Not In Love (Flirty Filthy Forties Love #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

I t had been a long while since Dr. Kashmira Shah had felt the aching stretch of a cock or a sweaty body pounding into her or an eager mouth eating her out.

And on that rainy November afternoon, all she wanted was one measly orgasm. One tiny release so that she could be easy in her skin.

Dressed in a peach-colored spaghetti top and nothing else, she crawled into her bed, like a thief sneaking into someone’s house. The soft cotton quilt she’d custom ordered from a women-owned business in India slid against her smooth legs like butter.

Kash scooted her ass to sit up and gasped as her bare pussy rubbed up against the sheets, a mix of lube and her arousal coating her inner thighs. The erotic dragon smut she’d read on her kindle in the bath had done its job. As had the tingling new lube she’d used to finger herself.

Now, she just had to fall over the edge.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes.

The unusual quiet in her two-story house felt jarring on her strung-out nerves, even though it was exactly what she’d been craving for weeks now. No running footsteps, no SpongeBob blaring on the plasma TV, no loud sounds from dishes clanking in the kitchen.

Not her nine-year-old niece Tia wanting a cuddle, not her mother going on about how Kash—head of the cardiology department at Portland’s biggest hospital at forty-one—needed a man. No calls from the hospital.

Just her and her bed, in the soft hush of late afternoon, the November gray light filtering through her bedroom window. Having an afternoon to herself was a rare treat. Tia was off with her dad for the day, Kash’s mother was visiting a cousin in Seattle, and her phone was on silent.

Muttering a curse, Kash jumped out of the bed, grabbed the old CD player tucked up in a plastic box from the closet, plugged it in and inserted one of her late husband’s favorite Jazz CDs. Then, she got back into the bed, relaxed her shoulders into the headboard and thought of all her favorite things about sex and intimacy.

The scent of the lavender body oil she’d massaged herself with lingered in her nostrils. Closing her eyes, she touched the sensitive spot behind her neck, then trailed her fingers down the shell of her ear slowly. Her skin tingled in response.

She wanted to give in to sensation. But three and a half years after the accident that killed her husband Simon and her sister Kat, grief still crawled in through the cracks.

God, she had adored him and his easy laughter, his paunchy but hefty frame that had softened in his late fifties, his eagerness to make her come with toys while he himself had no libido.

She had been thirty-six and Simon, at fifty-eight, an influential member of the hospital administrative board, when they had married. His family, and even some of her colleagues, had called her an ambitious gold-digger but she hadn’t cared.

After spending all her life taking care of everyone around her, she had loved being spoiled by Simon, loved not coming to an empty home, loved being the center of his sophisticated world.

Now, he was gone, and it was as if her body had shut down without him to anchor it. She scrubbed a hand over the lone tear dripping down her cheek.

The same accident had stolen her sister Katrina too, leaving Kash with a five-year-old niece who needed stability, and a mother who had fallen apart at losing her youngest child.

Kash couldn’t imagine jumping back into the dating pool or indulging in a casual fling. She had neither the time nor the energy to accommodate someone else’s tender feelings.

Shaking her head, as if the action could dispel grief’s sneak attack, she took another deep breath and relaxed against the pillows. The sultry tunes of the jazz solo snuck through her in smoky, velvety rings, bringing to mind those decadent nights with Simon when he would play with her, before finally getting her off.

The scent of the lavender body oil she’d massaged herself with lingered in her nostrils. Closing her eyes, she touched the sensitive spot behind her neck, then trailed her fingers down the shell of her ear slowly. Her skin tingled in response.

With a shuddering breath, she continued to drag her fingers down the arch of her neck to the swells of her breasts. Goosebumps dotted her skin.

She thought of the dragon shapeshifter pounding his lover as she snuck her hand under the stretchy fabric of her tank top and tweaked her aching nipple. On and on, she danced her fingers from her ear to her pubic bone, never stopping, never lingering. Tricking her body into thinking it was another’s touch.

Tension thrummed through her, making her arch and undulate on the bed. Finally, she traced the shape of her slippery folds. One finger, then two, she plunged them into her core.

A moan rippled out of her as she thrust her hips into her hands, making the large bed creak. With her other hand, she pinched her nipple and tugged at it roughly. Sensations arrowed to her core, and she kept up the wild thrusting of her hips.

Almost there, she told herself, licking her lips. Her body thrummed, pitching itself higher and higher. Her pussy made wet, slurping sounds but still needed more. Puffing and panting, Kash kept the pad of her thumb over her clit.

She circled it faster and faster. Like a mirage in a dessert, her climax shimmered closer and closer. Her skin hummed, close to snapping point.

She increased the speed of her fingers plunging in and out, of her thumb against her clit. Her breath huffed out of her in soft pants and she was almost there and…

Her gaze caught on the framed pic of her and Katrina and her mom and Tia on the opposite wall, and her mind checked out of her body.

“No, no, no, please,” Kash whispered to herself, begging her system to come back online. Jaw clenched, she worked her hand rhythmically. Her wrist ached, her folds felt like rubber petals, void of any sensation.

The feverish climb had already receded, plunging her into a cold, dark void.

She shivered, the gnawing pressure back in full force. Her gut coiled, frustration building like steam behind a sealed valve. She wanted to scream until her vocal cords gave out or something snapped in her unfeeling body. Until she damaged something inside her enough to feel something again, even if it was pain.

A half growl, half broken laugh escaped her.

Bang!

She jerked up at the sound of the main door slamming against the wall, pulling her hand from under the blanket. As she stared at the closed door in frozen horror, footsteps pounded up the steps, and the door to her bedroom slammed open.

“Kash Aunty!” Her niece’s voice shot across the room like a firecracker. “Are you okay?”

Kash jerked upright, yanking the blanket up to her waist uselessly, heart hammering painfully against her ribs. "Tia, baby,” she said, her words coming out in a husky whisper. “Of course I’m fine. What’s wrong? What are you doing here?”

Tears in her eyes, her niece bounded into the room.

And then he filled the doorway.

Diego Ferrera—Tia’s biological father, ex-soccer player, and a temptation Kash didn’t need.

His broad frame filled the doorway. With his jet-black hair sprinkled with rain drops and his face in shadows, he looked like some otherworldly lover she’d conjured from her darkest fantasies.

Sometimes, Kash couldn’t believe that she had known Diego all his life. That he’d gone from kicking the ball on the street that they had lived on, to an internationally lauded professional soccer player, who had lost his flourishing career too early due to an injury that had shattered his ankle.

Then she remembered that Katrina had loved him even as a girl, and he had repaid that devotion by abandoning her when she’d gotten pregnant.

For their daughter’s sake, Kat had welcomed him back into their lives. Now, Kat was gone and Diego was in Kash’s life, and she didn’t know what to make of the man.

What she did know, and had tried her best to not acknowledge, was the low hum of awareness every time their eyes met. And how that pitch was increasing in intensity with each passing day.

Like right then.

Light brown eyes flicked over her, taking in her flushed cheeks, the messy blanket, the breathlessness she hadn’t managed to hide. They lingered, just a beat too long, on the pulse quivering at her neck.

Kash felt the heat climb up her neck, humiliation sweeping it up.

Her breath hitched as he moved—pure poetry in motion—and grabbed Tia from behind. The little girl squealed as he lifted her to his chest. Holding her like a football, he shook her from side to side, as if he was contemplating throwing her onto the bed.

“Papa, no,” Tia said, giggling, arms outstretched as if she was flying, not a trace of fear in her tone. “No throwing, please.”

It was one of the numerous things Kash couldn’t help but notice about him. The man was all muscled strength, but he tempered it effortlessly when it came to his daughter. And the one or two times they had come into physical contact, with Kash too.

He brought a wriggling Tia to the door and gave her a gentle push on her back. “Go wash your hands,” he said, voice low and firm, the easy authority in it making Kash’s pulse jump. “And remember, you can't just barge in without knocking. Your Aunty needs her privacy.”

Tia grumbled and left.

Kash exhaled in relief, waiting for him to close the door behind him.

Not only did he not leave but he turned around. The large, airy bedroom suddenly felt like a tiny escape room, walls closing in, trapping her inside with him. Her body came alive with a thundering hum.

What the hell was happening?

Kash refused to meet his eyes. Still, she could feel him standing there, that brown gaze lingering on her. An arc of heat stretched between them, tugging at her lower belly. Her nipples peaked. Her pussy fluttered, as if coming awake from a long slumber.

A breathy gasp puffed out from between her lips as her brain supplied images of him walking toward her, stepping onto the bed, and sneaking his hand under the quilt.

Goddamn him.

Goddamn her body.

Goddamn her life.

Of all the men in the world...

He was her niece’s dad, a permanent fixture in her life that she hadn’t chosen or wanted, and he was a decade younger than her.

She bit her lip hard, keeping her chin tucked down.

He left without a word.

Shivering, she flopped back against the sheets, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Three and a half years of no one touching her in comfort or passion, no one to reassure her that she was doing an okay job as a sudden guardian to a child, no one to console her when grief attacked like a stealthy ninja at the most trivial moments of her day.

Kash felt brittle as she rubbed her palms over her arms, like she was only made of bones and grief and guilt and anger. But the brittleness had set in long before Simon and Kat’s accident.

Maybe on that day when their father had walked out and their mother had fallen apart, and Kash had swallowed her own fear and held everyone else up. Or when Kat had racked up reckless credit card debt at sixteen, and Kash had drained her savings to fix it. Or maybe when she had married a man twenty-two years older than her, just because she had been so damn tired of being the responsible one.

She exhaled sharply, forcing herself upright, wiping the wetness from her cheeks.

She couldn’t go on like this.

Maybe it wouldn’t kill her to lean a little on her close friends. Especially Mona and Char. She would see them at Mona and Dom’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations in Cancun, in December.

Suddenly, her mind flicked to DP, her high-school summer fling, who would be in Cancun too. Maybe now, with them older and freer, they could explore what could have been all those years ago. If nothing else, she could ask him to hold her.

DP was safe, and easygoing, and it wouldn’t feel so…risky.

Not like with Diego.

Her pulse jumped at the memory of his steady gaze, the quiet command in his voice, the way one look had her body betraying her.

Diego unsettled her in ways she couldn’t afford.

He saw too much, was in her life too much, period.

She couldn’t think of him as anything else than a necessary, stable figure in Tia’s life.