Four Temptations

by PJ Adams

  “You’re beautiful, smart, funny, passionate... Hell, I’m a writer but there just aren’t the words.” I remembered what Maggie had said about his protective layers: it was as if he was peeling them away before my eyes, exposing his vulnerabilities. “And why sorry?” he went on. “I took advantage of you, I think. You know about me and Maggie, don’t you? We were together for a time. Back around the time of her book launch for Words of Love I tried to breathe some life back into things. I don’t know why. Maybe it was a nostalgia thing, a clutching at straws thing. It was stupid of me. Selfish. I really don’t know what was in my head then, why I was trying to cling to the past.

  “And then when I saw you at that bar, when I worked out what you were doing to that guy, well, I got carried away. It was a spur of the moment thing, maybe trying to distract myself? I don’t know. There I was helping you to get your revenge on a guy who’d just used you and then I did exactly the same. Hell, does this happen to you all the time? Men falling for you, right, left and center?”

  He sat there shaking his head, and I let the silence draw out, his words sinking in.

  Then, finally, I reached over and put a hand on his. “You really feel bad for taking advantage?” I said. “But you didn’t. I did. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I’m the one who picked up a stranger in a bar for distraction, for some weird kind of revenge sex.”

  “‘Weird’?”

  We laughed.

  “You know what I mean,” I said. “The revenge was weird. Not the sex.”

  “So that was okay, then?”

  “Passable,” I said, and now, for the first time this lunchtime, he had that twinkle back in his eye. “So yes, I’m sorry. Not for the entirely passable sex, but for the fact that I used you, that I took advantage, that there was more on my agenda than just perfectly okay, passable sex.”

  I held my hand out, he took it, and we shook.

  “You’re a gentleman,” I said.

  “You too.”

  §

  I asked him about Belgium, which made him laugh, and then we moved on to Romania, Texas and Guatemala. He had the kind of life I wished I’d had. Where I’d only ever daydreamed, he’d had the balls to get out and travel, to meet people, to immerse himself.

  We talked about my family, about Porter, about the glamorous, blonde bitch he was seeing who I had the awful sneaking feeling I might actually get to like; about my work at the agency and how I’d really prefer to freelance if only I was brave enough to take the plunge.

  It was like two grown-ups, making pleasant conversation over dinner. In fact, that’s exactly what it was. We smiled, we laughed at each other’s stories, we asked the right questions, the kind that would lead on to yet more stories that make us laugh and ask more of the right kind of questions.

  “When were you due to go back to the studio? Or is it an office? I’m never sure. The place you work.”

  “Oh, about two hours ago,” I said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You apologize a lot.”

  “I’m clearly a bad influence.”

  He got the bill, I got the tip. “I’m a writer,” he said. “So of course I’m rich.”

  “I’m a designer,” I said. “And I think I’m just about to go freelance, so I appreciate all the help I can get.”

  Outside, we paused. It wasn’t a conscious thing, that lingering, but on my part, at least, it was a reluctance to end an encounter that had shifted from awkward to the kind of chat that flitted from subject to subject and suddenly you’d misplaced two hours of an afternoon when you should have been back at work.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I needed that.”

  “Friends?”

  I nodded. “Friends.”

  We hugged, briefly, dipping back into that initial awkwardness.

  Then he turned and was walking off down the street. I watched his retreating back for a few seconds, then headed in the other direction.

  So that was it then. Apologies over, a surprisingly easy, relaxed lunch, and now I had a new friend.

  §

  I don’t know why I’d turned and headed in the opposite direction. The car park was back the other way. It had just seemed right. Un-messy.

  I stopped after a minute or two and stared blankly into a shoe shop window. Big platforms and wedges; a stunning pair of peep-toes with transparent heels. They looked familiar, and then I realized that this was a factory outlet shop; they were last year’s shoes and I’d worked on the catalog for them.

  I headed back and there, by that chain café he had chosen for a lunchtime apology, he was waiting. Brandon Tyne. Standing by the door, pretending to look at the menu, his fists deep in his coat pockets.

  “Forget something?” I asked.

  “Hmm,” he said. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

  “What was it?”

  “Well,” he said, turning to face me. “That thing, where I didn’t really understand what was going on in my head. When I was chasing Maggie, and now when I feel like I’m chasing you. The thing that makes me have cheap, spontaneous sex with a beautiful woman I’ve only just met. You know the thing?”

  I nodded, waited, and he continued.

  “Well, that thing... I guess it’s telling me I’m not ready for a relationship. I don’t know what’s driving me. I split with Maggie over a year ago. That’s a Hell of a long time for a rebound, but maybe that’s what it is. And you’re just coming out of a sticky patch, too. I don’t think it’d be fair on either of us to leap into anything right now, which is an incredibly disappointing conclusion to reach, isn’t it?”

  “It is. Very. And if you tell me we should skip the relationship part and just go for the cheap, meaningless sex I will knee you very hard in the balls.”

  He smiled. Funny how such a successful, confident man can seem so fragile, too.

  “No,” he said. “Please don’t. What I was going to suggest is, well, if we’re not ready to take the plunge, perhaps we could date for a while? Strict ground rules to protect the vulnerable. Dinner, the movies, maybe some art. We get to know each other. We start talking at lunch and keep on going until our throats run dry. I get to know whether you’re really as beautiful and fascinating a person as you appear to be, or if that’s just a first impressions thing; and you get to see if whatever bizarre thing it is you see in me holds anything more than a passing interest.”

  “Dating,” I said. “So... You have my number. Are you going to ask me out?”

  He nodded. “I will,” he said. “I’ll do that.”

  §

  It was such a discreet, sensitive thing to do. Dating. Ground rules to protect the vulnerable. Because it’s true: for whatever reason, we were both in a difficult state of mind. My head was certainly still clouded by anger and resentment. I wasn’t ready for anything new, not yet.

  It was far too soon, after a mediocre movie and a good meal, for me to hang onto him just a little too long on my doorstep, as we pressed together for a brief goodbye hug.

  Far too soon for me to say in his ear, in a deliberately low voice that meant he had to keep that ear very close to my mouth, “So... the ground rules for this dating thing. I think they need clarification. Do they allow for a good-night kiss, or are we limited to hugging for now?”

  “I... I think a kiss is probably okay.”

  “Is there a ballpark time limit on that kiss? Lip to lip, or on the cheek? And, sorry, but I have to ask this: tongues or no tongues?”

  “Oh, I think we’re allowed to apply our own interpretation as events dictate. I’d hate it to stifle our spontaneity.”

  “Okay, just checking. Thank you.”

  And so I turned my head and kissed him on the cheek, my lips barely touching his skin, and then stepped back.

  “It was a lovely evening,” I said. “Thank you.”

  He grinned, like a little kid. “You’re very welcome,” he said. “Now, a first date always raises the question of a second date. Should we? Shouldn’t we? What do you
say? Would you like to do this again? With a better film, obviously. Or maybe the theatre.”

  I hesitated, long enough for his expression to falter.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But do you know what I’d really like to do?”

  “Sure. We could do whatever–”

  §

  I like a man who wears a tie on a date. It gives you something very convenient to take a hold of when you want to be in control, when you want to smother his words with your mouth, when you want his body hard against yours.

  Brandon was wearing a tie that night.

  §

  “These ground rules... You never were clear whether they applied to both of us or not.”

  “Well, I guess they’re my rules. You never signed up.”

  “So if I were to do this...? And then this...?”

  §

  It seems that taking him in my mouth was okay by those ground rules. Sucking him deep until I have to keep swallowing to stop from gagging. Drawing my head away, my lips clamped tight, my teeth dragging back along his shaft while I hold his balls cupped in my hand, my fingers pressing upwards behind them, stroking that sensitive area of skin – that was okay, too.

  In fact, those ground rules seemed very open to interpretation that night when I dragged Brandon Tyne into my house by the tie, my mouth on his, and my free arm curled around him, holding him tight against me.

  Wrapping my fist tight around his shaft and pumping hard and fast was okay, too. The shiny wet head of his cock slapping against my parted lips as I did so. Occasionally pausing to suck him deep again.

  Then, rules be damned, he pushed me away, pushed me down on the floor, pulled my clothes aside – my dress, my tiny black knickers – and then he was poised, pressing against me, sliding inside in a single, long thrust until he was balls-deep.

  I pulled at his shirt, wanting to feel his bare chest. Buttons released, others popped off, and then there was skin, that narrow strip of hair running down the middle of his chest and spreading out to his nipples. Those small, hard nipples, salty in my mouth, against my flicking tongue.

  And then he pulled back and started to pump hard. An urgent, needy thing, sliding his full length out and then pushing in once more until I was impaled.

  My arms were above my head, the wrists clamped in his grip. The floor was hard against me, the weave of the carpet coarse and rough.

  I don’t know how he kept that up for so long, how he then started to thrust even harder, even faster.

  My whole body was alive to his movement, the heat in my belly, the tightness of my pussy clamping around that pounding dick; my nipples, my breasts... insanely sensitive to the pressure of him against me, to the dragging and shifting of my clothes; the dull ache in my wrists where he held me, and in my mouth and jaw from his rough, hungry kisses.

  When I climaxed, it was a whole-body thing. I don’t know where it started, or where it finished, but everything clamped tight, a single muscular contraction, an explosion of intense pleasure.

  When orgasm hit, my whole body jerked, almost throwing him off, throwing him out, and that was the signal that tipped him over the edge.

  As the second wave of incredible tightening stole over me he thrust one last time, even harder, and he held himself deep inside me as a sudden heat blossomed in my belly. And then, as he slumped, his cock still throbbing deep inside me, my body tightened once more and suddenly that heat, those sensations, were concentrated in my belly, my throbbing, pulsing clit, my aching pussy.

  I clung onto him, wouldn’t let him go.

  “These rules of yours,” I said. “Would it be okay if we stuck to these rules? I think that’d be a good thing. I–”

  He kissed me then, silencing me, his touch tender, lingering, intimate, and that was more than enough of an answer for me.

  About PJ Adams

  Writing under other names, PJ Adams is a successful novelist, with several novels published by major publishing houses and optioned for movies. As PJ Adams, she writes in the genre closest to her heart, erotic romance – love stories with that added heat.

  Writing as Polly J Adams, she writes best-selling erotica, relationship stories crammed full of explicit sex. Among Polly's most popular stories are the Knee-tremblers and Indulgence series about a young woman's relationship with the wealthy owner of a New England sex club.

  You can find out more about PJ/Polly and her writing on her website, on http://www.facebook.com/pollyjadamswriter and on Twitter as @PollyJAdams.

  More from PJ Adams

  The Object of His Desire

  When Trudy goes to her estranged brother’s wedding, the last thing she expects is one of those moments: a handsome stranger, their eyes meeting across a crowded room... a tempting, but dangerous stranger. Determined to find out more, she discovers that dark secrets bind him to her brother; she also learns that he’s the kind of man who gets what he wants, and what he wants right now is Trudy. Lavish romantic gestures, the finest in designer clothes, shoes and diamonds, private jets to whisk her off to foreign dinner dates... what more could a girl want? But pursuit comes with a price...

  Murderous intrigue and dark secrets from the past conspire to make falling in love the hardest thing Trudy has ever done. How do you love a man if you can never, fully, trust him? A man involved in murder and blackmail, and who may have used you as nothing more than an alibi? Will Trudy fall, or should she just walk away? And does she have any say in the matter?

  A passionate erotic romance, where scandals buried away in the past lead to murderous intrigue in the present, in the intensely steamy world of the super-wealthy and powerful.

  Purchasing links can be found on PJ Adams’ website:

  http://pollyjadams.blogspot.com

  Damaged Goods (A Dangerous Passion, part one)

  They said he was a rock star. They said he was an Arab oil sheik, or a Russian arms dealer. Or maybe a footballer. They said he was all kinds of things but in truth nobody in the village knew much about the enigmatic stranger who had moved into the Hall.

  Holly Colcroft lives in the village with her bankrupt father, making ends meet with a succession of casual cleaning and waitressing jobs, and dreaming that one day things will take a turn for the better. When Holly gets the call to go and help clean up after a party at the Hall she hopes that it might lead to longer-term work; she finds the place in chaos, and a man emotionally scarred by his past. Might Holly be the woman to save him, or is this a passion too dangerous?

  Explicit erotic romance from the author The Object of His Desire.

  Purchasing links can be found on PJ Adams’ website:

  http://pollyjadams.blogspot.com

  Explicit erotica from Polly J Adams

  The Wings of Desire

  All eight stories in bestselling erotica author Polly J Adams’ very explicit erotic romance series, Knee-tremblers and Indulgence, brought together in a single volume. Two series following one woman's journey from an adulterous relationship with a close friend’s husband, to exploring her sexuality at a country-mansion sex club with its enigmatic owner.

  Eight sizzlingly explicit tales of sexual adventure, exploration and desire.

  These stories are also available as separate, standalone ebooks.

  “I’ve just read the first book and I loved it” Katie Cramer, author of What Money Can Buy.

  Purchasing links can be found on Polly J Adams’ website:

  http://pollyjadams.blogspot.com

  ~

  Bad Girls by Polly J Adams

  A collection of four explicit stories of sexual exploration from the Amazon bestselling author of The Virgin and the Three Brothers, You and Letting Go:

  Selena does Porn

  Always the quiet one, always the voyeur, when Selena starts to explore her sexuality in a porn cinema in Soho she discovers the thrills of turning the tables - not watching, but being watched. When all the men in the cinema ignore the screen and watch Selena instead, she realises she has found the biggest turn
-on ever.

  Easy as One, Two, Three

  J fantasises a lot. About the hot new instructor at the gym. About a female friend. About having sex with more than one man at a time. And sometimes she just can't help getting carried away.

  Private Party

  When Jack's stag party is cancelled, his new bride Mel is determined to make it up for him. So she arranges a private party: a quiet night in, some drinks, and a stripper for just the two of them.

  Bad Again

  Away from her husband on a business trip, Jess bumps into an old flame. When he promises to make up for his previous bad behaviour, Jess is skeptical. But when the offer involves not just the old flame but one of his colleagues too it seems rude to refuse... Having sex with two men at once is a fantasy for lots of women, but for Jess it is about to become a reality.

  This book contains scenes of an explicit sexual nature, including cheating wives, group sex, anal sex, and oral sex, and is for an adult audience only.

  Purchasing links can be found on Polly J Adams’ website:

  http://pollyjadams.blogspot.com