by Penny Wylder
I hug her before I leave. Even though she’s dressed to kill and has an amazing body, and I’m still turned on from my time with Cadie, I have no desire to do more than just hug Emily.
I get home and toss my keys on the table, then go straight to the shower. While hot water streams down my back, I lean my forehead against the tile wall, close my eyes and think about Cadie. Wrapping my hand around my hard cock, I start to stroke myself. I picture her sitting in my truck, her legs spread, pink and glistening. I can smell her sweet, vanilla scent, and taste her on my lips. I’m beating off at a fevered pace now, imagining her hands in my hair, her nails digging into my scalp as she came. The way her entire body sighed as she came down, the sound of utter satisfaction.
I blow my load, and let out an almost painful growl. I’ve been holding that in way too long. Even when I’m done, she still remains in my head. Even later that night, when I’m trying to get to sleep at a decent hour so I’m not exhausted for my early morning, she manages to creep into my thoughts.
“This isn’t good,” I tell myself and put my pillow over my face.
8
Cadie
Gina comes over for dinner. It’s late, but we’re both night owls. I’m making my famous chicken Alfredo, her favorite. She sits on my couch, curling her feet under her. Hercules doesn’t allow anyone on the couch without a cuddle, so he sits next to her and lays his head on her lap. She opens a bottle of wine, pours herself a glass and offers me one. I decline. After those embarrassing texts to Ram, I may never drink again.
“How are things with Evan?” Gina asks.
Dishing pasta onto our plates, I look up at her, surprised for a moment. I haven’t thought about him, not one single time since being with Ram on the beach. Normally his hateful face will pop up in my head at least once an hour. I picture his head on a pike in the middle of town, him getting some nasty STD that causes his dick to fall off, his new girlfriend leaving him penniless and desolate to the point where he comes crawling back to me just so I can kick him while he’s down—the usual. But there’s nothing. A blissful span of hours with nothing but memories of my incredible time with Ram on the beach.
“Oh, you know, still a piece of shit as always. His girlfriend is knocked up. About five months or so by the looks of it.”
Gina freaks out. I bring pasta to her and sit in the chair opposite, listening to her rant while I eat. It really is a nice change of pace to have someone else point out all of his flaws for a change.
“Did you call Ram?” she asks.
I stop eating and look down at my plate. Suddenly my stomach is full of butterflies and I can’t take another bite.
“Yeah, actually, I did.”
I tell her about the drunken texts, running into him in front of the studio where he’d been working, and then him going down on me in the parking lot at the beach.
When I’m done she takes a drink of her wine and slowly puts it down as if she were being purposefully slow in order to come up with something to say. By the look on her face, it isn’t good and I have to steel myself for a lecture.
“You’re beaming when you talk about him,” she says.
I shrug. “He’s a good time. I’ve never been able to come before with a guy going down on me. It was almost spiritual,” I joke—well, kind of. It was pretty damn heavenly, that’s for sure.
She wipes her mouth. This takes an obscene amount of time. I frown, waiting for her to get to the point. “I just want you to be careful around him. You’re all starry-eyed, but you know he’s not someone you can ever date, right? I mean, he’s the Bed Shaker. A one-and-done sex machine. You can’t take him seriously.”
“That’s just his reputation. He might be the Bed Shaker, but he’s still a person behind the reputation. You talk about him as if he’s nothing more than a vibrator.”
As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I’m surprised by them. Why the hell am I defending this man—who I don’t know anything about—to Gina, the girl who introduced him to me in the first place?
I know she’s right, of course. I was never under the illusion that he and I could be anything more than fuck buddies. I can’t imagine a man who’s built a reputation such as his, letting all of that go to be with one woman.
“Just look at his Instagram comments, Cadie. Look at the way these women throw themselves at him. Even if you did date someone like that, do you think after the shiny top-coat of a new relationship wore off, he could resist the temptation?”
I take her phone from her and scroll through the comments. It’s worse than porn. These women have no filter and will say anything to get into his pants.
I hand the phone back, feeling deflated. My thoughts are in a tangle and so are my emotions. All of this bullshit with Evan must be making me desperate. There’s no way I would ever want to date someone as pursued as Ram. My self-esteem couldn’t handle that.
“You’re right, I’m so stupid. I swear I won’t fall for him. It was just a good time and an escape from my shitty life.”
Gina sets down her plate of pasta on the coffee table. Bad idea. Hercules sees his opportunity and takes it. His face is in the plate, eating it up. Gina is more concerned with my feelings than food and comes over to sit on the edge of my chair. She runs her fingers through my hair.
“You’re not stupid. You’re a beautiful, perfect, trusting person who tends to fall for the wrong guys. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I lean my head against her and smile. “I know.”
That night, I eat my weight in pasta and garlic bread and try to forget men exist.
9
Ram
The next day I pick up Tim and we head to work. I’m all smiles after my time on the beach with Cadie. He knows something’s up and won’t stop staring at me.
“You’re giddy as a school girl, Ram,” he says with a smile in his voice.
I shrug. “You know how these things go.”
“I’ve never seen you light up like this after being with one of your lady friends. Maybe she’s the one that’ll finally be able to tame you.”
His words startle the smile right off my face. He laughs. “Scared you, did I?”
Well, yeah, he did, actually. Not just his words, but also the fact that I haven’t even thought of a single other woman since that night she invited me over. Just the thought of being near her again brings a knot to my stomach and I forget to breathe. After the time we shared on the beach, I might be addicted. And it’s not just the sex, which is even more concerning. I realize I would be perfectly content just to curl up on the couch and watch TV with her. I’d rather spend a night rubbing her feet than go hook up with some chick and have empty sex.
Jesus, I’m screwed. I want to hate this new me, but that would mean hating the idea of spending all my days and nights with Cadie, and I can’t manage to convince myself that it’s a bad thing.
Tim’s laughter roars in the cab. “You look like a buck stuck in the headlights. Relax, I was just kidding.”
Maybe he was, but I have a terrifying feeling that he might be right.
I pull my truck into the parking lot of the same building where I ran into Cadie. I see her standing next to a car, trying to find something in her purse, and my heart nearly stops. How does she manage to look radiant in stretch pants and an over-sized t-shirt? That’s not fair to other women. No one stands a chance when she’s nearby. I take in an audible breath that doesn’t get passed Tim.
“Better go say hi,” Tim says in that conspiratorial tone of his.
I get out of the truck and follow her, not wanting to call out and embarrass her while there are other people in the parking lot. I don’t know if I’m a secret she wants to keep from from her friends. For some reason that thought bothers me. I don’t want to be her secret.
I slip into the building and stay a few paces behind her. She hasn’t noticed me yet and I don’t want her to. For just a moment I want a private glimpse into her
world without interference. I want to see what this girl is all about.
I realize the building is some kind of studio. We pass rooms with stages and dance floors and mirrors covering the walls. She’s either an actress or some kind of dancer. This intrigues me. She definitely has the body of a dancer, and those long legs …
Come to think of it, she picked up on surfing almost instantly. Her balance was the best I’d seen out of all my students.
She disappears into one of the rooms. It has a stage and a small audience in the stands— it looks like other dancers from the way they’re dressed. I slip inside undetected and slouch down in the back row. The only light in the room comes from a spotlight on the stage, so I’m fairly certain I won’t be caught.
She walks toward a woman in the front row of the stands and talks to her for a moment before setting her things down and taking the stage alone. I sit up straighter and lean forward, resting my fist and chin on the back of the chair in front of me.
Music comes on. It’s a slow, haunting song that gives me chills. Then she starts to dance. She’s all long, extended limbs that stretch and contract, a powerfully built machine. Extraterrestrial. She moves her body in ways that don’t seem humanly possible. She’s grace and strength, a horse charging through a field, a crane barely moving water when it lands. I’m captivated and for a moment, I forget about Tim waiting for me at the jobsite.
Shit, I have to go, but I don’t want to. I could watch her move like that every day of my life and never get bored. The song comes to a smooth end and so does her dance. I slip out of the room.
As I’m walking back out to the truck I hear the light patter of bare feet behind me.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
I know that voice, warm whiskey on a cold day, sultry, sexy. I turn to face Cadie and put my hands in my pockets. “Working.”
“I just saw you slip out of the audition room. You were watching me,” she says, her words clipped with anger.
“You’re beautiful on that stage, and powerful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Her cheeks turn a pretty rose color and she looks at the tile on the floor. “I’m not that good or I would’ve landed a gig by now.”
I frown. How could people not want to watch her dance? How could that creature I saw on the stage not captivate everyone?
“I’d give anything to watch that again,” I say in all honesty.
When she looks up, that angry furl of her brow is still there, and something else—shock, maybe. She strides toward me, and at first she looks pissed, like she might hit me. Her hands reach out. She grabs the sides of my face and puts her lips to mine. As soon as I open my mouth to say something, her tongue slips in and whatever words I was about to say are forgotten. We’re tangled in a passionate kiss and it seems neither of us cares who sees.
Reluctantly, I pull away. Her lips are raw and pink, her eyes drunk with lust. “I have to get back to work. Meet me tonight at my place. I’ll text you the address,” I say.
She looks as reluctant to walk away as I feel, but nods.
I buzz around my house, getting everything just perfect. I set out wine and also water just in case she’s still having flashbacks and doesn’t feel like drinking. I’ve never been the host before. It’s always me going to women’s houses. Mostly so I don’t get stalkers. I rarely even give them more than my first name.
Everything looks to be in place. Why the hell am I so nervous?
The doorbell rings, giving me a start. Taking a deep breath, I open it and my jaw nearly drops. Cadie stands in the doorway wearing a body-hugging mini dress that might appear modest on some women, but Cadie is all legs and so it seems as though there’s a whole lot of skin showing—which there is. I drink her all in and swallow hard.
Speaking of hard … Fuck, why can’t I contain that beast when she’s around? I shift my stance so it’s less noticeable.
“Hi,” I say.
Her smile is as blinding as the sun shining through storm clouds. “Hey.”
“I hope you like pasta.”
She looks confused and I realize with a sudden crushing of my lungs, that she wasn’t here for pasta. She wasn’t considering this a date. This was just supposed to be a hook-up. I wanted to get to know her. She wanted something else.
I recover quickly. “You should eat something. You’ll need your strength.”
She doesn’t look relieved, just less confused. She nods and says, “I love pasta.”
“Dinner on the patio?”
She nods again, and that confused, almost disappointed look doesn’t go away.
I dish out our plates and we head out to the patio. The ocean provides a soothing soundtrack for our meal, and the bioluminescent algae, a brilliant light show. All in my back yard. I love this place. It’s small and quaint and rustic. It was barely a shack when I bought it. Mostly, I bought it for the beachfront property. I got it at a steal and have been building it up for years. Now it’s my sanctuary.
“Your home is amazing,” Cadie says, her eyes lit up as she looks up at the full moon. “I bet it drives the women crazy. It’s very romantic.”
I shrug. “Wouldn’t know. I’ve never had a woman over.”
She looks over at me, a suspicious eyebrow quirked. “Why not?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen the crazy comments on my Instagram. Would you want that following you home?”
Her smile lights up the night and I’m dying to take her in my arms. “Gotcha. Why let me come over then? What if I’m one of those crazies who made the comments?”
“You’re not.”
I don’t tell her that I’ve been watching her account too and would recognize her the second she posted.
She takes a bite of pasta and her eyes practically roll in the back of her head. She lets out a moan that sounds slightly sexual, but probably wasn’t meant to be. I’m sure that’s just where my mind will go any time she moans.
“This is amazing. Did you make this?” she says, pointing down to her plate.
I nod. It’s seafood linguini, a specialty of mine. Living on the ocean has its perks. One of them is the seafood is always fresh.
I smile and watch as she enjoys her meal. My stomach is too tangled in knots to eat. But she looks like she’s starving. I imagine all that dancing builds up an appetite. I like watching her eat. I suspect she could be doing anything right about now and I would enjoy watching it.
The wind pulls dark strands of her hair out of her ponytail and they get trapped in the gloss on her lips. With long, delicate fingers, she tucks it behind her ears. As she enjoys her food, my mind is racing for anything else I can offer her that she might enjoy because it gives me a thrill to bring her any kind of pleasure. Usually the only kind of pleasure I know how to give a woman is sex. This is all new to me. Her happiness is like air to me. I need it. I want her so bad right now. I ache for her.
“You’re staring,” she says.
I blink several times to break the spell she has me under. “Was I? Sorry, I was spacing out.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“You, in that dance studio, on that stage. I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind.”
She looks down, hiding her shy smile. “I didn’t take you for a fan of the arts. You seem a bit rugged for that.”
“I’m not a fan of the arts normally. But you …”
You’re different, you’re not like anyone I’ve ever met and I can’t get you out of my mind, I want to tell her, but I hold my tongue, afraid anything I say might scare her off again.
“You’re very talented and I enjoyed watching you dance,” I say instead.
“Thanks. I’ve been dancing since I was little. It’s been my passion for as long as I can remember. It never really went anywhere, though. Not until now.”
“Until now?” I say, confused.
Her smile beams. “They called me this evening. I got the job.”
I’m up and out of my chair before I rea
lize what I’m doing. I’m lifting her out of her chair, her arms wrap around my neck, and she lets out an adorable happy squeal as I spin her around.
“Congratulations. I knew someone would appreciate your dance as much as I did. How couldn’t they?” I say.
She leans back and looks at me, the smile gone from her face. Her eyes bore into mine and there’s a need there that’s familiar. She crushes her lips against mine. When I lift her off the ground again, her legs wrap around my waist and I carry her inside. I know my way around my house well enough that I can kiss her and carry her to my room without looking up. I lay her down on my bed. She keeps her legs around me. When I push my hips into her, she arches her back and moans into my mouth.
Her lips are warm and delicious. Whenever I stop kissing her, she pulls me back in. We kiss until my lips are raw. I open my eyes to watch her face. I want to see her reaction when I reach for the hem of her dress to make sure there’s no hesitation this time. There isn’t. Only pure, unadulterated passion. She sits up and I pull her dress off in one swift motion.
She’s a vision in a black lace bra and panties, but I don’t have much time to take it all in before she’s pulling me back to her, her tongue finding its way back to mine. Eager little thing, I think with a smile.
She pushes up to grind against me. “Wait, wait,” she says, breathless. She stops grinding, and I feel the loss of her heat instantly. “I don’t want to come yet.”
Her words send the blood in my head straight down to my cock.
She peels my shirt off. I take off her bra. She takes off my shorts, and we keep removing each other’s clothes until we’re both naked. As soon as my dick springs free from my boxers, Cadie gasps. Her eyes go wide, and she tentatively reaches out as if she might touch it, but pulls her hand back.
