by Ann Jacobs
“Baby, you’ve got it wrong. I made love with you because I wanted to. I still want you, more than I’d have thought possible. “
“Well, want away. Seems to me you already got what you wanted. See you around.” With that, Casey got up and walked out.
Craig could have gone after her, but he didn’t know what else he could say. For once in his life, he was speechless.
Chapter Fourteen
She conceded that Craig had wanted her. At least he’d wanted her to warm his bed again on Monday night. Casey wanted him, too, so much she’d almost given in and stayed. In the end, though, her pride had won out over her hormones.
She and Lisa made a pathetic pair, red-eyed and as sad as they’d have been if someone they loved had died. For three days now, they’d holed up in their respective bedrooms, emerging only when they had to go to work.
Craig had called, and so had Mike. How many times Casey couldn’t be sure, because the caller ID box was overflowing. She started to listen to messages, then changed her mind.
“Mike called, didn’t he?” Lisa asked when she came out of her room.
“Fourteen times before the ID box filled up. Why don’t you just give in and call him back?”
Lisa shrugged. “Why don’t you call Craig?”
“Craig used me for sex. All Mike did wrong was tell you he loves you.”
“Didn’t you use Craig a little, too? Seems I remember you scheming to seduce the guy and lose your cherry, whatever it took.”
Lisa walked over to the phone and checked out the numbers on the caller ID.
“Looks like Craig has called at least eleven times himself, unless you’ve got somebody else calling you from the DA’s office.”
Casey shook her head.
Maybe she had used Craig. A little. But she hadn’t hit on him with the expressed purpose of getting a quick roll in the hay. Getting it on for research for his job, yet.
“Come on. If you’ll call him, then I’ll return Mike’s call.”
Lisa sounded like a pal Casey recalled from high school who’d liked nothing better than to use “If, then” propositions to get her friends in trouble.
Her girlfriend Tessa had never followed through on the “then” part of her promises. Casey had a feeling that Lisa might, though, considering how she’d moped ever since showing Mike the door.
She followed Lisa into the kitchen. “Would you give another chance to a guy who admitted he hit on you because he wanted an easy lay?”
When Lisa finished dumping coffee into the coffeemaker, she joined Casey at the table.
“I am an easy lay,” she said reasonably. “And you did everything but advertise that you’re one, too.”
“I did not. I just wanted guys like Craig to notice me.” Casey wondered when she spoke if she was lying.
“At the very least you wanted guys to think you knew your way around. Don’t you remember asking me to help you look and act savvy?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing. You wanted McDermott to think you were hot to fuck him. Now when he admits that he thought exactly that, you punish him for it.”
The gurgling sound of coffee brewing reminded Casey of the Gulf breaking onto the shore while she lay in Craig’s arms. Maybe Lisa was right. Maybe she was punishing Craig. But she was punishing herself more. After all, she doubted he was suffering much.
He’d gotten the experience he was looking for, and now he probably was winding up another successful prosecution. The Ranger trial, he’d told her, was to have begun yesterday morning.
Casey’s punishment took the form of memories. The way his cock filled and stretched her pussy. The way her nipples felt when he tugged them gently with his teeth. The unique taste of him on her tongue and the hunger in his gorgeous blue eyes when he raked her naked body with his gaze. Those memories made her ache inside.
She’d die if she didn’t quit thinking about him. Unfortunately, banishing him from her mind was impossible. She could, however, banish him from this conversation if she could shift the focus toward Lisa and Mike.
Casey looked Lisa in the eye. “You’re a great one to talk about punishment. You’re penalizing Mike for loving you. At least I had a real reason to walk out on Craig.”
“Mike would hurt me eventually if I let him get to me.” Suddenly Lisa got up, as if she were closing off her emotions. “Coffee’s ready,” she announced unnecessarily.
Casey noticed Lisa’s hands shaking as she got mugs out of the cabinet. And when she splashed some coffee onto the countertop, she swore in a very un-Lisa-like way.
Then she sat and stared Casey down. “I’ve got it. You’re in love with Craig. Otherwise you wouldn’t care that he had you pegged an easy lay.”
Casey blinked. “Where did that come from?”
Lisa looked more animated than she had since Sunday night. “You are. I knew it.”
If Casey weren’t, she probably wouldn’t be so angry. If she didn’t care for Craig so much, she could enjoy sleeping with him and practicing her skills as a lover while he pleasured her with what he’d learned from those books of his.
She could even have read some of those books and gotten a few ideas of her own. They could have learned the finer points of fucking together and had a great time doing it.
Casey’s mind wandered to the selection of toys Craig had tucked in with his impressive stash of condoms. She’d love to have tasted that cherry-flavored condom.
Suddenly the idea of sucking a fruit-flavored cock struck her as hilarious, and she giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Lisa asked.
“He had some cherry-flavored condoms.”
“So? They come in all sorts of flavors.”
“I just figured it out.” Casey giggled again.
“Figured out what?”
“The cherry. He was a virgin, too.”
Lisa’s mouth dropped open, and she set her mug down with a bang. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No. He told me when he was trying to explain why he’d decided to hit on me. Said he needed to get some sexual experience before he could argue against this client’s defense.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“This guy reporters call the Road Rage Ranger is claiming sexual deprivation made him purposely ram his car into a woman’s SUV. The trial started yesterday.”
“That still doesn’t compute. And I can’t believe a hunk like Craig McDermott was a virgin.” Lisa laughed so hard, Casey thought she might burst into tears.
That made Casey mad. “Don’t laugh at him.”
What was she doing defending Craig?
“See, you are in love with him. Come on, give the guy a chance. Cut him some slack.”
Casey wanted to, but her pride rebelled at the idea. “I don’t know.”
“Look at it this way. He explained why he hit on you when he did. The virgin bit has to be true—no guy would lie about something like that, any more than he’d tell you he couldn’t get it up if that wasn’t true.”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing. That has to be a good sign. It’s not often you run into an honest lawyer, much less an honest lover. Call him.”
“Are you going to call Mike?”
Lisa wouldn’t meet Casey’s gaze. “I want to, but I can’t.”
“Are you afraid?” Casey certainly was.
“I’m terrified. He could hurt me, worse than Jake ever did.” Lisa shrugged. “If only he’d agree to keep things casual…”
Casual sex was all Craig would ever want from Casey. That knowledge hurt.
“That’s why I won’t see Craig again, either.”
She and Lisa were a fine pair.
Casey laughed at the irony. Both of them were miserable, Lisa because she wanted nothing but casual sex from a guy who loved her.
Casey’s problem was just the opposite. She didn’t want to settle for casual sex from the man who’d stolen her heart.
* * * * *
The Rang
er’s conviction the following afternoon should have put Craig on top of the world, but it didn’t. Neither did Tony Landry’s invitation to make an appointment and come talk with him about a job at Winston Roe. All Craig could think about was that he’d fucked up with Casey.
He might as well have cut off an arm or leg. He didn’t think it could have hurt worse than losing her. Everywhere he looked, he saw her. Felt her presence.
He saw her at his kitchen table where they’d shared Chinese take-out. Smelled the wisteria blossom scent that lingered near the chair where she’d sat four nights ago while he’d shoved both feet squarely in his mouth.
Apparently she hadn’t calmed down since she stormed out that door. Craig surmised that from the fact that she hadn’t returned a single one of the calls he’d made since Monday night. Not to mention that she had managed to stay out of his sight at the gym, if she’d even been there when he’d come to work out.
Her absence hadn’t kept him from seeing her in his mind, sassy and smiling and wearing one of those outrageous exercise outfits that drove him damn near insane.
He was horny. Worse, he missed being with Casey out of bed as much as he missed the sex. Maybe more.
On the way home tonight he’d left a handful of tickets with Russ for tomorrow’s field games, but he had little hope that she’d show up.
His stash of sex books caught his eye. Maybe he should sue their authors. Or the publishers who undoubtedly had deeper pockets. The books pretty much covered the basic mechanics. He had to admit they even did a decent job of describing how to arouse a woman with sexual foreplay.
He guessed he should be grateful. After all, the information the books had imparted had allowed him to seduce a virgin without her realizing he’d been a virgin, too.
Big deal. What the authors had left out was advice about what a guy should say or avoid saying to keep his lover satisfied. The emotional stuff. Now Craig was miserable, and a whole lot hornier than he’d been before he knew what he’d been missing.
He took off his jacket and loosened his tie, then stared inside his almost empty refrigerator. He grabbed a beer, then put it back. No beer for him tonight.
Tomorrow he had to compete. And his leg ached. Tonight he’d pushed too hard with the weights.
Somehow his timetable for success didn’t seem as important now as it had B.C. Before Casey.
He glanced at his watch. Eight thirty. She ought to be home by now unless one of the other horny bastards at the gym had hit on her and she’d said yes. He dialed her number but got the damn answering machine again. As he was about to hang up, a human voice came on the line.
“Craig?”
“Casey?” It didn’t sound like her.
“No, it’s Lisa.”
She sounded surprisingly friendly, considering that he’d most likely made it to the top of her roommate’s shit list.
“Is Casey there?”
According to Lisa, she was, but she wasn’t talking. She was, however, thinking about talking. “You stuck your foot in it, didn’t you?” she asked.
That sounded like a question, but Craig took it as a statement of fact. After all, he’d told himself the same thing moments earlier. “Do you have any suggestions as to how I might get it out? Shoe leather doesn’t taste too great.”
“Grovel,” Lisa said.
“I already did that. It just made her madder.” Hell, he’d shared his deepest secret, and still Casey hadn’t forgiven him. What else could he do? “She’s punishing me for being honest. Damn it, she asked me why I asked her out. What was wrong with me telling her I thought she was one hot babe?”
“Nothing. If that’s the way you said it.”
“It was.”
“And that made her mad?”
Craig tried to sort out the chronology. “Not exactly. She got mad after she asked me why I’d waited so long to ask her out.”
“That’s when you told her you thought she’d be an easy lay?”
“I never said that.” But he remembered Casey putting those words into his mouth. “Hey, give me a break. How could I not have thought she wanted to get it on? She came on to me like gangbusters.”
Lisa ought to know that. After all, she was the one who gave Casey the lessons with the cucumber.
“There’s nothing wrong with you thinking it, but it wasn’t smart for you to say. No woman wants to hear she was asked out because her lover guessed she’d be a fast, easy piece of ass.
“Even if she is one. I ought to know.” Her voice dropped to just above a whisper, as though that admission hadn’t come easy.
“How was I supposed to know she was a goddamn virgin?”
“Should she have hung a sign around her neck?”
“Of course not. But—”
“She didn’t know you were. She wouldn’t know now if you hadn’t told her.”
“That’s different.”
Damn it, Casey had confided in Lisa. Craig’s ears burned. Good thing the woman couldn’t see him turning red.
“She loves you.”
That made no sense to him at all. “Then why won’t she talk to me?”
“You hurt her.”
From Lisa’s tone, he guessed she assessed his cognitive ability as about equal to that of a three-year-old. “Damn it, I didn’t mean to hurt her. I love her, too.”
Suddenly it didn’t matter that on his mental master plan he’d penciled in falling in love a few years down the road. He loved Casey now, and it felt good. It would, that is, if Lisa was right and Casey loved him, too. “I love her,” he repeated, just to hear the words again.
Lisa chuckled. “You need to tell Casey, not me.”
“I would if she’d talk to me.”
“She went to bed early tonight. Maybe if you come over tomorrow—”
“Tomorrow I’ve got the damn charity games.”
“I saw something about the swimming events starting early in the morning at the gym. What time will the games wrap up?”
Not soon enough. “I don’t know. Why don’t you and Casey come watch? Hell, bring along another friend or two. I left a bunch of tickets for the field events at the gym with Russ.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks.”
Lisa stared at the phone after Craig hung up. He seemed like a hell of a decent guy.
A good boy for her good-girl roommate who couldn’t become a bad girl no matter how hard she tried.
Damn it, there was no need for Craig and Casey both to be depressed. He loved her and she loved him.
Unlike Lisa, Casey hadn’t sworn off love.
Maybe if she asked Mike to take them…yes, that would work. Her dewy-eyed roommate would jump at the chance to play Cupid.
Telling herself that she was only doing this to help Casey and Craig out, Lisa dialed a familiar cell phone number.
“What changed your mind?” Mike asked a few minutes later when Lisa met him at the door.
“I missed you.” It soothed her conscience when she realized that was the truth—just not the whole truth, so help her God.
“Good. I missed you, too.”
The gentle kiss he brushed across her lips promised a lot. More than the hot and heavy, sometimes kinky sex they’d been sharing since their first date more than a month ago.
It promised more than Lisa was ready for.
She stroked down the length of his muscular body. When his cock swelled against his jeans, she gave him a playful squeeze. Hell, she could handle lust. And wallow in the erotic pleasure she found when they got it on together. It was the tenderness she saw in his dark eyes and felt in the gentle brush of his callused fingers along her bare arms that scared her half to death.
She had to keep this carnal. “Come to bed?”
“Not so fast, love. We’re gonna back up and take a few of the steps we skipped. Maybe then you’ll believe me when I say—”
“Don’t say it, Mike. Those are three words I don’t ever want to hear.”
�
��Why?”
“Because they’re words. Just words.”
“You didn’t believe me, did you?” he asked.
“No.”
No matter what he thought now, the time would come when he’d let her down. He was a man, and men did that. Lisa was a quick study. She hadn’t needed another lesson in getting hurt since Jake ran out on her years ago.
“Come on, darlin’. We’ll do it your way, but I’ll make a believer out of you yet.” He scooped her in his arms and carried her to her bedroom.
She let him do it because, after all, mindless pleasure was what she’d wanted from him all along. Even more than she wanted his help to get her roommate back on the road to romance.
Still, Lisa let him in on her plan for Casey first, before she let him take her to a place where there was no pain, no conflict. Only two steaming, straining bodies caught up in an erotic swirl of sexual sensation.
Chapter Fifteen
Funny.
The sounds of Lisa and Mike making love in the room next door had never bothered Casey before. Now that she knew from experience what they were doing, her body heated with embarrassment. And need.
She sat up, suddenly confused. Her mind must have been playing tricks on her because she was certain Lisa had gone to her room alone last night. Like Tom last month and Carlos the month before, Mike was history.
Wasn’t he?
No, that definitely was Mike’s deep, rumbling voice echoing through the thin wall.
“Open up for me, darlin.’”
And Lisa’s high-pitched cry, “Oh, yesss. Fuck me, harder. I’ll fuckin’ kill you if you stop. Oh, Mikeee.”
At least her roommate wasn’t pouting now.
If only Casey could nudge time back a week. Her nipples tingled. Her muscles tightened, as though they remembered everything. As though they wanted Craig to fill the aching void he’d created inside her.
Why had she made such a big deal of his motives? If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t be aching now.
More erotic whimpers assailed her through the walls. They were driving her insane.
Casey got up, put on shorts and a top, and went to the kitchen to escape from the sounds. Hot black coffee scalded her throat a few minutes later. A week ago she’d wakened to the aroma of a fragrant coconut and coffee blend Craig had brought to her in bed. She’d tasted it afterward on his lips and tongue. A hot breeze had kissed their naked bodies as he licked her pussy on that big, round bed.