She smiled. “I’ve noticed.”
“Obviously I’ve dated in the years since Miranda broke up with me. A couple of relationships seemed like they would go somewhere but then they fizzled out.” He looked into her soft gaze. “I was attracted to you, but I didn’t want you to become another ex-girlfriend, especially because we worked together. I began to question whether I have what it takes to create that special magic that some couples have, that Rylan and Miranda have.”
“But you do!”
Leaning over, he gave her a soft kiss. “Thank you for that.” He straightened and took another deep breath. “Miranda told me the same thing before that fight, which really helped because by then I’d figured out why she’d fallen for my brother, my very spontaneous, emotional brother. But I have to tell you, I’ll never be like him.”
“I wouldn’t want you to be. Then you wouldn’t be yourself, and I like that guy very much.”
He drank in the warmth in her eyes and her beautiful smile. “But I don’t want to be the person I was with Miranda, either. I’m hoping to calibrate my response so it’s somewhere in the middle between Rylan and the old Frazer.”
“I’d be glad to help you calibrate.”
“You already have. The old me would never have done a victory dance at the golf course.”
“Or had oral sex in the parking lot?”
His groin tightened. “Careful. Keep it PG or my cock will rise to the occasion and that would be inconvenient since you have a cat in your lap.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. If you’ll turn my hand loose, I have an idea for ditching the cat. Scoot back a little so I have room to maneuver.”
He did as she asked and then watched in fascination. First she pulled her arms out of the bathrobe’s sleeves. Hercules was sound asleep and only twitched his whiskers. Then she managed to slide out from under the cat while leaving her bathrobe in place.
But she couldn’t help jostling him a little bit. He woke up and yawned.
Frazer pictured him snuggling deeper into the warm velour and going back to sleep. No doubt Dulcie was concentrating on the same thing. Maybe all that mental energy did the trick or maybe Hercules was in the mood to continue his nap. Didn’t matter. The cat was soon snoozing away.
“Come on.” Dulcie motioned for Frazer to leave the couch. “Let’s boogie.”
He didn’t have to be told twice, although he moved slowly so as not to disturb the cat. Then he made as little noise as possible as he followed her down the hall. Damn, her ass was fine. Her full breasts and her sweet lips were pretty wonderful, too. But mostly he was grateful for her generous heart, one that was big enough to give him a chance to become the man he yearned to be. That was more important than her extremely sexy body with its delicious curves and tantalizing peaks and valleys.
But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t enjoy the hell out of all that she had to offer on a purely physical level. Maybe that was the elusive magic he’d been searching for – a combination of lust and . . . love? That was a loaded word and he didn’t dare use it yet. He didn’t want to scare her or himself. But it might be the word he was looking for.
Once he’d closed the door of her bedroom, she was on him, unfastening his pants and shoving them down along with his briefs. She nearly hobbled him, but he managed to kick them away so he wouldn’t fall. He was still wearing his shirt when she pulled him toward the bed, but the critical equipment was freed up.
“I want you so much.” She reached the edge of the mattress and fell backward.
“I want you more.” He followed her down and began kissing every available inch of her warm skin. Vaguely he remembered that he’d meant to ask some questions before he made this kind of assault but he didn’t have time for that, now.
He nuzzled the curve of her throat, the delicate line of her collarbone, the slope of her breast. He tasted her rosy nipple, sucking it in until she squirmed. Then he repeated the process on her other breast.
“Want you, want you, want you,” she chanted as she writhed beneath him.
“You’ve got me.” He slid down between her thighs and used his tongue to show her what he meant by that.
She gasped and tunneled her fingers through his hair. “Oh, Frazer.”
“I’m here.” And he proceeded to love her, using all that he’d learned but also adding something new, something magical, something that couldn’t exist when there was only sexual gratification. He’d give her that, but he’d give her more. And she would know.
Her response was everything he could have wanted. Her sighs and moans were rich with pleasure and when she came, she cried out his name with such passion that he closed his eyes in gratitude. At last.
As she slowly recovered, he kissed his way back to her mouth and settled in for a lusty celebration of all they’d shared. Finally he lifted his head and looked into her slumberous eyes. “We’re not done.”
Her sultry voice stroked his sensitized nerve endings. “I hope not.” She touched his cheek. “Bedside table drawer.”
“Got it.” He found the box and made short work of putting on a condom. Then he moved between her soft and incredibly inviting thighs. Being here was a privilege he didn’t take lightly.
Before he claimed that privilege, he leaned down and gave her a kiss that was filled with the joy she’d given him and would give him. They had a future. He knew that as surely as he knew the square root of pi.
Lifting his head, he gazed into her eyes as he plunged his cock deep into her silken warmth.
She sucked in a breath. “Yes.”
He’d take it. Maybe she was saying yes to him, or yes to finding each other, or yes to exploring the endless possibilities of the world together. He chose to believe it was all of those.
* * *
After a late breakfast on Saturday morning Dulcie asked him if he’d like to pick up a few things at his place so he could spend the rest of the weekend in her apartment. He didn’t have to think about it. Hercules had definitely mellowed out so why not?
She rode over with him so they could go straight from there to buy her groceries for the week and test the app. When he ushered her into his living room, she took one look at the Stairmaster in front of his flat screen and laughed. “I wondered how you managed to have such firm glutes!”
“Are you saying I’m a tight ass?”
Walking over to him, she wound her arms around his neck. “Not anymore.” And she kissed him with lots of tongue.
Naturally that led to him pulling her into his bedroom and taking off her clothes. They might have stayed in his bed the rest of the day if she hadn’t reminded him about the grocery store plan.
Normally the prospect of using the app on some actual produce would excite his techie brain all to hell, but not when the alternative was rolling around on the nearest available horizontal surface with Dulcie. He’d never met a woman who was more fun than a new gadget.
But she was right to insist on following the plan even if he had misplaced his usual sense of duty. At least he’d get to spend time watching her use it, which was some compensation. Once they started the process, he discovered his old enthusiasm had returned as he admired the incredible design job his little brother had done. There were some bugs, but very few. He took notes on his phone so he could relay the info to Rylan.
The shopping trip took them into the dinner hour so after Frazer helped her put away the groceries they walked a block to a little Italian restaurant. She’d suggested it because the lighting was dim and she wanted to see how that affected the app’s performance.
Sure enough, his brother had anticipated the problem and the app evaluated the food as if they were sitting in bright sunshine. Dulcie proposed a toast to the app and Frazer followed up with a toast to Rylan. They drank to Rylan and Miranda, BMUS, and the company’s CEO Tony Bainbridge.
“But please don’t make me drink a toast to that creep Blake Pearson,” Dulcie said. “I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”
/> Frazer grimaced. “Nobody does. But money talks and without his dad’s investment we’d be SOL. Don’t worry. Garrett’s keeping an eye on him.”
“Yeah, but he’s only in the office a couple of times a week. Is that enough?”
“I think so. He set up the security on the server and the backup systems so it’d be tough to access any privileged info without knowing the right passwords.”
“Garrett’s somebody I don’t feel as if I know as well, probably because he isn’t around that much.” Dulcie picked up the bottle and divided the last of the wine between them. “But you went to Caltech with him, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” Frazer smiled at the memory of Garrett at eighteen. “We were all geeky, but Garrett was the geekiest of us all.”
“Really? He looks buff, now.”
“He works at it, and he filled out late. When I first got to know him he was a skinny dude with no clue how to dress or what to say to women. Oh, and he had taught himself to speak and write Klingon.”
“Wow. I love Star Trek, but not that much. Can he still do it?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s proud of the accomplishment but it didn’t get the results he expected. He thought girls would be impressed but they weren’t, at least not the ones he wanted to date.”
“I would have been!”
“We’ve established that you’re unusual.”
“We have?”
“Yeah, definitely. Here’s to you, Dulcie.” He lifted his glass and drained it.
“And here’s to you, Fraze.” She polished off hers, too.
He’d decided that he liked having her call him that. His mother would flinch if and when she heard it, but Dulcie and Tug’s nickname for him was a good reminder to stop taking himself so damned seriously. “Ready to go?”
“Yep.” She hooked her purse over her shoulder.
He tucked money in a leather folder lying on the table and automatically pocketed the receipt. Tony always insisted they get reimbursed for things like this but he felt guilty taking money for an evening with Dulcie.
As they walked out of the restaurant he realized he was light-headed. “I drank the last of that wine too fast.”
“Are you saying you’re slightly drunk?”
“Slightly. You?”
“Uh, huh. And we’re only a couple of blocks from Gopher Hole Golf.”
“Hot damn. Let’s do it.”
They were earlier this time so the course was busy. Frazer insisted on paying for the round even though the same kid was at the counter and tried to let them play for free. Obviously the young guy had a huge crush on Dulcie.
When they walked up to the first hole, Frazer could have sworn days, maybe even weeks had gone by instead of a measly twenty-four hours. “I don’t feel like the same person who stood here last night.”
“Must be that recalibration going on.”
He turned toward her. “Must be.” Sliding an arm around her waist, he pulled her in for a kiss even though they were in full view of several people who were out on the course.
By the time he released her, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled. “What was that?”
“I think that’s what they call PDA, public display of –”
“I know what it stands for. I just didn’t figure you for a guy who liked to indulge in such things.”
“Didn’t before.” He grinned at her. “But I’m recalibrating.”
Chapter Eight
Dulcie thought at first that the wine might be responsible for the change in Frazer’s behavior. He scored very well at Gopher Hole Golf and performed several victory dances that were sexier than he knew. Once his inhibitions were gone he could shake his booty with the best of them.
She expected him to dial it back after the wine wore off, but no. He brought the same carefree spirit to their lovemaking that night. She’d never had more fun and less sleep. Sunday morning he suggested they spend the day in bed and forget about the app, which was fine with her.
They slept, made love and ate food that didn’t require much preparation. She had moments when she wondered if this was real or some fantastic dream. Other times their relationship felt as solid as if they’d been together for years. They’d had to navigate around Hercules and his nap schedule, but the cat had spent most of his day on the sofa, which had worked out well for all concerned.
Interestingly, not a single member of her family called or stopped by. When she’d told them she and Frazer would be beta testing all weekend, they must have interpreted that as code for two days of sex. In fact it had turned out exactly that way.
Sunday night, as they lay side-by-side recovering from another romp between the sheets, Frazer brought up the subject of future plans. She’d waited for him to broach it. He was the one who’d set out on an evolutionary course and he might need a little space after such an intense couple of days.
He cleared his throat. “We should talk about what comes next.”
“We should.” For the first time since they’d had dinner Saturday night, she could feel him tensing up.
But to his credit, he went straight to the point. “I’m free next weekend. I’d like to spend it here, but you might have things you need to –”
“Nothing that can’t be juggled. Anna’s school has a carnival on Saturday, but you wouldn’t have to go.”
“What if I want to go?”
She turned her head to look at him. “That will bolster my family’s conviction that we’re together.”
“We are together.” Then he sucked in a breath. “I made a leap, there. I feel as if we are, but you might not.”
“I feel very together with you, Frazer.”
Rolling to his side, he gave her a smile that curled her toes. “Excellent.” He stroked her hip and gazed into her eyes. “Call me a sex maniac, but I want you again. Just once more. Then we’ll sleep.”
“Okay, you’re a sex maniac.”
“You can tell me no. It won’t hurt my feelings.”
Her voice quivered with suppressed laughter. “No.”
“So how do you mean that, exactly? And even more important, how are you spelling it? If it’s only two letters, that’s somewhat clear, but if it’s the four-letter know, that’s almost a challenge, as if I’m supposed to know what you want from me.”
She turned over and reached for his warm and very erect cock. “I want this.”
“Great answer.”
* * *
Dulcie used to love Monday mornings because that meant seeing Frazer again. But after having him to herself for the whole weekend, she was no longer eager for Monday morning. They would be together but no longer alone.
Taking separate cars to the office felt lonely and wrong even though it made the most sense. Frazer wouldn’t be coming home with her tonight. They’d agreed that during the week they both needed sleep more than sex. Eventually they might be able to spend a night together mostly sleeping, but they hadn’t reached that point.
He followed her to the office and they each parked in their designated spots in the parking garage under the three-story building. His space was closer to the elevator so he waited for her. “Do you want to tell anyone?”
“We didn’t talk about that. What do you think?”
“I think people will figure it out pretty quick.” He punched the elevator button. “How about if I go in and talk to Tony right after we get there?”
She nodded. “Good idea. It’s only fair that he knows.”
“What about that document we all agreed on, the relationship disclosure thing?”
“Oh, right.” The elevator opened. It was empty and she stepped in with Frazer right behind her. “I’d forgotten about that.” She turned to him. “What do you –“
He grabbed her and kissed her before she could finish. Instantly she caught fire and kissed him back for all she was worth. He released her when they reached the third floor but he held the button to keep the door closed. “Sorry. Couldn’t help it.”
�
��Nice to know. But we can’t be doing that in the hallway.”
“Trust me, I wouldn’t.”
“I do trust you.” She pulled a tissue out of her purse. “But you have lipstick on you and that’ll make Tony laugh.” She wiped it off. “Do I look okay?”
“Perfect.”
“What about that document?”
“I’d be honored to sign it.”
She smiled. “Well, all righty, then.”
The moment she stepped off the elevator she felt the Monday morning energy flowing around her. Even though she and Frazer couldn’t be alone today, they would be part of this innovative swirl of ideas. She considered it a privilege to work here.
Setting her purse on her desk, she went in search of Rylan. As planned, Frazer had gone directly to Tony’s office, which meant the news would soon be out that she and Frazer were involved. She’d belatedly realized that everyone might focus on the new relationship instead of the main issue, which was Rylan’s brilliance in creating the app. She wanted to tell him first-hand that as a non-techie average consumer, she loved what he’d done.
She passed Blake Pearson in the hall and gave him a fake smile. As usual he ogled her rack before focusing his pale blue eyes on her face. Jerk. She hoped the app would make millions immediately. Then Tony could fire Blake’s ass and everyone would heave a sigh of relief.
Rylan and Miranda each had a chair drawn up to his desk as they stared intently at the computer screen, both of them oblivious to the world. It was so cute to see. Rylan was in his usual outfit – jeans and a plaid unbuttoned shirt over a white t-shirt, but his beard was neater these days now that he was living with Miranda.
“Definitely that one.” Miranda flipped back her long dark hair and pointed to the screen. “Excellent shot. I’ve never seen more vibrant looking conkerberries.”
“What’s a conkerberry?” Dulcie walked around the desk to see what they were talking about. The picture resembled a couple of plums hanging from a branch.
It's All Geek to Me (Nerds & Geeks Book 3) Page 6