Lunchtime Chronicles: Red Velvet Read online

  RED VELVET

  The Lunchtime Chronicles

  By

  Siera London

  writing as S. London

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  COPYRIGHT

  About This Book

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  A Note from Siera

  Jolly Rancher

  L. Loren’s LoveRotica Sex Journal

  Lunchtime Chronicles Season 3

  My, My Sweet Potato Pie | By Sonja B.

  Also by Siera

  About Siera

  CONNECT With SIERA on Social Media

  COPYRIGHT

  RED VELVET

  Messy Mandy Presents: The Lunchtime Chronicles

  Copyright © 2020 K. PRINGLE, SIERA LONDON

  Kindle Unlimited Edition

  http://www.sieralondonauthor.com

  Cover art by Wicked Smart Designs

  Edited by Love2Read Romance Editing

  First Edition, September 2020

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Certain real locations are mentioned, however, all names, characters, events and incidents described in this book are fictitious or a product of the author's imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or deceased, is entirely coincidental and is not intended by the author.

  All trademarks, service marks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only.

  All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the current U.S. Copyright Act, with the exception of quotes used in reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form in whole or in part by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without written permission from the author, Siera London.

  About This Book

  A LoveRotica Sex Journal, a curious librarian, and a sexy alpha who keeps what he finds.

  KNOX UENO

  I never thought a bookworm librarian could crack my spine.

  Talk about underestimating a book by the plain cover.

  Siah rewrote every page I thought I knew, and then put me back on the shelf, well-used and ready for check-out again.

  I’m not mad that she worked me over.

  I’m pissed that she left.

  SIAH KENT

  When I went to Knox’s bed, I unleashed all my wicked fantasies.

  I can’t want more. So, after our weekend together, I scribbled, “The End” to our story in my LoveRotica Sex Journal and boarded a flight for home.

  I’m single and satisfied until Knox rolls into town flipping all my well-ordered hormones with an erotic entry of his own.

  It doesn’t matter.

  He’ll never know my backstory, and I refuse to share my climax.

  Dedication

  Welcome to Messy Mandy Presents: The Lunchtime Chronicles, steamy, short erotic romance served piping hot. I’d like to dedicate this book to my Aunt Shirlene. She was a tremendous supporter of my work and a fellow romance book lover. We would laugh for hours about book boyfriends and how she could grab a player’s attention and have him pushing her wheelchair. I will miss her.

  TO THE LUNCHTIME CHRONICLES Season 3 authors — Posey Parks, Author L. Loren, Keta Kendric, and Sonja B — words will never express how my spirit soars when I think of the fun times we’ve had in Messy Mandy’s world. The power of our combined creative voices infused this project and the romance reading community with a renewed passion for Fall 2020! It was my honor to work with each of you and share your talents with the Lunchtime Chronicles readers.

  To my literary sisters — Michele Ingrid, Xyla Turner, L. Loren, T.B. Bond, LaQuette, and Taisha Demay — Knox and Siah’s story would not exist without our daily writing sprints and weekly phone calls. I feel your love across the miles. Truly, I am blessed because you are my friend.

  Prologue

  Mī Fantajī -Siah

  My back hits the palatial windows overlooking the Sicilian countryside, and for a second, I’m an excited tourist visualizing the jaw-dropping street view of Knox’s hands gripping my ass. Despite the sunny spring morning, the glass feels cool and dry against my skin. I expect the chill to spread through my limbs, but his body cocoons me in warmth. Like the air trapped in my lungs, he holds my orgasm hostage, stretching the minutes to mind-bending hours. Thanks to Knox, my vaginal vacation has officially ended. His penis, the Knox cock should be molded and casted and the details documented in the women’s history archives. I knew he would be a fantastic lover, but I never imagined—

  “Oh, damn, that’s my spot,” I pant, digging my heels into his firm ass for leverage. He grunts in response, angling me a fraction lower on his sculpted forearms.

  “It’s mine now, Siah.” He chuckles, as if I have revealed more of my secrets.

  Anticipation mounts. He flexes those powerful legs, working me up and down with practiced precision. Toned muscles cap his shoulders. My mouth waters as they grow slick from exertion.

  “Yeah, do that again,” I demand, locking my fingers around his neck. “Harder,” I command, the word blunt and harsh, as I bounce my ass faster than a seasoned jockey on a thoroughbred in the final stretch.

  And guess what? He doesn’t leave me hanging.

  The feel of his large hands holding me open, balancing he thrusts deeper inside drives me wild. Frantic and wet slapping sounds of my hips slamming down on his steely cock ricochet all around us.

  “I could get loss in you forever, Siah akai,” he rasps in my ear, the graveled sound of his voice heightening my senses.

  He called me, my love. My breath hitches, and my pulse quickens. A flush of heat spreads through my chest. I feel beads of perspiration forming in the valley between my breasts. The urge to give him more than my body grips me, but I clamp my lips tight.

  This is a game, a voice warns. A reminder that even Dorothy had to leave Oz.

  “You know the word, akai?”

  On occasion I’ve heard him speak Japanese with his friends during a basketball game or in frustration, but this is the first time he’s directed an endearment in his native language at me. Am I doing that thing when a one-night stand makes a tiny moment into a marriage proposal? Nope. Not going there, not phoning there, not even sending a mother fucking text to that kind of trouble. Knox and I are friends.

  Fucking friends.

  He quiets, his ragged breathing evens as he waits for my answer. I can’t. Then I remember my cautious inner self has had my vagina on a dusty shelf for half a decade. My performance deserves this man’s praise. I know it’s my pussy he loves, but it’s been a minute since a man gave me something other than the brush off.

  “I do,” is all I say, and the simple phrase strikes a resounding cord. Drake and Deja’s wedding brought us to Italy, but for me— this feels like a honeymoon.

  I see this man-intense, tanned, inky strands damp with perspiration. I smell this man-dark, warm, spiced. I want this man- now and forever. I’d be a fool to surrender more than I have, so I tighten my legs around his waist, urging him on. He not only watches me with those midnight feline eyes, he listens. My moans, my sighs, my pauses—like a secret agent, he decodes my body’s language
and reveals my unspoken truth. Does my touch belie the years I’ve yearned for his possession? Can he hear the words my lips will never tell?

  “Watashi no ai,” he whispers before I hear, “forever.”

  This one I don’t know the English translation, but the affection in his tone strokes across my heart with a lightness of a feather.

  “What did you say?” I ask. As the hours have fallen away, the banter between us ebbs and flows from flirtatious to futuristic. This is the first time he’s said forever. Two firsts in one night. Can I trust this love and the future he speaks of? I want to believe it so bad that my heart aches.

  Knox slows his movements, yet he’s reached deeper inside me. Our bodies are inseparable, fire and flame that’s burning as one.

  “Feel my translation,” he whispers.

  And, I do. My heart wants to hold onto this soaring above the clouds feeling of being loved, writing a happy ending to our short story. Friends who touch one another with love, but can never be lovers. We have no future beyond these walls.

  Right?

  “I know you want to,” I state boldly, relishing the ripple in the muscles across his broad back.

  “Damn right,” Knox growls as he tunnels deeper into my sex.

  “That feels good.” My inner thighs began to tremble, working to maintain a grip on his bucking hips.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Siah.”

  He sounds so sure. Yet, certainty is the one thing I cannot give. Either way, his words spur me on. Tightening my muscles, I clamp my sex down on his pulsing rod. I hear the hitch in his breathing. I’ve got him in the palm of my hand.

  Gripping me harder, he slams that thick meat into my hungry center again and again. My breath comes in fragments, and I swear spots cloud my vision. Maybe I spoke too soon.

  “Knox,” I moan. His name on my lips an admission that he has me too.

  We’re edging closer to oblivion, both of us grinding, grunting, straining sweaty limbs, reaching for another tumble into ecstasy.

  I close my eyes, allowing each thrust of his rigid cock to ripple through me. The force is a seismic wave of vibration blurring every touch, every thought, every image until nothing exist beyond me... and this man. I’m coming; my velvet pussy—his description, not mine—milking his rod.

  “Stay with me,” he grunts, head flung back in a shuddering release.

  “Yes,” I whisper, in the heat of the moment.

  My name is Siah Kent. The woman who lives her life through romantic heroines, book boyfriends, and my sex journal. Knox Ueno is mī fantajī, my fantasy wrapped in lean, hard muscle.

  I should have stayed away because two days later I had to leave him.

  Chapter One

  Knox Ueno – Six months later...

  I find lost things. Paintings, jewelry, books, memorabilia. That’s the job of a private recovery specialist. Museums, art dealers, libraries, and insurance companies pay me a hefty sum when precious items, invisible to most, vanish. My flight landed at Baltimore International Airport two hours ago. Stillness rides shotgun with the midnight hour, but it does little to quell the turbulence coursing through my veins. I’ve reached my destination. My new assignment has me back in Maryland, on the campus of Sinclair State University. A lone structure lights the darkness. My heart thuds in my chest reminding me that this time it’s personal.

  A woman is missing.

  My woman.

  She wasn’t kidnapped. If she had been taken it would’ve given my frustration a target. Fifteen years in the Army Rangers trained me to annihilate my enemy, to push through pain, to bury my emotions. Combat training has nothing on the havoc a woman reeks once she has you on the hook. No amount of instruction could’ve prepared me for Siah. One night with her long chocolate legs wrapped around my waist disarmed me. Images of us, breathless and tangled in sweaty sheets, fill my dreams. My brain is paste, and my balls are bluer than an unemployed Chippendale dancer. The worse of it, I’m experiencing more feelings than considered safe for a human being with a ‘y’ chromosome.

  I feel vulnerable as fuck.

  And the part that really pisses me off is when her smart ass deprived me of the argument we should’ve had, the one I would’ve won by her boarding a flight on her own two little cute feet. Fleeing from the possibilities her body whispered when she thought I wasn’t listening. In forty-three years of living, Siah is the perfect mix of lover and friend. She thinks by running that she’s lost me. Not in this lifetime. I’m here to claim what’s mine.

  Shoving the unsettled energy back, I’ve entered the only doors without an alarm or a staged sleepy-eyed residential assistant. The library.

  “Knox Ueno for Ms. Kent,” I say to the young woman behind the half-moon circulation desk. Trudy, the library assistant, shakes her head in the negative. She’s maybe twenty-four with dark hair, pale skin, hazel eyes, and an intellectually superior attitude. I’m definitely dealing with a graduate student.

  “She’s in a meeting. They can’t be disturbed.”

  Siah works as the academic librarian at her alma mater. Trudy is opposite of the job description on her name tag. Her assistance, and I use the term with laxity, is a barrier I’m prepared to evade.

  “Interrupt. Tell her Mr. Ueno is done with waiting,” I rasp. Do I sound possessive? Possessed, possessive, the label doesn’t matter. I gave her months to call, to explain. My patience was met with silence. I’m the best at what I do because I can let go of rare beauty. None of the things I find are mine to keep. Siah is more than mine. I’m hers.

  “Maybe I can assist you,” she suggests for the third time.

  I push aside the neatly stacked four book tower separating us. “Yes, you can.”

  She smiles up at me, a little too practiced, and I know this woman is the kind of trouble you can’t see until after dinner and drinks.

  “Get Siah.” Fatigue has loosened my pc-meter, irritation squeezes me in its grip. I need Siah, sex, and sleep. Preferably all in the same night. First class cabins offer some level of comfort, but at six-foot two, seventeen hours folded into a sleep pod is exhausting.

  Just then, I hear a moan from behind the door marked staff only.

  Trudy turns her head, a tentative glance over her shoulder. I narrow my eyes in suspicion.

  “What’s happening back there?”

  She gives me a faux smile and says, “I’m afraid that’s a private meeting.”

  Trudy has no idea how far I’m willing to go to reach Siah. We’re in a standoff.

  “Times up, Trudy.” I chuckle, pivoting on my heel. The door marked Library Staff Only is ajar, and the echo of my boots are far from silent. “Siah,” I call, wanting her to know I am coming.

  Why? I grew up in a Navy family. We relocated every two years. When it comes to establishing dominance as the new kid in the neighborhood, there is no hiding. I won’t let Siah hide from us. I for damn sure am ready to attack whoever touched my woman.

  And, I want answers. Our time together, though short, was real and made for more than one or two nights of pleasure.

  Trudy rushes after me. “Hey, John Wick. You can’t barge in here making demands.”

  I shrug off the dig. It’s not the first time I’ve heard the reference applied to my overlong dark hair and long physique.

  “And that room is off limits to library users,” she continues, drawing more attention. That’s on her. I did ask nicely for her assistance.

  “What about lovers?” I ground out.

  A red-faced, slender woman stumbles to a halt. I blow past the stunned youngster with the floor-length prairie skirt swishing around her ankles.

  “What... you can’t say that in the library,” she stammers.

  “Oh, if these shelves can talk.”

  I’m down for sex between the shelves. I move undeterred by protests or vacant stares from over-caffeinated seniors huddled in study groups. My thoughts are focused on the only woman who can realign the pieces of our derailed relationship in my head.
That usually silent woman felt me on the deepest of levels. In my bed she demanded. She commanded. She surrendered.

  My blood flowed through her veins, and her breath entered my lungs. We were one. I want that feeling again. On the other side of the door people are talking.

  “Open your legs wider. I want to hear you come.”

  At the sound of Siah’s voice I jerk to a halt. What in the actual fuck?

  “I’m calling campus security,” Trudy says in a rush.

  I’m standing outside of my girl’s office doubting my ears.

  Fetish movies have some freaky librarian scenes, but I never expected Siah to be a featured star. From ground to ceiling are pages wrapped in eloquent words, waiting for me to utter something profound. Fuck. My instinct is to topple the metal shelves with the perfectly arranged books. A literary arc of Shakespeare, Shaw, Mosley, Coltran, Winfrey, and Angelou surround me— all seem to be watching. How should I respond?

  I grip the knob and push the door open. Instantly, my vision clouds with red. “Siah,” I growl, gruff and raw. She’s the one who awakened every one of my predator instincts when I returned to our hotel to find her and that damn book cover suitcase gone. “Shit.”

  My eyes must be crossed because the picture is all wrong. Siah is laid out on the tan carpet, her long legs spread wide. Her dark locks have been replaced with a jazzy Josephine Baker-style crop, one silky finger wave falling over her half-lidded eyes. Her signature red-colored shirt scoops low over full breasts and erect nipples. Cropped red slacks stop short of her delicate ankles and red velvet pumps.

  “Knox,” she mouths dreamily, more to herself than me.

  For a second, my dick forgets the rest of the scene, choosing to focus on Siah’s undeniable beauty. Her nostrils are slightly flared like she’s sprinting for an invisible finish line, and my intrusion fails to trip her up. Pearly white teeth are pressed hard against her plump red wine-stained lower lip. Fuck... then what’s about to happen hits me. I know this look; I’ve replayed this vision a thousand times since we’ve been apart. She’s about to come. I shift my eyes lower—with another man between her legs. Sure, he’s younger and fully clothed. Like I give a fuck. He has a cock, and it’s too close to my woman’s clit.