Julie Kenner - Night Moves

“But we’re friends.” Maybe if Ella forced herself to remember that, she could back away.

“So maybe more friends should fool around,” he said. His hand snaked down, teasing the soft skin on the inside of her thigh.

“Shane, I think—”

He cut her off with a kiss so long and deep, she was sure she was going to lose herself.

“Don’t think,” he said. “Let’s finish what we’ve started.”

Ella swallowed, but her fingers went to his jeans, fumbling with the button. Even though she knew she ought to stop this right now, somehow she couldn’t. Somehow she had to have Shane. Now. Tonight. She wanted him inside her more than she could remember wanting anything before.

“Tonight doesn’t really feel real, does it?” she whispered. “It’s almost magical.”

His lips brushed her ear. “There are always possibilities in the dark,” he murmured. “And with a blackout…” When he trailed off, she looked up to see his wicked smile. “Well, the possibilities are endless.”

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J. KENNERhas always loved stories—reading them, watching them on television and on the silver screen, and making them up herself. She studied film before attending law school, but knew that her real vocation lay in writing the kind of books she loves to read. She lives in Texas with her husband, two daughters and several cats.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

As I touched her thighs, she put both hands down to stop me with a suppressed “oh,” neither action nor word those of a woman who was shamming. It wasn’t the fierceness of a girl who first feels a man’s hand about her privates…. It was the exclamation and manner of a woman not accustomed to strange hands….

THE WORDS FLOWED OFF THE page of My Secret Life, sparking Ella’s imagination and surrounding her with a haze of sensuality so thick and so hot that her pulse rate increased and breathing became an effort, like someone trying to suck in a deep breath in a sauna.

She’d been enrolled in the class for three weeks now and she still felt a jolt of excitement when she read a sensuous passage, little sparks deep down inside that made her wish for long nights with a determined man.

She’d never expected to be quite so intrigued by the words, although she’d signed up for Professor Archer’s class not only because of Veronica Archer’s stellar reputation as an expert on erotica through the ages but also because Ella, frankly, needed to do something just a little wild. Just a little bit off the straight and narrow.

Not that she’d told Tony that. No, she’d told her boyfriend that she was taking the class out of loyalty and to investigate more fully her professional field. After all, she’d known Ronnie Archer for a few years now, and the two had become friends. So naturally she was curious about her friend’s expertise. Plus, Ella was working toward her master’s in art history, and Ronnie knew a lot about erotic art through the ages. So much that she’d been recruited to teach at the university in an adjunct capacity.

It was a reasonable explanation, and Tony hadn’t batted an eye. It wasn’t, however, an entirely true explanation.

The truth was, she’d seen something in Ronnie’s work that she needed. Something that reminded her of her past. She used to drive fast cars and date fast men. She used to ride motorcycles along country roads with her best friend, Shane, or take a skydiving class just because he’d dared her to. Lately, though, she’d slowed down, the rough edges of her life smoothing out. She liked that, wanted it. But that didn’t mean she’d erased the past—or that she didn’t have the odd moment where she wanted to go a little crazy.

She smiled a little as she thought of Tony, with his clean-cut good looks and bank-officer wardrobe. While he’d indulge her with a night on the town to satisfy her wild streak, he was never comfortable with it. His sisters were another story, and when Tony was away or working, Ella and the girls sometimes went dancing or rock climbing or out to the track to rent and race fast cars. Fun, but not her life anymore. She was with Tony now, and unlike his sisters, Tony wanted a calm and orderly life. A family, with a picket fence and a dog—the whole nine yards.

And she wanted that with him, even though there were downsides.

For example, she’d tried twice to read him particularly enticing passages, but he’d managed to shift the subject, the mood, and very handily gotten her to drop the whole thing. Talking about sex, experimenting with sex—those weren’t Tony’s things.

Not that sex wasn’t his thing. It was. The man was just fine in that department, if a little unimaginative. She loved him, though, and that made everything else balance. He was exactly what she wanted in a boyfriend. And, if she was reading the hints right, in a husband. Any day now she expected him to give her a ring, and she’d slip it on her finger without hesitation. Because Tony was everything she wanted, the man himself and his family. A big, boisterous, happy family. Exactly what she’d always dreamed of and never had.

Idly she flipped the page of the book in front of her, thinking how lucky she was to have Tony. She needed to get back to work, though, so she firmly pushed thoughts of her boyfriend from her head and forced herself to concentrate on the pages she was turning. Not difficult, since the lusty words caught her attention, pushing thoughts of her boyfriend from her head. In their place flooded erotic descriptions that had her imagination working overtime to bring her a vivid mental picture.

My, oh, my…

She leaned back in her chair, only half realizing that she was using a battered manila folder to fan herself. Usually her favorite study carrel in the back of the library was quite chilly. Today, however, it seemed remarkably warm.

I had drawn her near to me, was feeling all round her bum with one hand and wetting the finger of the other in her—

Wow.

How could anyone approach this from a purely academic angle? She certainly couldn’t, at least not today. A particularly frustrating fact considering she was camped out in NYU library for the specific purpose of working on her term paper, or rather for the purpose of deciding the topic of her paper. She knew she wanted to do something that juxtaposed historical erotica against modern works, but that was too broad a topic. And as for brilliant plans to narrow her theme, so far she was drawing a blank. Not good, since she was due to meet with Ronnie on Monday to go over the paper’s thesis and outline.

Usually she was much better at focusing, but today her mind had been all over the place. Maybe because it was a stifling summer Saturday. Or maybe because she’d already finished papers in the two other classes she was taking this summer. She’d piled on a killer course load, as usual, and the demanding schedule was probably getting to her.