Seeing Red (8 page)

“Sounds like Sharon, that traitor.”

She’d drained half the lukewarm bottle before running her forearm across her lips and replying, “I wasn’t bad at writing. I missed some assignments.”

“You would’ve have had to miss a lot, huh? Isn’t Composition II fairly elementary for a natural-born writer?”

She screwed the cap back on and set the bottle down. “Three out of six major papers.”

“Why?”

“Because it was college and one of the things people do in college is goof off and fuck up.” Her voice caught a bit of an edge toward the end that made his smile draw in.

She sighed and closed her eyes, rubbing them with her palms. “I’m sorry. Look, I probably wouldn’t have been sensitive about it otherwise, but, that was the semester I met Spike, or as he was known back then, Terrence. I was infatuated and irresponsible…and Grant was a hard-ass. Every other instructor I had let me make up the work.”

“He’s an honorable guy that way.”

“Yeah, I know that now. If he were less upright, I wouldn’t be so thrilled about him taking my best friend overseas for four years. Hey, did you never skip a class? Miss turning in some assignments?”

His eyes narrowed and he stared off at the beach, seeming to really consider it.

“Seriously, Seth?”

“School was important to me. It was all I had.”

She gaped. “Seriously?”

“Well, of course, there was also alcohol, but I managed to make it to class and attend my other academic commitments as scheduled.”

“Geek.”

“Precisely.”

“But of all the places you could have gone in the world to study, why North Carolina? And a liberal arts school, at that?”

His spine straightened and brow furrowed as he chewed his bottom lip. Finally, he said, “For one thing, I wanted to be somewhat well-rounded and be around students interested in things other than the sciences. As far as North Carolina, I…don’t really remember why there as opposed to any other place. Perhaps they were the first to accept me, I don’t know. I was doing what you Americans call…uh, is it couch surfing?”

She nodded.

“Yes, until I turned eighteen and finished my secondary schooling. As soon as I got my paperwork in order, I was on the first plane out.”

“Wow.”

Really, that was all she could say. She couldn’t imagine being so brave. Yeah, she’d been an out-of-state student, but at any time she could have hopped in her car and driven north. And she often did. Sometimes, she felt like the umbilical cord hadn’t been completely severed because she was still too close to home. But to have an entire ocean and half a continent between you and your motherland…that was an intimidating prospect.

She swallowed and leaned over, plucking up one shrimp and dragging it through the accompanying butter. “Hey, by the way, we need to figure out what’s going to happen when we leave this resort.” She cut her gaze over to him slowly, just in time to watch him fisting the hem of his T-shirt and pulling it over his head.

Her breath seized as her stare settled on his chest. Thoughts of her hands being pressed against it and her belly flat against his flitted through her thoughts, the memory of that one extraordinary orgasm making her eyes roll upward.

“Okay, we can talk about it,” he said, backing through the cabana entrance. “Maybe at dinner?” He raised one eyebrow, waiting her response.

“Sure. Dinner.”

Bobbing his head in agreement, he turned on his heel and jogged the short distance to the water. He waded in to his waist, waved at a couple of brazen photographers, then dove into the waves.

“Right. Dinner.” She sucked melted butter from the shrimp, and chewed, thinking about how bad it would burn Spike’s biscuits if a new man moved into his old home.

She laughed. “He’d probably have a stroke.”

Chapter 6

When Seth had returned to the cabana from his long swim, he’d found it empty. His platter had been cleared away, and Meg—along with her bag—was gone. She’d left her book, though. He fished his cell phone out of his paperback and read the display. Four. Bit early for dinner, but they had an early flight out and would want to get to bed early.

He headed first to Meg’s room and knocked. As there was no response, he let himself in to deliver her paperback. He padded as quietly as he could through the living room and into the master bedroom.

Atop the bed, Meg lay on her back, propped up on the bank of pillows and doing nothing but showing off the bounty of one of God’s most perfect creations.

“I just…came in to bring you your book,” he said, trying dutifully to keep his eyes fixed above her collarbone, but then she recrossed her legs at the ankles and his gaze flitted downward. “Uh…were you hot? I can turn on the fan.”

She crooked an index finger at him. “Figured you’d want to bring me that.”

When he didn’t immediately move, she crooked that finger again.

He edged to the left side of the bed and squatted near the headboard. “Yes?”

“Are you so unmoved by me?”

Unmoved? “I don’t know what you mean.”

She swept a hand demonstrably down her body, indicating her nudity. “You walk in and see me like this, and you don’t react. How am I supposed to feel?”

Safe, perhaps? Unmolested?

Seth was under no pretenses about how he looked to women. Hell, some had told him that they couldn’t be with a man his size. And given his proclivity toward smallish women he could probably carry out of a hundred miles of wilderness on his back, his options had been limited. He’d learned to rein in his enthusiasm.

He stared down at his knees. “I’m not very good at reading women, so please don’t take it personally if I don’t respond the way you’d expect. Tell me what your expectations are, and I’ll try to react within the confines of those.”

He looked up in time to see her cock her pretty little head to the side.

“Take off your clothes, Seth.”

“What?”

She pushed herself up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She patted the space beside her and sighed. “Take off your clothes and sit right here.”

He didn’t ask why. Although he’d only been in her very personal acquaintance for a few days, he’d already come to understand that Meg wasn’t a woman who enjoyed being cross-examined. If she told you to do something, and you were probably going to do it anyway, then you did it without asking her why.

His shirt came off first, followed by his damp swim trunks. Before sitting where she’d indicated, he took the time to hang the garments over the rail in the bathroom.

How could she possibly think he didn’t react to her? He was an intelligent life form, but no matter how sternly he scolded his cock, it was going to prepare to wage battle whether his head was in the fight or not.

She must have finally noticed his body’s response, because as he padded toward the bed, her lips quirked up at one corner.

He didn’t like that look. Or maybe he liked it a lot. Or maybe it scared him. He couldn’t tell, but with each passing second, his cock grew harder and begged for another release.

What was her endgame? He figured he’d find out soon enough.

He sat, and she immediately stood, grazing his sun-heated shoulders with her fingertips as she walked around to face him.

She put her other hand on his right shoulder and bent down to meet his gaze.

There was trouble in those dark eyes—the kind of trouble the Roma girls were always so good at alluding to but never following through on. Prudes.

“So, we were going to talk about our living situation.” She leaned in farther so her left cheek grazed his right one and her silky, warm breasts pressed against his chest.

He drew in some air. She smelled of fruity shampoo, sunscreen, and had an undercurrent of something that was all woman. If he could add his tongue to the sampling of her essence, he bet he’d doubly confirm it was the scent of her arousal.

Had he done that to her, or was she just that hard up? Unfortunately, he knew that feeling of being hard up all too well lately.

“Yes, over dinner,” he managed, pulling his wandering hands back in when he realized they were on her ass.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again. Last night, he couldn’t help but to explore her, even though she’d asked him to stay still. Keeping that promise felt like an impossible endeavor. She was meant to be held—touched. Not doing so would be defying nature. Still, he’d try. He’d be good, and maybe she wouldn’t run off so soon.

“Now’s fine.” Her breath was a mere rasp in his ear, and her lips tugged at his fleshy lobe before letting it snap back in.

What was she up to?

“Okay…so let’s talk. I work in Fayetteville, so—God.”

She’d pushed his legs open wider and had her left hand wrapped over the head of his cock. “You were saying?”

“I can’t think when you do that.”

A slow grin spanned her face and she shrugged. “You want me to stop touching you?”

Was she crazy? “No. Just…if you want me to answer questions with any semblance of intelligence, you’ve got to give me some respite.”

The other side of her mouth quirked up. “Oh.” She released his cock and pressed the wandering hand to his left thigh. With her other hand pressed on his right thigh, she held herself up a bit below his eye level and batted her lashes at him. “You were saying?”

Witch!

He blew out a breath and tried to ignore her left fingers creeping closer and closer to the inside of his thigh. “I work and live in Fayetteville, so what exactly did you have in mind?”

“Dunno,” she sang in a sweet, soft, soprano voice and her fingertips grazed his sac.

“Witch.” That time he said it out loud and didn’t care how she’d respond.

“Oh, Sergei, I’ve been called worse.”

He didn’t think it possible, but his balls grew even tighter and cock a bit harder at the sound of his true name coming from her lips—a name no woman he’d been intimate with in the past had whispered, much less knew.

“Fayetteville is only an hour from Raleigh.”

“Yes,” he conceded, closing his eyes as her lips skimmed down his chest, groaning when they paused over his left nipple. “But counting traffic…”

He was going to say something about congestion on I-95 and the never-ending construction on I-40, but there she was, between his knees, with the ends of her long hair tickling his thighs.

“Mm-hmm?” she hummed with her lips closing around his cockhead.

“Wait…what were—” He gasped as she increased suction and closed his eyes.

Concentrate.

“What were we discussing?”

She drew back, a pop sounding as she loosened her lips’ vacuum and rolled her eyes up to his face. “Living arrangements. We have to keep up appearances or this whole thing will end up being pointless.”

“Oh.”

Lowering her head once more, she made a long, slow lick around the start of his retracted foreskin that made his toes curl. “Doesn’t make sense for me to uproot Toby, so—”

“Right, right.” He swallowed and tipped his head back, concentrating on the gold whirls painted on the otherwise white ceiling. At the rate he was going, he’d come with just a whisper near his dick. Why she had such a profound effect on him, he didn’t know. He did know he didn’t want to talk about Toby when the kid’s mother was doing some very salacious things to Seth’s family jewels. “We’ll work something out,” he concluded.

She hummed around his cock again before dipping her head lower so supple lips teased at the base of his shaft while its head plunged oh so briefly in her throat.

“Fuck.” Planting his hands on her shoulders, he gave her a small press backward to give his dick a reprieve.

A sigh blew her hair from her face, and she sat back on her heels, elbows draped on her thighs, shaking her head at him. “I’d venture to guess your vodka tolerance far exceeds your sexual one.”

Was she kidding? If he dared look at his slick cock, he’d probably lose it. With a huff, he pressed a hand over his erection, protecting it from her lascivious stares. “Lately, I drink far more than I screw, so your theory holds water.”

Her head tilted to the side, just as it had earlier. “Would you rather be drinking right now?”

“Don’t assume my tentativeness indicates a lack of willingness. Just give me a minute.” Take a stallion out of competition for a few months, and he’d probably lose his first few races, too.

Some expression he couldn’t read flitted across her face. Anger? No. Something milder than that. Annoyance or…shame, perhaps. But at what?

“I’ll be right back. Don’t move.” With a lithe uncoiling of her fit body, she stood and padded to the dresser near the closed door, immediately fishing her ring hand into a cosmetics bag.

His immediate thought wasn’t one of curiosity, but rather a surprising desire to get her a different ring. Then he quickly dismissed the idea. She came into the scheme with the diamond, and the bands were given to them by Sharon, who’d picked them up at the last minute before heading to the airport back in North Carolina. The rings were completely devoid of sentiment, which was fine considering the fact they were mostly irrelevant. The only purpose they served, really, was to overturn Meg’s public reputation. He’d been so out of the loop he hadn’t even known what people called her until Sharon sat him down for lunch that day.