The Four Proposals – An Excerpt

The Four Proposals, sequel to The Wish List, comes out February 11th. Minor spoilers within for anyone who hasn’t read The Wish List.

And now, an excerpt from the opening scene.

*****

Pale yellow lace, tinted just past cream, was all Kelsie’s brain could process. Except, of course, for the skin, soft peach, that strained against the fabric like it wanted to come out and play.

Then, there were Laken’s eyes, glancing up in surprise, glowing near-feline to match the fabric that so exquisitely, but so spottily, concealed her.

Gaze taking the path of least resistance down Laken’s neck to her heaving chest, over the plane of Laken’s stomach to the matching panties that barely hid those places her eyes sought on instinct, Kelsie began to minutely quake and considered her last thought might very well be that she would never think again.

When she walked into the room, she did so with a purpose, she vaguely recollected that. The malfunction of her brain’s wiring, though, was instantaneous. Finally recognizing her mouth hung open and forcing it closed was difficult enough. She wasn’t about to pull up any data that wasn’t utterly essential to basic functioning.

“Hey,” Laken was slightly breathless as she turned away, giving Kelsie the new perspective of pale yellow clinging to the curves of her flexing backside as she reached, rather disappointingly, for the shirt waiting at the edge of Kelsie’s bed. “Sorry. I just decided it’s too cold to wear my skirt, and I found the clothes I’d left here.”

Watching Laken’s skin vanish as she whisked the button-up over her shoulders, Kelsie’s brain went to generator, wanting desperately to function, though it was still slow to make sense with the long expanse of leg jutting from beneath the hem of Laken’s shirt to impede its operation. “That’s too bad.” Her brain, thankfully, reminded her to breathe. “I thought maybe it was an impromptu striptease.”

“Oh,” Laken paused mid-button, eyes dipping blue to match the shirt, as a grin Kelsie recognized as dangerous appeared on her lips. “Why didn’t you just say so?” she slipped the button free, and Kelsie remembered why there was danger.

Laken needed no weapons, no training, no surprise kung fu to render Kelsie utterly defenseless. Her hands sliding up to undo the next to last button, and the button before that, so the blue shirt fell open around her, Kelsie’s heart stopped at Laken’s will, before giving her ribcage a rather aggressive punch.

With one crooked finger, Laken beckoned her forward, and Kelsie went, all thoughts and notions of the rest of the world, and the cause, floating from her mind as it focused intently on the one thing in her bedroom she wanted. Hoping her smile didn’t appear as ridiculously wide as it felt on her face, Kelsie let her hands find their way beneath the fabric of Laken’s shirt, sighing at the feel of Laken’s skin beneath her fingertips and Laken’s hands tangling in her hair to coax her forward until their lips melded in a kiss that stole what breath Kelsie had left and made her willing to sacrifice her last to whatever awaited them just on the other side of mutual surrender.

Hands leaving her hair and skimming her upper back to land upon her shoulders, they pressed Kelsie down against the edge of the bed, and the lava churned in Kelsie’s core as Laken slid the shirt down her arms and tossed it at the head of the bed to stand before her like an everyday goddess.

Her sides flexing as she stalked nearer, Laken dropped down before Kelsie, suddenly on the other side of worship, pressing in so close her ornately-concealed breasts dragged up Kelsie’s body from knee to chest as Laken rose in an impressively fluid motion.

Watching the top edge of Laken’s bra roll downward as the strap fell from her shoulder, it felt like considerably more than it was, and when Laken’s face came within a quarter-inch of her own, soft breath blowing against Kelsie’s lips, Kelsie tilted wantonly forward, but Laken shifted away in an instant, the heel of one hand pressing into Kelsie’s shoulder as the other held a firm finger against her lips.

“No kissing,” she scolded, urging Kelsie backward on the mattress until her feet left the floor and her legs dangled free, knees crooked over the edge of the bed.

Laken’s knee sliding up by her hip, her arms slipped over Kelsie’s shoulders as her other leg skimmed Kelsie’s outer thigh, until, lowering down an instant later, Laken straddled her lap. Eyes closing at the instant, overwhelming heat trapped between their bodies, Kelsie was sure she would be forever branded. When she reached for Laken, though, desperate to bring her closer, her hands were caught before they could find fulfillment.

“No touching,” Laken said, and Kelsie’s eyes blinked open in dissent.

“You are not serious.”

But Laken didn’t restate her conviction. She simply pushed Kelsie’s arms to her sides, where she clearly expected them to stay, and raised a seductively gentle hand to cradle the back of Kelsie’s head as her upper body arched until the yellow lace Kelsie had so blatantly admired upon her entrance into the room brushed her cheek and she huffed a breath of deliciously wicked frustration against Laken’s milli-close skin.

When Laken slid away again, Kelsie’s hands twitched up from the bed to draw her back, but Laken returned to her on her own, the warm curve of her backside pressing into Kelsie’s lap. Entire body pulsing with instant, acute need, Kelsie wondered where exactly Laken had been keeping this side of herself. While she knew there were plenty of things yet to discover about her recently officially-declared girlfriend, it had never even occurred to her the good doctor, normally so in control, might be harboring a secret vixen.

Of course, it could be fairly said that Laken was still in control, because Kelsie certainly wasn’t. Trying to remind herself she was an adult, capable of restraining her hormone-induced reactions, she made the effort to do just that, fingers going white where they buried themselves in the comforter to heed Laken’s directive.

“Okay, touch me,” Laken negated her struggle in an instant.

“I thought I wasn’t allowed to touch,” Kelsie tried to give as good as she was getting, but her hands were already in motion, more than ready to meet any invitation given them.

“Please, touch me,” Laken rasped as Kelsie’s fingertips made contact with the overheated skin at her waist, and a ragged exhalation escaped Laken’s lips as her hips circled in Kelsie’s overworked lap.

“Where did you learn this?” Kelsie’s lips brushed Laken’s ear, in immediate proximity where Laken leaned back against her, head on Kelsie’s shoulder, hand snaking up to wrap around the back of Kelsie’s neck to keep her close.

“I’ve been to my share of strip clubs,” Laken gasped as Kelsie’s nails scratched across her abdomen, raising goosebumps in their wake.

“Have you now?” Kelsie questioned, but the proof was in the technique, undeniably picked up from experts in a professional environment.

“Yeah…” Laken barely managed as Kelsie’s fingertips dragged upward over her ribcage,  and, for some reason, the knowledge surprised Kelsie to no end.

Testing their boundaries at the bottom of Laken’s bra, Kelsie slipped beyond them when she realized there was nothing stopping her but herself. At the weight of Laken’s breasts, new and satisfying in her hands, and the responding catch of Laken’s breath, she lost herself to utter carnality for a moment, wanting nothing more than to rip what little remained of Laken’s clothing from her body and make first contact with the skin beneath. Knowing Laken had been about to say more, though, and wanting to know all there was to know, Kelsie took a much-needed breath and let her hands fall back to Laken’s stomach.

“Forrest thought it was a good way to bond,” Laken informed her a moment later, words considerably less composed than those that came before them.

“Did he?” For her part, Kelsie barely knew what conversation they were having.

“That’s what he said,” Laken struggled helplessly to draw breath. “I think he just liked having a lez sister who could get him past velvet ropes and would buy him beer.”

“Can’t blame him for that,” Kelsie nearly growled, hands smoothing down Laken’s skin until her fingers brushed the waistband of pale yellow panties, tensing when they wanted so much to go further. “Do you always wear panties like this?”

“Only when I think I might get lucky,” Laken confessed, the hand on Kelsie’s neck threading into her hair as Laken glanced over her shoulder with eyes such deep midnight, they were almost black. “What do you think, Kels?” Her breath blew erratically across Kelsie’s needy lips. “Do you think I might get lucky?”

“I think…” Kelsie couldn’t think anything. “You, um… I, um… what?”

When the pleased smile appeared at Laken’s lips, followed by a breathy chuckle that would have weakened Kelsie’s knees had she been standing, Kelsie couldn’t care less what struck Laken so funny. She didn’t have the capacity to care about anything outside Laken’s body doing things to hers that should have been impossible while she was still fully clothed.

Whipping suddenly around, Laken’s hair smacked her lightly in the face, intentionally, Kelsie suspected, and then there were Laken’s breasts again, pushing against the fabric of her bra, and Kelsie pitched forward to press her lips to the skin, hands clutching Laken’s back to hold her in place when she was almost sent flailing from her lap.

Before Kelsie could further explore the uncharted terrain, Laken dragged her mouth from its desirable position, hands on Kelsie’s cheeks yanking her head sharply up, and Laken’s lips were against hers, stealing her ability to ever want anyone else again.