“Oh, sorry,” I say, smiling. “My landlord takes care of all of my needs.”
Damien clears his throat. “Oh does he now? *All* of your needs?”
I open up the door to a smiling Damien with giant aviator sunglasses, pressing his tattooed arm into the doorframe.
“Well, we’ve actually made an agreement not to have all of those needs taken care of for ten dates, while we get to know each other.”
He cocks his head and runs a hand through his hair. “Sounds like a suspicious guy. What kind of man would be able to wait ten dates?”
I shrug, and before I can react, Damien crosses over into my apartment, grabs hold of me and plants a big, firm kiss on my lips, biting my lower lip as he lets go.
I let out a big exhale, relief pouring out of me. There’s something about Damien’s aura that makes me feel safe, even more so when I’m wrapped up in his arms and lips.
“We should go,” he growls, a little suddenly, still holding my hand. “You ready?”
“Why the impatience all of the sudden?” I taunt. “You’re not going to check my leaky faucet?” I furrow my brow, then walk over to my sink, my black boots clomping on the ground.
I bend over into my sink, leaning down like I’m examining something really closely.
Damien walks slowly over to me, and I can hear his breath behind me.
I giggle as he grabs hold of my hips and spins me around. My heart pounds as I face him, my ass leaning back into the sink.
“Look,” he says with a cocky grin. “I want to get to know the you behind this pretty face. But if you’re wiggling that sexy ass in front of me, you’re not playing very nice.”
“What if I don’t want to play nice?” I ask.
He runs a hand through my hair and licks his lips. “Try it and see what happens.”
I grab his head and kiss him one more time on the lips. I’m about to lose my self-control, so I slip out from underneath him and head out the door.
“Yeah, we should go,” I say, my voice cracking.
“Let’s go.” He glances at my phone on the kitchen island before he shuts the door. “No phone?”
I shrug. “Why would I need it? You can keep me entertained can’t you?”
“Okay,” he says with a shrug, and I feel a little guilty he doesn’t know the real reason I don’t want my phone: I’m afraid Nick might text me and I want to feel free of him.
No phone = freedom.
I’m also a little creeped out by the fact that he knew Damien’s last name.
I don’t even know Damien’s last name.
“Come on, tell me where we’re going,” I say.
“We’re almost there,” he says, turning the wheel of his truck to get us off the highway. A minute later, we pull up to a corner parking lot with a huge yellow and black sign.
“Midwestern Gun Range,” I say as he puts the engine into park. The building looks like a giant warehouse. “Well this should be interesting.”
“I know. You learn a lot about someone by how they handle a weapon. You ever been to a gun range before?”
I shake my head. “I grew up just west of Detroit, and my parents were totally against having weapons. We had a dog, though.”
He nods. “Where I grew up on the south side of Chicago, violence was unfortunately all too common.”
“So you had a gun growing up?”
“Nope,” he says as he opens up the back of his truck and grab a black box. “I didn’t get this bad boy until I was in the military. That’s when I started getting into guns.”
I nod, and he leads the way to the front door of the indoor gun range. “Into...guns?”
He shrugs. “You know. That and some other stuff.”
“What other kind of *stuff* did you get into?” I ask as he holds the door open for me.
In my mind’s eye I picture Damien out on the dance floor at Midnight Ride strutting his stuff in just his briefs.
His moves were just too damn good for him to be an amateur, and I need to find out what all that was about.
Inconveniently, the clerk inside interrupts us right as Damien turns to me to answer.
“Hey how are you guys finding everything?” he asks with a big beaming smile, uber friendly.
“Good, my man,” Damien says. “Just need some ammo.”
Damien buys several rounds, and we head into the indoor shooting facility. I hear a few people shooting.
We take a booth, and he sets the ammo down along with the black box.
“I’m excited to finally see what you’re working with,” I say.
“You got a pretty good idea on the first night,” he winks.
I furrow my brow. “I mean...your gun?”
He smacks himself in the head. “Oh, duh. I was thinking...never mind what I was thinking.”
I laugh as he opens the box. “You men and your dirty minds.”
He shrugs. “Your fault.”
“My fault?”
“Yeah,” he says as he pulls out a pistol. “You’re over here bending over sinks and making all these borderline dirty comments.”
My lips turn pouty, and I cock my head. “We’re barely started with the first of ten dates, and you’re already having a hard time not focusing on sex.”
He swallows. “Then let’s drop it. Let’s talk about guns instead.”
I nod. He takes my hand and puts the gun in my palm. “It’s heavy,” I say.
He winks.
“Don’t even think about turning that into a dirty joke,” I giggle.
He puts his hands up. “I wasn’t going to say anything!”
“Well you look like you had something on the tip of your tongue.”
Taking a deep breath. “I’m not even gonna say it. So here’s a quick lesson. This is a SigSauer P226, chambered in nine millimeter.
I hold the thing carefully.
“Is it on?”
“No. The safety is on, and it’s unloaded.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s do a dry run.”
I make a cringy face. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
He smirks. “Can you not think about sex for one second, Krista?”
“Alright, alright. Show me.”
He hands me my eyegear, and I put the large plastic glasses over my face.
“Always point the gun down or down range, and treat it as if it were loaded. Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to fire.
Stepping behind me, he puts his arms over mine and holds my hands, helping me steady the gun as I point it down range at the target.
My heart beats hard, and I’m not sure why I’m suddenly anxious. Is it the fact that I feel Damien’s hips pressing into me? Or that this is my first time handling a weapon?
“In movies,” he says, and I can feel the vibrations of his chest through my back, “They always do that dumb shit where they shoot a pistol with one hand. In reality, the blowback is much harder.”
“Okay.”
“Hold your arms straight out, aim at the target, and when you’re ready, flip the safety.”
He flips the safety on the side of the gun. “On, off. On, off. You ready?”
“I want to watch you do it by yourself first.”
He smiles. “Seriously? You walked right into that one.”
I throw my head back in laughter. “I swear I didn’t even realize it.”
“Yeah sure. You have a secretly dirty mind, don’t you?” he says as he takes the gun from me.
His phone buzzes, making a loud sound on the wood shelf where he placed it, right next to the wooden box.
I jump at the noise, and Damien shoots me a weird look.
“You okay?”
I swallow, because just the phone buzzing makes me think of Nick and how I left my phone at home so I wouldn’t worry about him.
“Fine.” I clear my throat, obviously flustered. I take a deep breath, and my mind flashes to something Nick and I did years ago.
S
omething I’d like to forget ever actually happened.
“Just show me,” I say, snapping myself out of my funk.
His dark brown eyes linger on me just a beat too long, and I know he can sense I’m off.
Still, he grabs the ammo and loads the pistol. I grab my eargear, so does he, and he fires away, one shot after another in quick, methodical succession.
I can’t lie, watching Damien’s muscled forearms as he focuses on the target and nails it every time is a huge turn on. I bite my lip and a pleasant, warm feeling washes over me. This is more than arousal. I have a deep appreciation for this man who signed up and spent years of his life as a Marine.
Or maybe it’s just that sexy smile with a backwards baseball cap.
I don’t even know anymore.
But I do know my panties are melting off as I stand there watching him.
After he’s done, he pulls his ear gear off, then brings the paper target toward us. All of his shots are in the bullseye except for one that’s in the outer ring.
“What happened there?” I ask, pointing.
He shrugs, grinning, and touches a hand to his chest. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit. You just missed one?”
“For one shot, I wasn’t there.”
“What do you mean you weren’t there?”
He takes a breath, and stares at me. “I wasn’t there mentally.” He reaches a hand down to my hips, grabs me, and pulls me into him, lowering his voice to a growl, and whispering into my ear. “I was back at your apartment at the beginning of this date with you bent over the sink. I was grabbing a tussle of your hair and kissing your neck, watching the goosebumbs form on your body. It was extremely distracting.”
“Oh,” I mouth. “I see.”
He nibbles at my ear, teasing me ever so slightly before he pulls back. “Your turn,” he says, handing me the gun.
He shows me how to load the ammo, so I put it in, one bullet at a time. I learn that nine millimeter is the diameter of the bullet.
As I’m about to fire, I steady my arms, holding them straight out. I switch the safety off, focus on the target and shoot.
It’s loud, but the blowback isn’t as much as I expect. Adrenaline surges through me as I fire bullet after bullet into the practice target. Finally, I pull the trigger and nothing comes out.
I turn slowly back toward him, aware of the big goofy grin on my face, my eyes wide.
“You like it, don’t you?” he says loudly.
I nod, silent as he cranks the target in. He takes it off the clothespin and gives an approving look.
“Really. This is your first time ever?” he asks.
“Yes. Never touched a gun before in my life.”
“Wow. Impressive. Well you, my girl, are what they call a natural.”
“I didn’t get all bullseyes like you though.”
He pulls a dime out of his pocket and puts it over all of my shots.
“See that? That’s consistency. More important than bullseyes. This might sound weird, but you were shooting like you were inspired. What were you thinking about when you were shooting?”
My palms sweat, and I shrug. “I don’t know. Just the target,” I lie.
“Huh,” he says. “Well whatever it was. Keep it up.”
I put the gun down, and a powerful surge of emotion washes over me.
I squeeze my body in between Damien’s arms. Reciprocating, he runs a hand down my back, lands it on my ass, and pulls my whole body into him as he kisses me against the booth wall.
After a minute, we come up for air, both of our chests heaving.
“You look sexy with a gun, Sweetheart.”
“You do too. This is going to be hard, going ten dates with no sex.”
He smirks. “Yeah. It is going to be...tough.”
10
Damien
My thoughts wander as we drive back through the city streets to my place on the west side. Krista with a gun was hot. Uber hot. So hot I don’t know how the hell I’m going to last ten dates without doing anything with her.
We’re only three hours into our first date, and I’m already pondering breaking the rules I set. No, I’ve got to stay disciplined. In the long run it’s for the best. I need to get to know her before we go all the way again.
The physical attraction is clearly there, but the next time I look into her eyes when I’m balls deep in her, I want to know all about her. I want to know when she’s digging her nails into my back she feels comfortable not only with me sexually, but on a deeper level.
I wonder if she wants the same from me. But I want to learn her secrets. To feel closer to her.
I park my truck a few blocks away from my place. Our place?
I’ve never dated a tenant.
Letting go of Krista's thigh, I turn the key and the engine ceases to hum.
We get out of my truck, black box with my weapon in my hand. I take hold of Krista's with my other.
"You've been quiet this ride," she smiles, her tone soft and accusatory.
I shrug. "My mind sometimes wanders, and before I know it, minutes have passed. Sometimes longer."
"I can tell. You get these intense eyes when you think really hard."
The sides of my mouth curve up, and I'm not quite laughing. "You're gonna have to tell me about that look. I've never heard that."
She halts on the sidewalk, and I pause with her. She taps my chest. “It's like this.” She pulls her hair back behind her head, then makes a face kind of like Ben Stiller's blue steel with squinty eyes added in.
I bust out laughing. "That's my thinking face?"
"Oh yeah. So obvious."
I interlock my fingers through hers and we continue walking.
"So what are you thinking about?"
I breathe deep. "Secrets."
"What about them?"
"How we all have them."
She nods wholeheartedly. "Yeah."
"And then I thought, 'But it's only the first official date. Too early for secrets to come out."
"Oh I didn't know there was like a guideline for number of dates you need to have with someone to start telling secrets."
"You could be right,” I nod. “Plus maybe it's better to get those secrets out earlier rather than later. You could have a point."
"I do have a point."
I slip my hand up to her back.
"Or maybe you're just dying to know where I learned to dance like that," I say gruffly, making a guess.
I’m curious about her secrets too—and what went down between her and Nick, but I block the jealousy out. Her ex-whatever is a subject I’d rather not think about at the moment.
She twirls a few strands of her hair as we cross the street.
“You’d be right about that. I mean you have to admit it was a pretty crazy coincidence me seeing you. And I don’t think it’s a controversial statement to say you don’t exactly have average dweeb dance moves. You can move out there.” She swallows, her eyes drifting down my torso. “You move those hips like a pro.”
I cock my head toward her. “Like a pro what?”
“I don’t know…an escort?”
I throw my head back in laughter as we arrive at the door of our apartment building. “Not exactly.” I open the door, and we trudge up the stairs. When we get to the landing on the second floor, I face her, put my hands on her hips, and tell her. “I was a male stripper.”
Her jaw hangs open, and she looks as though she’s having a hard time breathing.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“I knew it! I knew you had like...too good of an ass for a regular landlord.”
I chuckle, take hold of her wrist, and land her palm on my upper ass cheek over my jeans. “A professional ass. I like the sound of that.”
She grabs my ass a little, letting out the faintest of moans. I lean into her, so close I can taste her lip gloss.
“So is this the end of the date?” she says, her eyelids fluttering.
I shru
g. “I don’t know. But I’m definitely not ending without one of these.”
I pull her body into mine, loving the feel of her tits pressed up against my stomach. She gets up on her tippy toes to reach my lips, and I bend down. She melts in my arms as we press our lips against one another.
God damn, that taste. It’s the taste of a temptress—the kind you want to wife up.
She makes an ‘mmm’ sound as I lay into her, grinding my hips against her. We’re humping each other through our jeans, and I swear I can feel the warmth between her legs. It was a little chilly outside, but in here it’s hot as hell.
“Let me check on that leak,” I say, running my hand up her inner thigh.
She fumbles in her purse, pulls out her keys and pushes the door open.
“There was no leak, though,” she says as she pushes through the door. I tumble inside with her.
“I meant this leak. I feel something getting a little wet.” I run my hand along the outside of her jeans, rubbing into her pussy. “Yeah. Definitely a little wet.”
“Damien…” she trails off as I sprinkle kisses down her neck. I love the way her chest heaves. I love the pleasure I can give her just by kissing her. Finally, I manage to pull my mouth away from her delicious, soft skin.
“Wait,” I swallow. “I promised myself we wouldn’t cross the line tonight.”
“You fucking tease,” she says, biting her lower lip.
I take a breath, and glance at the liquor cabinet. “Let’s sit,” she adds. “Can you make me a Tequila Negroni? I hear it’s all the rage with the kids these days.”
“Not sure,” I shrug.
“I’ll Google it,” she says, and grabs her phone, which is sitting on the island.
I squint a little, watching her type into the device. She’s so damn cute, everything she does. “Hey. Why’d you leave your phone here?”
“Yes. I wanted to be fully present with you. Sometimes my phone puts me in a weird mood.”
“Oh,” I say. “You just get some weird texts or…?”
She holds down the button, and her phone buzzes on. It sounds like it buzzes a million more times after that too.
“Is that...your message notification? You must have a lot.”
I can tell she’s tensing up, the way her back stiffens as she looks at the phone.
Ten Night Stand Page 6
