by Brill Harper
“He is!”
“Dane,” I tread carefully. “I can see that you worked very hard to get to where you are as Mr. Virile, and that you were highly motivated by the way you felt as a teenager, but Dante is not a different person. He’s you. You’re him.”
Dane scoffs. “Dante Martino is dead to me. I am not him. He was a wimp with no self-respect. He got stuffed into lockers and pushed into the girls’ bathroom. He ate junk food and never went outdoors if he didn’t need to. He was content to play video games and watch sci-fi and never once talked to a girl. I am not him. He is not me.”
“You need to make peace with him or you’re always going to be hiding.”
He doesn’t reply. We say nothing for a few minutes, listening to the radio for the all clear. His body is furnace hot next to me. Everywhere our flesh touches feels alive, vibrant.
He reaches for my hand under the blanket. “Tell me what happened to you during the storm.”
His hand is warm and firm, and I feel protected and safe, so I tell him about what scares me most, as is fair since he’d done the same. He might not know he did it, but he shared the terror that drove him to be the pinnacle of the esteemed man—the fear of the nerdy boy who lived inside. Doesn’t he know that everyone feels the same? I always wonder when I’m finally going to feel grown-up. Nobody ever really gets over high school. Not really.
Dane soothes me while I speak of a tornado that decimated parts of my hometown and left others untouched. The storm that took my gramps away from me. It feels good to talk about it, though I’m surprised at how much. Dane listens carefully, squeezing my hand when the words come out rough.
The radio finally declares it safe to return upstairs, but neither of us move.
My heart inches up my throat when Dane caresses the skin of my wrist. Gently, so gently, he brings it to his mouth and licks the pulse point there, sending a rush of heat to my girly bits. We turn our heads to each other, and without a second more hesitation, we kiss.
Dane’s kisses in the rain had been passionate and erotic, but I like these more. They are needy and unpracticed kisses, coming from a place inside both of us that requires human touch, human need. Something raw happened to us during this storm, and it feels organic and elemental that we exorcise the fears in a primal way.
He rolls over me and kisses down my neck, and I shiver like I’ve never been touched before. My bra has a front latch and he growls his satisfaction as he unsnaps it, filling his hands with my breasts and groaning with appreciation.
His mouth clamps over one and I arch, crying for more. His mouth is so hot. I gouge my nails down his back, then clamp my hands on his ass. God, what an ass he has. His cock presses hard against my panties, and he sucks my nipple with a sweet, sweet violence, taking me to a dark place of want.
I’m so close to coming already. I clamp my legs around his waist, urging him to slide against me harder. I’m losing myself to him and don’t care. A small but annoying voice in my head keeps reminding me to stop, but then his hand slides between us and rubs me through the cotton panties, and all I can think about is his cock and how good it is going to feel deep inside me.
This is wrong.
“You feel so fucking good,” Dane says against my breast.
“We can’t do this,” I say in a voice so small I half hope he doesn’t hear.
He does, though, and his finger stills on the button I want him to push more than anything. “Why?”
“We’ve only been on three dates.”
“That’s two more than I usually go on.”
Normally, that would have been a cold shower’s worth of hell no, but he smells so good and feels so perfect on top of me. I want to taste him everywhere.
No, no, no. No, Holly.
“I advise my readers to wait until at least the seventh date to have sex. It sets up an expectation that you value intimacy and builds anticipation.”
“Seven?” He lowers his forehead to my chest and groans, his hot breath making me squirm under him deliciously. “You better quit moving if you really want me to stop.”
That’s the kicker, isn’t it? I don’t want him to stop. I want to throw my own rules out the window and have sex with this man. Now. Right fucking now.
“So, we already agreed to date for a few weeks, why can’t we sleep together now? We’re guaranteed seven dates, right?”
“Because, the rule is important. It means that I respect myself and value real intimacy. It’s not just about keeping men committed to at least six dates...it’s about the value I am placing on my sexuality.”
“I value your sexuality really a lot, I promise.” But even as he says it, he’s rolling off me to his back.
It’s so cold without him. I want him back.
He throws an arm over his eyes and is trying to rein in the overwhelming lust I just made him turn off.
“I’m sorry,” I say. And I am.
“Don’t be,” he answers. “It’s okay, really.” He rolls back to his side and looks at me, really looks at me. For a moment, he says nothing, but the sexual tension between us isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. “So,” he says, trailing his fingers lightly over my still bare breasts. “It occurs to me that there are different levels of intimacy.” He tweaks a nipple and I gasp. “Building blocks, if you will. Perhaps...” His hand slides down, tracing the waistband of my panties. “Perhaps, we could do some...stuff...but not all the stuff?”
I arch my pelvis toward his hand without thought. “You mean like two teenagers making out in a basement under a sleeping bag in only their underwear?”
He cups me in that big, warm hand, drawing all sensation south. “You know my deep, dark secret, Holly. I never got to do this as a teenager. No girls would even look at me unless they needed help with their Algebra.”
I grasp his wrist before he can go any further. “So, you want to use me to go back in time and face a childhood trauma?”
“Desperately.”
“I can work with that.” I loosen my grasp. “My personal boundaries back then were nothing beneath the underwear.”
“I can work with that.”
He is back on top of me, kissing me mindless and rubbing his cock on me. I soaked my panties through, I’m so wet. I try to think back to high school make out sessions, but none ever seemed as erotic as this.
Dane leverages himself on one elbow and brings his other hand to the small of my back, tucking me up harder against his body. Then he uses his hips, grinding our bodies together in a primal rhythm. Once again, I wrap my legs around his waist. Once again, I throw my head back as the peak of my orgasm barrels down.
“You’re so wet,” he says, his voice low in my ear. “So goddamned wet for me.”
I would love to hear more of that dirty talk, but I slam over the cliff, falling and reaching up with my hips to rock into him harder to ride out the wave of pleasure.
“Good girl.” As I come down, I notice he is shaking and impossibly tense. “Is it acceptable for a teenager to come in his pants?” he asks, gritting his teeth and biting back his own orgasm.
“It’s a rite of passage,” I assure him, and then, to help him out, I bite his earlobe.
He jerks and smothers me with a deep kiss while his body slams into me as if he’s inside me. I’ve never felt as powerful and yet as empty. I ache for him to be inside me. He keeps grinding hard and brings me to the edge of another soul stealing orgasm, and we ride out the storm by clutching each other tightly.
Awhile later, when the world reshapes itself to normal, Dane holds my head to his chest and whistles. “Now I see I missed quite a bit during my teen years.”
I don’t bother telling him it has never been that intense before, even when my hormones were peaking and all I thought about were boys. And not after, when I was dating or even when I was almost engaged to the man I thought I’d spend my life with. I don’t tell him because that would be admitting too much to a man who offers very little.
I’m the biggest k
ind of fool.
As seen on AMA with Mr. Virile and Neighborly Advice
DEAR MR. VIRILE AND The Girl Next Door,
I’m writing to both of you because I need all the advice I can get. Is there such a thing as love at first sight?
Signed,
Goner
~*~
DEAR GONER,
No.
Sincerely,
Mr. Virile.
~*~
DEAR GONER,
No.
Yours,
Girl Next Door
CHAPTER SIX
Holly
DATES FOUR AND FIVE were tame even by my standards. I worried that Dane might have already fallen out of lust when I received a sweet, yet chaste, kiss at my door after the concert in the park, which was photographed by the PC Daily. The date, not the kiss. But then he called me two hours later and we talked for another two hours. Something we’ve been doing a lot of lately. During our date at a charity benefit, he was attentive, charming, and went out of his way to put me in the limelight when any journalists asked us about our upcoming books—but he didn’t accept my offer of coming in for a drink. He did, however, leave me with a kiss that curled my toes before he walked away whistling.
And when he got home, he played online chess with me until two a.m.
Our PR plan is working. People are talking about us, my blog hits are up, and all my friends are bugging me for the real scoop. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell people we are just friends, it seems to inflame the curiosity more. Everyone wants to know if we are sleeping together, and if we aren’t, how long before we do?
I sort of wonder the same thing myself.
I’m mulling over last night’s perplexing kiss over a mug of coffee when someone knocks on my door. I look down at my jammies decorated with sheep and shrug. Not my best look but maybe it’s a package delivery. I love packages, ask my Prime account.
The peephole provides me with mixed emotions. On my stoop is not the UPS man, but Dane, his dog, and a box of doughnuts. My belly tingles, but crap, what is he doing here? Why didn’t he call first? Why don’t I wear sexy lingerie to bed every night? And why do I care what he thinks of my sleeping attire?
Frustrated, I throw open the door. “Our next date is Friday night.”
His masculine energy overwhelms me and all he is doing is standing on the other side of my threshold. Even as he smirks at my attire, I fight the urge to climb him like a set of monkey bars on my personal playground. His T-shirt molds to his chest tightly, tempting me to remember the rush of heat that follows when his bare skin brushed against mine in his basement. His hair is still damp from the shower, and I can smell his evergreen soap. And maple, which must be the doughnuts.
He ignores my comment about Friday. “Nice sheep. Can I come in?”
I stand aside and bid him in with an exaggerated gesture. After closing the door, I scratch Boss behind the ears while Dane sets the box on the coffee table. “Did we have plans that I’m not aware of?”
I barely get out the words before he turns and scoops me into an embrace and a kiss that steals my breath. He kisses me like a desperate man, a man so far gone that he pulls from me things I hadn’t meant to give him. Hadn’t meant to feel. He wraps me into a reckless kiss, ramping up my confusion and throwing me into my own desperate place where kisses both soothe me and plunge me further into the abyss.
I don’t want to feel this much. I can’t afford to want him. I feel little pieces of my heart cracking off as he chisels away at me with his hungry kiss. His mouth demands so much as his tongue twirls and caresses me into submission. My fingers, with minds of their own, furrow beneath his shirt, up over the taut muscles of his abdomen until finding the thick patch of hair covering the hard muscles of his chest.
Unf, right?
His hands roam my back, stopping to squeeze my ass and grind my pelvis into his. I love the way he feels against me, all hard and full of purpose. His hands come back up to my head, and he keeps them there as he pulls back to look into my eyes. His own are wild and dark and exciting. “What the hell are you doing to me?”
“Doing to you?” I croak. I’m the one under a spell here.
“I swear to God, I came by for a civilized breakfast. Your goddamned pajamas turned me on. What the hell? They have sheep. And you have little bits of mascara under your eyes. I don’t understand what is going on. Why I can’t get within ten feet of you and I’m as hard as stone. Why the sight of you sleep-rumpled in cartoon pajamas makes me want to drag you to bed. Why I can’t stop thinking about what you feel like under my hands.”
My hand automatically comes up to wipe the mascara away, and he attacks me again, pulling me to the couch and knocking the doughnuts off the table. He doesn’t even yell at his dog when Boss goes for the pastries. He just keeps drugging me as he feeds me kiss after kiss, his big hands tunneling through my hair, holding me in place.
I want him. Bad. Every nerve in my body is attached to my core, zinging pleasure like electrical currents. My skin feels tight, and I want to climb out of it and into him.
No. This isn’t right. I need to stop this. Any minute now.
When his hand goes to the buttons of my pajamas, I finally heed the warning buzz in my head and place my hands on his chest and push firmly. His face registers displeasure at stopping, but he lets me up, while he bends and hangs his head between his knees and catches his breath. Or tries to.
I hold the gaping material of my top together with one hand. “I don’t understand what is going on here.”
Dane groans a sound of pure male frustration. “I’m like one of my worst clients, anymore. I used to be really good at this you know. You screwed me up somehow.”
“I screwed you up?” I repeat. “You don’t make any sense. I’m still not even sure why you decided to go along with this idea to begin with. Or why you run hot and cold with me. It’s been almost two weeks since your basement.”
“I’ve been trying to do this right. You said no sex until the seventh date, so I pulled back. I’ve actually sort of enjoyed slowing it down, except for the fact that when I’m not with you, all I can think about is when I’ll see you again. And that I’ve got the bluest balls in the county. But, really, I’ve been trying to relish the journey not just the destination. But it’s hard, literally. And I had the bright idea that if I popped by this morning I could call it date number six and I could seduce the hell out of you Friday night.” He tilts his head to look at me. “I can’t explain why the sight of you in the doorway made me crazy. I only know that I haven’t been this bad off since I was sixteen with a Princess Leia in a bikini poster on my wall.”
“Wait, you’re trying to game the system? I said at least seven dates, Dane. There is no guarantee that you will ever get lucky, much less on date seven.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Darlin’, you and I both know where this is headed. It will be my bed or yours, unless we don’t make it to a bed first. In which case, it will be my bed or yours after and again.”
I don’t like his macho, dude-bro confidence. Except that he’s right, which I dislike even more. “Whatever, this doesn’t count as a date.”
“There’s romance and food,” he says, pointing to Boss inhaling what looks like a maple bar. “What else do you want, woman?”
I level a look at him but realize he’s kidding. He looks at odds with himself. Self-deprecating isn’t really his style, but it’s more than that. He really looks confused and miserable. Is there a chance he really is having feelings about me?
I glance back at Boss licking his chops. “Well, I do like doughnuts.”
“They were maple bacon bars, too. Boss, you’re a bastard.”
I can’t help it. The ridiculous situation finally catches up with me and I laugh. It’s more the manic laugh of someone about to lose their shit, but it’s laughter. Dane joins me and Boss stares at us, confused and full.
“Should I be worried about your reaction to sheep?” I ask, getting
up to pour coffee.
“I can’t help it. They’re sexy as hell.”
I bring him back a mug, and he frowns.
“What now?” I ask.
“You know how I take my coffee,” he accuses, his lips press together, and his forehead does a man furrow thing.
“And that upsets you because...?”
“Because, why would you even pay attention to how I take my coffee? We aren’t in a relationship, Holly. This is all pretend.” He slams the mug down, sloshing coffee over the top. “I have to go.”
I can’t do much more than blink at him. I have no idea what I did wrong. I don’t like this yoyo thing though. “Dane?”
“Shit.” He stands, raking his hands through his hair.
“What are you so afraid of? I mean, I know what I’m afraid of, but what’s your deal? I don’t have any designs on you, if that’s what you think. I’m not picking out China patterns. We’ve had coffee several times, and I’ve seen you put sugar and cream into your cup. Not a big deal.”
Dane paces. Then stops. Then paces some more, his big body out of place in my small feminine space. When he finally stops again, in front of me, he asks, “What are you afraid of?”
I frown. I feel...small. And exposed in my ridiculous pajamas with bits of mascara under my eyes. I need to be in a great dress with stiletto heels and full war paint make-up on for this kind of conversation. “I asked you first.”
His eyes narrow to slits, and the muscles of his jaw clench so hard I can see the tic. “I can’t do this with you. I don’t know how.”
“Do what?”
“This.” He answers with emphasis to make up for the fact that his answer makes no sense.
“This?”
“This relationship. I don’t know how to navigate this relationship. And I don’t want to.”
Ouch. “Well, you’re in luck. We don’t have a relationship. We have a sham. We have five dates and something close to friendship, but not quite. You don’t have to panic. I don’t want to be involved with you any more than you want to be with me.” So why does it hurt to hear him say it?