by Maisey Yates
She wouldn’t be so sweaty.
She was beyond competent in every other area of her life and she just didn’t know how to do this.
The damn app needed to be able to flirt for her. Give a command, and it would do her bidding. But that was asking a bit much of artificial intelligence.
Siri, I’d like to get laid…
There are ten horny, sexy men in your area.
Not likely.
“So, what’s in your app?” he asked, leaning on the bar.
“Nothing finalized yet. I mean, I’m not writing all the content, I’m programming it. Though I am taking some things straight from articles. You can create a profile that helps customize your fashion and flirt type. It has…hot spots, to help you find the right kind of guy for you. You know, athletes, businessmen. You can send messages. There’s quick dating tips and…sex tips.”
“Sex tips?”
“Yeah,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Sex tips. Fifty of them.”
“Fifty? I’m going to have to hear about those.”
Evie took a deep breath and leaned in a little, ignoring the fact that she wobbled on her heels a bit. Ignoring the fact that she was so nervous she could hardly breathe. She had nothing to lose. Three unsuccessful attempts already and she was starting to feel like a failure.
It was time to lay it all on the line.
“What if I showed you instead?”
Chapter Two
Steps five through eight had effectively been skipped. She’d moved straight to step nine: The Proposition. The only thing after this was Closing the Deal. And that was a thinly-veiled euphemism for “letting him put his penis inside you.” Which was not her desired end result, but, really, this should provoke him to suggest a deal-closing. Which would technically mean she was a rousing success and could go home and put on her flannel pajamas.
In theory.
Her dating history wasn’t super illustrious. One man. She’d been with one man, and they’d hooked up in high school, and back then, her standard for a datable male had been A) breathing and B) not oblivious to her existence. Jason had been both of those things, and so one night they’d sort of ended up sitting at the same table at a popular burger hangout and the rest had been history.
She’d given him her V card as a matter of course. He’d asked her to prom, he’d brought her a corsage. And he’d gotten a hotel room you could rent by the hour. He’d done the expected things, so she’d done the expected things.
And thus it had gone on.
Well, that wasn’t her anymore.
She didn’t need a relationship. She didn’t want one. Hell, she was a woman at the top. A blinking multimillionaire by age twenty-seven, and no one had helped her get there. It was all her.
She was in charge. And she was going to have Caleb the annoying bar hottie to demand she show him her sex tips!
“You want to show me your sex tips?” he asked. His lips were curved into a half-smile, and rather than looking uncontrollably aroused he looked…amused. That wasn’t what she was going for.
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Yeah. That’s what I said. You. Me. Sex. Tips.”
“Tell me something, Evie.”
“Okay.”
“Why is it you’re out to pick up a man tonight?”
“The app.”
He shrugged. “Okay, you win the prize. You’ve picked me up. Now you don’t have to follow through. Your methods worked. The app is a stunning success.”
She frowned. This was supposed to be sweet victory, and yet, in the moment it rang hollow. “You seem so into it, far be it for me to doubt whether or not I’ve scored,” she said dryly, “but I sort of doubt it.”
“But say you had. And that it all worked. Do you want to follow through?”
She blinked. She looked around the bar, at the guys she’d struck out with. If they’d asked her to go back to their place she’d be back at her place alone drinking a Moscato. She for damn sure would not have said yes.
But Caleb asking if she wanted to follow through?
The idea was tempting in a way she hadn’t anticipated.
“I…the data is skewed because you know about the app,” she said. “I can’t ever be sure.”
“Sure you can. I would like to take you back to my place and have sex with you, Evie. What’s your answer?”
She opened her mouth and nothing came out. And that’s when she realized, she was seriously considering naked touching with a stranger. And she’d been warned about strangers. No matter how much candy a guy claimed to have in his van, she knew better than to go with him. She knew that.
Yeah, she was nervous as hell. And if any of the other guys were standing where he was? She would be saying game over. Flirt level: Awesome, achieved. No sex required. Just as planned.
But now? Now she was looking at this guy, the hottest guy she’d ever seen, and thinking why not?
Because this wasn’t about an app, or a flirting experiment. This was about demanding something other than mediocrity. Something better than a guy she got naked for just because he was there and it was expected.
She wanted a guy who would tear her clothes off like she was a present on Christmas morning. And she’d never had it. She’d never been able to ask for what she really wanted. And any time she’d tried, Jason had just acted like she’d asked him to hide a body, not go down on her. That list of sex tips? She would have been too embarrassed to leave it on Jason’s pillow, much less verbally ask for any of them.
And what was that? She was a professional woman who had total control over her life, and yet she’d never asked for what she wanted in bed. She’d never pushed for excellence there, even when she demanded it in all other areas of her life.
“Okay, you want the truth?” she asked.
“Depends.”
“On?”
His smile widened. “If I’ll like a lie better.”
“I don’t lie well. I’m honest. Painfully so. It’s part of the awkwardness, which, I am aware of, by the way. It works for me in some settings.”
“If you say so.”
“Forbes says so, actually, but that’s beside the point.”
“Forbes has never said anything about me,” he said.
“Don’t feel bad. You’re young yet. Make something of yourself and maybe someday you’ll be as important as I am. That point aside, though,” she said, taking a deep breath, “here’s the truth. I just got out of a really long-term relationship. Like, if socks were as old as that relationship, throwing them out would have been the obvious thing to do.”
“Socks?”
“Metaphorically, it actually holds up well. It stunk and it was full of holes. Again, much like old socks. And then I lost the asshole in the wash, so to speak.”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, long-term relationship. So done with it. So done with him. And I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I know how to turn a few lines of code into a fortune, but I don’t know how to get a date. And I am…desperate for sex that’s more exciting than lukewarm oatmeal. Desperate. So…I’m sure I broke a cardinal rule by confessing my desperation, but—and this is a big but—I probably won’t be pursuing that non-bland sex with a stranger from a bar. Sorry.”
“Confessing desperation is probably a serious rule-breaker, you’re right.”
“No doubt.”
“I’m sure you’re supposed to be playing aloof. Hard to get. Like Jeff over there,” he said, gesturing to the man she’d made a pass at only a few minutes earlier.
That thought made her feel a little dizzy. She’d only been in the bar for an hour. She’d talked to four men. And she was going to go home with the fourth one if he was into it.
All in all, it was one of the more eventful hours in her life. And she’d had a few eventful hours in her lifetime.
“Well, I thought any more aloof and the bar would reach maximum aloofness capacity so I figured I’d tone it down.”
“I like hon
esty.”
“You just said you wanted the lie if it was better.”
He smiled. “Either I’m very honest or a good liar.”
“That shouldn’t be charming. How did you do that?”
“I’m good at flirting.”
“You have to show me. Because I think I need to understand the flirting since I’m making the app that’s supposed to help with the flirting. That is why I’m here, after all.”
“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll help you with the flirting after you show me your sex tips.”
“Is that an offer?” she asked.
“I thought you were the one offering. I’m accepting.”
“I already told you it was more of an experimental offer. But for the sake of argument, is this a happy acceptance or a pity acceptance?”
He moved toward her, his eyes locked on hers. The glitter of humor in his eyes taking on a dark light that seemed to pull her in. He didn’t smell like sweat coated in cheap body spray. He smelled like soap, a hint of cologne and an undertone of musky man that she hadn’t realized she’d been missing from her life.
“Care to guess?” he asked, his voice soft, barely rising above the music and conversation in the bar.
She shot a quick look over to Jeff the Aloof. He was looking more interested now. Well, screw him. Or rather, not.
But maybe, just maybe, she would screw Caleb.
“Eyes on me,” he said, his tone suddenly not so teasing at all. And she obeyed.
Heat shot through her, the commanding tone of his voice pushing off the edge of aroused and straight into a pool of lust. She wanted him. Research had nothing to do with it.
And if she wanted him…well, why shouldn’t she have him? She didn’t have a deadweight boyfriend keeping her from pursuing him.
Yes. Oh yes, she was going to have him. Decision made. There and now. But she wasn’t going to tell him that yet. The app suggested she not make herself a “sure thing.” She had to make him seduce her.
Though, she felt pretty well seduced.
“Do I what?” she asked, suddenly unable to remember anything except the color of his eyes. Warm and golden like whiskey held up against the light.
“Do you think I feel sorry for you? Or do you genuinely think I want you?”
“I’m not sure. Was it all my talk of being hardup or my foot blisters that got you?”
He bent down, his lips hovering just above hers. “I think it was the combination.”
“I can see how that would get you,” she said, sounding a little bit breathless now. “After all…there could be…ointment involved which is…not sexy.”
He winked and pressed his lips against hers. Light. The pressure so faint she almost thought she’d imagined it. “Not really,” he whispered. “Luckily, you are quite sexy.”
“Even with the awkward?”
“It’s charming.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been staring at your breasts this whole time. I can tell you without a doubt that they’re charming.”
Her heart jumped, a little shiver of pleasure skating over her skin. “How do you do that?”
“What?”
“Say the most douchey things and make them sound hot?”
“It’s a gift. I wasn’t good in school. I’ve been fired from almost every job I’ve ever had. But I can pick up a woman in a bar without even trying. In fact, I can actively attempt to push a woman away and still wind up in bed with her.”
“That’s douchey, too, and it’s still making me feel fluttery. Which was probably also detrimentally honest of me.”
He cupped her cheek and kissed her again, deeper this time, his tongue sliding along the seam of her lips. It was so strange, to kiss another man for the first time in a decade. For the first time ever. His lips felt so different. His technique made it like another activity entirely. She opened for him and the hot slide of his tongue against hers nearly buckled her knees.
He cupped her cheeks, his hands hot, rough on her skin, his mouth insistent on hers. If she hadn’t been certain about going home with him before, she was now.
She was making out with a stranger in a bar. And it was amazing.
When they parted, they were both breathing hard.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“Did I agree to go with you?”
“I’m sure you did. Anyway, doesn’t your list say you need to go with me?”
It did, in fact, say that leaving the bar and securing a hotel room or returning to a residence was the next step. “Yes, it does.”
“Do you have a car?”
“No, I got a cab so I could drink. Which…not drunk but a little bit dizzy, so probably a good thing I’m not driving.”
“I’ll have my driver bring the car around.” He pulled out his phone and pushed a couple of buttons. “Ready.” He hung up again.
“A driver?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you said you got fired from all your jobs.” Granted, his clothes spoke of money, and she’d noticed that from the first moment she’d seen him.
“I’m surprised you didn’t notice the silver spoon in my mouth,” he said.
“You’d think I would have noticed when we kissed.”
“You would think.”
A sleek black town car pulled up to the curb and Caleb opened the door for her, waiting. “So I just get into the car with you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
He arched a brow. “Only if you’re into that sort of thing.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “I’m not.”
For some reason, just then, she pictured him wrapping her hair around his hand and giving it a hard tug. That was tip number twelve. She remembered it well because reading it had made her feel warm all over.
Made her think that it was something she might really, really like.
“Then no. I won’t.”
“Good to know.”
“Getting in the car with me, going home with me…I don’t take it for granted that means you’ll sleep with me. But you want me. So I don’t think you should say no.”
“You’re so sure of yourself?”
“Sure of this,” he said, tracing her lips with the tip of his finger. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it.”
“Okay,” she said, feeling a little fuzzy.
“Are you going to make me beg?” he asked. “Because I just might. I could get down on my knees if you want. Though, I’d rather have you on yours.”
Heat coursed through her veins. Yet another line that shouldn’t have turned her on, but did. But who the hell even cared what should turn her on? The fact was that he did.
“I won’t do anything you don’t want,” he continued. “But if you ask…there isn’t a lot I won’t do.”
She looked around and took a deep breath. “That might actually be nice for a change of pace,” she said, getting into the car and leaning back against the seat.
“Will it?” he asked, his tone cautious, his movements slow as he got into the car. Like he was taking special care not to frighten her off.
“Well, you know, battery-operated devices can only do so much.”
“And they can’t talk dirty to you.”
“No. But then, neither did my ex. The buzzing sound is actually an improvement over listening to him mouth breathe during the main event.”
“Ouch,” Caleb said, chuckling. “My place, right?”
Evie pictured her apartment. It was clean, and it was nice. Redecorated since Jason had moved out. But she still had the same mattress. Which she’d never really thought of. But now it bothered her and she wasn’t quite sure why.
“Your place,” she said.
She’d rather contend with the ghosts of Caleb’s hookups past than her own.
“Take us home,” he said to his driver. “So, do you think you’ll be able to use this for your app?”
She almost said what app? but stopped
the words from spilling out just in time. “Oh…yeah. The app. This will be very helpful. The ten man-catching tips are verified…”
“Sort of.”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“And now you can see how those sex tips work,” he said. “If you really want to.”
“Some of them are pretty wild,” she said.
He laughed. “I’m sure they aren’t going to shock me.”
Well, that made one of them. She had a feeling she would be shocked a few times. She was shocked now. Or maybe in shock. She was numb everywhere except for her lips, which were burning from that kiss, and between her thighs.
There was wet and aching. She wanted him so much it hurt. Wanted in a way she hadn’t since before she’d discovered how sex really was. Since before her body had become conditioned to expect the buildup to be better than the finale.
“I might like it if you shocked me a little,” she said. She wasn’t sure if she’d said the words loud enough. It was hard to hear over the traffic. Even harder over the pounding of her heart.
“How shocked do you want to be?” he asked, his voice husky, low.
“Well, this would be one of those one night things, right?” she asked.
“That’s all I do.”
“Okay then. So if it’s one night—” she looked up, met his eyes in the darkened car, and playing hard to get was completely forgotten “—then you’d better make sure I never forget it.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes darkening, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I think I can handle that.”
Chapter Three
Of course he had a mansion on the beach. He was that kind of guy. A sleek, modern mansion that looked like a cubist work of art.
Windows faced the ocean, the moon glinting off the waves. Palm trees and oleander surrounded the property, making it feel secluded. An oasis on the crowded strip of Malibu coast.
“Wow. How laid do you get?” she asked, standing on the front step, waiting for him to key in the code that would unlock the door.
“What?”
“I mean, if your ridiculous lines at the bar hadn’t worked…this place…”
“It’s not bad.”
“I’ve been thinking of buying a house, but for now I’m in a loft downtown because…well, I don’t need a yard or anything. But you’re making me rethink.”