by Donna Alward
She’d been divorced for a long time. She now had a good job, she owned her own home, and she was in control of her life. It was high time she had some fun.
What if she had a little fun with the likes of Tommy Tucker? He would be Fun-with-a-capital-F. He wasn’t a commitment type of guy but she’d seen the way his dates always looked at him, like they couldn’t wait to get out of the restaurant—or him out of his pants.
Are you still there?
Yes.
Carly took a deep breath. What the hell—a girl only lived once. She worked hard. She deserved a little fun every now and then.
Will I see you next Saturday night?
Do you want to? came the immediate reply.
Yes. That was the simple answer to a not-so-simple question.
Depends. Are you planning on getting another drink thrown in your face?
Which was another way of saying that no, she would not be particularly happy if he showed up next Saturday with yet another hot young girl in his arm.
She had absolutely no right to feel territorial, but she did anyway.
Depends. Are you planning on throwing a drink in my face?
No.
After a moment’s pause she added, It makes such a mess.
I’d like to see you next Saturday night. But I’d like to see you before that, too. Perhaps in a restaurant where someone else brings us food. You could even sit down, if you wanted.
You’re serious, aren’t you?
The pause stretched into another minute before he replied and this time, the message was long.
Is it so hard to believe that I would be attracted to a beautiful, intelligent, kind woman? Because every time I’ve seen you over the last nearly 6 months, that’s what I’ve seen. I honestly don’t care how old you are. That’s the least interesting part about you. All I can hope is that me being younger than you is the least interesting part of me, too.
Now, what the hell was she supposed to say to that? Because that was quite possibly the best compliment someone had given her in years. Years.
Her cheeks were hot and her stomach felt fluttery. This was madness.
But apparently, she was a little mad.
Monday and Tuesday are my days off.
Monday night is best for me. We can meet for dinner or drinks.
Are you old enough to drink?
Which was a stupid question because she already knew the answer. She’d been the one to check his I.D. all those months ago—and she’d been serving him beer ever since.
I’m completely legal.
He didn’t type it, but she could almost hear him in that sly voice of his adding, in every way. Well. At least he wasn’t jailbait. Not anymore, anyway. She refused to think of how old he’d been when she’d gotten married.
She tried to see the harm in this. He was an adult—a young one, but still. He was attracted to her and she was attracted to him. She hadn’t had sex in…okay, a really long time.
Not that she was going to get lucky tomorrow. But even thinking about the possibility was enough to make her nipples tighten.
JoJo’s, tomorrow night at eight.
Then, on impulse, she added, You have one chance to change my mind.
I’ll take that chance. It’s a date. Looking forward to it.
A date. It’d been a long time since she had a real date. And it didn’t mean anything, anyway. Like the old song said, “A kiss was just a kiss,” and she hadn’t even kissed the man yet.
Yet.
She could do this. She could go get what she wanted, the way she wanted it, without risking her security or her independence. She would not try to contort herself into something that he might like. He either wanted her exactly as she was or he didn’t get her at all.
Now what the hell did one wear on a date with a mature college senior?
Chapter Four
Tommy got to the bar early. He fully expected that Carly would keep him waiting, but he didn’t mind. His gut told him that to keep her waiting would be fatal to his evening’s plans.
JoJo’s, it turned out, was a bar—but not the kind of bar he would hit on a Friday night with his buddies. The floors were clean, the furniture was in good repair, and the shelves above the bar were stocked with expensive liquor. It was on the far side of town, well removed from any drunken college pub crawls. It was, Tommy decided, exactly the sort of place where one would expect to find a divorcee like Carly Hughes. He liked the place immediately.
He ordered a beer, got carded—as usual—and debated the merits of choosing a booth tucked back in the corner, where the light was dim and no one would bother them, or taking up residence at the bar itself. The booth had a lot going for it—privacy, peace and quiet. But it also had one problem—the fixed table divided the booth in half. Standing at the bar would mean that the bartender would be listening in, but it also lent itself to a much higher chance of full body contact.
Just thinking about full body contact with Carly was enough to take his half hard-on and make it a full one. Right. The booth it was. He needed the table.
He sat in the booth and kept an eye on the front door. In all honesty, he didn’t have a lot of experience in this department. Up until college, dates tended to be a group activity. He’d never been serious enough about anyone to do anything more than sneak off and have sex in a cornfield or barn or the back of his pickup truck. Otherwise, it was always him in a group of buddies and girlfriends going to parties or movies or ballgames.
Maybe that was one of the reasons why the dates at Peachtree’s always ended badly. He needed to get better at talking to women one-on-one. And it would help a lot if he got better in the next… He checked his watch. Seven-forty-five. Yeah, the next fifteen minutes would be great.
He wished she hadn’t asked him what he did. And he was equally afraid that she would ask him what he was going to do when he graduated in three months. He felt like he’d made a good impression on her with the texting, but “I don’t have any plans post-graduation,” wouldn’t get him a second chance with anyone, most especially a woman who’d worked her way up to assistant manager. He desperately didn’t want to come off as a slacker.
Carly Hughes waltzed into JoJo’s at seven-fifty-five on the dot, and Tommy forgot how to breathe.
Oh God—had he thought that she was good-looking before? Well, she had been, but now?
Her hair was long and loose and brushed her shoulders. Instead of dress pants, she wore a long, heavy wool coat that belted at her waist. She still had on heels, although they appear to be a different pair. Tommy found himself praying she was wearing a skirt so he could see what her legs looked like—even though it was about twelve degrees outside.
He stood and went to meet her. “You came. Let me help you with your coat.”
“I promised to give you a chance, didn’t I?” She undid the belt of her coat and turned around. His blood began pounding his veins as the wool slipped down her arms. She was wearing a skintight black dress. He could not believe his eyes as the coat pulled away from her ass. The fabric cupped her bottom like a second skin, and his knees went weak. All he wanted to do was fill his hands with her body and spread her wide before him as he plunged into her.
He cleared his throat and tried to get his dick under control. This was more than a fantasy. So much more.
Then she turned around to face him.
The dress came to a deep V that accentuated her breasts and tied in a little belt at the side of her waist. The skirt of the dress came below her knees but it clung to every bit of her curves in a way that made him want to fall to his knees before her and worship the ground she walked on.
“Wow.” Which was probably not the most mature way to tell a woman that she’d just made at least three of his deep-seated fantasies come true, but it was the only sound he was capable of making that wasn’t a flat-out groan.
Her eyebrows lifted and for the briefest of seconds, she looked almost self-conscious—or maybe nervous. But it didn’t last l
ong. “You are sweet,” she said, pulling off her glove and touching her chilled fingers to his cheek. Then she stepped back and looked him up and down, her eyes lingering over his best pair of jeans—which she had seen him wear before—and his black sports coat—which she hadn’t. “And here I thought I knew how you would be dressed for a date. I see you still have some surprises.”
Oh yeah—this was going be fun. “I’m full of surprises.” She dropped her gaze and looked at him through her lashes and seriously, it took everything he had not to throw himself at her feet. Instead, he did his damnedest to remember his manners. “I’ve got a table in the back—what would you like to drink?”
“Aren’t I the one who usually asks that?”
“If you think I’m going to let you serve me tonight, you’re in for one hell of a surprise.” Crap. He was still clutching the shoulders of her coat and the hem had puddled at his feet. He folded the coat over his arm and motioned back toward the booth. “Shall we?”
“We shall,” she said. When she turned, Tommy put his hand against the small of her back to guide her in the correct direction. She didn’t pull away. He could feel her body heat radiating through the thin fabric of the dress. God, she was red-hot.
“What can I get you?”
She slid into the booth, making it look graceful and sensual, and then looked up at him through those eyelashes of hers again. This was completely different from how they normally interacted. Then, Tommy was sitting and she was standing over him. At this angle, there was no missing the curve of her breasts and the glint in her eye. She was a lot for a man to look at. “I’ll take a Bud Light.”
He wasn’t sure what made him say, “Your wish is my command,” but he said it anyway. Her eyes warmed as she flashed him a wide smile.
When he turned back to the table, her drink in hand, he found she was staring at him openly. And why wouldn’t she? They were here together, weren’t they? He set the beer down and slid into the booth. Suddenly, he was nervous. Which was an odd sensation because he normally didn’t get nervous around women. Either they were into him or they weren’t and he moved on to greener pastures. Even in a town as small as Butte, Montana, there had been plenty of available and willing girls when he’d been in high school. Sure, he’d been rejected, but it’d never bothered him and he’d never worried about it.
But now, he was nervous. The raging hard-on he was trying to tamp down wasn’t helping, either.
He waited until she took a drink of her beer before launching into the smallest of small talk. “So, how long have you been at Peachtree’s?”
Her lips—painted a deep shade of red—twisted off into something that might have been a smile if she hadn’t been fighting it so hard. “I’m not entirely sure I’m going to answer that question.”
“Why not?”
“Look, I admire your whole ‘age is just a number’ philosophy, but a lady never tells.”
He thought that over for a bit. “I’ll be twenty-three in three months. And I graduate in four.”
She winced. Yeah, that probably was not the best way to go about this. Too late now. “I’m not sure I wanted to know that.”
He saw an opportunity and took it. “What do you want to know?”
“Oh,” she said, her smile widening a little. “Now there’s an intelligent question. Why are you here?”
“Because you said you’d give me one chance,” he told her in all seriousness.
“It’s not normal, you know—a man your age trying to put the moves on a woman of my…experience.”
He grinned at her. “You make it sound like no younger man has ever gone after an older woman, but I’m pretty sure that they’ve been making movies about this since at least the 1960s.”
“So, is this your thing? You like older women?”
His cheeks got hot. Crap. “Honestly? I’m not sure. But I think I like you.”
It felt odd to throw that out there, like it was no big deal. But like she’d said, he only had one shot at this. He had to make it count.
She tilted her head to one side and gave him a long look. “You’re not sure? But you were on that website. That’s not exactly where the average college-aged, red-blooded American male goes to look for dates. Frankly, I’d be surprised if anyone else in your school even knew that website existed.”
He took another fortifying drink his beer. “First off, I’m not like all the other college guys.”
“You’re telling me,” she murmured in what he hoped was appreciation.
“Second off, it’s complicated.”
She took that as a direct challenge. “So you said. Now might be a good time to explain what that means.”
He took a deep breath and sat back in the booth. He was weirdly pleased to see her lean forward. It took most of his self-control not to openly gape at her cleavage. It took all of his self-control not to think about what he’d like to do to that cleavage. “I joined the site almost two years ago—but,” he hurried to add when her eyes got very wide, “I didn’t do it for me. I did it for my father.”
“This isn’t sounding any less weird,” she said in a quiet voice, and he was afraid for second that she was going to call it a night right then and there.
“Wait, hear me out. My mom died almost nine years ago of breast cancer and my dad fell into a deep funk after that. They were high school sweethearts, the whole nine yards. It only got worse when I went to college. My brothers and I were worried about him. We decided to set him up on a date.”
She hadn’t bolted, which he took as a good sign. And she was still listening to him, instead of having that cornered look in her eyes. “So you set him up on the site?”
“No, not exactly. My dad’s a real old-fashioned guy and we knew that if we told him to go online and try to meet a nice woman, he wouldn’t do it. So…okay, this might sound bad, but I was doing it for my dad, remember?” She nodded in what he hoped was agreement. “I set up a profile and pretended to be him for a couple of months.”
She sat there staring at him and he could almost hear her thinking, no, this isn’t any less weird.
He forged ahead. “I wasn’t looking for a date for me, you understand. I was looking for a date for him.”
“Did you find one?”
“Yeah,” he said happily. “It worked. I found a nice woman from Billings named Karen Thompson, who owns her own florist shop. They got together, hit it off, and are going to get married this summer. Once I decided she might be a good fit for my dad, I explained everything to her—that I was really his son and that he was…shy.” Carly was still looking at him askance. “Okay, I can see how it still sounds weird, but it all worked out. She and my dad have been good together, and I think he’s finally over my mother’s death.”
“So you were being noble about it?”
“Yes. Well…mostly.”
She took another drink of her beer, then, when she set it back down on the table, she traced some of the marks in the table with her fingernail. “But that’s not all there is to it, is there?”
“No. I guess not. I was on that site for a couple of months, tipping my hat and sending messages with a bunch of different women, trying to find out who’d be a good fit for my dad.”
“Was it fun? I mean, did you enjoy flirting with them?”
He sat up again and took a long drink this beer, draining the bottle dry. “It was.”
“Did you ever…” She paused, seemingly trying to find the right words. “Follow up on any of those hat tips?”
“No.” She gave him a piercing stare and he felt his defenses buckle. “I mean, I wanted to. There are a lot of wonderful women in the world, you know? But I wasn’t even old enough to buy a beer then, and besides, they all thought I was my father. It was false advertising.”
“But you liked it, didn’t you.” It was not a question. “You liked flirting with all those women?”
He met her gaze and held it. “I might have.”
“How often do you go to the si
te?”
“I don’t.” She arched an eyebrow at him, clearly not believing him. “Well, until this weekend. After my dad settled into a happy relationship, I deleted his profile and never went back.” He made himself look her in the eye. No false advertising this time. “Until it was time to try something different.”
This time, when she raised her beer bottle, she didn’t break his gaze. He watched her settle her lips against the open mouth of the bottle and watched her throat move as she swallowed gulp after gulp. When she was done, she set the bottle back on the table and looked at him. It felt like a challenge.
“Want me to get you another one?”
One corner of lips curved up into a seductive smile. “I don’t think you’ve answered my original question yet. Why are you here? What do you want out of this?”
He stood—slowly—and felt her eyes on him. “Let me get you that beer,” he said. He wasn’t intentionally keeping her hanging, but he needed to buy some time. The short and simple answer was he wanted to get laid. But that wasn’t anything new. He wanted to get laid all the time. There was something else to this and he wasn’t sure he could name it yet.
One thing was clear, though. He was going to have to try to name it—and soon.
When he returned to the table, he didn’t sit down right away. He stood at the edge and handed her the beer bottle. When she took it from him, the tips of her fingers brushed over his knuckles. “Sit down, Tommy.”
He sat.
“Tell me…” Her voice trailed off and she leaned in closer to him. Neither of them drank their beer. “Tell me what you want. From me, I mean.”
“I want…” This was it—this was his one chance. If he didn’t put this in the right terms—convince her that this wasn’t just some weird fetish that he had for MILFs or cougars or whatever they were called—he wouldn’t get another chance.
She waited, pinning him to the booth with her gaze. She wasn’t about to rush in and answer the question for him—oh no. She was going to make him sweat it out. There was no easy way out of this.
