat.

His lips were warm, soft. They melded to hers with perfection, slightly parted, his intake of breath drawing her exhalation into his mouth.

He’d expected to feel the playing card pressed to his lips now, of that she had little doubt, but instead of pulling away as she thought he would, his lips lingered on hers. Slanting over them as his fingers on her hips curled a little more firmly against her body, tugging her closer to
his
body with an insistence that made her head swim just as much as her earlier oxygen deprivation.

She stiffened, for the first time in her wild, uncontrolled life she was utterly and completely bamboozled as to what she should do next. Her feet stumbled over each other, her lurching forward momentum halted by Alec’s hard form.

And he was hard. Very hard. All of him.
Hard
and big and impressive.

His stomach pressed against hers like a sculpted plane of marble. His chest was hard and smooth under her palms.

Her palms? Frankie’s already rapid heartbeat kicked up a notch, thumping against her breastbone like a bloody sledgehammer. When had she put her hands to his chest?

Who cares?
The brazen thought whispered through her head at the very moment Alec’s lips parted against hers and his tongue dipped into her mouth.

Oh.

He tasted of sinful paradise. Pineapple and coconut and rum. It was intoxicating. She wanted more.

Snaking her hands up over his shoulders, she tangled her fingers in his messy crop of blond hair, opening her mouth wider to his kiss and stroking her tongue against his. She rose onto tip-toe, the elevation aligning her hips to his, the hard heat of his cock nudging at her groin.

Oh.
The single word was nothing but a soft sigh in her mind—a mind furiously trying to remind her just who in the bloody hell she was kissing. Alec Harris.
Alley Cat, Francesca, you’re kissing Alley Cat.

And he was kissing her back. And doing a superb job of it.

There was nothing chaste about it. Nor was it aggressive and arrogant. His tongue danced over hers, a teasing caress that sent a shiver up her spine and a liquid tension into her pussy. It was, simply put, a kiss designed to do one thing and one thing only, make her want more.

Oh, fuck, this can’t be—

A munitions dump exploded around them. Or at least it sounded that way.

As one, the partygoers squashed into the media room roared with deafening cheers, some stamping their feet with drumming force, some clapping with equal ferocity, others wolf-whistling and caterwauling and crying out “yeah!” like a crowd of horny teenagers.

Frankie jerked backward, her lips burning from Alec’s inexplicable kiss, her heart slamming up into her throat.

She stared up at him, the sight of his lips glistening with moisture—
her
moisture from
her
kiss—making her pulse pound.

He stared back, ignoring the slaps on the shoulder and back the other men around him were giving him, ignoring their guffaws of encouragement and congratulatory chuckles. His blue eyes held hers, even as his hands slipped from her hips, his expression growing…closed.

“Looks like I win again,” he said, no hint of humour in his deep voice.

Someone sucker punched Frankie in the stomach. Some unseen, invisible assailant. How else could she explain the way her gut suddenly seemed to knot? Or the way her breath burst violently from her lungs. She blinked. “What?”

Her face filled with heat. Not just a delicate blush, but a burning heat that didn’t just creep up her chest and neck to paint her face red, but engulfed it with a greedy ferocity. She shook her head, stumbling back another step, bumping into the guy behind her, her backside pressing against his groin. He laughed, his hands falling onto her shoulders to steady her.

“Bloody hell, mate,” he said over the top of her head, and Frankie didn’t need to turn around to see his exclamation was directed at Alec, “why couldn’t I have been standing in your spot?”

Frankie’s stomach knotted again. Tighter this time. He’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back. What the fuck was she thinking? “You’re lucky I didn’t knee you in the nuts,” she joked, the threat insincere at best. At worst, it sounded like a breathy pant.

“Admit it, Francesca,” Alec lowered his head closer to hers, “you want to kiss me again.”

Her heart thumped harder. “It’s a game, Alley Cat. That’s it.”

The corners of his mouth curled. A little. His eyes seemed to twinkle. “Guess I’m not that hopeless a kisser after all.”

Frankie frowned, for a second his words making bugger all sense, and then a tiny shard of memory formed, spearing into her:
“I bet he’s a hopeless kisser, Miks.”
Her jibe from that lifetime whispered through her mind. She swallowed, staring up at Alec. “You heard me?”

Alec shrugged. “You were pissed off about losing to me in the regional mixed doubles semi-finals. I think the whole tennis court heard you.”

She remembered the petulant anger at yet another crushing defeat…and an unsettling tension in the pit of her belly she’d
not
wanted to think about or acknowledge.
“I bet he doesn’t have a clue what to do with his tongue.”

His smile curled wider, as if he knew where her thoughts were taking her. “So, tell me, what
did
you think of my tongue action?”

His question made her pulse quicken. She’d liked it. A lot. And, as if to really drive the point home, that same unsettling tension churned in the pit of her belly now, but this time she knew
exactly
what it was—arousal. She wasn’t telling him that though, no matter how much she wanted to kiss him a—

She sucked in a quick breath, the taste of Alec’s kiss flowing through her. Pineapple, coconut and rum. And Alec. She tasted Alec on her breath. Damn it, the one guy she’d never in a million years dreamed of tasting.

But you always wanted to. Admit it. After all these years deluding yourself, surely you can admit it now?

“Scull!” the cheer went out, just as someone shoved a shot glass of something colorless in her hand.

“Nah, kiss him again!” someone else yelled back.

The crowd burst out laughing, feet stamping again.

Alec stared at her. Waiting for her to say something. Do something.

“I think—” Frankie spoke loud enough for the crowd to hear her, more than a touch dismayed at the way her voice cracked, “—we should continue with the game, don’t you?”

Alec raised an eyebrow, one side of his mouth twitching. “I agree.”

She raised the shot glass to her lips, her gaze held by his, and tossed back the drink in one mouthful.

Tequila burnt its way to her stomach. Fiery and potent. And still the taste of Alec lingered on her lips, her tongue. Oh God, he tasted so fucking good.

Kiss him again. Now. You’re at a party. You’ve just slammed back a tequila shot. He’ll think it’s the booze. Kiss him. Go on. You know you want to.

God help her, she did. Ten years ago she’d denied that want, despising him for constantly humiliating her. But deep down inside, in the disquieting place no teenage girl wanted to go—a place far less self-centered and far more self-aware—she’d known every defeat made her a better person, even if she never admitted it to anyone, least of all herself.

She wanted to kiss him back then and she wanted to kiss him now.

Instead, with a cock of one eyebrow, she sank into a crouch before him, keeping her shoulders and back straight, her face drawing level with his crotch as her fingers closed around the playing card lying on the plush carpet at his feet.

She
wasn’t
going to lose to Alec Harris again. She was Frankie freaking Winchester. She didn’t lose to anyone, especially
him
.

Idiot.

A collective
oh
went out from those around her, every pair of eyes trained on her where she crouched at his feet. She felt their weight like a razing heat, but none more so than Alec’s unwavering gaze that held her stare with indecipherable intensity.

With a deliberate lack of haste, she straightened, her nose and lips almost,
almost
, skimming Alec’s groin as she did so, until she stood upright once more, hip to hip, belly to belly.

“Fighting dirty, Frankie?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone would think you’re trying to tease me.”

“No. Just trying to win.”

His Adam’s apple rolled up and down the smooth, brown column of his throat, and for a surreal moment Frankie wanted nothing more than to place her lips on its distinctly male shape and feel it move beneath his skin. But she didn’t.

She raised her hand to her face and pressed the ten of hearts to her lips instead, sucking in enough breath to hold the playing card to her mouth, her gaze fixed on Alec’s the whole time.

The crowd laughed. The woman behind Alec, a tall blonde with an expressionless, Botoxed face giggled, clapping her hands. Someone yelled, “Onya, love,” someone else shouted, “Can I have a go?” and then she was leaning toward Alec again, his clean scent threading through her slow intake of breath, the warmth of his body kissing hers, his blue eyes sparkling with unmistakable mirth.

Their lips aligned, separated only by the thin rectangle of glossy cardboard. She felt their soft pressure through the card, lips only a moment ago that had moved over hers. Her sex contracted with demanding want a second before Alec removed the playing card from her mouth with his. He turned away, leaning toward to the eagerly awaiting blonde behind him.

Frankie didn’t wait to see what happened next. She couldn’t. She had to get away before she threw herself at him and begged him to kiss her again. And she couldn’t do that. Frankie Winchester didn’t beg anyone. Especially Alec
bloody
Harris.

With a quick look at the back of Alec’s head, she slipped out of the line, pushing her way through the jostling, laughing partygoers.

“Frankie?”

She heard him calling her name, his deep voice like rumbling thunder over the noise of the party. Her heart leapt into her throat, but she didn’t stop. She had to get her head around her response to him. She had to—

“Frankie, stop.”

Warm, firm fingers wrapped around her upper arm, halting her progress.

“Will you just—?”

She spun to face him, tilting up her chin to give him a bored look. “What? Don’t tell me you dropped the card already?”

Alec chuckled, his hands going to his hips. “Ah, we’re going to play
this
game now, are we?”

Frankie narrowed her eyes. “What game?”

“The game where you pretend that kiss back there didn’t shake you to your core.”

“Ha! Tickets on yourself, Alley Cat?”

He grinned, the expression both cocky and boyishly sexy. “Tell me it didn’t then.”

Her pussy fluttered, the truth of his words unsettling her. Damn it, she hated feeling unsettled. “I’ve had better kisses from a…from a…” Her mind drew a blank.

“A wookie?”

Alec’s response caught her by surprise. She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her breasts and the image of Han Solo printed on her shirt, fighting the urge to laugh. Okay, that was pretty clever, given the shirt she was wearing. Still, she wasn’t going to let Alec Harris know that.

“Oh, c’mon—” he pulled a face, his grin growing wide, “—that was funny.”

Her lips twitched. It
was
funny.

“Can I get you a drink?”

Her breath caught in her throat. That would be dangerous. Spending any more time in Alec’s company would completely mess with her head. She despised him. He’d made her feel like a loser for too many years. In fact, wasn’t she trying to get away from him? “No. Sorry.”

“Are you here with someone?”

“A friend.”

“Boyfriend?”

For a split second, she fooled around with the notion of saying yes. Instead, she shook her head.

Alec raised an eyebrow. “
Girl
friend?”

“No. A friend friend.”

He studied her. “So, you don’t want to have a drink with me because…”

She gave him a pointed look. “I don’t like you.”

He laughed—the sound genuinely relaxed and full of mirth. “Ah, we
are
still playing that game then.”

“Go away. You’re bothering me.”

His eyebrows shot up. “
Bothering
you? Damn, maybe you
aren’t
who I thought you were. The Francesca Winchester I know would have told me to go scratch about in my litter tray.”

A prickling heat pressed at Frankie’s temples. “That was ten years ago.”

His stare grew intense, his body still. “Yes, Frankie,” he said, his voice low. “It was.”

The unspoken significance of his answer was not lost on her. Her mouth went dry. Fuck, she wasn’t prepared for this. She wasn’t ready for it. She had to go. She needed air. Like, now. “I have to—”