Sets Appeal. Virginia Taylor
blush. “Shouldn’t you?”
“Not yet.” Facing her, the expression on his face looked wary. He ran a thumb slowly across her collarbone.
She shivered, a reaction she couldn’t control. “Could you turn out the light?”
“I could. Do I have to?”
“Yes.” She swallowed.
He swiveled around and switched off the bedside lamp. The heat of his body hovered, and she could smell toothpaste, which she now wished she had used. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she could see his looming shape as he gathered her up against him. His overlong silky hair touched her cheek, tickling, and his bristles scraped her chin. Then, his palm slipped beneath the strap of her bra. She put up a hand to stop him, but he snapped the elastic onto her upper arm.
Reacting like a petulant schoolgirl, she pushed against his hard shoulders. “No, don’t.”
“Don’t what?” His mouth slid from her chin to the top of her breast.
“Don’t touch me. Just do what you have to.”
“Okay,” he said, his tone careful. Within a second, he was sitting on her thighs.
She wouldn’t have minded lying that way forever, or at least until she could regulate her breathing, but she assumed she would eventually have to move her legs. Fortunately, he couldn’t see her or the expression on her face, which would be somewhere between nervous and puzzled. She tried to sound interested in proceeding. “Are you going to keep sitting on me?” she said in what she hoped sounded like a sophisticated voice. Her heart thudded like a drum.
“If I did, that would make doing what I have to do fairly difficult.” He pushed her hair back with a single, casual finger, a gentle touch like a caress, but he didn’t need to placate her. He simply needed to get the whole thing over and done with. “What’s your next order?”
“I don’t have one.” She wet her lips.
“Well, do you mind if I follow my own plan?”
“As long as... No, please go ahead,” she said, at a loss and wishing she didn’t want to tear the sheet off his bed and run. She hadn’t thought the whole encounter through. A man like him, well, he would be ultra-experienced. Women would flock around him. He would need to bat them off. She had chosen wisely, but she didn’t have the nous to follow through. Breathing through her nose, she tried to relax.
He took each of her hands in his and, calloused palm against stiff palm, he raised them to the pillow beside her head. His mouth touched on hers, and stayed, lightly teasing. Her breathing sped up, her skin heated, and she tingled where she should. Now would be a good time to get the act over and done with. She arched her back, prepared to change to a more promising position while he buried his face into her neck, his breath shorter than she might have expected. Then, his knees edged hers apart. She tensed as his shape pressed between her legs. He exhaled and his grip froze.
Momentarily, she coped with the heightening sensation but he made a noise like a growl and slid down farther down her body, taking both her bra straps to her elbows. She flipped her chest sideways. “No. Please.”
He rolled off her, sat up, and turned on the light, blinking at her. With a wary expression on his face, he said, “How about a glass of milk?”
“A glass of milk? You don’t want to…you can’t…I didn’t mean…I just don’t like being naked.”
“So you implied.” He eased off the bed and disappeared.
She sat hugging herself, hearing him clatter in the kitchen. She should leave. At the very least, she should be fully dressed when he returned, not foolishly expecting him to try again. Her eyes heated, and she blinked hard. Although he’d implied he would be cooperative, apparently if he couldn’t do as he wished, he wouldn’t do anything, and what he wanted to do was paw her all over.
Her chin at an upward tilt, she moved to the side of the bed. If he preferred being in the kitchen to having sex with a willing woman, he could swill to his heart’s content. Then again, her pride wouldn’t let her escape until she had made a concerted effort. Chewing at her forefinger, she slid her cold feet back under the spread. While she made no decision whatsoever, he reappeared holding two frosted glasses. He placed one on the console beside her.
“Do you not like being touched by me, or by anyone?”
She reached for the milk. “I think touching is unnecessary, that’s all. It puts me off when I’m prepared to…when I’m willing to…when I’m thinking about…oh, great heavens, I don’t find these things easy to talk about.” She cleared her throat and took a sip of her drink. “And you’re my first anyone, aside from my husband—my ex.”
He bent his head and gazed into his glass. “Your first, huh? That’s a flattering disadvantage. I don’t know what I’m competing with here, but I imagine every man has his own way of doing things. I like to take my time and play around for a while before sex.”
“I like to get the act over with.”
He gave her a sidelong glance while he slowly rubbed his bristled jaw. Then he shrugged. “I like women. I like to touch. I know what pleasures me. I like to see my woman pleasured, too. If I have to forgo that, I might as well jerk myself off.”
She straightened, grimacing. “Crudely put, but basically if I don’t let you touch me, I don’t get anything?”
“Right,” he said in a confident drawl. “You get the full trip or nothing at all.”
“This isn’t fair.”
His eyebrows lifted as if he was waiting for her to change her mind.
For a moment, she wavered. “Then, you’ll get what you want, but I won’t.” Hoping she sounded logical rather than petulant, she leaned back.
“I’m willing to go without if I can’t have what I want. Are you?” He pulled at his earlobe.
“There’s a difference,” she said, her voice husky with embarrassment. She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what I want.” Resting her cheek on her up-drawn knees, she angled her head away from him.
The black of night showed through the white roller blind. No window in his house had been curtained. His floors were bare wood and not a single wall held a picture. He owned nothing but the bare essentials and none looked new or trendy. She had assumed he owned this house when she’d entered, but likely he didn’t. This was a rental, and he’d recently moved in.
“You want me,” he said in a secure voice. “But…I’m more than my dick.”
She reached over him and carefully placed her empty glass on his bedside table. “And what else do you think made me come here with you?”
“You drove me here.”
“For one reason. And you haven’t even opened the condom.” Her bottom lip quivered, and she felt as unattractive as a woman could be.
“I’m not ready.”
“You look ready.”
“Peeking, are you? Well, then, perhaps I ought to open the condom.” With a frown of concentration, he reached for the plastic pack that he didn’t seem able to open. He tried tearing across one corner and then the other. He tried with his teeth. He sighed. “Damn.”
“Haven’t you done this before?”
He didn’t answer.
“Pass it to me.” She reached over him.
He evaded her. The pack ripped in two in his hands. Unfortunately, the condom ripped, too. He sat with a ring in one hand and a bubble in the other. He slowly turned his head, and he stared her straight in the eyes. “Now what?”
“Don’t you have another?”
“What do you think?”