Naughty Flings: Twelve Naughty Little Romps

by Alexa Silver

  “You’re blushing,” she told him, nudging his arm. “What’s on your mind?”

  “You,” he said simply, gazing down at her. She hesitated for a moment before biting her lower lip in that continually inviting way she had. “Told your mom you’d call when you get home tonight. If…” He didn’t dare verbalize it yet, didn’t want to panic her. A flicker of something undefined went through her eyes, but it was gone almost before he realized he wanted to chase it.

  “If? Hmmm?” she said, and there was something very little girl about the way her hands clenched down on her purse before she relaxed with a slow exhalation. That, more than anything else, convinced him to take things as they came.

  “We have about an hour on the train. You have something good to read?” he asked, nudging her shoulder with his arm.

  “I might have something. You?”

  He flushed a little. “I was thinking about writing.”

  “Oh no you don’t. Wait here.”

  She disappeared back into her store and came out a couple of minutes later with something in her hand. “You like Rollins, yes?”

  He grinned, nodding. “Don’t tell me you have the latest Rollins. It doesn’t come out until next month.” He should have been embarrassed that he knew that; it made him sound like a fan boy, but it was James Rollins, he was okay with that.

  Really, he was.

  “Do you?” he asked, knowing he was nearly salivating. Okay, he was a damn fan boy and there was no point denying it.

  “What’s it worth to ya?” she asked, challenge sparking in her eyes.

  ‘My undying love,” he replied, without really thinking it through. Her eyes widened and she sucked in a breath, and if he hadn’t been mentally kicking himself, he might have touched her.

  Bad idea. Bad, bad idea, buddy!

  His mind raced and he considered all the options. Should he play it off teasingly, be completely serious, what.

  “I am, after all, just a sad and pathetic fan boy,” he said, trying for humor.

  “Duh, obviously!” She rolled her eyes and he exhaled slowly, the tension between them dissipating. “Come on, fan boy, we have a train to catch.” Mel tucked the ARC and a bottle of water into his bag. She slipped her hand in his, a completely comfortable gesture, and when he curled his fingers around hers, she let out a sigh. This was all right. This was better than all right!

  The train trip passed in relative relaxation. They were early enough that the train wasn’t packed and Tod became as engrossed in his book as he could be with her pressed close to him, the narrow train seats affording them little room to move. Her essence was sunshine and happiness, something that no perfume could effectively capture.

  When they arrived at the Stamford, Connecticut station, Mel looked up, eyes hazy. “Good book?” he asked, pleased that she’d been so wrapped up in his work. He hadn’t had a front-row seat to his agent or editor reading it, and his mom lacked the eyesight for books anymore, so this was his first real chance to see how someone enjoyed his words. The fact that she, too, was a writer made the little geeky part of him stand up and dance.

  “My god, you have such a winner here!” she said, grabbing her purse and shoving the book inside. “I can see the cinematic potential. Did you give your agent carte blanche to negotiate film rights?”

  He arched a brow, leading her out of the station and through the crowd before answering. “You have some smarts about the industry, don’t you?”

  “I have some friends in my writing chapter who are published,” she admitted with a shrug. “Are you walking distance to the station or do you drive?”

  “Drive.” He told her, leading her to his SUV.

  She stopped, eyeing it, and he wondered what she was thinking. “Red,” she said finally.

  “Yeah.”

  “Didn’t expect you to be a red guy,” she replied, hand running over the hood. “Black or blue or gray, but you’re a red guy.”

  He blinked, wondering how to explain. After a few moments, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “My wife loved red. This is my way of…” He couldn’t quite say the word “honor” so he just nodded, fiddling with his key fob.

  He should have looked away, but something compelled him to study her expression. He felt he’d know the exact moment when she realized. And sure enough, her eyes widened and she looked away for a moment before locking her eyes on his, hand curling around his forearm and stilling his fiddling.

  “How long ago, Tod?”

  “Did I lose her?” he asked. Maybe he needed the verbal confirmation that she understood. When she nodded, he plowed onward, and though he wanted to break her gaze, he kept his attention and focus on her. “Summer of ’01. Drunk driver. Amelia never had a chance.”

  “I’m so sorry!” She wrapped her arms around him, face pressed against his chest. He wanted to tell her it was okay, that he was okay, but instead, he just absorbed her warmth and the simple pleasure of a woman unrelated to him hugging him.

  “Thank you,” he whispered into her hair.

  Mel couldn’t have expected this development if she’d been writing the plot of this book. She’d known he was single, though she’d often wondered what the story was with him. He wore a simple band on his right hand that she supposed could have been a wedding band, though it had the patina of age about it.

  “No kids?” she asked, needing to know.

  “None,” he replied, his voice rumbling comfortingly against her cheek. She knew she should pull away, but she couldn’t quite allow herself to release him yet. His cologne, a spicy mix of what she suspected was sandalwood and tobacco, tantalized her senses. “You?”

  “Not unless they have four paws, tails and meow a lot,” she said, wondering if the joke was the effect of her trying too hard. When he chuckled, she released tension she hadn’t realized had bunched up her shoulders.

  “Let’s get back to my place,” he said, stepping back deftly. She risked a glance at his face, wondering what he’d reveal and what it would tell about him. When she couldn’t garner anything there, she sighed, stepping into the car after he’d unlocked it.

  You could tell a lot about people by their cars, Mel had learned. She glanced around, taking in the pristine interior. There was some loose change in the cup holder, but otherwise the car looked well cared for and clean. Unlike hers. She was sure she had a pile of ARCs on her backseat and at least a sweater or two she hadn’t brought in from the dry cleaners yet.

  “It’s nice,” she said faintly, clipping her seatbelt on and stroking a hand over the dashboard.

  “Thanks. Sometimes I go up to Vermont skiing with the guys. This suits all my city needs and is great for longer trips. Plus, if the trains aren’t running on schedule or if we’re having weather, I can still get in to the city.”

  That brought up yet another question—she had tons. Dad had called her “Twenty Questions” when she’d been a child, because she’d always wanted to know everything about everything. But there were some questions she deserved an answer to, especially as he knew about her work life.

  “What is it you do?” she asked, watching as he loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt, before he started the car. “When you’re not writing the next blockbuster, I mean.” She hadn’t spent a lot of time wondering, but it had been a curiosity.

  “City Department of Education. Lots of research, a lot of reading.” His hands curled around the steering wheel and he pulled out of the parking lot, merging smoothly into traffic.

  “Sounds…” She searched for the right word, and came up empty. When in doubt, always resort to sarcasm. “Scintillating.” She glanced over at him, pleased to see his lips quirk up.

  “There’s a reason for my burnout and that would be it.”

  “I’ll spare the midlife crisis jokes then,” she said, her hand drifting over to rest on his thigh.

  Again with the not thinking, Mel! If she could have banged her head against the dash—repeatedly—she would
have.

  “Good. Don’t think I haven’t heard ’em all.” The muscles of his thigh jumped under her hand and her fingers constricted around the muscle. Tod swallowed hard and turned the radio on, the soft strains of something she identified as classic rock barely audible. “My house is the family home…” He shrugged. “I got a settlement when Amelia died. I’m in a great position to do a lot of things, and my mental state is much better than it has been. Lost Amelia in July and my dad on 9/11. It was rough.”

  “Oh God.” That had to be unimaginably awful for him. “I’m so sorry.” So many in and around the city had experienced their own losses, not to mention the panic that had gripped the city—the country, and world, if she was honest. But she’d been lucky in that none of her close friends had dealt with personal losses.

  “My dad was reporting there,” she said quietly. “He was a journalist.”

  “Was?” He asked, cocking his head in her direction.

  “Was,” she confirmed. “He died several years ago. I don’t like to talk too much about it.”

  He nodded, his hand coming down to clasp hers briefly. Had she really been squeezing his thigh all the while? When he lifted his hand, she moved hers back, looking out the window. Stamford couldn’t be called anything but upper-class suburbia, but as things went, it wasn’t so bad.

  Tod pulled into a driveway and glided into a two-car garage attached to the cutest gray house she could have imagined. It was set back from the road a little and screamed Craftsman. She didn’t know what she expected him to live in, but it wasn’t this adorable place. Maybe a condo.

  “Come on in,” he said, dodging around a tarp-covered hump that lay between the front door and his SUV. “Ignore the car. It is a work in progress.”

  “You’re restoring a car?” she asked. He looked at her in surprise and nodded.

  “My grandfather’s pride and joy. An Austin Healey roadster. He saved up for years and years to get a sporty car and when he died, he left it to my dad. It wasn’t Dad’s thing, but it is mine, so I’ve been tinkering with it. Someday it’ll be roadworthy again.

  “So cool,” she said, thrilled to see these glimpses of him. It gave her an ever-changing perspective of his personality. Maybe she’d sold him a bit short.

  “Come on in,” he said, opening the door that led into the house. “I’m going to get out of my suit. Coffeemaker is right there,” he said gesturing. “Pods in the cabinet above it. Feel free to look around, though the place might be a mess.”

  “A mess?” she said with a giggle. It was pristine, like maid pristine. “Do you have a cleaning service?”

  “Once every couple of weeks,” he admitted sheepishly. “They were here yesterday, as a matter of fact. Be right back.”

  Mel watched him go, looking around the kitchen. It was a little older and fairly small but perfect for a bachelor, enough counter space for his things, and it looked as if he cooked, from the few dishes in the sink. She opened his refrigerator, eyeing the contents. Fresh fruit and a few brightly-colored peppers, cheese, milk, chicken breasts, a pork chop. Yeah, this was a guy who cooked.

  Since he’d given her an invitation to do so, she wandered into the attached dining room, the living room with bay windows facing out to the front road, and a den that was masculine and comfortable. His design sensibility was comfortable, but not too relaxed, and she appreciated the formal living room versus the den. That was clearly where he and the guys watched a game, while the living room was more like a place for more structured entertaining.

  She didn’t dare drift beyond the den, not knowing which room he’d disappeared into. Thankfully, he was only several minutes.

  “Hey,” he said softly and she turned to look at him, barely stifling her gasp. In a suit he was an average-looking guy, cute, but not breathtaking, but in jeans and a T-shirt, he was…

  “Guh.”

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” she whispered, managing—barely—to find her tongue. The faded green of the T-shirt set off his salt-and-pepper hair in a way his suits never seemed to, and the jeans had been worn in to skin-tight perfection. “I love your place.”

  “Thanks. I had to de-Momify it a little when she went into assisted living. Too many roses and…whatchamacallits, those lacy things.”

  “Doilies?”

  He snapped his fingers. “Yeah, those! Her unit at assisted living is a studio-sized apartment, so she took her favorite things and I was able to do what I wanted here. Have you seen the sunroom?”

  “No.”

  “That’s where I write.” He reached for her hand and she clasped his, winding through the rooms she’d been in until…

  “My God!” One entire corner of the house had been fitted with windows, and a long built-in desk snuggled under them. His desktop sat in one corner, a laptop on a little table near a recliner tucked into the corner. It was the absolute perfect place to write, and she loved it at first glance.

  “Southeastern exposure. I write a lot on weekend mornings, a cup of coffee, some music on.” He motioned to the small speakers in the corners of the room. “And the view. Birdbath, bird house and Alfie.”

  “Alfie?”

  “My cat.” He motioned to a black and white blob that lifted its head when it heard its name. “Rescued from the birds, or maybe the birds were rescued from him. He’d been abandoned and was pretty hungry when Mom got him a couple of years ago, but her vision was failing so much she had to give him to me almost immediately. I run plot points by him and if he doesn’t yawn, I have a winner.”

  He turned to the closet. “I have a slightly older laptop here. It was Mom’s, great condition. You can log in as a guest and it’ll connect up to the ‘Net and you can download your stuff.”

  She grinned, completely at ease in this room, the afternoon sunlight streaming in, but not with a directness that would have bothered her were it a western exposure. “So that wasn’t a euphemism, like coming over to see your etchings?” She couldn’t decide if she was relieved or a little disappointed, especially considering how good he looked in those jeans and that shirt.

  His eyes darkened perceptibly and she sucked in a breath, realizing just how little she knew about him. She wasn’t danger girl, had never been attracted to bad boys, had never been interested in living on the edge. How dangerous was this situation with a virtual stranger?

  “Was that what you came here for?” he asked, his voice low, and warm, and more than a little sexy. There was something about a mild-mannered guy sounding all in control that was working on her senses and she swayed in toward him, even though her mind was screaming warnings.

  “If I said yes?” she asked, taking a chance. She was a bigger girl and he was…well, she figured he was out of her league, between the gorgeous house and the unexpectedly handsome guy hiding behind the suits.

  He was only a few steps away from her, but all of a sudden it felt like the widest gulf imaginable. She was torn between going for it and hesitating, because if she did go for it and he said no, that would be bad. Very bad. And she liked this guy. A lot.

  He suddenly moved with more grace than she would have attributed to him, crushing her against his chest, against his…oh god, he was hard! That was so not a zipper poking into her.

  A hand dug into her long hair and tugged her head back, the grip tight and almost to the point of pain, but not quite there. Yet. Tantalizing her.

  “Say no and I walk away.”

  “Say yes?” she asked, trying to drag enough oxygen into her lungs. This close, this intimate, he was overwhelming, his scent, the heat of his body. Where was she supposed to put her hands, for god’s sake?

  “And you stay the night,” he growled, and oh hell her body sat up and took intimate notice.

  “Yes!”

  She hadn’t realized she’d said the words until his arm wrapped around her and he held her closer still, making her reel with his scent, the feel of him. His lips descended and she closed her eyes, giving herself over
to him wholly. Completely!

  Mel was only vaguely aware when he lifted her—he lifted her!—and carried her through the house and into…

  His bedroom? He placed her gently on her feet, angling his head down and watching her.

  “I’ve been waiting for this moment.”

  “You have?” She couldn’t have squeaked, could she have? She wasn’t a squeaky sort of a girl.

  “Oh yeah.”

  It was as if he’d taken a bath in sex appeal or rolled in it, or something. And she wanted to drown in it. Stay the night? Hell, she wanted to stay forever.

  The intent in Mel’s eyes was almost enough to drive him crazy. He’d wanted to kiss her for hours, but it had been a long dry spell for him—too long. He didn’t want to get lost in her before he asked the important questions.

  “Are you…protected?” How the hell did a guy go about asking that these days?

  “The Pill,” she said and he exhaled slowly. “And I’m free of any diseases, HPV and all.”

  “Good.” He didn’t have condoms—the last package had been tossed a couple months after expiring, and that had been a couple of years ago. “I’m safe.”

  There was a world of meaning in that phrase, and he played to his awkwardness, unable—or maybe unwilling—to look her in the eye.

  “You are?” she asked quietly, settling on his bed.

  “Yeah.” He finally met her eyes, warming to the humor and sparkle in them. “Haven’t dated in a while.”

  “That’s good. You were saving yourself for me.” She gave him a wink and a smile, and he could sense her confidence growing. She seemed to be shedding her insecurity by the moment, and that bolstered his confidence. “Since we got that out of the way, and we both haven’t dated in a while, come here.”

  She looked as if she was meant for his bed, the button down shirt she was wearing hugging her generous breasts. She toyed with the second button, eyeing him, her gentle sensuality melting his heart. If she’d come across as assertive, it might have spooked him, but having her here in his bedroom, hair spilling down her back, propped up on her elbows with an expression equally sexy and expectant, was a stronger aphrodisiac than any he could imagine.