Somebody's Ex

by Jasmine Haynes

  With a hand beneath her bottom, David pulled her closer, angled her for a slightly deeper penetration. He hadn’t a clue what was running through her mind, but he wouldn’t let her go now. It wasn’t about fucking the hell out of a delicious woman, it wasn’t even about getting off. It was about a warm sense of comfort that being inside her gave him. It was her laughter that still rang in his head. It was the taste of her, the scent of her, the feel of her skin along his body.

  He slid deeper. “Say it,” he murmured. “Say, ‘don’t stop, I want you to keep going, I love what you’re doing to me.’”

  She bit her lip. “Maybe I overreacted about the dog.”

  He pulled out, pumped fast twice, then hit deeply again.

  She moaned. “Yes, I definitely overreacted. Don’t stop.” She raised her legs to his hips and her arms to his neck. “I love the feel of you inside me.”

  He rocked against her, thrusting higher and deeper. Then he braced himself on one hand and reached between them, finding her clitoris, stroking it. She groaned, and he loved the sound. Her eyes closed, her lips gently parted, and he knew she was lost to the sensation of his cock inside her, his fingers on her.

  She tightened around him, inner muscles working, and she cried out. He thrust harder, keeping her on the edge, riding it with her until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, until the wave slammed into him, tumbled him over, and he shouted her name as he lost a part of himself inside her.

  * * * * *

  They’d fallen asleep with the light on. David had slept like the dead, better than he had in weeks. Randi’s hair, splayed across the pillow, shone golden in the lamplight. She lay on her side facing him, both hands tucked child-like against her chest. Long lashes fanned beneath her eyes, and her porcelain skin glowed.

  He hadn’t intended on falling asleep. But maybe this made things easier, even if cowardly. He hadn’t intended on feeling anything for her either, besides just the plain fact that she’d intrigued him. Shitty, however true it might be.

  If he’d felt nothing for her, though, he wouldn’t be slipping out while she slept. Hell, he hardly knew her. He didn’t want to feel anything for her. He didn’t need another complication.

  And wasn’t that one helluva typical male excuse.

  He climbed from the bed as gently as possible, gathered his jeans, shirt, and boots, then carried them into the living room.

  The dog lay curled up in the center of the carpet. In the dim light spilling down the hall from the bedroom, she raised her head to gaze at him with the saddest eyes. Dogs had that woebegone expression down pat. Randi had thrown her out of the bedroom, and the dog had not come back but lain on the carpet moping.

  “Look, girl,” he whispered, because hell, when she gazed at him so steadily, unblinkingly, he had to say something. “You shouldn’t be going into your mom’s bedroom and sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” The dog blinked. “You’re cute and all, but you just can’t be crawling into bed when she’s got company. It’s not polite.” Dressed, he bent to tie his boots. “It’s like being caught by the kids, ya know.” She stared, then finally she whined, laid her head down, and closed her eyes.

  David felt oddly rebuked, as if the dog were saying he wasn’t worth listening to since he was sneaking out in the middle of the night.

  Shit. Definitely a guilty conscience talking there. Should he wake Randi? Should he go?

  In the end, he just acted like a dickhead and left. He really didn’t know what he’d say to her. He didn’t have any promises to give.

  * * * * *

  Well, that was that. She should have stayed in bed and let him leave. She shouldn’t have hidden just inside the bedroom door and listened to him talk to Royal.

  Randi had started letting the dog sleep on the bed the night she left Mick. He’d hated Royal. Hmm, hate was a strong word. He thought Royal was prissy and high-strung. He’d have been happier with a Doberman. Something manly. But Royal was like...royalty. There wasn’t a prissy bone in her body. Mick, however, had treated her like...a dog.

  David had actually talked to her. And Randi fell in love.

  Just like that. Less than twenty-four hours. She was such a sucker. She’d done it all over again, opened her heart up to a world of hurt. Not much she could do about it now.

  She was in love with a guy who’d said good-bye to the dog but left without even waking her. Which said a lot about the development of this non-relationship.

  Randi used the bathroom, washed her hands, then climbed beneath the covers on her bed. Reaching to shut off the bedside lamp, she saw the caviar tube. After washing the dog, they’d forgotten all about it. It sat like an ugly reminder of what might have been. Closing her eyes, she bit her lip to ease the sudden pain in her heart. Then she clicked off the light and clapped for Royal, who came bounding in, careened onto the bed, and nuzzled her nose into Randi’s armpit.

  That was the thing about animals. They loved you unconditionally, were always happy to see you, and didn’t sneak out in the middle of the night.

  * * * * *

  David felt like shit. He hadn’t slept well after he left Randi’s. In fact, he hadn’t slept at all. Then his dad had kept him and his brothers humping at the day’s job site with barely a word between them. Sweating like a pig, David downed four bottles of water over three hours. In the summer, it would have been nice to start early and cut off shortly after noon, but for some reason, people didn’t like the sound of a chain saw before seven in the morning. Gee, go figure.

  They’d finished hauling the last load to the dumps at around three, and finally, dog-tired, David had hit the shower by three-thirty.

  So why, at four-thirty, was he at Randi’s with a load of two-by-fours in the back of his truck?

  Oh yeah, to fix the front steps and porch so she wouldn’t break her neck in the dark. The dog had set up a ballistic racket when he arrived, so he’d let her out of the backyard to wander around while he worked. She bounced around like a ping-pong ball, then settled down on the porch. She didn’t run away, and damn, the little beast actually looked like she was listening when he talked to her.

  “Was she pissed when she woke up this morning?”

  Royal panted, and David gave her some water.

  “All right, don’t answer that question.”

  It really didn’t matter if Randi was pissed. Not much he could do about it now. “And I am not fixing her porch to make amends. It’s just the neighborly thing to do since she made me dinner.” And gave him the best freaking night of his life, sexually speaking.

  “All right,” he told the dog, “I like her. Christ, I even like you. But I’m not looking for any of the serious stuff right now.” She stared, sad brown eyes unblinking, just as she’d gazed at him last night. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  The dog flopped over on her side to ignore him.

  David leaned on the board he’d just finished cutting. “Fine, I’ll tell her the truth. She has a right to know.”

  All he got was another doggie stare.

  Years of doing the right thing, the expected thing, allowed a niggling glimmer of guilt to slip through. In his world, a man didn’t have casual sex.

  Worse than the guilt was the notion that last night was anything but casual. Randi was funny, sassy, bright, and somehow sweetly child-like in her penchant to babble. She was also deeply passionate. He had the feeling there wasn’t a casual bone in her body.

  Dammit. David laid the board in and screwed it down.

  By six, he’d replaced four of the rotted or missing boards in the porch and fixed the steps. The dog raised her head, then jumped up for an exuberant barking session before David saw Randi’s truck bumping through the ruts in the gravel drive.

  She climbed from the truck, bending down to fondle and chatter to the wriggling mass at her feet. Then she leaned back into the truck, her jean skirt stretching across her backside as she reached to the passenger seat for a grocery bag.

  “Hi.
”

  David sensed a forced brightness in her greeting and her smile. He felt the need for a little forced small talk himself.

  “Hope it was okay I let the dog out of the backyard.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine.” Randi looked from his truck, to the sawhorses he’d set up at the side of the drive, to the new planks in her front step. “What are you doing?”

  What was he doing? Being a good neighbor? Or searching for an excuse to wait for her on her porch? Honestly, he had to admit it was more of the latter than the former, despite what he’d told the dog. Despite what he’d been telling himself. He might not be ready for any sort of serious relationship, but he wasn’t done with her yet. Not by a long shot.

  “I figured if you got home late and didn’t leave a light on, you’d be liable to break your neck on those rotten boards.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.” She stared as his boots as she spoke. “But thanks. I’ve been asking the landlord for a while now. He doesn’t listen well.”

  She should have been more insistent, but he opted not to voice the thought.

  “I’m almost done now.” He was usually good at polite conversation. But with Randi and all the crap roiling in his gut, he felt stilted and uncomfortable.

  “Thanks. I bought burrito stuff. Can I offer you dinner to pay you back?” She shifted from one foot to the other, edging nearer to the porch, the dog milling about her feet.

  “Burritos?” He searched for something to lighten the mood, the tenseness, the proverbial morning after the night before. He dropped down past the new porch steps, closer to her, within touching distance. “Another Norwegian delicacy?”

  The only Norwegian delicacy he wanted was her.

  She smiled self-consciously. “Since I wasn’t so hot last night, I figured I’d better get back to the basics.” Then she blushed, belatedly realizing, as he did, the innuendo in her words. “What I mean is, I thought I’d try something besides meatball mush.”

  He tipped her chin, forcing her to look at his face instead of his footwear. “No sense dancing around the issue, Randi. Last night was hot, and we both know it. I didn’t come back for dinner or solely to fix your porch. And I shouldn’t have left last night without waking you up to say good-bye.” Serious intentions or not, that had been just plain wrong.

  Randi shuffled her feet. The last thing she’d anticipated was to find him drilling screws into new slats for her front stoop. She hadn’t expected to see him at all. The sudden punch of joy followed quickly by a sheer drop into despair had left her feeling off balance.

  “I didn’t expect you to wake me up.” She didn’t expect to fall in love with him in a day and a heartbeat.

  He didn’t let go of her chin when she tried to avoid his gaze. “Look, last night was fantastic. I think we should...” He paused, searching her eyes as if he’d somehow find the words he wanted hidden there. “I think we should explore this thing.”

  “Explore?”

  “We were good. Really good. And I’d like to see you again.” He glanced down at Royal this time, as if she had the answer. “I’m not looking for anything...permanent. But I don’t see why we can’t get to know each other better.”

  In the biblical sense. Yep, that’s what he meant. “You don’t have to hem and haw. We were very compatible in bed, and you’d like to try it again. Right? Well, that’s okay with me. I like you. You fixed my porch. You didn’t complain about the meatballs, and sure, let’s get to know each other better.”

  She was a glutton for punishment, but she was used to surviving on crumbs. She’d done it long enough with Mick, and the sex had never been as good as it was with David.

  “For a nice guy,” she went on, “you’re a wild man in bed.” She hadn’t had a man in her bed for a long time, wild or not, so what the heck. “Let’s go for it. I’m on the rebound,” kind of, “and it isn’t good for me to get into anything serious anyway. You know the whole rebound thing, mixing up feelings and stuff, so playing it low-key and all is really the best thing for me anyway. So, burritos for dinner. Yeah, that sounds great.”

  She smiled. Her heart was not breaking. Because really, she was on the rebound. For sure. Hadn’t David sparked her interest because he seemed to be the exact opposite of Mick? Yes, he had. So casual was a good thing.

  She sidled by him and tested her new porch step. “Hey, this is great, wow, thank you. Come on, Royal, it’s dinnertime. I’ll feed her first, then get the burritos ready.” She smiled even though it seemed to hurt oddly, feeling brittle at the edges. “There’s a couple of boards left, and I just know you want to get to those before dark. I’ll call you when everything’s ready.”

  She juggled her purse, the grocery bag, and her keys. David stepped up on the porch beside her, took the keys, and unlocked the door. Royal rushed in like a whirlwind of dust.

  Leaving the keys hanging in the door, David leaned down to bring her lips to his. Soft, undemanding, he stroked her lower lip with his tongue, then sucked gently until she opened her mouth. It was sweet yet the meeting of their tongues promised hot, carnal pleasures later in the night.

  He released her, patted her on the butt, and turned her to the kitchen.

  She’d told David she hadn’t had an orgasm in over a year. It had been too embarrassing to admit she simply hadn’t had one with a man. A man in her bed was better than sex by herself.

  Now that was looking on the bright side.

  * * * * *

  Her next awkward moment came right after dinner. What now? Did she suggest coffee? Wine? Popcorn and a movie? Sex? Maybe she should do the dishes first. She wasn’t shy about sex, something she’d proven well enough last night. But tonight David made her shy, or rather, her feelings about him did.

  “I just have to sort a load of laundry. I’d planned to stop by the laundromat on the way home from the store tomorrow night.” That was her plan for the evening. Honest.

  Standing abruptly, Randi piled his plate on top of hers, then crushed the paper towels they’d used as napkins and tossed them on top. As she went to pick up the whole mess, David held her still by the wrist.

  “I’ve got a washer and dryer at my place. Why don’t you bring your laundry over tomorrow night?”

  She stopped, still, stock-still. “You want me to do your laundry as well?”

  He tilted his head up and to the side. “I did it this weekend. I was just thinking that I could make you dinner, and it would spare you having to go to the laundromat.”

  She really did hate the laundromat. The dryers were too hot and were hell on her clothing. Not to mention that creepy guys littered the place. She didn’t say that, asking instead, with a hint of breathy awe in her voice, “You can cook?”

  “I’m thirty-four years old and I’ve been living on my own since I was twenty. Yes, I can cook.”

  “Beans on toast?”

  “Scaloppini.”

  “Ooh.” The sound slipped out with yet another touch of awe. “And you’re going to cook scaloppini for me? But you fixed the porch. Last night’s dinner was to pay you back for rescuing me on the road and tonight it was for the porch, so you don’t owe me anything.” Mick would never have considered that one good turn deserved another.

  David slipped his fingers down to hold her hand, his thumb caressing her palm.

  “It’s self-serving.” His voice had dropped a note, quieter, huskier, and his eyes simmered with the hot glow of last night. “If you do laundry tomorrow at my place, you don’t have to sort it tonight. And if I make dinner, then you’ll be eternally grateful and turn to putty in my hands.”

  She was already putty in his hands. He scooted his chair back, took her other wrist, and reeled her in between his legs.

  “There were several things we didn’t get to last night.” His voice, soft in the early evening, seduced her.

  “What things?”

  He put her hands on his shoulders. She laced them behind his neck.

  “Where’s the dog?”

&
nbsp; She tilted her head at his non sequitur.

  “She’s too young to overhear what I’m about to say.”

  She laughed, the first unstilted, honest-to-goodness laugh she’d had all evening. “You’re just afraid she’ll jump on the bed at a crucial moment and break your concentration.”

  He shook his head. “Nope. I’m afraid she’ll see what I’m going to do to you right now and be traumatized for life.”

  “Hmm, well, in that case, I put her out back earlier so we could eat in peace.”

  David grinned. It was perhaps the most evil, lascivious grin she’d ever seen on a nice guy.

  “That was the magic word.”

  “Which one?” She suddenly knew even as she asked. “Oh.”

  His gaze heated her as he caressed the bare skin above the waistband of her skirt.

  “You did do that to me last night.” She’d practically begged him to lick her to orgasm. He’d been sweetly obliging.

  “I didn’t do it to you in the kitchen.” He winked. “On that nice, clean countertop.”

  The whole conversation from last night came back to her. She’d told him cleaning the house made her think about sex, and the memory of that hot, sexy talk heated her. Talking was as much a part of foreplay as touching.

  “How about it?” he coaxed in a husky whisper.

  How about it? He didn’t want a serious relationship. But he did want her now. A girl had to work with what was presented to her.

  Randi dropped gracefully to her knees between his legs. “You know, it’s only fair that since I made dinner, I get to decide what’s for dessert.” Her gaze fell to the front of his jeans. He filled them out a little more even as she watched.

  “And what did you want for dessert?”

  She let one side of her mouth curve in a smile. Some women felt that doing that particular thing to a man was demeaning. It gave him the power. Randi knew the opposite was true. She might be the one literally on her knees, but taking a man in her mouth metaphorically put him on his knees.