Book Boyfriends Cafe Summer Lovin' Anthology 2015

by Melinda Curtis

  Her mouth was dry, anticipating his kiss and other things she’d like him to do to her body. “What about you? Do you respect me?” Here came the damper on the evening.

  “I respect you. It’s who you work for that makes me nervous.” His toes drifted downward. “What you should be asking about is trust. Trust is important to me.” He made small circles on the pad beneath her big toe. Cora felt a corresponding circle of heat in the area of her crotch. “Do you trust me?”

  She wasn’t sure. But there was something in his eyes that wouldn’t allow her to admit it. Or maybe it was lust racing through her veins that wouldn’t admit it. “I let you in, didn’t I?”

  He glanced at the television. “Oops. Your brother-in-law just got called for a foul.” Trent’s attention returned to her. His toes slipped down to curl against her abdomen.

  He was as hot as a homemade biscuit and oh, so tempting. But she was laying off carbs. “Maybe we should watch something else.”

  “Why?” He brought out that wicked smile. “Neither one of us has dated in awhile. We’re practicing our moves. You seem a bit rusty to me.”

  I could show you how good rusty can be.

  “What happened to unwanted distractions?” she asked, clinging to reason. “What happened to not being interested?”

  “I still can’t afford distractions, but I can’t seem to ignore my fascination with you.”

  “Oh.” Little Miss Distraction was in trouble.

  “Oh, Ren, double-dribble. Turnover.” Trent tsked. His gaze challenged. His touch was increasingly hard to ignore. “Your move.”

  “We’re not having sex.” They could make-out, explore some bases. First base was already taken.

  Instead of touching him, she moved his foot over her mound, mixing things up with a circular motion that was dizzying.

  Bless his heart, Antoine was sulking because he’d been open when Ren made a mistake. Antoine didn’t move his feet to block the opposing player’s drive. Instead, he pushed his opponent to the ground.

  “Antoine can be too emotional on the court.” She arched against Trent’s foot, eliciting an endearing groan from him.

  Trent folded his knees on the outside of hers, gliding his big hands down her inner thighs until his thumbs rested beneath the hem of her shorts on either side of her silky thong. Any move she made would encourage a more intimate touch. “We won’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

  Stop, while there’s still time, Cora, the life coach, whispered in her head.

  But I’ve been good for so long, Cora, the reluctant abstainer, whispered in her head.

  He pressed his thumbs into the hollow of her thighs. She couldn’t breathe. Too many things clogged her throat – indecision, desire, indecision, the promise of an orgasm. If only she’d kept extra batteries on-hand.

  There was a huge player pile-up on the court.

  “Whose mistake was that?” Cora breathed raggedly.

  “Everyone’s.” With a tug, Trent snugged her hips next to his, pressing his hard length against her.

  “Media time out,” Trent whispered, settling back on the couch and pulling her on top of him. “Time for a little distraction.”

  She didn’t want to be his little distraction. She didn’t want to be his friend with benefits. But she didn’t know how to be anything else.

  She wanted him to kiss her. If he made the first move, she could blame it on the wine. She wanted to explore his body. But that was self-destructive. If things fell apart between the two of them, her work relationships could implode. There was the matter of her self-respect, a sales quota, and her three million-a-year inheritance to consider.

  Cora waited, trying to enjoy a gorgeous man at face value. Those devilish lips in that half-grin. The small scar beneath the stubble on his chin. Those eyes that seemed to see beneath the strong woman she presented to the world, delving to discover who she was underneath.

  Her soul was saying: Claim him.

  Her body was saying: Ride him hard.

  Her brain was sending a silent alarm, which, being silent, was easy to ignore.

  Not having sex has destroyed my brain.

  “Overthrown in-bounded ball,” Trent murmured. “Ren.”

  It was her turn. They’d taken a time-out. She didn’t have to do this.

  They were alike on some levels. Polar opposite on others. She’d had sex with Jack before being assigned his business. Sex with Trent was…would be…She looked up to find his gaze targeted on hers.

  Jack had never looked her in the eyes, had never spent time on foreplay. Sex had been hot and fast and the only reason for his brief visits.

  “If I’d been coaching that team,” Trent murmured. “I’d have let them play.”

  Coach Spinks called a timeout. Trent had clearly done his homework.

  Smart and sexy. She sighed. How rare was that in a man?

  “The team would’ve known what I wanted and how I wanted them to play.” His hand drifted down her back. He smelled of soap and aftershave. He felt 100% hard-body. His hand spread over her butt cheek, squeezing and pressing her harder against what they both knew she wanted. “They’d play hard. They’d play to win. I don’t put up with quitters.”

  Cora was no quitter. She could take a dare. And yet, she hesitated. “Technically, you’re my client.”

  “Technically, I fired you, sugar.”

  She wanted him.

  Just last night she’d been convinced she’d been right in putting a halt to friends-with-benefits sex. Just last night she’d thought of white weddings. Having sex with Trent went against all that. She reached for one of her last defenses. “When I meet my sales quota at the Foundation, I’m leaving for Paris. Permanently.” There. She’d said it. Out loud. Let Blue and Amber deal with Daddy’s other off-spring. “I’m not looking for anything long term.”

  “I can’t offer strings.” His hands roved, fueling her heat. “I won’t offer strings. I’ve spent too long limiting my life. I need this time to myself.”

  He was her kind of man – hot, needy, without obligations on her time. So why did his pronouncement disappoint her?

  His grip on her ass tightened. “I’ve wanted to get inside you from the moment I saw you, standing alone at Jack’s house as if you were waiting for me to introduce myself. Just watching you walk is a thing of beauty.”

  Game over.

  She shed her shorts and his. He produced a condom from his wallet. She rolled it on him slowly, following its progress with her lips, until he was fully protected and fully in her mouth. Next time, she’d reach into her stash for chocolate flavored, extra large.

  “Have pity on me, babe.” He pulled her up the length of him. “I’m just a backwoods, country boy who hasn’t had sex in months. I need our first offensive moves to be uptempo.”

  Cora peeled off her camisole and mounted him slowly, taking him in inch by glorious inch, until he filled her empty spaces. “Don’t be a quitter.” She rode him slow and deep, rocking her hips when she came down before riding him high again. “Play to win.”

  The tension. The friction. The delicious, high-wire electricity.

  His hands claimed her breasts, thumbs circling her nipples until they pebbled into hard, achy beads.

  And then his hands moved lower. His thumbs reached between her thighs. The extra pressure sent sent them both shuddering in pleasure and release.

  Chapter 17

  It took Trent a few minutes to recover, but only a few since it had been a long time and Cora was like candy – irresistible. He palmed another condom, tugged her to her feet, and headed for the stairs to her bedroom.

  “Hey.” She swatted his naked butt. Rougher than he expected, which was hot. “What are you doing?”

  “I need a bigger court to practice my moves.” Her bed.

  “You can’t…I don’t…”

  Together they reached the top of the stairs and entered the first open room. He turned on the light. It was pink. The room. The bed. The wall
s. The carpet.

  “Shades of Barbie.” The only thing not pink were the two flowery prints leaning against the wall in one corner. Each depicted a flower garden with a cutaway of the dirt beneath the stems. The curves of the roots reminded him of naked women. Or he could just be seeing nakedness everywhere.

  “I don’t let men up here.” She tugged for release.

  He pulled her closer, until her nipples teased his back. “Too late. The bad-ass image of you has been tainted.”

  “I’ll have to kill you then.” Her voice sounded oddly vulnerable.

  There was a sketchpad and a book on her bed. He moved closer, towing her along because there were naked bodies on the book’s pages. Drawings, sure. But they were of naked bodies in unique sexual positions. At least it was unique to a Southern boy who’d married a preacher’s daughter. “We have to try that.”

  She hit reverse, trying to pull him away from all that pink and nakedness. “Downstairs. We can try it downstairs.”

  “Sugar, this is not the kind of position you try on a couch.” He yanked the comforter free, revealing pink satin sheets. “I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Get in bed.” His junk convulsed to attention. “My younger sister left her naked Barbies all over the place. As a teenager, I wanted to get it on with Barbie.”

  “I’m more of a Skipper kind of gal.”

  He shook his head. “Nobody cares about Skipper.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re Barbie.”

  “I’m not.”

  He turned and picked her up. She was stiff as a board. He arranged her tenderly on the sheets, checking her body position against the picture in the book. “You’re limber. We can do this.”

  “Barbie has boobs.”

  He’d moved on from Barbie. His attention was on the intriguingly hot position in the book. He spared her a glance.

  Were those tears in her eyes?

  “Oh, sugar. You have boobs. Beautiful, beautiful boobs.” He straddled her and bent to suckle those marvelous assets of hers.

  “They’re not as big as – ”

  “They’re big for the size of woman you are.” What was wrong with her? Cora was hell on wheels, not some insecure, frail woman. He glanced around the pink room once more. Maybe he didn’t know Cora like he thought he did. “Do you…Should we…Why don’t we go downstairs?”

  Downstairs, Cora was invincible, the kind of woman who took her own sexual pleasure and didn’t expect flowers the next day. Up here, in the pink room, Cora was fragile, as delicate as the flowers in the prints leaning in the corner. This side of her brought out Trent’s protective instincts. He had enough to worry about without wanting to protect Cora Rule.

  He brushed her hair away from her face and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “Maybe it’s best that I go.”

  Her eyes were squeezed shut. “Downstairs. I want you to do me downstairs.” It was the same tone Rachel used when she said, “I’m not too tired for a quickie.” Meaning she’d be thinking of her to-do list while he came alone inside of her.

  Trent stood and helped Cora to her feet, his dick sinking along with his hopes for yoga sex. “I need to go.”

  She glanced at him. At his deflating symbol of manhood. “Oh, shit. I did that to you.” She looked horrified. “We have to get downstairs.” She hurried past him. At the bottom of the stairs, she turned to wait for him, looking like a Hollywood dream come true. The spark had returned to her eyes, the impish smile to her lips. “Stop right there.” She pointed to the third step above her.

  She was a sexual goddess. How could he refuse?

  But that room…her reaction…

  Indecision stiffened his limbs, even as her naked beauty stiffened his package.

  He didn’t stop her when she leaned forward and took him in her mouth. He didn’t stop her when she sheathed him in a condom once more. He didn’t stop her when she made love to him desperately on the stairs until they were both spent and physically satisfied.

  One time. It was only one time.

  Cora woke up at four a.m. trying to convince herself she hadn’t damaged her career by screwing around with Trent. Her stomach felt otherwise, double-knotted and turned inside-out. She rolled onto her back, drawing deep breaths.

  Don’t panic.

  It wasn’t like she was climaxing her way up the corporate ladder. She’d only done it one time. Well, technically, they’d done the deed twice and with very satisfying results.

  Gotta love a man who’d been abstaining.

  No. Nope. No. She didn’t do love.

  Besides, the event was a one-time gig. She’d fallen off the abstinence wagon and she was getting right back on.

  But what if he thinks it’s not one time?

  Impossible.

  Trent had been freaked out by her room, almost as much as she’d been freaked out by him in her room. He’d barely spoken to her when he came downstairs. They’d finished, he’d given her a gentle kiss on the lips and left. But…

  They hadn’t discussed any of her boundaries. Did he expect her to date him? Did he expect to show up for casual sex whenever the mood struck? Was he going to tell someone he’d tapped her? Was this how he planned to get rid of the Dooley Foundation?

  The knots in her stomach tightened. That was it. She was awake and so was Brutus.

  Her phone buzzed. A text message from Cal asking if she was awake. He was paying her a retainer. Soon she’d have to figure out a way to ease his troubled heart. But not now.

  She deleted the message and followed Brutus downstairs, letting him out to do his business in her small backyard. The stars were just starting to fade. The air was fresh. Tail wagging, Brutus was happily sniffing a path along the shrubbery. She should have felt renewed, not disheartened. She should have felt upbeat, not uptight. But Trent was a loose end and she needed to talk to him.

  An hour later, she was sitting in a chair in the Beverly Hilton hotel lobby waiting for Trent to make an appearance. She bent over to reassure Brutus in his carrier that things were okay and when she straightened Trent stood in front of her.

  No wickedly-crooked smile. No twinkle in his eyes. Trent looked put out. He towered over her, making her feel worse when he said flatly, “This is a surprise.”

  She crossed her legs against the idea of sex. She’d chosen to wear plain black pumps, a knee-length black skirt and an olive green sleeveless blouse that hid what little cleavage she had. Her hair was clipped in a long ponytail at the base of her neck. She channeled Amber’s most business-like voice. “Please, sit down. We need to talk about…things.”

  He didn’t immediately sit. He checked the time on his cell first, then waved to the valet to bring around his car, before placing his phone on the table between them. “What’s up?”

  “Last night…” His standoffishness combined with her uncertainty made her forget the speech she had planned. She laced her fingers together over her knee. “It was great…You were great.” What was it she wanted to say?

  “I should have said something before I left. I’m sorry about taking you upstairs.” Trent’s gaze was almost pitying. “Your room, or rather your reaction to me being in your room…”

  She refused to acknowledge she had a hang-up. “My room?”

  “You know, the room with all that pink that you didn’t want me to see? The one you don’t allow anyone to see?” He covered her hands with one of his. “You talk a good game about sex without strings, but that room and whatever it means to you…”

  “You’re dumping me?” Cora didn’t know whether to be angry or relieved. She stood. “Over the color scheme of my room?”

  “Cora – ”

  “You used me.”

  With a shake of his head, he came to his feet, reached for her. “Cora, don’t do this.”

  She jerked away. “No. You told me that I was a distraction. Your curiosity’s been satisfied.” Google alert: She was angry. The tightness in her stomac
h unraveled and shot through her veins. “Well, that’s fine. It’s awesome. I couldn’t ask for anything better. I told you I don’t date.”

  “Cora – ”

  “Knowing you, you made a list of things to do when you reached this level – eat at fancy restaurants, buy a fast car, hook up with hot women.” His jaw ticked, indicating she’d struck a nerve. “You can cross that last one off your list.”

  His brows lowered as decisively as a door slam. “Are we through?”

  “We’re more than through.” Thankfully. “We’re done. Water under the toll bridge. Best-forgotten history.”

  He walked toward the front door. It was a shame she had to follow him to leave. He was infuriating.

  “I need a life coach,” Cora muttered to Brutus once she was in her car. Someone to keep her legs closed despite the most delicious temptations.

  L.A. Happenings by Lyle Lincoln

  …Sighted leaving the Beverly Hilton in the wee hours of the morning – Flash coach, Trent Parker, and the Dooley Foundation’s, Cora Rule. My, that girl must never sleep.

  …The Rules of Matchmaking, starring Blue Rule, is in full production. You think you have dating challenges? Check out Nan Edwards, fresh out of rehab and fresh out of career

  Chapter 18

  “You don’t have to come with me.” Gemma tried not to sound whiny. She tried to sound like Cora – confident and ball-busting. “I’ve gone shopping with Mimi without you before.”

  Cora said nothing. She unlocked her car doors and got in, leaving Gemma to either be left in the Dooley Foundation’s parking lot, or hop in.

  Gemma got in. “I can take on Mimi’s case. You have other things on your mind.” Like Coach Trent Parker, if this morning’s Happenings column was any indication.