A low growl vibrated through his chest as he lifted the hand he’d pleasured her with and painted her lips with her own arousal. Before the shock of his kinky action could even settle in, he began to devour her mouth with an intensity that roused her again, something she’d thought impossible. After a good orgasm, she was the one most likely to roll over and go to sleep, but not with Seth. She matched the stroke of his tongue and began to rub her pelvis against his still-rock-hard erection. His self-control thrilled her, and she had the devilish urge to tempt him, to see if she could make him speed things up like she needed, instead of slowing them down like he wanted.
She slid her hands down his back, over the narrow span of his waist, and stroked the tips of her fingers beneath the edge of his jeans, playing with the top of his very tight ass. Breaking their kiss, it was now her turn to nibble along his jaw as she spoke. “Please, Seth, let me take care of you.”
He groaned with frustration then took a step back and released her leg. She wobbled for a second as her knees refused to hold her, but he scooped her up before she tipped over, cradling her to his chest. This was a rather novel sensation for her. At six-foot-one in heels, with generous curves, she wasn’t exactly petite, but Seth lifted her as if she weighed no more than a doll.
“Sugar, I promise you’ll take care of me in more ways than you’d ever imagined possible, but first let’s get something to eat. It’s almost four o’clock, and I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
Wiggling her butt, she grinned at him. “Oh, I have something for you to eat.”
He barked out a laugh and shifted her so she was standing instead of being held. “Naughty girl. And don’t you have some kind of an appearance to make at a dance club?”
“Yeah.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “You sure you want to go? I can call off sick.”
“No way. You promised me if I came to visit you wouldn’t go canceling a bunch of shit.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “You’re no fun.”
“And you’re a brat.”
Laughing, she took a deep breath then smoothed her dress. “Well, even though for some weird reason you won’t let me reciprocate, thank you for the wonderful orgasm.”
“It was entirely my pleasure.” The wolfish smile he gave her set her stomach aflutter. He moved farther into her apartment. “This place is amazing.”
“Thank you.” She brushed past him and into her small kitchen, giving the clean black granite counter an unnecessary swipe with her hand. “The entire apartment I grew up in was the size of my living room.”
He shook his head and wandered over to the windows with the view of downtown Manhattan and the river a couple of buildings down. “I can’t imagine being so on top of each other. Then again, where I grew up it was a ten-minute car drive to our nearest neighbor.”
After opening a drawer, she pulled out a stack of restaurant menus she’d collected, then put them on the small breakfast counter dividing the kitchen from the living room. “Here, pick out where you’d like to go.”
His eyes widened at the size of the stack of menus. “I take it you like to eat out?”
“Part of the fun of living in New York City is I can order pretty much anything, from anywhere, at any time of the night.”
“Must be nice.”
“It is, but that doesn’t mean I don’t pine for my Aunt Tanisha’s cooking. The woman can whip up a mean Riz Djon-Djon.”
“What’s that?”
“A traditional Haitian dish with rice and mushrooms. They’re expecting us for dinner in two days, so get ready to wear your sweat pants. By the time you leave her house, you’ll be waddling.”
He hesitated, then turned to face her fully. “You said some of your family would give you shit for dating me because I’m white. Are they going to be there?”
Embarrassment over her cousins’ ignorance heated her cheeks. “They will, but if they say one word to you or about you with myself, my aunts, or my dad, or my other cousins around, you’ll see why my father is considered a fire-and-brimstone preacher. My dad not only preaches about the Golden Rule, he lives it, and he won’t tolerate any kind of hateful ignorance.”
Running his hand through his still-military-cut blond hair, he glanced back out the window. “Sugar, I don’t want to cause you any problems with your family, but if someone hurts your feelings around me, I’m not going to be able to stop myself from defending you. Me, I don’t give a care what they say, but if they give you any grief, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop from telling them to shove it where the sun don’t shine.”
Her heart warmed with happiness even as her stomach continued to churn at the idea of Seth fighting with her big male cousins. Nothing good would come of it. “Look, some people want to remain ignorant. You can tell them all the facts in the world, appeal to their sense of right and wrong, and they’ll still spout hate. I’ve had to deal with it my whole life and I’ve learned I should only give a shit about what those who love me think. Don’t get me wrong, in their own way my cousins love me, but they get militant about black women dating white men. I don’t understand it, and I don’t want you to stress about it.”
He gave her a long look, then nodded. “The only thing I care about is making you happy, so I won’t let them start shit with me as long as you promise you won’t let them insult you.”
“Are you sure? I mean, I can tell my aunts to keep their sons at home.”
“No, they’re your family. Besides, you can’t change someone’s mind about something unless you’re willing to show them how wrong they are. The best thing you can do with people who judge others based on the color of their skin is ignore them and live a good life. Don’t feed into the drama and hate.”
She shook her head, not quite sure what to make of Seth. He was either one of the most honest people she’d ever met or a great bullshitter. “You sure? ’Cause if someone acts like a racist asshole around me I let them know, in a very ladylike way of course, they can go fuck themselves.”
He grinned at her and his blue eyes seemed to glow from within. “It’s nothing to get so worked up about.”
“How can you
not
get worked up about it?”
Gazing out the window, he let out a slow breath. “The war has changed the way I see the world. It started out as small things, but now that I’m out and living among civilians again I find that I don’t care about the petty stuff so many people stress over anymore.”
“How so?”
“Well, it’s just when you’ve been in a place where a wrong decision, a wrong call will get you and your men killed, the copier breaking right before a presentation isn’t that big of a deal. Is anyone going to fucking die if the copier is broken? No? Well then, get the fuck over it.”
Tension radiated from him and she watched him struggle to swallow his anger. She wanted to go to him, to hold him, but right now he needed her to listen. With a preacher father, she’d grown up watching him give advice to other people. He’d once said the rarest of all people is a man or woman who can really listen to what others have to say without thinking too much about themself. That had stuck with her, so now when someone needed to talk, she did her best to give them her undivided attention and not interrupt.
He glanced in her direction and smiled with such warmth it made her breath catch. “You have no idea how much your letters meant to me out there. Even before I knew who you were. I’d haul ass home every night to see if you’d written me back. It was nice to know someone out there gave a shit about me and my men.”
“I loved getting your letters as well. I mean, it was much better when we were able to Skype together those few times you had a stable and secure link, but just reading your letters made me feel like you were sitting next to me, talking to me about your day.”
“Sugar, if I’d been here we wouldn’ta been talking.”
The deep bass note to his words had her clit hardening as desire spun through her blood. The abrupt change in his demeanor, from vulnerable to aggressively sexual, made her blink.
“What would we have been doing?”
He gave her a savage grin that caused a little rill of fear to mix with her arousal, and she loved it. He took a step forward, then stopped and clenched his hands. “You are too fucking tempting.”
Clearing her throat, and trying to get her mind off deliciously naughty things, she grabbed a menu at random. “How does some authentic Italian served in a family-owned restaurant sound? It’s plastic chairs and cheap tables, but the food is killer.”
“Sounds great.”
She hesitated, torn between needing to ask him a question and not wanting to offend him. But she had to know, had to prepare herself for a possible negative reaction. “Seth, is your family cool with you dating a black girl?”
“Yep. My parents were big-time hippies back in the day and they’re accepting of pretty much everyone. Why do you think they run an organic farm and gave me the middle name of River?”
The image of big, bad Seth in his combat fatigues standing next to two aging hippies had her giggling. “Really?”
“I know, kinda threw them for a loop when their son decided to join the Marines after graduating instead of going on tour with some band of tree-hugging musicians.”
Unable to help herself, she laughed. “So joining the military was like your form of rebelling?”
“Pretty much. I got yelled at to stop cutting my hair instead of getting a haircut. When I was seven, I had hair down to my ass. My mom had never cut it. Then I entered the first grade and the other kids gave me shit about it, so the next day, I hacked it off. My mom just about had a heart attack.”
“When I was nine, I tried to pierce my own ears with a sewing needle.”
“Yikes. How did that go?”
“My dad found me next to my bed with blood all over me. He freaked out, but the very next week my Aunt Tanisha took me to get my ears pierced. I think my dad was afraid if I didn’t get it professionally done, I’d end up killing myself.”
Giving her a bemused smile, he shook his head and said, “Come here.”
He held his arms open and she left the kitchen, then crossed the living room. Cuddling against him, she placed a kiss over his heart. “One thing I’ve learned from modeling is what really counts about a person is more than skin deep. Beauty, fashion, all that stuff is just window dressing. The substance of a person comes from their soul, and you have a very good heart.”
Holding her so tight she almost couldn’t breathe, Seth placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I have no idea what I did in a past life to deserve someone like you.”
His stomach growled loudly, and she looked up at him. “Ready to go eat and then do some schmoozing and dancing?”
“I could eat about a dozen Big Macs right now, but I’m not so sure about the schmoozing and dancing part. Kinda have two left feet.”
Making sure she put a sultry purr in her voice, she leaned up and whispered in his ear, “Honey, if you can fuck, you can dance. All you have to do is move with me.”
He turned his head enough so their lips were almost touching. “Well, when you put it that way, how can I resist?”
Seth cursed inwardly as Helena exited the vehicle in a careful move guaranteed to keep any of the photographers from getting an up-skirt shot. The move also thrust her round ass into his face. A black sequined skirt reached just past the bottom curve of her of her tight, perfect butt. It was still early enough in the evening that the sun had begun to set, so at least Seth wasn’t blinded by the explosion of flashing lights as Helena greeted the crowd. She shifted, and the gold chains that made up the back of her pitiful excuse for a shirt swayed over her back and he wanted to kiss every available inch of her ebony skin.
As he stepped out after her, the paparazzi were already hollering at her to turn this way and that, to smile, throw the peace sign, and all manner of things. Helena worked them like a pro. She flirted with and greeted some of the photographers by name, posed for a couple of the younger photographers, and generally charmed everyone around her. She had that special kind of inner light that attracted people to her, like moths to a flame. Then she turned and he got the full-frontal impact of her outfit, again.
She wore some kind of black gladiator heels which further elongated the long, luscious legs that seemed to go on forever. Paired with the tiny black skirt and equally tiny top, she was every wet dream he’d ever had come to life. She’d done something with her eye makeup that made her already slanted eyes tilt even more. With only a light touch of a red lip gloss, her mouth was begging for his kisses.
He’d almost expired on the spot when she’d strutted out of her bedroom at her apartment wearing that outfit, but he’d managed to keep his shit together.
Barely.
She crooked her finger at him and he stepped forward with a bemused grin, enjoying the reaction of the crowd as she slid her hand into his. Her breasts swayed with her walk and he had a hard time keeping his eyes off the hints of her cleavage. Giving his fingers a squeeze, she led him into the club and they paused together, once they were inside, to take it all in and let their eyes adjust.
A pounding bass rhythm rolled over the crowd on the three dance floors. The largest one was in the center with two separate elevated areas next to it. Lucite railings kept people from falling off the platforms, and a woman was doing an aerial routine using a swing that swept her over the club. She had some kind of glittery streamers attached to her barely-there outfit, giving the illusion of glitter flying around her.
A man in his late thirties with bleached-blond hair and a seriously deep spray tan came up to them. He wore a green silk suit that somehow didn’t look absurd on him. He was flanked by two stunning Asian women who were obviously his arm candy. Normally Seth would have been staring at the women, but his attention was focused on the man approaching Helena.
Seth tensed, ready to intercede if she appeared at all distressed, but she gave the man a kiss on each cheek.
“Gustav, so nice to see you.”
“You are looking delicious as always.” Gustav glanced over at Seth. “Who’s your friend?”