open-minded and beguilingly humble. Someone with your success should have a bigger ego.”
She opened her eyes and found him watching her face. He smiled at her, and she smiled back. “I’ll try not to be jealous of the gorgeous, young, pregnant blonde living under your roof.”
“Oh, she’s not staying with me anymore.” He shook his head. “She’s staying with my mom.”
“Your mom? So you told her the baby is yours?” Why else would she take in a pregnant stranger?
He snorted on a laugh. “Uh, no. It’s just my mother likes to take in strays—stray kids, stray animals, stray pregnant groupies.”
“So you often drop off your pregnant groupies at your mother’s house?”
He laughed again. An anxious laugh. “What? No, of course not. Lindsey is the first.”
“But she’s yours,” Caitlyn pressed.
“Quit twisting my words,” he said. “I could have let her stay at my place, but I didn’t think you’d like that arrangement.”
Fighting down the jealousy eating at her, she stared at him for a long moment. This was just a fling, she reminded herself. Sex and fun and nothing more. “Why would I care if she stays at your place?”
Yes, Caitlyn, why? Because she did care, even though she knew she shouldn’t. She wasn’t very good at this frivolous, meaningless relationship stuff. Maybe she’d eventually get the hang of it. But when he said all the right things and made her feel good about herself in addition to being an all-around great guy, keeping him at an emotional distance was difficult. And they hadn’t even been together an hour.
“Can we not talk about Lindsey?” Owen asked. “I came here to spend time with you. To get to know you better. She’s enough of an invasion into my life without me letting her dig her claws into me here as well.”
“So you don’t think it’s your baby?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I just want to be irresponsible and self-centered for a few more months. Is that too much to ask?”
She forced herself not to laugh. Maybe he had a reputation of being irresponsible and self-centered, but she never felt he was either of those things. He was kind, considerate, and thoughtful. And just the right amount of dirty and dangerous. But mostly he was nice.
“I don’t want to talk about Lindsey either,” she admitted, dipping a carrot stick into ranch dressing and biting into it with a satisfying crunch.
“Good,” he said, his shoulders relaxing as the tension in his back eased.
“I’d rather talk to you about my list.” She kept her eyes fixed on the countertop before her.
“What list?”
“A list of my fantasies.”
“Ride a unicorn in a crystal forest fantasies or sexual fantasies?”
She met his gaze and grinned. “Well, I meant sexual fantasies, but do you have a unicorn?”
“I could probably find one.”
She rolled her eyes at him. Even rock stars couldn’t find a unicorn.
“Are you truly all-in on the threesome with another woman?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, crinkling her brow. She felt that she was missing something important.
“Then I’ll find us a unicorn. What’s your type? I’m assuming no young blondes.”
“Aren’t all unicorns white?”
He lifted a brow at her. “Do you have something against women of color?”
“What?” She shook her head vigorously. She was of mixed heritage herself; how could he even ask her that? “Of course I don’t. Are we even talking about the same thing?”
“A unicorn.”
“Right.”
“A woman who enjoys having sex with a committed heterosexual couple,” he clarified.
She blinked at him. “They call that a unicorn?”
He chuckled. “Well, they are incredibly rare, but I’ve run across a few of them in my, um . . . adventures.”
She massaged her forehead. “I feel so dense. I thought we were talking about an actual unicorn.”
“Actual unicorns aren’t real, but the kind I prefer are.”
So he preferred two women at once, was that what he was saying? “A threesome with a woman is on my list, but it’s not at the top.”
She went to the refrigerator and pulled her fantasy list from its magnetic clip. She’d hung it between her grocery list and her to-do list.
“You made an actual list? And wrote it down?” He chuckled, but his laughter died when she glared at him.
“You can’t make fun of me for this. I’d be mortified.”
“I won’t make fun.”
She cozied up next to him at the kitchen island, her list pressed against her bare belly.
“I did some research.”
“You did research?” He pressed his lips together, but managed not to laugh.
She nodded. “I did, and I ranked a handful of fantasies in accordance to my interest and then assigned each to a room in my house. If they required props, I went out and bought everything we’d need and set it up.”
“I take it you’re a planner?”
She flushed, trying not to be embarrassed. Focusing on every detail had seemed like a great idea at the time. Now she felt foolish.
“I, yeah, well, I can’t help it. Is it better to just be spontaneous?”
He would know. He was the expert.
“Let’s see the list,” he said.
“You won’t laugh at me?”
“I won’t.”
She wasn’t sure if she believed him, but she begrudgingly handed over the list.
He read the first item and glanced at the wall clock. “Seems we’re already off schedule,” he said.
Her face flamed. “Those are just guidelines. And we added sex in the foyer. I hadn’t planned for that one.”
“You didn’t appreciate my spontaneity?”
“Oh, trust me, I did. And this isn’t set in stone. I’m flexible.”
His grin was oh so naughty. “How flexible we talking here, Caitlyn?”
This double entendre didn’t go over her head the way the unicorn one had.
“Well, if you’ll skip down to number . . .” She glanced at the list and pointed to a line near the center of the page. “. . . seventeen, you’ll recognize that I’m fairly flexible.”
He grunted softly. “I see. What if I’m not that flexible?” He lifted his gaze, a worried scowl on his face.
“We can improvise.”
“This is a lot of pressure to put on a guy,” he said.
She hadn’t even considered that when she’d been devising her list, but she recognized that he was right.
“Sorry,” she said, pulling the paper from his fingers. “It was a stupid idea.”
“It’s a brilliant idea,” he said, grabbing the page and crinkling it in his haste. He laid it on the countertop and smoothed it out. “How about we meet in the middle here?”
“Start with number twenty-five? I’m not sure we know each other well enough to do that just yet.”
He read number twenty-five and actually blushed. “I think you might be right. That is pretty intimate.” He tore his gaze from her list and met her eyes. “I meant, I have your list of fantasies, and I’d love to work at making them all a reality, but do we really need a schedule? Do we have to go through them one by one like a script, or can we be a little more spontaneous?”
“I know this might come as a huge shock to you, but I’m really not that spontaneous. The most spontaneous thing I’ve ever done in my life was have a one-night stand with you. Well, I’d thought it would be one night at the time,” she quickly amended.
“And was it a truly terrible experience?” he asked.
“A bit unnerving,” she admitted. “But no, not terrible.” It could have gone terribly wrong, though. Thinking back, she wondered how she’d ever convinced herself to enter that sex club in the first place. “It was wonderful, actually. But I’m not sure I could do anything that spontaneous again.”
He
squeezed her hand. “I’m positive that you can. And I’d be more than happy to work near the edge of your comfort zone. Especially now that you’ve spelled it all out for me.”
She licked her lips nervously. “Charles would have made fun of me for making a list. Caitlyn, Caitlyn,” she said in his typical condescending tone, “you wouldn’t know fun if it rode in on a hippopotamus playing the trombone.”
Owen laughed and pulled her into his arms for a hug. And maybe his hands did drift down to squeeze her ass, but she honestly didn’t mind.
“You know how to have fun,” he told her.
“But I don’t. Not really. I haven’t had any real fun in over a decade.” Her night with Owen the one major exception.
“Did you ever consider that your lack of fun wasn’t a personal problem but because you were with the wrong man?”
She shook her head. “Charles was always having fun without me.”
“What kind of fun?”
“He’d play golf or read the classics or go to the theater or screw freshmen on his desk.”
“And do you find any of those activities a complete and total blast?”
“I’ve never tried screwing a freshman, but I do like theater. Musicals, specifically, but Charles hates them. He’s into character pieces. And political monologues.”
Owen yawned exaggeratedly. “You aren’t boring, Caitlyn,” he said. “You were just married to a total, snobbish bore for so long, you haven’t had a chance to figure out what you find fun.” He leaned in to kiss the pulse point beneath her ear. “Or sexy.”
“I find you to be both fun and sexy,” she said, her fingers burrowing into his soft hair to keep his mouth on her.
“So maybe now you’ve found the right man to bring you back to life.”
She urged his head back by tugging on his hair. “You’re not getting serious about us, are you?”
He searched her eyes for a long tense moment and then smiled as if he’d just told the biggest joke ever conceived. “Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?”
Wishful thinking?
No, not that. She didn’t want a serious relationship so soon after her divorce. Especially not with a younger man, a rock star, or a party animal. And Owen was all of those things. He was definitely what she needed to get out of her funk, but not life-partner material. Not that she was looking for that anytime soon. Because she wasn’t.
“You said I’d found the right man.”
“To bring you back to life.” He produced a scoffing snort and stared off over her shoulder. “Not to marry you.”
“Right,” she said, thinking he was a bit too affected to be entirely sincere about his detachment. In her head she could still hear Kellen’s warning about Owen falling too hard and fast and how easily he got his feelings hurt, as well as her promise not to destroy him. “I just want to be clear: I’m not looking for more than a little fun and a lot of amazing sex.”
“Well, then,” he said. “You’ve come to the right player.”
Chapter Five
What the hell was wrong with him? Why did he get attached to women so quickly? Owen could manwhore the hell out of a one-night stand, but if he so much as had a decent conversation with a woman, his heart and mind were already making room for her to become the center of his universe. It scared the hell out of any woman who had a shred of self-identity, and he couldn’t blame them for putting up barriers. But, damn, it was hard to keep his head on straight when it was already spinning. He was just going to have to think of Caitlyn—and her fantasy list—as a series of one-night stands. They could have fun and fuck, and he could walk away in two days with fond memories of getting his rocks off with a beautiful woman without any emotional connection to her.
Sure he could. He hugged her against him and looked over her shoulder at the list that lay on the counter. He’d been serious about fulfilling all her fantasies and showing her a few she didn’t realize she had, but he wasn’t a robot. He couldn’t see himself licking whipped cream off her at 1:30 p.m., fucking her bent over a stool at 1:45, adding a vibrator to her ass at 1:50, and spanking her until they both reached orgasm. Okay, he was a liar; he could totally see himself doing all those things. It was the schedule that was destroying his mojo. Maybe he wanted to spank her before he stuck a vibrator up her ass. Or maybe he wanted the vibrator in her pussy and his dick pounding her ass. Had she ever considered those possibilities? He knew he’d rather lick chocolate off her body than whipped cream—chocolate required more thorough tongue action.
But he didn’t want to disappoint her, so he backed her into the counter and reached for the can of whipped cream sitting beside a small tube of lube, a slender vibrator, and a wooden paddle. She had lined them all up in a neat row next to a tub of wet wipes and a box of the brand of condoms he always used. He was surprised she hadn’t labeled everything and added a place card labeled “Kitchen Fantasy #1” followed by step-by-step instructions.
He wouldn’t tease her for knowing—or thinking she knew—exactly what she wanted, but he would mix things up a bit. She was an intelligent woman. She’d soon see that spontaneity was the most exciting part of making love.
Pinning her butt against the cabinets by pressing his pelvis firmly against hers, he leaned back and sprayed a dot of whipped cream into the hollow of her throat. He collected the cream with a gentle swipe of his tongue, and she moaned. Surprised by her excessive reaction, he tried to meet her eyes, but she had them closed.
“Are you up for a little experimentation?” he asked.
Maybe having him follow a script was a total turn-on for her. Maybe it was thinking she was completely in control that had her nipples so hot and hard they seared his chest. Maybe bossing him around made her ache for him the way her sexy voice and thick mane of black hair made him ache for her.
Her eyes cracked open, and she met his gaze with an inquisitive brow raised. “What kind of experimentation?”
She was a scientist, so maybe that word meant something more to her than it did to him.
“Do you have any chocolate syrup? I want to show you something.”
She looked relieved that he hadn’t suggested something more wicked. “I’ll get it.”
She squeezed out from between him and the counter and circled the island. His gaze moving from ankle to ass, he admired her smooth, curvy legs. His otherwise unrestricted view of her nudity was blocked by a narrow swatch of yellow fabric.
“Take off your panties,” he demanded quietly. “I want to see your ass while you obey me.”
She turned abruptly, her hair shifting across her bare back and shoulders, and her soft brown eyes sparking with challenge. When she caught him smirking at her, a bit of the fire went out of her. Or at least that was what he thought until she said, “Make me.”
That was not the reaction he’d expected out of Little Miss Make a Schedule for My Fantasy List. “What?”
“You heard me,” she said, straightening her shoulders, which lifted her breasts into high, perfect globes that demanded he put his mouth on them immediately. “If you want me to take them off, you’ll have to make me.”
He rubbed the back of his neck as he considered her challenge. “I’m not the kind of guy who makes a woman do something she doesn’t want to do.”
One corner of her mouth lifted, as if she thought she’d won. “I guess they stay on, then.”
“I’m the kind of guy who makes a woman want something she shouldn’t so much that she willingly obeys.”
“Is that so?”
She opened the refrigerator and pulled out the bottle of chocolate syrup he’d requested. He didn’t bother pointing out that
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