Royal Package - Lili Valente Page 0,87

when Kirby laughs and says, “Gotcha.”

I suck in a breath and choke on whiskey fumes. “Shit, you had me. I thought you were serious.”

“Of course not,” she says, shutting off her phone and sticking it in her jacket pocket. “But now that I think about it…”

I narrow my eyes her way, heart zooming again, wishing she hadn’t plunged us back into the dark. I can almost always get a read on Kirby’s face, but without the visual clues, her dry delivery fools me every time. “But now that you think about what? Don’t fuck with me again, Larry. I’m drunk. And fragile.”

She hesitates. “Fragile in what sense?”

“Um, in the writer’s block sense? I’ve got an entire album’s worth of songs due in a month? I only have one written. Any of this ringing a bell?”

“Of course it is. But you’re not hung up on a girl right now, right?” she asks. “There’s nothing romantic going on in your life?”

“Hell, no. I mean, She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named is still cyberstalking me, even though it’s been four months since we accidentally had sex again.”

“I still can’t believe you did that. You were doing so well, and then you had to go and fall off the wagon, dick first.”

“Well, that’s why it’s called accidental sex, Kirbs. Because it’s accidental,” I say, bristling even though I know she’s right. “So that’s a shit show. And then Kayla is writing a tell-all book about last summer in Barcelona, and Rhiannon texts me constantly. But I can’t block her because she’s threatened to set fire to the vintage Red Sox jersey I left at her place, so I have to play nice until I get it back.” I sigh. “Yeah. So romance is pretty dead to me.”

“Poor lamb.”

“I am a poor lamb.” I drag a hand through my too-shaggy-even-for-a-rock-star hair. “Feel sorry for me and make it easy for me to understand you.” I cast a pointed glance up at the porch. “Where the fuck is Shep, anyway? He always calls his mom at midnight. Do you think he went out front instead?”

“No, he’ll come out here. It’s too loud by the road. And it’s still a few minutes until midnight, which gives us just enough time to figure this out.”

“Figure what out?”

“Figure out if we’re going to Vegas as friends or…kissing friends.”

Before I can call her bluff and remind her that a double “gotcha” is as off-limits as a double sip, her lips are on mine, soft, cool, and tasting of smoky-sweet whiskey. And for a moment, there’s nothing but shock—sharp and head-clearing—and then electricity floods through me, lighting me up like the spots that drenched the stage tonight.

Damn, my girl’s a good kisser.

A phenomenal kisser—assured, skilled, and a little dirty, like she’s fucking my mouth with her tongue, giving me a taste of what it would be like to be inside her.

It’s exactly the kind of kissing I like. And then some.

“You’re delicious,” she whispers against my lips, making me even hotter, harder.

Shit. I’ve got a hard-on for Kirby, and though it isn’t the first time—she’s sexy as hell, and I’ve known her since I was too young to have much control over what got me hard—it’s still a tricky situation. But she’s the one who wanted to add kissing into the mix, and—fuck it—I want her on me. Now.

“Closer,” I growl as I reach for her. “I want you closer.”

“Yes,” she agrees, breath hot on my lips. And then she’s straddling me, and my hands are smoothing up her soft thighs beneath her skirt, and I know it should feel weird—this is Kirby, for God’s sake—but it doesn’t. It feels hot and good.

And…safe.

I know Kirby. I trust Kirby. She’s not going to go crazy or clingy on me, and she’d never let something as trivial as seeing each other naked get in the way of our friendship.

We are forever. Rock solid.

So when she says, “I vote kissing friends,” I answer, “Hell, yes, woman. I’m going to break your dry spell like spring on the Serengeti.”

She laughs, kissing me harder as she says, “You’ll taste the rains down in Africa?”

“Oh, I will definitely taste the rains, Larry. Just let me at ’em.”

Kirby giggles—actually giggles, like a normal girl—before covering my mouth with her hand and announcing in a too-loud whisper, “Shh, I think someone’s on the porch.”

“Someone is definitely on the porch,” Shep’s deep voice rumbles from overhead. “And someone isn’t stupid enough to get pranked by you two assholes again. Come inside and quit being weird. Bridget’s making crab dip.”

“Oooo, crab dip. I love crab dip,” Kirby says as the door closes overhead, signaling Shep has left the building. Or returned to the building, rather.

I am definitely drunk, but not too drunk to make decisions, and I know better than to question Kirby’s judgment while she’s inebriated. The last time I did that, she challenged me to a field sobriety test, which she passed with flying colors while I couldn’t find my nose with my finger with my eyes closed.

“Should we eat crab dip and then pack?” she asks. “Or pack and then crab dip?”

I start to speak, but the sound is muffled. Kirby pulls her hands away with another giggle.

“I’d rather eat your pussy, please,” I say. “Then pack. Crab dip optional.”

She covers my mouth again with a scandalized gasp. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t like crab dip,” I mumble into her cold little hands, loving that she’s still straddling me, rocking her hips against mine in an absent-minded way that gives me a clue how desperate she is to scratch that itch.

And I am getting equally desperate to oblige her.

“No, I mean the pussy talk,” she whispers. “You just jumped straight to it. No warning, no verbal foreplay of any kind.”

“So you want me to tell you how I’m going to lick your tits first? Bite your nipples and—”

Giggling harder, she orders, “Stop. Save it for Vegas, dude. And for real, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. We don’t tell anyone about this, okay? Not even Shep and Bridget. This is our secret.”

I hold up a hand in a solemn swear before circling her wrists and drawing her fingers away from my face. “Deal. But just so you know, what happens on my tongue also stays on my tongue. I don’t eat pussy and tell. You can trust me, Larry. And I seriously don’t know if I can wait for Vegas, I am so fucking turned on right now.”

“Yeah,” she whispers, rough and sexy. “I can tell.” And then she rocks her hips, slowly, deliberately against my cock and says, “Hmmm…yes. That’ll do, pig.”

“Babe?” I ask with a disgusted shake of my head. “Seriously? You’re on my cock, and you’re quoting Babe?” She giggle-snorts in response, making me laugh as I slap her ass and say, “Get drunk; you’re home, Larry.”

“I am not. I am of sound body and mind, and I know what I want.” She rolls off me onto the hard-packed earth beneath the porch. “Crab dip. Cat carrier. Suitcase. That order.”

“Cat carrier?”

“Murder’s coming, too.”

My lips part to argue that we do not need a villainous overlord of a cat on our fuck-buddy safari, but Kirby cuts me off with a snap of her fingers and a firm, “Not up for debate. Let’s move, Donovan. Move, move, move like you’ve never moved before!”

“I’m going to move you like you’ve never been moved before,” I grumble under my breath, standing to follow her out from under the steps.

“Oh, I hope so, Col,” she says with a happy sigh. “I really do.”

“Me, too,” I agree, a smile stretching wide across my face.

Damn, this is going to be fun—the perfect way to get the last of the fucking out of my system before I straighten up, fly right, and crank out a bunch of beautiful music.

But until then, Kirby and I are going to have a fucking blast.

Literally.