Night Shift 2 Read online

  “You haven’t looked at me like that in a long time, Keira.” Closer now and Kona brushed his free hand against my cheek, resting it on the base of my neck. “Like you wanted to watch me move and just touch yourself. Touch yourself like…like this…” He separated my lips, slipping two fingers deeper inside me, so deep that he easily found my G-spot and began the work that was so easy for him. As always, Kona knew how to touch me, how to rub his bent knuckle over that ridge, teasing, caressing until I couldn’t stand the sensations he worked inside my body.

  I stretched my hand, moving it from the side of the tub to my breast but Kona clicked his tongue, head shaking when I looked at him. “No baby, that’s for me to do.” And my protest, halfhearted and weak, died completely when Kona came to his knees to reach closer and take my nipple in his mouth. All thoughts of bears were forgotten and my world spiraled down until it only contained this tub, this water, my opening body, and my wonderful, demanding husband, my world.

  4

  Her body called to me. I knew what she wanted. Keira’s face was open, her emotions clear as I moved my fingers inside her, taking, teasing, just how she liked it.

  Years I’ve loved this woman. My pilialo. My life. I’d know the meaning behind every flick of her eyes, every faint wrinkle that settled into her soft, smooth skin whenever she frowned. She wasn’t frowning now. Keira looked, in fact, like something from a dream—skin wet, dewy, nipple pebbled and hard against my tongue as I tasted her. Her long, thin fingers twisted in my hair, holding me to her breast as I sucked that sweet skin into my mouth.

  “More, God. More, baby.” There was always a melody in her voice, especially when she was aroused, when she craved the sensation of touch so badly her pleas came out like a song. The feel of her and the sound of that moan was too much. Just then, as she moved closer and closer to her finish, free hand on the edge of the tub gripping, back arching as she pulled me harder against her breast, sensation took over, gave way to damn carelessness and I didn’t think of anything at all but tasting and touching and having her.

  A small gasp left her mouth as I slipped into the tub, fully clothed and desperate for her, but I didn’t lose the rhythm of my fingers inside her and pulled her closer, leaning her against me as water splashed around us, slapped loud on the tile floor. I didn’t care about the mess, only that Keira shuddered, shook as she came, as I quickened the movement of my knuckle and that sweet swollen G-spot got larger the quicker my fingers moved.

  She pulled back as she came, mouth open, head against the lip of the tub and I watched her, stunned at how beautiful she looked. I’d almost lost her. That wedge held between us for days seemed to be breaking apart and the thought escalated my desperation to have her, to take us back to what we had been, to what we could be again. Keira’s skin flushed bright, the paleness changing over her cheeks, down to blush against her neck, her breast as she continued coming.

  “Kona…oh God.” She was breathless, sated but I didn’t let her fall from her euphoria, not just yet. Not when her skin still seemed sensitive, when touching her slowly, like I did just then, seemed to electrify her further.

  She didn’t complain that I weighed too much, that my soaking wet clothes probably scratched against her soft skin. Keira did what she’d always done—accepted, amended to the change before she embraced it.

  “Baby, I can’t wait. I need you.” She didn’t flinch or fight me when I pulled her close, when the only thought in my head was tasting, feeling, touching, letting Keira fill up the spaces left empty these past few months. “I need you so bad.”

  She reacted, moving as a counterpoint to me—I fisted her hair, mouth fixed to the cleft where her neck and shoulder met and she moved her head, giving me leverage, letting me kiss and suck on her warm skin. Keira went boneless against me, reacting with a shudder, with eager, needy moans as I moved my mouth, my teeth all over her body. She let me have my way, work over her body right until the point when my fingers tugged tighter, guided her head as I kissed her neck and I pushed my hips against her, grinding my ridiculously hard dick right against her pussy. Then, Keira stopped taking and started giving.

  “Kona…shit…” And she became movement—some rhythmic, dynamic rush of action that staggered me. “God, I’ve missed you, baby.” Her hands shook as she loosened my belt, ripped it from my jeans, as she quickened to pop open my button and lower the zipper.

  “Wildcat…Christ…” I matched her frantic pace, pulling her close, fingers squeezing against that perfect, round ass, lifting one leg to open her wide for me.

  Keira’s fingers had taken on a steadier grip when she grabbed me, pushing down my jeans and boxers to wrap her slender fingers around my dick, massaging it, teasing the head until I grunted, moans of pleasure mixing with my need, frantic sounds that echoed around that small room. Slow, smooth fingers up and down my dick, her grip like a vice that was a pleasurable pain. My body ached, shook as she touched me, as I tore off my shirt, throwing puddles of water around the floor when I stepped out of the tub with Keira wrapped around me, that firm grip never leaving my dick.

  “Baby…don’t stop.” My voice was barely more than a grunt as I stumbled through the room and fell back on the bed with Keira still on top of me. “Please don’t stop.”

  “Never.” There was a promise in that one word that broke something loose inside me and the wild, open expression on her face was fearless, real. A look a pure desire unlike any I’d ever seen in her before. She moved quickly, tugging at my jeans, helping me free myself from anything that would keep my bare skin from hers, until I laid out for her—a meal she’d take and take, devour until there was nothing but bones left of me. I welcomed it. Wanted it. Needed it.

  “Keira…” but my Wildcat didn’t need any encouragement. One breath fell from her open mouth, right against my chest, down my stomach as she took my skin between her teeth, marking me, the sensation searing me with heat and pleasure so sharp that I had to grip her arms. I’d never been so hard or wanted her so badly.

  Parts of my brain shifted, thoughts combining together, confusing me so that I didn’t know if I could take the feel of her mouth and teeth against my stomach or fucking stand it if that sensation went away. It didn’t matter because just then Keira slid up my body, limbs trembling like she needed a fix, like only I could take the ache away. But she moved too slowly and her touches were too tentative. When she took to biting my chest, grazing her sweet, wet pussy against my dick, I snapped, flipping our positions so that she was under me, panting like she couldn’t believe how quickly I’d moved.

  “Kona…” The surprised humor in her voice was sweet, calmed so that I didn’t just shove myself inside her, so that I refocused and brought my speeding heart back to a normal beat.

  Her expression went still as I pushed her leg up with my knee and she held her breath, anticipating the onslaught of sensation to come. She relaxed, arms above her head because she knew I wanted to set the pace and I got to my knees, holding her wrists in one hand as I shifted her thighs further apart.

  “You want this, Wildcat?” She nodded once, pressing her lips together when I took my dick in my hand, working it in long, slow strokes. “You want all of it, baby?”

  “Yes, Kona. Please. Give it to me.”

  She didn’t move as I leaned forward, those big, wide eyes shifting as I continued to stroke myself, as I guided my dick between her wet lips. My movements deliberate, slow, Keira’s body shook, and she released a long exhale that I mimicked when I finally thrust all the way inside her.

  Heat surrounded me and after only a few slow strokes, I felt home. I felt where I belonged. “Never,” I told her tightening my fingers around her wrists, pushing her chin up so she’d open her eyes to look at me. “Never push me away, baby. No matter what happens…” I stroked deep, making her voice whine out a small moan, “never again. I can’t take that.” When she clenched around me, I twisted my neck, the sensation too much, the heat, her grip had me shaking my head, grunting from the
flare of sensation that began to swirl deep in my stomach.

  “Kona.” Keira’s voice was soft, and I shook as she held my face, pulling me close enough to touch her lips to mine. “I love you. Always. I’ve never loved anyone more. I’ll never love anyone else, ever. Only you.”

  “Baby…”

  Keira lifted her hips up to me, knees out to hold herself wide, stretching so that I could go deeper, fill her completely as she kissed me. I moved deep inside her, holding onto her because I knew if I loosened my grip, I’d fall to pieces. Once I’d told her she was my always. Once, the first time I loved her, I knew that my heart, everything I was would belong to Keira. That hadn’t changed, not in thirteen years, not in the twenty-eight years since we’d met.

  We moved together on that bed, her giving up to me everything she had, me letting her have all that I was until the tangle of our limbs and the sweat on the sheets were things that I barely noticed. She shifted, straddling me, rocking her body on top of mine and I watched her, amazed at how much I felt for her, astounded that those feelings hadn’t lessened in the years she’d been my wife.

  When Keira arched back, holding onto me with one hand, I gripped her waist, guiding her, stroking up to hit her deep until my wife shattered, body clenching, milking me as I followed her orgasm.

  The only noise in the room now was the quick breaths we released and the slow, easy glide of her fingernails scratching a faint line up my arm, over the large Polynesian tattoo that covered one side of my chest, up to my shoulder, all the way down to my wrist. I’d marked myself for my family, for Keira and our children. Every line of ink I had tapped into my skin told the story of my life and it began with those words right at the center of my chest, over my heart. Ku`u Lei, my beloved. Keira. Then. Now. Always

  We laid there next to each other, slowing, fitting, sinking into the calm that comes from complete and utter release. Her breath was soft against my skin.

  “Bobby told me once,” she started, fingers still working over the letters of the tattoo on my chest, “that a moment would come.” She looked up at me when I moved, turning to face her. “She said it would happen.”

  “A moment?” Her hair had loosened from the clip she wore and I moved those thick chestnut strands from her cheek.

  She leaned up, coming to rest on her elbow, mouth soft, looking bee-stung from my kisses. “She said it’s when you know, when the person you love knows everything about you, when they decide, when you do, that there is no other place or person for them.” Keira moved her hand over my arm, to the front of my left hand to fiddle with my wedding ring. “It’s when you decide to love the person even when you know all their secrets. When you know you’ll love them for all their flaws and nothing or no one will ever change that for you.”

  There was a question teasing around her tongue. I could see it. It was in the way she looked at me, in how quickly she moved that platinum band around my finger. When she licked her lips, eyes moving from my hand to my face, I stopped her, tilting her head down to kiss her forehead.

  “Wildcat, that moment came a long time ago.” Keira moved her head, resting back against the pillow with her eyebrows lifted, curious.

  “When?”

  My laugh was quick. “The first time I kissed you.” I pulled her waist to get her closer to me. “The first time you let me love you.” Keira released a soft moan when I kissed the cleft of her throat. “The first time you sang to me.”

  “But that was before…well, everything.”

  “Keira,” I started, draping her leg over my hip, “I didn’t need years, decades to figure out you were it for me. I needed seconds, moments, sure, but not just one.” Her expression was open, eyes widening as I rubbed my thumb over her cheeks. “I don’t care what anyone thinks, what even Bobby, God rest her soul, thought she knew about us. You loved me when I couldn’t love myself. You went on without me, all on your own because I’d been a coward. You raised my boy with nothing more than stubbornness and grit and you crushed every expectation anyone had for you.”

  Keira relaxed further into the pillow grabbing my hand to twist her fingers with mine. “So no one moment?”

  “No, baby. A thousand, a million and more than that to come. No one loved me like you did. No one on this planet ever gave me more than you. I don’t need one damn moment to know we belong together. That’s our weakness. That’s our strength. Us, together.” I held her face, tilting her chin so I could get at her lips. “I only need you and the always we promised each other when we were kids.”

  “Kona…”

  I let my wife cry, sweet tears that told me how happy she was, fierce kisses that I knew meant the struggle we’d had was fading in the distance. Once, not so long ago, I thought Keira’s love was like a melody, lyric and rhyme that sometimes rattled me. Now I knew as I kissed my Wildcat, loved her again and again, that we were never a melody. We’d always been a symphony, sometimes loud and discordant, sometimes soft and soulful, but always, always beautiful. And that music would never fade.

  The End

  Eden Butler is an editor and writer of Romance, SciFi and Fantasy novels and the nine-time great-granddaughter of an honest-to-God English pirate. This could explain her affinity for rule breaking and rum.

  When she’s not writing or wondering about her possibly Jack Sparrowesque ancestor, Eden impatiently awaits her Hogwarts letter, writes, reads and spends too much time watching rugby, “Doctor Who” and New Orleans Saints football. Currently, she is imprisoned under teenage rule alongside her husband in Southeastern Louisiana.

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  Virna DePaul

  Royally Deep excerpt by Virna DePaul - A sexy quarterback and an adventurous princess turn some serious sexual tension into the romance of a lifetime.

  Take one sexy quarterback,

  Mix in one adventurous princess,

  Add some serious sexual tension,

  And you get the royal romance of a lifetime.

  Kyle Young—all-star quarterback and lady-killer—thought he knew what he wanted out of life: freedom, football and fun. Then he meets Bella. She seems like the perfect woman: gorgeous, funny, and a huge football fan. But what he doesn't know? Bella also happens to be Princess Arabella of Salasia.

  Yearning for adventure and romance before she devotes herself to her country and marries a man she doesn’t love, Arabella can’t believe her luck when she meets Kyle. Sparks fly between the football player and the princess, and they begin an affair neither of them could’ve imagined.

  Soon, however, duty and self-doubt cause Kyle and Arabella to separate. Can he become the prince she needs? And can Arabella overcome her family’s disapproval? Or will their love transform into a pumpkin at midnight, leaving them both without a happily ever after?

  Note: Royally Deep is part of the Going Deep Series by Virna DePaul, which releases soon.

  ***If you are a new-to-me reader, I hope you’ll check out my other books. You can start with these (3) FREE Series Starters!

  Please visit my website and join my mailing list to be the first to hear about new releases and giveaways! You can also follow me on Facebook. Thank you! Virna

  Also by Virna DePaul

  GOING DEEP SERIES

  BEDDING THE BACHELORS SERIES

  HOME TO GREEN VALLEY SERIES

  ROCK CANDY SERIES

  SAY YOU LOVE ME SERIES

  1

  “Your Majesty, is this really necessary?” Royce, Princess Arabella of Salasia’s bodyguard, asked in a gruff voice.

  Arabella grinned even as she continued painting the side of his face blue to match her own. “Yes, it’s necessary. Now hold still.” She bit her lip,
concentrating.

  Having recently arrived in New York City, Arabella—with Royce in tow—was about to attend the New York Knights’ preseason opening game against Arabella’s favorite team, the Savannah Bootleggers. My first American football game! she thought with glee, even if Kyle Young won’t be playing. Young had been her favorite player for years now, and she’d followed his career closely. Not only was he gorgeous, but he was a talented, savvy ball player who’d only increased in skill as the years passed.

  She supposed it was too much to ask, watching a real football game and being able to see her favorite quarterback score. The team would never risk Young getting injured in a preseason game. Instead, Brian Murphy, the Bootleggers’ third-string quarterback, would be getting some action. Good enough for her! Nothing was going to ruin the excitement of her first real adventure.

  Well, as long as her bodyguard and watchdog Royce went along with her plans.

  “You look great, Royce. Now let me get you a foam finger…” She placed the giant blue hand on him, and he glowered. “There, all set.”

  “Might I inquire again why we are not sitting with Mr. York in his private box? You would be more comfortable there, Your Majesty.”

  Jacques York, a family friend and fellow Salasian, was the owner of the New York Knights, and was partnering with the Salasian royal family in a number of charities, which was the reason Arabella was in New York in the first place. He’d been the one to give her the tickets to the game, but she’d declined sitting in his private box, mostly because she didn’t want to be treated like a princess today but also because she was a huge Bootleggers fan and didn’t want to be impolite by cheering for the opposing team in front of Jacques.