An Excerpt from Sienna Black's On a Wing and a Wishbone

Takara's scalp tingled beneath his hand. The feeling turned her skin to gooseflesh again and swept down through her body, making her nipples tighten beneath her bra. Guilt didn't take long to rear its head, and she curled her fingers in Ben's shirt. “Please tell me it's not just me,” she murmured before she bumped her forehead against his shoulder.

“What's not just you?” Ben's fingers touched her chin. Peter's didn't move. “What's wrong, Takara? Talk to me?” The fingers pressed up gently, prompting her to lift her chin. It took a concerted effort to lift her lashes again. She watched his pupils flare wide when he met her gaze and knew her own must be as hungry-looking and dark. This time when she wet her lips, she did it purposefully.

“Feeling that buzz. That hum, you know?” She tried to find a better word for the sensation, but could only come up with one. “Horny.” Heat flooded her cheeks at the next heartbeat.

“Oh.” He looked her over, gaze lingering on her breasts. She didn't doubt he could see the proof of her arousal, any more than she could have missed the telltale swelling behind the fly of his jeans. “Yeah, I feel it. Trying to ignore it,” he confessed hoarsely.

“And you?” Takara's blush flared as she turned her head, dislodging Peter's hand. She was certain she'd find his eyes dark with wanting, too. He was responsible for what she felt, after all, wasn't he? “You have to feel it. You're doing it, aren't you?”

Instead, his gaze was full of sorrow. Sorrow and apology. He let his hands fall and shook his head. “It's the curse that does this when it chooses, not me.”

“Then the kiss --”

“Wait, you kissed him?” Ben's eyebrows rocketed toward his hairline.

“No.” Takara shook her head enthusiastically. “We didn't kiss. Our lips never touched.” She hesitated for a second, then ducked her head. “I would have. I almost did. It felt like all of a sudden I'd never wanted anything more. It was weird,” she confessed. “And good at the same time.”

“Not good,” Ben countered. “You wanted to kiss another guy.”

“Wanting isn't doing. I kissed you instead.”

“But what if I'd said I wanted to kiss another girl. What if I did it? What if I kissed him?”

Less than a second passed before Ben moved, lashing out to catch Peter's wrist. He hauled him close, all but crushing the other man against his chest. Peter didn't protest, hardly had time, before Ben lowered his head and pressed their mouths together. It looked like a bruising kiss from where Takara stood.

And yet it went on, lingering, until the tension bled out of both men's bodies. Until Ben's grip on Peter's wrist eased and fell away. Until Peter lifted the other hand to Ben's hair and curled his fingers against it, clutching lightly. Their lips moved, their mouths parted, and Takara watched as Ben pushed his tongue forward, invading Peter's mouth.

Her boyfriend was kissing another man. In front of her.

Desire pulsed between her legs. She bit the inside of her own lip to keep from gasping aloud. Something tightened, low in her belly, and she thought for a moment that her knees might give out.

Then just as abruptly as it had started, Ben and Peter shoved one another away. Peter stood with his arms heavy at his sides, his mouth still slightly parted, lips dark and glistening.

Ben swiped the back of one hand across his mouth, then shoved it through his hair. “Son of a bitch.”

© Sienna Black, November 2007
All Rights Reserved