Anything but Vanilla (27 page)

‘You know I’ll do it good.’

‘Mm-hm. That’s why I love you so much.’

Kara stilled a moment. Had he realised what he’d said? Had he even meant anything by it? She shook her head. Nah, it was just a figure of speech, though her insides fluttered at the notion of him one day saying it and meaning it. She’d come to Liddell Island to escape, not seeking commitment or anything else. What she’d found, she suddenly realised she really wanted to keep. She squeezed him tight with her thighs, and clasped her hands round Zach’s neck, then pulled him close until their noses brushed.

‘What?’ he asked.

Kara kissed him hard.

He was smiling even more bemusedly when she pulled back for breath. Kara kissed him again, this time teasing the seam of his lips with her tongue. She knew he still had reservations about how their triumvirate would work, but Kara was determined to ensure it did. No matter what, she was going to get Ric to open up about his past and confess how he felt about Zach. If one day both men managed to feel a little more than lust for her too, then that would be great. She’d look forward to it, knowing they’d already found a special place in her heart. It wasn’t love yet, but little shoots were growing.

‘I’ll come into the Bunker, Zach,’ Kara said, ‘but to discuss us, not business. We can’t let Ric take charge tonight, no matter how much we both enjoy it. We have to stand up to him, put him in a submissive position for a change.’

Zach’s brows shot towards his floppy hairline. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Oh, you know.’ She wriggled suggestively. ‘That we reprise this morning’s wake-up call only with him in the middle. I saw what that did to you, remember. I reckon it won’t be any different for Ric. Once he’s felt that, he’s not going to want to set us loose.’

‘I suppose.’ Zach pressed a kiss to her smirk. ‘You’d best play boss, though. I’m hopeless at it.’

That was true. Zach seemed to enjoy things best when he was being told what to do, rather than when he was in command of what was happening. That might have to change a little for tonight, at least to the extent that he’d have to work with her.

‘Have you ever done him like that?’ she asked, realising it might prove to be a major hurdle if he hadn’t.

Zach squirmed against her. The skin across his cheeks turned pink. ‘Um, not often.’

‘But you have done it?’

‘Yeah.’ His husky affirmative sent a wash of arousal zipping through her womb. At the same time, she felt his shaft awakening. Kara snuggled closer still, rubbing herself against his thickening erection. Zach’s breath tickled as he moulded his lips to hers. The tip of his tongue flicked briefly into her mouth. It tantalised her with the promise of more, drawing panty-dampening heat to her sex.

‘Now come inside.’ He produced the shop key and fitted it to the lock. Kara’s back rested against the stout door.

‘Come where?’ she asked mimicking his flirtatious tone. ‘I’m not sure I ought to go anywhere with you. I suspect you’ve dirty things in mind.’

‘Filthy,’ he assured her. ‘I think we need to rehearse some of the physical techniques we’ll be using later.’ His loins continued to nudge against her pussy, making her wet. Wet, eager and as impatient to feel his cock as Zach apparently was to sample her cunt.

She leaned close to his ear. ‘You mean you want to put your long, hard dick in me?’

‘Precisely.’

‘While we hash out our plan to do dirty, naughty and x-rated things with your male lover?’

He pecked her cheek and then her eyelashes.

‘You sure know how to persuade a girl.’ Despite her precarious balance and the fact that they were still outside the Bunker, Kara reached for Zach’s fly. He wanted to be inside her and she wanted that too. But first she craved the feel of his cock in her hand. Its steel and suppleness sliding against her curled palm until he was so rigid he wept real tears. This was how things had begun between them – desperate, immediate and risky – maybe it was how they should endeavour to make it stay. It worked for her and Ric, why not for her and Zach too?

Zach’s trouser button popped and the metal teeth of his zip slid apart, giving her access to where the head of his cock already peeped above the line of his underwear.

‘Christ!’ Zach squealed at the contact. He slowly ground his hips, so his cock rubbed back and forth in her palm. He’d just snuck a hand beneath her skirt to reciprocate the pleasure when the growl of a car engine drifted across the bay. A line of cars were slowly trundling across the causeway before the tide cut the island off again. Zach made an immediate grab for the key and wiggled it in the lock, a feat made difficult by the fact that Kara had no intention of letting go. Stuff the tourists. They’d have to avert their gazes a moment. She wondered, if she slipped him inside her, would he still be able to walk them far enough to get inside the shop and out of sight?

‘Stoopid lock,’ he moaned.

The first car, a silver BMW, pulled on to the cobblestone car park and drove straight towards them. Zach continued his fight with the key, while Kara cautiously watched the car’s approach over his shoulder. By the time the vehicle stopped before them, her enrapture had died. Instead, her fingers had curled into clawed fists.

‘Someone you know?’ Zach asked when she struggled from his arms. Her clothing fell back into place.

This couldn’t be. No way, not here and now, when everything had taken such a turn for the better. Her past life had no place on Liddell Island. This was her sanctuary.

‘Kara?’

She leapt forward away from Zach’s touch, and brought her fist down hard on the bonnet of the now parked BMW. ‘No fucking way,’ she growled. First the van, then Robin, and now this – they said trouble came in threes.

The driver’s side window rolled down and Gavin stuck his head out. He was exactly as she remembered him, designer sunglasses and studiously coiffed hair. ‘Kara,’ he said politely. ‘We need to talk, honey.’

Just the sound of his voice made her want to curl up and cry. Gavin emerged from the vehicle with his arms spread, not in a pleading fashion that might at least have placated her, but in a way that said, ‘Come here, I’ll give you a big hug and all will be right.’

How many times had she fallen for that trick? What he really meant was ‘We’ll have this out later.’ He wouldn’t raise his voice or harm her in a physical way, he’d just see that he knew exactly what she was doing and when. He’d make sure she was wearing his approved choice of clothing and seeing his approved selection of friends.

‘Fuck off!’ she spat. How dare he come here and do this to her? She’d freed herself of him, and it had cost her. Now she’d moved on. She had Zach, she had Ric and, as of ten minutes ago, she had a job that wasn’t just house-sitting for her jet-setting baby brother. She didn’t need rescuing and she absolutely didn’t need Gavin Covey in her life any more. How had he managed to find her for that matter? She thought she could trust Christopher not to blab.

‘Why are you even here? Did you miss the fact that we’re over? What’s the matter – did the novelty of Gemma’s comfort wear off?’

‘Babe,’ he drawled. Hell, even his voice annoyed her. It was whiny and high-pitched for a man, a tone that lent itself to delivering wheedling endearments. ‘There was never anything between Gemma and I, you know that. She’s been worried sick about you, Kara. Look, I get it. I know the wedding plans were stressing you out, but that’s not a reason to call it off. We can postpone. Let’s talk, like adults.’ He said the latter as though he was talking to someone with severe brain damage and not capable of communicating on an adult level. ‘Darling, we just had a minor falling out. Things don’t need to end between us.’

Except they already had, and she knew without thinking about it that dumping Gavin had been the wisest choice she’d ever made. Stuff what her family thought, or whatever Gavin thought. She wasn’t interested in being anybody’s pet. Here on Liddell Island she didn’t have to pretend. She’d been herself in the way that back home she’d only been when she was drunk. She’d done all the things she’d wanted to do without worrying about what anyone thought, or whether it would hurt Gavin’s career. She’d had sex out of doors, for a camera, been spanked and had a ménage à trois. Why would she ever consider giving that up for a boring life in suburbia as part of his mind-control experiment?

‘It’s already over. I moved on. You ought to do the same.’ She turned her back on him, wearied by his very presence. ‘Go home, Gavin. Find someone else.’ Not that she wished him upon anyone.

‘Not without you. You know I love you.’

She knew he was a manipulative jerk, and that he didn’t sound remotely sincere. Zach’s profession of love two minutes earlier had sounded more convincing, and she knew he hadn’t meant it in that way. ‘Go home, Gavin. I’ve found someone else.’

Really she ought to have kept that part to herself. Gavin always had to be number one. Sure enough, spurred by the thought that he’d been usurped, he strode forwards and caught hold of her arm. He looked at her, eyes cold behind the bronze of his glasses. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Whatever you think you’ve found, it’s just rebound stuff. It’s not real, like what we have. It won’t last.’

She shook her arm, determined to throw him off.

‘For God’s sake, Kara, you ran away, just like you always do when you can’t deal with stuff. Are you really so selfish and stupid that you’re going to throw your whole life away because of the stress caused by a few floral bouquets?’

The wedding fixtures had never been the issue. The problem had been that she’d known she was marrying the wrong man. She’d known it the moment he grinned when she lost her job.

Zach came bounding over the rough-hewn wall that separated the edge of the car park proper from the space outside the bunker. ‘Hey, mate. I think you need to leave the lady alone. And she’s not stupid.’

Gavin sneered at Zach’s shapeless pullover, which was a joke in itself considering he had on a pimpy grey suit, and Zach normally dressed beautifully. Only last night’s events had caused his current dishabille. ‘Yeah, and who are you?’

‘He’d be
one
of the guy’s who satisfying me,’ Kara said, placing particular emphasis on the number. Yeah, she thought as Gavin’s eyes narrowed to slits, you just think on that. Contrary to what you’d like me to believe, other guys do appreciate me and don’t require me to be completely under their thumbs. Why she’d ever put up with him confounded her. He was an out-and-out jerk. They’d never suited one another. He’d always tried to make her feel bad about what she’d wanted in bed too. That was why she’d never quite managed to be entirely faithful to him.

‘If you need more than one guy, clearly neither is any good at satisfying you,’ Gavin scoffed.

Kara couldn’t help it. She laughed. It was a choice between that or spluttering and choking on her own pent-up rage. ‘Oh, they satisfy me all right. I tell you what. I’ll send you some pictures so you can see for yourself just how well they manage it. Get lost, Gavin, before I consider posting them to your boss too.’

She grasped hold of Zach’s wrist and dragged him inside the Bunker, slamming the door shut behind them. ‘Kiss me,’ she insisted. ‘Just do it.’

* * *

That slimy git was Kara’s ex!

Zach held her. He accepted her savage kisses and returned them with equally ardent ones of his own. He only stopped her when she started pushing her hands inside his clothes. Until this moment, Zach figured he knew Kara. She was everything he admired in a woman: strong, independent, adventurous and capable of reducing him to a quivering puddle of bliss. Hell, she was prepared to take on Ric for him. But from that one small meeting he could see her life hadn’t been like that with Gavin. She was trembling now, even as she tried to wriggle her hands inside his jeans.

What the hell had the guy done to her?

‘Kara, stop it. Ric uses me like this. Talk to me instead. What’s going on?’

She edged slowly back from him, her hands raised so that they covered her mouth to mask her sobs.

‘Hug?’ Zach offered.

Immediately, Kara returned to him. She buried her face in the wool of his jumper. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised a moment later. ‘He drains all the life out of me. I can’t believe he’s shown up. How did he know I was here?’

Zach cradled her, and stroked the back of hair. ‘I don’t know. Someone must have told him. Hold out, eh? Eventually he’ll go.’

Tears glazed the surface of her eyes when she tilted her head so that her chin rested against his breastbone. ‘This stuff between you, me and Ric, it’s not rebound stuff,’ she said.

Zach nodded, then changed his mind and shook his head. Better that they were both honest about this. ‘Sure it is,’ he said, as if it didn’t matter. ‘You’re cutting loose. It’s allowed. It doesn’t mean what we have can’t develop into something special. Seriously, don’t worry about it. I’m Ric’s rebound too. So we can all bounce around nicely together.’

A picture briefly formed in his head of them all in Ric’s bed enjoying vigorous sex. Kara was going to squeal the place down when she saw the restraints on Ric’s bed.

Too late Zach realised he’d said the wrong thing.

‘From what – his wife?’ Kara gasped, Gavin instantly forgotten. Her eyes continued to shine, but with interest now, rather than unfallen tears. She wiped her face with her palms. ‘That’s one hell of a torch he’s burning if he’s still not over her yet.’ She pressed their palms together, and hooked her fingers over the top of his. ‘Is she why he refuses to commit?’

In a sense, he supposed. Ric had said time and again that he’d done the life commitment thing once and had no intention of repeating the process. He wasn’t clinging to the memory of her, though, rather he seemed afraid of repeating past mistakes. Not that he knew a lot about Ric’s past. The guy rarely if ever opened up, but now and then titbits escaped.

Zach remembered those moments because they were so rare.

Kara thoughtfully pressed her lips to the back of his clenched hand. ‘Robin said they were pretty wild. That he used to chase her about, and that they’d have wild sex outdoors.’