Seduce Me Tonight (28 page)

At seven-fifteen I was feeling like I’d been stood up. It was only fifteen minutes, and I’d been a little late myself, but good grief, my nerves were on edge. Then my phone beeped – a message from InkSlinger in Word Games.

So sorry. Crisis at work. I won’t be able to get out of here for at least another hour.

I wanted to believe him, I really did. But I’m not Valerie. I’m just not that trusting of men. But still, he’d been pretty straightforward with me so far and I didn’t have to be a bitch about it.

That’s cool, maybe another time.

No! I really want to see you tonight. Please?

I hesitated. Then,
OK. I’ll wait another hour. Maybe I’ll find someone else to play Word Games with.

Fair enough,
he messaged
, but only until I’m done here, OK?

OK.

He was gone and I didn’t really feel like playing Word Games. So I bought a copy of the
Post
and nursed my coffee. An hour later, there was still no sign or word from Sam and the lone barista was busily scrubbing every surface around me, hinting that it was time for me to leave.

I sighed, messaged
I’m going home
to Sam and did just that. So much for taking a leap of faith. I’d landed in the rocks.

* * *

My phone beeped as I was getting into the bed. I looked at the time. 11.03. Was he kidding? I had to get up for work in less than seven hours. It crossed my mind to ignore it, but then my brain started going down the
CSI
path. What if something had happened to him? I picked up my phone and read his message.

I’m so sorry. I’m in advertising. I’m the head copywriter on a major account. The client wanted a last minute meeting and I couldn’t get out.

While I appreciated how forthcoming he was about his career, it didn’t sway me.

I’m going to bed.

Please, Lexigirl. I’m grovelling here. And I’m driving around the streets of Willow Oaks.

So, go home,
I messaged.

Let’s at least meet. Just ten minutes? So we can say we did.

I didn’t see the point, but I didn’t tell him that. I turned my phone over and over in my hand, thinking. Did I really want to get up, get dressed and drive somewhere to meet some guy I didn’t really know? Not really.

On the next flip, my phone beeped again.

I’m going to start yelling, ‘Lexigirl, where are you?’ out my car window.

I smiled. The guy was a nut, but maybe in a good way. I played a mental round of ‘What would Valerie do?’ and came up with the usual answer. She’d go for it.

Fine, I will give you my address. You can come over, but you cannot come inside. We’ll sit on the front porch for ten minutes.
Then I let out a long slow breath and carefully typed in my street address.

You’re something else, Lexigirl. I’ll be there in ten minutes, tops.

Because I was having second thoughts the minute I messaged him, I sent a group text to Valerie, Catherine and Hannah that said,
Meeting a guy I play Word Games with. His name is Sam, he’s thirty-four and a writer of some kind. I don’t think he’s crazy.
I left out the part that I was letting him come to the house after eleven o’clock on a school night. I giggled at the notion.

Good for you!
Valerie responded.
Go for it, little sis!

Catherine was equally enthused.
Woo hoo, it’s about time you got laid. Have fun and be careful.

I didn’t bother to correct her misguided assumption that there would be sex. I was just relieved that I wasn’t alone in this. I had a cheering section.

Ever the mother hen, Hannah’s response was a little more cautious.
Text me back in exactly two hours with the names of my twins or I’m calling the police and reporting you missing.

Hannah watched as much
CSI
as I did. And ever-cautious me was taking another leap of faith. I pulled my mess of blonde hair up into a ponytail, threw my robe on over my T-shirt and panties, turned the porch light on and sat on the steps.

I thought my heart would hammer out of my chest when headlights flooded the driveway, temporarily blinding me. They quickly dimmed and the car door slammed. I let out the breath I was holding as he approached – little more than a silhouette to my night-blinded eyes.

‘Hey, Lexigirl,’ he said, his voice deeper than I’d imagined.

‘Hey.’

I looked up at him and smiled. We’d never met, but he felt oddly familiar. It was hard to gauge his height at this angle, but he had a stocky build – solid, my mother would have said – reddish-blond hair and an easy smile.

He sat down on the step next to me. And nodded. ‘Yeah, this was the right thing to do.’

I laughed, my voice sounding loud on the quiet street. ‘You were having second thoughts, too?’

He shrugged. ‘Sure. I was afraid I’d show up at the wrong address – or find the police waiting for me.’

I hadn’t even considered that he might feel uncomfortable. I had to give him points for taking a leap of faith, too.

‘Right address and no cops,’ I said, spreading my arms to take in the deserted street of small bungalow houses.

My thinking had been that, if we sat outside, my neighbours would hear me if I started screaming. My next-door neighbour Caitlin lived alone, too, so I knew she’d be the first to call the police if I raised the alarm. But now it actually felt kind of silly, sitting outside like this when I had perfectly comfortable furniture inside.

‘So, I know where you live. Do I get to know your name?’

‘Alexandra,’ I said. ‘But everyone calls me Lexi.’

‘Well, Alexandra, I’m going to kiss you now because it’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about for the past month.’

I probably should have said, ‘No.’ A three point word. But instead I said, ‘Yes.’ Because five points beats three points.

And then the man I only knew as InkSlinger and Sam, who was a stranger and yet somehow not, kissed me. And there were so many points in that kiss that I couldn’t even figure out how to add them all up. His lips were soft and fit so perfectly against my own I wanted to comment on it, but I was too busy kissing him. His face had the rough stubble of a long work day and he smelled like coffee and smoke. I leaned into him, only our mouths touching as we sat on my front stoop and kissed.

He slid an inch closer so that our hips touched and I turned into him, my robe coming loose. It was a cool night for this time of year and I shivered, but my chill quickly dissipated when he slipped his arms around my waist and kissed me harder. I realised I had grabbed the front of his shirt – now when had I done that? – and let go, smoothing out the fabric before I put one arm around his neck and held him to me, intensifying the kiss. I could leap with the best of them, I thought hazily as he tugged the belt of my robe and kept me anchored to him.

‘What’s your last name, Sam?’ I whispered against his lips.

‘Haverty.’

‘Mmm, nice word count,’ I said. ‘But not as good as Zambruski.’

He leaned back to stare at me. ‘Stop playing Word Games and kiss me.’

I laughed. ‘I am kissing you. I am,’ and I went back to proving it.

I hadn’t intended anything more than kissing. Hell, I hadn’t even intended that. But this didn’t feel like a first date, the previous ignorance of last names notwithstanding. I knew him. I knew his words, I knew how he thought. I knew that he was outgoing and fun, things I wanted to be. I knew he was lonely, like me. And, despite how we had started, this wasn’t a game any more.

‘Let’s go inside.’

He seemed as surprised by my overture as I was. He pulled back and looked into my eyes. I felt flushed, aroused. I licked my bottom lip self-consciously and he groaned.

‘Are you sure? I didn’t come over here for that. You know that, right?’

I smiled. ‘What would Valerie do?’

‘Huh?’

I’d told him about my mental game whenever faced with a decision, but I hadn’t told him my sister’s name.

‘Valerie. My sister.’

He nodded. ‘Gotcha. Well, this isn’t about Valerie. This is about Alexandra. And what she
wants
to do.’

I didn’t hesitate. ‘I want to go inside.’

That seemed to be all the answer he needed. He stood up, took my hand and helped me to my feet – turns out he was about two inches taller than my five-foot-seven – and let me lead the way inside.

I paused, debating whether to actually take him to the bedroom now that I’d committed to this, but he interrupted my decision-making process by taking me in his arms again and nudging me down to sit in the upholstered chair by the front door.

Kneeling in front of me like a man about to propose, he took my hands. ‘Thank you for trusting me,’ he said. ‘Believe it or not, I’m scared to death.’

I laughed gently, both at his position and the stark wide-eyed expression he gave me to accompany his words. ‘So let’s treat it like the game,’ I said. ‘However this round turns out, there will always be another chance.’

I didn’t know where that came from, but it seemed right. It must have seemed right to him, too, because he nodded.

And then he kissed me again and I forgot about Word Games and speaking in general. He parted my robe and ran his hands up and down my bare thighs, up to the hem of my long T-shirt and back down to my knees. I spread my knees a bit further, allowing him to scoot closer into the space between them and deepen the kiss. His shift pressed my breasts up tight against his hard chest and I let out a soft sigh at the intimate contact. His breath quickened, signalling that he could feel my hard nipples through the thin cotton shirt.

I ran my hands up and down his back, up through his longish red-blond hair and down across his shoulders. I couldn’t get enough of touching him. I’d never slept with anyone on a first date, but I kept marvelling how this didn’t feel like someone I’d just met.

I broke the kiss, feeling dizzy with lust. ‘Is this crazy?’

He cupped my face in his hands and stared into my eyes. ‘Yes. Of course it’s crazy. But I’ve never known anyone like you, who just
got
me, who could match me in wit and intelligence, who seemed so much like me and so much like someone I want to know.’

It was a good speech. Smooth. It felt true, too.

‘Besides,’ he added, ‘we’ve been making out verbally for weeks. I like foreplay, but God, I want to find out what else we do well.’

And that felt true, too. So instead of playing ‘What would Valerie do?’ I played ‘What does Alexandra want?’ I reached down between us, slipped my fingers into the sides of my panties and slid them down my thighs. He groaned as he watched me, rocking back on his heels to give me room. His gaze was riveted to the shadowy place between my thighs, the spot my T-shirt just barely hid.

‘You are one incredible tease, Alexandra Zambruski.’

‘Who’s teasing?’ I breathed, hooking a finger in the neck of his button-down shirt and pulling him closer. ‘You can have me.’

I’d intended to kiss him, but his head veered south. I felt the press of his mouth over the hem of my T-shirt, so close to my pussy all I could do was slide down lower in the seat to facilitate direct contact. But he slid with me, keeping his mouth just over that bit of fabric.

‘Who’s teasing now?’ I groaned.

And then he put me out of my misery. Or ramped it up, depending on how you look at it. His mouth slipped under my T-shirt and zeroed in on the wet spot he had created. I let out a very unladylike yelp as he tongued my pussy in broad strokes, not missing an inch of wet, sensitive flesh. My clit throbbed against the velvety softness of his tongue. I tightened my fingers in his hair, holding his mouth to me, begging with my hands and my clenched thighs for him to never stop.

He licked until I was trickling wetness down my ass to the chair. I felt like an ice cube melting to boiling water, all boneless, liquid heat. I was whimpering, unable to stay quiet and very, very happy we’d taken this party inside. I distantly heard the rasp of a zipper and jerked against his mouth in anticipation. I had already been close to orgasm, but thinking about him fucking me, feeling his cock inside me – oh, God, please let him be as solid there as everywhere else – was sending me into oblivion.

And then he pulled his mouth away.

I groaned in frustration and stared at him. ‘Don’t stop,’ I commanded, sounding far more forceful than my poor lust-weak body felt. ‘Please.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said, looking embarrassed. ‘But, I, well, I wasn’t expecting this. At all, and I’m not ready.’

‘Ready?’ I was trying to make sense of his words. I leaned down and felt his erection peeking out from his trousers. ‘Yes, you are. Very ready. So am I, oh, God, am I ready.’

He caught my hands in his. ‘Stop that before I come,’ he growled. ‘You’re driving me crazy and I’m very, very ready to be inside you, but I’m not
prepared
, I should’ve said.’

It dawned on me what he meant. Oh, hell. I thought frantically. ‘Wait!’

I stood up on legs that felt like cooked spaghetti and hurried down the hall to the bathroom. ‘Please, please, please,’ I muttered. Then I hit the mother lode. I checked the expiration on the package – three months to spare – and dashed back to the living room where he still knelt in front of the chair, looking dazed.

‘Here, now you’re prepared,’ I said, thrusting the unopened box of condoms at him. And I was oh so grateful that he was.

He took the box and nudged me back into the chair. ‘Thanks. Now let me finish what I started.’

With no embarrassment whatsoever, I plopped my ass back on the chair that was feeling decidedly damp, spread my thighs and raised the hem of my T-shirt, baring my wet pussy to his gaze and his hungry mouth.

‘Be my guest,’ I said. And he was.

I went from zero to sixty in nothing flat, my brief detour doing nothing to slow down my growing passion. His mouth devoured my pussy like a succulent delicacy, licking and nibbling my inner and outer labia, teasing around my clit before sucking it wholly in his mouth. And I could feel myself coming, everything tightening inside of me as his mouth sent me over the edge. And just to make it more intense, he slid a finger inside of my wetness, rubbing my G-spot in steady strokes as he sucked my clit, everything turning to liquid inside of me and gushing across his tongue as I held his shoulders and screamed.