Twenty Times Tempted: A Sexy Contemporary Romance Collection

by Petrova, Em

  My inclination was to say whatevah and head to the ladies room and crash on the couch in there. It wouldn’t be the first time, though napping hadn’t always been first on my agenda.

  “And Rob, use this time to decide about where your loyalties lie. If we do this, it’s in for a pound. Do I make myself clear?”

  Perfectly.

  I’d just made the potential jump from sports reporter to investigative journalist, and those two career paths were oceans apart. I was going to swim with the sharks, chumming the waters with a woman’s past. And her future.

  Taylor Richardson had just jumped to the top of the leader board as my primary source on all things Michael O’Brien, aka Malone. I could give her exactly the thing she most wanted: a one-way ticket to being single, free and clear of all attachments to the scumbag who had ruined her life. Take Malone down and the Italian courts put finito to the divorce decree.

  The fly in the ointment was that she was also my nightly wet dream and near obsessive infatuation. What would become a win for her was going to be a big zero sum game for me. There was no anonymous source option here. She’d have to come clean and be an integral part of the investigation.

  At the airport I’d called Cordie and asked for Taylor’s number. And then I asked if my sister thought I should, like, maybe call her. I think I even stuttered.

  “Oh hon, she will be THRILLED to hear from you!”

  Thrilled?

  “She likes you, dearest. A lot.”

  That had given me a glow all the way to the Port Authority Terminal. Once I hoofed it to Eighth Avenue, I connected the dots and came up bupkis with me getting the girl at the end of this.

  Of course, there were worse things than going home alone, in the middle of the night, to an empty apartment.

  I just couldn’t put my finger on what those other things might be.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tay

  My cousin, Sam, answered the phone.

  “Uh, hi, is Marie home?”

  He yelled for her to pick up and exchanged a few pleasantries and reminded me we had a date for the weekend to practice coaching and working out some plays. My MBA wasn’t all about the bottom line. I needed to understand player behavior, both on and off the court, including gender differences and pay disparities amongst other things. I had a leg up in grasping the environment that the players, owners and the various leagues operated—more at the international level but that was why Sam had been able to strong arm me into a slot in the program.

  For once the term ‘value added’ was more than corporate speak: I walked the walk and talked the talk. Contracts, collective bargaining, I’d lived and breathed all that. Just not necessarily in a good way.

  Marie came on the line, slightly out of breath. “Hey, sugar, what’s up?”

  “I have a date?” It wasn’t meant as a question but that’s how it shot out of my mouth.

  She giggled. “And you aren’t sure about…?” leaving the thought to dangle out there.

  No, I wasn’t sure. Not about tonight, not about Robert van Horn, definitely not about his suggestion he make me dinner at his place because he needed to talk with me.

  Two weeks away without a word and now he’d decided he needed to chat.

  What I wanted for him to say was he needed to throw me on the bed, the couch, a bench seat, across his lap…

  Have his way with me. Whatever that way might be.

  If it was anything like how he’d invaded my mouth like a conquering hero, I was on board: completely, totally, abso-fucking-lutely.

  Talking? Not so much.

  But, beggars couldn’t be choosers, so I’d said, dripping southern charm, “Why thank you kindly, I would be delighted,” all stiff and prissy and dripping with so much lust even keeping my legs crossed, tight, wasn’t helping the situation.

  “He’s picking me up at six.”

  “That’s nice, dear. Who is it, someone I know?”

  “Cordie’s brother.” I’d managed to get past calling him her ‘little brother’ because from the two brief encounters, little and Robert van Horn was not an accurate comparison. Or description. Or something.

  That something made me blush.

  Marie said, “Ah.”

  We did the I said, she said tango, skirting around the issue, my issue being how not to jump his bones the minute he showed up at my door.

  Finally I wailed, “I have nothing to wear!” And I didn’t do dates, not even for coffee because … oh, I was an idiot, I was taller than him and built like a point guard, I was his sister’s best friend, I’d shot hoops with him when he was still in pimples. And I was married.

  Marie said something to Sam who agreed with an ‘uh huh’ and then she informed me that Sam would do a drive by, be ready.

  A drive by was him picking me up without parking or idling his Honda for more than thirty seconds outside my building. I’d either be out within that window or wait until he circled the block and we tried again. If I didn’t see him, I had 911 on speed dial.

  “I’ll have a lunch,” she reconsidered and amended that to, “…a light lunch ready and then we’ll hit the second hand stores and see what pops.” There would be a makeup tutorial in there and some reminders about posture and suitable foundation garments. Nothing in that scenario spoke to Robert van Horn’s specific desire to talk.

  If all I’d wanted was a lecture, I’d have gathered a notebook and a sharp pencil and taken notes. With Marie’s help, I planned to go in locked and loaded.

  And if that didn’t work, well, maybe I’d get another good meal to hold me until payday.

  The Fink’s nest egg was off the menu.

  If the evening didn’t go as I hoped, there were still my studies and coaching and daydreaming about offing Michael. Ten thousand wasn’t much but it might be enough to hire a hit man.

  I cogitated those possibilities until Sam cruised to an idle and I bolted across the sidewalk to the car.

  “The dress, definitely the dress.” Marie swung a peach-colored flirty confection back and forth in her left hand while simultaneously pawing through the jammed rack of vintage apparel. Multitasking, it’s what women are good at.

  “I think I’d be more comfortable in a suit, maybe, yes?” The suit in question was a nicely tailored designer label that had an attractive price, somewhere between Walmart and Neiman Marcus. It was linen, perhaps too light for the weather, but black with a subtle pinstripe that went with everything and I needed a suit for the improbable time when I had a real job interview lined up. And it was a tall size.

  Marie groused, “The problem with women’s sizing is that if you need a longer inseam or sleeve length, the asshats think you’re also fat.” She held up an example that would have fit three of me with room for a companion animal.

  “It’s too short,” meaning the dress but when she held it against me it fell just above the knee.

  “Try it on.”

  The two salesgirls had joined us. The shop was empty but for us and the ghost of closets past. That made me the entertainment for the afternoon. I had three Stacy London’s on a mission, racks full of clothes I couldn’t afford used, let alone new, and a burning desire to knock the socks off a tousle-haired jock.

  “Come on out, sugar, let’s see what you look like.”

  There was one of those triple mirrors, the kind with the edge sets angled inward so you could see front and side and the rear if you spun yourself just right. I padded in bare feet to the invisible mark and stared.

  “Oh hon, you look gooood.” That from the pixy in tight leather shorts and a tube top.

  The taller one wiggled a finger for me to twirl. The fabric wasn’t silk but a near cousin, light as air and sinfully clingy. I’d thought it a single color, all peach, but it was more shaded in subtle tonal variations from lightest at the bodice to darkest at the hem. It was full without being weighty and it had, God help me, a plunging neckline that on anyone but me and Twiggy would have the male population in a swoon.


  My girls were simply not the swoon-inciting kind.

  Marie asked, “Do you have any push up bras?”

  They didn’t, no undergarments at all except for a few rather racy, unworn, still in original packaging, bits of sleepware frill. If I ever got to that point in my fantasy league, I’d be back to take a serious look. For now, finding something to help me hold up my end of the bargain with the dress would have to take precedence.

  Marie paid with her credit card and we did a few rounds of it’s on me and I can’t let you while the pixy ran the charge card and folded the dress lovingly into thirds and stuffed it in a plastic bag.

  Marie wrinkled her nose but it wasn’t Bloomies and I wasn’t complaining.

  We found a lingerie shop and a stop traffic device that not only gave me awesome cleavage but also guaranteed a trip to the glass cage and the radar wand at airport security. It also served to buttress my sometimes sloppy posture because the metal dug into the soft underside of my boobs if I slouched. Bonus.

  Marie inquired, “Shoes?” We had passed a few shoe stores with the latest in platform heels, things I wouldn’t wear on a bet, even if I ended up with a seven foot tall power forward.

  “Um, I have black flats.”

  “No, no, no, hon.” And in we went. When we came out, I had tannish platform sandals that took up the peachy hue and augmented the milk chocolate of my skin tone.

  Objecting, I muttered without much conviction, “This’ll put my boobs at his eye level.”

  “Your point, dear?”

  Crap.

  ***

  Robert van Horn lived in a neighborhood suspended between hippie chic and what the city fathers called gentrification and rubbed their hands gleefully over the process because it meant increased tax revenues and safer beats for the cops on foot.

  His building was a plain jane light red brick with air conditioners sprouting from every other window and semi-enclosed narrow decks. It had a doorman who nodded and held the door for me, looking with undisguised curiosity from me, tall enough with the heels to almost need to duck, and Rob … not that tall.

  And yes, his eyes had strayed, and stayed, on my boobs. We weren’t in his apartment yet and I had mission accomplished. I wondered if maybe I should just cut my losses and head on home while I had the chance.

  I’d seen the cheerleaders swarming him at the game: short, perky, flexible, well-endowed and with pompoms. They were a tough act to follow.

  He muttered, “It’s not much,” and swept me into the small space. Like most city apartments, the square footage was minimal but he had a park side view and nothing was peeling off the walls or crawling out of sight when we entered.

  All southerners were brought up in the kitchen. That room was the confessional, the meeting place, the strategy room, the comfort room, the one awash with the odor of cooking and love and companionship. It was the first place I headed.

  It was the usual white utility everything, long and narrow and faced with a bar and a couple of stools. He had a four-burner gas stove and a full-sized refrigerator which, compared to my humble hovel, said rich bitch in no uncertain terms.

  I said, “Nice,” and meant it.

  The counter was littered with a meal in progress. He had pre-chopped an assortment of vegetables, what amounted to a classic holy trinity, a mirapoix mix of celery, onion and green pepper. I noted the canned tomatoes, plus sauce and paste, garlic and a mix of spices pre-measured into an odd assortment of small plastic and ceramic containers.

  As my stomach growled in anticipation, I asked, “Shrimp creole?” and nearly swooned when he smiled.

  His face lit from a fire within, giving him a boyish quality that was irresistible. Especially with the mop of brown hair that hadn’t been cut since I’d last seen him.

  “Red or white?”

  If he’d offered diesel fuel, I might have said yes, but instead I asked, “Do you have any beer?”

  He looked like he was ready to eat me up as he offered a light and a dark ale. I pointed to the dark and he nodded with satisfaction.

  So far the talk was going very well indeed.

  A southern girl always offers, so I asked, “Can I help?”

  “Nuh-huh, babe, you just sit there and keep me company.” He opened the cans and pulled out a frying pan the size of Rhode Island, fired up the burner and laid a base of olive oil, flour and butter to begin the sautéing process. “Tell me about your program at school, you like it?”

  We slide onto safe ground, me describing my classes and what I hoped to learn and apply for that mystery dream position somewhere down the road. He talked about blowing his knee and a scholarship and ending up at Columbia, much to everyone’s surprise.

  “I didn’t exactly do my family proud when I was in high school. Or the early years in college, as a matter of fact. Took a long time to find what I was good at.”

  “And what’s that,” a question that was double-edged because there were any number of things he surely was good at, and being a journalist was one according to his sister. I had other, naughtier thoughts that had me ducking my head and thanking the gods that he had his back to me, stirring the mirapoix.

  “Writing. Reporting. Research, I’m really good at that.”

  My belly lurched but there was no reason to assume he described anything other than his job.

  He added the rest of the ingredients, brought it to a boil, then backed off the heat, covered the pot and set the timer for an hour.

  An hour?

  “I guess we talk now?”

  You see, I haven’t forgotten.

  There are other things we could do for an hour…

  The living room was spartan with a combination sofa bed and couch and a ratty recliner that looked like he’d spent many a night dozing in it with the television set to one of the EPSN channels.

  I set my mug on the coffee table at the far end of the couch and assumed Rob would occupy and bookend the empty space between. He didn’t.

  “Taylor, listen…” He set his glass down and invaded my space, thigh to thigh, the peachy silky fabric clinging to his cords and riding up my leg and setting every hair follicle to full standing attention.

  Offense wasn’t my forte, defense was. And as much as I craved his touch, I also feared it, feared losing control, falling head over heels and misleading him into thinking things he shouldn’t. Things I couldn’t think about. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  And then he ran his thumb over my lips and I stopped thinking at all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rob

  My Amazon, my Valkyrie, my goddess trembled like aspen leaves in a breeze, quivering because of a touch, a touch I never meant to happen.

  It was distance I needed, objectivity. Just the facts, ma’am, here’s how it is, here’s what I need. Here’s what I can do for you, but you have to do this for me. Tit for tat. That’s how it worked in my world. In hers, too. I knew that for a fact. I’d been nosing around those perimeters for most of my adult life.

  Distance. I closed that distance and punished myself with a whisper of indulgence.

  And then she huffed a breath on my thumb, a digit that had no business wandering anywhere near her pout. Somewhere in the void, the timer ticked off the minutes, the soft flicking of time’s passage an echo of regret, bouncing off my bare walls and stealing with relentless fury into my barren soul.

  Back off van Horn before it’s too late.

  It’s already too late.

  It’s in her eyes.

  She’s already said yes and I don’t have the strength to say no. I should, I know that I should, for her, for us.

  But I won’t.

  I can’t.

  Oh God help me, I can’t…

  Slipping to my knees, I straddled her ankles and slowly unlaced the straps, keeping my head down, focused on the task. First one shoe, then the other, until her bare feet floated atop the tight weave, toes curling reflexively and I stoppered the laugh because I didn’t want
sound to intrude.

  Just the ticking… tick, tick, tick.

  Her skin was soft and smooth over thick muscle and if I pushed down, the sinews and veins and hard contours would resist and I wanted her compliant, willing. No, not just willing. I needed her to want me.

  Me. Just me.

  Crouched like that, bent at the waist, my cock rammed hard against my jeans, taking on a life of its own, willing me to proceed.

  Hissing, she braced against the pressure as I ran my thumbs up the inside of her calves, a tight line driving her knees and her resistance apart until they eased, just enough for me to separate and force them apart. Enough that I could tease with my tongue, the taste of her so intense I nearly swooned, her arousal pure … perfect.

  Fabric teased across my skin as she drew the satiny drape higher, easing my path and setting my blood on fire.

  Standing, I waited for common sense to right my world. When it didn’t I held out a hand and pulled her up to face me.

  Duty and honesty prodded that this was wrong, wrong on so many levels that if I took the next steps there was no going back. I was doomed to lose her no matter what I did, so Little Robert said what the hell, take her, because you’ll always wonder what it might have been like.

  Take her.

  Backing away, making noises of apology…

  I’m sorry, so sorry, I don’t know what came over me…

  Yes you do, asshole.

  “Rob. Robert?” her voice rattled low in her throat, timbered with lust.

  I knew lust. It was an itch always worth scratching, or it had been up to now. What I felt, this ache that was pleasure and pain dancing on a grave of lost hope, this went so far past lust, I no longer had a frame of reference.

  I longed for that violation of trust. I wanted to imagine her bones melting, whatever that meant, surrendering, not to me but to us.

  I wanted to finally feel the difference between fucking and making love, and there was only one thing standing in my way…

  Damned if you do.

  Damned if you don’t.