Tempted Beyond Relief Read online

  Tempted Beyond Relief

  Christa Wick

  C.M. Wick

  Contents

  Book Description

  1. Wylie

  2. Wylie

  3. Wylie

  4. Rhea

  5. Rhea

  6. Rhea

  7. Wylie

  8. Wylie

  9. Wylie

  10. Rhea

  11. Rhea

  12. Wylie

  13. Rhea

  14. Rhea

  15. Rhea

  16. Rhea

  17. Rhea

  18. Rhea

  19. Rhea

  20. Wylie

  21. Wylie

  Epilogue

  Thank You For Reading & Reviewing!!!

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  Also by Christa Wick

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Christa Wick

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, this book and any portion thereof may not be reproduced, scanned, reverse-engineered, decompiled, transferred, or distributed in any print or electronic form without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Participation in any aspect of piracy of copyrighted materials, inclusive of the downloading and obtainment of this book through non-retail or other unauthorized means, is in actionable violation of the author’s rights.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, media, brands, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and registered trademark owners of all branded names referenced without TM, SM, or (R) symbols due to formatting constraints, and is not claiming ownership of or collaboration with said trademark brands. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental.

  Published by Evergreen Books Publishing

  Copy edits and line edits by GBI Author Services

  Proofreading by Rosa Sharon

  Cover design by Violet Duke

  Previously published as Dirty Sweet Curves (c) 2015 by Christa Wick

  Book Description

  Wylie: She’s done a bang-up job hiding her past from everyone with that tough exterior of hers, but she can’t hide forever. And the more I get to know every facet of Rhea, learn every vulnerability, experience every hot fantasy, the more I’m certain of who she really is.

  So how would I describe the stubborn woman? That’s easy. She’s strong, selfless, sexy as hell…and mine.

  Rhea: I know he wants to break down my walls. I get it, because he’s built them around his heart, too. Wylie and I, we’re not that different; he knows all about sacrifice and duty—to others, to our past. That’s probably why we’re both such control freaks.

  So how do I feel about him taking complete control in bed? Ha! Get a court order and I’ll give up the answer.

  The Far Too Tempting Collection

  Tempted Beyond Reason (Wake & Lacey)

  Tempted Beyond Relief (Wylie & Rhea)

  Tempted Beyond Return (Logan & Lily)

  Previously published as Dirty Sweet Curves (c) 2015, revised throughout with newly added content and an extended ending.

  1

  Wylie

  Tuttle's Rubhouse had never been a classy joint, but it had once boasted some of the best barbecue in Memphis, served with a side of glistening hot fries and luscious, bouncing tits.

  Now, the food came in the form of a tired cheeseburger, cold and wilted fries, and tits that bounced with the unmistakable shape of silicon enhancements guaranteeing the flesh would be as hard as the dancer's gaze.

  Hell, even the beer was watered down.

  Snorting at how much things had changed in the years since I'd been a dumb college senior about to ship out for Army Basic Training, I popped another half-cooked fry into my mouth, reasoning that I’d eaten worse—a lot worse. Maybe not in the States, but certainly in the Middle East where the rations had been known to run low and the Special Forces team I’d commanded had learned to do as I did and eat what we could, when we could.

  Being out of the army hadn’t changed me much.

  With my barely edible meal almost done, I glanced up on stage and saw the dancer finishing up her number on legs that had grown increasingly unsteady—not from the minimal effort she’d made throughout her routine, or even from the five-inch high heels she had on, but rather, from all the drinks she’d rapidly consumed while pretending to dance.

  The customer sitting front and center of the stage had ordered them for her, lined them up in front of him and started pushing them toward her as soon as she’d taken her top off.

  The dancer, “Try Anything Tina,” as I’d nicknamed her in my head, had proceeded to use the drinks as a prop, running the glass between her tits before getting them wet and sucking up every last trace of alcohol through the straw.

  Her “dance” got progressively worse from there.

  By the third drink, when she snagged the cherry garnishing the glass and slipped it into her panties, she made a show of moving her finger under her G-string with an exaggerated slowness so that every male in the joint would know she’d popped the piece of fruit inside her.

  The guy who’d bought the drinks had looked ready to shoot a load in his pants when the stem disappeared.

  I, on the other hand, had barely been able to keep eating my food.

  Her dance now done, she immediately started making a wobbly beeline over to my table—with the cherry still shoved up in there—and it was all I could do to suppress a shudder.

  Sidling in close to me, she gave me a slow wink and threw her best line at me, "I've got something tastier for you than the slop Paulie throws on the plates."

  I tried to dismiss her with a wave of my hand and a polite, "No thanks."

  But "Try Anything Tina” persisted, leaning down, arms hugging the side of her tits so they were squeezed together and lunging toward my face.

  "I'm offering more than a lap dance," she purred, the alcohol thick on her breath assaulting my nose. "I could show you more of the world than the military ever did, if you know what I mean..."

  I knew exactly what she meant—ass, mouth and pussy, probably in whatever order the guy paying wanted. Narrowing my gaze, I pushed all the words I'd been raised never to say to any woman out through my eyes.

  Drunk as she was, that did nothing to deter her.

  She lifted her arm, intent on running her fingers over my crew cut. “We could go out to my van. Got some cushions and blankets laid out in the back and a fresh box of condoms—"

  I intercepted her hand, my fingers pinching lightly at the pressure points on each side of her wrist until she finally backed off, leaving me with what remained of my burger and fries.

  Completely robbed of the last of my appetite, I had every intention of just getting the hell out of there and never stepping foot in Tuttle's again.

  That was the plan at least, before a woman I never expected to find in a rundown titty bar was introduced as the next dancer.

  I knew something was off just from the introduction. For each of the four sets I had waited through for my dinner to arrive, each of the dancers had made their appearance with lavish introductions. Some were outrageous claims of private performances for foreign princes, while others were tongue-in-cheek advertisements for the dancer's “other services,” like Tina being a world traveler willing to try anything.

  This next dancer though, all she got as an introduction was her name flatly delivered and a mic drop.

  Gaia...

  Round Gaia,
fluffy Gaia, the woman who was sure to mindfuck my nights and days to come, with tits wholly real and bouncy and so luscious-looking in the stage bra that was valiantly struggling to hold them in place.

  Not everyone in the crowd shared my enthusiasm when the plus-size dancer came into view, but some slid their chairs closer to the stage and began pulling out the bills they’d been stingy with when the other dancers were performing.

  A few of them whistled lightly, while others just wet their lips like they wanted to whistle but didn't want their friends to know how much they wanted a big girl like Gaia to rock their world. And a smaller, but far louder, group thought they could jeer the young woman from the stage, their insults unimaginative but worthy of an ass-whooping nonetheless.

  Looking at Gaia's face, I tried to gauge her reaction to the hecklers. What I saw surprised me. She wasn’t really with us. She was off in her own safe place, wrapped in a cocoon, her gaze fixed only on the pole and her path to it, the foul words from the rudest members of the crowd not fazing her in the least.

  I recognized that look, that drive. Same as the soldiers I’d served in combat with, she had a job to do. It wasn’t a job they did for their own benefit but for others.

  They’d gone where they’d been needed, where want and need were different beasts. I saw that same clashing determination in how the flare of Gaia’s shoulders warred with the fragile way in which she angled her face away from the crowd.

  The ash brown hair that probably fell past her shoulders was trapped in an intricate braid, the elegant precision of the style adding to the young woman's mysterious presence. Though her flesh was all but stripped bare of any cover, her armor stayed in place, allowed her to get on stage, get the job done, and go home to what mattered.

  For the first full minute of the song, the heckling grew louder, but Gaia didn't waver as she wrapped long, tapered fingers around the bar. She didn't just pretend to dance, either. She pointed the toes of one foot, the one closest to the pole, and placed the sole of the foot against it. Up her leg rose, hand and foot smoothly transitioning her limber frame higher and higher up the pole until my chest started to get tight from the ascent.

  Then she started a slow spin.

  I couldn’t help but notice that the small group of young men who’d been jeering the loudest were now mostly silent. All but one had succumbed to the natural, womanly beauty I had immediately recognized in the dancer.

  I slid my gaze back to the stage where Gaia's strong legs gripped the top of the pole as she hung upside down. She lifted her torso, grabbed the bar with one hand and flung her other arm out to initiate another spin, her back arched to increase the velocity.

  The tight grip her performance had on my chest and the speed at which her body moved around the pole made the oxygen in my lungs practically nonexistent.

  Just then, from the corner of my gaze, I found Tina's hard eyes staring at me as she went through the motions of a lap dance for some forty-year-old wearing a three-piece suit despite the late summer heat.

  The man may have been touching Tina, but his eyes were on the stage just like those of every other man in the joint. Gaia's rhythm was his rhythm. When she slowed, he slowed. When she spun quickly, he forced Tina to rub her ass harder and faster against him.

  Gaia had captured every last cock in the audience.

  With her torso at the center of the pole, she had one leg extended straight up and the other straight down. Eyes closed, she looked at no one, listened to no one, only the music reaching her. Whip like, she drew her legs back to center, crossed her calves behind the bar and tucked her heels against her lush ass.

  As the music feed slid into the second song, her hands smoothed along the sides of her body, then across her ribs to the center closure of her bra. One flick of her wrist and the mouthwatering spheres were free of their confinement.

  She arched her neck, her exposed throat made her look that much more vulnerable as I took in the large pink areolae and the darker berry of her tight nipples. Pressure built all along my cock, causing my peripheral vision to shut down. Every other person in the club disappeared. Soon, I felt nothing but my cock and the pained intake of air through my lungs.

  Then an uninvited hand landed on my shoulder, catching me unaware.

  My arm shot up, stopping a centimeter short of grabbing the hand and breaking every bone in the offending party’s wrist.

  "Leave," I muttered harshly, flicking Tina’s hand off my shoulder before gripping the edge of my table hard enough to give even Tina pause.

  Eight years in the military, countless months training for special forces between missions—and a washed up stripper had just managed to take me by surprise, get a hand on me—all because of the beauty on stage.

  I shook my head, tried to rid it of the images of my mouth around one of Gaia's succulent pink nipples, and repeated the order I had just given Tina. “Leave.”

  "You'll have a better time watching Miss High and Mighty with me rubbing against you," she offered, recklessly ignoring the rough tone of my command. Rubbing her hip against my shoulder, she pressed her luck ever harder.

  "This corner booth's dark enough, Sugar, you can finger my pussy—pretend it's hers. Just twenty bucks—ten if you've got thick fingers."

  My fingers were thick enough she’d probably charge even less, but they were staying far away from the cesspool between Tina's legs.

  Still, I pulled out my wallet and took out a twenty. Sliding the bill toward Tina, I nodded at Gaia. "What's her real name?"

  She shrugged. "Only Paulie knows."

  I kept my thumb on my money. If the woman wanted the twenty, she had to earn it and she wasn't getting anywhere near my body in the process.

  "When does she work?"

  "Three shifts a night," Tina answered with a sneer. "But never on Sundays."

  Before I could ask another question, she started to spew more information, all the little gripes and grudges she had clearly worked up against Gaia. “Paulie lets her get away with murder. She doesn't have drink quotas to fill like the rest of us, doesn't have to mingle and you aren't getting a lap dance from her even if hell freezes over."

  Her voice took on a snarl. "Must be the novelty of having a cow who can dance."

  Gritting my teeth, I didn’t let her goading vitriol derail my interrogation. "What else do you know?"

  "That she's a stuck up bitch!"

  Her shrill answer landed between songs, but Gaia didn't flinch or even look our way.

  Ungluing my gaze from the stage, I drilled Tina with a hard look and gave her the twenty. "You do not come near me again unless you have real intel on her," I said, my voice low and cold. "Am I clear?"

  Her nostrils flared like she wanted to argue with me, but she nodded her head and added the bill to the others fanning her G-string.

  "You're a fool if you think she'll even talk to you.”

  2

  Wylie

  Less than five minutes after Gaia's last set ended, I was tucked into the recessed doorway of an empty office building. Leaving my house, I hadn't intentionally dressed for any kind of reconnaissance, but the black jeans and dark sweatshirt I had on blended perfectly into the shadows. A large column on either side of the doorway let me maneuver so that I could watch both sides of Tuttle's parking lot without exposing my position.

  I could also see the street corner at the nearest intersection and its bus stop, but dismissed that area as a point of interest. Gaia had to leave the building first, either out the front door or the back where the cars were parked. If she drove, she had to leave either side of the building because the alley behind the club's parking lot was barely wide enough for a drunk to piss in and too dark for a woman with any sense to walk down alone.

  Another ten minutes passed and I started to dance in the shadows, a rare case of indecision making my legs and arms twitch as I waited for her to emerge.

  The delay didn't make sense. As venom-filled as Tina’s tirade had been, I believed her when
she said Gaia kept her distance from the customers. She wouldn't linger at the club, wouldn’t offer a customer the “happy ending” he desired. She would change her clothes and leave.

  So where the hell was she?

  Had one of the men in the audience stopped Gaia on the way out? Was the bouncer directing his attention anywhere and everywhere else as some drunk pushed his crotch at the dancer and tried to grab a handful of her soft, bountiful breasts?

  Growling with an unfamiliar possessiveness, I pushed past the columns, stepped onto the sidewalk and checked the empty street in both directions out of habit. There were no cars, just a hooded figure standing at the bus stop, hands shoved in the front pockets and a book bag over one shoulder.

  I blinked once then took a second look and smiled.

  On first glance, it was hard to assign a gender to the shape. Subsequent glances might have proven just as fruitless, but I knew who I was looking for. Gaia might have been camouflaging her tongue-melting curves with the oversized hoodie and loose jeans, but the posture was perfect. She kept her head level, the slow sweep of her gaze up and down the street a subtle scan for any predators that might have followed her out of the club.

  Momentarily forgetting I was one of the men Gaia wanted to avoid, I took a step in her direction.

  Her hand dug deeper into her pocket, halting me. She hadn't noticed me, not yet, but something had caught her attention. My fingers curled into fists. If anyone had followed her out of the club—anyone but me—they were in for one hell of a surprise. And if they planned to hurt her, they were in for a world of pain they could never have imagined.