Under His Touch

by Cathryn Fox

  Soon enough my cock grows flaccid and with much reluctance, I pull out of her and discard the condom. Sprawled out on my bed, her eyes heavy lidded and struggling to remain open, her hair is a tangled mess beneath her. I’ve never seen her look more beautiful. Her breathing changes, grows softer, and I fix the blankets around us, pulling her into my arms so we can get a few hours of sleep.

  She moans, and my pulse beats a bit faster as she snuggles into me, a well-sated woman. I let my gaze fall over her again, and my chest swells, loving that I was the one who did this to her.

  I drop a soft kiss onto her forehead, and as reality begins to trickle back in, I struggle to calm my racing heart. Just like eight years ago, Megan rocked my world in a way no other woman ever has or ever will. But it shouldn’t have happened then, and it shouldn’t have happened now. What the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I be stronger around her? Why would I go and seduce the one girl in the world I need to keep my distance from?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Megan

  I SLEPT WITH ALEC.

  Omigod, I slept with Alec. Last night, after a couple glasses of wine, it seemed like a good idea. I’m a grown woman who’s in charge of her sexuality, so why not, right? Why not take what I want from a man who was willing to give it. We’re both single, consenting adults and I haven’t been touched in a long time. Not that any man has ever touched me the way Alec has, or ever brought me such intense pleasure.

  But now, under the stark light of morning, a headache brewing in the back of my head, I’m second-guessing my decision-making abilities. Truthfully, as much as I want to blame it on the alcohol, I can’t. I wanted him. I wanted my hands on his body, his on mine. I wanted to feel his hard cock inside me, taking me to places no man has ever been able to take me. But why did he want me in his bed, if I’m clearly not his type?

  I guess his cock didn’t get the memo.

  I lay perfectly still between the warm sheets, sorting things through as I listen to his soft breathing. I told him I hadn’t been with a guy in a long time, and Alec and I have a history. Perhaps I reeked of desperation, and he was just doing me a favor. Still, desperation or not, he wanted it, too.

  Nevertheless, I should go, get out of here before we have our second—eight years later—awkward morning after. But what are the chances that I can get out of here without waking him, and move to Canada before he figures out I’m even gone?

  “You okay?” he asks quietly.

  I flinch at the sound of Alec’s voice. So much for sneaking out. The mattress moves as he rolls my way, and the warmth of his fingers on my chin as he angles my head until we’re eye to eye awakens my body all over again. In his sleep-rumpled state, his hair an unkempt mess, he’s even more beautiful than ever.

  And I slept with him.

  But the real problem is, I want to do it again.

  Then keep doing it.

  A groan catches in my throat as his gaze moves over my face, assessing me. “Hey,” he whispers, the softness in his voice, the genuine concern in his eyes, warming me all over. “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” I squeak out, but he frowns at the lie.

  “Are you overthinking this?” he asks. I can’t hide anything from this man. He knows me far too well. And he’s right. I’m overthinking this. Like I always do. Heck, for the last eight years I’ve been overthinking the night I seduced him.

  “Actually, I was just thinking about moving to Canada,” I say, a successful attempt to lighten the mood, judging by the smile spreading across his face. When that smile reaches his eyes, my heart leaps because in this instant, I realize I’m looking at the boy from my youth, not the anti-love guy who says he’s not a nice man. What I’d do to have the old Alec back full-time. I swallow against a tight throat, and it’s all I can do not to weep for the loss of our closeness.

  He lightly brushes my hair back, those intense blue eyes roaming my face. “Did you enjoy yourself, Megs?”

  Megs, oh, God, the nickname.

  “Immensely,” I say, my sated body aching in all the right places.

  “Good. Me, too.”

  “But we need to make one thing clear. It was just sex. I’m not looking for or asking anything else of you. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me,” I add.

  “I won’t.”

  “Good.”

  “It was just sex,” he says. “I get it. Not a problem.”

  “I shouldn’t have seduced you,” I blurt out, and avoid adding again to the end of the sentence.

  A crooked grin curls one corner of his luscious mouth and all I can think about is how his lips felt on my body, between my legs. “You think...” he begins but stops when I pull the blankets up to cover the red blush crawling up my neck. “Hey, wait, no need to be embarrassed,” he says. “We’re adults, doing what adults do.”

  “I’ve been hired to find you a wife and plan your wedding, Alec,” I point out. “We shouldn’t have done this.”

  His entire body stiffens at the blunt reminder, and a second later he gives a curt, almost dismissive nod. “You’re right, and we have work to do this morning.” He tears his gaze away and gone is the softness in his voice, his face...his posture. My God, the man is such a contradiction, soft and sweet one minute, all business the next. If I’m not careful I’m going to end up with whiplash. “Let’s chalk it up to a night of fun, and put it behind us.”

  “That’s exactly what we need to do,” I say, but my heart is already warning me that it won’t be as easy for me as it will be for him. I can’t—won’t—fall for this man again. I want a loving marriage and family, and his goals are in complete contrast to that. We both know that. Any more time in his bed, fun or not, might just draw me back into a place I simply refuse to go.

  From the other room my phone buzzes, the special ringtone letting me know it’s Amanda. Great, just great. She’s going to want a play-by-play rundown, and no way will I be able to hide this from her. One look at me and she’ll know I had sex with Alec. He’d better hide his farm parts. But oh, what amazing parts he has.

  Stop thinking about his equipment, already.

  “You going to get that?” he asks, his voice lacking warmth, as he kicks his blankets off, exposing his nakedness to me. He stands and stretches and my goddamn mouth waters.

  “Ah, what are you doing?” I ask.

  “Going to grab a shower.” He glances down at his bare body. “Oh, I didn’t think... I mean, you’ve seen me naked.”

  “It doesn’t mean I want to again.”

  That’s a lie.

  I do.

  “You better grab your phone. Whoever’s calling doesn’t seem like they’re about to give up.” With that he walks to the bathroom, his cute ass dragging my focus the whole way. It’s only when he shuts the door that I’m able to think again. “Jesus,” I murmur under my breath, and search the floor for the sweatpants he gave me to wear last night. I scoop up my ripped underwear and ignore the quiver careening through my blood. I’ve never had a man rip my panties from my hips before. Okay, stop thinking about how hot that was.

  I scan the floor for my T-shirt and that’s when I remember I took it off in the living room. Oh, hell. I open the bedroom door, and dash through the apartment. I grab the shirt and quickly tug it on. Feeling a whole lot less exposed, I dig my phone from my purse and swipe my finger over the screen.

  “Where are you?” Amanda asks.

  “What...uh...what are you talking about?” I feign innocence, but I’m guessing she won’t have any of that.

  “I’m standing outside your apartment with two lattes. We have yoga this morning, or did you forget?”

  “I forgot.”

  Silence for a moment, and then, “Oh, my God, you slept with him.”

  I glance over my shoulder. “Amanda...” I begin quietly.

  “Jesus, Megan, what were you t
hinking?” she huffs out.

  “Last night I was thinking, why the hell not,” I say.

  “And today, what are you thinking today?”

  How is it everyone can read me so well? Am I that much of an open book? “I’m thinking I had a great time, and now we’re back to business. It won’t be happening again. Maybe it was just something we needed to get out of our system.” Okay, girl, get it together. Overthinking and rambling. My two specialties.

  Amanda goes quiet again and I can visualize her rubbing that spot on her forehead. “Are you okay?”

  I walk to the window and look out at the Hudson River below. I take a deep yoga breath and let it out slowly, instantly calming myself down. “I’m perfectly fine.”

  “Don’t shit me,” she warns.

  “I’m fine. We had sex, talked about it, and now we’re getting back to the business of finding him a wife.”

  A pause and then, “One more question?”

  “What?”

  “Did he make your eyes roll back in your head?”

  “Three times,” I say, and cover my mouth to stifle a chuckle.

  “That’s good, then. I’m drinking your latte and going back to bed. When you get back, wake me and I want all the details.”

  “Everything okay?” Alec asks, coming into the room dressed in nothing but track pants. My gaze falls, takes in his bare chest, the oblique muscles that are guiding my eyes down.

  “Yes, it was my friend. I forgot that we had yoga this morning.”

  He points upward. “I’m doing laps in a few. You can join me if you want to get in some exercise.” I look up at his ceiling and he explains. “Rooftop pool.”

  “It’s a bit chilly for that, isn’t it?”

  “The pool is heated and glassed in. Coffee?”

  “Yes, please,” I say, and follow him into the kitchen. I glance around the massive space and take in the state-of-the-art appliances as he goes to his coffeemaker, but it’s not just any coffeemaker. With all the spouts, buttons and gadgets, it’s the fancy kind you’d find at a high-end coffee boutique.

  “Mocha latte?” he asks.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I never kid about my coffee,” he says, and I laugh. Even when we were teens he loved his coffee. He glances at me over his shoulder. “I need to get my laps in this morning. I have some paperwork that needs my attention this afternoon. To speed things up, would you mind asking questions while I exercise?”

  “Uh, I guess not.”

  He pours milk into a metal cup, sticks it under a spout and steams it. “You’re welcome to swim if you want.”

  “I don’t have a suit.”

  The muscles on his back ripple, the same way they did when I ran my fingers over his body. He finishes making my coffee and hands it to me. I take a seat at the gigantic island and breathe in the welcoming scent.

  “If you’ll excuse me for a minute,” he says. He disappears into the other room and comes back doing something on his tablet. He hits a few buttons, and I assume it must be some work emergency, then he goes back to making his coffee.

  “Do you still like Pop-Tarts for breakfast?” he asks.

  “No, I kind of gave that up when I became an adult. I usually have yogurt, toast or sometimes just a protein bar.” My stomach takes that moment to grumble. “I seem to be hungrier than usual this morning.”

  Way to bring up all the sex we had, Megan.

  “It was a late night,” he simply says. “I’m not that well stocked, but I do have bread in the freezer. That will get us by, and after our swim I’ll order us in a proper breakfast. We’ll have it at the pool.”

  “You don’t have to do that. Toast will do, and I should head out right after we finish the questionnaire. I have some work to do on a Bar Mitzvah today.”

  He makes his coffee, takes a sip and eyes me over the rim. “If you think I’m letting you leave here without properly feeding you—”

  “Bossy much,” I say. “Glad they asked that on the form. We wouldn’t want any woman to think you were easy to get along with.”

  “It’s settled, then,” he says, not bothering to disagree. He opens the freezer, pulls out the frozen bread and places four slices in the toaster. “I have butter, jam and peanut butter.”

  “Strawberry jam?”

  “Is there really any other kind worth having?” he asks, and pulls it from the fridge.

  “This coffee is so good,” I say, and take a big sip. “I’m going to have to invest in one of those machines. I’ll need an engineering degree to figure out how to use it, though.”

  He chuckles softly. “It’s not so hard.” He takes another sip of coffee and goes serious. “How is this all going to work? Once you set up the profile for me, then what?”

  “Well, I’m going to pretend to be you online. Vet the women to see if I think they’d be a good match. I’ll set up the date, tell you where to be, at what time and what to wear. I probably should check your wardrobe.”

  “You’ll find mostly suits and gym clothes.”

  “Then we might need to go shopping.”

  “Do you think that’s necessary?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I don’t think—”

  I hold my hand up to stop him when the toast pops. “I’m in charge here. That’s the only way this is going to work. If you want me to find you a ‘suitable’ wife...” I pause to do air quotes around that one word “...then you have to put yourself in my hands.”

  His muscles tighten, and I’m almost one hundred percent sure his cock just twitched at my poor choice of words. He mumbles something under his breath, pulls two plates from his cupboard and slides me two slices. I twist the lid off the jam as he grabs a spoon from his drawer and comes around the island to sit next to me.

  “Here’s the thing, though. You’re kind of well-known, so I was thinking maybe we should use your middle name and we can take a sideways picture or something distant. Give them enough to work with but maybe not identifiable as you.”

  He hands me the spoon, and my fingers brush his as I accept it. The heat from his flesh trickles through my traitorous body and I work to ignore the frisson of need as I dip the spoon into the jar and come out with a big scoop of strawberry jam. I coat my toast and hand the spoon back, this time taking care not to touch him.

  “Are you afraid my real identity will scare them off?”

  “I’d just rather a woman walk in without any preconceived notions.”

  “Makes sense, but I’m not going to hide the fact that I’m looking for a wife in name only.”

  I open my mouth to ask if he’d at least try, but quickly stop myself. The man is stubborn, and bossy, and when he has his mind hell-bent on something, there is no way I’m going to change it. I’d just be fighting a losing battle.

  “Do you have any out-of-town trips that I should know about?” I ask instead.

  “Not unless something unexpected comes up.”

  “I’m going to need a copy of your work agenda and meeting times if I’m going to be scheduling dates for you.”

  “I’ll have my assistant get that to you.” He angles his head. “Anything else, boss?”

  I roll my eyes at him. “Not that I can think of right now.”

  “Will you need a key to my place?”

  “And risk the chance of walking in on you in the middle of...” I let my words fall off as I envision Alec in his bed with another woman, doing all the things to her that he’s recently done to me. Get it together, Megan. “Actually it might be a good idea,” I say. It’s best if he doesn’t think I care if he’s here with another woman, considering that’s the whole reason for me being here in the first place. And really, I don’t care. Not one little bit. “If you bring a woman back here, I’d like to have your kitchen stocked a bit better, and a few homey tou
ches would be nice. I can arrange that. I want things perfect. We need this to work for both our sakes.”

  “I’ll get you a key,” he says, like he’s not happy about the whole thing.

  I bite into my toast, chew and wash it down with a mouthful of delicious coffee. Alec does the same and then turns to me. With a piece of toast halfway to his mouth he asks, “You’re really going to pretend to be me online?”

  “Yes, except more charming.”

  He goes perfectly still for a second before he lets loose a laugh. “You don’t think I’m charming, Megs,” he asks, and nudges my chin with his fist.

  “I don’t really know you anymore, Alec,” I say, and it instantly changes the mood. He pulls his hand back, more aloof than usual as he finishes his toast. He stands to put his plate in the dishwasher when the doorbell rings.

  “Expecting company?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says, and I check the time as he disappears around the corner. Who could he be expecting on a Saturday morning at ten? I glance at my clothes and jump from the stool, panicked. I’m hardly dressed to greet his guests, and what if it’s a woman—one of his many. But then I remember he doesn’t bring women into his home, and I’m only here because he’s trying it on for size. Maybe that’s why my seduction worked. Maybe he was trying a woman out in his bed for size, too.

  Okay, Megan, stop overthinking everything.