The After Dark Collection: Books 1-3 in The Gift Series Read online

  I sighed, relieved. “Sometimes I feel like a huge pervert. Like, when I’m with my clients, I sometimes picture them sleeping together afterward and imagine the things they’d do, the things I’d orchestrate. Doesn’t that make me a pervert?”

  “No. Your job is sexy. It’s sensual. You’re capturing people all day long who want each other, who want something, who pose in seductive ways. I can’t imagine not thinking about sex, or them having it.” His lips curved in a wry grin. “And there’s nothing wrong with being a dirty pervert. Well, unless you’re looking at their photos when they’re gone and getting off to them, or diddling yourself while taking their pictures.”

  I balled up my napkin and tossed it at him. He caught it with one hand as I said, “I don’t diddle myself in front of them.”

  He wiggled his brows. “You can diddle yourself in front of me though.”

  A ribbon of heat unfurled in me, and my laughter ceased. “I want that too. I want you to watch me, Adam. I want to be the one someone’s looking at.”

  His hazel eyes darkened, that heat I’d seen last night flickering in an instant. “I know. I love your list. I love what’s on it. And, Nina, you need to know—your list is what I like too.”

  I shuddered, both turned on and emotional all at once. This moment was so intimate, almost too intimate. “It is? I thought you were only doing it that way for me.”

  He inched closer. “For starters, I’d do it that way for you. But in a most happy coincidence, I like it rough too. I like it hard. I like it dirty. And I like giving a woman exactly what she wants.”

  His words weaved through my insides, warming me up in ways I hadn’t expected. They turned me on, but they also made me want to turn to him, to draw him close. I had to deflect, or I’d lose sight of the boundaries we’d erected.

  “And you like that it’s just sex,” I said quickly, my pitch rising. “You aren’t into relationships. Well, not after Rose.”

  He took a minute before answering, and I worked my way through more of my breakfast. “She wasn’t my finest moment,” he said carefully. “Sometimes I look back and wonder what I missed. What I should have done differently to avoid that kind of person and the lies she spun. But I was drawn to her from the start, and that was the trouble.”

  “What drew you to her?” I asked, hating talking about his ex, but desperately needing to understand him in a new way, to delve into this side of him that I’d never wanted to explore so fully before.

  Staring off in the distance, his jaw ticked, then he turned to me. “She had this way about her where she could talk about anything, take on any topic. She was outgoing, and it was alluring,” he said, and I made a note of that. I was not outgoing. I took my time with people, watching and observing before I let them in. “And that made it easy to fall under her spell. It seemed at first like we had a lot in common.”

  All of sudden, a plume of jealousy burned inside of me. Did he mean in the bedroom? I had to know. Even if it would hurt. “In bed, you mean?”

  He met my gaze, his eyes full of nothing but the honesty I knew from him. “Yes. Does that bother you?”

  I swallowed the stone in my throat, then lied. “No.” For some strange reason I wanted to be the only one who liked it the way he did. The way we did.

  But Adam surprised me again when he reached for my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. “But she never had the courage to write anything down. She never had the bravery to tell me how she wanted it. You do, and it’s so insanely attractive,” he said in that growly, alpha voice he’d used last night.

  A voice that perhaps he only used with me.

  “Everything about you is attractive. Remember that. You’re honest. She was a liar, so don’t compare yourself to her,” he said, running a finger down my nose.

  And I was busted.

  He’d seen through my questions.

  He knew why I’d asked.

  And he could tell I wanted to be different than she was.

  He’d given me what I needed to hear, and I wanted to do the same for him. I laced our fingers more tightly. “It wasn’t your fault—what she did. What she took from you,” I said, our eyes holding. “She was a junkie. They weave their wicked magic. They seduce. And she was beautiful, and she was sweet,” I said, and though it was true, the truth tasted bitter on my tongue. But I had to endure it for him, to remind him that he wasn’t to blame. “We can’t erase our pasts, Adam. We can only make different choices. So you’re making a different one now. To stay away from relationships, from the hurt they might inflict.”

  “I am,” he said, and it sounded like a solemn vow. “I trusted her, Nina. Trusted her in my home, in my life, with my heart. And she violated all of that. It’s safer this way.”

  I nodded, getting him completely. I’d chosen safety too, for years, and in choosing him for my list, I would remain cocooned in that security.

  Friendship was our safety net. We’d jump from the sky, and the net of our friendship would catch us.

  “But you know what?” he added. “She is the past. Let’s focus on the present. And the present, as they say, is a gift. So how about I give you a gift before I leave for work?”

  11

  Nina

  He cleared the table in seconds flat.

  He told me to strip to nothing as he left the room.

  I did, anticipation rushing over my body as I removed my clothes, setting my glasses on the end table in the living room.

  When he returned, one hand behind his back, I wore only my birthday suit, and his eyes shone with ravenous lust as he stared at my breasts for the first time.

  He drank me in with his dirty gaze. As his eyes traveled over me, I felt consumed. Devoured.

  To be wanted like this was wholly new.

  And absolutely incredible.

  “You are so unbelievably beautiful,” he said in a smoky rasp.

  “So are you,” I whispered, and the admission surprised me. I’d always known he was handsome, but this time I felt it. I felt it in my core, in my heart. I experienced the attraction to him, and it didn’t scare me. It thrilled me.

  “Get on the table. On your back, dirty girl. Spread your legs open for me. Let me see if you want a gift or not. If you don’t, I’ll just leave.”

  I gasped, and pleasure ripped through my body as he taunted me. I wanted his gift. Wanted it terribly. And I didn’t want him to be disappointed in what he saw. Heat pooled between my legs, making me wetter.

  I perched on the edge of the table, like I was posing. I wasn’t going to scoot unceremoniously or climb like a dork. I knew how to pose, how to move. And I could adjust myself too.

  Like that, with my body long, I leaned my head back, letting my hair cascade down to the table, my neck stretching. I could no longer see him, but I could hear him.

  His noises were animalistic. Groans of admiration.

  I felt sexy as he stared at my body while I moved like water, fluidly, lowering my back, sliding along the table, stretching across it, like I’d encouraged my clients to do.

  My back bowed, and I raised one knee.

  A new wave of pleasure washed over me from the pose. It was a familiar boudoir shot, a woman all curved and sensual. But I was on the other side of the lens and he was the camera. He gazed at me like a man possessed.

  Then he spoke, low and powerful. “Touch yourself, so I can taste if you’re ready for me to stay.”

  My hand slid down my body, and I stroked myself, bucking the second I made contact with my sensitive flesh. It was torture and relief at the same time—all I wanted was more touch, more contact.

  I held out my hand to him, and he stalked over, grabbed my wrist, and licked my finger. He moaned as he sucked off my wetness.

  “Good,” he growled, then he returned to where he’d stood in full view of me. “But that’s not enough.”

  “What else should I do?”

  “You know what to do, dirty girl.” He parked his hands on the edge of the wood, his s
tare hot, branding me. “Show. Me.”

  I quivered.

  Vulnerability rippled over me as I lowered my hands between my legs, setting my palms on my thighs. But with vulnerability came something new—possibility.

  By offering myself, he could give me what I craved.

  I opened my legs wider, parting them with my own hands. Like I was offering him my body, my desire.

  And the evidence of it.

  For the briefest of seconds, he closed his eyes, like this was all too intense, seeing me like this. My worry spiked.

  “Adam,” I whispered, my pitch rising.

  His eyes snapped open. “We’re good, Nina.”

  I relaxed again. That was all I needed in these moments when the games, the fantasies became too much for me. When he shed that rough exterior and returned to the man I knew, the man I trusted. I had his assurance, and I was good too.

  He shifted once again to the after-dark alpha who enthralled me.

  Like a predator, he surveyed his prey. I was the hunted and I wanted to be ravaged. Stepping closer, he moved his hand from behind his back and dropped a hard black item and a small bottle onto the table.

  I gasped. I’d known what was coming because it was my fantasy, detailed in black and white in my notebook, but I didn’t know how he pulled it off. “That’s not mine. How did you get that toy?”

  “Amazon Prime. Two-hour delivery. Came this morning when you were in the shower. Now let’s get you coming on my mouth, dirty girl.” His hands circled my ankles, and he pushed my legs apart even farther. “Stay like that. I don’t want you to move. Are we clear?”

  I nodded. “So clear.”

  “Keep your hands on your thighs. Keep your legs spread nice and wide.”

  “Yes,” I said, tingles spreading over my body as I grew wetter, hotter.

  Then he bent his face to my ankle, pressed a kiss there that sent sparks across my whole body. My God, if a kiss on my ankle did that to me, what would happen when his face was between my legs?

  I’d have the answer in seconds, because he traveled quickly, licking a line up my calf, over the back of my knee, along my thigh. He reached my hand, kissing me there before coming close, so damn close to where I wanted him. But not all the way. He flicked his tongue inches from my core, then moved to the other side, licking down my leg.

  I was shaking from the pleasure.

  He hadn’t even put his mouth on me, and I was trembling with need.

  “Please,” I murmured.

  “Beg for it.”

  “Adam, please. Please touch me. Please go down on me.”

  “Use your words,” he instructed. “Use your dirty words.”

  I breathed in deep, and then said words I’d only said in my fantasies. “Please eat me. I’m begging you. Go down on me, and fuck me with your tongue.”

  In a second, his face was between my legs, and I moaned so loudly I was sure Miss Sheridan would wink at me later, tell me she’d caught my cries on her downward-facing-dog video.

  I didn’t care.

  Because I was having something spectacular for the first time.

  This was why women loved being eaten.

  It was decadent.

  Adam’s tongued lapped me up, his mouth caressed me, his fingers stroked me. He ate me and kissed me and lavished pleasure all over my wet, aching center.

  “Yes, please. Oh God. Adam,” I said, writhing and arching against him, keeping my hands on my legs the whole time, as he’d told me to.

  How had I missed out on this for all these years? This was better than chocolate, better than music, better than the sexiest photos I’d ever taken.

  I was having what my clients were having, I was sure.

  And Adam was taking me, eating me like I was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

  I was close, so close, and as pleasure coiled in me, I was terrified for the briefest of seconds that I’d come too hard, too loud.

  “Adam,” I cried out, my voice breaking. “I’m about to come.”

  He stopped. Instantly. “No.”

  I trembled, staring at him, the pending crush of pleasure threatening to take over. “No?”

  “Beg me,” he said with narrowed eyes. “Beg me to let you come.”

  With my hands on my thighs, I spread my legs even wider, my climax fighting to break free. I had to come. I needed the release. “Please let me come, Adam. Please. I’m begging you.”

  “One more ‘please.’”

  “Please!”

  He returned to my sex and the second his lips were in their rightful place, I detonated. I screamed. I rocked and writhed and came harder than I’d ever come before as white-hot pleasure ripped through me. I was seeing stars upon galaxies of stars.

  And it wasn’t stopping.

  Nor was he. He slowed his pace, but kept licking, kept kissing. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered a sound. A bottle being opened. A squirt.

  He pulled his mouth away. “Keep your hands on your thighs. I’m not done with you.”

  Shuddering, I whispered, “Yes.”

  Then I felt his fingers traveling lower, farther. When he reached my ass, he pushed, and I tensed. “I’ve got you.”

  And oh yes, did he ever have me.

  He pushed the tip of his lubricated finger into my ass, and I squirmed, letting out a yelp. “Adam, Adam, Adam,” I panted, my voice rising because as much as I wanted this, as much as I trusted him, his finger was entering my rear, and this was also very much virgin territory.

  “Do you need me to stop?” he asked, stilling himself.

  I drew a breath, shook my head. “No.” Then, louder this time, I told him exactly what I wanted. Because this was on my list too. “I want you to keep going.”

  “That’s my girl,” he said, praising me as he pushed his finger deeper. He pressed a kiss to my sensitive clit, and my hips rocked up in pleasure.

  “So nice and tight,” he murmured against me as he stroked inside me with his finger. “Have you taken anything in your ass before, sweet girl?”

  Sweet girl.

  He’d used that nickname for the second time, and somehow it felt fitting as he touched me there. I loved that he still saw me as sweet even as he explored all my entrances.

  “Yes. Just a plug though,” I admitted.

  “Good. This will feel so much better,” he said, slowly easing out his finger.

  I craned my neck as he reached for the black vibrator, hit the on button, and pressed it against my ass.

  I jerked, a wave of lust spilling over me as he slid the tip of the toy against my ass.

  “God, yes. That’s so good.”

  “It’s going to be so damn good when you beg to come again.”

  That was all he said, because he silenced himself with me. His lips returned to my swollen center, his tongue flicking my clit as he pushed the toy deeper into my rear.

  The twin sensations—penetration and filthy kisses—sent me into the stratosphere in seconds.

  Lust rocketed through me, and I became a wild woman. Swallowed whole by pleasure, I gave in to the crush of sensations. To the waves of desire flooding my body. I felt tight and hot on the vibrator and wet and soft on his mouth.

  And I felt bliss.

  Tingling, delicious bliss racing across my skin.

  I was close again, and I remembered the rules.

  “Adam, let me come.”

  He growled against me. He didn’t even have to say a word. I knew what he wanted me to do—what I wanted to do.

  “Please,” I keened as I reached the edge, and he sent me over, driving me into ecstatic oblivion with toy and tongue.

  I was in another world, another land, and I floated there on a sea of euphoria for minutes.

  I was nothing but breaths and pants and contented moans.

  And as I came back into my body, I was vaguely aware that it was my turn, that I wanted to do something for him.

  But he rose, placing a finger to my lips as he shook his head
. “I know what you want. You can suck me off when I come home from work.”

  “Yes,” I said, because that was my answer to everything with him. A loud, reverberating yes.

  Then he took me to the shower, stripping off his jeans, turning on the water, and scanning the shelf quickly. “Do you have a shower cap? So you don’t get your gorgeous hair wet?”

  I laughed softly. “No, I don’t have one. I use hair ties. On the vanity.”

  He stepped out of the stall, giving me a bird’s-eye view of his sculpted ass. My friend had a fantastic body. One I wanted to lick and kiss and bite. He reached for a tie on the vanity then returned to the shower, shutting the glass door.

  He proffered a black band for my hair, and I smiled as I looped up my brown locks in a messy bun. He murmured appreciatively.

  Then he washed me.

  He was attentive, soaping my shoulders, my back, my belly, and making sure my messy bun didn’t get wet. That was no easy task, but he pulled it off. A little thing, but I was grateful, because no woman wants to do her hair twice in an hour.

  He let me take my turn, soaping his strong arms, his chest, his carved abs.

  We were quiet in the shower, wordlessly caring for each other. Showing a new type of touch—one I hadn’t foreseen when I penned my list. Care.

  Questions swirled in my head. Where did we go from here? Did this mean something different? This surprisingly tender moment in the shower? When touch was no longer sexual, but still intimate in an entirely new way?

  I had no answers, and I didn’t want to ask him, but I could feel those questions echoing in my head, a space that was already filled with so many unknowns.

  After, when he was dressed and ready for work, my uncertainty descended again briefly. Should I kiss him goodbye? Walk him to the door? I wasn’t sure what we were supposed to do next or how we should behave. But I remembered our breakfast and how easy it was, and I returned to that. To us.

  “Thanks for breakfast. Best I’ve ever had.”

  “Funny, I was going to say the same about my dish,” he said with a wink.

  My heart warmed. We could do this. We could be us.