Valentine's Day Kisses : Boxed Set Read online

  “I’m not sleeping with you.” It speeds out of me.

  His chest thumps against mine as he fights to hold back that full blooming grin waiting to take over.

  “I mean, I am.” I settle my arms around him and let my body mold to his. “But not like that.”

  It feels good to touch him this way, platonically, of course, through several layers of clothing.

  “Not like that.” He repeats, but it comes out more of a question. “Like this.” He runs his hands down my back and stops just shy of my hips. A chill runs up my spine like fingers gliding over the keys of a piano.

  Cole presses his lips over my forehead before resting his cheek against mine.

  “I think you’re special, cupcake. I think you count.”

  I strengthen my arms around him and nestle in.

  “I think you’re pretty special, too, Cole.”

  Cole

  The morning light trickles in through the curtains, and much to my surprise, Roxy is still snug in my arms as if she wanted to be here. I thought for sure once the vodka wore off she’d morph back into her lovable ball-busting self. In all honesty, there was something downright sweet about her last night, vulnerable even.

  My fingers mold over her hips before skimming up the side of her body, and I dig my hand into her thick mane like I’ve wanted to for the last few weeks. It feels smooth, slippery, and I bury my face in it for a minute, taking in its strawberry scent. My boner ticks to life, but I don’t care. I’ve been dying to be this close—to smell her vanilla-scented skin, taste that cherry ripe mouth. I land my lips over her temple and linger.

  “What?” She groans, twisting away from me as if trying to get her bearings. “Wait, what is this?” She looks around with those sleepy eyes, and my body rubs up against her stomach. “Oh, crap!” She spikes up. “What’s going on?” Her hair is messy, her mascara smudged just enough, and it’s become pretty obvious I’m going to have to slick one off in the shower just to get through the day.

  “Nothing’s going on, I swear.” I press back into the sofa. “It’s just a bathroom boner, I promise.”

  She snatches the pillow and covers her chest with it. “Gross.” Her eyes flit down to my crotch.

  “I’ll take a quick shower.” I get up careful not to touch her.

  Roxy grazes her bottom lip with her teeth, her eyes never leaving my crotch. “I’ll make us breakfast.”

  My heart warms just hearing her say that, and it startles me. Funny, when other girls have offered, it would make my blood run cold.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  She gives a shy smile. “I want to.”

  She wants to.

  I float all the way to the shower. I shake one out just to get the tension to a bearable level and change for the day before making my way back to the kitchen.

  The oven is on, and the counter has been taken over with a sack of flour and a bowl full of butter. I like where this is going.

  “What’s for breakfast?” Actually, my stomach wanted me to rephrase that and ask when is breakfast. It looks like we’re taking the long road to nutritional satisfaction. But I don’t care as long as Roxy’s the one I get to kill time with.

  “What’s one of your favorite foods?”

  I knock my head back and think about it a minute. “Peanut butter and jelly.”

  “Then that’s what I’m making. Peanut butter and jelly cupcakes.”

  “Just like that?” If I had known she was going to do whatever I asked I would have requested something far more sinfully delicious—like Roxy herself.

  “Just like that. I have to be ready to cook anything and everything on the spot. The competition is coming up, and I need to be ready for anything. This will be a good experience for me.”

  “Sweet. In the meantime, I’ll make some bacon and eggs.” I pull out what I need, and within three minutes the entire apartment is lit up with the thick scent of bacon grease. I inhale a deep breath and take it all in. Roxy and bacon, now that’s one heady combo.

  Roxy slides open the center drawer and accidently brushes her bottom against my thigh.

  “Oh, sorry.” She jumps up, red-faced that we’ve touched.

  “Not a problem.”

  Roxy dips her chin to her chest. Her eyes latch onto mine with a look that says she’s about to eat me for breakfast, and, holy hell, I hope she does.

  “Get over here.” She points to her feet.

  “Sure thing, cupcake.” My lip curls up one side because I happen to know it’s the last thing she wants me to call her, but she’s cute like one and I’m guessing tasty, so I don’t see me stopping anytime soon. “Hand me a fork.”

  I do as I’m told. “You want a hand mixer? I think I’ve got one around here somewhere.” Mom sent a bunch of nonsensical crap when I first moved in. Not that I didn’t appreciate her efforts.

  “Nah, this way I get to take out all my aggressions on these poor defenseless ingredients.” She smashes an egg over the lip of the bowl, and my balls shrivel.

  “Whatever turns you on, cupcake.”

  “Why are you calling me that?” She cracks another egg, then another.

  “Because a cupcake is soft inside like you.” I blink a smile at her before shutting off the stove over in my arena. The eggs are scrambled to perfection, not too dry, not too slimy, and the bacon has reconfigured into crunchy curls just the way I like it.

  “Yeah, well, you’re going to ruin my image, so you better knock it off,” she grunts it out while teaching those ingredients who’s boss.

  “Cupcake,” I say it again as I pull out two plates. “Cupcake, cupcake, cupcake.”

  She drops the fork, and it clinks against the side of the bowl.

  “Wow, Brighton, you can’t go twenty-four hours without crawling onto my last nerve, can you?” She glares over at me, and I know for a fact any vulnerability that she may have displayed last night has left the building. Roxy is back, and she brought her game face to prove it. Her eyes slit to nothing. She leans against the counter with her bare foot up over the cabinet, her long, lean body flexed backward, that black waterfall of hair caressing her shoulders. Hot damn. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she were posing for me.

  “Twenty-four hours?” I walk over and set the plates down as my body heats up behind her. “Is that all it’s been?” I whisper directly into her ear, and she takes an audible breath.

  She’s got to be feeling something. I’ve never had such a bionicly hard situation in my pants to contend with before that hasn’t been reciprocated on some level. And a piece of me will die if she’s not feeling it. Roxy has single handedly disabled my ability to get it up for anybody else, and I’m stumped by her superpower.

  I linger over her neck and take in her scent, butter and sugar, vanilla layered just beneath that. Hell. Roxy smells like a cupcake, and now my lips want to try her out to verify whether or not she tastes like one, too. I’m betting yes, sweeter even.

  Her breathing picks up pace. Her heart starts thumping so loud, I can hear it thundering, see it palpitating from beneath her shirt like a mini earthquake.

  My lips press over her neck, soft as a feather. I dot a trail of soft kisses up the side of her cheek, slowly meandering toward her mouth. She hasn’t sliced off my balls yet, so this has to be a green light.

  “Are you going to molest my face all day with your lips, or are you going to kiss me?” The words come from her shaky as if she meant them as a barb, but they get lost in translation.

  My lips pass over hers like the dusting of the wind, and I pull back to gauge her reaction.

  Her eyelids flutter. Her lips edge forward for more, and I land my mouth square onto hers because that’s exactly what I plan on giving her, more.

  A groan rockets from her chest as I compress my lips hard over hers, and Roxy gives. She opens her mouth, and I fall in with my tongue sweeping over hers hungry and fierce just like those kisses back at the Black Bear, only now there isn’t an audience. This is
no bogus liplock drummed up in the name of some fake relationship. This is the real deal happening in real time. Roxy isn’t fighting it, or manufacturing some scheme to make someone jealous. Roxy wants this kiss as bad as I do.

  We’re all moans and groans. Her teeth scrape against mine, and I bite down playfully over her tongue. I pick her up by the thighs and set her on the counter as she relaxes her arms over my shoulders.

  Roxy slips her mouth over to my ear creating an erotic trail of heat and moisture that cools instantly in her wake.

  “Take me,” she whispers it low and husky.

  The exact words my body wanted to hear.

  I pull back and take her in like this, hotter than a kitchen fire with her hair tousled, her eyes smoldering into mine, and I do something I hope I won’t live to regret.

  I say, “No.”

  Preheat

  Roxy

  “He said what?” Laney grips me by the wrist so hard I think she just gave me some kind of rejection-inspired fracture.

  “He said no.” I glance over at Baya as she sinks in her seat.

  “That must have been awkward.” She bites over her lip. “Cole has always been a great guy at heart. I’m sure there was a reasonable explanation.” Baya and Bryson just came from the Witch’s Cauldron, a hot spring a little north of here where apparently they exercise their coital rights quite often. I suppose having my way with Cole in nature’s hot tub is off limits now that his sister’s naked body has defiled the waters. I’ve spent all afternoon dreaming and scheming of the places and spaces I could have him.

  “Oh, it was awkward,” I assure. “But don’t worry, he’s just on his period.”

  Laney barks out a laugh, but Baya doesn’t seem that amused.

  “I jest.” I kick her lightly under the table. We’re outside of Hallowed Grounds freezing our asses off, while the frozen earth enjoys a gentle thaw, much like my heart. “He said we should take things slow.” I take a breath just reliving the memory. “He says he’s never had these kinds of feelings before, and he wants to make sure we do everything right.”

  “Wow.” Laney’s eyes bug out disbelieving. “And how hard did you hit him with the baseball bat last night?”

  “Very funny.” I glance over my shoulder and catch a glimpse of something horrifically familiar. A giant picture of LeAnn with her open mouth hovering over a rhinestone-studded microphone stares back at me from the student union board.

  “Oh, crap,” Baya moans. “It’s like she’s taking over campus. There’s even a picture of her on the condom dispenser in the bathroom.”

  “We have condom dispensers in the bathroom?” I’m momentarily thrown and yet titillated by this hypersexual revelation.

  “Right next to the tampons and breath mints.” She affirms.

  “Nice.” I shake my head at the thought. “Good to know before I go and get myself knocked up by your brother,” I tease.

  “Speaking of knocked up”—Laney spins her coffee in her hands creating a mini plume of vapors as the heat kisses the frigid air—“the drama department is putting on Grease, and I’m trying out for the part of Rizzo.”

  “The boy crazy school girl? Sounds like type casting at its finest.” I’m still pretty psyched that the boy she’s crazy about is my brother. “Speaking of crazy, Aiden let me know he’s thinking about asking LeAnn Cha-Ching Cleo to marry him. Also, he may have propositioned me for an affair on the side along with cash and prizes—all sponsored from the money he plans on siphoning from her account, of course.”

  They both gasp in turn.

  Laney looks like she might be sick. “I demand you stay far, far away from that moron the next time you see him.”

  “Trust me, he had to pin me to the wall to have that conversation with me. We’ve now entered the hostage negotiations phase of our non-relationship.”

  “Two words: pepper spray,” Baya insists.

  “And brass knuckles.” Laney grits it through her teeth.

  “I’m carrying something better.” I give a private smile. “My beating heart because he no longer owns it.” I leave out the fact I think I may have given it to someone else.

  Baya dips her chin and gives a knowing look. “So what’s your next move with my brother?”

  My cheek glides up one side as the world colors itself with the lust in my eyes.

  “I’m about to prove to him that slow is overrated.”

  I didn’t spend all morning baking peanut butter and jelly cupcakes for nothing.

  A lot of things are overrated, but the way he makes my heart race sure isn’t.

  I’m beginning to doubt I was ever in love with Aiden at all. These butterflies, these heart-stopping jolts of desire that shoot up my thighs are all new to me.

  I glance over at the snow blanketing the campus, the crowd of girls giggling to themselves, the boys tossing a football over the frozen terrain, and I’m just glad to be a part of it all.

  For the first time in a long while, I don’t hate the world so much.

  I head back home all hopped up on the idea of actually having real live sex. I haven’t had “intimate relations” with anybody other than myself since early August. After a rather prolonged dry spell I figured Aiden and his wiggle worm were getting lucky elsewhere. Anyway, I let myself into the apartment, I know for a fact Cole took off for work so that gives me plenty of time to primp and pamper myself for the big naked reveal I plan on initiating later. I even went to the store and bought a half-dozen packs of cherry Kool Aid to give my hair that fiery look I love so much. And, what the hell, I might even add a few cherry-colored highlights to the runway strip I plan on fashioning out of my…

  A petite blonde springs out from behind the door.

  “Surprise!” She opens her coat and flashes me with an unexpected glimpse of her bits and pieces, and I accidently hit my head against the wall trying to get the hell away from her.

  “Damn!” I clutch my chest for a moment. It’s that girl from the bar that Cole is forever trying to get away from. “Okay, very funny, you can leave now. There’s no meeting here tonight.” Crap. If it’s one thing Cole comes with it’s some serious baggage of the psychotic female variety. Speaking of his estrogen-based carry-on, should I be worried about sexually transmitted bedbugs? Maybe I can send him a quick text. Hi honey, would you mind running by the free clinic for me on the way home and updating your rabies shot?

  “What meeting?” The blonde ditz looks genuinely worried for a minute.

  “You know”—I plop a crap ton of groceries on the counter because I bought out the store for the decadent midnight snack I plan on preparing—“the itty bitty titty committee.” I shoot her a look that reeks of no mercy. “Go on, get gone. Your services are no longer required. If you don’t mind, I have a girl’s night planned that involves a very sharp razor and a rom com.”

  “I love romantic comedies.” She swoons for a moment. Her tiny, tic tac shaped teeth clatter over one another, and for a second I think maybe she’s mistaken it for a meal.

  “Here.” I hand her a peanut butter and jelly cupcake that somehow managed to escape Cole’s oral assault this morning. If I’m anything, I’m about feeding people. Not to mention her boobs are in need of some stuffing.

  “Thanks.” She peels back the wrapper and takes a bite. “God, this tastes like heaven!”

  “I know.” I’m a sucker for someone who might even remotely enjoy my cupcakes. I blame my parents for that, mostly my mother. Not that she doesn’t like me, she’s simply mistaken me as some crisis project gone awry. She’s since replaced me with her longtime assistant Meg who’s been stalking my brother Ryder for the better half of a decade. I recognize a stalker when I see one and it just so happens I’m staring at one right this minute. “I think this is the part when you scat back to your sorority.”

  “Can’t.” She cinches her trench coat, and my eyes are forever grateful. “My roommate is having a guest over. Melanie is a senior, so what she says goes.” She spins a finger throu
gh the air as if to say big whoop.

  “Melanie Harrison?” The self-proclaimed cupcake queen of Whitney Briggs? The very Melanie Harrison who thinks she’s going to pull a miracle out of her ass at the Sticky Quickie baking competition? “You know—maybe you could join me for that rom com.”

  What better time to dish about our respective roommates.

  I hand her another cupcake, and she eagerly accepts.

  Melanie Harrison and her Ecstasy Delights are going down.

  Cole

  The barflys were coming on strong with their lingering cleavage, their open-mouth pouts, but I held strong and ignored their advances. This is new terrain for me. It’s sort of strange working behind the bar, observing the crowd, wondering how many of them, if not all, I’ve slept with. I wonder what my dad would think about that.

  For so long I was open to anyone and anything, and, often times, that came with just about everything. But the thought of living that life forever, living it again makes my stomach twist. It’s empty, always was. As soon as Roxy set up shop in the apartment, I knew there was something better, and, ironically, she was right here under my nose.

  It’s ten after midnight. Bryson let me off early, and, judging by the silly grin on my sister’s face, I’m betting she had something to do with it. I take my tips and pick up Chinese for Roxy and me. I even paid a little extra to buy one of the candles in a jar from off their table.

  I think tonight will be a great time to lay the foundation for us. I’ve never had a bona fide relationship before, so I’m not really sure where to start, not to mention the fact my stomach has been turning like a concrete mixer for the better half of the day because the last thing I want to do is screw this up.

  I give a gentle knock on the apartment door before opening it. The glow from the television fills the room with a soft blue haze, and the scent of something fresh baked fills the air.

  “Holy hell,” I whisper, taking in the heavenly scent. Both my stomach and my man parts want to know how I got lucky enough to land a girl like Roxy.