by Misty Evans
Abruptly he released her and backed away a foot. “I’m going to go before I rush this and ruin a perfect night.”
Go, go? He was going? As in leaving? Van dragged her eyes open, the haze of desire pulling her toward him again. “What? Wait…” She raked her teeth over her bottom lip and reached for him.
He didn’t resist, kissing her again, demanding more, sucking on her tongue, licking into her mouth. Scorching her lips with his. Van mewled and slid her hands into his hair. He made her feel wild and completely out of control and she loved it.
Alex dragged his lips from hers and nuzzled her neck as he ran his hands up her thigh, under her skirt. His firm grip had her arching her body up into his, seeking his touch, begging for it. When his questing fingers reached her panty line, she tugged on his silky strands and whispered, “Please, Alex.”
His fingers stilled just at the edge of her panties and Van nearly cried. Instead of touching her like she desperately, feverishly needed, he jerked back.
“Van, I told you about the lip thing. It makes me crazy, but…I really have to go.”
Because her brain was still lust-fogged, the words tumbled out of her mouth. “Why? I don’t understand.”
Alex ran a thumb over her cheek. “I like you. A lot. And while I’m desperate to touch you again, I get the impression you think I’m a player.” He shrugged. “I’m not playing here. You’re different, so I’m going to try to act differently.” He cocked his chin toward the door. “I’m going home, but not before I ask you out for real. Dinner? Movie? Somewhere public. I know you want to say no, but think about it. Meantime, when I knock on your bedroom wall tonight, knock back.”
He grinned, brushed her lips with his, and then he was gone.
Chapter Nine
Friday night, Alex was still trying to figure out the right place to take Van for dinner. In the meantime, he had movie tickets and was hoping to ease her into another non-date date.
He hit the doorbell, heard her footsteps a few seconds later. When she opened the door, he held up the tickets. “Two words. Morgan Freeman.”
She was dressed in a sloppy blue sweatshirt and jeans and her hair was pulled up on top of her head. He’d never seen her so…casual, but like usual, to him she looked stunning.
Her gaze went from his face to the tickets and back to his face. “What?”
“Hillcrest Cinema is having a Freeman movie marathon. The guy who owns the place is a donor for 3 Wishes. He came by the office today and gave us fifty tickets for tonight’s showing of back-to-back Freeman. Million Dollar Baby and Shawshank Redemption. We gave away all but five tickets to our families and volunteers. Since the leftovers will only go to waste, I grabbed two, hoping you’d like to go. With me.”
The corners of her eyes narrowed slightly.
He jumped in before she could say anything. “It’s just the movies, Van. Friends go to the movies together. Especially when one friend scores free tickets for a marathon featuring the other friend’s favorite actor.”
“How do you know Morgan Freeman is my favorite actor?”
“Thin walls.”
She stared at him for several long seconds. She’d taken to returning his love knocks at night, and he took that as progress. “Okay.”
That was too easy. “Okay?”
“What time does the first movie start?”
Yes! Progress was right. Alex rubbed the tickets together. The power of Freeman. Who knew? “Seven.”
She glanced at her watch. “Give me ten minutes.”
The door closed in his face.
Alex stood, dumbfounded, and then did a little cha-cha step on Van’s front step. This woman, what an enigma. One minute she was a ballbuster, the next a sexy siren. His charm was totally hit and miss with her.
Yet, since the night she’d share her presentation with him and he’d confessed his deep, dark secret about racing, he’d felt different. Lighter. Happier.
Like he could take on the world.
He’d told her that night that she was different from the other women he’d dated, but that was an understatement in every sense of the word. She was nothing like the women he’d dated. Nothing like the women he’d always been attracted to.
Sex with her had rocked him to the core, and he loved the easy banter they had with each other when she let her guard down. Yeah, he was a guy and he liked the chase, but in essence, he’d already caught her. Only Jersey hadn’t been the end of the chase, it had been the beginning.
Van challenged him at every turn. He loved her ambition and dedication as much as he loved the taste of her on his tongue and the way she looked at him when he was kissing her.
This wasn’t his normal mode of operation. Even if he had sex with her every night for a year, he’d want more.
He knew in fact that he wanted something more with Van. A real relationship.
The thought stopped his cha-chaing and he leaned back against her closed door. He’d never wanted a serious relationship with any woman before. What was happening to him?
The thought continued to hammer at him and he had to sit on her front step. He would not become like his parents and get mired in a relationship.
Would he?
Minutes passed and she emerged, braids down, and a black leather jacket over a red blouse.
“Do I look okay?” she asked.
Again, he was struck by the enigma known as Van. He wondered if she’d ever asked a man before if she looked okay. “Stunning as always.”
She rolled her eyes. “Let’s go.”
A little while later, they were in line for the marathon. Men, and a few women, discreetly checked out Vanessa. She didn’t seem to notice. More than once, Alex wanted to take her hand or slide his arm around her waist to make sure everyone knew she was his, but that type of caveman behavior would probably end with him missing his balls.
“Van?”
From behind them, the familiar sound of Becca’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
Van whirled around. “Becca?” Her body tensed. “What are doing here?”
Becca, Liam in tow, sidled past a few people and stopped next to them. Her gaze slid to Alex, brows dipping, then back to Van. “We were going to see the new Mark Wahlberg movie, but it’s sold out. What are you two doing here?”
When she said “two”, she did that eye slide again, giving Alex another bewildered glance. “You never did call me the other night like you said you would, Vanessa.”
Liam slapped Alex on the shoulder, not seeming to suspect anything.
Van stuttered and Alex came to the rescue. He held up the movie tickets as the line moved forward. “Free tickets from a 3 Wishes donor. We gave away most of them, but there were a handful left at the end of the day. I grabbed a couple. Van’s a big fan of Morgan Freeman.”
Becca lifted one eyebrow.
Suspicious. Very suspicious.
Alex went for his back pocket. “I actually have a couple more if you guys want to join us.”
“I like Morgan Freeman.” Liam grabbed the tickets. He looked at Becca for her approval.
Thank God, that’s not me. Needing approval from my significant other.
And then he caught himself looking at Van, making sure she was okay with Becca and Liam joining them.
The lines bracketing her mouth and the fire snapping in her eyes told him she wasn’t.
Oops.
Becca took the tickets from Liam. “Sounds good.”
Once they were inside, they hit the snack bar, then hustled into the theater. Van directed Alex to a couple of open seats at the back in the corner. “There,” she said. “I like to be up high.”
The next pair of seats were in the section below them. Liam headed down and Becca said, “Let’s meet up afterwards and have pizza, okay?”
Van cringed. Alex smiled and gave Becca a thumbs-up. “Sounds good.”
After she’d followed Liam and was out of earshot, Alex handed Van the bucket of popcorn. There were only four seats in t
he upper corner, one man blocking the entire row. He stood and let them pass and Van went all the way to the wall.
Alex sat next to her, one empty seat between him and the man on the end. “If you don’t want to go for pizza, it’s no big deal. You can sneak out before the credits roll and I’ll tell her you ate too much popcorn and it made you sick.”
Van looked slightly abashed. “You’d do that?”
He couldn’t help it. As the lights began to dim, he leaned over and kissed the end of her nose. “For you? Anything.”
The screen flickered to life and the overhead lights winked out. Alex slid down in his chair, ready to get his full Morgan Freeman on when Van reached over and grabbed his chin. She gave it tug and he found himself face to face with her in the dark. Before he could whisper “what?”, she laid a lip lock on him.
He forgot all about Morgan Freeman.
* * *
There were so many things wrong with this picture.
First, they were in public.
Second, their best friends were down at the front of the theater. All Becca and Liam had to do was turn around and they could potentially see her and Alex necking like a couple of teenagers.
Third, Alex was a distraction. A very dangerous, very sexy, distraction.
The only thing right with the picture was the way she felt with his lips on hers. The more time she spent with him, the more she liked being around him. This was the Alex effect. He’d chipped away at her outer wall until he’d reached the chink in her defenses. Once found, he poured gallons of charm at that crack.
At first he seemed surprised by the kiss, but shock soon vanished. He immediately took control. Sliding his hand to the nape of her neck and into her braids, he tugged gently to change their angle, blocking them from sight of the man at the end of the row and sending a hot spike of lust through her.
Every day, he was so laid back, so chilled. Yet the moment it turned sexual with them, he was strong and assertive and…alpha. It should drive her nuts. All her life she’d avoided the alpha guy. One man in her life telling her what to do was enough, thank you very much. But Alex pulled her closer to the flame. Made her weak and pliable.
He broke the kiss. Even in the darkened theater, she could tell by the set of his jaw and the way his hand fisted then loosened in her hair that he was on edge. He roughly shoved up the armrest between them, before dragging her toward him.
His lips were firm on hers. No coaxing, no teasing. Just a demand. One she met. His hands slid down to her ass, then cupped roughly as he brought her even closer.
In the distance somewhere outside of the cocoon that was her and Alex, she heard tittering and someone mumbled a comment about a room.
Yeah whatever. She’d missed out on a lot of the teenaged fun and games. With her father, no one dared ask her out, so making out in the back of a theater was a first for her.
Alex, on the other hand seemed like an expert, arranging their bodies so she was half draped over him, yet still protected from any prying eyes.
Sliding a hand under her blouse, he skimmed her waist and up her ribcage until his thumb met the lace cup of her bra.
Van gasped and he nipped at her bottom lip, then sucked on it as his thumb traced circles over her nipple.
She was on fire. Her skin tingled, and all she wanted to do was keep touching him. To have him keep touching her.
Would it be so bad if she let her guard down? As long as she didn’t get too close to him she couldn’t be hurt. She could enjoy this, let herself be free. Let herself relax.
He rolled her nipple and she clamped her teeth down to keep from crying out. He released her lips and watched her intently. His whisper, like a caress on her cheek. “I had a plan you know.”
A plan? She dragged heavy lids open to blink at him. Suddenly it was like the fog lifted. She was in the back of a theater with Alex. Making out. And he was touching her, making her want him so bad she gave serious consideration to ditching her best friend. “What was the plan?”
Instead of kissing her again, he ghosted his lips over hers, not really touching them but making sure the two of them were breathing the same air. “I was going to keep wearing you down. Take it slow. Show you that I’m different. Now,” he shifted in his seat and adjusted his crotch. “Now, I’m sitting here in the back of a theater with a major hard on, giving serious consideration to dragging you out to my car where I’d spend the next two hours licking you.”
Oh, hell yes. Apparently the woman in front of them was in agreement because she gasped. Van swallowed hard. “Alex…”
He kissed her deep, pulled back, releasing her breast at the same time. “Oh, no you don’t. I know you. Right now, you’re thinking you want to get out of here, take me up on my offer.” He ran a thumb over her cheek. “Later, you’ll be wishing we’d stayed to see Becca, so we’re going to stay. And I’m going to think of every boring baseball stat I can think of to make this thing go down.” He gestured at his lap, still half turned toward her.
Van licked her lips, knowing exactly what she would find beneath the bulge of his jeans. “You want a hand with that?” she whispered.
He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and leaning back against the headrest, nodding yes, but he ground out a soft, “No.”
So far they’d kept pretty quiet, but she couldn’t help a giggle. “Pick one, Alex.”
Feeling bold, she slid a hand up his thigh. Under her palm, she could feel his muscles cord, the tension rolling through him.
But he didn’t stop her. When she cupped the length of him and squeezed gently, he gripped the armrests. Leaning in, she whispered, “How’s that for a hand?”
“Van,” his warning was guttural.
But she wasn’t in the mood to listen. He’d left her high and dry the other night. Even a couple of attempts with Battery Operated Boyfriend had not helped. He should feel how she was feeling. She unsnapped his jeans. He hissed in a sharp breath and held it.
Van smiled to herself as tick by tick, she unzipped his jeans. His knuckles went white on the armrest and she watched intently as the muscle in his jaw tightened. She had never done anything like this in her life.
Alex watched her out of the corner of his eye, but kept his head forward, resolutely. And that worked for him for about a hot minute. Until she slid her hand inside his jeans and palmed him. His head dropped back against the seat and his hips rose into her questing hand.
His flesh was smooth and hot. And as she stroked to the tip, she used her thumb to spread the silky drop of liquid over the crown. A shudder wracked his body and quicker than a flash, his hand snapped around her wrist and he met her gaze in the dark. For a long, tense moment, he held her like that, heat radiating off both of them. A million unspoken words between them.
He dragged in a deep breath and tugged her hand out of his jeans. Calmly he zipped himself back up, then took her hand and interlaced their fingers. “Behave.”
“What if I don’t feel like behaving?”
“Then I will fuck you right here in this theater with all of these people watching and I won’t give a damn.” His jaw was tight. “Is that what you want?”
Yes. But she shook her head no. She’d only wanted to tease him a little. Drive him crazy. There was something so tempting about him, it made her do things she normally wouldn’t.
They sat like that for the next forty-five minutes, the tension thick. The electricity coursing through her body set her on edge. When the movie finished and the lights came back up, he squeezed her hand.
She was almost relieved, now they could go home and finally release the tension that had been swirling around them since Jersey.
Alex’s smile was soft when he asked, “Are you ready?”
Oh yeah. “Ready for what?”
His grin flashed, making his eyes dance. “Our double date with Becca and Liam.”
Chapter Ten
The pizza place was packed, many of the movie goers having the same idea. The four of them squeezed into a
booth in the back corner, Alex helping Van into the center of the bench seat so she could sit by Becca while he and Liam took the outside.
The guys ordered a large pie with every meat available. Van and Becca ordered some kind of artisan specialty pizza with fire-roasted tomatoes, red peppers, chicken, and—God help him—spinach. “That’s sacrilege,” he told them. “Pizza is not supposed to be healthy.”
“Shows you what you know about women,” Becca said. “We can make anything healthy, even deep dish pizza with four kinds of cheese, as long as we throw broccoli or spinach on it.”
Van nodded. “Relieves our pig-out guilt the next day.”
Alex would never understand women. “Pig-out guilt?”
“You know,” she said. “Where you eat like shit and have a food hangover the next day?”
He looked to Liam for help. His friend only shrugged. “It’s a girl thing. Let it go.”
“Well, for it’s worth…” He touched Van’s leg under the table, sliding his fingers to the underside of her knee. The spot that drove her crazy when he put his lips there. After what she’d done to him in the theater, this was fair play. “Both of you are beautiful, attractive women who don’t need to watch their weight or have pig-out guilt if you indulge in real pizza once in a while.”
Under the table, she pinched his wrist and shoved his fingers away. “Real pizza? You think because your pizza has six types of cholesterol bombs in the form of every red meat known to man that our pizza is somehow inadequate?”
He grinned and slid his hand back to her leg, using one finger to lightly caress her thigh. “Some things in life are meant to be bad for you, Vanessa. It’s okay to give yourself over to simple pleasure on occasion and not worry about the consequences.”
Her eyes snapped to his. She covertly batted his finger off her leg.
Becca cleared her throat. “Are we still talking about pizza?”
“So…” Liam eyed Alex across the table. “How’s the new neighbor thing going?”
