by Elise Faber
Sex on the Seats
Love After Midnight #4
Elise Faber Faber
SEX ON THE SEATS
BY ELISE FABER
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
SEX ON THE SEATS
Copyright © 2021 Elise Faber
Print ISBN-13: 978-1-946140-93-7
Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-946140-94-4
Cover Art by Jena Brignola
Contents
Love After Midnight
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Newsletter
Love After Midnight
Love After Midnight
Also by Elise Faber Faber
About the Author
Love After Midnight
Rum And Notes
Virgin Daiquiri
On The Rocks
Sex On The Seats
Chapter One
Dominique
I didn’t know what in the fuck I was doing in a bar at midnight on a weeknight.
Not sleeping.
Not getting drunk.
Not working.
Not doing anything aside from nursing the single beer that Hayden’s girlfriend had pulled for me several hours ago.
And staring at myself in the mirror behind the bar, wondering how in the world I’d gotten to this place.
Less in an at-the-actual-bar question and more of a what-the-fuck-was-I-doing-with-my-life sort of way. I’d built connections in the world of private military operations. I took down bad guys on the regular with hardly more than my computer and my wits.
But . . . I didn’t have that.
That being what the rest of this fucking bar composed almost entirely of couples had.
Love.
Multiple different groups of couples in the booths in the back, all with affection shining in their eyes while they partook in nonstop cuddling. It was sickening . . . and something I’d witnessed many times over in the last hours since Hayden had dragged me here after one of our few in-person meetings.
We’d needed to devise a strategy to take down a ring of hackers trying to sell people’s personal information, a really fucking sneaky ring, and sometimes that meant having to look outside the box . . . or the secure chat window that was my preferred mode of contact.
Look, I could schmooze and be charming and woo new clients just as easily as I could hack through someone’s firewall.
But two guesses as to which I preferred.
And it really better only take one.
Anyway, I knew I should have left hours before, but something had made me stay. Maybe the handsome black bartender, who’d swept his beautiful blond girlfriend up into a kiss when she’d brought him a plate of cookies—and yes, I was good enough at my job to know that the bartender was Brent and his fiancé was Iris. I’d done a full background on Hayden before I hired him, including his sister and her boyfriend, Kace, who owned the bar. All of whom were currently spending the majority of their time mooning over their significant others. Hayden to the pretty and spunky Anabelle, who I quite liked and seemed to alternate between faux annoyance with Hayden and love shining in those deep brown eyes. Since annoyance was an emotion I readily identified with, I could at least support that type of mooning. On the other hand, Kace and Brooke were nauseating.
Brooke was too damned cute with her pencil behind one ear, her red hair askew, her eyes focused on her laptop even as she and Kace seemed to unconsciously orbit one another.
When he was near, she shifted unconsciously in her seat, though her fingers didn’t stop. And he didn’t interrupt, just pressed a kiss to the top of her head, brushing his knuckles over her cheek, her nape, her arm, filling the glass in front of her with soda at regular intervals.
Love. Caring for one another. Instinctive.
Fucking fairy tales under neon bar signs.
“Here,” a silken male voice said.
Ignoring the way that voice slid over my skin, as though he were running a piece of delicate silk over my naked body, I glanced up into a pair of stunning hazel eyes. The different shades of green and gold and brown mixed together in a way that was both beautiful and completely unique.
But I didn’t react on the outside.
First, I’d seen plenty of beautiful men in my life. Second, I’d felt him approach, but since he’d spent the vast majority of the night well away from me, I hadn’t bothered to look too closely.
Not a threat. Moving on.
Now, I glanced down to see the drink in front of me. An orange and red concoction with a cherry floating on top of some ice cubes. A cheery red straw was perched on the side.
“What’s this?” I asked.
He rolled those gorgeous, unique eyes, and I actually felt my skin prickle in awareness. “Sex on the Beach.”
“Excuse me?” It was an arched question that sent amusement tap-dancing through his expression.
“Their”—he nodded at a group of couples hovering near his end of the bar—“ladies’ night was apparently crashed by their husbands. Now they’re enjoying ordering the dirtiest cocktails they can think of and having the men pay the tab. I mixed one too many and figured you could use something that wasn’t warm beer.”
I ran my finger through the condensation on the outside of the glass. “And Sex on the Beach was the dirtiest they could think of?”
“Apparently.” Lips twitching, he nudged it closer. “Have a sip. Despite the cheesy name, it’s actually pretty good.” He nodded at my beer. “And since you don’t seem to be enjoying your beer . . .”
“I’m not much of a beer girl.”
“What kind of girl are you?”
Uh-oh.
The way he said that, with the quiet note of heat hidden beneath all that silk, was troublesome. Even more troublesome was my body’s reaction.
Moisture pooled between my thighs. My nipples went tingly.
Nope. Not gonna do it.
I lifted my chin. “First of all, I’m a woman, not a girl.”
Hazel eyes dipped down before returning to mine, a slow smile curving his mouth. That smile was . . .
Fucking hell.
I shifted on my barstool, thighs clenching together because . . . that smile was pure, unadulterated sex.
On the seats.
An image of him spreading my legs, of those broad shoulders pushing my thighs wide as he pressed those lush lips to my pussy made the alarm bells transform into hurricane sirens.
Because I was imagining having sex on the seats.
With a stranger.
With a stranger I wanted more than I wanted my careful distance.
Oh. Shit.
Chapter Two
Dominique
“What’s your name?” I asked qu
ietly.
“Archer.”
I sniffed. “That’s a ridiculous name.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.” A nudge of the glass toward me. “You going to try it?”
“Is it drugged?”
He grinned. “You’ll never know till you try it,” he drawled.
Sighing, trying to stifle the desire drawing me to this stranger, I put the straw to my lips and sucked.
His eyes went hot.
I almost came on that seat.
And then the sweet and tart drink hit my tongue.
“You like it,” he said, voice husky.
I pushed the glass away. “No.”
“You do.”
“It’s too sweet,” I protested.
His hand covered mine. “Like you.”
I slipped my fingers free, leaned back in the seat. “And you’re out of your fucking mind.”
Those hazel eyes sparkled under the lights overhead, and fuck, every time I looked at them, I got lost in them. They were so changeable and intoxicating, unlike anything I’d ever laid eyes on . . . pun intended.
“Maybe it would be more truthful for me to say, I bet you’d taste sweet?”
More thigh-clenching.
More moisture gathering.
More uncomfortable shifting on my seat.
“What about you?” I asked, my voice husky with need. Not that I could do a damned thing about eliminating that rasp. I wanted him, and it had been a long time. Ages, even. I’d been too busy building my work, my life, my strength, my . . . power.
I hadn’t spared any brainpower to do anything but work.
But now my work didn’t require as much energy; the business ran on its own more often than not. So, aside from the occasional meeting like I’d needed to conduct tonight with Hayden, I had found myself with time of late.
And if there was something that I didn’t like having copious amounts of, it was free time.
Even before work had taken over my life the last few years, I had always been one of those people who never failed to have something going—a place to visit, something to do around my house. Hell, I’d even done my fair share of crafts. It would probably surprise the hell out of the people I let glimpse slivers of my life, but I could quilt, crochet, and cross-stitch with the best of them.
But my favorite thing was computers—hacking into systems that were designed to keep people like me out, finding the shit that bad guys wanted to keep hidden.
And then turning it over to my clients . . . or the appropriate authorities.
Either one.
Depending on what was found.
Depending on what I chose.
That was written into my ironclad NDA, my approved-by-multiple-lawyers contract.
“Do I taste sweet?” Archer replied, pulling me out of my head and back into the conversation that was prickling with sexual awareness, sending waves of tingling sensations over my nape, my stomach . . . lower. “Is that what you’re asking?”
I took a sip of the drink, enjoying the concoction despite myself. “A pretty boy like you? You’re saccharine.” I sniffed. “You’re sickly sweet.”
He plunked his elbows on the bar, leaned forward. “Is that so?”
My eyes dipped, catching on his hands. Big hands, a few scars crossing their backs, hair sprinkled up his muscular forearms.
Strong arms were kryptonite.
Mine.
I could image them banding around me, picking me up and hauling me close, setting me on this very bar top as he stepped between my thighs. I could almost feel their hardness against me, a phantom touch stroking my skin, fueling my rising need.
“Yes,” I murmured. “That’s exactly so.”
“Mmm.”
He patted the bar, sending that image blazing to full color, then straightened and returned to the other end of the bar, and I spent the next ten minutes pretending I didn’t notice him while I finished the drink.
That I definitely didn’t notice his ass, glorious and plump, or his thighs straining at the denim encasing his legs. Certainly, I didn’t notice that his biceps stretched the sleeves of his shirt or that he had a tattoo on his back, creeping up and out of the neck of that tight black cotton, caressing his skin in a pattern I was desperate to trace with my tongue.
I didn’t notice any of that.
Nor that I’d reached the bottom of my glass.
Until he turned to face me, his eyes flicking toward my hands.
My own gaze dropped, and I took in the ice, the dredges of juice and alcohol. Then my eyes lifted, drifted to those forearms, those thighs, that ass.
And alarm bells continued to blare.
I watched him lean close to Kace, whisper in his ear.
Kace nodded, but I didn’t bother to stick around any longer. The blaring of all the warning signals had grown too loud. They were deafening, thrumming through me in a rhythm that urged me to go. I reached into my purse, threw thirty bucks on the counter—drinks in the Bay Area were expensive—then pushed off my stool.
I needed sex.
I wanted it with the man on the other end of the bar, with Archer.
I stood by my reasoning that it was a stupid name.
Gorgeous, sexy man. Terrible, terrible name.
Sighing, I slipped my small wallet into the front pocket of my jeans—jeans I’d had specially tailored because clothing manufacturers had decided somewhere along the line that women didn’t need pockets that actually fit useful things like wallets or phones. Oh no, we only needed room for our lipstick, for some mascara, maybe a breath mint so that we could blow dudes with minty freshness.
Fun times.
Deliberately keeping my eyes away from Terrible Name, I wove through the crowd, thinner now than it had been hours before, then slipped into the hall.
The back room where I’d hung with Hayden was quieter than the large space in the front of the building. The bigger area was wall-to-wall with people much younger than me, the music newer, the furnishings sleek metal and glass and stone compared to the warm wood of the back, slightly sticky from use.
I was clearly the wrong age for the trendy front space and the right for the comfort and nostalgia the back space brought to mind.
On the heels of that thought, a man—or really, a boy—stepped in front of me, blocking my path. He was handsome but young, way too young and cocky to tempt me. Like a frat boy who’d just aged out of his fraternity but still thought for some reason that every woman would fawn over him like they were freshmen and he was a sexy senior.
Skeeved. Me. As in, this man-child skeeved me out.
“Hi, baby,” he said, his gaze dipping down and back up.
A tendril of disgust wound through me, coiling in my stomach, sliding up my spine, obliterating the desire for Archer that had left my panties damp.
“Not interested,” I said, pushing past him.
“Hey, wait—”
He grabbed my arm.
I froze, glanced down at his hand on me, unwelcome and uninvited. My brows rose as I met his stare. “What do you think you’re doing?”
His fingers tightened. “I’m trying to talk to you.”
“And I said, I’m not interested,” I gritted. “Take your hand off me.”
But he left it in place, had the balls to draw me a little closer, until I could smell the fermented yeast on his breath, until it felt as though I were drinking another beer just from the scent of his exhales . . . and maybe it was exuding its odor through his pores.
Lovely.
“Baby, I just want to talk to you.” He drew me a little closer still.
I sighed, reached for his hand, gripping between thumb and forefinger, digging my nails into the pressure point there. I wasn’t gentle in the least, and his fingers spasmed, his hand opened, releasing my arm. “You don’t get to touch me.”
He yanked his hand out of my grip. “Bitch. I can do what I want.”
“No.” I glared up at him. “Asshole.” I held his gaze. “You don�
��t have permission to touch me. Ever. So back the fuck—”
One second, he was there in front of me, his blue eyes glittering with malice, his lips pressed into a flat line, and the next, he was pinned against the wall behind me, Archer’s elbow shoved against his throat. “You don’t fucking touch her.”
A huge man, bald as a newborn and with bulky shoulders, appeared at Archer’s back. “Problem?” he asked calmly.
“This handsy motherfucker needs to go.”
“My friends—” Frat Boy began.
“Can join your ass on the curb,” the bouncer said, gripping his arm, and not gently by the way Frat Boy winced, his skin going pale. His volume lifted over the din of noise. “Who’s with this asshole?”
The crowd went quiet, wide eyes connecting over heads until finally a few hands lifted.
“With me,” the bouncer said.
“Thanks, Eli,” Archer said.
A nod before he shifted his eyes to me, the giant’s eyes gentle. “Sorry I missed him.”
My lips parted, a breath escaping. Because I felt oddly touched by the mountain of a man’s regret. “It’s okay,” I said.
“Not okay.” Another nod, and then Eli was growling to Frat Boy, “If you ever want to show your face in any bar in this area again, you will apologize, get the fuck out, and learn how to keep your fucking hands to yourself.”
“Look how she’s dressed,” Frat Boy spat. “Bitch is practically on display—”
I lifted my chin, crossed my arms, and shot daggers at him through my eyes. “Are you fucking serious right now? You’re coming at me with the clothes I’m wearing? Did I fall asleep and end up in 1954?” Oh, if only I had a superpower, any superpower. I would pay for said superpower in the blood of . . . earthworms? (Did they have blood?) Anywho, I digressed, because the point was that I would cheerfully murder the asshole man-child right at the moment.