Between a Rock and a Hard Place Page 2

  He’s so damn pretty to look at.

  He catches me staring as he feeds kindling to the fire, and smiles again, only this time the smile is seductive, his eyes too.

  “I don’t understand how this is possible,” I blurt out, the question escaping my mouth the second I think it, and I immediately shake my head.

  This is not how I envisioned this night going.

  Romantic candlelight, sure.

  A fire, yes.

  Sex, hopefully.

  Answers… maybe? If I can get him talking. He’s not exactly known for being chatty. Not with me anyway.

  “How what is possible?” he says, and I hear the humour in his voice.

  Keeping my distance lest he turn that smile on me again, I try to gather my thoughts. But it’s not easy with visions of that sexy mouth running on repeat through my mind. His is the type of smile that makes smart women do stupid things.

  Like fuck marble statues.

  Before they get their answers.

  Frustrated, I snap, “You. How are you possible? How is a marble statue warm to the touch when it’s been overcast all day? How is your skin soft when you’re made from stone? How does your hair move in the breeze? Why does the cloth tied around your waste feel like cloth but look like it’s carved from marble? How is any of this possible?”

  He chuckles, and the velvety rumble of the sound makes my knees wobble and my mouth run dry. Seriously? How is he doing that?

  Arnaath climbs to his feet and dusts off his hands. Big hands, strong, capable hands that lifted my fat arse with an ease that admittedly was a big fucking turn on. But my brain needs answers before my body can cave in to temptation.

  And if I keep telling myself that I might actually start to believe it.

  “Is that really what you want to know?” He folds his arms across his chest and I can’t help but stare at his biceps, watch the muscles move and flex. “How, not why?”

  I’m so distracted by his arms, I almost didn’t notice he’d asked a question. “What do you mean?”

  Taking a step towards me, he says, “I think what you really want to know is why, why didn’t I tell you what I was? Why did I follow your father’s orders and pretend to be the statue? Why didn’t I let you kiss me?”

  I swallow hard and take a step back. He’s so close to me again. How didn’t I notice him getting closer? And now he’s standing right in front of me, reaching out to me, brushing his fingertips along the line of my jaw.

  “I want to kiss you, Chloe.”

  “What?” I’m pretty sure I look like a stunned fish again and I don’t think laughing will cover it up this time. Not that I don’t want to kiss Arnaath—it has literally been a fantasy of mine since I discovered what kissing was—but damn this escalated quickly! I thought we’d talk for a bit, maybe get reacquainted… not that we were ever really acquainted in the first place. He was my imaginary friend, for fuck’s sake. And come to think of it, why did my dad bring Arnaath, a magical statue—ugh, that sounds weird even by my standards—into our home and not tell me about it? Did Mum know?

  Fine. So maybe I need the why more than the how.

  “Okay then. Why? Why did my father bring you here? Why did you let me believe you weren’t real? Why—”

  Arnaath’s mouth crashes over mine and taking advantage of my shock, he slips his tongue between my teeth. The sensation is… heady. Wild. Passionate. His lips are soft and hot, his tongue firm and forceful. He doesn’t feel like stone.

  His body isn’t cold.

  His skin is not unyielding.

  But his cock is rock hard and raring to go.

  I moan against his mouth and he pulls back just a little. “Arnaath.”

  Cupping my face in his hands, he stares down at me, all humour gone from his expression. “Tomorrow, Chloe. I promise I will answer every single one of your questions tomorrow. But tonight….” He licks his lips, and even with no colour in his eyes, no iris, no pupil, I can tell his gaze is roaming over every part of my body. I feel his hands follow suit. “I have waited so long for you to return to me. As a woman. My woman. Soft and round and sweet and so very, very fuckable.”

  My breath catches in my throat and my mouth works uselessly, no sound, no words, no nothing. Nothing but the beating of my heart as it races and the feel of Arnaath’s warmth under my palms as I press them against his chest. I can taste him on my tongue, smell him in my nostrils, earthy. Potent.

  Real.

  Arnaath is real and I am not crazy.

  I slide my hands over his chest, his shoulders and up the strong column of his neck, and as I marvel at the silkiness of his hair, he slips my T-shirt over my head and discards it on the floor.

  “Fuck,” he growls, his hands cupping my breasts and squeezing, forcing them even further out of the bra that’s two cup sizes too small. “How do I get them out of this contraption?”

  A bubble of laughter escapes me, mostly at the look of frustration on Arnaath’s face. “Like this,” I tell him, and turn around so he can watch me unfasten the hooks. And as soon as that torture device is off me, I breathe a sigh of relief. “Oh, God that feels good.”

  When I turn around, I find Arnaath holding up my bra, studying it through narrowed eyes. “If this thing causes you pain, why do you wear it?”

  “Because when you have tits as big as mine, they’re a necessary evil.” At his confused stare, I add, “The bra helps support their weight and takes some of the strain off my back.”

  He grunts at me, flings the bra across the room then cups my heavy breasts and weighs them in his palms. “From now on, I will support your tits. They look better in my hands than that flimsy scrap of cloth anyway.” He grinned. “And as for your back, I know just how to take care of that.”

  Chloe screamed then burst out laughing as I hooked my hands behind her knees and toppled her to the floor, landing her arse first on a pile of cushions and blankets. I point to her remaining clothing and tell her to take them off, then I unfasten the ties holding my own coverings in place and cast them aside too.

  More from Jennie Kew

  The Bennett’s Bastards Series:

  Third Time Lucky

  This Time Around

  His Own Heaven

  The Viking Blues (coming 2021)

  The Brisbane Bachelors Series:

  Revenge and Redemption

  Sacrifice and Seduction (coming 2020)

  The Q Collection:

  No Rest For The Wicked

  I Saw, I Conquered, I Came

  Pushing Rope

  Dirty Laundry

  Santa Claus Is Coming

  Between A Rock And A Hard Place

  The Q Collected:

  Dirty

  Grind (coming 2020)

  Acknowledgements

  To my family for all their encouragement, their love and understanding, thank you for being you and for putting up with me being me, especially when deadlines are involved.

  A special thank you to my crit partners, my cheer squad, my sisters-in-arms, Bec McMaster and Kylie Griffin. You always challenge me to be a better writer and I really couldn’t do this without you. Thank you for keeping me sane…ish.

  To my editor, Kristin Scearce, who accepts my weird writing style and quirky humour as canon and is still willing to work with me, you rock!

  And finally to my readers, thank you for taking this journey with me, and for allowing me to share with you all the people and places who occupy my head and my heart. I hope you enjoy reading about them as much as I enjoy writing about them.

  About the Author

  Jennie has always enjoyed reading but is a relative late-comer to writing. She never had aspirations of becoming a published author until a dance with death made her ask herself what she really wanted out of life, and she’s been writing ever since.

  When not sitting in front of her computer, Jennie can usually be found reading a book, watching a movie or building stuff out of Lego. She lives in regional New South Wales, a
stone’s throw from Australia’s capital, Canberra, with her husband, her husband’s magnificent beard, a teenage giant and their feline overlords, Max and Tallulah.

  www.jenniekew.com

 

 

  Jennie Kew, Between a Rock and a Hard Place

 

 

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