Strangers with Benefits (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Jennifer Willows

  He shot off quicker than she expected and she knew based on his inspired choice that he was a seat by the pants player, but he had excellent instincts. Not to mention that he had excellent control over the table.

  She was a semi pro, but his gut was spot on and he actually had a chance at beating her if she let him distract her too much during their play.

  As they went back and forth from one turn to the next, she enjoyed playing with him enough that she wanted to actually watch him play with someone else. Patrick wouldn’t be much competition, unless the other man got really lucky on the break. But it would be better than the poor showing she had seen with Jack.

  There was one other guy, but she could tell his hand-eye coordination was terrible. The man could barely reach for his beer without fumbling it.

  When she was about to take her next shot, she was looking at her last play before she could go for the eight ball.

  But when she flicked the stick, she heard her name and the cue went wild, before the white ball fell into the corner pocket.

  She scratched her shot.

  Damn.

  She looked up, it was Mimi and Maya. Diyah and Gina must have decided to stay behind at Bourbon Street.

  “Hey guys. I was just getting in a game of pool.”

  “I see. But I think you’re about to lose.” Mimi lifted a brow, and then looked over at Sidonie’s opponent.

  She knew the moment her friend had connected the dots.

  “Wow, so you found—”

  “Hey, I need a beer. Can you grab one for me from the bar please?” She didn’t want her friend to help Officer McTavish connect the dots.

  Mimi looked askance at her and Sidonie knew that her friend was going to want all of the details, and soon. Sidonie nodded and Mimi walked off without even asking for her debit card first.

  That was her friend, always supportive.

  Jack looked over at Maya and winked. Maya shook her head and turned back to the table.

  “You ready to resume?” McTavish asked.

  As per her norm with this man, she saw his mouth move, but damn if she knew what he had asked her. To save face, she nodded and he leaned over. One sharp stroke backward was all he needed to gauge his angle and thrust.

  Sidonie licked her lips in anticipation. Geez, he was sexy in the most effortless of ways. Even watching the pool stick in his hands made her wish that she could have first-hand knowledge of whether he used his cock the same way or not.

  The last four balls chased one another around the table with the shot and she watched as every ball fell into a separate pocket, one by one.

  Until the eight ball spun in the back corner, hung on the edge and she held her breath as it finally tipped into the pocket.

  “What do you drink?” Sidonie asked, her voice dropped to a husky level that left her embarrassed and clearing her throat.

  “Since you’re buying, let’s have a couple of shots. Vodka, if that works for you.”

  “All right, I’m not driving, so I can have one with you.”

  She walked to the bar where Mimi waited for the bartender to serve up the beer she requested.

  “Mimi?”

  “Yeah, girl?”

  “He doesn’t recognize me. And I don’t plan to rectify that.”

  Mimi looked at her and shook her head. “You are a plumb idiot.”

  “Maybe.” Sidonie agreed as there was no reason to hide the information as to who she really was. But she just wanted to be a woman that he met on the street, not the bedraggled mom he’d met at the laundromat last week.

  “It’s your life.” Mimi grabbed the beers and offered one to her.

  “I have to grab a couple of shots. Do you want one?”

  “Nah, since I’m driving, I’m going to nurse this last one and call it quits.” Mimi was normally pretty good about sticking to a two beer limit when she was the DD.

  “Okay. But we can call a cab if you want. I can bring you back tomorrow to get the car if you want to do that. I’ll even pay for half of the overnight parking charge.” Sidonie winked.

  “Nah. That is way too much money, between the taxis for all of us and the garage fee. I’m good.”

  “All right, suit yourself.”

  Sidonie turned back to the bar and waited for the bartender to come back.

  “Can I get two shots of vodka?”

  “Top shelf?” the bartender asked and she nodded.

  “That’s fine.”

  She paid the fifteen dollars for the two drinks and walked back to the pool table.

  Patrick and McTavish stood at the table.

  The balls were already racked and she wondered if the two were going to play or not.

  Jack and Theo were on the dance floor, gyrating wildly to a slow beat that highlighted just how drunk the pair was.

  Mimi and Maya were with them, and the small group made a tiny mosh pit of sorts with a series of goofy, but coordinated moves that looked familiar.

  They were doing the Macarena.

  Sidonie shook her head, her friends needed help.

  And the worst part was that Mimi was, for all intents and purposes, sober. There was no reason for her to show out like that.

  “Looks like they are having a good time,” McTavish whispered from over her shoulder.

  Sidonie had no idea that he was even behind her and she jerked, sloshed the shots, and almost dropped the small glasses.

  “Uh, yeah. Here is your drink by the way.”

  He took the glass from her nerveless fingers. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. Anytime.” She shuddered and stepped back.

  The man was devastating from a distance, but in her personal space, the effect was magnified tenfold.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, but she shrugged.

  He was just one of those people that liked taking care of others. His concern wasn’t personal, but based on his personality.

  And she liked him all the more for it.

  He made her feel sexy, but damn if she wasn’t so ashamed of it. Her breasts felt fuller, the way they had when she was breastfeeding, when they were a double E. Her belly fluttered and she felt her panties fill with moisture.

  She wanted to drag him close and taste his mouth, before she stripped the old cotton from his body and ogled the hell out of him.

  It had been a long time since her libido had piped up a complaint.

  Before she split with her ex, they hadn’t had sex in a year, but that was no surprise after the fact. He was a wonderful husband, but she had known that he wasn’t attracted to her for a long time. But then again, she hadn’t been attracted to herself in a long time either.

  But even then their lovemaking was nothing to write home about. She was a virgin when they met in high school and hadn’t slept with another man since, so what did she know about sex?

  Nothing, really.

  She wasn’t a virgin anymore, of course, but she had never really explored her sexuality. There had been too many other things going on.

  Her husband had entered the military right out of high school, and she was taken along for the ride. In all honesty, the only reason they had stayed together so long was due to the fact that he was deployed more than he had been at home.

  She had gotten pregnant with the twins when he came back from his first deployment. They had married while she was still in high school, in her senior year, and he was sent to basic training that April. He came back for a short while after he finished basic, maybe ten days before he was deployed.

  When he came back thirteen months later, she was almost finished with her freshman year of college. To keep herself on track for graduation, she took a full load that summer when she realized she would be ready to give birth during the spring semester.

  The move had kept her on track and she went back the summer after the kids were born. She was lucky that the base offered really good day care that allowed her to go to class without a hiccough.

  She should have realized th
at most of the marriages around her included more sex than hers had. The other Navy wives spoke about it, but she didn’t have the chance to hang with them too much. Most of them were much older than she and she had too little time between the babies, classes, and homework to really delve into friendships with the close knit group.

  She took a breath and realized that McTavish stared at her.

  “You have the worst habit of ignoring me when I am trying to get your attention.” He smiled.

  “Sorry, I went off into space for a sec.”

  The moment the words left her mouth, Sidonie knew she had made a mistake. McTavish took a breath and released the air in a slow hiss.

  “Now why does that sound so familiar?” His slanted brows perked up a bit and wrinkled his forehead in a way that spoke to a love of the sun.

  “I don’t know, why?”

  “You know why, Mrs. Clark.” The title was used almost disdainfully. As if she had tricked him somehow.

  Sidonie smiled and lifted her glass. “It’s not. Uh, Mrs. that is.”

  “Really?” His brown eyes were so dark that they glinted a wicked shade of black in the dim light.

  “Yeah.” He rubbed his chin before he tossed back the shot and motioned for her to follow suit.

  She did and shivered at the hot burn that wicked from her throat to her belly.

  He leaned over and was back in her personal space and it was worse than before. Sidonie backed up cautiously and he followed suit, closer and closer. Until she felt the cool metal of the jukebox brace her spine and there was nowhere else to go.

  “Your place or mine?” he asked.

  Sidonie licked her lower lip and realized she had lost whatever remained of her lipstick when she tasted nothing but skin.

  “Thanks for that.”

  “What?”

  “Getting rid of that lipstick. Saves me the trouble of doing it for myself.”

  Sidonie’s breath hitched and her knees were weak.

  McTavish grabbed her by the hand and tugged her weak spine away from the unforgiving machine.

  “I’m off the table. You can have it,” he said to Patrick, who only raised a brow and scooped the quarters up.

  She was behind McTavish and she couldn’t see much, but with the view the back side of him offered, there wasn’t anything else worth looking at.

  When she looked around, she realized he had brought her outside, where the music was muted and she could hear every breath either of them took.

  And there were far too many.

  She panted and his nostrils flared.

  “I brought you out here since you have a tendency to drift off.” He grinned. “You don’t get to deflect this time, so I’ll ask you again and I expect an answer. Even if it’s to tell me to go to hell.” McTavish gripped her around the waist with both hands and pulled her hips into his. “Your. Place. Or. Mine?” Each word carried the weight of an anvil, he spoke so deliberately.

  “Uh…”

  “You want me to decide for you, Ms. Clark?”

  The minute she spoke, he undulated his hips into hers and she couldn’t help mimicking his movement.

  “What if I don’t want to go anywhere with you?” She knew the statement sounded coy, but he was so aggressive that she wanted to knock him down a peg or two.

  “I would believe that, except for one thing.”

  “What?”

  “You wouldn’t have bothered correcting me, if you hadn’t already imagined me in your bed.”

  “I’ve never—”

  He cut her clean off at the pass. “First time for everything.”

  She nodded. He had control over everything and she would make at least one choice in all of this. “Mine.” It was clean at least. Not to mention, she hadn’t broken in her new bed, in well… ever. She may as well get a notch on her bedpost as she assumed McTavish had quite a few on his. “I need another drink.”

  She backed up, only this time she was cornered by a shrubbery.

  “I like my women sober enough to say yes and mean it.” He cocked an eyebrow.

  “It would take a hell of a lot more than two drinks and a beer to put me under the table.”

  He seemed to be amused slightly by her statement. “Well, you don’t seem so steady on your feet right about now.”

  “That’s your fault.” She snapped back and regretted the statement immediately as he grinned.

  “My fault, huh? If this is all it takes to get you hot and bothered, I am going to have a good time with you tonight.”

  She hoped so, because she was so rusty the only knowledge that she felt sure of was that tab A went into slot B.

  “Did you leave your bar tab open?”

  “Uh, no. I have my card.”

  “Then let’s go.” He pulled his keys from the back pocket.

  “But we just got here!” Sidonie sidled away from him and tried to make sense of the lust that camouflaged her good sense.

  “I got what I came for.” He looked at her expectantly, as if he dared her to say she needed something more from tonight.

  But he was right. She was about to get what she came for, and then some.

  Goodness.

  “Uh, I rode with someone.”

  “And? I drove someone.”

  “Shouldn’t we…” She had little desire to ride back in the packed vehicle she had arrived in, but it seemed wrong as heck to ditch her friends for a night with a stud.

  “You’re not going to make this an easy getaway, are you?”

  “You’re not making any of this easy, either.”

  He wouldn’t let her go, and her girlfriends tittered as she made her excuses.

  “Call me.” Mimi winked.

  Patrick didn’t seem surprised when McTavish asked him to drop Theo off. “Hey, Patrick?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Drop Theo’s drunk ass off, will ya?”

  “Sure,” Patrick said, but his expression said a hell of a lot more.

  When she stepped up into the heavy duty truck cab, McTavish asked her, “Where to?”

  She gave him her address. In all honesty, she didn’t recall any of the trip.

  McTavish leaned over and kissed the corner of her mouth before he pulled the seat belt across her chest. The motion brushed over her swollen breasts and her nipples jabbed into the stiff padding of her bra.

  When they parked, she looked up and realized one crucial fact.

  She didn’t have any damn condoms.

  “Uh…” She looked over at McTavish and when he removed his keys from the ignition, she lost her train of thought.

  “Uh, what?” he bit out and she could hear his impatience.

  Even that was a turn on.

  It took her a moment to recall her quandary. “I don’t have any condoms. Do you?”

  He shook his head. “Shit. I’ve only got one in my wallet. Won’t be enough. Buckle back up.”

  She shivered from the thought. He planned on needing more than one?

  In her experience, little that it was, she was accustomed to Charles rolling over and falling asleep when their first and only session was over and done with at night.

  Den pulled out of the lot and, a few blocks later, stopped at an all-night convenience store. When he came back with a brown paper bag, he handed it to her. She peeked in curiously. She had never used condoms as she didn’t need them with her ex.

  There were two boxes of three and the black boxes boasted one large print word: Magnum.

  This time, when he parked, they exited the truck and she brought him inside of the elevator and clicked the worn button marked 3.

  She couldn’t even look at him, as she was so hungry that she knew it would show on her face. She unlocked the door with nerveless fingers and brought him inside of her space, the place she decided would do for the next few years, until the twins went to college. Then she would buy a small place that would be enough space for herself and the twins’ visits when they were at home.

  After the d
oor closed behind them, Sidonie looked up at McTavish.

  Even the man’s name was sexy.

  “Would you like a drink or anything to eat?”

  “We can eat when we’re done.” He growled at her.

  The words made her hungry in a way that she had never been before, as if she were starved for sex.

  Maybe she was.

  “Bedroom?” she asked since she doubted it would be his idea of fun trying to hoist a fat chick against the wall in here.

  “Lead on.” She took him by the fingers and they walked back to her bedroom, a place that for so long was only about sleep.

  Never about sex.

  But tonight it would be.

  And it wasn’t like she ever had to see him again.

  Thank goodness she decided to wear something cute instead of her usual serviceable eighteen-hour minimizer bra. And as a bonus, the panties matched, so at least she wouldn’t be caught ugly yet again.

  When she opened her bedroom door, she hoped that he didn’t find the space too feminine. No sooner than they crossed the threshold, he began undressing so quickly that she had only removed her shoes and he was halfway finished.

  The worn T-shirt was over the back of her chaise, and he had already started in on the pants. The denim hung along the perfect V along his hips and Sidonie wanted nothing more than to put her mouth over the trail of springy hair that led south.

  Taste the maleness that he displayed in buffet style fashion. She could start where his broad shoulders met his neck and work her way down.

  “If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I won’t be responsible for happens next.”

  Sidonie felt wicked and bit her lip as she allowed her eyes to roam the expanse even more hungrily than before.

  “If you want to keep that skimpy dress, take it off.”

  Sidonie tried to reach the tab, but she couldn’t maneuver it into easy removal.

  He stopped the slick slide of the jeans and padded barefoot over to her.

  “Turn around,” he grumbled.

  “You don’t have to sound so happy about it.” She shook her head.

  “I’d be a hell of a lot happier with less clothes between us.” He twirled his finger once and she took that to mean he wanted her to turn around.

  She did and he unzipped the dress with little fanfare and before she knew it, his hands smoothed over her shoulders until she was bared entirely. It was almost embarrassing, that she had so little experience with sex.