Earning It

by Angela Quarles

  So. My plan is clear. Be a new person. Be this Rick the Lawyer. And talk to the only woman who’s ever made me feel any kind of spark outside of combat for the space of this coffee date. Best case scenario, I get to be outside my skin—free to be whatever the hell I want. Worst case—she recognizes me as we chat. She’ll be pissed, call me an asshole, but it won’t be anything she hasn’t called me in the past, so… Win/Win?

  Pepper

  Holy yummy presence, Batman. I have no words, which is unusual for me, to be honest. I don’t want him to shatter the gorgeous-man illusion with law talk, so the blip in my brain is me scrambling for another conversational topic. I’d planned to coast through this date by asking him about his job and letting him rattle on, because that’s what guys seem to do best—talk about themselves. Especially on first dates. So I’ve heard.

  I wrap my hands around my mug, letting the warmth ground me. I blow into it to stall. My brain isn’t helped out by the zing I feel being this close to him. He’s the definition of sex on a stick. Normally, I don’t even say stuff like that, but I heard it on some show and it pops, all unwelcome, into my brain. And that’s a little too overwhelming for me, so…

  “Um, are you new in town?”

  No judging. I’ve gotta start somewhere, and it’s obvious he’s not going to take the plunge. My voice comes out a little thready, but I put on a brave face.

  He leans back, and the movement sends a scent my way. His scent. And of course it’s intoxicating. Manly. Sex-on-a-stupid-stick manly. No doubt he received more than his share of pheromones when he was made. I do not lean forward to keep it in range.

  Okay, I do.

  To cover my action, I prop my chin on my hand and wait for his response like I’m all calm, but really I’m like a dog whose rump hits the floor in record speed, tail thumping madly, waiting for my treat—his voice. I’ve only gotten four sentences out of him so far, but those four sentences?

  Sexy. Well, not the sentences themselves, but the voice that carries them. Deep, rumbling, self-assured.

  Sexy.

  Jeez, my brain is stuck on that word. I do my best to feign polite interest instead of oh-my-God-can-you-just-sit-there-and-be-any-more-sexy?

  All right. That word’s now banned from my vocabulary. I’d like to get through this blind date with dignity, thank you very much. Especially since this type of over-the-top reaction is new, like a feverish infection.

  “Moved here from Virginia Beach about two years ago.” His voice prickles over my skin, fills me. Burrows into some lonely part of me I didn’t know was there. And then kicks my heart rate into a greater pace, because I absolutely do not know how to handle the attraction I’m feeling for this stranger. This can’t be normal, can it?

  I bite off a piece of chocolate croissant and lick the crumbs from my lips.

  “And you?” He takes a sip of coffee and looks at me over the rim, his eyes carrying a knowing kind of weight to them. God. He can tell I have the hots for him.

  I stop myself. Normally, I’d feel like the potato salad caught thinking it was a fancy amuse-bouche to have a chance with someone like him. But now I’m like, screw it. So I think he’s hot and he knows it. Is that a crime?

  I moved back to my hometown because I want to start fresh. Be the new me I put on hold for twelve mind-numbing, sleep-deprived years. And the new me is totally fine with a hot guy knowing I find him attractive. Might be good to see where this goes. New town. New fling. New not-cold me.

  Take that, Phil.

  But I’m bungling it already, because that was a stupid-long pause. God—it’s as if I have little dating experience. Haha. That’s me being sarcastic, because that’s exactly what this is. I’m twenty-nine, but I might as well be eighteen.

  The sad truth is—I poured all of my twenties into school. Phil was my first and only real relationship, and that came about because it unfolded with little effort on my part—he was a patient—and because I thought that finally reaching the fellowship stage of my schooling meant I could create time for a relationship. Boy, had that been an epic miscalculation.

  And now, I’ve paused even loooonger.

  As if to punctuate the ridiculous silence, the frothing machine behind me chooses now to scroooosh overloud and overlong. I wait until it’s done and say, “I grew up here.” I take a sip of my café mocha, grateful to have something to do with my hands—they’re like fluttery, alien things with no direction.

  His gaze hasn’t left mine, and I resist shifting in my seat. “Must’ve been nice, growing up near such beautiful beaches.”

  “Sure,” I say, because that’s what everyone expects, but honestly, it wasn’t. I hated the whole smearing down with lotion and baking in the sun thing. Classmates filled my yearbooks with snide remarks about my pale state. Get a tan, girl was my fave of the lot. “But tell me about Virginia Beach. I’ve never been.”

  He leans forward, takes the bait—thank God—and regales me with stories about his buddies there, their pranks, his favorite spots, but all the while I’m thinking our conversation is really about something else.

  I do get a vivid picture of the Virginia Beach he knows, and I want to visit. See these places. With him.

  This is nuts.

  It’s just…he’s so deliciously self-assured, as if he’s in complete control of himself and whatever situation befalls him, and the thought sends a thrill through me. He’s so out of my league, but a girl can pretend. It’s not that I think I’m pond scum or something, but I’m average in the looks department and my limited dating experience places him in the unattainable sphere.

  Unease worms its way into my newfound resolve to live a little. Seeing his control—his ease and charm—highlights how different we are. We might both be self-assured business professionals, but only for him does it carry over into his dating life. I lack that. And I’m surprised to find this bothers me. Not about him. God no. But about me.

  I polish off my chocolate croissant, trying to enjoy its sweet buttery flavor as I listen to him and struggle with what to think. What to do.

  His words and my words and our breaths are combining across this café table in this corner coffee shop, and I feel as if there are other presences here with us: my nerves, for one; a weighty, breathless expectation; potential.

  However, as the minutes pass and conversations and customers ebb and flow around us, it no longer feels as if he’s out of my league. We just click, and it seems so completely natural to be here talking. With him.

  For instance, how weird is it that we both visited Nuremberg the same year, but a month apart?

  “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” he asks, with a challenging eyebrow lift.

  “Ja,” I answer, but my German’s rusty, and I say so in German. I continue in English, “It was a stop on a short tour of Southern Germany before I started my spring semester abroad in Munich. Stayed at the coolest youth hostel, a converted castle.”

  He chuckles, a sound that drops into that weighty expectation and sizzles along my nerves. “I stayed there too.”

  See? Click. Fate. I shift forward in my seat. “It was raining when I got there, so I didn’t get to appreciate it at first, but I met two Canadians—a brother and sister—and we had a great time holed up in our room.”

  He nods along. “More people should travel abroad, if they’re able. We’re so isolated here. Most Americans don’t get how weird it is that we can travel for hours and hours and still speak the same language.”

  Which leads to a discussion on the merits of experiencing other cultures. Somewhere in that time, a barista clears away our dishes. Before I know it, a whole hour has disappeared, and we’ve been talking, laughing, sharing, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I felt so free with someone. A whole hour in which he hasn’t once glanced at his watch as if he can’t wait for an excuse to leave my presence.

  A whole hour which has been an exercise in restraint. Restraint from reaching out and touching the skin on the back of his hand, feeling the
hairs brush against my palm. Restraint from running my fingers up his muscled forearm, because I totally want to feel his strength whisper across my skin. Restraint from asking, are you for real?

  Restraint from leaning in and letting his warrior-like body shelter me. Which is screwed up because I don’t need sheltering. But I get the vibe that if I had a problem, he’d know how to fix it. And he’d want to.

  The realization that our date is close to over washes through me and leaves behind a jittery, panicky residue. It’s the only reason I can explain my next words, “Let’s have sex.”

  I clap a hand over my mouth, and I know my eyes have about bugged out of my head. “Holy shit,” I whisper. My heart’s pounding as if it’s going what-the-hell? But I actually wait for a response, because it turns out, I was kind of serious. Actually, I totally am.

  Wow.

  I’ve got some she-balls, and I’m loving it. The new me.

  Apparently he is too, because his eyes grow dark, hooded, and the air shifts between us, growing even more charged. It’s like—we’ve clicked so well, uncovering so much common ground between us, that it’s left a vacuum which demands to be filled by a physical connection. To even the balance. To shore up the gains we made.

  Except. That uneasiness returns and knocks around in my stomach. I have no time for the emotional investment a relationship takes. Yeah, I’m starting my new-me phase of my life, but I’m not ready to make time for a relationship. And then I have to laugh at myself for thinking so far ahead, but I can’t help it. It’s hard-wired. I miscalculated during my fellowship and indulged in a relationship with Phil. I can’t risk that again. I need to solidify my base here before I can…expand.

  But a fling? That might be exactly what I need to prove to myself I’m not cold. And to be upfront about this, I say, “This’ll just be sex. No strings. Afterward? We part ways.”

  That last bit was hard to say, because everything in me aches to explore more with this man, but I…can’t. Too much is on the line professionally. I’m already starting at the practice on shaky ground.

  So if this is all I can have with him? Yeah, I want the sex too.

  Then we’ll never see each other again.

  I could have kept quiet. Supposedly, guys don’t care—they’d never say no to sex—but I always thought that truism was a bit too pat. Since I’m basically using him to get practice and gain some much-needed experience, I need to be honest. Especially because it feels as if we’ve made a connection.

  He leans forward, his elbows propping on the table. His biceps bunch, and his whole body shudders with a slight tension.

  Shit. Have I totally misread him? Us? Will the one time I say something bold and daring—the one time I take ownership of something I want sexually, the one time I decide to live a little—be the time I get shot down?

  An internal struggle plays out in the depths of his green eyes. Did I mention they’re green? Well, they are. A rich, layered kind of green that surprisingly makes me want to curl up and stare into them. All day.

  He still hasn’t uttered a word.

  You know what? If I’m going to channel a sex vixen today, I need to own it.

  Slowly, I stand and hold his gaze. Then I turn and stroll toward the door as if I know what the hell I’m doing. As if I’m super confident he’s going to follow me. As if I’ve totally done this before.

  A chair scrapes.

  OMG.

  My thighs are shaky. I sure hope it’s not ruining the saunter I’m going for. Then, his warm presence is behind me, and a delicious shiver races down my spine. And that’s before his hand presses against the small of my back, sending a dose of heat to my core.

  OMG. This is so happening.

  Luke

  Fuuuuck.

  I’m leaning forward holding the café door open for Pepper, and I’m so close I can feel her warmth, see the short hairs that have escaped the no-nonsense bun to soften the line of her creamy neck. Begging me to lick, to taste her skin. To flick and tease the small hairs and nibble my way up to…

  Lust burns through me, making it hard to think.

  And I need to think, dammit.

  But I’m here and holding the door open precisely because each justification I made to steal more time out of this moment has been like a domino, click-click-clicking its inevitable path down and away—out of my control. I can stop this forward momentum. I can stop and say…

  Pepper, I’m Luke from high school, the one you hate, but can we forget all that and keep…connecting? I actually didn’t do what you think I did…

  Pepper, we can’t do this because…

  We walk down the sunlit sidewalk, my hand warming at the small of her back and…no words come out. She’s leading, I’m following, and… Yeah. She’s in charge. Which is hot. And I’m along for the ride, however that ride plays out. The little mind embodied in my cock perks up again, imagining all the “riding” we can do.

  No. That’s not the point. The point is… The fucking point is…

  The point is, she’s in charge, and she wants this. And I do too. And she’s set the parameters of the engagement. One time only. And maybe she’ll chicken out and change her mind before we get there…

  My breath shudders, fighting against the sudden, constrictive weight on my chest.

  Fuck, I’m the asshole she believes me to be because I can’t back away from this.

  Yeah, the justifications are coming swift and hard, detonating like mortar shells, one after another against my rational mind. But one justification eclipses all—we’re never seeing each other again.

  Chapter 3

  Pepper

  At Rick’s apartment complex, a naked bulb illuminates a clean but bare stairwell painted a cool blue. All is hushed anticipation except for our breaths and the scrape of our shoes as we take one step, and then another. I’m acutely aware of my surroundings, especially of the man behind me. But I’m not scared.

  No, instead I’m wound up for a completely different reason. Soon I’ll be feeling him against me. Feeling his strength. And I’m…eager. Eager to taste his skin, eager to learn what turns him on, eager to explore this sizzling chemistry flaring between us. Because it’s just so unusual for me. And it could be my one chance. Phil didn’t get me worked up like this. Guys have flirted with me in the past, but it just…never did anything for me. Deep down, I think the reason Phil’s text bothered me so much was because I feared it was true.

  We reach the first landing, and he palms the small of my back again, the solid tips of his fingers settling into the dip along my spine, steady and sure. A shudder of anticipation and heat starts at the point of contact and fans outward. We’ve barely talked since leaving the coffee shop. In fact, all that was said was on his part.

  His words, like velvet in my ear but dark with sensual promise, “My apartment’s a block away,” and I just nodded like that eager puppy.

  God. This is really happening.

  I’m having sex with someone I just met. Before lunchtime.

  And I’m oddly fine with this.

  I take the next step, and he follows more closely now, his hunky presence behind me like a heady, sensual pressure. His intoxicating scent already making my stomach flutter.

  His warm breath brushes my ear, and I shiver.

  “You sure about this, sweetheart?”

  His voice is infused with a touch of worry, which totally checks another box in his pro column.

  “Yes,” I whisper, still trying my damnedest to channel this new sex vixen in me. And since a sex vixen wouldn’t stop there, I reach down and stroke my hand down his muscular thigh. Which…might not be that sexy, but dammit, to me this is radical.

  Through his suede-soft jeans, his taut muscles tense under my palm, and he growls in my ear. I clench. I friggin’ clench, which I’ve never done in my life. How pathetic. Obviously, this lack is something vital I need to fix.

  At his door, he yanks me into the sheltering circle of his arm, my back flush against him
, his body curled around me. For some reason, being so definitively in his personal space—his inner circle—feels more intimate than anything I’ve done in the past. My hand flexes on his thigh, itching to move up and squeeze the powerful biceps which fill my left-side vision. But I resist. Yeah, just call me Miss Self Control.

  He fishes out his key from his jeans pocket, the action curving his hips into me and pressing his heavy erection against the top curve of my ass. I tremble, and heat pulses through my veins.

  The door swings inward, and he edges us forward. I snatch a glimpse of bare white walls, sparse furniture, and a general lack of clutter, when I’m spun around and he sandwiches me against the now-closed door.

  Our heightened breaths are all I can hear. His hard body is stretched against mine, tensed, and arousal spikes through me, a searing heat all along my skin. That was…fucking hot. Do I want to have sex against a door? Yes. Yes, I do.

  He leans forward, his face mere inches from mine, his gaze searching, but his mouth doesn’t crash into mine like I expect. Instead, he says, “Listen.” His liquid voice steals over me, mixing with my desire and ratcheting it higher. “That door’s unlocked. You initiated, yes. But that doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind. Understand?”

  I shiver again, because damn, the heat and control radiating from him envelops me in his protective zone. And his concern soothes any last minute anxiety that’s trying its damnedest to knock sense into me. I appreciate the check-in, don’t get me wrong, but I’m eager to explore this.

  A strange noise—half growl, half groan—rumbles from his chest. “You asked, you’re in charge, but I also want. Fuck, do I want.”

  He tracks his gaze down my body and back up, taking in the rise and fall of my breasts. Which are practically begging all on their own for his touch. His eyes lock with mine, and the want there sends another bolt of need through me, because—holy cow—this huge, hotter-than-sin man wants me. Wants me.