Too Fast
Alexia Haynes
Chapter One
Savannah
Best sleep ever, I admitted as I rolled away from the man warming my bed. Best sex ever, if I was going to be honest. I had to get him out of here and leave for work. I’d finally had my one night stand, and it was time to bail on this guy.
I had to work today, and I had forty pages of anthropology journal articles to read. What time was it? Where was my phone? I always kept it close by. Well not always, I admitted, remembering the heated desperation I’d succumbed to as Luke peeled my top off. I’d licked every inch of the man, running my tongue over muscle after muscle, and the tribal tattoo on his other bicep. Heat shot to my core, and I rolled back toward him, curious to see if his body truly was as smoking as I remembered.
Don’t wake him up. I rose up on my elbow to see over his back to his ripped arm. I couldn’t resist running my fingers over his arm and then the image of his stomach hit me full force. My mouth watered, and I risked reaching around to touch the muscles of his chest and abdomen.
Oh yeah.
“Good morning, beautiful,” a husky voice drawled as the specimen of hot male body rolled over and wrapped his arm around me. He kissed my forehead, then my cheek, and finally my lips. At the rough sensation of his stubble scraping my skin, my body went from languid to fully aroused.
Get dressed, I told myself. Get out. One-night stand is over. Send the sexpot packing, Savannah. For heaven’s sake, don’t screw up the one-night stand.
“I can’t,” I mumbled into his mouth.
“Can’t what?” he said before sucking my bottom lip into his mouth.
Oh my God.
“I don’t do this. Sleep around.”
“Now that’s a shame, Darlin’ because you sure are good at it.”
A lesser man would know better than to use such an obvious line. I laughed right in his face. “Seriously? You actually said that just now?”
“Don’t run from the truth, Savannah.”
Oh no. The sound of my name on his lips almost did me in.
I held up my hand and placed it on his chest to hold him at bay. “This was my first and only one-night stand. And it’s not night anymore. So you need to go.”
“You didn’t finish your research, College Girl. The night doesn’t end until both of us are up and out of bed. And,” he said with a sexy smirk, “our night isn’t nearly finished.”
My hand moved back to his stomach, stroking instead of pushing him away. Stupid hand.
“I knew you’d listen to reason,” he murmured as he dipped his head to run his tongue under the curve of my breast.
I was all in now. Nothing was going to tear me away from another, may as well admit it, two or three orgasms courtesy of Luke.
I was halfway there with his hot mouth sucking my nipple when the air-raid worthy high decibel peals of my alarm pierced the air and Luke jumped off me like he’d just seen my daddy with a shotgun.
Scrambling for the pile of clothes on the floor, I dug for my phone and turned off my alarm clock as I grabbed his t-shirt to hold in front of me.
“Damn it, woman.” Luke shoved his hand through his hair. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“I can’t afford to oversleep,” I said.
His lips curved back into a grin. “You think you’re hiding from me under that shirt? Isn’t it a little too late for that?”
Luke’s sexy smile was glorious, sexy perfection. As my eyes roamed over the rest of him, I mentally kicked myself for wasting so much time sleeping this morning.
“Come on back to bed, Savannah, before you catch a chill.”
“I can’t.” I motioned to my phone. “I have to get to work.”
He sat down on the bed, pulled the sheet over himself, and lay back on the pillow. “So you get ready faster than usual. I’ll make it worth your while.”
Oh, I knew he would. “Can’t. I always set it for the last possible second. Fifteen minutes from bed to door.” I glanced at my phone. “I’ve already lost four minutes.”
“Go in late,” he urged. “An hour. A half hour.”
“I can’t,” I said, tamping down my disappointment. “If I’m late, they’ll move me back to the concession stand, and I can’t study there.” I didn’t trust myself to withstand much more cajoling, so I rushed out of the room. I crammed my hair into a messy bun and climbed in my shower before the water had time to warm up, but the cruel assault of cold water didn’t compare to the pain of leaving a man like Luke alone in my bed. The man wasn’t even my type, and I had no idea how I’d hooked up with him. Apparently, Savannah on tequila shots had higher standards for a man’s physique. Skinnier, artsier, and disenchanted was more my style. Luke had muscles, vitality, and testosterone. Booyah!
Two minutes later, I was drying off and slipping on the white blouse, black pants, and white bow tie that I had hung on the back of the bathroom door before heading to the party last night. I swiped a brush through my hair and managed a neat pony-tail before going back to my room.
A fully dressed Luke lounged on my bed. “Wow,” he said, “you weren’t kidding.”
“I’m fast,” I said, as I searched the top drawer of my dresser for matching socks. No socks. I never had matching socks. Socks were the bane of my existence. I went to the closet and grabbed a pair of cheap black flats and slipped them on.
I grabbed my polar fleece jacket off the floor and glanced around for my phone.
“Nine minutes,” Luke said. “Nobody will believe it. A woman who can hit the door that fast?”
“I’m fast,” I agreed.
“But not easy,” he said in a softer tone.
“Not easy,” I said, smiling at him.
He stood, and I realized I’d been hoping he’d stay there until I got home tonight.
“I knew you’d want my number,” he said, nodding toward my phone in his hand. “Now you can call me tonight.”
Maybe if I could tear my eyes away from his biceps and that tattoo, I would have noticed my cell in his hand.
I took my phone from him. “Yeah, thanks.” I wouldn’t be calling him. One-night stand.
“Waitress?” he asked, eying my outfit.
“Would I get any tips in these pants?” I asked. “Besides, I’m way too clumsy.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I grinned at the memory of our perfectly matched rhythm and opened the bedroom door. “I do a little better horizontally than vertically.”
Luke came up behind me and placed his hand on the small of my back. “You weren’t horizontal the whole night.”
I couldn’t help grinning like an idiot at the memories, at the close proximity to this hunk of man, at being completely in sync with another human being.
He leaned in and kissed the top of my head.
I was two seconds away from pushing him back down on my bed and climbing on top of him. Go to work, Savannah.
“Are you sneaking me out, or do your roommates know I’m here?”
“Oh, they aren’t around. Madison will be at church by now, and no way will Aubrey be up before noon.” I led the way to the front door of our side of the house. We stepped outside, and I turned my key in the lock.
He walked me to my car and then climbed into the older black SUV he’d driven me home in.
The man was so much temptation all wrapped up in jeans and a snug t-shirt. I was going to have to delete his number from my phone as soon as I got to work so I didn’t accidentally call him for an encore.
The patrons for the one o’clock movies were in their theaters happily munching away on popcorn, and I had the down-time I cherished with my full load of classes and my forty to fifty hour per week work schedule. Normally I packed all the studying I could into the
time between the rushes. Today I was misappropriating a few precious minutes to call my girl, Sophie.
I leaned against the box office wall, in what I knew from experience was the best possible angle for making sure my manager didn’t see me on my cell phone. Luckily the camera in the box office had broken six months ago, so I didn’t have to lean at a forty-five degree angle like I had in the past.
“I did it,” I told her when she answered.
“Did what?”
“Soph, I did it. I went through with it. I had my one-night stand.”
“Get out!” she screeched. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Apparently I did,” I said, rather proud of myself for sticking to my guns.
“I didn’t see you leave.”
“Yeah, you were kind of busy,” I teased. “What was that about?”
“Nuh-uh. You first. Spill.”
“I met this guy, Luke.” I cringed, suddenly terrified that she knew him. I had signed on for anonymous and short-term, but life had a way of getting complicated. “You don’t know him, do you?”
“No.” She sounded surprised. “I don’t know any Lukes at all. Let me guess, kind of scrawny, messy hair, and jaded.”
I’d pay her back later for that dig at my usual taste in guys. “Nope. Clean cut, built, and smokin’ hot.”
“Nuh-uh. Seriously?”
“The man had muscles everywhere.” I glanced around the lobby to be sure nobody saw me grinning like a moron. “Total hunk-fest.”
“How did you end up with a beef cake? You hate that steroid-enhanced look.”
“He wasn’t on steroids. Not overdone.” I thought for a moment. “Just full of strength. He had a nice body.”
“What were you drinking?”
“Tequila shots.”
“Maybe that explains it.” She was quiet for a moment before saying, “Oh, oh, oh. I know!” like a kid in class who was desperate to give the answer. “It was Magic Mike!”
“No, Soph. He was real, and his name was Luke.”
“I mean you totally hooked up with this guy because of the movie.”
Crap. She could be right. I had experienced a whole new level of appreciation for men’s bodies while watching Magic Mike.
“You said, and I quote, that you were finally able to look at men as sex objects after seeing that.”
I had said that, and I had meant it too. “Luke’s body put those guys to shame,” I admitted.
I held the phone away from my ear while she hooted and laughed. “Why didn’t you make sure I met him, Savannah? I feel like I’ve missed out on an integral part of your journey to adulthood.”
No way should I tell her what I’d discovered on my phone when I’d clocked in. “I have his picture.”
“Nuh-uh. Send it now. I can’t believe you took his picture!”
“I didn’t. He did when he put his number in my phone.”
“Uh-oh. That’s a violation of the one-night stand guidelines.”
“I didn’t ask him to. I was in the shower.”
“We’ll discuss this later. Now send the picture. I’m dying here.”
“Okay, bye.” I pressed end and then texted the picture to her. I maybe spent a minute or two looking at his picture after I sent it. He’d taken it while his shirt was still off. He was reclining on my bed with one hand under his head and the other arm extended to take the picture. If he’d tried for the sexy, sulky look, I could have deleted the pic right then and there, but he didn’t. Luke had snapped himself smiling at me. He looked relaxed, happy, and right at home on my double bed.
My phone vibrated in my hand and a text popped up from Sophie. Holy Crap! Yummalicious! How did I not see him at the party?
She’d been preoccupied with Shane. Lucky for me, because one smile from Sophie, and Luke would have followed her home instead of me. Nothing would have happened with Sophie and Luke. They would have flirted and talked, and he would have fallen head over heels in love with her just like every other guy in the world. Then when Sophie and Shane got back together in a week like they always did, he’d start avoiding all of us because the pain of not being with her was too great. I’d seen the same stupid scene go down time after time. Sometimes I ditched Sophie just so I could meet some guys who didn’t fall in love with my best friend at first sight. Even Alex, our über-cute gay friend had admitted he’d give heterosexuality a shot if she offered him a night in her bed. Sophie swore he was kidding, but I had my doubts.
With a wistful sigh, I turned off my phone. I had to work five to eleven at my current second job, a call center where I made reservations for a large hotel chain. I hated that work with a passion. The headset made my right ear hurt, the managers were assholes, and I couldn’t study. I couldn’t get enough hours at the theater though, and nothing better had come up. I was pretty sure that I’d lose it one of these shifts and yell for the customers to learn how to use the internet like normal people. So far, I’d held it together.
Sighing, I sat down at the counter and pulled out my study materials. I had wasted enough time. If I was going to get these read for my nine o’clock class, I had to do it now.
Chapter Two
Savannah
At eleven, I signed out, logged off the computer, went to store my headset in my locker. I was exhausted. Apparently, I hadn’t gotten enough rest last night.
I pulled into a space on the street down from my house. We never had enough parking, and five cars had been creatively crammed into the part gravel, part weeds through cement.
When Aubrey had friends over, I had no idea what to expect. I could only hope these were Madison’s guests. And I was really hoping Sophie would come by.
I opened the front door, which they really should have locked, but of course hadn’t.
Before I could take everything in, Sophie called out, “We thought you’d never get home. Tell us everything.”
Uggh. Sophie, Madison, Madison’s even more virginal friend Lily who I couldn’t decide if I liked or not, and Aubrey. Aubrey was never home this early, which meant she had postponed her nightly prowl for a man in order to hear about my one-night stand. I sighed in relief when I realized there weren’t any guys here. I’d have been humiliated to reveal my sluttiness in front of a guy I knew, and the guys Madison and Lily ran around with were too sanctimonious for me to deal with right now.
Sophie patted a spot next to her on the Ugly Couch. We had two, one nice and new but not comfortable, and the Ugly Couch, which was a faded 90’s plaid but was heaven to lounge on. I set down my bag, pulled my phone out of my pocket, and sat down.
The others leaned forward in anticipation.
I shifted and willed myself to stand up to their scrutiny. “I did it,” I said. “I had my one-night stand.”
“And?” Sophie prompted.
“It was really, really good,” I admitted.
“How did I miss seeing this guy?” Aubrey griped.
“Probably because you were bouncing away on your own mattress so you could carve another notch in your bedpost,” Madison said.
Aubrey didn’t take offense. She was unrepentant about her slutty lifestyle. She may not have carved them into her bedpost, but she did have a notebook where she kept a list.
“What was he doing at Eric’s party, anyway?” Aubrey asked. “I’ve never seen him around.”
“True,” Madison said. “We would have noticed a guy that hot.”
I turned to glare at Sophie.
“I showed them his picture,” she said with a guilty wince.
No wonder they were so interested.
“He has muscles, Savannah,” Madison said. “It’s so unlike you.”
“I know.” Heat rose to my cheeks as I remembered expressing my adoration for those muscles.
“Are you going to call him?” Lily asked. “I want you to call him.”
Luke was so hot that he even got Lily all hot and bothered. “Um, no. I can’t.” The more I let myself think about it, the more
I wanted to call him. Summon him actually. Maybe I could keep him in my room to use whenever I wanted. “It wouldn’t be a one-night stand if I called him.”
“Why does it have to be a one-night stand?” Lily asked.
“The point was to have a fling, get some, er, satisfaction, and then redouble my focus on school.” Boo-yah! Had I gotten satisfaction.
“She doesn’t have the best track record with dating,” Aubrey said, as if she were one to talk. Her life was an endless line of one-night stands. She never slept with the same guy twice.
I didn’t want to be Aubrey. God knows she needed a good hundred grand worth of counseling. But I didn’t want to date another asshole right now either.
“The last guy she dated didn’t have any sheets on his bed,” Madison told her.
“And when she woke up, he had gone to class, and his power was turned off because he hadn’t paid the bill,” Sophie added. “She had to take a cold shower and got to her exam ten minutes late. They only let her in because a football player got there at the same time, and they had to let him in because they needed him to pass the class so he could play in the fall.”
I hadn’t dated anybody since last May. Right before Halloween, I had confessed to Sophie that I was thinking about hooking up with Alex’s roommate from freshman year, who other than being straight, really had nothing to recommend him as a boyfriend. Sophie had intervened, thank God, and saved me from making that mistake. We’d decided the best course of action was a one-night stand with a stranger. No residual impact on our circle of friends, no baggage, no attachments.
I’d rather share Luke’s hotness with them than listen to my own failed adventures in dating. “Okay, so you saw his picture.”
All eyes were back on me.
“He was delicious,” I said, blushing harder. “He was absolutely perfect for last night, and I should be good to go, for… a while.”
“This no baggage, no impact on our circle of friends thing that Sophie came up with,” Aubrey said, “it doesn’t preclude one of us from experiencing that perfection, does it?”
I tensed. No way was she touching Luke.
“Aubrey!” Madison snapped. “Of course it does.”
“We never said anything about the rest of us,” Aubrey argued.
Too Fast Page 1