It was a lie. Of course she was sure. They could have another lesson—their eighth. Her skin was still vibrating from the way he’d touched her cheek and her hair. And like the selfish fool she was, she didn’t want the vibration to stop even though it was all a mirage, something she’d conjured in her own mind that had nothing to do with Matt or their relationship.
“We’ll probably think of something.” He held up the bag containing the clingy few ounces of material that was her new dress. “Now that you’ve got your sizzling dress, I guess you’re almost ready to graduate, aren’t you?”
She stared at him. “Graduate?”
“From our lessons.”
Once she sizzled with Tyler, their lessons would have to stop. But maybe before that happened, they should schedule another session or two. After all, there was still a lot she had to learn. “Think so?”
“Do you?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe I still need a few more pointers.”
“On what?” He put her packages on a chair and looked at her.
“Um, hair?”
Matt removed his coat and tossed it beside the packages. “Rob’s good with hair. He could help you there.”
She took a breath. “What about, you know, general technique? Getting in touch with my body, maybe.”
“I thought you were in touch with it.” He smiled. “I thought we both were.”
Betsy narrowed her eyes at him. “Funny man. I meant erogenous zones.”
His gaze moved down, then up again, making a slow tour of her body. “You’ve got them. Lots of them. That place at the small of your back just above your butt, the inside of your thighs, underneath your breasts.”
The images he conjured were making the vibration go crazy inside of her. Stop it, she warned herself. Do not vibrate. This is not the kind of man you’re meant to vibrate with. She nodded. “Uh-huh. So forget the erogenous zones.”
“Not what I said. And just for the record, erogenous zones should never be forgotten.”
“Then forget the lesson.” She tried again. She shouldn’t feel disappointed…and yet she was.
Matt shook his head. “Not what I said, either.”
“Then what did you say?”
“Simple. Tell me exactly what kind of lesson you want. Talking? Hugging? Horizontal full-court press?”
“What kind of lesson?” Her voice was a whisper as she considered all the possibilities.
“That’s what I said. What kind of lesson?”
He walked toward her, and the vibration increased, moving downward into her nipples and spreading out from there until it was a raging need between her thighs.
“Come on.” He winked at her. “Tell me what you want. We’re up to lesson eight. What do you want to do now? Something new and interesting.”
Hmm, there was always her favorite lesson, the one where she had the greedy luxury of being the ultimate couch potato while he expertly serviced her G-spot and every other inch of her various erogenous zones. “I want to do lesson two.”
Matt rolled his eyes, giving her a look that told her he was on to her. “Again with lesson two. I told you, no going backward. We’ve already done lesson two. Twice. Man, you don’t give up, do you?”
Imagine that. He was right. She didn’t give up—at least not when she was with him. With him, she loved the sparring and the silliness. She lifted one shoulder slowly, ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Not if it’s something I really want.”
Matt stopped walking and pointed a finger at her. “That’s lesson four, flirting. Try again.”
She made a face at him and thrust out her lower lip.
He shrugged. “That could be lesson nine or ten, perfecting the adolescent pout.”
Betsy groaned and shook her head at him. “You’re no gentleman. A gentleman would give a lady what she wants.”
“Then you’re right.” He didn’t sound the least concerned. “I’m definitely not a gentleman, because my method is to give a lady what she needs, not what she wants.”
She stared at him, her body going into overtime vibration. “And that would be?”
He began to advance on her again, smiling a wicked smile. “Well, there is something we still haven’t done.”
She licked her lips as her breath went crazy. “Maybe we should do it, then.”
“My feeling, exactly.”
“What is it?”
“We still haven’t tested your ticklish parts. So that’s what we’re going to do in lesson eight.”
She gaped at him, eyes widening as she began to retreat. “Oh no, you don’t. Definitely not.”
He shrugged. “Why not? Ticklish is very sexy. Actually, ticklish sizzles big time. And that’s what you want to do, isn’t it? Sizzle.”
Betsy shook her head and backed away. “Not on your life. I have no intention of sizzling that way, so don’t you dare.”
But he just kept coming, still smiling the same gleeful smile and not paying a bit of attention to her refusal. Not that she thought he would. During the past few weeks, the man had really gotten into this teaching business, almost as if it was his God-given purpose in life to show her how to have the biggest, best, and most abundant orgasms a woman could have and how to return the favor to the man she was having them with. And she appreciated that. She really did. But not to the point of being made to giggle like a fool when his hands found the places that really set her off on a chuckling, snorting, hooting, fall-down-laughing tangent.
“Matt, no.” She lifted her hands to ward him off as she struggled to put some toughness into her voice. “I mean it.”
Of course he didn’t listen. He just continued stalking her, his smile so broad and cheerful that it was useless to argue with him. “Lesson eight coming up.” She was right. His determination trumped her toughness any day.
So she turned and ran for the next room, but he caught her in the doorway, and even before he began to run his hands over her body, she was laughing helplessly, and they were tussling together as she tried unsuccessfully to fight him off.
She didn’t stop laughing and they couldn’t seem to break off their tussling until she was on her back in bed and he was slowly entering her.
“You have a lot of ticklish parts.” He smiled at her as she lay beneath him exhausted from the laughter, and the tussling, and the crazy sensations his roving hands always roused in her.
She was magnificently exhausted, but definitely not too exhausted to want him inside her. Even a sound from behind the wall signaling that Mrs. Lattimer was there, ears primed for a good X-rated show, didn’t break his rhythm. It didn’t stop Betsy’s desire either, or the heat spreading through her—the heat she shouldn’t be feeling.
She raised her hand and let it glide along the edge of his jaw. It was damp from his exertion, and the dark stubble that her skin already knew so well from the kisses they’d shared, pricked at her fingers. But she didn’t care because the gentle sting felt as though her body had somehow come home.
Betsy sucked in her breath at the thought and burrowed deeper into the sheets as she looked up at him. Home. The place where she wanted to be, where she was meant to be.
He was straining above her, his face as familiar to her now as her own face was. This was wrong; this was bad. Oh, hell, this was great, but still wrong and bad. Then as her body arched upward on the edge of release, she finally admitted everything she had been denying for such a long time. Matt Pollard wasn’t just her teacher anymore. He was the completely inappropriate, totally unattainable man she had foolishly fallen in love with.
****
Matt bolted upright in bed, eyes wide open and heart pounding with shock. Staring into the darkness of the room, he tried to work his way back into his own rational waking mind.
And when he finally managed to do it, he realized what had jolted him awake. His dreams. His damn, sex-obsessed dreams.
He took a breath, silently cursing himself because h
e’d done it again—had another rollicking, wild-and-wicked wet dream. But once again, it wasn’t with an anonymous partner. It was with Betsy Kincaid, her face as clear as it was last night, when he’d tickled her into a state of orgasm, and she’d returned the favor by opening herself willingly to his body and his need.
God, his dreams were driving him crazy. But even worse than the dreams themselves was why they kept haunting him.
Groaning, he closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands, finally admitting the truth. He had stupidly fallen in love with her—a woman who, even more stupidly, wanted another man.
He could have deluded himself about it, of course. But in the middle of the night, alone with his thoughts…and his conscience…self-delusion was useless. Only honesty counted.
He lowered his hands and opened his eyes, staring across the darkened room at the wall where Evie’s drawings hung.
Love.
The word ricocheted like a lightning bolt through his mind.
A silly infatuation could easily be dealt with. Lord knows he’d done it often enough when he was a kid. Even a mild case of obsession would wither away in time. Yeah, he’d had one of those too, and once the girl transferred to another high school, he rapidly lost his twenty-four-hour-a-day concentration on her.
But love?
“Oh hell,” he muttered.
Love was a totally different animal, the worst possible can of worms life could hand someone. Besides, he wasn’t ready to love, and least of all to love a woman who couldn’t care less about him. And it had to be love because he’d never experienced anything like it before.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Okay, cut the drama. After all, it wasn’t as if he faced a life-threatening illness or imminent bankruptcy or the death of a loved one. This was just a simple problem. He could ace a simple problem, even if his stupid hormones and his even stupider heart refused to listen. Piece of cake. Problem solving had always been easy for him, because once he’d identified a problem, he could usually count on his logical lawyer gene to kick in and help him work his way through it. So come on, lawyer gene, do your stuff.
As he thought, he watched the digital clock on the bedside table click away the minutes. 2:53. 2:54. 2:55.
But the only solution he could find was the one he’d had all along.
Escape.
No heated confrontation with her. No calm discussion about why she was making a big mistake. No pouring his heart out and giving her the chance to reject him, laugh at him…worst of all, pity him. Just escape.
Escape it would have to be.
“Right. Escape. Good plan.” He wearily mumbled the words as he slumped back against the pillow and pulled the covers up. “First thing in the morning. Now sleep. Need some sleep.”
But sleep didn’t come easily. He twisted and turned for what seemed like hours, and it wasn’t until the birds started chirping outside and the vague glimmer of early-morning sunlight stained the curtains that he finally managed to drift into a restless, mercifully dreamless sleep.
The smell of coffee was the first thing he was aware of as he emerged from his troubled sleep. He smiled into his pillow, buoyed by the lusty aroma. Some god-awful singing was the second thing that stabbed at his consciousness, and at his tender ears.
Rob.
He groaned and pulled the pillow over his head. But a split second later Rob was right there, standing over him and pulling it away again.
“Up, up,” the cousin-from-hell sang, voice off-key and much too loud, as always.
Matt rolled onto his back and looked up at Rob, giving him the evil eye. “Get lost.”
Rob shrugged. “Whatever your lazy little heart desires. Then when your new firm lets you go, you and your lofty Esquire title can be right at the head of the unemployment line together.”
Matt moaned. Okay, so for once the guy made sense. Get up, pull yourself together, and get on the phone to finalize your escape. Throwing the covers back, he pushed to his feet and grabbed his phone from the nightstand, speed-dialing the number as he followed Rob into the kitchen for a jolt of morning coffee.
“Jim,” he said when he made contact with the rental agent. “Matt Pollard. I’m calling about the lease. When will it be—?” He broke off and listened to the answer, nodding at the welcome news. “Tomorrow? Wonderful. Fax it to me and I’ll sign and fax it back to you.”
He was smiling when he ended the call. Finally, things were moving in the right direction. Soon he’d be settled in his own place, and he could start living the rest of his life. All right, so maybe four miles wasn’t the other side of the globe, but it was far enough away for his purposes, far enough away to keep him from accidentally bumping into her.
He sat at the kitchen table and took a swig of the coffee Rob had poured him. Then he speed-dialed the final number on his road to freedom-from-Betsy. “Across-the-Nation Movers and Storage?” he said to the woman who answered. “You have my furniture in storage. I want it shipped to my new address.”
A few minutes later, when he clicked off the phone and dumped it on the kitchen table, he was still smiling. Perfect. It was all settled, and if things went well, the news he had to tell Betsy would in some ways also set him free. Then he could have his goodbye sex party with her, declare Operation Sizzle a resounding success, and send her happily off to sizzle in the arms of the man she really wanted.
Chapter Seventeen
Betsy set the shopping bag on the floor beside her apartment door and took out her keys.
Those rhinestone-studded, stiletto-heeled, drop-dead-sexy, party shoes inside the bag should have had her smiling a sly, Cheshire-cat smile, but her heart felt like a stone, and every one of her smile muscles seemed to have frozen solid.
It had been that way ever since she realized and admitted her true feelings for Matt two days past. Forty-eight hours of thinking constantly about him without being able to crack a single smile. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. No one in her situation could be expected to smile. When you were dumb enough to fall head over heels in love with your gay sex instructor, smiling was not an option. But feeling like hell was.
She turned the key in the lock and pushed the front door open, then paused at the noise down the hall. Stiffening, she bit her lip and just barely fought back the urge to let out a good, sinus-clearing, blood-curdling scream.
Wonderful, just what she needed to make her day complete. She turned to face the building’s resident floor monitor, who was peeking out of her apartment to perform her twice-hourly corridor check.
“Good evening, Mrs. Lattimer.” Betsy forced her voice to be civil but not friendly, and definitely not groveling. She was getting tired of being friendly and totally bored with groveling. “Oh, by the way, I’m not having any male visitors today.”
Mrs. Lattimer’s eyes widened, and her mouth formed an almost perfect “o,” making her look like an indignant carp. “Well, I’m sure that’s no business of mine.” She glared as though Betsy had accused her of nothing less than treason.
Betsy nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Mrs. Lattimer. It isn’t your business.” Then she strode into her apartment and slammed the door shut, cutting off the rather enjoyable sound of Mrs. Lattimer’s surprised gasp.
Carrying the shopping bag into the bedroom, she shoved it in the closet without even trying on the shoes again so she could admire how killer her legs looked in them.
The flame-colored material of her new dress suddenly caught her eye, and she couldn’t help herself. She reached out and touched it, gently stroking the fabric as the memory of Matt’s hands stroking her body just as gently sent the heat of longing through her skin.
Betsy groaned and closed her eyes. It couldn’t go on. She had to stop seeing Matt. Her relationship with him might have started with impersonal lessons, but it had turned into so much more. She bit her lip. Too much more.
She had been deluding herself about her feelings for him for too long. Even worse, she had been misleadin
g Rob. Not lying, perhaps, but sometimes silence could be as great a sin as an actual lie. She had to tell him the truth, then try to make amends for her betrayal and vow to be a better friend from now on. She had to do it even if it meant hurting him and destroying their friendship. Complete honesty was the only thing that would let her live with a clear conscience.
And she had to do it now, before she lost courage and reverted to acting like a secretive, conniving bitch.
She pulled her cell out of her bag and hit Rob’s number on the speed-dial. When he answered, she went into a fast-talking patter to get it all in before she broke down and went on the kind of crying jag that would scare the poor man to death.
“Hi, Rob. Betsy. Big favor to ask. I really need advice on how to wear my hair at the company party next week. I mean, I really need it soon so I’ll have time to practice. Can I come over now and talk to you about it?”
Rob’s bouncy voice told her, “Sure, come on over. Love to help you.”
Betsy felt like the worst traitor in the world—a Judas who would get no less than what she deserved if he decided to lock her out of his life forever. “Thanks, sweetie. I’ll be there in half an hour. Bye.” As she cut the connection and shoved the phone in her pocket, she headed out of the apartment again.
Luckily, this time Mrs. Lattimer had given up guard duty and wasn’t anywhere in sight. But as Betsy left the building, she feared that would be the last lucky break she had for a long time to come.
****
When she arrived at Rob’s apartment, he was ready for her. Without even waiting for a greeting, he took her arm, pulled her over to a table he’d set up at one side of the room, and pointed to the chair in front of it. “Okay, here we go, sweetie. Now sit and tell me exactly what you had in mind.”
What she had in mind was confessing her sins before she lost her courage and completely chickened out, but she still obediently settled herself in the chair and looked at her reflections in the trio of mirrors he’d arranged on the table to help her see what she’d look like from all angles. She finally shook her head with frustration. “Not sure what I want.”
Operation Sizzle Page 19
