by Jill Winters
"Uh, yeah," he said, watching her intently, "that's fine."
She didn't know which undid her more—his eyes or his smile. Or was her vodka martini at all responsible for the dazed, heated, swirly kind of feeling she was getting in her stomach and head? She wasn't drunk, of course... she just felt good.
"To tell you the truth," she said suddenly, "I'm working on something else right now."
"Really, what?" he asked, leaning forward with interest. Brian's interest seemed far different from Kenneth's, which always smacked of social stalemate and inept prying.
Reese sat forward, too, bringing their faces only inches apart. "I'm writing a novel," she said a little bashfully, "or trying to, but I've only written one chapter so far."
"No kidding," Brian said, smiling, and sounding impressed. "Wow, how'd you get interested in doing that?"
She shrugged. "I don't know; it's something I've been wanting to try for a long time." All talk, that's me. "And I've always loved reading novels." Especially after my last boyfriend dumped me. "So recently, I decided to take the plunge." If one unrevised chapter constitutes a "plunge."
"I can't even imagine doing something like that," he said. "You must be pretty creative. You're incredible; I know that." Blushing hotly, she looked to her martini for clarity. "You definitely have to let me read it sometime," Brian added in a low voice. "I mean, if you want."
"Okay," she said, biting her lower lip and braving a glance into his gorgeous eyes. As they burned through hers, she struggled to sound normal. "But enough about me. How's Project Blue going?"
"No way," he said, shaking his head. "If you don't have to talk about school, I don't have to talk about work."
"Oh... okay. What do you want to talk about?"
"You," he said huskily. She gulped. No hesitation, he'd just said it. Hot-blooded sensations that had been fluttering on the periphery of her body and mind now intensified. And thrummed and pulsed and roared. Did Brian have any idea how much she wanted to take an ice cube out of his scotch glass and rub it across the tips of her breasts? Or how much at this moment she wanted—needed—to contract the muscles between her legs?
She darted her eyes downward to break the powerful gaze between her and Brian, and that was when she noticed...
Oh, not again!
To her absolute horror, she spotted her nipples stabbing at the surface of her yellow angora sweater. These damn things (the sweaters, not the nipples).
Shooting forward, she tried to conceal herself with the table, but when she shot her eyes up to Brian's, she realized that if he hadn't noticed her aroused breasts before, he sure as hell did now.
He was dissolving her with his smoky stare, and she squeezed her thighs together, acting purely on animal instinct, as well as some distant memories of lust and heat and sex.
Finally she managed a weak, broken echo. "Me?"
"You," he said again.
"What about me?"
"Well, whatever happened to you?" he asked, leaning back, and cooling off some of the space between them. "I mean, two years ago I met you at a New Year's party, and then I never saw you again. I wanna know where you've been since then."
Not once in the time he'd been coming to the cafe had either of them spoken of that fateful night. Of course, until now, it hadn't seemed particularly fateful. Truthfully, Reese hadn't had the guts to ask Brian about that night. And if she did ask, she would feel the need to add in a million disclaimers about how she was "just curious" and "no big deal"—maybe even, "I swear I'm not stalking you!" But Brian had simply asked, openly and undefensively. He was admitting that he'd wondered about her, and that kind of confidence was a turn-on, even if it was also a come-on.
He took a drink of his scotch, but never let his eyes leave hers.
She took a drink herself, feeling that warm haze intensify and turn into a hot rush between her legs. "Well, I don't know. I enrolled at Crewlyn soon after... and that brings us around to talking about school, so I'll shut up now," she said, grinning.
A long, loaded moment passed before Brian grinned back....
* * *
He was transfixed by her eyes. They were like luminous green lights, smoldering green flames, even, and they had been flickering in their own sexy, flustered way for the past half hour. Her face was stained with a deep blush that could have been attributed to the heat of the bar, but he strongly hoped there was more to it.
"So..." Brian said absently, while his gaze tracked Reese's finger as it played with her bottom lip, which was slightly wet from her last sip of vodka. At last, he mentally shook himself back to the conversation at hand. "Remember that misunderstanding we had—when I thought you were slamming me, but you were actually slamming some other poor guy?"
She laughed at that. "Yeah, mmm-hmm."
"Well, now I'm wondering..." His voice trailed off as he tapped his knuckles on his near-empty glass of scotch. "Forget it," he said suddenly, waving his hand. "Never mind."
"What?" she pressed.
"No, it's silly. Never mind."
"What? Come on; tell me." She was curious now, just like he'd hoped she would be.
"Well, I'm just wondering, if you had been talking about me to your mother, how would you have described me?"
A tiny wrinkle formed on Reese's forehead, and her blush got a little pinker.
"And not based on that night at the diner," Brian qualified. "Based on the other night."
"Um... well... I don't know, exactly...." A beat of silence passed, before abstraction gave way to warmth, and she smiled up at him. His chest constricted. Instantly he realized that he'd been wrong: Her eyes weren't flickering lights, but wide pools of scalding green liquid.
Then her smile turned coy, as she rested her chin in her hand and said sweetly, "I really couldn't say. The whole night's sort of a blur."
"The kiss, too?"
She paused, then licked her bottom lip and said softly, "The kiss, I definitely remember."
He swallowed. "Well, how do you remember it?" he asked in a low, smooth voice. Then he waited patiently for her answer....
* * *
Reese knew that Brian was being deliberately provocative, and that spurred a thrilling sort of curiosity as to what exactly he hoped to provoke. The possibilities alone fired her up. Brian naked, aroused, on top of her... sweating, grunting... with her ankles on his shoulders—
"Reese?"
"Oh..." She snapped back into focus, and tried a turn-the-tables stalling tactic. "What do you remember?" She hoped to buy time to formulate a good answer herself, and to figure out what she was going to do about all this suffocating desire.
"I remember that it was pretty damn terrific."
"Yeah... those were the days," she joked stupidly.
Brian grinned. "Yeah."
So much for formulating a good answer—she'd winged it with a stupid one-liner. But Brian didn't seem dissuaded in the least, and what really mattered was that he remembered the kiss, and seemed to be hinting strongly for another one. That was what she wanted, too. And more.
In fact, her body was fully on fire—some of the sensations were familiar, and some felt new in their intensity. She had a pit in her stomach a tightness in her chest, and a quivering in her inner thighs.
Involuntarily, she shivered.
"Are you cold?" he asked, concerned.
"Oh... yeah," she fibbed, and hoped she wouldn't have to sit there with her coat on to support the lie.
"Here," he said, pulling his sweater over his head, rumpling his hair in the process, and revealing his faded Ithaca T-shirt underneath. He handed it across the table, and Reese felt compelled to take it. She would have also loved to smell it and rub her face all over it, but she refrained.
"Thanks," she said with a soft smile, and slipped it over her own sweater.
Just then the cocktail waitress appeared and asked them if there would be anything else. Brian deferred the question to Reese. She shook her head, still feeling dazed. She was a little ti
psy, burning up inside, and not wanting the night to end. Vaguely, she heard him say "Just the check," and when he signed the charge slip, she found herself staring longingly at the subtle curve of biceps under his T-shirt.
Soon they were outside on the busy sidewalk, and Brian was gently resting his hand on the small of Reese's back. "We can probably walk from here, if you want."
"Okay. Wait, don't you want your sweater?" Reese asked, starting to pull it off.
He stilled her with his hand. "No, I don't need it; you wear it."
On the walk to her apartment, neither said much. But it wasn't the awkward, empty silence that she shared with Kenneth. It was different. It was a charged, loaded kind of silence... it crackled with an undercurrent of sexual tension, and it sizzled with the kind of raging heat that made her gasp and sweat. Well, if she weren't in the middle of a busy street.
She wanted him so much, she spent the entire walk wondering if he would make a move on her when they got to her apartment. And if he didn't, would she'd have the guts to do it herself?
* * *
They got to her door, and some of the fog in her brain had cleared. Brian hadn't done anything like grope her or make suggestive comments during the walk, which was, of course, to his credit. The only downside was that Reese was once again totally unsure how to read him. Really, did Brian like torturing her?
"You didn't have to walk me all the way up. I'm sure that creepy customer is nowhere near me right now," she said, smiling over her shoulder as she turned the fifth lock and opened her apartment door.
"No, don't be silly," he said. "That guy's not the only weirdo in this city—in case you haven't noticed."
She grinned at him again, and led the way inside. Brian followed, shutting the door behind him and keeping a slight distance. "Well, thanks for coming out for a drink," he said. "I really had a lot of fun with you."
The fun doesn't have to end, Reese almost said. Instead, she went with, "No, thank you—for coming to the store tonight. I know you were busy earlier and everything."
"Oh... right," he said.
There they were standing in her front hall, looking around, grinning like idiots, and neither one making a move.
Brian said, "So... this is your place, huh?"
"Yeah... yeah," Reese said, nodding, and looking around as if she didn't remember what it looked like. "It's not much, but that's graduate housing." The apartment was dimly lit by the street lamps outside, but the front hall where they stood was almost pitch dark. Reese didn't want to turn on the overhead light, though, because she was afraid it might make her lose her nerve.
"Actually, two of my roommates graduated this past semester," she threw in for no reason.
"Ah," he said, nodding now, too.
"Yeah, so... this is where I live."
"Nice."
"It's all right."
"Hmm."
They both casually surveyed the place for the tenth time.
Then Reese broke. To hell with this, she thought boldly. She would never forgive herself if she let this night end without at least trying.
Mustering up her confidence, she inched closer to Brian. He inched then, too. Sucking in a small breath, she ran her palm lightly over his chest. "Well..." she began, lowering her voice, and praying Brian didn't share the same compulsion to recoil at her touch that Kenneth did.
"Well..." he said back, and moved closer—pressing his chest against her hand.
Ecstatically, she slid her palm up to cup the back of his neck, and things moved fluidly from there. Her other hand fell onto his chest and stroked it as Brian slipped his arms around her and lowered his head to hers.
"So..." she murmured.
"Yeah..." he mumbled, touching his lips to hers.
"Anyway..." she whispered against his mouth.
The last thing she heard before other senses took over was Brian's low groan as he opened his mouth over hers. Then she was captured in a soft, slow kiss. It was almost sweet because it was so gentle, but it was too wet and too sexual to be sweet.
Brian's tongue was teasing hers, gliding and slicking enough to unbelievably turn her on, but not nearly enough to satisfy her.
She moaned and tugged on his neck. She needed him deeper—she needed more. Brian must have understood, because suddenly his lips pushed hard on hers, opening their mouths wider, and tangling their tongues in a wild, hungry frenzy.
Reese's neck tilted back as she tried to keep up and struggled to contain the ecstasy of this moment—of the exhilaration zinging through her, of the sweat breaking out, of her panties burning up.
Soon Reese was clawing at Brian's T-shirt. He hugged her tightly to him, then pressed her up against the wall. He was licking into her, sliding in and out, sucking on her tongue, nipping at her lower lip.... It was almost all too much, and certainly nothing like the halfhearted lip locks she'd shared with Kenneth. Oh, God. Brian's kiss was raw, hot passion. The kind of passion that shocked her body to the brink of orgasm.
"Jesus," he whispered gruffly, and buried his head in the crook of her neck.
She forgot that she was awkwardly and almost painfully perched on the very tips of her toes; she thought only of the heat and the contact. Of licking and fucking and writhing and climaxing. A shrieking moan burst from her as all the dirty thoughts filled her brain, and Brian growled—almost as if he could read her dirty mind. With barely restrained aggression, Reese cupped his jaw and folded her mouth into his hungrily, desperately.
Several moments passed before her fingers slinked up and furrowed into his hair. She gripped it for balance as he slid his hand up and down her back almost roughly. She vaguely heard knuckles dragging along the wall, and then Brian's fingers were kneading the back of her neck, weakening it until her knees buckled, and she almost slid to the floor.
Keep going. It had been so long since she'd kissed a man like this. Well, she was hard-pressed to remember anything quite like this. She moaned as he tugged gently on her hair, arching her neck, and trailed strong, suctioning kisses down her throat.
When he got to the curve, he sucked hard—the wet heat of his mouth and the light rasp of his teeth on her skin created an electric sensation that seared her nerve endings.
More, please... much, much more...
Brian worked his way back up to her mouth, which was open and ready. "Brian..." Reese murmured after the kiss broke. She hadn't thought about it, but his name had slipped out naturally and breathlessly. Brian pulled back enough to press his forehead to hers, and she could hear the ragged quickness of his breath. Coiling her arms tightly around his neck, she blurted on a whisper, "I like being with you."
He lifted his forehead off hers to look into her eyes. As his breathing slowed, a faint grin appeared on his face. He brushed some of her hair away from her face and said, "I like being with you." She smiled into the darkness, and then his mouth was on hers again, doing the same things as before, only harder. Deeper. Wetter.
She slid her tongue inside his mouth and he groaned.
Her back scraped up and down against the wall, as Brian's erection pressed and pushed into the soft, aching place between her legs. She rocked her hips and squeezed her eyes shut as she took his sudden, fierce thrusts. A few pumps of his hips, and she was panting and gripping his shoulders while her head rested against the wall, and she thought about really making love to him. It would be like this, only better... so much better.
He touched her breasts, she grabbed his butt, and then his cell phone rang.
At first he ignored it, but then he pulled back enough to mutter, "Damn it, it might be an emergency," and retrieve it from his pocket. "Hello," he barked. Then his voice softened. "Danny, what's wrong? Is everything okay?"
Now he disentangled himself from Reese to stand upright, pressing the phone close to his ear. "I can barely hear you... you're where? Hello, Danny?"
Reese felt beyond awkward standing there. And also a little embarrassed by how far one kiss had gone. Echoes of her moaning still ra
n through her head, and she blushed at the thought. Meanwhile it appeared that Brian had gotten cut off from his sister.
"I'm sorry," he said now, snapping his phone shut. "I've gotta go. It's my sister. She's... She's having some problems."
"Oh, no, is everything all right?"
He nodded. "Yeah, she's just freaking out about something with the insurance."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
She brushed some hair behind her shoulders, and he lifted a few strands and brushed them away himself. "I'm sorry," he said.
"No, no, I understand," Reese said. Meanwhile, her heart was sinking—sure, she was embarrassed, but that didn't mean she wanted to stop.
But the spell was broken, at least for the moment. They managed to say good-night without tearing each other's clothes off, and Brian kissed her just once more—sweetly, deeply, passionately—before he reminded her to lock up. And then he said good-bye.
Chapter 19
Reese decided to stay in the city the following day, and do some work at the New York Public Library. She'd remembered a term paper that was due at the end of January, and figured she would get it done and out of the way. It was the new her. Okay, not really. It was the temporary awesome-mood-might-as-well-be-productive her. After last night she was floating in a happy delirium, and nothing as mundane as homework could destroy her high.
She had her laptop set up in one of the cubicles, and notebooks, pens, a water bottle, and an "emergency" Power Bar strewn along the desktop so she would feel fortified. She kind of doubted that she'd ever be hungry enough to eat the PowerBar—it was the same one her mother had placed in her bookbag on her very first day at Crewlyn.
Now, staring at her blinking cursor, she was a million miles away. Thinking about Brian. Remembering the night before. Remembering how it felt to kiss him and hold him—remembering how wonderful his skin smelled, and how sexy his voice had sounded when it had turned low and raspy with desire....