Tangled Up in Love (16 page)

She’d never thought of herself as the kind of person who would get off on being spied upon during the throes of passion.

But then, she’d never thought she could come so many times in one night, either. Or that she’d ever find herself waking up after a night of hot monkey sex with Dylan Stone in her bed.

Heaven help her, but she seemed to be having one revelation after another lately.

The mattress dipped beneath Dylan’s considerable weight . . . her poor bed wasn’t used to having a big, muscular man in it any more than she was . . . and threatened to pull her into the center, right up against him. It would have been so nice to let gravity do its thing so she could curl up beside him and snuggle into all that solid male warmth.

God, he looked good. Sexy and slumberous and good enough to eat.

She licked her lips at the prospect, then turned resolutely and regretfully away. As tempting as it might be to wake him with a few kisses and light strokes to the proper areas, she couldn’t justify dragging this on any longer.

Last night, she’d been tipsy and horny and willing to shove her better judgment aside to discover if all Dylan’s bragging about being able to bring a woman to orgasm a dozen times was valid or just so much boasting swagger. And—much to her delighted dismay—she’d learned he was as good as his word.

She couldn’t be sure if he’d given her the promised thirteen or only the bragged-about twelve . . . she’d
pretty much lost count after number five or six. But since the night had gone on and on after that, and he’d continued to make her come and come, she had no doubt he’d reached his goal and possibly surpassed it.

She’d never before been this sore just from sex alone. It was a good sore, if there was such a thing, but muscles she hadn’t known existed screamed in protest as she climbed from the bed and quietly made her way to her closet for a robe.

Thank God he hadn’t felt the need to stimulate her clitoris every time he brought her off, otherwise she was afraid that tiny, most valuable part of her anatomy would have shriveled up and fallen off halfway through the evening.

She winced as she shrugged into her long lime-green-and-turquoise robe, glancing back over her shoulder at Dylan to make sure he hadn’t stirred.

It was after nine o’clock, which meant she was late for work. She should have felt guilty, but didn’t. The number of times she’d been late or called in sick could be counted on one hand, so they certainly weren’t going to fire her. She would simply call in and let them know she’d be there in an hour or so, then make up for the lost time at the end of the day.

Making her way out of the bedroom, she went to the kitchen to place the call, then backtracked to the bathroom for a quick shower. By the time she returned, she felt better. Steadier, stronger, more resolute about what needed to be done.

She was digging in the drawers of her bedroom dresser when she heard a deep groan and the squeak of the mattress behind her. Slanting a glance over her shoulder, she saw Dylan stretching, rubbing a hand over
his face and through his hair, then sitting up in the middle of the wide bed, only a corner of the white sheets draped across his torso keeping him from being completely nude to her view.

“Morning,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. His eyes were drowsy with sleep, and his lips were twisted into an endearing half smile.

“Good morning,” she replied, keeping her tone even and free of emotion as she went back to what she’d been doing.

He slid to the end of the bed and climbed to his feet. Leaving the sheet behind, he padded bare-ass across the room and down the hall to the bathroom.

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as she pulled a pair of panties from her underwear drawer and stepped into them. He returned to the bedroom just as she was fastening the hook of a matching fire-engine-red bra.

Moving to the closet, she pulled out a pair of charcoal slacks and a white blouse, mindful of his gaze remaining hotly on her the entire time from where he leaned casually against the open doorjamb.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked. “If you stay naked, we can have some more fun.”

She would have been lying if she’d said his suggestion didn’t make her legs quiver just a bit and a streak of heat roll through her belly.

Get a grip, Ronnie,
she told herself sternly.

“Don’t you need to get to work?” was her evasive reply.

He shrugged negligently and gifted her with another one of his cocky but seductive grins. “I’ll call in sick.”

“Don’t bother,” she told him, buttoning the blouse and
tugging the hem into an even line on the outside of her slacks. “I’m late, but I’m still going in. You should, too.”

She should have borrowed a page from his work ethic, though, and taken the day off herself. She was stiff, and tired, and in no mood to put in a full eight hours.

But as much as she would have liked to stay home and recoup, she needed equally to get away from Dylan for a while and shake him from her system.

Seconds ticked by in silence while Ronnie examined her reflection in the mirror above the dresser. Her hair was a wet, tangled mess, making her look like something the cat had dragged in, and her face was devoid of makeup, leaving her somewhat glossy and pale. But she could fix that with a few minutes under the hair dryer and a quick application of foundation, blush, eye shadow, and lipstick. It would take her all of ten minutes, and then she would be out the door.

From the corner of her eye, she noticed Dylan turning and disappearing down the hall while she affixed a thin silver chain and pendant around her neck and stuck silver earrings into her ears. The tension in her limbs seemed to lessen without him standing there, in the buff, watching her like a big cat stalking its prey.

Her relief didn’t last long, however. No sooner had she put on her jewelry and turned, intending to walk to the bathroom and finish getting ready, than he reappeared, a glint of determination in his blue eyes.

He was wearing his jeans, pulled up and half zipped, but still left unbuttoned, making her realize he’d gone back into the living room to collect them. He hadn’t bothered with a shirt, though, leaving his muscular chest spectacularly bare.

It had been so dark last night that she hadn’t had a chance to really study him, to note what a fine male specimen he truly was. He had the figure of a Calvin Klein model. Smooth planes meeting firm delineations, with two perfectly round, bronze nipples in the center of his pectorals that begged to be stroked, teased, licked . . .

Oh, crap, she was getting wet again. She didn’t have time to be turned on, didn’t want to be turned on. Not again. Not by him.

He stood in the doorway with his legs slightly spread in a near-military stance, his hands at his hips, blocking her exit. And the expression on his face told her he was no longer interested in luring her back into the sack. He had something on his mind, and he meant to get to the bottom of it.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” he finally asked.

It took her a moment to swallow down her growing arousal and remind herself of her plans for the day: get rid of Dylan; make it clear they were done, over, finished,
finito;
and get her butt to work.

“Nothing is going on,” she said, stealthily evading his penetrating gaze by tugging at the cuffs of her blouse, checking that the front buttons were straight, scrunching the damp roots of her hair. “I’m getting ready for work.”

She moved to get around him, but he shifted to keep her where she was.

“Uh-uh. You’re avoiding me, and I want to know why.”

“I’m not avoiding you,” she all but snapped. “I’m looking right at you.”

Of course, she wasn’t. She was looking at a spot just past his left shoulder. But close enough.

“You’re buzzing around as fast as you can so you can get dressed, get ready, and get away from me. So what’s the deal? Morning-after regrets?”

This time, she did meet his eyes. Mouth flat, fingers curled tight at her sides, she said, “All right, yes. Yes, are you happy now? Last night was a mistake. I had too much to drink and my defenses were down, otherwise you know you wouldn’t have gotten two steps inside my door.”

One dark blond brow rose. “You can’t claim you didn’t want it.”

He had her there. She’d not only wanted it, she’d begged him for it—numerous times.

“No, I can’t say that,” she admitted, her voice soft with reluctance. “I just shouldn’t have wanted it with you.”

Well, there you had it. He’d asked, and Ronnie being Ronnie—blunt and sharp-tongued to a fault—she’d answered.

She’d wanted to get laid, just not by him.

Nothing like a good, swift kick to the peaches to wake a guy up in the morning.

“I guess that’s honest enough,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry, Dylan,” she apologized, more sincerity than he would have expected brimming in her eyes. “But you can’t think that it was anything more than sex for sex’s sake.”

“Freaking fantastic sex,” he grumbled.

“Yes. Fantastic sex,” she agreed, “but still just sex.”

She made another move to bypass him, and he shifted to the side, arms falling from his hips to let her.

Following her down the short hall to the bathroom, he said, “I wasn’t planning to ask for your hand in marriage, but after last night, I thought we could maybe start hanging out a little more. Is it such a crime to be friends with benefits, no strings attached?”

She turned to face him when she reached the bathroom. “But we’re not friends.”

At that, she closed the door behind her, shutting him out. A second later, he heard a hair dryer click on, and realized he’d been summarily dismissed.

In her dreams,
he thought, and spun on his heel to return to the living room and collect the rest of his clothes. He finished zipping his pants and yanked his undershirt over his head, then sat on the sofa to pull on socks and shoes.

When the hair dryer shut off, he got up, shrugged into his shirt without bothering to button it, and stalked back to the bathroom, positioning himself outside like a sentinel. He didn’t know what she was doing in there, but it took several minutes more for the door to creak open and her to reappear.

She stopped in her tracks, startled to find him only inches in front of her. Her hair was now dry and styled, hanging all around her face and shoulders in dark brown waves, and her face was tastefully covered in a light layer of makeup.

Her appearance shouldn’t have hit him in the solar plexus with quite as much force as it did. She looked different dressed and made up than she did naked and sprawled beneath him in wild abandon, but damned if he could decide which was his favorite. Either way, she turned up the heat and made his cock throb with wanting.

“I thought you would have gone,” she said quietly, unaware of the press of a particular stretch of flesh growing behind his fly.

“We aren’t done talking.”

When she slipped past him and headed for the kitchen, he let her go, but followed right along.

“What’s left to say?”

“We may not be friends, but we make pretty good lovers,” he pointed out. “What’s wrong with that?”

Ronnie stood at the kitchen counter, digging through her purse. Then she grabbed a banana from a nearby fruit bowl and tossed it inside, on top of the handbag’s other contents.

“I don’t make a habit of sleeping with men I don’t care about, let alone ones I publicly despise. You may be used to having indiscriminate sex with all manner of friend and foe, but I’m not.”

Shrugging into her coat and throwing the strap of the purse over her shoulder, she brushed by him again, making a beeline for the front door.

She was back to being snooty and stuck-up, but instead of raising his hackles the way her attitude usually did, he found himself fighting a grin. Ronnie Chasen might be ornery and prickly for most of her waking hours, but now he knew the fire and passion that hid behind her Little Miss Priss exterior.

Since he’d entered her apartment with nothing but the clothes on his back, he had nothing to collect except his jacket before following her out. Waiting for her to lock up, he slipped his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, then walked with her down the hall.

“All right, no sex, then,” he agreed amicably. Maybe too amicably, judging by the suspicious glance she slanted in his direction.

But he was confident in his abilities. The sex hadn’t been just run-of-the-mill, okay whoopee, and he was betting that the next time Ronnie got horny, she’d forget her bright-light-of-day resolve and decide that maybe another ride on the Stone Pony wouldn’t be such a bad prospect, after all.

But if she could hold out for a while, so could he.

“That’s it?” she asked. “Okay, fine, no argument now, even though you’ve been arguing with me since you woke up?”

“Yep,” he said as they stepped into the elevator and turned in the age-old habit of facing forward. “I just wanted to make it clear that I didn’t coerce you into anything last night. You might have had too much to drink at the Box, but you were right there with me. I didn’t take advantage of you, and if you’d told me to stop—which I gave you ample opportunity to do—I would have.”

“No, you didn’t take advantage of me,” she acquiesced. “Any stupidity was entirely my own.”

“Careful, sweetheart. If you keep flattering me like that, my head might get too big to fit through the door when we try to step off this elevator.”

Her brows met in a scowl and he got the distinct feeling she was resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at him, which almost made him laugh.

“So we’ll go back to our original setup,” he continued. “Sex-free knitting lessons. It won’t be nearly as interesting, but I can deal with it if you can.”

The elevator doors slid open and he stepped out of the car, taking a few strides toward the front entrance of the apartment building before he realized Ronnie wasn’t with him. Glancing back, he found her still standing inside the elevator, staring at him with a rather pale, blank look.

Retracing his steps, he asked, “What’s wrong?”