His Ordinary Kiss (His Kiss Book 2)
Heather Marie Adkins
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
REVIEW REQUEST
STALKED BY NIGHT
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
HIS ORDINARY KISS
HIS KISS SERIES, BOOK TWO
HEATHER MARIE ADKINS
HIS ORDINARY KISS: His Kiss Series, Book Two
Copyright © 2017 by Heather Marie Adkins
Published by CyberWitch Press, LLC
Louisville, KY
cyberwitchpress.com
[email protected]
First edition, published September 2017
All rights reserved.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.
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Disclaimer: The persons, places, things, and otherwise animate or inanimate objects mentioned in this novel are figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to anything or anyone living (or dead) is unintentional. The author humbly begs your pardon. This is fiction, people.
Author Photograph © 2011 Meagan White|White Photography
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For Jenn L. and all the adventures we have had and will have together.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
REVIEW REQUEST
STALKED BY NIGHT
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
The empty bottle of red wine on my kitchen counter made me feel lonely. That’s the thing about alcohol: when you uncork the bottle, you think it’s the answer to all your problems. Instead, you get a few glasses in and realize your problems seem even more insurmountable than they were before. Yet we, as a race, continually reach for booze in an effort to be someone somewhere else.
No one could call me a social diva—I didn’t have a laundry list of friends I could call at a moment’s notice to allay the loneliness by sharing my wine. I had two friends who were dearest to me in the world. First and most important, Boston Kane, who currently dined with her boyfriend, unaware he was set to propose. He’d called me last week to ask my permission. My permission. Adorable, considering Ian Clarke was my great-great-grandfather.
Like literally. He was dead, an Earthbound ghost. He had a solid form and seemed as alive as you or me, but in actuality, he’d been murdered by his brother-in-law in the late 1800s. His young daughter grew up to have a family of her own, and from her children came my dad. Though my dad was a genuine, redneck POS, Ian was quite the opposite: sweet, proper, and bonkers for Boston. So, my best friend was marrying my great-great-grandfather, and he was stupid hot.
Second in my trio was Trevor Labarre, my goofball, lifetime best friend. We were in diapers together, and survived all of grade school and high school at each other’s sides. Then he ran off for four years to play US Marine, and had only been back home in Tory for about six months now. When he returned, he fit back into our trio as if he were never gone, though he didn’t look quite the same as he did before the Marines got hold of him.
Obviously, he wasn’t busy being proposed to, so I dialed his number.
“Hey, Vespers. What’s up?” Trevor’s dulcet tones crossed the phone line. It was a voice I’d heard for years, but recently, it had turned sexy; it dropped a few octaves and garnered a smooth southern finish somewhere between high school graduation and his return from the military.
“I’m lonely. Wanna come over and watch TV?”
“I’m out with some of the guys. Maybe later?”
Dejected, I agreed and hung up the phone.
That’s when I opened another bottle of red wine and turned on Netflix.
I’d heard “Orange Is the New Black” was the new IT show. I wasn’t much for television usually. I preferred books and magazines to pictures dancing across a screen. Probably because I liked to feel like I was being challenged, and there wasn’t much challenge in tiny Tory, Georgia.
The wine, unfortunately, made it hard to focus on print. “Orange Is the New Black” won out.
Holy crap. That show starts out sexy as hell. What on earth? Boobs everywhere, and sex like mad. There were chicks in prison getting more action than me. It was infuriating.
I was actively uncorking a third bottle of red wine when I heard a key in the front door lock. Only two people in the world had a key to my house: Boston and Trevor. Not even my mother had a key. With good reason; I rather liked my interior decorating. My mother didn’t.
I carried the bottle to the front hall, still turning the corkscrew as the door opened, and Trevor filled the doorway.
He lifted a thick, dark brow at the bottle in my hands. His pale mocha skin gleamed in the warm glow of my hall lights, and his muscular shoulders stretched from doorframe to doorframe. Not for the first time, I squinted at him, trying to see the kid I grew up with who had Coke-bottle eyeglasses and legs like spaghetti. That kid left Tory, Georgia to be a Marine and came back four years later hotter than the Fourth of July.
Life was weird.
“Having problems?” Trevor asked. His dark chocolate voice oozed like molasses, and when I was drunk, made my breath hitch a little.
I struggled to set the hook of the corkscrew on the edge of the bottle as I turned on my heel back towards the kitchen. “The wine is not cooperating.”
He followed me to the kitchen, where he eyed the two empty bottles on the counter, one of them sideways and hanging over the edge of the counter. “Or the two previous felled companions booby-trapped the third to save his life.”
“You watch too many video games.”
“Play too many, you mean?”
I didn’t like the snarky smile on his face. I set the bottle down and crossed the kitchen, poking him in the chest. “Just because you’re hot doesn’t mean you can be a jerk. Lots of other guys out there take care of that. You be nice.”
He grinned, his smile lopsided from the almost-invisible scar over the right edge of his mouth. He’d gotten it at Basic, he told me. He didn’t scar badly; it
was barely there. “You think I’m hot?”
“Shut up.” I stumbled away from him before I did something stupid like kiss him with wine stains on my lips.
“You’re fun when you’re drunk, Ves.”
I opened the fridge and extracted a bottle of whiskey. “It’s funner when you’re drunk, too. Time to play catch up, sir.”
Trevor uncorked the deviant wine bottle for me, poured himself a couple shots from the Wild Turkey, and then we settled in front of the television.
I caught myself staring at him during the sexy scenes. I wasn’t unopposed to boobs. I myself had them; a generous set that most definitely didn’t come from my mom. I thought they were beautiful. The female body was beautiful. But I wasn’t attracted to breasts in the way Trevor was, so I liked to peek at him when there was a nice set staring out from the screen. I wanted to know what he was thinking. If he was turned on.
And then I realized how awkward it was to imagine my best friend turned on. So I tried to redirect my mind and ignore his smooth skin and the way the television reflected off his ash-gray eyes.
* * *
I TURNED OFF THE TV sometime around three AM.
“I’m exhausted. You sleeping over?” I asked.
“Yeah. I did too much ‘catching up.’ ” He shook what was left of his ice in my general direction.
“I didn’t hold a gun to your nuts,” I remarked dryly, taking his empty whiskey glass from him and heading for the kitchen.
“Have you heard from Boston?”
“Oh!” I’d completely forgotten about her impending engagement. My phone had been plugged up on the counter all night. I haphazardly rinsed the glasses, dried my hands, and checked my cell—three missed calls and a text showing her finger, a giant diamond, and lots of exclamation points. I showed it to Trevor.
“Good for them,” he said softly, smiling. I couldn’t be sure because the wine goggles were firmly in place, but I thought he looked sad.
He trailed after me down the hall and into my bedroom: a modest space, painted maroon and draped in mismatching yards of fabric so it looked like a Turkish harem. I had candles burning on the dresser, flames reflecting prettily in the mirror.
“Don’t you get claustrophobic in here?” Trevor asked.
I rolled my eyes. “You ask me that every time you come to my house.”
He lifted the hem of his shirt, tugging it over his head easily. It slid away from his torso like melted butter, exposing the shadowed planes of his abdomen.
I’d gone swimming with him. I’d seen him shirtless cutting my grass or basking in the summer sun with a beer in my backyard. But this was Trevor shirtless in my bedroom. He was so chiseled it didn’t seem real, his abs melting into pecs like boulders, and biceps that looked deadly.
I knew he went to the gym, but not that often, because he complained that he was lax now that he’d been home a while. So how did he look so delicious?
“Stay on your side of the bed,” I warned, stepping out of my skirt. “You know I hate when you crowd me.”
I usually slept in my boy shorts underwear and tank top, even on the nights he stayed over. But something felt different tonight, and I couldn’t blame the alcohol because I’d been noticing him for weeks. I felt modest beneath his gaze.
I slipped beneath the covers, and he lay on top. I liked to be warm when I slept; he liked to be cold. It had been that way since we were little. Since we were little, when sex didn’t exist and sharing a bed didn’t feel so much like walking a land-mine riddled field.
Despite my unease, I drifted to sleep within moments.
* * *
I DREAMED OF TREVOR.
We swam in a pool that looked like the one at his parents’ old house, but it wasn’t. I splashed him and swam towards the deep end, his laughter carrying to me as he gave chase.
I got to the opposite side and treaded water. Physics have no place in dreams; when I turned, he was already behind me. He pinned me against the wall of the pool.
Suddenly, my demure one-piece swimsuit was gone, and I was naked. I felt the cloth of his swim trunks against my legs and my stomach. His gaze drifted down to the wavy surface of the pool where my bare breasts were exposed.
He kissed me lightly, as if testing the waters. The way his lips lingered near mine made me insane with desire, and I grabbed his face, dragging him in for a more thorough meeting of lips. His tongue dipped into my mouth, and I wrapped my lips around it. He groaned into me, one hand sliding below the water to cup my breast. Then that hand moved even further down, his fingers moving between my legs.
I fell back against the tiled edge of the pool, gasping. I rocked against his hand, my orgasm building fast until I shuddered with his fingers inside me.
And I woke up.
My body still quaked with the force of my orgasm. I’d kicked the covers off while I slept, and I was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, presumably from the dream.
Trevor lay on his side, his eyes glinting in the moonlight stealing through my open curtains. He licked his lips, his head in his hand as he stared at me.
“Good dream?” he asked huskily.
Oh, God. He knew I’d had an orgasm.
But when the embarrassment should have flooded me, it didn’t. Instead, I rolled over on my side to face him and let my gaze roam his body. He really was gorgeous, all pale chocolate skin and muscles, his dark hair cropped military short and his gray eyes so fucking piercing.
This was the boy who’d once bandaged my knee when I fell off my bike. Admittedly, I kept bleeding and ended up having to get stitches at the hospital, but still, he took care of me. He stole my Barbies and hacked off their hair. He hid a frog under my blankets when we were nine. I couldn’t sleep for days.
Laying in the dark, nothing but empty sheets separating us, I realized there was little left physically of the kid I’d known all my life. I felt as if there were a stranger in my bed, and I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anybody.
I sat up and crawled across the covers, pushing him on his back.
“Ves?” he whispered uncertainly as I straddled him.
I sank against him, his erection settling squarely on the ache between my legs. I closed my eyes and rocked, forgetting that he was anything but a gorgeous adult man in my bed, and it had been a very long time since I’d had a man in me.
He groaned, eyes closing. “Fuck. This is really happening.”
I leaned forward on my hands, putting our lips close together as I said, “I want you to touch me.”
All the years we’d been friends, and I’d never noticed how large his hands were. He traced his thumbs over my breasts, my nipples pebbling beneath the thin cotton of my tank top. His palms moved down, sliding around me to grip my ass as he ground against me.
That was it. I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
Our lips slammed together with a force borne of six months of sexual frustration. Frustration not just because I hadn’t been laid in that long, but because I’d fought against my attraction to him. I’d fantasized about this. Dreamed of it.
He rolled me beneath him, breaking the kiss long enough to relieve me of my tank top. He grinned, burying his face in my chest like he’d been waiting for years to do so.
“God,” he groaned, gathering one breast in his hand. He rolled the nipple of the other with his tongue, smiling against my skin as I writhed. “You’re gorgeous, Ves. I knew you were hiding some serious heat under your clothes.”
“The same could be said for you,” I said breathlessly, reaching between us to palm his erection. “You’re huge! Is that even going to fit?”
He laughed, sitting back on his heels to peel my underwear off. “Oh, it’ll fit,” he murmured as he pushed down the waistband of his pants, revealing the lethal weapon underneath.
We didn’t bother with any other pleasantries. Slightly inebriated and both of us so ready it hurt, Trevor settled between my legs and guided himself inside me.
He was right. It fit perfec
tly. And what he did with it went beyond all of my expectations.
CHAPTER TWO
I woke up in the late morning light wrapped around him, his heat surrounding me. I’d never slept so hard or so well in my life. Considering our bodies had been locked together on and off for three straight hours before we finally passed out from exhaustion, it was no wonder.
My body ached all over. I flushed when I remembered the heat and manic passion with which we’d enjoyed each other. Muscles ached I’d forgotten I even had. I felt as if I’d had a damned out-of-body experience.
I sat up, turning my back to Trevor and letting my head rest in my hands. Pale red marks dotted my thighs, and my body flushed hot at the memory of Trevor’s teeth and lips moving over the sensitive skin, so deadly slow in his exploration of my body that I begged for it.
The hard wood was cold beneath my feet. I stared down at the dice tattooed on my left foot and thought I’d made too big of a gamble last night. It would have been easier to swallow if it’d been a product of the wine, but I knew that wasn’t it. Not really.
I also knew that despite how amazing we’d been together, or how amazing I’d felt giving myself over to Trevor, there was no way I could make this work.
I felt movement behind me, and then his warmth pressed against my back. He gently swiped my platinum dreadlocks over my shoulder and kissed the curve where my neck met my shoulder.
“Good morning, beautiful.”
I closed my eyes. What the hell was I thinking? I always made messes of my life and then had to clean them up at the expense of my sanity.
“Trevor, we can’t… This can’t happen again,” I said without looking at him. “You’re my best friend. I am the worst at relationships. If we tried… I’d destroy you. I’d destroy our friendship. And then I’d hate myself forever. I am a broken, broken woman.”
“You’re not broken.” He leaned in, his lips brushing my shoulder. Warm palms cupped my arms before I launched away from him, desperate to get away from his touch before I gave in. Again.
