Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
“I can’t believe this,” Kenny moaned, burying her face in Smith’s chest as they lay in bed together later that night. They were watching yet another reaction video to their kiss.
Some unknown woman in a beanie, with a septum piercing and a teardrop tattoo below her eye, swooned dramatically when Smith swooped Kenny up into his arms.
Smith had rather nervously told Kenny about the so-called “kiss cam” footage after an intensely satisfying lovemaking session.
Alarmed but nowhere near as upset as Smith appeared to be, Kenny had insisted he show her.
The original clip had spawned countless copies, many of them stupid reaction videos like this one.
There were people rhapsodizing about how romantic it was, others who were irrationally pissed off about the fact that Smith had picked her up—something about normalizing the insidious and chronic infantilization of women in mainstream entertainment today.
One inexplicably angry man had ranted about everything being AI these days.
He very helpfully circled the “clearly fake” portions of the video in bright red.
Most unsettling were the comments. People demanding to know who they were. Where they were. How they knew each other. Wanting to know every detail of their lives and relationship. It was a little terrifying how something like this made people feel like they somehow owned a piece of another person.
They’d been identified very quickly, which was to be expected when they were both from prominent families. A concerned Smith had vowed to speak with Sam Brand in the morning about security. Just in case.
Kenny wasn’t particularly concerned about her safety. She’d lived in a security bubble for most of her life. Publicity wasn’t anything new to her.
She didn’t really care that their kiss had been made so very public. She was mostly fascinated at the uproar that their very private moment had created.
But one thing did bother her…
“Oh my God,” she whispered, aghast. “Millions of people have seen my nipples, Smith! Why didn’t you tell me that dress was so transparent?”
Her lament brought a rumbling chuckle from him and his arms tightened around her.
“Honestly? I was enjoying the view too much myself,” he admitted, then surprised her by clamping his mouth over one of said nipples, scraping his teeth over the hardening nub before soothing the sting with the flat of his tongue.
She gasped, then moaned.
He lifted his head, to stare down at the wet, erect peak of her breast, practically oozing self-satisfaction.
He lay his head down on her breast, his mouth so close to her nipple, she could feel his warm breath washing over the sensitive skin.
She idly ran her fingers through his thick mane of hair as she continued to scroll through the outrageous reaction posts to their kiss.
Seeing the kiss itself was revelatory. So much hunger, desire, pain, yearning and heat in one embrace.
She could see why it had instantly appealed to so many people.
If it had been a couple of random strangers, Kenny would have envied their passion and the very evident depth of feeling they appeared to share for each other.
But it was hard to reconcile the emotion that appeared to drive the embrace with her and Smith’s relationship. The saying was the camera never lies…so what was she supposed to make of this? Of the naked vulnerability in his face, the helpless craving in hers?
“Are you going to be watching that for much longer?” Smith asked, his voice aggrieved. “Because I can think of so much else we could be doing right now.”
His words snagged her interest and her hand lowered as she looked down into his smokey eyes.
“Like what?” she asked, a telling purr creeping into her voice. “Tell me.”
“Kenna, I’m a show, not tell kind of guy.”
Phone forgotten, she smiled, and settled back against the pillows.
“Well then, why don’t you show me?”
He made a gruff, primal sound and moved as swiftly as a striking snake. In seconds, Kenny was on her stomach and he was straddling the back of her thighs, hard cock sandwiched in the cleft of her bum.
Kenny had never enjoyed feeling helpless, but right now, pinned to the bed, unable to move, she’d never felt safer.
Or more turned on.
Smith dropped an open-mouthed kiss in the vulnerable nape of her neck, and then proceed to show her exactly how much he wanted her.
Dummieeeees!
Kenny groaned, every muscle in her body aching. All the bones too. She was sprawled half on top of Smith, one thigh squeezed between his, her arm draped across his neck. He was hard again, throbbing insistently against her thigh.
Insatiable bastard. They’d made love three times last night and this thing was still happily throbbing away against her like it could easily go another round or four.
Dummieeeees! Dummieeeees!
Dummieeeees!
“What the fuck is that?” Smith croaked. His forearm went up to cover his eyes. “Make it stop, for God’s sake.”
Her phone started ringing. A more ominous tune than the strident dummieeeees.
He lifted his arm to slant her an incredulous look.
“Is that the ‘Imperial March?’” he asked in disbelief.
“My father’s ringtone,” she admitted.
He burst into laughter and dropped his head back onto the pillow, arm over his eyes. “That’s so fucking perfect,” he snorted.
Then he stilled and lifted his arm again.
“Wait, if that’s your dad, then the other one…?”
“Uh, it’s the tone for my group chat with my brothers.”
This time his laughter was loud and unrestrained.
“I love it,” he finally said, on a breathless whoop, his thumb and forefinger swiping over his eyes to wipe away errant tears of laughter. “Do they know?”
“No. And you’re not to tell them,” she warned.
“But Kenna, it’s priceless.”
“Smith.”
He chuckled again, a deep, breathless sound that came straight from his belly and swung an arm around the shoulders to hug her. He pressed a kiss on top of her head just as The “Imperial March” swelled portentously from her phone again.
“Why hell are the more irritating Hawthornes blowing up your phone this morning?” he asked, smothering a yawn.
Kenny moaned as she realized exactly why her brothers and father were all trying to reach her at the same time.
“They must have seen the video.”
“Them and every other nosy fucker on the face of the earth,” Smith grumbled.
Kenny pushed herself up and reached for her phone on the nightstand.
“Wait, you’re not going to answer that, are you?”
The incredulity in his voice made her pause in the act of silencing the phone to stare at him.
“Why wouldn’t I?” She had no intention of answering her father’s call, but the disbelief on Smith’s face made her curious to know why he didn’t want her to.
“Kenna,” he began, voice and face as serious as a heart attack. “I absolutely draw the line at having your father and brothers in bed with us.”
His words startled a repulsed little laugh from her.
“Ew. No, I wasn’t going to answer any of their calls or texts right now. I was going to put my phone on silent, but thanks for the visual I didn’t want or need.”
He abraded his stubbled jaw against the delicate skin of her neck and she squealed.
“You’re welcome.” His words were smothered against the underside of her jaw where he pressed a kiss.
He suddenly went still and lifted his head, eyes gleaming with suspicion.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed.
He shook his head and reached for his phone on the other nightstand.
“I just had an awful thought,” he murmured, face and voice terrifyingly serious.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “What?”
He shook his head and swiped through his phone.
“I was thinking…” He paused. Peered at his screen. Then nodded and tapped on his phone again. “That if your brothers are dummies, and your father is Darth Vader, what am I?”
Oh. Shit.
And then, before she could a single thing to stop him, pushed Send on whatever he’d been typing on his screen.
There was a second’s delay before a strident siren blared. Followed by a man’s voice portentously announcing, “Warning! This is an Asshole Alert!”
Smith’s eyes widened for a second before he absolutely lost it, howling in hearty laughter.
“Oh Jesus,” he managed between gasps. “That’s so much better—wait, worse?—than I was expecting.”
Kenny grinned and lifted her phone to read the text that he’d just sent her.
Smith: Oh, sweetheart, you’re so fucking busted!
She laughed and he snagged her around the waist and dragged her down on top of him. They playfully kissed for a couple of minutes before he tucked his lips into the hollow of her neck and licked.
“Hmm. I’m starving.”
“For food?” she asked, then yelped when he nipped the cord of her neck playfully.
“Yes, for food,” he clarified, after he’d kissed her stinging skin.
“I had to ask,” she pouted, trying to wriggle out of his grasp. The damned man was suddenly all arms, and she couldn’t quite find her way out of his embrace. “Because Littler Smittler seems to have a different opinion.”
“Christ,” he complained, dropping his arms and watching as she scrambled off the bed. “I think my cock and balls have just shriveled up and retreated all the way back up into my groin in protest. What the fuck was that you just called it?”
She repeated the silly phrase and the look of abject horror on his face was hilarious.
“You are absolutely not to call it that. Ever again,” he decreed.
“What do you want me to call it?”
“I don’t know…” He shrugged helplessly, getting up and dragging on a pair of boxers, while she shrugged into his discarded T-shirt. She gave him her most innocent smile when he darted her a warning look as she lovingly smoothed his Archie and the Gang vintage shirt down over her slim thighs.
Choosing to ignore the potential theft for now, he returned to the subject at hand. “Anything, but that. Cumsalot? Sexcalibur? Sir Lanceacock?”
“I’m sensing a trend,” she noted mildly, fighting back her laughter.
“Fine,” he finally decided after a moment’s thought. “You can call him Jack…Jack Hammer.”