She felt bad then for allowing her nosiness to almost ruin the best date ever, in addition to feeling kind of mercenary for leading the guy on. Not knowing exactly what to do—when she always knew the right move in her professional life—made her feel vulnerable. After spending so long trying to push away any hints of vulnerability, she was unaccustomed to the sensation. It almost felt as though her chest gaped open and he could see all the broken, gross insides of her. “Big favor.”
He gave her a sly grin that told her he knew she was feeling awkward, opened the door, and put his hand on her lower back again, moving her into his space and reassuring her at the same time. Some of the anxious, edgy, almost-naked feeling receded.
“I’m glad I got to share it with you.” Crap, did he always know what to say?
“Me too.” She looked down, not wanting to meet his gaze. “I had a really good time with you.” She said that twice. And she couldn’t seem to stop doing a lot of girly-stupid things around him that she’d thought she’d sworn off forever.
“Can I take your coat?” This gentlemanly bullshit had to stop—immediately. Maybe he thought he was slick and that she hadn’t noticed how he was always pulling out chairs and opening doors and stuff. Or maybe it was all just second nature to him. What she knew for sure was that his good manners seemed to be straight-up hardwired to her clitoris.
Taking her coat and hanging it for her was practically better than getting fingered. From the way his skin had brushed hers while he was removing the trench, she knew that was a lie. If he did anything to her girl parts with his fingers, she was going to know and remember forever exactly what he did to her body.
The manners were just an aphrodisiac.
“What can I get you to drink?” He led her into an open-concept industrial living space. Exactly what she would have expected but for the meticulous cleanliness and touches of smart design. There was the de rigueur bachelor big-screen television, but he also had neutral, tasteful accent pillows and decent furniture. He definitely hadn’t found any of it on the curb or bought it off of Craigslist.
“What do you have?”
He smiled, and his incredibly sexy dimple popped. She could spend years trying to make him smile so hard that his dimple popped out. Then he sauntered over to a cabinet that hugged the exposed brick wall and opened it up. “Whatever you want.”
She knew in her bones that his offer extended to more than liquor, and the ideas running through her brain made her throat dry out. The wine pours with dinner hadn’t been generous—basically enough for a swallow of wine with each dish—so she wasn’t drunk. But she was giddy on the man smiling at her.
Just then, she was struck by the fact that she was surrounded by him—things that smelled like him, what he liked to look at and taste—and was overwhelmed. Even though she’d found herself stammering and a little awkward around him, she found that she liked being surrounded by him and his things and the way he smelled. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
Her words were croaked out, and then he winked at her. He might as well have just taken the bones out of her legs right then. “Have a seat. Bourbon okay?”
“Bourbon is great.” She sank onto the butter-soft leather of his couch and stared up at the ceiling when he turned to mix their drinks, extracting an orange and ice from a minifridge next to the bar.
As he worked, she had the opportunity to stare at his gorgeous, perfectly round ass as he bent and straightened and shook their cocktails. Everything he did seduced her. He didn’t even have to mention sex to make her feel like he was putting moves on. She was so screwed.
If she did manage to keep him interested in her for two whole weeks, she was going to miss him when things eventually fizzled out.
The whole reason that Jack had asked her out was that she was an überconfident bitch on wheels. The more he got to know her, the less she tried to be perfect, the less he would like her. Either that, or she would get tired of the whole façade and just want to be herself: sometimes an überconfident bitch, sometimes just a girl who asked rude questions and liked bourbon on the rocks with a hot man.
For a moment, she wished that this was an entirely different scenario. Maybe that she’d met him years ago, before she’d met Noah. If they’d gone out then, she could have swaggered and told dirty jokes and captivated him with how flipping cool she was without worrying that she couldn’t be herself with him.
She shook that thought out of her head. Didn’t need to be thinking about what it would be like to date him for real. This whole production was for one purpose, and one purpose only—to get him to fall in love with her and secure a promotion. Whatever happened afterward didn’t matter.
If he liked a bitch on wheels who flipped him off one moment and kissed the hell out of him the next, that’s what she would give him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN IT HAD COME time for Sean Nolan to give a birds-and-bees talk, he hadn’t wasted any time. Michael had been ten and Jack had been eight.
All three of them sat down in the family living room, Sean in his easy chair and Michael and Jack on the sofa facing him. They’d each had a beer—root for Michael and Jack.
Sean ran his work-hewn paw over the rapidly graying stubble on his face, looked them each in the eye, and said, “Ladies first.”
Michael and Jack looked at each other and then back at their dad. Sean continued, “I found the porn on the computer, and you need to know that it’s all bullshit. That’s not how sex should work. Mostly because it’s supposed to be fun for both of you. And to have it be fun for both of you . . . ladies first. Any questions?”
Jack and his brother had remained silent for a long moment. They’d telepathically decided that they were probably better off finding out more information from one of their mom’s romance novels, and mostly relieved that neither of them was getting in trouble for watching porn. So they shook their heads.
Sean nodded, took a swig of beer, and added, “Also, wrap it up, for Christ’s sake.”
* * *
—
HANNAH HAD SETTLED ON her plan to remain a mercurial harpy to keep him interested, when Jack swaggered as he brought her drink over. She didn’t even call him on it, and she was for sure losing her edge. The spark that passed between them when he passed her the drink might have shorted out her bitch circuits completely. And not even the cold bourbon and slight tinge of bitters and orange could bring them back.
He took a seat at the end of his couch, close enough that she could touch him if she reached out, but far enough that it was clear that he wasn’t trying to crowd her.
“So.” Just one word. Then he took a swallow of his drink and she watched his throat work. Over dinner they’d mostly covered pop culture and politics, so she knew that he was publicly neutral but privately liberal, that he liked Game of Thrones the TV show more than the books, and that he was a serious foodie. His love of tacos and choice of restaurants weren’t just flukes.
“How’d you get into journalism?”
“A girl.” He gave her a wry laugh and looked at her under his too-long-for-a-man lashes. “Every bit of trouble I’ve ever gotten into happened because of a girl.”
“Oh, really?” She took a sip of her drink, trying out her words as the liquor made its fiery way down her throat. “Do you think I’m trouble?”
“Definitely.” The certainty in his declarative statement combined with his smile made her feel as though they were back into flirty-first-date mode and out of the awkward swamp she’d been wading through for the past few hours.
Maybe it was the extra drink, or the ease in pressure from not being out at a superfancy restaurant. Or the intimacy of it being just the two of them. But the magic that she’d felt the first night they’d met was back in action, that feeling that she could do no wrong, that he saw her and liked what he saw.
And it was more intoxicating than an eig
hteen-course meal and wine pairings. “I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”
He scooted toward her on the couch so his bent knee touched her thigh. She fought off a moan of pleasure at the contact. First, his manners were going to get her off, and now his touching her thigh? She’d definitely been out of the sex rat race too long if this was going to be her reaction.
She was like a fourteen-year-old girl with a poster of Freddie Prinze Jr. in her room again. Except—like the current Mr. Sarah Michelle Gellar and all-around silver fox—Jack wasn’t a teenage boy; he was one hundred percent, full-fledged man.
“I like the kind of trouble I could get into with you, Duchess.”
“Why ‘Duchess’?”
“Just popped into my head, I guess.”
“No one else would have that pop into their head when thinking of me.” She couldn’t be further from royal material.
“You look kind of like the new one.” He skimmed a fingertip, cool from holding his drink, on the exposed skin of her thigh, making eye contact to make sure she was on board with it. “But that’s not why I called you that.”
“Why did you?”
“That first night we met, you might have been flipping me and my buddies off, but there was something kind of classy about it.”
She nearly choked on her drink. Classy? Her? Never in her life had anyone described her that way. Assertive? Yes. Mouthy? Of course. A total raging bitch? On more than one occasion.
“I can honestly say, that’s the strangest thing anyone has ever said about me.”
“I’m a strange guy.” He waggled his eyebrows, somehow managing to be even more charming than before. “Maybe ‘classy’ is the wrong word. But the way you were going to stand up for your friends—with your fists, if necessary—tells me that you have something that a lot of people who would never think of using the f-word don’t have.”
The way he was describing her to herself was intoxicating. Perhaps her ego was out of control, but she wanted to hear more—couldn’t resist it. “And what’s that?”
“Loyalty.”
All her plans to save anything physical for the third date flew out the window and wafted east until they floated away on the fetid waters of the Chicago River. She put down her half-full drink. Just as Jack opened his mouth—probably to ask her if she wanted something else—she kissed him.
She grabbed his face and swung her leg over his lap, pinning him to the couch. His old-fashioned sloshed in his glass, some of it spilling on her cleavage before he put it on the side table.
For the first few moments, his mouth didn’t respond to hers. For a fraction of a second, she stilled and thought about pulling away. Just as she was taking in the feel of his roughened cheeks against her palms and the scent of liquor on his breath and some manly scent coming off of his skin in waves, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her fully against him. So that she could feel exactly how on board for this he was.
And then he shocked the shit out of her—again—by taking her mouth. She immediately realized that the kiss they’d shared the night they’d met was child’s play. He’d been holding back and unsure that night, even though just his mouth against hers had been enough to invade her thoughts and plant naughty daydreams about his mouth for a week.
This kiss belied the good manners and the choirboy smiles that he put on like an intricate mask. This kiss was all lips and teeth and animalistic sounds made by two people who were practically in heat.
Without thinking, she rolled her hips against his groin, needing to feel his hardness against her, knowing that if he let her go long enough, she’d come all over him. She wouldn’t even have to get rid of her panties.
For his part, Jack pressed his palms against her hips before stroking the curves of her sides and using his powerful hands and forearms to press her closer to him. It might have been eons before their lips broke apart, both of them panting.
Her total disorientation reflected back at her from his heated gaze. He trailed a finger over her bottom lip, though, melting her core even more, making her want to sink into his well-honed body.
One corner of his mouth kicked up into a lethal smirk. “If I’d known complimenting your integrity would get me a kiss like that, I would have done it the night we met.”
“It was a little bit the nickname.” Her voice sounded breathless, but she was too amped to beat herself up about being that girl. Not in that moment, looking at him, while his hands were still on her.
“Duchess.” The endearment sounded like an accusation, but he kissed her again, even hungrier this time. His hand cupped the back of her skull as though she were precious to him while his mouth became well acquainted with hers, their breath mingling.
She felt like her skin was steaming as he ran one palm over and over her upper spine, as though he knew that he needed to keep her anchored to him.
He maneuvered their bodies until he was laid out on top of her, pressing between her thighs. She hadn’t dry humped since early in college, and she couldn’t remember it feeling this good. She couldn’t remember anyone touching her feeling this good. And she’d never been kissed this long or this thoroughly before in her life.
If Jack Nolan ever did a how-to on kissing, the women of the world would be in serious trouble. Mail wouldn’t be delivered, the fields would be untended, because everyone would be too busy kissing. All day, all night.
When he broke their kiss a second time, he looked just as shell-shocked as she felt. Good. Maybe it wasn’t like this with every girl he kissed. He sat up on his haunches and she bit her lip, wincing because they were so swollen and all her lipstick had been rubbed off.
Speaking of rubbing off, he ran a hand up her thigh. She stopped him just before he got to the edge of her panties.
He moved his hand away to the safer territory of her thighs immediately. “Too far?”
“I mean—” It really wasn’t far enough. She was practically dying for him to touch her. “There’s a situation of sorts down there.” When his brow furrowed in concern, she covered her face with both hands. “I want to die. I want to die, right now.”
Then he did the worst thing that he could possibly do, and he laughed. “What kind of situation? Like vagina dentata or something?”
Hannah propped herself up on her forearms. “A vagina den-what-a?”
“You know, like a vagina with teeth.” He inexplicably made claws with his hands.
She was this close to telling him to get off of her because he had clearly smoked crack when he went to the men’s room just before dessert. “That’s a thing?”
“There was a horror movie about it.” He blushed and looked sheepish, and she was definitely not getting up.
“I just sort of have a Miss-Havisham’s-attic situation in my basement.” His brow furrowed in confusion. “Like, everything is the same as it’s been since the last time someone had their face down there.” More confusion. “There’s hair, Jack. Lots of hair.”
Jack shrugged and smiled and said the most perfect thing he could have said. “That’s all? Seriously?”
“You don’t care?”
“Not at all.” He leaned so that he hovered over her, their mouths aligned again. “I would have cared about teeth, but hair—I’m fine with.”
“Who are you?” She reached out and traced his mouth with one finger. He stayed still and let her.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just like—I don’t know—toxic masculinity skipped you or something.”
Something troubled clouded his gaze for a split second. She would have missed it if she hadn’t been looking at him, examining him quite so closely. Then it passed, and his shit-eating grin was back. “So, I can keep kissing you?”
“Definitely.” He laid a kiss on her neck and licked over the skin where his drink had splashed, cleaning up all the sticky residue. Such a ge
ntleman, even when he was doing filthy things to her with his tongue.
He lifted his head, and she grabbed on to his hair in protest. “Anywhere I want?” His hand on the inside of her thigh told her that “anywhere” was going to be “exactly where” she wanted it.
“Yes. Please.”
* * *
—
EXCEPT FOR THAT SPLIT second when she basically made him out to be some sort of feminist hero because he didn’t give a shit about whether she’d gotten a wax job, this had been the best date of his life.
Her moments of vulnerability made him want her so much more, but they amplified the guilt growing in his gut every second he spent with her. She was sharp and funny, and so beautiful it made his eyes tired—he didn’t blink enough when he looked at her. He didn’t want to miss a single smile or hand gesture. Didn’t want to miss her looking at him. Under ordinary circumstances, he would be trying to make sure that she knew that she was the girl for him. It was shitty luck and shitty timing that he had to treat her exactly how she expected him to treat her.
As he kissed the tops of her gorgeous tits, he tried to justify what he was doing.
This is wrong. You’ll break her heart.
She won’t even remember your name in a month.
She would eventually leave you anyway.
She thought you would be kicking her out the moment you found out about her pubic hair. The least you owe her is an orgasm for the anxiety.
That last one was the one that had his hands moving up her thighs, getting her fuck-hot dress out of the way so he could dive right in. Jack had never had any qualms about going down on a woman—especially one that felt as much like his as Hannah.
If he wasn’t using her for a story, he could imagine this being the first of many times that her breath caught when his fingers reached her panties. The commencement of the sighs she’d make when he caressed the skin of her lower belly with his tongue. One of many moments when he opened up her thighs and tasted her like she was better than anything he’d tasted during their many courses of dinner.
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