Portia Da Costa - purveyor of erotic romance and erotica to the discerning woman since 1994

KISS IT BETTER

Please be aware that this excerpt contains sensual content that is only suitable for adult readers who are comfortable with frank language and descriptions of erotic scenarios

Kiss It Better - click for larger versionBlurb

Pleasure with a perfect stranger...

Jay Bentley is a man with issues. Haunted by physical and psychological demons, he seeks solace and sexual oblivion in the pursuit of an exquisite erotic daydream from his youth, and the reality of a woman who has illuminated his inner fantasies since a brief meeting years ago.

Sandy Jackson has always known that a certain magic is 'missing' from her life. She's feisty and philosophical, but her dreams are filled with heated images of a handsome Prince Charming she once encountered, a man who will kiss everything better and thrill her with glorious, dangerous pleasure.

But the past is an illusion, and the present fraught with conflict and uneasy compromise… can two passionate lovers reconcile their differences and slake their burning sensual hunger for each other in a wild and daring liaison?


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Digital versions from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Nook UK, Nook US and All Romance eBooks


Excerpt

Disorientated, and fighting both Jay and her shoes, Sandy stumbled. Only to be caught around the waist and held upright, almost off her feet, as if she weighed nothing. A piercing sense of déjà vu swept through her, and she teetered dangerously. Not pausing to give her time to protest, Jay gathered her up in his arms and began to carry her towards the open doors to the garden.

‘Get off! Let me down! It’s just my shoes!’ she hissed in his ear, but his grip only tightened and his smile became infuriatingly arch and he-man.

‘All the more reason for me to carry you. Don’t make a fuss, woman.’

Sandy’s brain sent messages to her hands and arms to beat at Jay and to her body to wriggle in order to get loose. Her little evening bag swung on its chain from her shoulder as he walked and she felt like catching hold of it and using it to batter him around the head with.

Yet somehow the nerve impulses got sidetracked, swept away by the raw power not only of him but of a deep, persistent memory.

Transported across time, she relaxed, became pliant, and curled her arms around his neck. She was suddenly living in the world of fifteen years ago, being rescued and carried to safety by her perfect knight. A beautiful Prince Charming figure, barely out of his teens, a scruffy backpacker, large and wonderful in his strength and kindness, with the face of an angel and long dark hair that tumbled to his shoulders. She even seemed to smell again his distinctive odour of male sweat and some musky, incense-like cologne.

The expressions of astonishment and interest all around her seemed to come through a thick filter. The cocktail party was a million miles away. All that existed was the warm haven of protective arms, keeping her safe and comforting her after trauma.

The cooler night air of the Waverley’s formal gardens rudely awakened her though. Reminding her that she was grown woman, she hadn’t just been mugged, and this was most definitely not the romantic bohemian prince of her dreams whose large hand was curved evocatively around her thigh.

Instead, it was a rude and overconfident man who might well have an unhealthy fixation on her. And one who’d just seen fit to make a complete exhibition of her in front of many of Kissley’s worthies and quite a few of her friends and acquaintances!

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Wiggling like fury achieved nothing, and she was about to escalate to thumping and punching when Jay stopped in front of a bench in a deep, hedged alcove, and set her gently down on it. Sinking to his knees on the turf, he pulled off first one of her offending shoes, then the other.

‘Your feet were hurting and I carried you,’ he said, giving her a look as if she were an airhead, ‘God knows why you women wear these stupid things.’ He tossed the borrowed sling-backs away with obvious male disdain.

‘If you must know, they’re not mine and I was persuaded to wear them because they look good with this dress.’ It should have come out assertively, but the sweet relief of being out of the horrible shoes was warping her mind. All she could do was lean back on the bench, wiggling her liberated toes and trying to get her bearings.

‘Hobnail boots would look good with that dress as long as you’re wearing it.’

Sandy’s eyes had closed in bliss because her toes were hurting less, but now they snapped open.

Perfect knight type compliments too?

She opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of a single suitable, graciously accepting remark. Jay’s stormy eyes were full of fire, glinting with a strange, vaguely confused intensity. He looked almost as if he’d been knocked for six too, but by what, she had no idea. He wanted her, that was obvious, but there was more than desire there. Something indefinable and enigmatic and possible not even connected to sex at all.

‘Let me give you a foot massage.’

His rough voice was soft and low, and before she could answer, he took her right foot in both his hands, cradling as if it were fashioned out of porcelain.

Then he began to massage, delicately and yet with assertion, and what had been bliss became sublime, almost breathtaking pleasure. The sensation of his cool hands on her hot skin was like having an orgasm right there in her foot, and unable to stop herself she made a noise that told him so.

‘Good?’

‘Oh God, yes!’

What the hell am I doing?

She tried to wrest her toes from his grip, but he held on firmly. The pressure of his hands was unyielding without hurting her abused foot.

‘Hush… hush… Why are you struggling? You like this, don’t you?’

His fingers began to move again, pressing, circling, releasing tension and unwinding knots.

What is this? Reflexology?

Never one for alternative therapies, Sandy suddenly found herself an instant convert. His sensitive kneading of her metatarsals was having effects in most unexpected places.

Her sex. It was as if he was touching her sex. Stroking. Pressing. Fondling. Exploring. The impending orgasm was no longer confined to her foot.

‘No,’ she murmured, closing her eyes again, her face flaming. She tried to struggle again, but it was half-hearted, merely token.

‘Yes,’ he asserted, fingers still moving and circling.

Sandy slid down in the seat, her thighs parting. It was like being hypnotised by touch, mesmerised by sensation. All her negative reactions to him were dissipating like mist in the heat of the delicious night. Leaving only a woman’s yearning for his strength, and his mystery.

He was intent on her foot, studying it closely as he worked. Sandy felt drugged and dreamy, her body loose now, and fluid. Her sex was soft, open and ready, and she could feel silky arousal drench the crotch of her panties.

It’s a fantasy… just a fantasy… It’s not real.

And it seemed that way as she shifted her hips on the bench, bunching her dress beneath her as Jay continued to caress her foot. Drowning in euphoria, she stared down at him, loving the dark fuzz of his hair as it clung to his scalp, and the focussed expression on his austere face. There seemed to be nothing sexual in his expression, but in her gut, she knew he knew precisely what he was doing. The foot massage was a deliberate assault, a careful strategy for arousal.

And God, was it ever working!

Her pussy felt wide and pouched. Surely he could smell it? He was close to it, and her dress was thin and silky, and her knickers even less substantial.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, he looked up at her, and with one last squeeze of her toes, he abandoned her foot, and ran his long fingers deliberately up her calf, to her knee. He cupped his hand around the back of it, the very tips of his fingers on the underside of her thigh, then he gripped harder, shifting her leg a little to the side on the bench, making space. Edging forward a little he grew closer, ever closer to the heart of the matter.

Seemingly satisfied with his position, he slid his hands down flat, one on each of her thighs, and began to edge the silk hem of her dress up her freshly waxed legs. The dress was dark green, slightly iridescent with flashes of emerald, and it seemed to fluoresce in the twilight as if reacting to a magnetic field, or just the presence of Jay.

Looking directly into her eyes, he slid the edge of the silk up to her crotch, right up to the level of her panties. His expression was more complex than ever. Hot and hungry, but with drifting shadows in the dark grey depths of his eyes. He seemed to want her, but not like a normal man. There was a strange reverence in his face, as if he too couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

Then, with a gasp, he pushed her silk skirt further, in a bunch, exposing her knickers.

Sandy felt weak, yet somehow also strong. Suddenly it was as if she were some kind of erotic goddess, exhibiting herself for his pleasure, and she sagged back against the hard back of the seat, her body loose and boneless. Wanton.

Let whatever might happen now happen. She no longer cared about propriety or sensibleness. She no longer cared that she barely, in fact, didn’t at all know this unusual scarred man. All that mattered was the way he looked at her, and the way that made her feel.

And she could smell herself now.

A gust of warm, musky arousal seemed to float up from her crotch, from the saturated gusset of her fine panties. They were thin and lacy, not her usual style at all, and tiny curlicues of red pubic hair escaped the confines of the elastic at the edges. She supposed she should have trimmed or waxed there too, but there just hadn’t been time. Life running a small café on the edge of viability was always busy, and she was practicality girl, not a finicky fashion victim.

Two long, square yet tapered fingertips settled against the lace, flexing, pressing ever so lightly. The touch barely registered, yet at the same time it was the most profound sexual contact she’d ever experienced.

He’d been watching, watching what he was doing, and suddenly he looked up again, a raw question in his eyes.

Do you want this? he seemed to say. Only say stop, and I will.

Not needing to think once, even twice, she nodded.

His grey eyes widened. His entire face almost seemed to glow. Suddenly, he looked divinely beautiful to her, beard and scars and all, and whatever was going to happen was right. Was good.

His flexible fingers hooked into the waistband of her knickers, and he raised his other hand to the job, tweaking the silk and lace down with both hands. Deftly, he teased the garment down over her thighs, and instinctively, she lifted her bottom to help him take them off her.

As he tossed aside her pants, he let out a hiss of air, as if he’d been pole-axed, sideswiped simply by the sight of her fragrant, ruddy-haired pussy. Before she could analyze his reaction, and this unexpected expression of awe, he dipped forward and pressed a kiss to her pubic floss.

It seemed perfectly natural to cradle his skull in her hands, and she gasped with delight at the sensation of touching his scalp.

It was like suede, heated suede, as if he was running a temperature.

He kissed the surface of her pubic hair, nothing more, lightly nuzzling her and uttering rough, male purrs of wonder and delight. She opened her legs wider to him, loving the strong shape of his head beneath her fingertips, and as he pressed deeper, she felt him murmur something against her, a word, low and fervent.

What had he said? She could barely tell… but it sounded like, ‘Princess.’

© Portia Da Costa and Virgin Books 2009

Available in print from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

Digital versions from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Nook UK, Nook US and All Romance eBooks