Operation Sizzle

by Darcy Lundeen

  Smacking Betsy on the rump, he let out a shout loud enough to give the neighbor-from-hell an earful. “That’s it. Ride ’em, cowgirl. Then we change places, and I get to be on top.”

  ****

  Betsy’s movements faltered, and her eyes widened as his palm connected with her butt. “Shh. Stop that screaming,” she whispered, glaring at him. “Be quiet. People will hear.”

  Matt grinned at her. Even in the half darkness, she could see his teeth flash out a gloating smile. “Make me stop screaming.”

  Betsy blinked. What? Make me stop screaming. That was his answer?

  “Make you stop screaming? Fine. How’s this method?” She clapped a hand over his mouth and pressed down hard. Let the jerk try to grin now or shout those stupid comments for everyone to hear.

  His grinning mouth bit down on her palm, and she pulled her hand away.

  “Oww.”

  “Sorry.” He sounded downright cheerful for somebody who was sorry. “Won’t work. I’m stronger than you are. Try something else.”

  Betsy shook her head at him. “Dammit, you are the craziest man I’ve ever—” She broke off suddenly and stared at him. “Crap,” she muttered, then she lowered her head and did the only thing she could think of to keep him quiet. She kissed him, her hands holding his face still while her hips went wild, sliding up and down along his shaft, faster and faster, needy, insistent, demanding.

  God. She was so angry at him and so turned-on that she didn’t know which emotion to concentrate on. Then his hands began kneading her hips, and the anger faded as her lust went into overdrive—the kind of lust she’d never felt before. Sheer, mindless desire that made her moan like a needy fool, straddle him like a demented rodeo rider, and go crazy waiting for release.

  It came suddenly, making her body tense for a split second before she clenched around him as the heat engulfed her and the throbbing began, wave after wave of it pulsing out of her and leaving her feeling satisfied, relieved, and totally astonished.

  A moment later, she felt his control burst as well, but by then she was too wonderfully sated to pay much attention. Instead, she collapsed on top of him, her heart racing. From the thundering sounds she heard coming from his chest, his heart was racing, too. With a sigh, she untangled herself from him and let her sweat-slicked body slide off his equally sweat-slicked one, lying motionless beside him as their breathing returned to normal.

  Closing her eyes, she smiled with satisfaction. Even when the delicious throbbing in her crotch eased and the less delicious, exercise-induced aching in her thighs took over, she still couldn’t stop smiling. God, he was a good teacher. Her muscles felt like they’d been put through a wringer, but a warm, muscular, and really friendly wringer.

  After a few minutes, she finally gathered enough energy to open her eyes and turn her head to look up at him. “You deliberately did that, didn’t you? Stopped that way, I mean.”

  Shifting in bed, he propped himself on an elbow and looked down at her. “Guilty as charged. Sorry, but I had to find some way to make you take control.”

  “How’d I do?”

  “You showed real talent.”

  “I did?”

  “No baloney.”

  “In that case, you’re forgiven.” She sighed. “Actually, it was fun.”

  “I thought so. Glad you agree.” He smiled at her, probably amused by the sense of childish wonder in her voice.

  Betsy didn’t care. She was sort of amused by it herself, and more than a little amazed.

  “But in part, that’s supposed to be what sex is about. Fun.” He smoothed the damp hair away from her face. “You on board for another lesson? Maybe Wednesday at eight.”

  Betsy nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Definitely a plan. And what a plan. When he’d first called their agreement to improve her sexual quotient Operation Sizzle, she thought it sounded too much like a military engagement—Operation Ultimate-Smackdown-of-The-Bad-Guys or Operation Let’s-Grind-The-Enemy-Into-Pulp. But perhaps in a way that was exactly what she wanted—a plan that would let her win the war—and the name he’d given that plan felt just right.

  Operation Sizzle. Part plan of action, part series of lessons in how to achieve that plan.

  Perfect.

  She looked up into his smiling face and smiled back at him. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all, because suddenly she couldn’t wait for the next lesson.

  Betsy snuggled down beside him and closed her eyes, magnificently exhausted. Damn, she’d never realized education could be so enjoyable.

  Chapter Eight

  Matt sighed as he unlocked Rob’s front door and went into the apartment. What a day! Who could have predicted that less than a week after leaving St. Paul he’d wind up being a lawyer by day and a sex instructor at night?

  A giddy smile wreathed his face. Make that a sex instructor with a student who had a lot of natural talent, even if she didn’t know it.

  There were voices in the living room. Louder ones that undoubtedly came from Rob’s fifty-inch TV and, underneath them, softer voices—male and brimming with laughter.

  Rob had someone in there with him, and Matt had a good idea who the someone was. Pausing in the doorway, he nodded to himself.

  Right on the money. Rob definitely wasn’t alone. He was curled up on the sofa next to another guy who was young, slender, attractive, with a bright-eyed, preppy look about him and a shock of blond hair that stood up in peaks as if he’d just rolled out of bed. Which Matt suspected he probably had, since Rob’s hair looked pretty much the same.

  They both ate sandwiches as they watched what seemed to be a reality show featuring a group of handsome young men trying to convince a beautiful young woman that they had fallen madly in love with her after knowing her for a full two days.

  “The guy with the earring.” Rob gestured to the screen with his sandwich. “He’s too hot for her.”

  His sofa-mate nodded. “Especially in those tight leather pants he’s wearing.”

  Rob fanned himself with the sandwich. “Got that right.” Then he noticed Matt standing in the doorway and smiled. “Ah, finally back, and after only”—he checked the mantel clock—“six hours with Bets. Nice long dinner, eh?”

  Matt eyed the TV screen, where the guy with the earring and leather pants was down on one knee, apparently trying to convince the girl that his heart would be permanently broken if she bounced him off the show. “We talked a lot.” He forced his attention back to Rob. “You know, shared our ideas and opinions on a range of topics—music, hobbies, politics.”

  Rob nodded. “Uh-huh, bet Ming vases and Jungian philosophy were pretty big on the agenda, too.” He flashed a snarky smile.

  Not that Matt intended to confirm his suspicions. As a lawyer, he knew the importance of confidentiality, and even though Betsy wasn’t his client, their relationship definitely deserved to stay under the radar, as he’d promised her. Time to change the subject. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  Rob shook his head. “Just a silly reality dating show.”

  “But it’s a lot of fun, too,” his sofa-mate chipped in around a mouthful of sandwich. “The hot guy just split his pants down the rear and backed into a cactus plant trying to hide his naked butt.”

  Smiling indulgently, Rob patted him on the knee. “Matt, this is my new friend Arlen.”

  No surprise there. Matt nodded to new-friend Arlen. “Sure. Of melon fame. Hey, Arlen.”

  Rob gave Arlen’s knee another pat, and this time, let his hand linger there. “Arlen, meet my cousin Matt. He just got into town, and he’s staying here ’til he can find his own place.”

  Arlen waved his half-eaten sandwich at Matt. “Hey, Matt.”

  Rob leaned into Arlen and nodded at Matt. “He plays for the other team.”

  Grinning, Arlen playfully rubbed his shoulder against Rob’s arm and shrugged good-naturedly. “No problem. It takes all kinds.” He took another bite of sandwich and happily went back
to watching his fun TV show.

  “So how did your dinner with Betsy really go?” Rob asked as he untangled himself from Arlen and pushed to his feet. “I mean, besides all the fascinating subjects you two talked about.”

  Matt shrugged, forcing himself to act nonchalant about one of the greatest orgasms of his life. “Not bad. A lot better than my breakfast with her was a few days ago.”

  He prudently refrained from explaining just how much better it had been.

  “Seeing her again?”

  Matt hesitated, knowing he had to be circumspect. “Maybe for a dinner now and then. Actually, we got along pretty well tonight.” God, the art of understatement could be so useful. “Maybe we’ll do it again.” Like on Wednesday, the day of their next scheduled lesson.

  Rob moved closer, and from his concerned expression, Matt had the feeling he was suddenly looking into the face of Betsy Kincaid’s father-protector-away-from-home.

  He took Matt’s arm and leaned closer, carefully lowering his voice. “Just don’t hurt her, okay.”

  Matt nodded. “Wouldn’t dream of it. We’re just going to be friends, nothing else.”

  Of course, nothing else. How could there be anything else when she was still besotted with that numbskull Tyler, and he was still smarting over Sam’s parting shot that not only was he a commitment-phobe, he also had serious avoidance issues…abandonment issues…worst of all, trust issues?

  Never date a former psych major. Especially one who points out the obvious in the middle of a hissy fit.

  Of course he had trust and abandonment issues. What guy wouldn’t when, back in college, the woman he loved and thought loved him in return filched his last five hundred bucks and hot-footed it out of town without leaving even a thank-you note?

  Commitment issues? Damn straight. Had those, too. He’d been almost considering committing to Gerri before he found her in bed with two of her cousins, her own brother, and the pizza delivery guy.

  As for avoidance, yeah, that was now a king-size part of his repertoire of issues. Any man worthy of the name would feel the same way if he’d been knocked left and right by the kind of relationship disasters Matt had lived through.

  “Don’t worry about Betsy.” He shook Rob’s hand away. “We are at completely incompatible places in our lives. She’s still madly in love with this Tyler jerk. And I’m still celebrating my good luck in spiriting my sperm out of town before Sam could sacrifice them to her biological clock.”

  Rob’s face lost its stern, daddy-surrogate expression, and he grinned, looking like his old devil-may-care self again. “On second thought, with all the problems you both have, maybe you would be perfect together.”

  “Ha!” Matt waved his hand at the TV screen. “Hold that thought, buddy, ’cause it ain’t gonna happen anymore than ‘split pants’ over there is gonna get the girl.”

  Arlen nodded. “He’s right about that. The girl just gave him the show’s get-lost, you’re-outta-here, kiss-off symbol—a dead stinkweed in a Plexiglas case.”

  Matt rolled his eyes. “Ah, true love. Ain’t it grand.” He let out a snort of laughter as he headed for the bedroom, secure in the knowledge that true love was the last thing he either needed or wanted.

  ****

  Betsy smiled as she rode down in the elevator the next morning on her way to work. Her bones ached, her muscles ached, her thighs ached, her crotch ached. And she’d never felt so good in her life.

  She sighed. All because of a gay guy, too. A gay guy with moves. And hands. And legs. And mouth. And tongue. And male parts. And glow-in-the-dark condoms.

  She got off the elevator and walked to the front door, still cocooned in all that good feeling from her first lesson with Matt Pollard.

  “Six-A. My next-door neighbor. That’s her. Ms. Kincaid.”

  Betsy recognized the voice before she consciously focused on the speaker’s face, but as soon as she did, her good feeling tanked, and a dark cloud of depression took its place. Then again, seeing Mrs. Lattimer, or even thinking about her, tended to have that effect on Betsy, and there the lady was in the flesh, standing at the front door flanked by two other people—a short, plump, middle-aged woman and a tall, thin, middle-aged man. Betsy recognized them as tenants she’d passed several times in the hall or had shared an elevator with, but she wasn’t too sure who they were except that the man had a certain austere look about him, as though he was on the way to a funeral or had just returned from one. Happily, the woman didn’t look like that at all. She was less the funeral-attendee type and more the curly-haired, dimple-cheeked, high-school-cheerleader type, thirty years later and forty pounds heavier.

  Betsy’s walk faltered, and she paused in mid-step, considering her options. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any. They’d already seen her coming, and she knew there was no escape now, no chance to duck through the back door and make her way along the garbage-strewn yard behind the building until she reached the street and safety. So she forced her feet to walk again. Then she also forced her mouth to twist into a friendly smile as she headed right for the trio.

  “You know Evan Huffnagle and Mae Keegan, don’t you?” Mrs. Lattimer asked as soon as Betsy reached them, not bothering to extend any unnecessary niceties like Good morning….How are you today?…Had any rousing hallway rumbles that somehow I didn’t get wind of?

  Betsy glanced at the woman’s two sidekicks and nodded. “We’ve seen each other.”

  “In the elevator the other day”—Mae Keegan’s voice sounded disconcertingly like a small bird’s fluttering chirp, but she was flashing a rather sweet smile at Betsy, even though that looked sort of fluttery, too—“I asked you what floor and you said six, so I pressed the button for you.”

  Betsy smiled back at her, though she hoped not in a fluttery way. “I remember. Thank you.”

  With an imperious clearing of her throat, Mrs. Lattimer brought everyone’s attention back to herself. “Mae and Evan and I head the newly formed tenants’ association, as you may know.”

  Betsy stared at her, certain that if she answered wrong she was probably in big trouble. “Um, yes.” Sort of.

  “Good. I’m glad you’ve heard about it, even though I noticed you weren’t at the last meeting.”

  “Um, working late,” Betsy mumbled.

  Mrs. Lattimer gave her a disbelieving look. “On a Sunday? Your employer must be a terrible taskmaster.”

  Before Betsy could think of a response that wouldn’t dig her even deeper into the ground, Mrs. Lattimer shook her head, mercifully sparing her the trouble or humiliation of trying to concoct another lie. “Well, at this point, that’s neither here nor there,” she said in a crisp, no-nonsense, tenant-leader tone, holding up a pile of papers she had in her hand. “The important thing now is that we’re having another tenants’ meeting. This one on Wednesday at eight o’clock in the evening.” Snapping a page from the top of the pile, she shoved it at Betsy. “It’s imperative that the tenants discuss a very serious problem. This announcement gives the details of time and place in case you forget.”

  Betsy ignored the part of Mrs. Lattimer’s spiel about time and place and honed in instead on the really vital element, the element that sent an ice-cold sensation skittering down her spine and warning her that as a tenant she was probably toast. “What very serious problem?”

  All right, she had a fair idea what serious problem. It was probably her and her slightly too animated lovers’ spat in the hallway last week. And now that she no longer had a lover and religiously refused to speak above a whisper when she was anywhere near the hallway, they were still going to punish her for it—at a tenants’ meeting, no less. Star Chamber proceedings, anyone?

  “Haven’t you seen it?” Mrs. Lattimer shook her head, obviously astounded at Betsy’s lack of vigilance. “Vandalism in the hallways.”

  Betsy blinked. Vandalism in the hallways? All right, that was good. At least she didn’t go around ripping out the moldings or making off with the light bulbs, so it couldn’t be
her.

  “Lorena’s right.” Mr. Huffnagle’s expression twisted with disdain, and his voice sounded as tight and austere as someone who’d just come from a funeral should sound. “The people in Twelve-C must be stopped.”

  Betsy blinked again. Twelve-C? Who were the people in—? And then it came to her. Iris Donnelly, the young woman whose husband had died in a car crash a few months ago, and her four kids.

  “The Donnelly family.” Mae Keegan confirmed it. She fluttered her head in a small shake, looking truly saddened by the situation. “Such a shame, too.” She gave another fluttery headshake as she gestured toward the base of the walls. “It’s the tenant’s children, you know. They’re cute little things, but they just keep vandalizing.”

  Betsy nodded. She hated the feeling of relief that flooded through her, but there it was, and she couldn’t help it. At least her own ass wasn’t going to be in the line of tenant fire. In this case, the target ass belonged to a six-year-old boy. Or maybe a five-year-old girl. Or possibly a pair of three-year-old little guy twins. The lady in Twelve-C had a bunch of under-aged asses to choose from.

  “So they’ve been vandalizing the building?” She unsuccessfully tried to visualize the kind of vandalism a cadre of sweet-faced munchkins could inflict. “In exactly what way?”

  Lorena Lattimer gave her an astonished look that bordered on apoplectic disbelief. “What kind of vandalism? My God, haven’t you noticed?” She mimicked the gesture Mae Keegan had just made, waving her hand at the base of the walls. “Crayon marks, pictures, messes. They’re all over the building.”

  Betsy tried to remember seeing messes all over the building, but since she was a little taller than Iris Donnelly’s kids, her eyes usually didn’t fixate on wall space two feet from the ground.

  Fluttery Mae Keegan helpfully pointed to the wall behind Betsy. “There’s an example right there where you’re standing.”