Beguiling (Tempting #2) (4 page)

H
e’d told
me to suck his dick. Hours later, I still couldn’t get those words, and the way he’d bit them off, out of my head.

Church girl
, he’d said. Church girl. He’d made me feel like I was fifteen all over again, waiting with my friends by their lockers as he passed me by. “Hey church girl,” he’d said then, though with considerably less derision. Back then, it had been a joke.

If I separated the words and analyzed them individually—which I did, because overthinking was innate for me—the
girl
part of the nickname particularly rubbed me raw.

Three years since high school and he still saw me as a girl. It shouldn’t bother me, I knew that in the most logical part of my brain, but the part that wanted to be seen as a woman was insulted and annoyed. Things had changed considerably in the years since awkward glasses, bras with extra padding, and metal braces. I’d been the most cliché of clichés—boy figure and frizzy hair—but once the freshman fifteen hit and filled out all my womanly curves? Well, I’d seen myself differently.

Again, I chastised myself for even being bothered by it. We were talking about Leo—whose only brain seemed to hang between his legs. Why would someone like me appeal to someone like him—a guy who’d dated more than three quarters of the females in our high school class. Being in the very narrow margin of girls who hadn’t succumbed to his dimples and seemingly irresistible charm should earn me a mental pat on the back, but all it did was make me wish I’d been more daring.

Instead I’d buckled down after high school, taking classes non-stop. Filling the void of boys with books and spending my nights studying instead of discovering what was so spectacular about sex.

When I’d hit my sophomore year of college with nary a boyfriend, my best friend Liza had all but shoved me on the first guy to look my way at a bar we’d snuck into with our fake IDs. I’d dated him for an unreasonably short amount of time before I’d let him follow me back to the dorm.

Even now I cringed, remembering how I’d been over-thinking the moment while he’d been pulling his pants down, revealing his pale, white chicken legs. I’d tried not to laugh when he’d fallen over as he had yanked off his socks.

Later, when he’d fumbled with the condom and slid inside of me without even bothering to pay attention to my breasts, I’d wondered what all the fuss was about. Ten pumps and he was done, passed out beside me and snoring five minutes later on my pillow. And I’d lain there, my panties stuck around my ankles and my center sore and empty, feeling like Liza had set me up for disappointment.

Sighing, I looked at my watch and tapped my feet on the brake pedal. I’d turned the car off twenty minutes earlier while waiting for Leo outside of his locker room. I was running out of patience.

Tempted to go home without him, I put my hand on the key in the ignition. The guilt of even thinking of leaving him halted me from turning the key. But it didn’t stop the impatient tap of my feet.

Two minutes and twenty seconds later, the door to the locker room opened and Leo stepped out. When his eyes fell on my car and moved up to meet my eyes, I knew by his expression that he was surprised to see me. He had a bag slung over one shoulder and his hair was wet like he’d just taken a shower. He started for the car, slow at first and then quickened his pace when I narrowed my eyes and grit my teeth.

The passenger door opened and he slid in, bringing with him a wall of Boston heat and man. He smelled clean and just like what a man should smell like.

I wished I had just taken off minutes earlier. I was pissed that he was so late and pissed that his scent was distracting me from remembering why I was annoyed.

“Hey,” he said as he buckled. I didn’t respond, just gunned it out of the parking lot, speeding much more than I ever did. “Whoa, where’s the fire?”

Again, I didn’t say anything as I whipped around streets to get to the interstate. My anger was palpable and my attraction to him was warring with my brain, asking me why I was intensely annoyed with him.

His words from earlier came to me again.
I’d tell you to suck my dick right now, but I don’t think you’d know what to do with it.

Oh, right. That.

Once I’d merged into traffic on the interstate, I started to relax. Breathing in and out of my mouth had calmed my hormones, because I wasn’t smelling him as strongly.

But I knew my rage was still ever-present when his hand reached out and turned up the air conditioning. My first instinct had been to slap his hand, but I’d waited until his hand had moved from the console before I turned the air conditioning back to where it was.

He waited longer the next time, changing the radio station when an advertisement came on. In truth, I was so caught up in my thoughts of why I was pissed off at him that I hadn’t even noticed the ad until he turned it to an alternative rock station. But nonetheless, a second later I changed it back to the advertisements, just because
I could
.

When he reached for the air conditioning again, I snapped, slapping his hand away. I gave him a quick glare before turning my eyes back to the road, my knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. When he reached again, I didn’t even wait to see out of my peripheral vision what he was going for before I reached out and slapped his hand hard enough that my own fingers stung.

“You should have let me know you were going to be running so late,” I said, breaking my silence. I clenched my jaw again, pissed with myself for not controlling my anger around him.

“What?” he asked, and I sensed his body shift in his seat so he was angled toward me. “Got a hot date or something?”

The way he said it raised my hackles. He was always doing that—subtly or noisily expressing his disbelief in my ability to have a social life. But I wanted to be the bigger person, so I stayed silent—at least on the outside. Internally, my blood was boiling.

When we pulled on to our street, I saw him shift in my periphery.

“Hey,” he said, placing one large, warm palm on my shoulder.

I nearly ran the car into Mrs. Freeman’s mailbox from the contact. I hoped Leo hadn’t noticed the way the car had jerked and pulled into my driveway with more control than I felt. I took in the dark and empty windows. My parents had left on sabbatical the day earlier, leaving me with the run of the house for the next six weeks.

“Scarlet,” he said. When he spoke my name, I paused, listening, but not looking at him. “Let me take you out for a beer or two. An apology.”

Though he sounded genuine, it pissed me off that instead of simply saying “I’m sorry,” he wanted to take me to a bar, a place he knew I didn’t frequent as a rule, and buy me a two-dollar mea culpa beer.

“Leo,” I said, turning so that I was looking at him out the corner of my eye. “Get out of my car.”

A
fter spending
three solid hours with microscopic anatomy, my eyes were tired and my brain was fried because, against my better judgement, all I could think about was Leo, and his invitation to go grab an apology beer.

I clicked out of my school email and opened up Facebook as I nursed the weak wine cooler I’d found in the garage refrigerator. It was too sweet for my liking, the sugar practically drilling a hole right through my teeth. I scrolled through the most recent posts, including all of Liza’s posts from her job at The Hole, one of the local bars. I liked her most recent photo, because it was a typical Liza shot. It was taken from behind the bar, with two of the bartenders in mid-throw, tossing bottles of liquor over her head. Her hands were on her cheeks, her bright-red lips in a surprised ‘O’ and her eyes so large she looked like a caricature. She had a dozen comments on the photo.

Didn’t know you were working tonight! I’ll come ‘round!

Nice lips
, said another comment with a wink emoticon. It was from one of Liza’s former flings, so I understood what the wink face was for.

Are you working tomorrow?
asked another commenter, with a bunch of drink emoticons.

Get the slippery nipples ready! I’m on my way!

I moved away from the photo, suddenly feeling guilty for not ever visiting her at work. She worked most nights and every weekend, and when she wasn’t at the bar she was working her day job at the mall. With my class schedule and preparing for my move to school, we didn’t have a lot of free time that overlapped. And ever since I’d graduated, I’d avoided most social situations. I did not need distractions right before vet school.

I scrolled down, past Liza’s posts and kept going further down the page until a familiar face caused me to pause. Cameron Hunter, the sleaze who had hit on me earlier that week, had tagged Leo in a photo that was simply captioned “Beast.” In the photo, Leo’s arms were wrapped underneath a very large tire, his jaw clenched and his face red and his hair dripping with sweat. His biceps bulged and the angle—with him leaning forward as he seemed to be flipping the tire over—was, well, impressive. Even though it was a profile shot, I could see the determined squint of his gaze and the way his shirt clung to his chest was more than a little distracting, as my eyes traveled over that particular area of his anatomy more than once.

It was bad enough that he was sexy when he was relaxed, smiling with dimples in his cheeks, eyes twinkling in humor. But, it was even worse that he was so incredibly, undeniably hot when he was that focused, that determined. Unwittingly, a vision of him staring at me with that same kind of determination liquefied my insides.

I snapped the lid of my laptop closed and stood up, chewing on my thumb as I paced my bedroom. I stared into my closet and contemplated for a moment before picking up my phone and shooting him a text.

S
carlet
: Does the offer still stand?

I
ran
my tongue over my teeth, full of nervous energy, as I alternated between staring at my phone and pretending to be distracted by the chipped nail polish on my fingertips. But out of the corner of my eye, I watched my phone, waiting for it to light up with his reply.

Ten minutes later, I opened up my home screen on my phone after convincing myself my notifications must be off, because surely he would have replied by now. But no. Nothing.

“Whatever,” I said in a huff, dropping my phone down and pounding the last dregs of my wine cooler. The aftertaste left something to be desired, so I left my bedroom in search of something else to drown my embarrassment in.

But before completely leaving, I grabbed my phone and shoved it in my back pocket. Just in case.

I climbed onto the counter, opening my mom’s not-so-secret stash. She had an assortment of vodkas, so I grabbed one that looked like dessert and poured a generous shot into a cup.

After sniffing it, I decided it was probably not best taken straight, so I rooted through the fridge for a mixer of some kind when a sound at the sliding glass door caused me to jump out of my skin.

Whirling around, my eyes met Leo’s on the other side of the glass. I pressed a hand to my racing heart and closed the fridge. After undoing the lock, I pulled the door open and Leo stepped in.

“Hey, Jennings.” He stepped into the kitchen and started looking around, as if we’d suddenly remodeled it since the last time he was at the house.

“What are you doing?” I asked, wary.

“I rang the bell, but you didn’t answer. And I’ve always wanted to come through your back door,” he said, jerking a thumb behind him.

Rolling my eyes, I said, “Really? You just had to work that in, didn’t you?”

He turned from his place at the sink, “Hey, no need for hostility, Scarlet. You wanted to go out, didn’t you? I’m at your service.” He motioned with his hand a loose sort-of bow and then picked up my glass of vodka. I watched as he sniffed it and then looked at me curiously. “Straight vodka? You’re more hardcore than you let on.” His eyes traveled up and down my body. “Or maybe you’re just desperate?”

“Shut up.” I took the glass from him and poured it down the drain.  

“That’s alcohol abuse.”

Ignoring him, I said, “Give me a minute to get dressed.”

“Good idea.” He nodded and tucked a hand under his chin as he peered at my clothing. “Because I was trying to decide where I could take you that would be pajama appropriate.”

“Shut up,” I repeated, leaving the kitchen and running upstairs.

A
n hour later
, we were at some hole in the wall Leo had insisted on, which I let him choose only because I had insisted on driving to said hole in the wall. I knew I wouldn’t drink so much that I couldn’t drive, and given Leo’s rather expensive history in matters of automobiles, it only made sense for me to be the one behind the wheel.

I was nursing my one and only drink when Leo slapped a palm on the wooden bar top. “Come on, Scar. Let’s get some shots.”

“Scar?” My lip curled at the nickname. “I’m not interested in shots.” I traced the rim of my beer, but felt Leo’s eyes burning a hole in my face.

“I won’t order anything gross,” he promised, “and it’s my treat. Let’s do a shot. Watching you take tiny sips of that now-warm beer is killing my will to live.”

“Really?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. He nodded, face serious. “Okay, fine. But it better not taste like garbage.”

“Joe,” he said, hailing the bartender over to us. He knew everyone here—the staff and the patrons had all come up in the last hour and chatted with him about football and his visit there a week earlier. It was a solid reminder that he was a much more social animal than I was.

It was part of the reason I’d relented to the shot—because I wanted to be the person that people remembered, who was invited to parties and get-togethers. And besides, the last three years of classes back to back had kind of limited my party experiences, so I knew I’d missed out on some fun.

“Can you get us two cowboy cocksuckers?” Leo said, holding up two fingers.

“What?” My octave was a little higher than normal because he’d thrown me way off with the name of the drink.

“It’s a bitch shot,” Leo said, leaning toward me. “You’ll like it.”

I took slight offense at his assumption, but I accepted the creamy tan shot from Joe the bartender anyway.

He held up the shot as he turned to me. “Here’s to burying the hatchet?” He raised an eyebrow.

I gave a slight nod. “Sorry for calling you a meathead,” I said before tipping the shot back and letting the cool liquid slide back. He was right; I did like it. It was like butterscotch milk.

He set his empty shot glass on the bar and turned to me. “You didn’t call me a meathead.” He motioned to Joe to pour us another round and I didn’t object.

“Oh, I didn’t?” I asked. Shrugging, I said, “Well, I thought it in my head then.”

He squinted at me for a moment, until the second round of shots arrived and he pushed one my way. As I tossed it back, he said, “Sorry for telling you to suck my dick.”

That time, the liquor burned because I choked on it. His hand slapped my back several times as I gripped the counter like it was the only thing keeping me from falling backward. “You had to say that?” I coughed out before giving a grateful smile to Joe for the water he placed in front of me.

“Hey,” he said holding up his hands in surrender. “I said I was sorry.” He emphasized the sorry in a teasing tone and I drank enough water so that my throat wasn’t on fire anymore. But I still had that yummy butterscotch taste in my mouth and wanted more.

“Hey,” I said, playfully pushing at his shoulder. “Order me another bitch shot.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “Walking on the wild side tonight? I like it.” He raised a hand for Joe, held up two fingers. “Two blowjobs.”

I scrunched up my nose. “God, is every shot you know named after fellatio?”

“Not
every
one,” he said, a smile widening his mouth. The smile was deadly, a promise of some other torture he would inflict upon me. And the scary thing was that it didn’t feel like torture. It felt fun. Sexy.

Joe set two shots in front of us, each topped with whipped cream. As I set my fingers on it, Leo placed a hand on mine. “No, you have to keep your hands behind your back and pick it up with your mouth.”

My cheeks warmed and I cursed my ginger coloring for clearly displaying my naiveté. “Okay.” I put my hands behind me and he gestured for me to go first.

I didn’t allow myself time to think or time to talk myself out of it, and leaned on the table, my hair coming down and shielding the sides of my face as my lips closed around the rim and sucked to keep it in my mouth. My tongue dipped into the whipped cream, lapping it up into my mouth before I lifted the shot from the table and tilted my head back, letting it all pour down my throat.

It was like drinking a shot of a really good milky coffee and I surprised myself by immediately wanting another.

“Here,” he said, pushing the one in front of him toward me. “You’re a natural.”

Again, my cheeks warmed but I took this shot much quicker, leaning back so far that the glass came out of my lips.

“Whoa, easy, Killer,” Leo said, jumping up and catching the glass as it flew behind my head.

As I laughed, my body warming and softening, he set the glass on the counter. “Want another?”

I licked my lips, feeling the pleasurable burn of the alcohol ripple through me. I nodded.

“Joe, two redheaded sluts.” He looked at me with a very smug expression as if he expected a reaction, but I shrugged like it was no big deal. The liquor had loosened the bar of steel that normally kept me upright and rigid. I was having fun. I
was
fun.

When Joe placed the shots in front of us, I looked at it dubiously. “This one isn’t creamy like the other ones.” I dipped my forefinger in it and tasted it. “Licorice?”

“Good job. It’s Jager. And cranberry and peach schnapps.”

It sounded delicious, and from the small taste I’d gotten from licking my finger, I knew I’d like it too. “These bitch shots are good,” I told him, as I picked up the glass.

“I think that’s the first compliment you’ve given me, Scarlet.” He gave me a polite, sarcastic clap before picking up his shot and clinking it against mine. “To redheaded sluts.”

I rolled my eyes, not completely under alcohol’s influence and not a bit under the influence of how damn sexy he looked in his tight black shirt and worn jeans. My eyes glided over the way the sleeves hugged his biceps and how the shallow V of the tee’s neck revealed just a slight glimpse of the muscles underneath. I felt other parts of myself warm and squirmed on the bar stool.

Nope, I wasn’t under the influence of his innate sexual appeal
at all
.

My last sober thought was that he looked like a guy who could show me exactly what was so damn great about sex.

I
lost
track of the number of shots I’d had somewhere around the time I lost track of Leo. It was a little hard to see more than five feet in front of my face and Leo had left the bar for a moment to say hi to some people he knew, leaving me alone with the two blowjob shots he’d ordered before stepping away.

This time, I straight-up licked the whipped cream off the top, almost defiantly so, as I squinted and searched along the bar for Leo. Joe refilled the shot glass with whipped cream when I’d become distracted by looking for Leo and I smiled at him. I assumed it was Joe, but he was blurry enough that I couldn’t tell for sure.

“Another one?” Leo asked as he approached. I watched as he moved toward me in an almost slow motion, blurry figure becoming clearer as he took each step.

“They’re yummmmmmy,” I exaggerated, giving him a closed-eyes smile. It was too much work for me to keep my eyes open and smile at the same time.

He leaned against the bar next to me, all warm and great-smelling, and my vision cleared enough that he was perfectly clear in my gaze.

“You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

I pursed my lips and squinted my eyes. “Maaaaybe? What’s it to you?”

“Well,” he said, tucking his hands in his pockets. “You’re not going to be driving us home.”

I had a brief moment of clarity. “Oh, I drove.”

“You did. And you’re drunk.” He winked at me, or maybe I winked. I wasn’t entirely sure. All I knew was that he was smiling that ridiculously sexy smile and I couldn’t concentrate much past that.

“And you’re sexy. God,” I said with disdain, “why do you have to be so hot?”

He laughed, which did nothing to decrease his sex appeal. He opened his mouth, but he was distracted as a woman walked by and gave him a quick hug. I got a whiff of fancy perfume, caught a glimpse of long brown hair and a leather jacket before Leo said goodbye to her.

“You could have any one of them,” I said, wildly gesturing to the area behind me.

His forehead scrunched together. “No, they play the game. They act interested, but then they play hard to get. It gets old.” Something flashed in his eyes as he looked at me, but I was too far into la-la-land to decipher what it was.