Dylan immediately lined himself up between me and the window, using his body to make up for the lack of blinds.
See? Adorable.
“As you were saying,” he prompted.
“As I was saying.” I took a breath in and let it out. “Here’s the deal—I’ve had two serious boyfriends in my life. Two men that I’ve had sex with, and I didn’t sleep with either of them until we’d said the L word. Which is to say, I don’t do this. Ever.”
“Mm hmm.” His arms were crossed over his chest and he nodded furiously, as though urging me to go on.
So I did. “With both of them the sex was blah.”
“Right. You didn’t find either of them compatible. Yes, yes. You told me this last night. I remember. How exactly does this lead to you standing naked in my flat?”
“Not your flat yet, Dylan,” I teased. “And not naked. I have lingerie on. Purchased just for you.” I uncrossed my legs, stretched them out in front of me, and leaned back on my palms so he could have the best view of my ensemble. “Do you like?”
“I, uh.” He cleared his throat. “I do like. Very much.”
The piercing gaze he hit me with made my heart trip and my skin prickle with goosebumps.
“But that doesn’t explain the, um…” He gestured toward me with his entire hand. “This.”
I chuckled. “I’m getting there. I was getting there last night, too, just, your lips became a distraction.” Maybe I’d gone over the top in the flirtation department, but it didn’t make the statement any less true. Besides, it was worth it to see the color in his cheeks deepen and the crotch of his pants expand while he let himself remember our kiss.
It was especially worth it because of how much his pants expanded. Dang, that man was hung.
After a distracted beat, I went on. “Anyway. After my last breakup, I decided that I needed to get the sex ed out of the way before I settle down. So. Isn’t it kismet that I met you? An experienced man who is only interested in banging? Wouldn’t you like to bang me now? Show me how it’s done?”
He inhaled sharply then clutched his chest with one hand, wiping at his forehead with the other as he fell back against the glass behind him.
I stood up, panicked. “Dylan! Are you okay? Are you having a heart attack?” I rushed to him, but he waved me away and stumbled toward the couch.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. As long as you stay there, several feet from me, I’m fine.”
Not his heart, then, but a good old-fashioned panic attack.
I gave him a lazy grin. “How many feet away? Like is this too close?” I stepped predatorily near him. “Or how about this?” Another step.
“It’s all too close. All of it. You and me in this same flat is too close.” He circled around the sofa, backing away from me as though I were a demon about to put a hex on him.
“Why ever would you say that?” I asked innocently, following every step he took. “If anything, I’d say we aren’t close enough.”
“No, no, no. This is not appropriate. This shouldn’t be happening. You should have your clothes on, for God’s sake. I shouldn’t have even allowed you to come here.”
His rant felt directed more to himself than to me, but I continued to engage. “That’s a terrible thing to say! Aren’t we having fun together? The whole ‘daddy’ game with your realtor? That was a good time, wasn’t it?”
He laughed incredulously as he rounded back to the front of the couch, one arm held out before himself as if to ward me off. “A good time is not the term I’d... Okay, yes, it was a fun bluff, but... Your sister is an employee in my firm! You are twenty years my junior!”
“Is it really twenty?” I’d told him my age, but he hadn’t mentioned his to me. Sabrina hadn’t even been certain. Not that it mattered. The important thing was that we were attracted to each other. That we had chemistry. And we definitely had that, whether he wanted to admit it or not.
“Yes, I’m sure. Or, it’s nearly twenty. Nineteen, to be precise.”
“Nineteen.” I thought about that for a minute, growing more comfortable with the idea by the moment. “That’s kind of hot, isn’t it? That a woman that you’re interested in who is nineteen years your junior is throwing herself at you? Begging you to teach her a thing or two. Or seven.”
I’d closed in on him while I was talking, trapping him against the armchair. He didn’t realize until he’d tripped and fell backward into the seat, but he’d only caught the edge in his fall and immediately slipped to the ground.
And I slipped right into his lap.
I spread my legs, straddling him the way I had the night before. His breath came fast, but even, and his skin was hot to the touch as I swept my finger across his forehead, brushing away the hair that had fallen there. He locked his eyes on mine, the pupils darkening as they lingered in his stare.
“I’m supposing you don’t need CPR,” I teased. I was terrible, but he was too easy.
His gaze narrowed. “My heart is fine. It’s my morals that I’m struggling with.”
“Because I’m so young? Because of Sabrina?”
“Yes. Even if we can ignore that I’m your sister’s superior I am definitely old enough to be…” He shook his head, unable to finish the sentence.
“My father? I told you I thought that was hot. Are you going to tell me it doesn’t interest you at all?”
He didn’t answer but swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the action.
“Because I won’t believe you if you do. There’s definitive proof to the contrary.”
He scowled even as I could feel his body relaxing underneath me. “What proof?”
“This bad boy.” I ground my hips, rubbing against his erection, nearly moaning from the thickness of it.
“There’s a near-naked beautiful woman sitting on him. He can’t help himself. He has a mind of his own and is not always in agreement with my decisions.” Contrary to his words, he stroked a single finger up my arm, sending a shiver down my spine.
Even this...even just the deliberate way he touched me was more experienced than the men I’d been with. Boys, really, fumbling to get their cock inside me without any sort of prelude. My dirty professor was a man. Someone who knew exactly what to do with a woman. Who could show me how to handle him in return.
“He perked up long before I was sitting on him,” I said, tilting my hips again.
This time he was the one to shudder. “You noticed that then?”
“It was quite hard to miss.”
His lips turned up into a cocky smile as he drew his finger further up my arm, over my shoulder to the strap of my bra. He fiddled with the thin elastic, so leisurely, so carefully, that I thought I might explode when he finally touched me for real.
Once more, I tilted my hips back and then forward, tracing the stiff length of his cock with the damp crotch panel of my panties. I’d meant it to hurry him up, urge him into kissing me, but it felt so good that I was the one who threw my head back and sighed.
Next thing I knew, I was on my back, on the floor, my hands pinned above my head with Dylan stretched out above me.
Wow. That move was...wow. So manly and take-charge-like. So alpha and swoony.
Somehow, he was even more good-looking from this angle. His expression was serious and heated, the creases near his eyes intense as he focused on me.
My heart thumped against my rib cage, pounding, pounding at the possibility of what was to come next.
“You don’t seem to need any lessons in the art of seduction,” he said sternly. Fatherly, almost, except for the sexy, rough edge to his voice.
“You’re right. I know how to seduce a man.” I spread my legs, making room for him to settle in between my thighs. His eyes closed briefly as the ridge of his erection sunk down across my center. “What I don’t know is how to tell a man what I like. How can I if I don’t know what I like myself? If no one has ever shown me anything worth repeating.”
He studied me silently for a moment. Every s
econd felt like thirty as I measured time with the rapid lift and fall of my chest, waiting for him to make the next move, waiting for him to agree.
“And you think I can show you what you might like?” His gaze shifted to my mouth then back to my eyes.
I licked my lips in anticipation of the kiss he was obviously looking forward to as much as I was. “You’ve already shown me more than you can know.”
His expression said he doubted that. “Assuming that’s true...how do I know you won’t fall for me in the process? You don’t have a track record to prove you can separate sex from love.”
Wasn’t that a killer of a question?
He had every right to ask. I wasn’t the least bit upset about it, though it did make me feel like the wind had been sucked out of my chest. Made me feel dizzy and unsure when just a moment ago I’d been drowning in confidence.
“I guess…” I started out tentatively, formulating the answer as I gave it. “I guess you don’t know that. I guess I don’t really know it either. I could try to convince you it isn’t your problem—I’ll be gone at the end of the week, and you’ll be on the other side of the ocean—but I have a feeling you’re the kind of guy that would very much think it was his problem, no matter where he was. You might not be fond of the love emotion, but you do recognize it in other people. That you acknowledge the weight it can carry might be what makes me feel so safe with you.”
That was a revelation. I hadn’t quite realized why I trusted him to be the guy to take on this task. We’d only just met. I shouldn’t be this sure about him. But, just like he was afraid of how I’d react to this arrangement because I’d shown enough of myself for him to know it was a possibility, I also had seen enough of him to know I trusted him.
“I trust you,” I told him. “I trust you to be careful with my body, and I trust that you won’t lead me on in any way. That’s a good start, isn’t it?”
Before he could say anything, I pushed forward, my words tumbling out rapidly. “And what I can tell you for sure is that I don’t have any intentions of becoming emotionally wrapped up in you. I am attracted to you. Crazy attracted to you. Turn-my-insides-into-mush kind of attracted to you, but I’ve always been able to separate attraction from real feelings. I’ve been crazy attracted to men before, given a few blow jobs to some of them, even, but I’ve only fallen in hard love with those two guys. Guys I hadn’t slept with while the falling was occurring. Maybe that can help you trust me? It’s not very reassuring, I suppose. I don’t know what else to say. I hope that doesn’t make you tell me no, though, because, Dylan, I want this. I want to learn from you. I want—”
He cut me off, crashing his mouth into mine. His lips were firm and persuasive, telling mine exactly where to move and what speed. Telling them when to open and take more. I responded eagerly, matching the strokes of his tongue with my own as soft whimpers escaped from my throat. My sounds made him groan and made me wet—wetter than I already was, that is. He swept me up with his kiss. He took me from the solid ground into a spiraling, dizzy windstorm.
He continued to hold my wrists above my head, which I found both highly erotic and frustrating at the same time. I wanted to caress his jaw. I wanted to slip my hands underneath his sweater. I wanted to draw the pads of my thumbs across his nipples and then trail my fingers down, down, down.
Unable to touch him the way I wanted, the rest of me became more antsy beneath him, as though trying to make up for my restrained hands. I squirmed and bucked, trying to get as much of my body to come into contact with his as possible. But he counteracted every one of my moves, bracing his body higher above me, holding himself away.
It took me a few minutes to realize he was purposefully taunting me.
Then it took me another few minutes to realize I really liked this too. I mean, I hated it. But as the torture continued, a tension built inside me, low and deep. A hum that spread through my core and out to my limbs. By the time he lowered himself to grind across my crotch, I was already halfway to an orgasm.
From there, the hum intensified quickly. Each thrust of his pelvis against mine sent me closer to the edge. He still had his pants on! I still had on panties, and yet he’d found the perfect spot, hit it on every stroke, making the hum swell and expand and consume and take over and buzz, buzz, buzz, and…
Suddenly it was all gone at the sound of a clearing throat.
Guess when I’d sent the agent away I’d forgotten that he’d also be coming back.
Whoops.
I wasn’t sorry. I wasn’t sorry at all.
Chapter Seven
Dylan
I’d never lost an erection so fast.
Thank God, since it made it easier to scramble to my feet and distract Jeff Jones so Audrey could clothe herself privately. I was sweating and panicked as I diverted him back to the foyer. Behind me, I could hear the girl giggling.
It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t.
That she was laughing was a splendid example of why our age difference was a big problem. She was obviously not mature enough to handle matters that required adult responsibility. I was disappointed in myself for not being the adult from the start. If she hadn’t been so tenacious, so assertive, so beguiling, I wouldn’t have lost control of the situation.
And I had lost control. Really lost it. Almost gone too far, even.
The whole thing had left me flustered, and now there was a real chance I wasn’t going to get this apartment.
“It’s...I’m...this isn’t at all what it looks like,” I explained to the agent. I ran a hand through my hair, creating a floppy mess if I were to judge by the uneven way it felt on my scalp. “I sincerely apologize. It was inappropriate and discourteous and—”
“Just tell me one thing,” Mr. Jones interrupted. “She’s not really your daughter, is she?”
“No! God, no.” I thought about it after I’d answered, what that must have looked like to the man when he’d walked in on us. It had been bad enough that we’d behaved so badly in an flat I hadn’t yet leased. The fact that he’d also thought we were father and daughter was…
Well. Maybe it was funny.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why we said that she was.” The grin that had slid onto my face made my latest apology seem insincere.
Fortunately, Jeff Jones was smiling too. “It’s fine. I understand. I’m sure I’d play that game too if I were with a woman so…”
“Young?” Yes, I knew she was too young. He didn’t need to throw it in my face.
“I was going to say willing. But maybe her youth has something to do with it.” He peered over my shoulder, which made me have to glance behind me as well, insuring he wasn’t seeing anything he shouldn’t be seeing.
He wasn’t. Audrey was dressed now and was simply straightening the tie of her wrap.
That didn’t stop Jones from leering at her. “You’re a very lucky man, Mr. Locke.”
“Yes. I am,” I said sternly, subtly enforcing a claim on her that I didn’t have. His leer bothered me. A lot. I probably wouldn’t have responded so possessively otherwise.
His smile faded, and the man looked appropriately cowed. He opened his mouth and closed it twice, as though trying to discern the best way to react.
I put him out of his misery and nodded at the file in his hands. “Are those the papers for the lease? Can I sign them now?”
“Oh! Yes. You may.” He led me to the kitchen island where he spread out the contract in front of me. “Since we had you pre-approved before today, we’ve got all the finance and reference information that we need. You just need to initial the first two pages and put your John Hancock on the last, and I can hand over the keys right now.”
He handed me a pen from inside the breast pocket of his jacket.
“And the terms of the contract are…?”
He used the pen to point to the paragraph answering my question. “Six months or until the unit is sold. If you’re planning to purchase outright—”
“I am.”
“—then you’ll just want to make sure the sale goes through before the lease expires.”
“I’ll do that straight away.” I took the pen and signed where he’d indicated.
When I was finished, Audrey sidled up next to me and clutched onto my arm. “Is it ours now?” she asked coyly.
I narrowed my eyes in her direction but didn’t dispute the pretense that we were buying the flat together. It didn’t feel necessary to confuse the agent any further, and besides, I was quite comfortable with the man believing Audrey was unavailable.
“Not quite yet, my dear, but we do get to have the keys now.” I let the agent hand one to her so as not to destroy the latest ruse. I pocketed the duplicates. “Mr. Jones is going to put together an offer for us so we can buy the place outright.”
“Sweet!” she exclaimed gazing up at me, and her eyes twinkled so spectacularly that I couldn’t help imagining for a moment that we really were purchasing the place together. A pied-à-terre where I would teach her everything she wanted to know about her body and mine. As though she were a student, perhaps. The fantasy was “sweet.” Delicious, even.
Too delectable to keep thinking about for too long.
I cleared my throat, forcing the fancy to dissipate from my head. “Do you need anything else from us?”
We briefly discussed an amount to offer the seller and decided the agent would pull up a few comps and get back to me before we confirmed the final number. I shook hands with him, watched with ire as he kissed the back of Audrey’s hand, and then walked him to the door.
Once he was gone, I turned back to my companion and realized my mistake—I was again alone with Audrey. And this time there would be no one coming back to interrupt us.
Her expression said she’d realized the same thing. She didn’t seem quite as upset about it as I was, though.
I thought quickly. “I shouldn’t suggest this, but—”
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