Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “So what?”

  “You’re so masculine and I think you’re probably the best looking guy that I’ve ever met. And you’re telling me that you’ve been essentially celibate since you were twenty years old.”

  “Twenty-one,” he corrected me. “She was twenty. I was a year older. And I suppose you might say that I’m an expert at self-stimulation.”

  He was so blasé about this that I think it is safe to say that my face flamed red hot and I wanted to sink beneath the table in total embarrassment. I was talking about masturbation with this guy now?

  “Wow,” I gasped. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually talked about that with a guy before. I mean, doesn’t that get old?”

  “Sure. But personally, I think that sex with the wrong person gets old too. Don’t you?”

  His words surprised me. Not because he had said them, but because they were true. I swallowed and tried to push past my discomfort. “I think you’re right, actually. It’s not like I’ve had a lot of experience. I’ve had two or three different partners. I’m not the kind of woman who likes to crawl in and out of bed with everyone I date.” I wondered if he now thought I was trying to make a point to him about the fact that I would not be sleeping with him. I wasn’t. But maybe it wasn’t a bad point to make.

  Wait. Am I sleeping with him? Am I going to?

  “I think,” Val said slowly, “that people in general are much too flippant about sex these days. It’s like they don’t value it at all.”

  “I can agree with that,” I told him bluntly. “And I’m always surprised by how many women fall into that category. They just hop in and out of bed with every guy they go out with or every man they meet in a bar and then they’re left wondering why they feel so horrible about themselves when he never calls them again or they never see him again or it just doesn’t work out. It’s like they’re artificially attached to these guys because they slept with them!”

  “Don’t you think that’s how it works though?” He was just talking, but it felt like he was pressing me toward some kind of conclusion. “Like they’re searching so hard for something that they can’t find and they’re determined to force their brains and their hearts to accept an alternative?”

  “Ouch.” I had to take a long drink of my soda to give myself something to do in order to have just a moment to think. “You’re being really honest here. I can’t think of anyone else who has ever been quite this honest with me. Not like this anyway.”

  “I want us to be honest with each other.” His words were quiet and his eyes were very serious. “I want to know what you’re thinking and I want to tell you what I’m thinking. I never communicated with Cari. I never could. She just wanted to hear what she wanted to hear so I stopped trying to talk to her. I don’t ever want to be that way with somebody again.”

  I swallowed. I could not breathe. I was thinking about my parents and the man they wanted me to marry. I was thinking about the fact that I was very likely to start house hunting in the next few days with this man’s brother’s creepy stalker ex-girlfriend. Why did all of these things now feel like secrets? Were they secrets? Was I keeping these things from him or was I just so eager to forget that all of this was going on that I didn’t want to think about it?

  “So what are you saying?” I whispered. Then I swallowed for what seemed like the millionth time in order to get rid of the lump in my throat. It seemed like the lump just kept coming back. “You’re the one who never wanted to be in another relationship again. You don’t have to change that, you know.” What was I doing? I needed this man to be in a relationship so badly that I was probably committing some emotional crime. Being in a relationship with Valentino Alvarez would allow me to tell my family to calm down and stop matchmaking.

  He seemed to consider this. His expression was thoughtful and for a moment I was almost lost in his eyes. Their color was so deep and dark that it reminded me of sweet dark chocolate. Their warmth sent a tingle from my fingers to my toes.

  “I’m saying that I want to be in a relationship with you, Tansy Economides. I want to date. I want to get to know you better. I want to look up and smile because I see you walking into my office. And believe me, I am not unaware of how weird this all sounds.”

  “I don’t know that weird is the right word.” I gave him an exaggerated wink. “I think it just sounds like you’ve been celibate for so long that you’ve decided it’s time to come on out into the dating world to get your freak on.”

  He started laughing. His eyes danced and his head tipped back. His unruly hair was sticking out at all angles and he looked so breathtakingly gorgeous that I was tempted to tell him that he could start getting his freak on tonight if he wanted. You know. A few lazy make-out sessions in my living room. Some casual explorations… None of that was going all the way. Right?

  Then he took my hand and turned it over so my palm was facing up. He gently traced the lines from one corner of my palm to the other. I shivered and suddenly felt breathless. The air stuck in my throat and I gasped just a little, trying to catch the telltale noise and knowing that I hadn’t managed it. The look in his eyes told me that much. Heat flared and they practically sizzled with erotic intentions.

  “Get my freak on, hmm?” He lifted my palm to his lips and I actually felt the tip of his tongue dart out to taste my skin. “I think I could enjoy that. I’ve got a lot of time to make up for. Sometimes I think about the fact that I’ve never made love to a grown woman before and that makes me want to laugh. Then I imagine how incredibly erotic that will be and I can’t wait to get started making up for lost time.”

  Now that was an odd thought. The guy had never made love to someone who wasn’t a teenager. What must that be like? My mind was spinning in a thousand directions. I felt my cheeks heating up and I could not help but be glad that the restaurant was dimly lit inside.

  “You know,” I murmured to Val. “Most men are eager to brag to a woman about how much experience they have in the bedroom. They can’t wait to tell her that they can bring a woman to orgasm with some magic tongue or magic fingers or pretty much magical something. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone use a line about how inexperienced they are.”

  “And what do you think about my strategy?” He raised his eyebrows. “Is it working? Have you discovered a sudden desire to be my teacher in the world of passion?”

  I felt a smile spreading across my face. “All right, that was a little over the top.”

  He chuckled. “Probably. But I would be lying if I didn’t admit that my mind is thinking of all the ways I could convince you to invite me into your place for a drink when I take you back. Then I could maybe entice you to let me give you a massage. I’ll start with your shoulders. Then I might move to your back. And maybe I’ll even do your feet.”

  If I had been blushing before, I didn’t know what to call my face now. It was hot. My whole body was hot. I was busy imagining what I would feel like with his big hands all over my body. What would that even be like? Would I be nervous? I had teased him about not being the experienced one, but would I even know the difference? My thin selection of lovers hadn’t been the most generous of men. I didn’t know enough about sex and foreplay to add much to the conversation. Not really. I suppose it might seem silly to be self-conscious about that when it wasn’t likely that my would-be lover would know the difference. But that only made me wonder if he would be sadly disappointed.

  The waiter appeared beside our table. He seemed oblivious to the tension hanging between us. Or maybe I was imagining that. I don’t know. “Did you folks leave room for dessert?”

  “I want some of that molten chocolate cake,” Val told the waiter. Then he winked at me. “Will you share it with me?”

  “I suppose I could share my cake with you,” I told him archly without realizing how that could be taken if one were inclined to have a dirty mind.

  “One chocolate cake,” Val said, staring right at me with deep, dark unfathomable eyes. “And two forks.
”

  “Sounds great!” The waiter buzzed off as though he were determined to have the cake back to us before we could even take a breath between courses.

  “I would be happy to share your cake,” Val told me.

  I think it is possible that my temperature went from moderately warm to smoldering right there. I felt the urge to fan myself. Whew! Then I cleared my throat. “Tell me. Do you like to lick the filling out of your cake?”

  A sexy smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I do like to lick the filling out of the center of my cake. It’s like a very special treat. You take the cake and you very carefully lift it to your mouth. And then you stroke it with your tongue until the filling is perfectly ready for tasting.”

  Oh God. The mental image he was painting in my head was devastating. I could almost picture him on his knees in front of me. My thighs spread, his hands gently stroking them as he viewed me intimately. All of this right before he ducked his head and licked me from top to bottom with the flat of his tongue. Talk about decadent dessert. Forget the chocolate cake!

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Valentino

  By the time I got Tansy back to her apartment I felt as though my cock was strangling to death in my cargo pants. The erection had been in a constant state of getting hard, softening for just a moment, and then raging right back to rock solid status a few minutes later. I was pretty sure I could have come if someone just blew on my crotch.

  That was actually a huge worry for me. No guy likes to run the risk of being the minute man. Or in this case, the five-second man. We all want to be able to pleasure our ladies. We want them to feel as though they’ve gotten a good ride. Even though that sounds crass and totally rude. It’s the solid truth. I wanted to know that I could bring Tansy pleasure even if it meant cutting mine off or holding it back or just ignoring it altogether.

  We were standing at her front door—hers and not the nosy old lady’s. She used her key to open the door and then turned to grin at me. The smile was utterly infectious. I don’t know how anyone around her could help but smile if she looked at them like that. Her light brown eyes were dancing. Her ponytail was falling sexily over one shoulder, and she made a dramatic gesture to indicate her apartment.

  “So, do you want to come inside? I don’t have alcohol, but I could make coffee if you want.” She actually wiggled her eyebrows up and down suggestively. “Then, you know, we could make out on my couch for a while.”

  I wanted so badly to say yes that I was probably ignoring a thousand reasons that I should say no. But I couldn’t bring myself to decline. Not when my crotch was pretty much calling all the shots right now.

  “I would love to come in. But there’s no need to make a pot of coffee,” I told her. “It’s not quite that cold.”

  “I see.” She stood aside as I entered behind her and then closed the door behind me. “So basically we’re not even pretending that this is about you being so thirsty after drinking all of that soda at dinner that you might actually die of thirst before you can get from my house to yours?”

  “You know, when you put it that way the whole thing about coming in for a drink is pretty obviously a ploy in any guise,” I mused. “Unless you genuinely just wanted to finish a conversation.”

  “Sure.” She nodded and removed her jacket to hang on a rack by the front door. “But you also have to think that it would be almost impossible to keep the conversation going if it had started in the restaurant, continued in the car, and then continues here in the house? Really? If the change of venue didn’t alter the direction of the conversation that would pretty much indicate that there was nothing going on romantically. At all.”

  I couldn’t argue with her there. “So what do you suggest? Should we encourage people to just drop the bullshit? Maybe start a social media campaign called just say you want to bone her and be done with it?”

  Tansy burst out laughing. Her hands came up to cover her mouth and she looked absolutely delighted and scandalized at the same time. She pointed to the living room and the two of us made our way into the warm and inviting space. There was even a fireplace in the center of the room. We took seats at opposite ends of the sofa and I felt myself starting to relax. Sort of. There were parts of me that just weren’t interested in relaxing. At all.

  I really liked the apartment. I wasn’t sure how she could afford it because the thing looked seriously expensive, but I had a feeling that a real estate agent had some connections that afforded her a bit of a discount in this area. And that was fine. It was fair in my opinion. After all, the second I wanted a car I knew how to pull strings to get one.

  “So,” Tansy began as she snuggled back into the corner of her sofa and drew her legs up into the seat. “Tell me what a relationship looks like to you.”

  I don’t know if I was surprised by the question or not, but I figured it wasn’t a bad thing to talk about given the circumstances. Here we were in her cozy little apartment. I was very much considering starting a fire because there was a little pile of wood, kindling, and a box of long fireplace matches sitting right there.

  The living room actually had a vaulted ceiling with skylights. I could see a tiny hallway leading off one end of it that likely led back to the bedrooms and bathrooms. Behind us there was a small, but well lit kitchen with plenty of windows. It was more of a condo than an apartment, but I had noticed when I first drove into the complex that there were buildings that had apartments on both the first and the second stories. So perhaps Tansy had just been fortunate enough to lease a garden unit that included the vaulted ceiling and far more privacy than the average apartment ever offered.

  “I’m not sure what a relationship looks like to me right now,” I told Tansy in what I hoped was a casual and open tone of voice. I didn’t want to be defensive even though I found myself heading in that direction. “Maybe we should just decide what we want our relationship to look like.”

  Her expression turned thoughtful. I felt antsy for some reason. She had kicked off her boots when she pulled her feet up into the seat with her. Now I reached out and grabbed those feet and gently tugged them toward me.

  She gave a little squeak. “Hey! You don’t want to touch those!”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “They smell!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Girls have this ridiculous notion of what smells and what doesn’t. Your feet don’t smell.”

  To prove my point, I lifted one of her feet right up to my face and gave it a huge sniff. I could smell a little bit of what I might call a lotion smell. Floral in nature maybe. And detergent from her sock. I began kneading the muscles of her foot, paying special attention to the arches.

  I think she took a breath to argue with me, but the only thing that actually came out was a soft sigh. “Oh my word,” she whispered. “That feels amazing! What are you doing?”

  “Is this where I start bragging about my magic fingers?” I teased.

  She giggled and flopped back against the fluffy sofa cushions. “I don’t know. Is this where I need to worry about you pulling off my leggings and having your wild wicked way with me?”

  “Sounds tempting,” I told her. “Is that what you want our relationship to look like? We just act like bunnies humping all day and all night long?”

  “I think that sounds great.” She made a face at me. “You think you can handle that? If you’re out of shape we might need to get you into a practice program or something.”

  “A practice program?” I snorted. “I feel like that’s what masturbation should be classified as. Practicing for the real thing.”

  “So a one night stand would be like a scrimmage?” she suggested. “Like you’re practicing for the real game?”

  “Yeah. I’ll skip that part. Thanks.” I shook my head and tried not to think about that concept as I gently rubbed the soles of her soft feet. They were so tiny compared to mine. It was kind of fun to sit here massaging them so that I could work my way up her muscular calves toward her knees.
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  “I don’t know that I can put parameters on it like that,” Tansy finally told me. “I don’t think I can be in a relationship where I’m trying to fill a quota. Like we’re dating and that means we go out every Friday and Saturday night and on Sunday mornings we make love.”

  “While I like the way that sounds,” I told her with amusement. “Especially the Sunday morning part, I do understand what you’re getting at. It’s not as much fun to script all of these things. So for example, it isn’t Sunday morning,” I told her gravely. “So if I wanted to do this”—I lightly slipped my hand up her leg and rested it on the inside of her thigh—“on a Friday night, that would technically be against the rules.”

  “I see.” She nodded her head mockingly. “And if I told you that I like that, but that you were making me super horny and it was only Friday night, we would have to stop if it violated some plan we’d come up with.”

  “Exactly.”

  I leaned forward and massaged her legs. I lightly worked the muscles of her calves and her thighs. I felt the lycra material of her leggings heating up as her body temperature began to soar. Her breathing was starting to change. I felt her shift beneath my hands. She seemed to soften.

  Shifting position on the couch, I stretched out beside her. She didn’t protest. She even wiggled to give me more room. I propped my head on my hand for a moment and then I could no longer resist the urge to kiss her. I lowered my mouth to hers and kept one hand on the inside of her thigh as I gave her a slow, lingering kiss on the lips.

  I moved my mouth against hers, lazily making love to her with my lips and my tongue. I pushed past the seam of her lips and let my tongue stroke hers. She met me halfway, rubbing herself against me and undulating from head to toe as her hands came up to tangle in my hair. It was a sweet duel we engaged in, the advance and retreat rhythm escalating everything to a point just below desperation. I wanted her so badly that it felt as though my cock were about to claw its way out of my pants.