by Carly Bloom
He hoped she could see that he wasn’t still sore about it.
“What do you mean? I figure you made at least ten dollars off of it.”
This was confusing as hell. Ten dollars? For what? “Pardon?”
“I saw your friends holding up dollar bills. Did you do it on a dare? I mean, don’t get me wrong. It was a long time ago, and I’m not upset. I’m just curious.”
Good Lord. What was she talking about? He hadn’t known anyone had held up dollar bills. If it had happened, Allie had misinterpreted it. “I wasn’t a part of anything having to do with a bet or a dare. If anybody was placing bets, it was probably over whether you’d say yes. None of my pals expected a college girl like you to say yes to me. And I went straight home after you turned me down, to avoid all the ribbing. Hardly even glanced at those losers.”
Allie looked as surprised as he’d ever seen anyone look.
“So . . . You really wanted to dance with me? You weren’t making fun?”
“Allie, I would never make fun of you. Ever. My God, woman. I could never hurt you. And also, I don’t think you see yourself the way everybody else sees you.”
“No, I don’t think you see me the way everybody else sees me.”
He’d heard enough. He grabbed her and kissed her again. And she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. They didn’t stop until someone tapped him on the shoulder.
Bryce wore a big old smile. “Dude, the song ended. And, any minute now, Tony is going to tell you two to get a room.”
Alice’s cheeks were bright pink.
Bryce laughed as they all walked off the dance floor together. “I can get another ride home if I need to.”
Beau looked at his brother—kept his face straight, but Bryce got the message. Yeah. You might want to do that. Because he was definitely going to take Alice home. He needed her mouth on his in a bad way. This past week that they’d been separated had been torture.
“I’m heading out in the morning,” Bryce said. “And then I need you to come to the Rockin’ H and help me out on Wednesday. Ford said he could spare you for a couple of days.”
Bryce was really leaving. Tomorrow.
But Beau would still rather hang out with Alice tonight. He could see his brother’s ugly mug later. Heck, he saw it every time he looked in the mirror.
“I’ll head up to the dude ranch on Wednesday. And I swear to God, if you’re singing trail riding songs while prancing about on a pony—”
“First of all, I don’t prance. And also, it’s worse than that,” Bryce said. “I’m helping get the place ready for Brittany Fox’s wedding.”
Good Lord.
Also, good Lord—the wedding was next weekend. That meant his and Allie’s contract would be ending soon. Too soon.
They went back to Alice’s table, where JD and Gabriel had joined the group.
“It sure was fun to watch you two dancing,” Claire said, pouting. “It’s been forever since anyone has spun me around a dance floor like that.”
“Let me finish my beer,” JD said. “Then I’ll take you for a spin.”
“Thanks, JD,” Claire said. “Who has little Brianna tonight?”
“My folks are visiting,” Gabriel said. “They insisted JD and I get out and have some fun.”
“And where’s Ford?” Beau asked Claire. “Babysitting?”
“Not that I know of,” Claire said. “He’s supposed to be at home with Rosa.”
“So . . . he’s babysitting.”
“No. Babysitting is something people do for other people’s kids, and they get paid for it. Ford is at home being a parent.”
Maggie nodded her head. “Dads don’t babysit. They parent.”
“And that’s true if there’s two dads, too,” JD said.
“But speaking of babysitting,” Claire said with a grin at Beau and Bryce. “Alice used to do quite a lot of it.”
Oh damn. Leave it to Claire to go there.
“I heard you used to babysit for a pair of unruly twins,” Carmen said. “Do you know whatever happened to them?”
Alice laughed. “I hear they’ve grown into nice, handsome young men.”
“Best babysitter we ever had,” Bryce said. “Cookies, milk, snuggles on the couch. Right, Beau?”
Beau’s cheeks heated up.
“There were absolutely no snuggles,” Alice said. “You two were too old, and anyway, you never sat still long enough.”
Beau reached beneath the table to grab Alice’s hand. He gave it a single squeeze, and without looking at him, she squeezed back.
There would definitely be some snuggles tonight.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Alice’s mind raced along faster than Beau’s truck. He’d asked if she needed a ride home, even though she clearly didn’t since she’d arrived with Carmen and could presumably leave with her. So, his wanting to take her home had nothing to do with the logistics of transportation.
Was he expecting a tutoring session? Was he expecting to make out again? And why couldn’t people just come out and say what they were thinking? She smiled to herself. He hadn’t asked her to dance on New Year’s Eve because of a dare. Was it possible he’d had a little crush? If so, it was quite a revelation.
He’d saved that silly picture all these years.
She glanced at him. He didn’t look the slightest bit nervous. He probably took women home all the time. She, on the other hand, felt like she might spontaneously combust. How did she look to Beau? She knew her nervous tics—ponytail tossing, lip chewing—but maybe they weren’t apparent to others. Maybe to Beau, she appeared calm, cool, and collected.
“Are you okay over there, Allie Cat? All that nervous energy is heating up the cab of my truck.”
So much for being cool. She was apparently riding along in Beau’s pickup with her hair on fire.
“I’m fine.”
“Really? Because there’s so much energy in here that my hair is standing up. You’re like one of those static balls that shoots out electricity.”
“That’s a Tesla ball, and it’s not actually—”
“You nervous about something? Because I can help you relax.”
He probably wasn’t talking Tibetan singing bowls or guided meditation. And he didn’t seem interested in hearing about Nikola Tesla or the magnetohydrodynamic effect, on which she felt dangerously close to delivering a lecture.
A warm hand landed on the back of her neck and squeezed. “Yep. You’re tense all right. Harder than marble. But luckily for you, I have magic fingers.”
He rubbed her neck, and warmth spread from the base of her skull through her shoulders. She’d had a massage once, and she’d been fairly uncomfortable and tense throughout, but Beau’s fingers had her muscles melting. Turning to liquid. And not just in her neck.
She heard a low humming sound and realized with a wave of embarrassment that it was coming from her. She’d literally moaned. “I think you do actually have magic fingers.”
Beau laughed and pulled his hand away. It was all Alice could do not to place it right back on her neck, where it belonged.
“We’re here,” Beau said, parking behind her Prius in the driveway.
Alice’s hands were sweaty. Her mouth was dry. Her heart beat so frantically that she feared Beau could hear it as he slowly turned to look at her.
She had one hand on the door handle and one hand clutching her purse.
“Allie, you look like you’re about to march to the firing squad.”
At the sound of his voice, her pulse slowed, and her heart settled back in her chest where it belonged. She let go of the door handle. “I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that. But you look like you’re in fight-or-flight mode, and you don’t have to do either one.”
“It’s actually called the acute stress response, and it’s a result of—”
“I was really hoping to kiss you some more. Would that be okay?”
“Right now? Here in t
he driveway?”
She wanted to jump him.
She looked up and down the street. It was dark. No neighbors were out. Who would even see them?
“Sure,” Beau said. “Right here. In the driveway.”
She dug around in the sludge of thoughts and emotions racing through her head and finally found the word she needed. And even though it was in enthusiastic all caps, she could barely breathe it out because her vocal cords were no longer connected to her brain. “Okay,” she squeaked.
They simultaneously unbuckled their seat belts. And as waves of oxytocin surged through her body, Beau leaned over and kissed her. And just like the last time, it was shatteringly thorough. Hungry. There was nothing neat or tidy or quiet about it. And when Beau grabbed her ponytail and gave it a small tug, tilting her head so he could have even more access to her mouth—an alpha move—a wave of lust rolled through her.
Beau broke the kiss. His eyes seemed to have darkened a shade or two—which was not physiologically possible—as they stared deeply into hers. What did he see? He glanced at her lips, before pausing at her neck on his way to her breasts. Eyes couldn’t radiate heat, so why could she literally feel his gaze warming her skin? Beau bit his bottom lip and stared at her like he was a starving man, and she was a cupcake sitting in a bakery window.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to—”
Beau raised an eyebrow. “Eat you?”
Alice blushed over the implication. Or at least over what she suspected he was implying.
“Because I do, you know,” Beau said. “Want to eat you.”
That did it. She was dead now. He’d killed her with sexy innuendo.
He placed his lips at her ear. “I bet you taste like honey.”
He licked lightly along her jawline and then buried his face in her neck, where he kissed and sucked less gently, as if he really did want to devour her.
Alice leaned her head back and ran her fingers through his hair. He’d lost his hat. When had that happened? She opened one eye to see if it had fallen onto the seat, and noticed that Dolly’s porch light had turned on.
“Oh no,” she said. “Beau, stop. Porch light.”
Beau’s head snapped up.
“It’s time for Dolly to walk her dog,” Alice said.
Sure enough, Dolly came through her front door with Bidi-Bidi-Bom-Bom on a leash.
Beau sighed heavily, then he grinned and said, “I was going to try to slide into second base, but I didn’t even come close. What do you say we take this ball game inside?”
“Junior high was a long time ago. Do you want to remind me what second base means?”
“Boobs,” Beau said with a wink.
“Oh. We might need to amend our contract then.”
“Can we, Allie?”
Alice swallowed loudly. “Can we what?”
“Can we amend the contract? Because I want to make love to you so badly that I can hardly stand it.”
Holy guacamole. No more innuendo. He’d just come out with it. Which was great, because yay for communication, but nobody had ever told her that they wanted to make love to her before. She was both excited and outlandishly anxious.
She bit her lip. This was it. A new experience to cross off of her bucket list.
“Yes,” she said.
“Oh, thank God,” Beau said. “You had me worried for a minute there. It was like New Year’s Eve all over again. I promise you won’t regret this, Allie.”
Beau followed Alice through the front door of her little house. He cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, and prepared to toss out a grin and wink if Alice turned back around. No need to scare Miss Happily Self-Partnered with a big set of puppy-love eyes.
“Would you like something to drink?”
He could see her pulse pounding at the base of her throat. Her pupils were dilated, and she was biting her lip. Damn, he loved the effect he had on her. Was it purely physical, though?
“No, thanks, I’m not thirsty.” He gave her what he hoped was a sexy once-over with his eyes. “Just hungry.”
Alice glanced at the kitchen as if she might offer to make him a sandwich. God, she was so literal. It was cute, but more importantly, it gave him license to spell it out. “Hungry for you,” he clarified. “I’ve only had a tiny taste during that brief stop on first base.”
Alice’s cheeks turned bright pink, and she lowered her eyes with a bashful grin. “Oh, right. Well, I think we need to amend the contract first . . .”
He couldn’t help it. He busted out laughing. “Allie, you do whatever you need to do.”
He’d waited years for this moment, so what were a few more minutes?
“I guess we can just have a verbal agreement,” Alice said. “For now.”
“I verbally agree to have sex with you.”
“And I agree to . . .” Alice swallowed. “Have sex with you.”
They shook on it and he pulled her in for a kiss, but she put her hand on his chest. “Wait—”
Was she changing her mind? He readied himself for it.
“I just need to go freshen up. And change.”
“You don’t need to change.”
“Aren’t men visually stimulated? Because I have something to wear that might be more, you know, sexy.”
Beau couldn’t imagine Alice being sexier than she already was. He’d been drooling over those tight jeans all night. “You don’t need to change on my account, Allie.”
Not a single goddamn thing.
“Oh, okay. If you say so,” Alice said with a pout.
All kinds of images began rolling through his horny brain. Lacy things. Sheer things. Well hell, if the woman wanted to put on something sexy, he was definitely not the man to stop her. “I’d probably enjoy it though,” he said quickly. “If you have something you’d like to show off.”
He doubted Alice had anything too kinky or sexy in mind. Cathy’s Closet sold some lingerie. He’d seen it in the window. It was pretty tame, and Alice probably had something along those lines. And that was fine. If she wanted to slip into a flour sack, it would do it for him. The idea that she wanted to turn him on was what, well, turned him on.
Alice smiled shyly. “It was free. It came with something else I ordered.”
Beau’s head spun. What had Alice ordered that came with free lingerie? And how often did she order such things?
“And it’s kind of practical,” she added.
“Practical?” Maybe it was a flour sack after all.
“Yes. Earlier you referred to performing cunnilingus.”
Alice had literally switched to Latin. And that really shouldn’t surprise him. “Cun-a-what?”
Alice’s cheeks, neck, and chest broke out in bright red splotches. “Cunnilingus means oral sex when performed on female genitalia. And if that’s not what you meant when you said you wanted to eat me, then I’m seriously hoping to evaporate into thin air right now.”
Beau cleared his throat and failed to produce words. Apparently, when all of your blood was currently holed up in your dick, your vocal cords didn’t work.
Alice stared at her feet. “Dang it. I haven’t evaporated, have I?”
She was embarrassed. And that wouldn’t do. “That’s exactly what I meant by eating,” he said. “I mean, I was flirting and dirty-talking, but I meant every word. I’m just not used to Latin, that’s all. And there’s no need to evaporate. We’re on the same page.”
The corner of Alice’s mouth curled up. “Good. Communication is important during sex.”
We are going to have sex. And Alice is going to talk through all of it.
“The sooner you put on your sexy outfit, the sooner I can get you out of it.”
“Aren’t you skipping some bases?”
“Oh, darlin’, don’t you worry. I don’t skip any bases. I take my time at each and every one.”
Alice raised her eyebrows. “Oh really?”
&
nbsp; “Yeah. Really.”
“Well, just so you know,” Alice said. “In regard to cunnilingus . . .”
He swallowed loudly. “Yes?”
“I fully intend to reciprocate. But I might need some instruction in how to perform pleasurable fellatio.”
That word he knew. And it was a good thing the couch was behind him, because his poor knees finally gave out. They just flatly refused to continue supporting him, and he landed with a grunt on a couch cushion. “Okay,” he said, after catching his breath. “I’ll assist you in any way I can.”
“Thank you,” Alice said, nodding her head.
The sight of that bobbing ponytail damn near did him in.
“No problem,” he wheezed through his constricted throat.
Alice marched off toward her bedroom. “Be back out in a bit,” she said, glancing at him over her shoulder.
Beau shook his head and grinned. He had no idea what to expect from Allie, but that was one of the things he loved about her.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Alice stared at herself in the mirror. The sheer teddy looked cheap and flimsy, like a Halloween costume. She pulled at the droopy top, which she didn’t quite fill out. The ribbons at the bottom tickled her thighs, and the stretchy, cheap elastic indicated this would be a one-time wear. She had gotten it for free for buying an expensive vibrator.
It even had crotchless panties, and they were . . . well, they were beyond ridiculous. They had a small slit in the crotch, but you couldn’t really see it while standing. They just looked like regular panties if regular panties were made of itchy nylon netting with gaping leg holes.
She chewed her lip.
No man had ever seen her vulva. Beau would be the first. But it was no big deal. He’d probably seen plenty. And surely nothing about hers would stand out as memorable, right?
She was suddenly overcome by a wave of anxiety. What if she was unappealing? What if there was something wrong with her? What if Beau had a preference for one type of vulva over another? Why hadn’t she made an appointment for waxing? Did she have time to trim?