by Ivy Layne
"Thanks." At the sight of her cheeks flushed with pleasure, I stood, picking up our empty beers as I strode to the kitchen. I needed a little space before I did something I was going to regret. Slow, I reminded myself. You're taking it slow.
"Do you want another beer?" I asked over my shoulder.
Emily rose and followed me to the kitchen, saying, “Sure."
I was relieved to see that Holden and Jo were not having sex on the island, but at some point, they had stopped making out and were cooking dinner together. Good. Not only was I hungry, but I needed a distraction from Emily, from her sweet scent and her pink cheeks. From the full lips I needed to kiss. From every inch of that curvy, luscious body. When was the last time I wanted a woman this much and had only touched her elbow? I was completely out of my depth with Emily. Everything about her was complicated and difficult. I never stopped to ask myself if she'd be worth it. I already knew she was.
Dinner was good. Pasta with seafood, and Jo had made bruschetta that was delicious. I barely tasted it, more interested in watching Emily interact with the rest of us. She was initially quiet, but as she got comfortable with the rhythm of the conversation, she joined in. I was pretty sure she was enjoying herself. Jo and Holden were almost nauseatingly adorable, teasing each other, holding hands under the table, and generally acting like a couple newly in love.
Emily had a third beer with dinner, choosing not to try the wine she’d brought, saying that she had the taste of beer in her mouth and switching would be weird. I don't know why I found that cute, but I did. Jo got up to clear our plates, and Emily joined her. I caught her saying something about the bathroom and knew this was my chance. She hadn't had enough to drink to be drunk, or even tipsy, but she was relaxed and as comfortable as I'd ever seen her. If I was going to make a move, now was the time.
I was waiting for her at the end of the hall when she came out of the bathroom, just out of sight of Holden and Jo in the kitchen. Her face when she saw me waiting was priceless. Nerves, confusion, and excitement all swirled through her eyes, and I watched her trying to decide what to do. I didn't give her a choice, catching her by the arm and pulling her to me, turning her back to the wall. She was taller than average, but I was still bigger.
How to trap someone without making them feel trapped? That was the challenge. If I waited for Emily to come to me, I'd be an old man, still wanting her. It was in my nature to take charge, but I didn't need Jo's warning to know that if I was too aggressive, I was going to scare her off.
She looked up at me and said, "Tate?"
I didn't answer, not with words. Slowly, giving her plenty of time to push me away, I dropped my head. Triumph surged through me when, instead of ducking to the side, she raised her lips to mine.
I brushed my mouth across hers in a kiss so light it almost wasn't, before I went back a second time, lingering. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she let out a soft puff of breath. I skimmed my lips across her eyelids, her forehead, and each rounded cheekbone before they landed back on hers.
This time, I kissed her a little harder, opening her lips with my tongue. She gasped, her body melting into mine, and I wondered for a second if she'd ever been kissed before. There was something untouched about Emily. She was so unpracticed, every response genuine and unstudied. I dipped my tongue in her mouth again, rubbing it against hers, coaxing her open to me. Needing more, I wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her to me, burying my fingers in her hair, and tilting her face to mine.
At the hesitant brush of her tongue, I thought I was going to lose it. It took everything I had to keep the kiss from spinning out of control. My cock was a steel bar. I wanted to pick her up and pin her to the wall, to grind myself against her and make her come through her jeans. I wanted to carry her out of Holden's place and across the hall to mine, to lay her across my bed and strip her naked and fuck her until she screamed.
I rubbed my tongue against hers, trying to keep my hands gentle. This was supposed to be a seduction. If I showed her what I really wanted, I would scare the hell out of her. Later. There would be time for that later as long as I didn't fuck it up now.
I had two choices—I could stop the kiss, or I could find a way to dial it back before it spun out of control. I wasn't ready to end my first taste of Emily, so I dropped the arm I'd wrapped around her back and raised my hand to cup her chin, holding her face in my hands. My gut clenched when she raised her hands to my waist, keeping me where I was—not pulling me against her, but holding me close. If it was a victory, I’d take it.
I kissed her and kissed her, my mouth feasting on hers, tasting her, absorbing every breath, every whimper, every quiet moan, until we heard a voice say, "Emily?"
Then, "Jo, shut up."
“Holden.” A giggle and what sounded like a smack.
I raised my head and stared down at Emily, feeling almost as dizzy and disoriented as she looked. Her eyes were wide, her pupils huge, her lips kiss-swollen and red. Pressing my advantage, I whispered, “Have dinner with me. Don't say no, Emily."
"Yes," she said in a dazed voice.
"Tomorrow."
"Okay, tomorrow," she agreed.
I went back for one more quick kiss before I said, “You won't regret it. I promise."
I hoped I was telling her the truth.
Chapter Six
Emily
At six o’clock Monday night, I opened the door of my apartment to see Tate leaning against the door frame, wearing jeans and an un-tucked blue button-down a few shades lighter than his eyes, his dark hair falling over his forehead. At the sight of him, my knees literally went weak. What was I doing? I didn't date. I've never had a boyfriend, and the night before had been my first real kiss. Now, I was going out to dinner with Tate Winters? It was insane.
Okay, I’d been kissed before. Hasty, fumbling attempts by boys as nervous as I was. Mostly, they were short, sloppy, and not repeated. Nothing like kissing Tate. That had been . . . I didn't have words. When I thought about that kiss, I saw starbursts of color and felt how hard my heart had pounded and the way my body had softened and melted into his. I wanted to be as close to him as I could, needing his hands on my skin.
He was going to expect more. I wasn't completely naïve, even though I was innocent, at least in terms of real-life experience. Men like Tate Winters did not go on platonic dates, and that kiss was a clear indication that platonic was not what he had in mind. To say I was nervous would be an understatement. I was terrified, though it was refreshing that, for the first time in memory, I wasn't afraid of having a panic attack. These nerves were different. I wasn’t anxious. I was a brand new combination of anticipation, excitement, and the fear that I was going to make a total fool of myself.
It was too late to back out, not that I was going to. I opened my door to Tate, and he held out his hand for mine, saying, "Are you ready?"
I was not. I was not even remotely ready to go on a date with Tate Winters, but I wasn't going to admit it.
I grabbed my purse and keys off the table beside the door and took his hand. "I'm ready," I lied.
At least I looked good. In a role reversal, Jo had helped me get dressed. She correctly assumed that I was going to wimp out and wear something conservative. When I picked a pretty but demure cream-colored, cap-sleeved sweater, she'd snatched it out of my hands and handed me a hot pink, V-neck, slinky top with three-quarter sleeves and a high low hem. The shirt was made of a silk/modal blend that was soft and clingy.
It was way too sexy, especially when she handed me a push-up bra in the same hot pink. Why did I buy underwear like this when no one ever saw it? Maybe because I secretly hoped that one day I'd be going on a date with a guy who would deserve sexy underwear. Now that the day was here, I was sorely tempted to dive under the covers of my bed and ignore it. If I tried to look too sexy, was I sending the wrong message?
I liked Tate. Understatement. I really liked Tate. He was smart. He was unbelievably attractive. Just kissing him had been better t
han my hottest fantasies of sex, and he hadn't even touched me beneath my clothes. But I wasn't ready to have sex with him. I’d looked at the top and skirt Jo was holding and shook my head in indecision.
"Em, honey, you can't wear jeans and a T-shirt for your date. It's not you."
"That cream sweater is me," I protested.
"Not for a date, it's not," Jo said. "You bought this." She held up the pink top and the pink push-up bra in one hand, and the long, Navy, stretchy skirt in the other.
"I know . . ."
"Honey," she said gently, "you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You just need to be yourself. And you know you don't want to wear job interview clothes on a date. You know you don't."
I took the clothes from Jo and put them on. She was right. She usually was. I didn't want to wear frumpy clothes to go out with Tate, and I wouldn't have said yes if I didn't trust him on some level.
So here I was, holding his hand and walking down the hallway of my apartment building, wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. He seemed to know how nervous I was, because he kept up a steady stream of conversation, telling me about his day and asking me about mine, until I relaxed. At least, until we pulled up in front of his building.
"I thought we were going out to dinner,” I said.
"We are," he said. "And no, I'm not taking you to my place. Not exactly."
He pulled his car into the parking garage behind the building, coming around to open my door after he'd stopped the car. He reached down and took my hand to help me out, then leaned down and pressed a kiss to my lips before stepping back and saying, “You look beautiful."
"Thanks, so do you," I said, then squeezed my eyes shut. He did look beautiful, but you weren't supposed to call a man beautiful. I waited for him to laugh at me.
He said, “Thank you,” without a hint of amusement in his voice. Something inside me relaxed just a little.
I followed him into the elevator, wondering where we were going. When we stopped on the fourth floor, the door slid open to reveal a lobby, the letters WGC on the wall.
"We’re eating here?" I asked. " Really?"
"I said I'd show you around if you agreed to have dinner with me, and I always keep my promises."
"Really?" I asked again, speechless with excitement. "Are you going to show me what you've been working on?"
"Some of it," Tate said. "But you have to sign an NDA first. Not very romantic, sorry, but there’s stuff I can't show you without it. Unless you don't want to see . . ."
"I figured I'd have to sign a nondisclosure if I could get you to show me anything. I'll sign, absolutely. I can keep my mouth shut."
Tate led me through the doors and into the silent office. The lights were dim or off in most of the workstations.
"There are usually a few people working after hours," he said. "But tonight, I told them all to get out and go home. If anyone shows up, they're fired."
I laughed. "You didn’t.”
Tate looked down at me, his blue eyes both amused and serious. "I did. I knew you wanted to see the company, and I didn't think you'd want a crowd. Besides, I want you all to myself."
He led me through the open part of the office, past conference rooms with glass walls and whiteboards, all the way to the back. Two offices with glass walls faced out, overlooking the rest of the company. These must be Holden and Tate’s. One was dark. In the other, low lights illuminated a huge glass and metal desk facing six enormous monitors on which I could see a screensaver of WGC’s flagship game, Syndrome. A wicker picnic basket sat in front of the monitors, oddly old-fashioned on the ultra-modern desk. The lid of the basket was half-open, the neck of a bottle of wine poking out. A picnic? He was going to show me their top-secret project, and he brought a picnic? He was good.
"What do you want to do first?" Tate asked. “Eat dinner, or take a look at what we've been working on?"
There was no contest. Rumors had been swirling through the gaming community for the last six months about WGC's top-secret new project. Consensus was that it had to do with the new physics engine, but nobody knew for sure, and WGC's employees were notoriously tightlipped about company business. I was dying to see what they were doing, and an empty stomach was no diversion.
"We can eat later," I said, practically vibrating with excitement. It said a lot about what a geek I was that, temporarily, I was more hyped up about seeing the secret project that I was about being so close to Tate.
Tate curved his hand around my shoulder, the heat of his skin burning through my thin silk top, and just like that, the butterflies in my stomach were all about Tate.
"Take a seat," he said. "I'll be right back."
I was just settling into the plush high-backed leather chair at his desk when he returned with a sheaf of papers in one hand, pushing another wheeled leather chair in front of him. He set the papers on the desk in front of me, along with a pen. I was glad I was a fast reader. Otherwise, I probably would have signed the nondisclosure agreement without looking at it. It was fairly standard, and this wasn't the first time I'd had to sign an NDA. The year before, I’d worked on a project that had required a high level of secrecy. I knew how to keep my mouth shut. I finished scanning the document, then signed and dated it with a flourish, almost bouncing in my seat in anticipation.
When Tate rolled his seat beside mine and leaned into me, sliding one arm around my shoulders, I thought the top of my head was going to blow off. My heart pounded and my body tuned in to Tate, my brain torn between interest in his project and its fascination with the man himself.
Tate took the mouse, woke up the computer, and opened a game simulator program. "This should give you an idea of what we've been working on," he said.
"Is this the sequel to Syndrome?" I asked. Syndrome had been a first-person shooter about the aftereffects of a viral infection in a post-apocalyptic version of the United States. Its combination of heart pounding action and intricate problem-solving had made it an instant hit. The graphics on the screen looked like those from the original game, but they were far more finely rendered. As the wind blew a piece of crumpled paper down the deserted street on the computer screen, I had a hard time convincing myself that what I saw was a game and not a video recording. Tate nudged the mouse in my direction, and I started to play, my eyes wide, captivated by the level of detail in the game environment as it reacted to my character. After a few minutes, I tore my eyes from the screen and looked at Tate.
"What kind of processor does it take to run this?" I asked. "There's so much going on, so many small details."
"It needs a little more than the current standard," Tate admitted, "but not as much as you'd think. We found a way to disguise the redundancies so it looks like everything around you is responding to your character, even the things you can't see, but underneath, there’s less going on.”
My brain raced to figure out how they had done it. Unable to resist, I turned my attention back to the game and was quickly sucked in when a group of mutant zombies—the introductory enemy from the original game—attacked me. I wasn't ready for it, too distracted by the game environment to think about battle tactics, but I'd been gaming since I was a kid, and before I'd taken too many hits, I figured out the basic mechanics and was on my way to defeating the mutant zombies.
"Yes! That's right, bitches!" I shouted, rocking back in my chair as the last zombie fell to my roundhouse punch.
"Nice job," Tate said from beside me. I jolted upright, instantly flushing bright red. I was on my first date in a million years, with the most beautiful, sexy man I'd ever laid eyes on, and I’d just exposed what an enormous a geek I truly was. I was tempted to drop my head to the desk, but that would only have made it worse.
Tate must not have minded, because instead of laughing at me, he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me. At the touch of his lips, I completely forgot about the game, the physics engine . . . anything that wasn't Tate.
His mouth took mine with leashed possession,
claiming me with his kiss but holding back. His hands stayed on my face, his lips and his tongue exploring my mouth, the only place he touched me, but my body responded as if we were naked, skin to skin.
My breasts swelled and my nipples tightened. I shifted in my seat as he shifted between my legs, my body ready for more even as my brain struggled to keep up.
I leaned into him, reaching for him, not sure what I planned to do with my hands but wanting to touch. Before I could figure it out, Tate broke the kiss, his fingers trailing along my jaw and down my neck.
I stared at him, mesmerized by the heat in his deep blue eyes. "Sorry," he said. "I couldn't help it. You were too cute."
I flushed and looked away, a little embarrassed and a lot giddy. Without thinking, I said, “We probably shouldn't play together then. We’d get distracted too easily."
"I'm good with getting distracted, if that's how we do it," Tate said.
"Me too," I whispered.
Chapter Seven
Emily
"Do you want to eat dinner?" Tate asked. Checking the clock on the computer, I realized I'd been playing the game longer than I thought. It was a common hazard with gaming. You could login planning to play for only a few minutes, then find that hours had disappeared into the virtual world.
I wasn't sure what I wanted. I wanted to keep kissing Tate. I wanted to play more of the game. And my growling stomach piped up to remind me that I also wanted something to eat. More kissing was the clear winner, but I didn't think I was ready to handle where that was leading, so I said, “Dinner sounds good."
I helped Tate unpack the picnic basket. At my raised eyebrow when I saw he'd chosen the wine I bought when I wanted a splurge, he said, "I cheated and asked Jo." After the wine, he pulled out box after box of sushi, each one marked with the familiar logo of my favorite restaurant. I didn't have to look in the boxes to know they would be all my favorite rolls. So far, Tate was stacking up to be the perfect guy, thoughtful, patient, and an amazing kisser, not to mention crazy smart, and a game developer. If I tried to hand design Prince Charming, I wouldn't have done this well. As long as I could forget that he was also a Winters, and everything that went along with it, I might find myself really falling for him.
