Spice and Smoke (15 page)

Fuck that.

Sam fisted his hands in Vikram’s shirt, kissing him harder, urging his lips open. He tried to give voice to everything he couldn’t say.
I’m sorry for putting you through Hell. I’m sorry for using you. I’m sorry for making you feel like you’re just another drug to me. You’re not. You’re everything.

He felt the change in Viki gradually. How his embrace went from comforting to passionate, his kiss from tender to torrid. “You do not have to take care of me, Viki,” he murmured against his mouth. “No more enabling and bullshit. Never again.”

The rain began to come down in earnest, but neither of them moved to leave the roof. To leave each other. Vikram tangled the fingers of one hand in Sam’s wet hair as his lips chased drops of water down Sam’s cheek, his chin, his throat. With his other hand, he tugged up the T-shirt Sam had hastily donned after walking off the set and stroked his bared stomach and chest. Without speaking, Viki told Sam that he would take care of him anyway, because he wanted to. His thumb flicked across Sam’s nipple, making him gasp and crowd closer. His dialogue was the most poetic Sam had ever known. He needed Vikram’s touch. He’d missed it. It held him steady and drove him mad all at once.

“Please,” he whispered, working Viki’s belt and zipper. His jeans were already soaked through, stubbornly uncooperative as Sam tried to jerk them down over his hips. “
Main tumse chatha hoon.
I want you, Vik. I need you so much.”

“We’re on the roof, wild one,” Vikram reminded him with a husky chuckle. “
Paagal hu
,
kya?
Anyone could come up here.”

“Then they’ll get another show,
na
? Let them take it to the fucking censor board, darling, because I think
The Raj
needs a love scene in the rain.”
Darling.
The teasing, but no less sincere, endearment slipped as easily from his tongue as their shirts did from their bodies. Everything else they were wearing took a little more work, a few more laughs, and then they were skin to skin…their clothing scattered around them like afterthoughts.

Vikram liberated one foil packet from a pocket—his own, Sam’s, it didn’t matter—and picked Sam up, swinging him towards the nearest wall. Sam dug his knees into Viki’s hips, rubbing against him until they were both hard enough to go off like firecrackers on Republic Day. He gasped when his back hit stone, and Vikram ducked his head to hush the sound with a kiss. That sound, and the others that followed, as Sam stretched his legs wide and Vikram nudged inside him.

The downpour caught them both, but it didn’t matter.

Sam rode the lightning, reveled in the thunder.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, he and Vikram forgave one another…and the slate was washed clean.

Alok stands over the broken bodies of his dearest friend and his sworn enemy. In death, Chandu and Shankar aren’t on different sides. They’ve fallen atop each other, their fingers touching as if desperate to clasp in a gesture of peace. They will take the journey to Yama’s realm together and greet the lord of death with the same litany of sins.

He weeps for them both. Unabashedly. For them, for Varun, for Bihar and for Bharat. Nishta stands on the hill, her beautiful form waiting to welcome him back to the land of the living. To the land of hope.

“Cut! Print!” Joshi yelled with unmitigated glee. Sam knew it was permission to move, to stop lying in the dirt, and yet he couldn’t. His fingers tangled with Viki’s as though nothing mattered except how close they were. His heart was still heavy from the weight of the scene, from Harsh’s last monologue.

“Vikram,” he whispered, as the crew bustled around them.

“
Haan
, Sam?”

Put on the spot to impart something profound, his throat suddenly dried up. In direct opposition to how his eyes welled. “I…”

Viki’s hand tightened around his. His dark eyes, so very alive, held no judgment. No anger. He knew what Sam was trying to say. He’d probably always known. “I love you, too,” he murmured. “
Humesha ke liye.
”

Forever. Sam had never considered that span of time before. Not when he measured it in days spent sober. But now…lying next to the only man who’d ever meant a damn thing to him, it didn’t seem so daunting.

He could do forever…if they started one day at a time.

Epilogue

When his name was called, he could barely hear it over the roar of those who had packed the theater. Was it a happy roar? An outraged one? After all, he’d beaten out two Khans, a Bachchan and a man he now considered a friend…all of whom had been considered likelier candidates for the Best Actor win. He felt rooted to his seat, unable to move until he was practically lifted out of it by his personal cheering section and carried to the stage.

He shook several hands. He accepted the statue. He thought, “Man, this is not actually happening to me right now.
Yeh sab sapne hain.
This is a dream.” Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, dampening the starched collar of his shirt. His throat felt tight. He could remember, suddenly, a much younger man who had stood in front of an audience of two, not knowing what his fate had in store for him.

This had not been on his radar all those years ago. Not even a little…and he didn’t mean the FilmStar honors but, instead, the sense of total, complete joy.
My life, in this moment, is totally perfect.
Shabbash
, Avi Kumar. Congratulations.

The sparkling, star-shaped award was heavy in his hands, the lights blinding, the sound just
deafening
.

“Shit,” he gasped into the mic…guaranteeing a bleep for when it was aired on TV. “Sorry.
Sorry
.” He grinned sheepishly—or at least he hoped it was sheepish—as he searched the audience for the seat he’d just left. When he found it, everything else disappeared and three faces came into sharp focus: that idiot Saint Harsh—who actually looked happy to have lost, their crazy, wild Trish and Michael…Michael, who’d probably saved his sorry excuse for a life just by giving him a chance. Michael, who took a
new
chance on him every day and made him
want
to meet that expectation.

“Thank you,” he said, softly. “Thank you for believing me, for knowing I had this role inside me. Making
The Raj
was an experience I’ll never forget.”

He widened his lens, saw Viki Malhotra sitting as close to Sam Khanna as publicly allowed. Sam’s son Jai was next to them, looking like a junior hero himself in a perfectly cut tuxedo. Rahul Anand and Priya Roy, having written the ending to their story, held hands. Joshi was beaming, thrilled that he’d ended up with a
Titanic
instead of a
Waterworld
. Even Nicky Kohli had brought his new muse, a gorgeous woman who looked like she couldn’t possibly be human.
The Raj
had changed
all
of them in some fashion.

He’d changed for the better, for sure. Gone were his buddies, Jack Daniels and Johnnie Walker. Gone was a metric ton of anger. Gone was the boy who thought love could be bought and sold and that the only valuable commodity was a warm body. No, Avi had won the most precious award of all: the knowledge that living happily ever after was worth any price.

God, he was beginning to sound like Harsh. It was probably contagious. In another year, the whole lot of them were going to be sentimental
bewakoofs
.

“
Shukriya
,” he said into the microphone. “I love you all more than I can say.”

After being ushered offstage for a whirlwind round in the pressroom, Avi eventually found his way back into the audience. Once there, he kissed his wife, high-fived her lover…and traced a few words of promise into Michael’s palm.
I want you. Always.

“You have me,” Michael whispered as the next presenters took their places. “Always.”

He could barely hear anything over the roar. The very, very happy roar.

About the Author

An editor by trade and a romance reader by choice, Suleikha Snyder has always dreamed of being a published author…but she took the long way around and got a little lost en route! Cue fifteen years of detours involving a degree in English literature, a job in college administration, and a gig in entertainment media. After publishing her first romantic short story in early 2011, she’s finally on the freeway to fictional bliss.

Suleikha lives in New York City with her neuroses, her sense of humor and a menagerie of stuffed animals. Find her on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/suleikhasnyder
and online at
suleikhasnyder.blogspot.com
.

The higher the stakes, the harder they fall—in love.

Going All In

© 2009 Jess Dee

Three of a Kind, Book 1

Julia Savage’s weekly poker games are tearing her apart. She’s in love with two of her fellow card players, and much as she’d like to pick and confess her true feelings to one man, she won’t. Not if it means risking the love of the other.

Hunter Miles has wanted Julia for four months, and he’s about to deal a hand she couldn’t see coming. He’s determined to give her a New Year’s Eve celebration she never expected. He’s going to seduce her—in front of his friend and rival for her affections, Jay Baxter. But Jay’s not willing to lay down his cards. He’s going after Julia too, and he’s not above bluffing to get what he wants. Either way, one of them is going to win her over.

Unless they change the rules of the game. If they double up, there’s a chance they can split the pot…

Warning: This book contains two hunky heroes, a heroine worth betting on, sizzling hot three-way action (m/f/m and m/m/f), a whole lot of unexpected fireworks and a New Year’s Eve to remember.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Going All In:

God, he tasted good. Clean and musky, with an occasional salty drop for flavor.

Hunter lay on the bed with his legs hanging over the side. His upper body rested on his arms so he could watch Julia at work. The air was filled with his soft, encouraging murmurs.

Julia’s one hand held the base of his penis, the other caressed his balls. His cock was slightly thicker than Jay’s, but just as delectable.

Julia felt someone’s gaze on her back and turned to find Jay standing butt-naked by the bathroom door.

“Fuck,” he swore hoarsely and strode over to the bed where he dropped to his knees beside Julia.

She swirled her tongue around the tip of Hunter’s dick, watching Jay’s face the entire time.

“Jesus, Jules,” Jay gasped. “If I thought I fancied you before, I reckon I’m falling in love with you now.” He did not take his gaze off her mouth.

Her heart lurched beneath her breast, but she forced herself not to get too excited by his words, no matter how much she loved him. After all, they were being said in the heat of passion. Nevertheless, still holding Hunter’s cock in her hand, she lifted her face to Jay’s, inviting him to kiss her.

He did so, hungrily, and when he pulled away and motioned for her to return to Hunter, her lips were swollen and puffy.

Hunter let out a loud groan. “I reckon I’m falling pretty damn hard myself.”

He dropped backwards onto the bed as Julia sucked his cock into her mouth again, tickled pink by his confession. She loved Hunter too. She had for the last four months. Once again she warned herself not to get her hopes up. There was very little a man wouldn’t say when a woman knelt at his feet.

Hunter flung an arm over his eyes and thrust his hips upwards, filling her mouth. She had to relax every muscle in her throat to fit his dick in.

Jay breathed heavily beside her. “Watching you blow Hunter is giving me a hard-on from hell.”

Julia smiled around Hunter’s shaft and stilled his movements with her hand. She drew away from him then dipped her head back to lick off the precome that leaked from his cock head. Without swallowing, she turned back to Jay and offered him her mouth. She was mildly surprised by the greed with which Jay kissed her, licking the offering from her tongue. Mildly surprised and majorly aroused.

She squeezed another drop from Hunter and repeated the process. This time when Jay’s lips met hers, he groaned low in his throat.

Keeping her gaze on Jay’s face, she held Hunter’s dick in her hand and licked it from the base up to the tip and then back down again. Twice she did it, and then a third time, conscious of Jay staring, his eyes glazed with hunger.

Perhaps it took her a few seconds to see the truth because her glasses were off. But once she noticed it, she couldn’t deny the fact. It wasn’t just her mouth Jay ogled. It was Hunter’s penis as well. Hunter’s delectable penis.

She licked the head of his dick and then paused to watch Jay.

He licked his lips.

She did it again.

He licked his lips again.

Her pussy tightened.

Jay wanted Hunter’s dick.

Ever so slowly she raised her head. While still holding Hunter’s shaft, she tilted it, offering it to Jay.

Jay didn’t move an inch. Indecision flashed across his face, made obvious by his frown.

Julia pursed her lips and sucked Hunter into her mouth, sliding her lips up and down, making him mumble on the bed. She watched Jay while she feasted.