by Taryn Quinn
Evidently not.
The rest of the afternoon after his fateful bingo trip hadn’t been a big improvement. He’d paid a visit to his family’s investment-firm headquarters uptown to discuss a possible company buyout with his father. After that, he’d stopped by two clubs to drum up more business for Deuces Wild while both of the other owners—the actual owners, since they hadn’t seen fit to cut him in yet—were off canoodling with their women.
Now he was back at the bingo hall and the lights in the building were slowly winking out, one by one. The other employees had been leaving in a steady stream for the last ten minutes, but Ang wasn’t in sight.
He ignored the tightening beneath his breastbone. She was fine. She’d said she was under a doctor’s care. As for Pete Lamont hassling her, if the bastard so much as touched a hair on her head, Sterling would make sure he didn’t touch anything else for a long time.
It took him a second to clue in to the violence of his thoughts. What the hell? He was protective about those he cared about, and he took being a bodyguard seriously, but this went beyond. Perhaps because she was pregnant?
No, he decided a moment later when she finally trudged out the door, head down. It was because of her, plain and simple. She needed his help, and he cared for her. If she’d been having a rough patch at school, he would’ve leaped to her assistance just as quickly.
Though in that case, her enlarged breasts wouldn’t have compounded the problem.
She headed over to her car, a sleek, black BMW. She opened the passenger door and tossed her bag inside, then rounded the hood to get behind the wheel. He waited for her to signal to him in some way, but she didn’t look in his direction.
Oh, so now she was freezing him out. He was trying to decide if he was amused or annoyed when his phone buzzed with a text message. He lifted it from the seat beside him and tried not to smile when he saw it was from her.
I’m not staying over with you for any reason except hot sex.
He lifted a brow and typed out a response. Before he could send it, she sent another.
I mean, I’m not requesting hot sex from you. I’m just saying hot sex would be a reason for us to shack up. You caught me at a weak moment earlier.
He replied.
Weak moment, hmm? Or else your spur of the moment response was what you truly wanted to do.
Why would I want to live with you?
You just said it yourself. To have hot sex.
I was making a point. When have I ever wanted to have sex with you?
I don’t know. Though it must be at the forefront of your mind, since you keep mentioning it.
She didn’t answer for so long that he strained his neck to see what she was doing in her car. He grinned. Probably cursing him in five languages.
Finally her reply came through.
We’re friends. I’m truly sad your fucking skills have earned you fans but I’m not willing to discuss this further beyond my stated terms. Bodyguard doesn’t mean bed guard & we didn’t even agree on that 4 sure. Thank you, really, but no thanks. I’ll be fine. Smooches.
His eyebrow climbed higher. Smooches? She’d brushed him off thoroughly and then she tossed out a halfhearted thank-you and a fake air kiss? That couldn’t stand. His pride wouldn’t allow it. She’d said it herself. His fucking had earned fans. Now he just needed to make that true. Somehow.
If she thought hot sex would be an adequate reason for them to cohabitate, well, then, why not put that entrée on the menu? A good host always provided for his guests.
His thumbs faltered over his smartphone. However, it wouldn’t do to be rash. He didn’t want to make a sudden move he would end up regretting due to impulse. All the reasons why he couldn’t have hot sex with Ang still remained. She was young. Her father trusted him and probably wouldn’t approve of Sterling corrupting his only child, whether that description was accurate or not.
She was also pregnant with another man’s baby. Her increased cup size and guileless gray eyes did not change any of those factors.
But when she gunned the engine and pulled out of her parking space? That mitigated the hell out of everything.
He typed quickly. If he didn’t accede to her wishes, he’d have to chalk the whole thing up to a miserable failure. A Vance never conceded defeat this early in the game. He’d win—er, do the right thing for Ang and her baby—by any means possible.
For God’s sake, he had a huge place. It hardly made sense for her to adversely affect her sleep by bunking on a friend’s couch. So he’d take one for the team. Breasts and all.
His thumbs moved over his phone.
Okay, I will do as you.
He hit send, belatedly realizing he’d forgotten that pertinent word wish at the end. See, haste made waste.
And waste made him step in very deep shit.
Ang’s car squealed to a stop a few feet from the exit. After a second, she threw on her emergency flashers. Then she replied.
You will do me? Come again?
This would be the time to toss back a Jax-like rejoinder. Something cocky and yet ultimately cute in the eyes of the opposite sex. Unfortunately, he wasn’t either of those things. At least he wasn’t cute.
Perhaps Jax could write him up a list of possible comebacks for a situation like this. He’d keep them on hand, in case. He would never use them. Probably not.
He responded swiftly. She already thought he’d commented on his desire to do her, whatever that consisted of exactly. Might as well go in for a pound since he’d already shot his pennies all over the ground.
I will have sex with you.
Then he remembered he had no condoms and typed before he thought better of it.
I have no protection but we don’t need it. You can’t get up the duff twice.
With a flourish, he sent it and waited for her enthusiastic response.
Instead of receiving a text, the sound of a car door slamming shut cut through his muddy thoughts. He was starting to actually imagine sex with Ang and it was…stirring. Despite the fact he remained pretty confident she’d put the brakes on things before they got that far, he couldn’t help envisioning certain aspects. Like her peeling off that extremely snug T-shirt, one revealing inch at a time. Smiling at him with her full lips, her little pink tongue flashing between her teeth as she treated him to a sexy striptease.
The banging on the window next to his head startled him out of his reverie. Ang’s pissed-off face filled the glass, and he could say with certainty that she wasn’t flashing him tongue now or interested in giving any stripteases.
Clearing his throat, he pressed the button to lower the window. The humid evening air flowed into the cabin-controlled coolness of his vehicle, which fit the blaze in Ang’s narrowed eyes.
How had he gone wrong this time? Hadn’t he agreed to her terms? He’d even brought up the fortuitous tidbit that she could have unprotected intercourse—with a clean partner, naturally. Which he was. If he’d been any cleaner, he would’ve squeaked.
Considering her flush, he expected her to thunder out a response. Instead, she spoke so softly that he had to lean closer to hear her question. “Have you lost your mind?”
Finally, something he could answer without doubt. “No. I have not.”
“Oh, pal, that’s where I think you’re wrong. The Sterling Vance I know would never have referenced my ‘duff’ in polite conversation. What the hell is a duff?”
“It’s a term for pregnancy, most popularly used in the UK and—”
“Forget it. My duff’s off the table.” She huffed out a breath. “You do not want to have sex with me. I know this for a fact. You know it for a fact. Why are you doing this?” She pursed her lips until they whitened from the pressure. “Did my father put you up to this? Does he know I’m staying with Brandy?” She slapped a hand on the roof of his Mercedes, and he inwardly winced. For pity’s sake, not his car. “You’re acting as his lackey, aren’t you? You have in the past. Though I gotta say, you will go to any len
gth to close the deal.”
“I’m no one’s lackey.” With effort, he kept his tone level. “Do you honestly think your father would suggest I have intercourse with you to get you off a friend’s couch?”
“It’s not fucking intercourse. It’s fucking. F-u-c-k-i-i-n-g.”
His cock leaped. Actually leaped. One misspelled word describing graphic sex and he had to wrap his fingers around the steering wheel to distract himself from leaning through the open window, fisting his hand in her short cap of dark hair and yanking her mouth to his.
Not for her father’s benefit. Not even for hers. His hunger for her had made him greedy enough not to care about right or wrong.
But that wasn’t what happened. He went with old faithful. A dry remark.
“You spelled it wrong.”
“What?”
“Fucking doesn’t have two Is. Don’t hit my car again,” he added in a low voice. “Unless you want me to take you over my knee.”
Dammit, that was definitely something Jax had said to Cass. The fool was rubbing off on him, in all the worst ways. He started to apologize—until he realized her pupils had dilated. And her mouth…oh God, her mouth had parted just enough to let him see that forbidden flash of tongue from his fantasies. She wasn’t smiling, wasn’t teasing, but it didn’t matter. Somehow what he’d said hadn’t further inflamed her anger. It had incited desire.
Huh. Maybe Jax knew what he was doing after all.
“You wouldn’t.” She bit her lower lip. “You couldn’t.”
He was tempted to agree—when did he spank fully grown women, or anyone at all?—but that wasn’t how Jax would reply, he just knew it. “Try me,” he said instead and nearly did a fist pump as that damnable tongue made another quick appearance to soothe the sting from her bite.
A task he’d happily take over, should he be able to move. The hard-on from hell had basically pinned him in place.
She angled her head, clearly deciding to try another tack. “Let’s be reasonable.”
Another tack was probably for the best, unless he could manage to steer the car home with his erection. “Okay. Let’s. Follow me home as you agreed, and I’ll get you set up in the guest room.”
“Bye-bye hot sex, hello real agenda,” she snapped.
Dear Lord, dealing with this normally practical, good-natured woman had become a minefield. It was lowering to send up mental pleas for help from his oversexed friend, but a wise man always knew when he was in the presence of a master. Jax had trails of adoring exes for a reason, and Sterling was reasonably sure it wasn’t because of those stupid signed baseball-bat key chains he liked to hand out to new clients.
Jax had swagger. And Sterling needed to get some. Fast.
Going with instinct, Sterling gestured her away from the car so he could step out. She shot him a wary look, but she complied. In a few minutes, this little exercise would be futile since it was nearing dark. Luckily there was still enough light to see by.
He rose and undid the button on his jacket. It made him feel painfully exposed, though the pain below the waist was a given at this point. If he’d been Jax or another man, he might’ve taken her hand so she could feel the evidence. But he’d never be that forward with someone, especially Ang. He refused to take away any of her choices, and that included confronting something she might not want to deal with. Or touch. “Take a look at me, Ang.”
She looked. At his face first, so deeply into his eyes that something inside him fisted. Lots of things did. His lungs, his chest, his cock. She didn’t spare him with that glance, probing him as intimately as if he were naked and she were searching him freckle-by-freckle for flaws. She couldn’t know he had freckles on his shoulders. He wasn’t one for wearing tank tops or strutting around sans shirt. But for that moment, she knew everything. She could see all of him, right down to the root.
Her attention snagged below the waist and he knew she saw the reality of his situation. Whatever his reasons for going along with her hot sex comment, his massive erection made it difficult for her to deny that he was all in for the proceedings.
Her throat jerked as she swallowed hard. Then she met his gaze once more and nodded. “Okay. I’ll follow you.”
“Do you need to pack a bag?”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “I probably shouldn’t admit I’ve basically been living out of my trunk since I got back from Europe a couple of weeks ago, huh?”
“Probably not.” He got back behind the wheel and slid her a glance. “He’s a fool. You know that, right?”
Her smile strengthened. “Oh yeah. There’s lots I don’t know. But that? Nailed down with the quickness.”
He watched her walk to her vehicle. Did she already have more pep in her step or was he imagining things?
“Nailed down with the quickness,” he said under his breath. Then he put his car in gear and hit the gas.
“What am I doing?” Ang shot a look at herself in the rearview mirror and groaned at the messiness of her hair. She’d been raking her fingers through it all night and it definitely showed. “I can’t go over there. What am I doing?”
Unsurprisingly, no answers were forthcoming from the interior of her car.
This was Sterling. Her friend. She didn’t want to do this.
All right, that was a lie. She absolutely wanted to do this. But not this way. She didn’t want to goad him into sleeping with her—if that was even going to happen. He’d been trying to do a good deed and somehow it had all spiraled out of control.
Once Sterling’s car passed hers, she fell in line behind him, twisting her fingers around the wheel. She didn’t even know for sure where he lived. She’d heard it was upstate somewhere in a small town, but she had to assume it couldn’t be that far if he was spending time at bingo halls in the city with his friends. She was almost positive one of them was a pop singer she’d seen in clubs around town, Sunny Z.
Sterling was now hanging out with singers and former baseball players. And forming bodyguard agencies.
She wasn’t any stranger to hobnobbing with rich people. Hell, by all accounts, she was rich herself. But that money wasn’t hers, not technically. Sterling had made his own cash. He was very much his own man. Not a boy like Pete. He couldn’t have been any farther away from him and still remained in the same universe.
So why was he getting hard for her?
That question plagued her for the next two hours plus as she followed him to his home. They drove for so long that her butt got numb and she was half-tempted to text him that she wanted to stop off to get a soda and a chili dog. Since that would probably get her a lecture about proper nutrition, she held off.
Though now that she thought about it, she’d seen him eating cheese and chips during bingo. What was up with that? The Sterling she’d known before Europe had regulated his food intake and exercise like he managed everything else in his life—with steely precision.
She swallowed and let her mind drift back to that moment in the parking lot when she’d checked out his cock, with his permission. Steel applied there too. He didn’t seem to have a pencil pusher’s dick, if such a thing existed. It probably didn’t. She just hadn’t expected him to be so lengthy. Or…girthy. Perhaps the shadows and his well-cut trousers had been working in his favor.
Her stomach fluttered with a combination of nerves and excitement. She’d get to see soon enough, if he wasn’t bluffing her. She’d be disappointed as hell if that were true, but Sterling was an upstanding guy. Considering his tight-knit relationship with her family, his even getting a hard-on over her probably violated his strict moral code.
Yet he’d done it. And now he was taking an exit to a town called Yardley, and she trailed after him, knowing that this could change everything. Knowing it would. She couldn’t get duffed up or whatever twice, as he’d so helpfully pointed out, but she could get hurt.
Even worse, she could fall in love. It wouldn’t be so difficult since she’d idolized him since childhood. Eventually she’d
stopped putting him on a pedestal and just started being his friend.
Now they’d go beyond that.
Smooth move, McFee. You won’t feel as guilty about taking over his guest room since you’ll be giving him some ass in return.
Yeah, her extremely conservative parents would love that. They would probably already think—if not say—that she was a ho for getting pregnant from a short-term relationship. Now she was moving in on an upstanding member of the community.
Lock up your men, townsfolk of Yardley. Preggo predator on the prowl.
She squinted as Sterling flipped on his turn signal and drove down a shady, tree-lined street. Sprawling Victorian homes lined both sides, and she couldn’t stop gawking. She loved Victorians. Loved small towns.
Loved sleeping in real beds so that when she had to pee approximately sixty-two times during the night, she didn’t have to force herself up from the saggiest couch in the history of couches.
Signaling to his right, he drove up the long, winding driveway that belonged to the last house on the block. He parked in front of the three-car garage and removed his dry-cleaning bag from the backseat, tossing it over his shoulder before striding toward Ang where she was sitting and staring. Lots of staring.
She couldn’t have sex with him, as part of some kind of bluff or otherwise. He probably had moves. Slick ones she wouldn’t see coming and couldn’t counter with her fumbling attempts at seduction. Even suggesting a blowjob to him sounded beneath him somehow. Surely someone as effortlessly regal as Sterling had another word for it. Mouth service. Tongue work. Maybe he didn’t even engage in such filthy acts.