Suck and Blow: Party Games, Book 1 Read online

  She wasn’t going to lose to Alec Harris again. She was Frankie freaking Winchester. She didn’t lose to anyone, especially him.

  Idiot.

  A collective oh went out from those around her, every pair of eyes trained on her where she crouched at his feet. She felt their weight like a razing heat, but none more so than Alec’s unwavering gaze that held her stare with indecipherable intensity.

  With a deliberate lack of haste, she straightened, her nose and lips almost, almost, skimming Alec’s groin as she did so, until she stood upright once more, hip to hip, belly to belly.

  “Fighting dirty, Frankie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyone would think you’re trying to tease me.”

  “No. Just trying to win.”

  His Adam’s apple rolled up and down the smooth, brown column of his throat, and for a surreal moment Frankie wanted nothing more than to place her lips on its distinctly male shape and feel it move beneath his skin. But she didn’t.

  She raised her hand to her face and pressed the ten of hearts to her lips instead, sucking in enough breath to hold the playing card to her mouth, her gaze fixed on Alec’s the whole time.

  The crowd laughed. The woman behind Alec, a tall blonde with an expressionless, Botoxed face giggled, clapping her hands. Someone yelled, “Onya, love,” someone else shouted, “Can I have a go?” and then she was leaning toward Alec again, his clean scent threading through her slow intake of breath, the warmth of his body kissing hers, his blue eyes sparkling with unmistakable mirth.

  Their lips aligned, separated only by the thin rectangle of glossy cardboard. She felt their soft pressure through the card, lips only a moment ago that had moved over hers. Her sex contracted with demanding want a second before Alec removed the playing card from her mouth with his. He turned away, leaning toward to the eagerly awaiting blonde behind him.

  Frankie didn’t wait to see what happened next. She couldn’t. She had to get away before she threw herself at him and begged him to kiss her again. And she couldn’t do that. Frankie Winchester didn’t beg anyone. Especially Alec bloody Harris.

  With a quick look at the back of Alec’s head, she slipped out of the line, pushing her way through the jostling, laughing partygoers.

  “Frankie?”

  She heard him calling her name, his deep voice like rumbling thunder over the noise of the party. Her heart leapt into her throat, but she didn’t stop. She had to get her head around her response to him. She had to—

  “Frankie, stop.”

  Warm, firm fingers wrapped around her upper arm, halting her progress.

  “Will you just—?”

  She spun to face him, tilting up her chin to give him a bored look. “What? Don’t tell me you dropped the card already?”

  Alec chuckled, his hands going to his hips. “Ah, we’re going to play this game now, are we?”

  Frankie narrowed her eyes. “What game?”

  “The game where you pretend that kiss back there didn’t shake you to your core.”

  “Ha! Tickets on yourself, Alley Cat?”

  He grinned, the expression both cocky and boyishly sexy. “Tell me it didn’t then.”

  Her pussy fluttered, the truth of his words unsettling her. Damn it, she hated feeling unsettled. “I’ve had better kisses from a…from a…” Her mind drew a blank.

  “A wookie?”

  Alec’s response caught her by surprise. She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her breasts and the image of Han Solo printed on her shirt, fighting the urge to laugh. Okay, that was pretty clever, given the shirt she was wearing. Still, she wasn’t going to let Alec Harris know that.

  “Oh, c’mon—” he pulled a face, his grin growing wide, “—that was funny.”

  Her lips twitched. It was funny.

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  Her breath caught in her throat. That would be dangerous. Spending any more time in Alec’s company would completely mess with her head. She despised him. He’d made her feel like a loser for too many years. In fact, wasn’t she trying to get away from him? “No. Sorry.”

  “Are you here with someone?”

  “A friend.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  For a split second, she fooled around with the notion of saying yes. Instead, she shook her head.

  Alec raised an eyebrow. “Girlfriend?”

  “No. A friend friend.”

  He studied her. “So, you don’t want to have a drink with me because…”

  She gave him a pointed look. “I don’t like you.”

  He laughed—the sound genuinely relaxed and full of mirth. “Ah, we are still playing that game then.”

  “Go away. You’re bothering me.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Bothering you? Damn, maybe you aren’t who I thought you were. The Francesca Winchester I know would have told me to go scratch about in my litter tray.”

  A prickling heat pressed at Frankie’s temples. “That was ten years ago.”

  His stare grew intense, his body still. “Yes, Frankie,” he said, his voice low. “It was.”

  The unspoken significance of his answer was not lost on her. Her mouth went dry. Fuck, she wasn’t prepared for this. She wasn’t ready for it. She had to go. She needed air. Like, now. “I have to—”

  “There you are, Al.”

  Frankie watched as a guy who looked like an older version of Alec wrap him in a big bear hug, hauling him off the floor.

  “About damn time you got here.”

  Alec laughed, trying to disengage himself from the man’s hold, even as his gaze held Frankie’s. He opened his mouth, but she didn’t wait to hear what he said—and to who. The interruption was too good to miss. Too perfect to waste. As if the fates had decided to give her this reprieve to get away. She turned from the two men and slipped into the crowd, her throat tight and her heart thumping.

  The house was huge, an architecturally designed residence that subtly spoke of wealth and success. The furniture—currently draped with snogging couples—was both luxurious and practical, the house’s layout—currently used to optimum effect for Lil’s party—designed to highlight the sweeping, million-dollar views of the water right at the edge of the back yard. It took her longer than she expected to barrel her way through to the back of the mansion, and by the time she made it to the open glass patio doors her temper was threatening to overwhelm her. The constant thump thump of the music vibrating through her body didn’t help. All it seemed to do was illustrate the fact her pussy was bloody well still fluttering over Alec’s unexpected kiss.

  Unexpected? That’s the word you’re going with? How ’bout fucking amazing?

  She bit back a low snarl, elbowing her way past one moaning, lip-locked couple positioned against the threshold before spilling out onto the wooden deck. It was just as crowded as the interior. The heavy humidity of the summer dusk air was threaded with the unmistakable smell of fine perfume, expensive cologne and spilt alcohol.

  A faint hint of coconut wafted into her nose, instantly bringing with it the memory of Alec’s tongue teasing hers.

  “Fuck,” she growled, worming her way to the deck’s railing. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

  Finally making it to the polished steel balustrade, she wrapped her fingers around its cool width, closed her eyes and pulled a deep, slow breath. She needed to focus herself, that’s what she needed to do. She needed to center her calm and cash in on all those years of yoga and Pilates. There was no way—no way—she was going to let herself be so freaking flustered over one freaking kiss, no matter who it was doing the kissing.

  Err, that would be you and Alley Cat doing the kissing, a mischievous little voice pointed out in her head, the same mischievous little voice responsible for more than one of her outlandish acts over the years. Just in case you forgot.

  “Shut up,” she muttered, lifting her chin higher and shaking her head in an attempt to eradicate the tension in her shoulders.

  It didn’t work. And
it wasn’t just her shoulders that were gripped with tension. Her sex kept fluttering, her arse kept constricting, a sexual urgency she didn’t want to acknowledge taking control of her body. She let out a ragged sigh. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop replaying the moment Alec’s lips touched hers, and no matter how much she tried not to, she couldn’t stop wishing they would do so again.

  What the hell was up with that?

  It wasn’t like she hadn’t been kissed before. Thanks to her no-boundaries parents and their casual approach to her upbringing, she’d shared more than one kiss in her twenty-eight years. Hell, her first kiss—real kiss, with tongues and moans and squirmy sensations in the pit of her belly—had been at the ripe old age of twelve, with the eldest son of Australia’s most famous actor, a boy five years older than her with the preposterous name of Tallowood Hawke. Since then, she’d lost count of the times she’d snogged a guy, but it was a number high enough to make her feel uncomfortable. Most of those partners in saliva-swapping were famous, dead sexy, or both. All of them were infamous for their sexual prowess. None of them made her body react the way Alec had with that one simple kiss. None of them. Period.

  What the hell did that mean?

  Frankie opened her eyes and stared hard at the deep purple expanse of calm water beyond the tree-lined backyard, watching with blank attention as the setting sun turned the surface to a shimmering carpet. It should have calmed her, but instead it made her think of the way Alec’s lips had glistened with the moisture of their kiss.

  God, what was wrong with her?

  She slapped her hands to the rail, squaring her jaw. Miki. She needed to find Miki. Miki would know exactly what to say. Miki would point out the lunacy of the situation with a logical, articulate argument the way she always did, using her logical, rational mind to take all this turbulent uncertainty away. Miki would fix it, Frankie was sure of that.

  So where was she?

  Where you left her when you bolted at the sight of Alec Harris perhaps? Fending for herself at a party she didn’t want to attend in the first place?

  Frankie’s cheeks grew hot and she let out a soft snort of disgust. The unpleasant taste of guilt coated the back of her throat. Damn, so much for being the bestest bud in the world. One glimpse of Alley Cat and she’d turned tail and run. Fuck it, what was it about that guy that always made her behave like an idiot? Argh.

  God, whose stupid idea was it to come to this party anyway?

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re not listening to me?”

  Alec started, jerking his attention from the packed room back to his brother. Mac was frowning at him, an impatient expression he remembered well from their youth whenever Mackenzie decided Alec was being annoying. “I’m sorry, Mac, I’m listening. Honest.”

  He wasn’t. Not really. Not just because Mac was carrying on about the contract offer made to Alec while he was in the US again, but because he was trying to catch any kind of glimpse of Frankie in the crowd.

  “So, tell me again why you’re reluctant to sign the contract?”

  Alec let out a sigh. “Did you really ask me to this party to talk about the contract?”

  His brother gave him a hard glare. “Well, one of us has to think about your career.”

  Alec laughed. “I have a career, Mac. I’m a landscaper, remember?”

  “With a contract offer so big dangling in front of you by the queen of American television. I think it’s time to look beyond the garden, don’t you?”

  “No. What I want to look beyond is this room. Can we talk about this later, bro? There’s someone I’m trying to find.”

  A scowl fell over Mackenzie’s face. “Francesca Winchester? When you find her, can you tell her to stop sending Lily out on jobs requiring her to wear sweet fuck all. It’s indecent.”

  Alec blinked. “What?”

  Mac huffed out a breath, dragging his hands through his hair. “Nothing.”

  Alec studied his brother. Mackenzie wasn’t behaving at all like the cool, ruthless lawyer he was. “Anything you want to tell me, Mac?”

  “No.” His scowl grew darker. “No.” He raked his fingers through his hair again, turning it into a wild blond mess. “Sorry.” Letting out another breath, he tracked someone’s path behind Alec with his eyes. His jaw bunched.

  It was Alec’s turn to frown. He pivoted on his heel, searching the crowd for whoever had caused Mac to look so flustered. No one stood out.

  He turned back to Mac, only to find his big brother pushing through the room after whoever the whoever was.

  Alec shook his head with a grin, holding up a hand. “Nice talking to you, bro,” he called out to his brother’s back. “Have fun.”

  Mackenzie didn’t respond, and Alec laughed again. His brother was not himself tonight, case in point, asking Alec to talk to Frankie about Lil McDermott. Why the hell Mac thought Alec would have any sway over Francesca Winchester was beyond him.

  Maybe he saw you two in the Suck and Blow line? Perhaps right about the time you were kissing her? And she was kissing you back?

  Alec’s gut knotted, his groin jerking with agreeing interest. He ground his teeth again, maneuvering through the packed living room, scanning the crowd for any sign of dark, wild, bouncy curls.

  Nada.

  Why are you so hell bent on finding her anyway? What are the odds of her letting you kiss her again? Especially after the whole I-heard-you-talking-about-kissing-me routine you gave her? Rather childish, don’t you think? You may as well have stuck your fingers in your ears, poked your tongue out and gone na-na-na-na-na.

  Yeah, what was that all about? If he didn’t know himself better he’d think he was deliberately trying to goad her into hating him some more. But that wasn’t the case, was it? Their history was peppered with defeat after defeat on Frankie’s side, but for him…every time he’d seen her, no matter what the contest or situation, he’d been overcome with this insane, irrational urge to show her he wasn’t just the cheap-money kid. To prove to her—this smart, witty, gorgeous girl—he was someone worth her attention. Trouble was that insane, irrational urge just led him to humiliating her time and again. Not really the best way to go about wooing a girl, that was for certain. Especially a celebrity’s daughter like Francesca Winchester who pretty much had her pick of the boys in just about every school in Sydney and the North Shore.

  Unfortunately, by his instant and immediate reaction to her tonight, it seemed things hadn’t changed. He wanted to woo her. Jesus, did he want to woo her, and instead he made her blush with dislike.

  He shook his head, letting out a disgusted snort. “Christ, you really are a legend, aren’t you, Harris?”

  He continued threading his way through the house, looking for her. He passed group after group partaking in games such as Twister, Spin the Bottle and, from what he could gather by the jostling crowd at a closed door, Seven Minutes of Heaven, all laughing and enjoying themselves, their expensive cars and massive mortgages forgotten in the night’s carefree frivolities, but Frankie wasn’t to be seen at any of them.

  Coming to a standstill between the formal dining room and the parlor, he let out a rough sigh. Okay, he’d have to face the fact she wasn’t here.

  Maybe she’s behind the closed door? Sending someone else to seven minutes of heaven?

  His nuts grew hard. The thought of Frankie in someone else’s arms, her lips sliding over someone else’s lips, did not just make him jealous, but angry as well.

  Jesus, he was a goner.

  He raked his fingers through his hair, staring at the game of Truth or Dare going on in the far corner of the formal dining room. The way he saw it, he could do one of two things, leave and track her down later at her office, and hope to God he could think of something witty and clever and grown-up to say. Or two, he could leave and forget about her. Completely. Shit, he wasn’t in her league anyways. What was he really thinking? Hoping for?

  Movement from the corner of his eye made him frown. He narrowed hi
s eyes, catching a glimpse of a woman—her dark hair a mass of curls, her T-shirt bright red—unfurling herself from the floor where a circle of Truth or Dare players sat. His breath caught…a second before a man Alec knew to be Mike Wilson, the country’s biggest wanker on and off the rugby field, jostled past him, blocking his view.

  Shit.

  He moved to the right, but the woman in the red T-shirt was nowhere to be seen.

  Shit.

  He dragged his hands through his hair. “Shit. What now?”

  He looked about, his heart skipping a beat when his gaze fell on a woman who looked a hell of a lot like Mikaila Drummond, Frankie’s best friend. She was being led away from the Truth or Dare station by two tall guys he suspected he knew, or at least, knew of. If that was Mikaila, than Frankie had to be… He stiffened, jerking his stare back to the circle of adults sitting on the floor.

  Nope. She wasn’t there. No sign of her.

  Not a bloody—

  Someone ran into him. Hard. A firm, warm body slamming into his side as if the person hadn’t been watching where they were going but was in a damn hurry to get where ever it was.

  He stumbled to his left, a chuckle rising to his lips as he turned to face the someone, his hands instinctively reaching out to steady them on their feet, his fingers curling around biceps both smooth and firm.

  And looked straight down into the wide, blue-grey eyes of Francesca The Gun Winchester.

  Oh, boy.

  His mouth went dry. Just like that. His mouth went dry and his breath caught in his throat. The precise moment their eyes met, ten years were wiped from his life and he was the flustered, horny teenager aching to impress the girl every guy at his school and hers wanted to date.

  “Errrr…” He licked his lips, his pulse quickening as he watched her gaze track the path of his tongue.

  Say something, you idiot.

  “I’m not really sure,” he murmured, his voice deeper and huskier than normal, “but I think you kiss better than I do.”

  The words fell from his lips, uninhibited by his befuddled schoolboy’s brain, each one making his heart beat faster. Jesus Christ, Harris, you are an idiot.