* * * * *
He’d planned to spend most of Sunday lying around watching football and drinking beer. Instead, he spent it brooding and staring out the window as he tried to resist the temptation to go over to Lori’s.
Whether it was to apologize or kiss her again, he didn’t know. He could still taste her. Silk and spices. That was what kissing her made him think of. She looked too sweet and golden to taste that exotic. She tasted dark. She tasted hot. And she’d been hot, arching against him in a way that had him ready to strip her naked and fuck her blind.
She hadn’t left, but she hadn’t ever gotten up and danced. And it wasn’t for lack of being asked. Lori had sat there for nearly two hours drinking rum and cola, then switching to water.
When she had left, he had followed her outside and watched her climb into her car. He had watched her drive away and felt hollow inside.
He still felt hollow inside.
Didn’t change the fact that he didn’t want her at Exposè.
If she kept going there she was going to end up getting exactly what she thought she was looking for. Mike didn’t really care to see her with one of the guys from Exposè. Mike knew that Lori didn’t belong there.
He just had to convince her of that.
When the phone rang close to five p.m., Mike glanced at the number out of habit and almost didn’t pick up. It was his partner, Alexander O’Malley, but it was their weekend off. No reason to pick up and he didn’t feel very social.
Finally on the eighth ring, he did pick up, grunting an unintelligible greeting into the mouthpiece.
“You sound like you’ve had one hell of a weekend. Heard you were at Exposè. Have any fun last night?”
“Wasn’t there looking for fun. Just wanted a drink,” Mike replied curtly. And even if he had been looking for fun, he wouldn’t have found it. Lately, Lori was the only woman he wanted and he’d be damned if he went down that road. “What do you want?”
“You sound like you’re in a shitty mood.”
“I am. What do you want?”
Alex laughed. “Hell, you’re being such an ass, I don’t know if I want to tell you.”
“Fine. Don’t.” Mike started to hang up the phone and Alex muttered, “Hell, you really are in a shitty mood. I was going to bring a friend over but you’d probably scare her off in this mood.”
A friend. Mike knew the translation of that, but for once, he really wasn’t interested. What he was interested in was off-limits. “Don’t bother. My mood is toxic today.”
Alex snorted and said, “Yeah, I noticed.” He hung up and Mike hit the disconnect button before tossing the phone over his shoulder. It landed somewhere in the vicinity of the couch.
A few yards away, he saw Lori’s back door open. She came out wearing a pair of white shorts and a black halter top. As she carried a garbage bag over to the garage, he was treated to a view of her slender, tanned back. Her skin had always looked so incredibly soft.
Now he knew it was even softer than it looked and the memories of it taunted him. It was one of the reasons he hadn’t gotten more than an hour or two of sleep last night.
She moved around the backyard for a few minutes after she’d pitched the garbage bag. She knelt down by the flowerbeds, plucked a few weeds, moved over to another flowerbed and bent over to straighten one of the fairy statues. Mike’s eyes were drawn to the taut curve of her butt as she bent over and his cock, already hard and aching, started to throb as he imagined stripping away those neat white shorts and pushing inside her. Her pussy first, teasing her closer and closer to climax. When she was begging and pleading, he’d lube up the tight glove of her ass and take her there.
Over and over, until she was too hoarse and limp to even moan his name.
“Shit,” he muttered, turning away from the window and stomping across the floor.
Just go over there. It was such a tempting thought. If last night was any indication, then he had a feeling he could have her naked and under him, or kneeling in front of him…bent over the back of her couch…the images circled through his mind, one after the other, teasing him. Five minutes. He could get her naked and be inside her in five minutes.
He had wanted just that for years, ever since the cute blonde had moved in next door. He hadn’t ever pursued though. Mike had taken one look into her summery blue eyes and known she wasn’t the kind for one night stands and he wasn’t interested in anything longer.
Then they’d become friends and it had been a little easier to not think about seeing her naked. And it had taken just one touch to totally ruin that. Mike wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to think of Lori in a purely “just friends” light again.
“You shouldn’t have touched her,” he muttered, swinging away from the window. He prowled the room, alternating between cursing himself and cursing Lori for showing up at Exposé and messing things up.
Hell. He didn’t know if he could keep his hands off her. He wanted her too damn much and if she wasn’t one of his best friends, there wouldn’t be a problem.
He didn’t fuck his friends and he didn’t fuck women who didn’t know the game.
He stomped over to the window just in time to see her straightening from the flowerbeds, stretching her arms overhead and arching her back. Her breasts lifted with the movement and her top rode up, baring the smooth, tanned expanse of her belly.
“That’s it,” he muttered, stalking through the house. Lori was a big girl, right? She had gone to Exposè for a reason and who in the hell was he to tell her she shouldn’t? And why in the hell shouldn’t he be the one to give her what she wanted? He wasn’t some stranger. He was the guy who had wanted her for years. And he’d be careful.
Mike knew how to be careful. Just because he usually didn’t like to mess with being careful didn’t mean he couldn’t. He would be careful with Lori. He wouldn’t take more than she was willing to give and he wouldn’t push her any farther than she was ready to go.
When it was over, it was over. Both of them could walk away without regrets.
Right?
It was faulty reasoning. When his cock wasn’t hurting like a bad tooth, he knew he’d find all sorts of reasons why he’d have regrets, but right now, he couldn’t think of one.
All he could think was how damn bad he wanted her. The jerk-off boyfriend was out of the picture and Lori had melted under his hands. That was all he needed right now.
Throwing open the front door, he got outside just in time to see her climb into her car and shut the door. By the time she was halfway down the street, Mike had stomped back inside, swearing under his breath.
Chapter Four
Friday came and went without Lori showing her pretty blonde head at Exposè. Mike knew, because he spent the entire damn evening watching the door. By the time last call rolled around, he had convinced himself that Lori had listened to him the past weekend and decided this wasn’t the place for her.
Either that, or he’d scared her off.
Didn’t matter, as long as she stayed away.
Despite the fact that he had been this far away from trying to seduce her out of her clothes, Mike knew how bad an idea that would be. People needed to stay in the element they were best suited to. Lori wasn’t suited for this.
And this was where Mike was comfortable.
He left the club, telling himself that tomorrow night he’d come back and get laid. That was what he needed to do, but his lack of interest in doing just that was part of the problem. He needed to get his mind off Lori, stop thinking with his cock.
* * * * *
Nearly twenty-four hours later, Mike sat brooding over a half-empty tumbler of whiskey, watching as Trask led Lori out onto the dance floor.
Stop thinking of her! Yeah, sure. That was proving a hell of a lot more difficult than he’d expected.
Trask was one of the few regulars who didn’t mind going out on the dance floor. Most of the men stood by on the sidelines, watching the ladies. They weren’t there to dan
ce.
Those who didn’t mind the dancing used it like it was some part of a mating ritual. Mike figured that was all dancing really was. He’d done the same thing himself and hadn’t ever thought twice about it.
At least until he saw Trask dancing with Lori.
Tossing back the rest of his whiskey, Mike pushed his way through the crowd on the dance floor. The song ended before he reached them and another one started up, this one faster, with a hard, driving beat. Trask lowered his head, murmured into Lori’s ear but she shook her head, backing away. Her face was flushed. From dancing? Or from whatever Trask had said to her?
She left the dance floor and Trask turned around, coming up short when he saw Mike. A wide grin lit his face and he arched a brow. Gold flashed as the hoop in his brow caught the light. “Hi, Mike.”
Mike raised his voice, shouting over the music and leaning in closer to Trask. “I see her leave this dance floor with you, you’re going to need a doctor.”
Trask shrugged. “Don’t worry. She’s not interested.”
Mike watched as the other man lost himself in the crowd and then he turned, searching for Lori’s blonde head. He caught a glimpse of her moving through the outer fringe of the crowd. Keeping that blonde head in sight, Mike started toward her.
She disappeared into the women’s restroom and Mike propped his back against the wall opposite the door.
The women’s lounge was loud and crowded, just like it had been every other time Lori had been in there.
The bathroom was done in black, white and red with huge art deco prints on the walls and glossy black vases filled with fresh blood-red roses and sprays of baby’s breath.
Lori sat on one of the long black lounges with her legs drawn up, staring at nothing.
Trask had asked her to go for a walk with him. A walk out to the maze.
Lori had declined easily.
She wasn’t disappointed in what she’d found at Exposé, but she still hadn’t exactly found what she was looking for either. She just wasn’t interested in visiting the maze, walking by all those little alcoves with any of the men she’d met here. They just didn’t interest her much.
What about Mike…
Mike… He was a different story altogether, and not one she wanted to think about right now. She pushed thoughts of him out of her head.
Thinking about him lately just made her itchy. She remembered the way he had kissed her when they were in the maze the first time she’d been here, the way he’d touched her the second time he’d seen her here. She remembered that confident, certain way he’d told her she didn’t belong here. She remembered how his mouth tasted, how it felt on hers. She remembered the way he touched her, knowing they were being watched, doing it just to prove a point.
All in all, those thoughts worked to make her hotter than hell, and madder than hell.
Jerk.
Sexy, mouthwatering jerk, but jerk nonetheless.
For the past week, they had been ignoring each other and as far as Lori was concerned, they could keep ignoring each other. At least until he figured out she didn’t need a babysitter.
Maybe it had been the good Samaritan in him that had tried to warn her away. She didn’t know. Tried to tell herself she didn’t really care.
Except she did. She wanted to feel more of his hands on her body. Wanted to kiss him again, wanted to snuggle up close against him and just lean on him, feeling his warmth and his strength. And she missed her friend. She missed leaning against the fence talking with him and she missed catching a movie with him every now and then. She just plain missed him.
“I need to just go home.” Lori was too morose to enjoy the club and until she could stop thinking about Mike so much, she was wasting her time there.
With a sigh, she shoved to her feet and headed for the door, sidestepping the two women in front of her who were locked in a tight clinch. Modesty and privacy weren’t big issues at Exposè, Lori had figured that out, but she couldn’t see getting that hot and heavy in a public restroom. Even one as nicely kept as this one.
All in all, Lori decided that so far her quest for a little more excitement in her life had been a total waste of time. She hadn’t found any excitement, and worse, she hadn’t found anybody she really wanted to ah…get excited with. Other than Mike.
Out of the blue, Grace’s words came back to haunt her. You’ll know…
When they’d been talking in the sauna a few weeks ago, Grace had told her that she’d know when she met the right kind of guy.
Her gut clenched and Lori blew out a breath. The right guy.
Hell. If she was going by the way her body reacted to Mike, then she’d met the right guy years ago.
He was just determined to protect her from everybody. Including himself.
As she opened the door, she was already digging into the small purse at her side for her keys. It wasn’t until she plowed into Mike’s chest that she even realized he had been standing there.
Waiting for her, apparently.
“Wow. Do I get another lecture?” she said sardonically as she extracted herself from his hands.
“I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Not tonight.”
As Lori started to walk away, his hand came up and gripped her arm. “Lori…”
She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him. Carefully enunciating each word, she repeated, “Not tonight. I am tired. I am irritable. I want to be alone.”
His eyes narrowed, his mouth tightened, but then he nodded and stepped back, his hand falling away.
Lori turned her back to him and walked out.
* * * * *
When she opened her front door, the last thing she expected to see was Mike and she almost slammed the door in his face just so she wouldn’t have to talk to him. She was getting damn tired of his unwanted opinions. However, too many years of being nice kept her from being that rude.
Lori arched a brow as she faced him. “Oh, goodie. Are you here to fuss at me again?”
Mike didn’t say a word as he closed the distance between them, moving so close that the tips of his booted feet nudged her bare toes. So close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. “I’m coming inside. We’re going to have a talk.”
Lori snorted. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m a big girl and I can do what I want. And there’s nothing you can do about that, Mike. Go away.”
She reached out to close the door but he caught it with one hand. With the other, he reached out and jerked her against him, pressing her close. So close, she could feel the long, hard lines of his body against hers. “I said, we’re going to have a talk. You want to do it here?” he murmured. He slid a hand down her back and cupped her hip. Holding her still, he rocked his cock against her, sending a series of hot, shivery little thrills racing through her.
“I don’t mind an audience. But what about you?” He nuzzled her neck and raked his teeth across the sensitive skin.
“Damn it, Mike.” She shoved against his shoulders but he just held her closer. “Fine! Come in.”
But if she’d been expecting him to let her go, she’d been hoping for too much. She figured that out real quick as he simply slid his arm around her waist and straightened, lifting her feet off the ground. He stepped inside and kicked the door shut behind him, all without removing his mouth from her neck.
A shaky sigh escaped her as he nuzzled her neck right where it joined her shoulder. “I know what this is about, Lori. You’re going to Exposè because you’re curious. You’re not the first to do that and you won’t be the last. Hell, I went because I was curious. I’ve been doing this quite a while and I can tell you one thing for sure, curious people go there all the time, but they don’t usually stay long.”
He licked her neck then bit down lightly, just grazing the surface of her skin with his teeth. Lori couldn’t stop from melting against him and honestly, she didn’t want to. His touch was…sheer heaven.
She had to admit that, even i
f she was irritated as hell with him. “Then what’s the big deal? Why does it matter to you so much? Every time you’ve seen me there, you look ready to spit nails.”
Mike chuckled. Lori could feel the vibration of it against her breasts and her nipples started to throb in reaction. Damn it, even his laugh turned her on. How had he gone from best friend to wet dream material?
“It’s a big deal because I don’t want to see you getting hurt. I don’t want to see you get in over your head.” He pulled away, reaching up to cup her cheek in his palm. He rubbed his thumb over her lower lip and Lori felt her heart melt. There was something gentle, almost sweet about the unconscious caress.
But the misty feeling started to evaporate as he continued to speak. “There are guys in the club who’ll pull you into their lifestyle, Lori, and some of them have very twisted ideas of pleasure. Even I’ll admit that. You get pulled too far in, you may have a hard time finding your way back. I don’t want to see that happen to you.”
“I’m not going to do anything I don’t want to do, Mike.”
His gaze lifted until they were staring each other in the eye. Sliding his hand down from her face, he cupped his palm around her neck so he could draw her closer. “That’s the whole thing, Lori. You will want to do it. Maybe not right away and you might regret it later on, but that doesn’t undo what you’ve already done.”
Her irritation was almost as effective as a bucket of cold water. She arched her back, craning her neck away from him and squirming. “Put me down, damn it.” This time he actually did, and she wiggled out from between him and the wall. “I’m capable of thinking for myself, Mike. I’m a big girl and I’m getting damn tired of men who think they know what I want better than I do. I’m tired of men thinking that they know what’s best for me. I put up with it from Dirk and that was a big-ass mistake. I am not going to put up with it from you.”
Mike’s eyes narrowed and he stared at her with an icy expression on his face. “Don’t you dare compare me to that bastard. I’m just worried…”
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