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

  As I buttoned my blouse, I tried to imagine my fiancé’s response. Sure, Finn and I role-played. True, we were adventuresome, and yes, we engaged in public quickies now and again.

  Okay, more than now and again. A lot.

  We did not have a boring love life whatsoever.

  But one with that particular kind of kink? It was hard to picture because Finn was so completely focused on me. That type of fantasy role-play—a third party—had never entered our nightly repertoire.

  Kate drew a deep breath, moved closer, and whispered, “But do you truly think he’d say no?”

  “It doesn’t matter because it won’t happen.”

  Kate dropped her voice, taunting me. “But you’re thinking about it.”

  That was what was so crazy.

  I thought about it all afternoon at work.

  I imagined it as I wrote an outline for my next story.

  I pictured it as I scheduled an interview with a baseball manager who had a fantastic roster of talent.

  What would it be like with two men focused on me, and only me? Would it be as wild and wicked as it was in my imagination?

  And then as I drove home, I squirmed at every red light.

  But the closer I came to my house, the more I had to banish those thoughts.

  They were far too risky for my life.

  And my life was as wonderful as I could ask for.

  I didn’t want to do a thing to upend my happiness with the man I was marrying. That’s what mattered most, right?

  Not my secret fantasies.

  2

  Finn

  My fiancée looked stunning as she walked in the door. Radiant in a white blouse and dark pants. Her work attire, and hell, did she ever wear it well.

  But she wore everything well. And nothing too.

  I walked to her, dropped a kiss to her cheek, savored her enticing scent. “Hello beautiful.”

  “Hello to you, handsome.”

  “How was your day?” I asked as I slid a hand around her waist, setting it on the small of her back.

  “Work was fabulous. I snagged an interview with a baseball manager I’ve been wanting to talk to,” she told me as I moved my mouth along her jaw, kissing her, working my way to her lips.

  “That’s because you’re the best damn reporter the network has.”

  She hummed her approval. “You’re buttering me up.”

  I laughed. “What would I butter you up for? To make me dinner? I already made you dinner, woman.”

  She laughed too, then I pressed a kiss to those luscious lips I loved.

  This woman.

  She was my everything.

  I shut the door behind her as she set down her purse on the couch, and I gestured to the table, already set for dinner.

  “Finn,” she said softly as she saw the pad thai and drunken noodles. “You made my favorites.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  She washed her hands, and we sat, digging into our dinner. “What about you? Did you get everything sorted out with the new TV show deals?”

  She listened, enrapt, as I shared the details on a contract I’d been working on at my law firm, then she told me about her dress shopping with Kate.

  “Is the dress sexy?” I asked. “Your wedding dress?”

  She shot me a look. “Is it sexy? Is that a real question?”

  “Well, is it?”

  She huffed. “Finn Nichols. Have you met my fiancé? He happens to prefer me in only the sexiest clothes. Including my wedding dress.”

  I grinned, like a dirty devil. “What can I say? I am a man of simple taste.”

  “And your taste runs skintight.”

  I chuckled. “Not always. Case in point—I thought you looked hot when you walked in the door a few minutes ago, all dressed up in your slacks and shirt.”

  She arched a skeptical brow. “Hot? You thought I was hot in my reporter outfit?”

  “Of course you were hot. It’s your natural state,” I said, standing and scooping up the plates to clean up.

  She joined me, setting the rest of the dishes in the sink. “So you like me in anything? Not just in skintight clothes? Because that’s more your speed, Finn.”

  I ran a hand over her tight, firm ass, groaning. “Fine. You busted me. I like skintight. But you know what I like better?”

  She spun around, her eyes darkening. “Tell me.”

  Her words were an invitation. I whispered in her ear. “I like it best when I have you in nothing.”

  She pursed her lips, gestured to the bedroom, then said in a sultry voice, “Then maybe you ought to arrest me in a few minutes for public indecency.”

  * * *

  There was nothing public about her outfit.

  But my reaction to it was illegal.

  The woman—my woman—was so damn alluring in nearly nothing.

  Especially when she initiated role play.

  And tonight I was a cop.

  The suspect was so damn naughty.

  “Hands against the wall,” I growled later that night in our living room.

  “What did I do wrong?” she asked, sounding legit concerned. Like she really might be in trouble with the law. The way she committed to the character stoked my desire. Made me even hotter for her.

  My voice was all command. “I ask the questions. I give the orders.”

  Lily trembled as she splayed her palms against the wall in our living room. “What are you going to order me to do?”

  “What are you going to order me to do, Officer?” I corrected her.

  She repeated the question back at me.

  “Spread your legs,” I rasped.

  She widened her stance. I tapped the toe of my boot against one ankle, then the other, kicking her legs open wider. “You’re being taken into police custody for a crime you keep committing.”

  “What’s the crime, Officer?”

  My God, she sounded so innocent, like she didn’t know.

  I pushed my pelvis against her so she could feel the hard outline of my erection even through my clothes. She wore only panties and a bra, the very outfit I’d had to arrest the naughty little vixen in when she suggested one of our favorite scenes.

  I dipped my mouth to the back of her neck, brushing my lips against her skin. “Making me too hard. That’s what. It’s a felony and you know it.”

  She reached her hand back, trying to grab at me. I swatted her palm away and then ground against her so she could feel my length. “A man has limits, and you’ve crossed them. I’m going to need to pat you down.”

  My hands skimmed up her naked waist, fingers trailing across the soft flesh of her belly. She gasped as I touched her, then moaned as I cupped her breasts. “You’re not concealing anything from me here, are you?”

  “You better check, Officer.”

  I dipped my hands inside the flimsy lace of her bra, squeezing her perfect globes. Her back arched. “Be careful there with all that wiggling, or I’m going to have to call for backup.”

  She gasped, and I grinned privately, filing that tidbit away. “You are?”

  “Yes. Because you’ve been tempting me far too much. You’re too sexy, and now I’m going to have to take you into the bedroom for questioning.”

  “I didn’t do it. I swear.” Her voice had the perfect tremble to it.

  “You felt the goddamn evidence.” I yanked her wrists above her head, slapped on the cuffs, and told her to stand still. Like that, I pushed harder against her ass, rubbing, rocking. “That’s your evidence.”

  She moaned. “Yes, that is some hard evidence right there. Are you going to read me my rights?”

  “You damn well bet I will.” I breathed out hard then began her Mirandas. “You have the right to tell me all your fantasies while I fuck you hard,” I informed her, then kissed her shoulder blade, eliciting a shudder. “Anything you say can and will be used by me to turn you all the way on. You have the right to multiple orgasms.” She rocked her hips back against me. “If
you cannot have multiple Os, I will work harder all night long to give them to you. Do you understand? You’re going to divulge every filthy dream you have while I fill you deep.”

  My fiancée gasped, dropped her head forward, and murmured, “Yes. God, yes.”

  She was so incredibly sexy, and I wanted to give her everything. Wanted to give her every goddamn wish and desire because she’d given me something I never thought was possible.

  Trust. Love. Faith.

  I yanked down her panties, tugging them to just above her knees. Was there anything sexier than her ass exposed, a scrap of lace stretched across her thighs?

  No, there was not.

  Nothing compared to Lily.

  Unzipping my pants, I took out my hard-as-steel length and rubbed the head against her heat. Lust ripped through my body at the feel of her arousal.

  Tonight. I needed her to tell me tonight. I had it all planned out.

  The Tell Me Your Fantasy game.

  I needed to know hers. It had been driving me crazy, this consuming desire to give her all the pleasure in the world.

  I rubbed my hard-on against her wetness, and she cried out, panting, begging.

  “Finn, please.” She was desperate, so damn desperate. It went to my head. It drove me wild—her need and the way I could sate it.

  But when we played, there were rules.

  “Officer,” I barked, pulling the head away from where she wanted me. “Call me ‘Officer’ or you won’t have my cock the way you want.”

  “Officer. I’m sorry.”

  My teeth grazed her neck, nipping, biting. “You’ll be sorrier if you don’t tell me all your dirty dreams,” I said as I slid inside her.

  I groaned.

  It was heaven.

  Every single time.

  Hot. Tight. Wet. She fit me like a glove and I pictured all the ways I could make her come. I thrived on her pleasure because I loved her like crazy.

  Before Lily, I was a surly, unhappy bastard who didn’t relax, didn’t enjoy life. When I met Lily, she unlocked me. It was like living a brand-new life. I was the guy who cooked for her, who took care of her, who relished every day in a way I’d never had before. She’d turned my world around.

  And now, making her happy was my singular goal.

  She’d turned me into a new man.

  And this man needed this woman. I needed her for my heart, my head, and, well, at that moment, my aching length..

  I drove into her again, stilling myself when I filled her all the way because my Lily liked to be full. She liked it deep and hard.

  But then, she liked so many things in the bedroom, and it was my mission to give them to her. “What do you get off to, you naughty vixen? What makes you scream in pleasure when you’re being a bad girl, home alone, trying to tempt officers?”

  “I get off to . . . student-teacher fantasies,” she said.

  I shuddered inside her. We’d done the student-teacher one a few weeks ago, and it had been electric. She’d earned a D on a test and had gotten on her hands and knees, begging me to change it.

  Like a good and filthy professor, I’d told her to suck me so hard I saw stars and then I might—might—raise her grade. I saw planets when she deep-throated me, and I gave her an A-plus. Then I’d given her extra credit by eating her sweetness on the desk—aka our kitchen table.

  “I want more. Tell me more. What do you picture when you’re all alone?” My hips moved at a relentless pace, my fingers sliding between her legs, playing with her.

  “Officer, I’m turned on by . . .” She paused like she’d been on the cusp of saying something, but then she course-corrected. “. . . doctor-patient games,” she blurted.

  I wanted more. Needed more. “Then you’ll get them. But I need to know—what else makes you hot and wet and horny? Do you want to be spanked? Paddled? Your hair pulled?” I grabbed the sweet flesh of her ass, gripping her. “Taken so goddamn hard and rough I leave marks?”

  The sound she made was animalistic. A groan seemed to rip from deep inside her. “Put me on my knees, Officer. Put me on my knees. Push me down. Play with me.”

  Yes.

  Hell yes.

  I knew what she wanted when she used that word.

  I pulled out, banding an arm around her waist as I brought her to the carpeted floor, her wrists still cuffed.

  She sank down on her elbows, beautifully bound, and lifted her ass for me. I pushed back inside, then played with her till my fingers were coated in her wetness. As I thrust in her, keeping the pace she needed, I traveled to her ass. Her lush, ripe ass that I loved to fill. That she loved to have filled.

  Tonight, though, was for teasing. I’d lose my mind if I took her ass. And I needed all my focus on the objective, so I ran my finger against her back entrance, and she moaned even louder. “Officer, yes. Please. Play with me.”

  I pushed my finger inside, knuckle deep, and her back bowed. “You like that, don’t you?”

  “I do,” she panted. “It gets me so wet.”

  She was close. I had to get her there. Get her to admit her deepest fantasy.

  Even while fighting off my own release.

  Because holy hell.

  Pleasure stoked inside me, restless, relentless pleasure. But I held back, growling in her ear. “Tell me what gets you the hottest. Tell me what you want the most.”

  She cried out the words “I want . . .” and I tensed, hoping she’d say it.

  But her next word was “you” as she keened, breaking, coming all over me.

  The thing was, I knew her answer was true. But it also wasn’t all true.

  I’d seen her browser history. I knew what she liked.

  But I wanted her to tell me so I could give it to her.

  She had to confess she wanted two men inside her at the same time before I’d bring someone in.

  3

  Lily

  In retrospect, perhaps I should have said something in the heat of the moment. I was certainly tempted. The words were on the tip of my tongue.

  I want a threesome.

  The thing was, I’d lost someone I loved before. Not because I’d confessed fantasies of double penetration. Please.

  But even so, the pain of loss was not new to me, and I didn’t want to scare away the man I loved madly by confessing something that didn’t need to be confessed.

  “Sometimes you can say too much. Sometimes a fantasy is just a fantasy,” I explained to Kate as I sank down in a leather chair in the coffee shop near the office. I gripped my latte, having given her the SparkNotes version of last night. “And in the end, I said nothing. I don’t want to overstep.”

  “Right, but are you comparing apples to orangutans?” Kate asked before taking a drink of her tea.

  I laughed. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”

  She leaned forward and tapped my knee emphatically. “Nor is it a thing that just because you lost someone you loved in a car accident—which admittedly is a horrible thing to go through—you’ll lose your fiancé because you tell him you want to . . .” She stopped, perhaps casting about for just the right words. “Expand your horizons.”

  Heaving a sigh, I answered, “I get it. And yet, when it comes down to it, it’s not a chance I want to take. Because I don’t want to lose him.”

  Losing my childhood best friend the night before our college graduation eight years ago was hard enough. I could still recall with cruel crystal clarity the phone call. The police had found my roommate’s car wrapped around a tree. The girl I’d been best friends with since I was ten had been struck in a hit-and-run. Dead on impact.

  Here one minute, gone the next.

  Losing her was devastating, but in time, I’d healed. I’d learned, too, that the key was talking about it with people who’d been through something similar.

  That was why I’d connected with Finn right away.

  He was completely different from the other guys I’d met in my twenties—guys who believed being in touch with your emot
ions meant punching a wall when the Dodgers lost the World Series or cheering when you scored a coveted free-parking spot here in Vegas.

  I loved a great parking spot at the Wynn, too, but when it came to a relationship, I needed a little more.

  I found that in Finn Nichols.

  I met him at a bar, of all places, but I knew. Knew he was different.

  I saw it in his eyes, midnight blue and full of passion, and I felt it in his honesty.

  Those were the traits he’d led with, and he was still that way with me. I hoped he’d always be that way—open and vulnerable, not to mention sexy as sin.

  I could recall the night I met him with crystal clarity. He didn’t use a line on me. He didn’t break out any eye-rolling bar pickups like I seem to have lost my phone number. Can I have yours? Or I’m no mathematician, but I’m pretty good with numbers. Tell you what, give me yours and watch what I can do with it.

  No, the way we met was simple.

  He was with a friend at a local bar we both loved, and I was with Kate, who asked if I wanted more nachos. A big college football game played on the flat screen. The wide receiver lunged for the ball, going horizontal, hitting the ground. The ball hit at the same time, then landed in his arms.

  It was ruled a catch.

  Ridiculous.

  “Are you kidding me?” I’d shouted at the screen, flapping my arms, offended by the wrongness of the ref.

  Kate flinched. “I never kid about more nachos.”

  I waved my hand at the screen, pointing like a madwoman. “That was not a catch. Not in any way, shape, or form.”

  “I’m with you. That was one hundred percent pure the worst call ever,” a voice had chimed in.

  I turned in the direction of the smoky, sexy tone. And my skin heated up. The man was gorgeous, and he knew football since the next thing he said was, “That’s almost as bad as the Browns’ not fumble.”

  I knew exactly what play he’d meant. I smiled. “Or the Jets’ non-touchdown touchdown,” I’d said, and then we rattled off some of the worst plays in history.

  It was a simple conversation, but sometimes that’s how the best talks start. Soon, we were chatting about the nuances of the game, why we loved it, why we hated it. And Kate was saying goodnight, as Finn and I shifted to other topics.