by Lynne Silver
He remained silent, but she was pleased to see the muscle of his jaw tighten as he brushed by her for his turn. His ball sailed down the lane and pushed into the initial white, smaller ball.
“When two balls collide, it’s called a kiss,” he said, facing her again. “And for that, I think you owe me a kiss.”
“Oh, do you?” But she was already licking her lips.
“New rule. When I hit the pallina, you give me a kiss. If you hit it, I kiss you. Deal?”
In answer, she stepped close to him, stood on tiptoes, brushed a kiss across his lips, then stepped away. He grabbed her arm and pulled her back to steal a deeper, hotter kiss, which she reciprocated, until their bodies were entwined and they were involved in a kiss that was seven shades hotter than was decent for a family bowling restaurant early on a Friday night.
Excuse her. Bocce.
Both of them came to their senses at the same time and pulled back.
“Sorry,” Sam said, running a hand through his short hair. “Took my kiss a turn too early.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I like your confidence that I’m about to score another kiss.”
They both knew she wasn’t talking about bocce, only now her drive to succeed was ramped even higher because she didn’t simply want to win, she wanted to win kisses from Sam, and she found herself rooting for him to score too so she could have the fun of teasing him with every kiss.
Sometimes when he scored, he earned a quick brush on the mouth. The next time it was full-on, wet tongue action. The bad thing—no, the awesome thing—was that Sam was equally competitive and motivated. Two people who’d never played bocce were racking up points and kisses.
In between kisses, the waitress delivered interesting flatbreads and other yummy finger foods. And wine. If this was adult bowling, Casey was all for it. Wine plus kissing plus Sam equaled the most fun she’d had on a date, maybe ever.
It got more fun after the food and drinks arrived. For once Casey wasn’t worried about her food intake. She was too busy going head-to-head and lip-to-lip with Sam to count calories. Since she fully trusted her date, she also drank her wine with abandon. He’d be sober to drive home and wouldn’t take advantage, although Casey was thinking she might like to be taken advantage of.
That was kiss-drunk her, though. She’d made up her mind earlier that she wouldn’t sleep with Sam tonight. It was only their second official date, and she wanted to move slowly.
Moving slowly was less of a priority when Sam walked her to her door at the end of the date and bent for a good-night kiss. She grabbed him and immersed in the kiss, now that they no longer had an audience.
“Sorry you lost,” he whispered against her lips.
Her lips parted to protest. She’d definitely won, but he angled her against her door and any protests died. The wood of the door pressed against her spine, and she lifted her thigh to wrap around Sam’s hip, a deft move in a pencil skirt, which meant the skirt was up nearly around her hips. His hands cupped her ass, bringing her close enough to feel that her earlier blue balls comment was dead-on accurate now. There was no mistaking the erection pressed against her core, where she wanted it rather desperately.
His head bent to press kisses along the column of her neck, and her head tilted to give him access. The words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to review them. “Want to come inside?”
He raised his head from his attention to her overly sensitive neck and looked her in the eye. “Yes, but I won’t. Not gonna mess this up by moving too fast.”
Since his words echoed her sentiments almost identically, it didn’t make sense that a stab of hurt and regret went through her. He was right, but she was on the precipice of throwing caution to the wind and acting on the needs of her body. She wanted Sam to be in the same state, dammit. Why was he easily able to stop?
Except he didn’t stop; he went right back to kissing her and letting his hands roam all over her ass, then up to cup her breasts.
“Casey,” he breathed as his thumb rubbed over her blouse, caressing a hardened nipple.
She didn’t have words to respond, and instead gurgled something unintelligible like ung or mmh.
He chuckled. “Casey, I should go.” Neither of them moved. He kept his hand on her breast, and she kept her hips in contact with the very alluring bulge in his jeans.
“Yes, you should go. You need time to lick your wounds about losing.” She pulled him down laughing for more kissing, but the moment was broken, and although the kiss was amazing, it wasn’t mindless, and they both heeded the call for the date to come to an end.
He pulled back and smiled down at her.
“Thanks for a great night,” she said.
He waited as she fumbled with her keys and managed to unlock her apartment door. “Bye,” she said, entering the apartment and turning in the doorway to watch him walk down the hall and leave.
He gave a final wave. “I’ll be back for a rematch.”
She shut herself inside her apartment, wondering for which game did he want a rematch: bocce or kissing?
Sam held his breath as he punched the elevator button, then bypassed it to head to the staircase to run four flights down, his dick leading the way. He’d been on the best date of his life, and it hadn’t ended in sex.
He was going to regret the decision not to accept her invitation to come inside, but in the long run it was the right call. Casey was gorgeous enough that she had men throwing themselves at her. He had to distinguish himself from the masses.
It meant he was heading home either to take a cold shower or to take care of business by taking matters in hand. God, how many nights in high school had he finished his homework and hid in his bed or locked himself in the bathroom to pleasure himself to the image of Casey Cooper behind his eyelids.
There was the torturous semester they’d had PE the same period and it coincided with the water polo unit. Boys had taken half the pool, girls the other half. He’d nearly drowned and received several concussions because he’d spent his class time staring at Casey in a bathing suit. She made the school regulation one-piece look good.
She looked even better now. She’d nearly killed him tonight every time she’d bent to retrieve her bocce ball. The best part was that she knew it. Back in high school, girls suspected the boys were walking hard-ons and had unconsciously done things to drive them wild.
As an adult, Sam had a lot more control, but now Casey had ownership of her sexuality and knew how to wield it like a sweet weapon. He hustled even faster down the concrete stairwell, breaking into a sweat in his haste to exit her building and get home.
Once at home, he turned on the water for the shower, got undressed, and then glanced at his phone charging on his nightstand. No games, he reminded himself and picked up the phone to dial Casey. She answered on the first ring.
“I had a really good time tonight,” he said as soon as she’d answered.
Her low chuckle came through the line, warming him. “Me too,” she said. “I’m about to get in bed. What’s up?”
“I’m about to get in the shower,” he said. “But your bed sounds more interesting. Tell me about it.”
She laughed again. “Actually…my shower was pretty interesting.” She drew out the word interesting, putting his imagination into overdrive.
“Really?” he drawled. “Tell me everything. Leave nothing out, so I too can have an interesting shower.”
There was a pause, and he worried he’d pushed her too far too fast, and then she inhaled into his ear. “Your kiss left me…needy,” she said.
“You?” He laughed. “I could barely make it down the stairs.”
“The stairs? Why didn’t you take the elevator?”
“I needed to run off my excess energy. And I thought it’d be faster. Plus, I didn’t want to get arrested for indecent behavior in your elevator.”
Her laugh set his gut jumping with excitement. “Well, I was very indecent in my shower.”
“Oh, God. Casey, you’re going to kill me before I ever get you in my bed.”
“Who said anything about a bed?” Her voice was sex personified. “We did pretty well up against my door tonight. And I had some naughty thoughts about the high-tech office chair in your living room.”
Great. He’d never get work done again. Knowing Casey had envisioned the two of them getting dirty on his desk chair was the stuff of fantasies. “That’s kinky,” he said. “But I win the award for frequency.”
“What do you mean?’
“Casey, I’ve been jacking off to you since I was fifteen.”
Silence.
Shit, had he scared her? “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was slightly stalkerish.”
“No,” she whispered, and he had to strain to hear her. “I was just thinking that I might need another shower.”
He groaned, incapable of speech, the siren song of his shower calling his name, and he wished he could bring the phone into the stall with him, but he didn’t want his gravestone to read, “Here lies Samuel Cooper. Dumbass who was electrocuted jerking off to the girl of his dreams.”
“Sam, you there?”
“I might’ve died for a second, thinking about you wet and naked in the shower thinking about me.”
“Don’t die,” she ordered. “I’ve got plans that include you.”
“I’m at your service. And now I have a date with my hand and the shower.”
“Good night, Sam. See you—all of you—soon.”
Chapter Seven
On Sunday afternoon, Casey was curled on the sofa in Arianna’s new Georgetown row home. Lance had bought it for them to live in after they were married, and they’d moved in early because Arianna had declared Lance’s former Arlington one-bedroom apartment a biohazard zone.
The place wasn’t fully decorated, but Casey could already tell that when finished it would have Arianna’s signature flair for funky, creative style. Ari and Val had texted her early that morning to tell her to get her butt over there stat because they’d declared it a screening day for Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. Casey had seen the movie once a long time ago, but since her only plans on Sunday afternoon were laundry and mooning about Sam, she accepted the invitation.
She’d heard from Sam once yesterday; he’d texted to say he was going in to the office all day Saturday to follow up on the lead she’d given him. He’d said no games, but maybe that meant it was her turn to call him. He and Lance were hanging out today and would meet them here later. She shivered with the anticipation of seeing him again, especially because after their bocce playing night, she’d all but told him they were going to have sex.
“Casey, you’re tuning the best part out,” Valerie said and tossed a throw pillow at her. “Pay attention.”
She dodged the pillow and forced her attention back to the screen.
“Oh, my God, look it’s you,” Arianna said, pointing at the TV and laughing.
Casey frowned at the three pregnant mean girls on-screen who’d tortured poor Romy and Michele. “I was not that mean, and, besides, I’d never wear a satin mini dress when pregnant.”
Valerie laughed. “No, no satin when pregnant. Besides, you weren’t that mean most of the time. In class you were too busy taking notes or working, but outside of class, like in the cafeteria during lunch, I was terrified of you.”
“I know, right?” Ari said. “Remember, we used to sneak our lunches out into the gym or sometimes to the computer lab.”
Casey swallowed hard. “If I was bitchy during lunch, it was because I was starving.”
The women she was coming to think of as friends stared at her.
“What do you mean?” Valerie asked, but Casey could tell from the sympathetic look on her face that she already understood.
This was it. Confession time. “I was anorexic during high school and college,” she said.
“I knew it,” Arianna said.
“Ari,” Val murmured. “Shut up. Let her talk.”
“No, it’s okay. There’s not that much to say. I couldn’t control my mom’s moods and stuff, so I tried to control my diet. I didn’t eat normally for four years. It caught up to me my freshman year of college. I got the help I needed. Period. Not much more to tell.”
“What do you mean, it caught up to you freshman year?” Valerie asked.
“My body finally couldn’t handle the starvation anymore. College is like an anorexic’s dream, or nightmare, depending on how you look at it. Think about it. You’re not living at home and there’s no one to monitor your meals. In high school I had to fake-eat in the cafeteria, and I had to actually eat sometimes at home, which was why my body didn’t look that bony. In college, I slept through breakfast like everyone else, and then claimed to have a class during mealtimes.”
“Holy shit, I don’t know how you skipped meals,” Arianna said. “I turn into a cranky pants if I don’t eat for more than two hours.”
“At first it’s hard and then you sort of get used to it. Your body goes into starvation mode.”
“But didn’t people see?” Valerie asked. “I assume your body got super bony. Didn’t your roommate see that and wonder?”
“Uh, Val, how long did you hide your legs without anyone knowing you were a burn victim?” Ari said.
All three women glanced at Valerie’s legs, which were uncovered today. Val’s burn scars were something Casey had only heard about through the high school gossip network, but today was the first time she’d ever actually seen the damage. There were visible pink lines and white puckers on her ankles, and Casey imagined that to Valerie they were a source of discomfort.
“Ari has a point,” Casey said. “My roommate and I didn’t know each other very well. We weren’t friends, and I was really good at layering clothes on and getting dressed in the closet or under my covers. Only my mother or a really good friend would’ve noticed there was a problem.”
“Then what happened?” Ari asked.
“My body finally shut down, and one night in the gym, after one of my special three-hour workouts, I fainted. I woke up in the hospital and that was that. My reign as the most successful anorexic was over.”
“You sound sad about that,” Ari observed.
Casey blinked. “I never thought about that before. After much counseling, I understand how unhealthy I was, but there was a certain easiness of it too. I never had to count calories or think about what I was eating. It was zero. Every time I look in the mirror now, I notice every bulge, every bit of cellulite. I don’t know if I’ll ever have a normal relationship with food.”
“Wow,” Valerie said.
Casey glanced away at the scrutinizing looks both women were giving her. This was why she usually kept quiet about her eating disorder.
“I think my mother was bulimic,” Valerie said, surprising everyone in the room.
“Really?” Ari asked.
“Yeah. My father mentioned something about it once, and I know he and my stepmother got nervous anytime I mentioned I wanted to diet or felt fat, but it wasn’t something I inherited.”
“I don’t think it’s genetic,” Casey said.
“Does Sam know?” Arianna asked.
At that moment, Sam and Lance walked into the living room, both dripping with sweat.
“Does Sam know what?” the man of the hour asked.
“Does Sam know that I prefer red wine over white?” Casey improvised.
His brow furrowed, and she could see him going over their last two dates and trying to remember her drink. She stepped closer and eyed him in his sweaty T-shirt and athletic shorts, showing off a pair of muscular thighs. Yum.
Behind her, Lance had stepped over to the couch to lean down to greet Ari, giving her the kind of kiss that Casey wanted from Sam, but they were too new to give easily and with an audience. Then Lance excused himself to shower, and Ari kept giving wistful looks in the direction Lance had disappeared, which Valerie took as her cue to make her farewells. App
arently, movie day was over.
Casey and Sam followed her out of the house and watched as Valerie drove off.
“Jason doesn’t play basketball?” she asked, referring to Valerie’s husband.
“He’s on duty today,” Sam answered.
They stood a foot apart, awkwardly looking at each other. They hadn’t seen or actually spoken to each other since their phone call two nights ago when Sam had basically told her he was going to the shower to jerk off.
“Hi,” she finally whispered.
He smiled down at her. “Hi.”
She inched closer.
“I’m all sweaty,” he warned.
“I don’t care.” And then she was in his arms, getting the kiss she’d desired for the last two days. His musky sweat pressed into her skin and she inhaled the smell, telling her how gone she was for Sam Cooper if she was actually craving his sweat. Sweat reminded her of exertion and exertion told a story of playing hard, something she wanted to do with him.
“Want to come to my place to shower?” she offered.
“I don’t have clothes to change into,” he said.
She bit her lip. “Oh.”
“Come to my place. I need help scrubbing my back.”
She lifted a radiant smile to him. “All right.”
He gave her a hard, fast kiss, then walked her to her car. She waited until he was in his. Then they broke several speed limits racing to his home. Once at his house, he raced from his car to hers and opened the door for her.
Ah, a total gentleman, until she was out of the car and he pinned her against the door and kissed her as if they were going to have sex right there on the street. After another few seconds of Sam’s kisses, Casey was down with wherever they wanted to make love, but finally they came to their senses and pulled apart.
“Shower,” Sam said in a scratchy voice.
“Shower,” she repeated. “And sex.”