Riske and Revenge: A Second Chance, Enemies Romance (Revenge series Book 1) Read online

  Everything on him was hard, as chiseled as stone. His stare was equally as hard and he leveled it at me, holding me transfixed with a look that could light fires. I felt a shudder.

  “Ethan?”

  He wiped a hand across his face. “Kat…” He squinted back at me. “What’re you doing here?”

  I scoffed. “I could ask you the same thing, but I guess I already see that. This pool area is pitch black. I didn’t know if you were man, at first… or animal.”

  My gaze swept his body. I was guessing he was a bit of both.

  The man before me had none of the boy I knew left in him—not one single bit. That semi-adult I’d known and, once upon a time, loved had died a swift death, I was sure of it. Ethan had always had one toe in the depth of manhood, but now he was swimming in it—quite literally. Every muscle was perfectly defined, every line clean and clear-cut. Even under the cover of night, if I touched it, I knew I wouldn’t feel an inch of fat on that body.

  Not that I was thinking about touching his body…

  I glanced away when I realized that I was staring, my gaze dropping to the ground and staying there for a second as I tried to regroup and get myself together. Somehow, I managed.

  My eyes returned to his dripping wet face. I swallowed. Hard.

  “This is Florida, so I guess I’m saying I’m glad you’re not a gator or… any animal, really.”

  He gave a sly smile. “I’m not so sure about that… but thanks. It’s good, you know. To be a pleasant surprise instead of an unpleasant one.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. For once.”

  Ouch. I hadn’t meant to say that. Ethan actually winced. He walked towards me wordlessly. When he got within arm’s reach, I backpedaled, nearly breaking my neck as I tripped over my own unprepared feet. He reached out for me, steadying my arm. His large wet fingers wrapped around my elbow, and when his grip tightened, I felt it all over.

  Beneath my chest. In the pit of my stomach. Between my thighs.

  I could barely breathe as he glared at me, looking like he wanted to say something more important. I waited. He glanced over my shoulder.

  “Sorry,” he breathed out on a bit of a laugh. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Just reaching for my towel. It’s actually draped over that chair.”

  My gaze whipped back. And there it was. A white terry cloth towel, waiting to be used. I clutched it with shaking fingers, trying to stop the trembling in my limbs by squeezing it. I dropped it into Ethan’s hands and when he took it, our hands slightly brushed, creating a small spark of static shock. I jumped.

  Jammed into a sudden fantasy, I saw everything that was about to happen…

  Ethan would drop the towel, grabbing for me. Powerless to squelch my attraction to him, I’d let him… falling into his soaking arms, sinking my fingertips into his wet hair until he had no choice but to pull me into his damp mouth, connecting it with mine, making me beg for more.

  It wouldn’t be slow, no. It’d be fast and hard—as everything with him always was. His hands on high speed, Ethan would tighten his palms against my lower back and ass. He’d slide them beneath to cup at my cheeks and as the kiss deepened, he would drop his fingers even lower, letting his hands explore what his eyes couldn’t see, his fingertips drawing a path that would only drive me crazy.

  A path that he knew oh so well.

  He’d circle the roadmap to my body with finesse, and as he spread my legs with his hands, he’d let his fingers do the walking, trailing to the deepest parts of my treasure where he’d sink the tips of his digits, plunging deftly, inserting and swirling to his devilish delight until I was climaxing, coming all over his fingers, panting into his muffled groans as he gripped me so hard that it almost hurt.

  And all the while, I’d want to be closer, to meld into one with him. I wouldn’t be able to stop my own hands from following their own path, and when they went for his sopping wet trunks, he wouldn’t stop me; he’d give me the space I needed to remove them. Helping me slide them down his toned thighs and calves, he’d kicked the nuisance to the side, swinging me upwards and into his arms to sit at his waist.

  There’d be no poking and prodding—just one graceful push inside. Swiping my panties to the side, Ethan would slide in me like a sword to a sheath and my wetness would cover him as his covered mine, our bodies soaked, my whimpers turning to whines as Ethan bobbed my body along his to sit atop his perfect cock. Slick from head to toe, he’d let me know which parts were slickest, and when I couldn’t answer back through the cries of pleasure, he’d bite at my earlobe, rasping only the filthiest of things.

  “You’re all wet, Kat. Look at what you’ve made me do…”

  “Yes…”

  “Don’t you like it when I make you wet?”

  “Yessss…”

  “When I make your pussy drip down your thighs?”

  “Yes!”

  “Take this fucking cock, Kat. Take it… But don’t you come yet. Don’t you dare come…”

  My cries would only grow louder. The heat between my legs would rise and the slippery, soaking friction would build, I would want to come. I would want it so bad… and try to stop…

  “I’m… I’m trying…”

  “Try harder.” Another pound. Another slide.

  Up. Down. Up. Down. I’d hold on for the ride. My body would bounce from the tip of Ethan’s hard, long cock to the base, and the slapping of our bodies together would only push the frenzy within me higher, making everything between my thighs squeeze and quiver for release. Hot tears would drip from my eyes as I would try to hold out, but couldn’t.

  My body would explode, cracking apart into pieces. A shattering would rock my body from the inside out, and I would dig my nails into his broad back, clutching as I hit the peak—again and again. I wouldn’t stop coming—couldn’t. Because Ethan wouldn’t stop. Still rock solid inside me, he’d keep pumping, keep stroking until my body was nearly spent, and then at last, he would join me, releasing his seed inside me to join my own. He’d sigh from his own release, and I would want him again, doing everything I could to betray my body to refocus so that I could take that orgasmic rollercoaster again.

  But he wouldn’t let me. He’d hold me to him, gazing directly into my eyes. With the moonlight barely illuminating the darkened space around the gently rolling pool, he would somehow find the deepest part of me in that glare, and he would delve deep, digging up emotions I wanted to forget were there.

  He’d leave me breathless.

  With one look, us sharing one body, he’d say three words. “Kat… I love…”

  “Kat.” The mention of my name made me blink.

  Ethan was still holding onto the white towel from the empty chair. I looked down to notice that so was I, my fingers seemingly stuck into the fabric, and, embarrassed, I nearly dropped the garment, letting go of the terry cloth towel with nothing to say. It was the most awkward moment of my life… and I’d had many. To Ethan’s sheer shock (and my own), I turned and ran, not looking back, not saying another syllable as I headed back towards the hotel, my tail tucked between my legs as I scurried away like the scared little mouse I’d suddenly become.

  What the hell was happening to me? I didn’t even get a chance to say “thank you” for what he’d done, didn’t let him know how much it meant. And I hated that a part of me knew why…

  We were way past simple “thank you’s,” silly symbols of gratitude that were supposed to mean anything. Ethan and I had something else, something buried.

  And if I wanted it to stay that way, running was the only way I knew how to make it stick. It had worked for Ethan before. I was hoping it would work for me this time.

  I wasn’t over him… Not by a long shot.

  Ethan Riske was still in my bones, still stuck under my skin. I hadn’t gotten him out of my system—not yet anyway… and I was so very fucked.

  Only in my Dreams

  Time is a dream ... a destroying dream;

  It lays great cities in dust, it fi
lls the seas;

  It covers the face of beauty, and tumbles walls.

  - Conrad Aiken

  RISKE

  I couldn't sleep last night.

  I woke up in my hotel bed, harder than I'd ever been, because for half of the night, I'd been having bad dreams, good dreams... wet dreams... of nothing but Kat.

  I'd been tortured by visions of her for years, but nothing could compare to what I'd seen just a few hours earlier when she was standing there, wide-eyed, in front of me—looking more edible than ever before.

  I was a fucking idiot to let her walk away from me. Scratch that... let her fucking run. And instead of following her, I watched by the pool's edge, willing an erection that could start a building demolition to go down beneath my soaked blue trunks and a small white towel that barely covered the bulge threatening to take a peek.

  That towel wasn't the only nuisance that had separated us.

  The other nuisance was me.

  When Kat looked up into my face, her bright blue eyes full of wonder and surprise, memories I had shoved into the back of my mind resurfaced, bringing me back to other times when she had gazed at me openly like that.

  Like that night she was beneath me, my body sliding smoothly into hers. That day at the ice cream shop. And the last time, that evening in the parking lot of the baseball field, when she found Christy and me...

  In a warm hug and embrace, a position too compromising to be explained.

  It was those moments that resonated with me most, that left little tears on the inside of my soul, ones that had solidified into scars. Those scars were still with me two days later after the Summit as I sat at my newly built oak office desk, running through the why’s and how’s, wondering what it was about her that I couldn’t get rid of—didn’t want to get rid of.

  Kat Lexington felt like a broken record, repeating over and over in my broken soul. But then a sudden ringing cut into the music bridge that my body was building towards. I glanced at the number on the display. I didn’t double-take. I knew who was calling the minute I heard the sound.

  I answered the phone. “Hello, Boss.”

  My father’s voice was gruff. “Don’t fucking ‘Hello, boss’ me, you son of a bitch. Greg tells me that you dropped the deal.”

  “Greg’s right… for once.”

  Dear old dad practically broke into a growl. “We had a deal, Brendon.”

  “And now we don’t. We’re not touching A Whole New World. Not anymore.”

  The other line went deadly silent, and I imagined that my own dad was coming up with ten different ways to plot my agonizing death. I didn’t care. I gave no fucks that he owned the parent company. This was my company. I was the motherfucking CEO, and if he had a problem with that, then he should have thought twice about the position he’d put me in. A position he practically pushed me into, by his complete negligence.

  It was only fitting. All my life, my father had been trying to make me his carbon copy, his clone, and none of his efforts actually worked. It was his lack of effort that was the clincher that sealed the deal, and I knew nothing he did would ever make me forgive him.

  For cheating on my mother. For waylaying me. He’d had another son with his sycophant of a secretary, a year before I was even born, and it was a decision, more than two decades later, I still wanted to make him regret. We were stuck in our silent stalemate over the phone when a soft-sounding rapping on the door made me look up.

  I placed the phone on my shoulder. “Come in.”

  A shiny black shoe appeared through the crack in the door, and soon the vision of my always-anxious assistant was filling up the doorway. He cleared his throat, coughing quietly before stuttering out a response.

  “Sorry to interrupt…”

  “No problem, David. What’s happening?”

  “You have a visitor, sir.”

  My brows created a straight line. “A visitor? Was anybody scheduled on my calendar?”

  “Uh, no, sir. This looks like a bit of a surprise guest.” He hesitated. “A woman.”

  “A woman?” I felt like a parrot, but I was genuinely confused. I had no meetings set up today, no appointments. I’d purposely cleared up my schedule so that I could sulk in peace, putting off even Chris and Griff just so that I could recover from the shock of seeing Kat and everything being in her presence entailed.

  David nodded. “Yes. She seems very urgent about meeting you. I told her to wait in the sitting area, and I would see if you were available.”

  I could tell my father caught that part. His breathing quickened. Impatience never looked pretty on a Foxx. I knew more than most.

  I inhaled. “Return in ten minutes. And we’ll talk.”

  He crept back out from where he came, closing the door behind him. Placing the phone back at my ear, I allowed my father to assault me with every comeback, every insult he had in his repertoire, but I refused to be fazed. He could go fuck himself for all I cared. The only thing that mattered was the woman I was now promising myself I wouldn’t hurt again.

  Once was enough. Twice might not kill her, but it would finish me.

  The lack of response on my end infuriated my father more than I’d heard in years, but I held the line, never letting myself get worked up. He was just on his fortieth ‘fuck’ when another quick tap sounded against my new office door.

  I sighed, only guessing what nervous version of news David would have for me. But as my gaze traveled to the opening in my office door, it found not a shoe, but a heel… attached to a mile’s long worth of leg.

  Fingers curled around the edge of the frame and I found myself staring into a pair of blue eyes, dark enough to dive into. The wide look of want she gave me couldn’t betray the additional hard lines that had been added to her face by time. It was a look I recognized… and had hoped to never see again.

  Christy.

  She slid through the widening chasm in my doorway with expectation on her face and a long black trench coat wrapped around her waist. Tightening the belt around her whittled middle, she sauntered inside my office as if she owned it, closing the door behind her.

  My stare narrowed.

  “Dad… Let me call you back.”

  “Call me back?” he bellowed. “Have you lost your fucking mind? I’m not going to…”

  He couldn’t finish the sentence. I cut the call, replacing the phone on the receiver. The relaxation I just felt flew out of my body and my shoulders hunched as I stared at the former vixen in front of me.

  Her pretty face showed nothing but determination.

  “I’m sorry to drop in on you like this…” She sure didn’t look sorry. “But…” she started. “I had to see you.”

  I bluffed, hoping she would balk when met with my resistance. “I see. Well, you’ve caught me at a bad time. We’re not looking to bring on any business, Christy. Sorry.” I shrugged.

  She strolled forward. “Well… ‘business’ isn’t exactly the reason I came here today.” Her dark blonde eyelashes fluttered. “At least, not this kind of business.”

  I decided to lie. “Wish I could help then. I’m all booked up for the day.”

  She looked up at me, her deep blue eyes turning deeper. “You mean you don’t have time for… this?”

  She untied the tie of her thigh-length coat… to reveal nothing but underwear beneath, a bra and panty set sheer and flimsy enough to make the strongest of men forget how to talk. Dark pink nipples beaded through the thin material and with one quick glance, I realized that I could see everything.

  The goosebumps over her skin. The self-tanning lotion. I figured if I looked closer, I might see the desperation as well, seeping from her tiny pores, streaking down the heavily perfumed expanses of her still-lithe body. I glared, fighting the urge to gape.

  This was worse than the stripper situation.

  At least with the other blonde, I had paid her to come… and leave. Her making me come was an unexpected extra that I could have done without, and like the black curtain
ed encounter with the seductive dancer, this was a mistake I didn’t want to make.

  I straightened my tie, taking a step.

  “Christy, understand this.” I took two more, letting my footfalls thud over the hardwood, the emphasis on an already hardened point. “My time is very valuable, and in order for me to make it for someone, they would have to be very special…”

  She smiled, letting my words sink in. I drove the dagger home.

  “Unfortunately, that someone isn’t you.” I got close enough to touch her. I thumbed the ring on her third finger. “Now, go home to your husband and his new promotion. We’re done here.”

  I turned my back… but the feel of her body, her hands splaying across the front of my chest shocked me and when she wrapped her arms around my chest to press hers against the grooves of my suit, I spun in her arms, grabbing her.

  Roughly.

  “Is this what you want? To make me react?”

  She gasped, smiling at me. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  My fingers dug into the skin above her elbow, ready to remove Christy from my sight. But the sound of a footstep across my threshold made me stop.

  A second set of eyes peered over at me, and we both froze, reliving a moment from my memory that I’d sooner forget. The woman in my arms had nothing on the woman currently taking all of my attention. The new intruder was as beautiful as ever—Hell, she’d always been, but her eyes were hard. Unforgiving.

  Because it was nine years later—same scenario. Same set of women. The one I loved… and the one she’d “caught me” with.

  I stared between the two, everything inside of me tightening and twisting.

  I was in so much fucking trouble.

  Part 3

  Last Resort

  Time to open up a new chapter in life, and to explore a larger centre.

  - Lillian Russell

  KAT

  My pulse was racing. A trickle of sweat worked its way past my neck and down my back, and I ignored it, running past the pain.