“Mmm, you’re so wet for me, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered, arching her back to allow his probing fingers deeper, thrilling a little at his rough voice, his demanding words and his gentle, relentless touches.
“Tell me,” he prompted, thrusting his hips forward, using his fingers to strum her firmly, launching her from mildly aroused to ready to rock and roll. She whimpered with want.
Reaching forward to her bedside table, she yanked out a string of condoms, ripped one off and tossed it at him.
“Saddle up, cowboy. We’re going for a ride.”
She settled back onto her side and within seconds he was sheathed. His hand returned to its teasing and she lifted her leg high up over his thigh to give him access. With one smooth stroke, he was deep within her.
“Oh, that’s good,” she gasped. This new angle let him reach new spots untouched from their frantic pace before. His fingers stroked her and they strained against each other, pressing deep and pulling apart with an urgency she was surprised at.
His mouth latched on to her neck, nipping lightly, his body dominating hers. His thumb and forefinger roughly rubbed her clit, and the friction sent her hips jolting faster and faster. She surrendered over to his delicious torment, letting him pleasure her.
He quickly moved them so she rested on her knees, her head on her forearms, her thighs spread wide. He played idly with a nipple, pinching and twisting, before moving to give the other breast the same treatment.
The other hand pressed hard against her clit as his hips pumped back and forth urgently. She cried out on each thrust, pushing back to deepen the penetration, straining to reach her own orgasm, just out of reach.
“God, you’re so hot, I love how your body feels around mine, with me deep in you like this.” He punctuated that with a deep thrust, making her gasp and brace herself. Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, he held her body still as he pushed her into harder.
“Come on, baby, just relax into me,” he murmured, playing her body like a maestro. She arched her back to take him deeper, and the tremors shook her slowly, wave upon wave of pleasure arcing through her in great gasping quakes. Her cry of release sounded foreign to her own ears.
He pounded into her as she quivered and stiffened at his own release before softly releasing her body from his clenched arms. They collapsed in a heap of arms and legs, sweaty and breathing heavy.
“Whoa...” She sighed, amazed at her body’s response to the firm handling.
“I know. That was unbelievable.” He brushed her hair back from her brow, kissing her desperately, almost as though he missed the contact already.
She slowly rose and headed for the bathroom on quivering legs. The mirror showed her hair in a tangled mess, her cheeks flushed and a sweaty glow over her body. With a grin, she splashed her face with cool water and wrapped a robe snugly around her waist. Good loving looked excellent on her.
He sprawled back on the pillows, relaxed with arms propped behind his head, with a satisfied smile. A purely masculine pose, if she ever saw one. His hair stuck up in fistfuls, and she fought the urge to throw herself at him a third time. But his attentive look belied his casual pose, and she knew he was checking her mood.
She settled on the bed next to him, leaning back into his chest at an angle. “Want to grab something to eat?”
He smiled, kissing her temple. “You are quite possibly the perfect woman. And a mind reader. I’m famished.”
A familiar cell phone jingle came from his pants in the hallway. He hurried to grab them, explaining sheepishly, “It could be my mom. I just have to check.” He glanced at the phone, and the relaxed lines on his face changing into hard planes. Strange—who could bring about that reaction?
“It’s actually, um, a job prospect.” His gaze skated over her nervously.
Lucy perked up. “Answer it! I’ll grab us a beer and give you some privacy.” She hurried out of the room, hoping it was a great job opportunity he could accept and stay in the area. If he had a job, she could cross that off her list and he was so much closer to being Mr. Right. The beard could be shaved, but oddly enough it was starting to grow on her. Since he was new in the area, she could easily excuse the living-with-his-mom issue.
She pulled two beers out of the fridge. Sitting at the kitchen island, she opened her laptop and checked with her online class to see if the test scores were posted. Popping through her email, she tried to remind herself this was not something long-term. No pressure. If he turned into Mr. Right, that was fine and dandy. But this was fun. Nothing more. Unless his circumstances changed.
She peered down the hall to check if he was coming, but she could hear his murmur on the phone. Clicking open another tab to Google his name, Lucy bit her lip, curious what would come up. Andrew Sullivan.
Row after row of results popped up. Popular name, that’s for sure. She scrolled down a few, looking for some familiar hits. An online article by some professor and a few hits from a gaming website. Nothing interesting.
A thump in the bedroom sent her mouse flying back to her school email account, to cover her steps.
If by chance he managed to slowly cross off the items on the list, then she could hardly be blamed to make it a relationship. He was hot. Really hot. There was so much electricity and chemistry, she could light a campfire with it. He was funny and nice, and he’d be so easy to fall in love with... Slow down, she reminded herself. Slow it down. He had a lot of items to check off the list.
But maybe she could help.
Chapter Nine
Drew answered his phone on the last ring before voicemail, hoping for good news. His agent was working on a guest spot on a popular gamer television show, with one of his famous ex-girlfriends, Jessica Dunn. The show was one of the top-watched shows for gamers in the demographic he studied.
“Hey, Todd.” He pulled on his underwear, followed by his jeans. This wasn’t quite the way he wanted to interrupt his luscious afternoon with Lucy. Dinner, followed by a few drinks, and maybe some more screwing around was what he hoped for. Not a call from his agent, reminding him what a heel he was for lying to her. If only Dell wasn’t into gaming, or Becca hadn’t pretended to be. If only he hadn’t used her friends as subjects, he could have been honest with her from the start. Or, nearly the start.
“The doctor is in,” Todd laughed. “Drew, my man... How you feeling out there in the middle of the cornfields? Getting lots of good research from the foxy babes, you old dog, you?”
Drew cringed. How Todd managed to stay married with three daughters was amazing. But the asshole kept him on schedule, kept his articles front and center and his name hot in the news. Which, in turn, kept his classes full, which paid his exorbitant salary and fueled the lifestyle he enjoyed. Todd had great contacts and knew the business. Maybe he just liked to live vicariously. Who knew?
“Yeah, research is coming along. I’m getting some really great, honest responses. There’s no way I could have done this back home. Not with the college right there, or the press tracking me.”
“That’s what I like to hear. So I have you booked as a teaser to Comic-Con in a week. Then the convention is in less than a month, and then we can pitch the article to run online and in the mags within two months. You’ll have a summary on my desk ASAP, right? I need to give the producer something to read to prep for discussion.”
“Sure, I can get an outline to you. I’ll just send you my rough notes.” Funny, he thought he’d be eager to leave his mom and Milwaukee. But he was just getting comfortable. Just getting in the groove of things. And having free time to relax with a cup of coffee and a book was a luxury he didn’t seem to be able to indulge in at home.
He pulled the T-shirt over his head against the chill in the room and dropped a shoe as he tried to pull it on. He looked around as Todd rambled on about flights, PR direction and so on.
Her room was eclectic, dark and cozy. Sort of sexy, with deep reds and plums, not at all how he would picture it, if he h
ad been pressed to guess. Her bed was comfy, that he already knew. Very indulgent. She seemed so tightly wound, such a stickler for propriety and rules. He pictured a much more rigid bedroom, not nearly so welcoming or inviting. It was like peeking into a secret side of Lucy that nobody knew about. He liked it.
“Listen, Todd. I’m in the middle of something here, so can you email me the details? I’ll make sure I’m where you need me to be.” Suddenly he was eager to return to Lucy and continue with their evening.
“Yeah, sure man. I’ll email it over. I think this will be the biggest splash of all your projects yet. I really do. It’s cross-demographic, and this could be just the thing to move us more mainstream.”
Drew paused, interested again. “What are you thinking?”
“I don’t want to say too much and jinx the project. But I have some feelers in with the chick magazines. Heavy hitters. Glamour, Marie Claire. Heck, if you can come up with some good home organization tips, maybe Rachael Ray or even the Big O will pick you up. You have cross-demographic appeal, a real guy’s insight.”
“Huh. That is big. Well, keep me updated.”
He pulled the door open, hopping into the other shoe as he took in Lucy, lounging at her kitchen island. A long, curvy leg peeked out from the folds of her robe, her hair knotted up at the top of her head carelessly, and a fresh, sexed-up glow on her cheeks. She tilted a cold beer to her lips and his mouth went dry. She was so damn sexy, he wanted her all over again. All of Todd’s words flew out of his head and he headed down the short hallway to fulfill his evening’s fantasies.
* * *
“Have you ever thought about college?” Lucy asked. They sat side by side at her favorite coffee shop, close to her store. She was on a lunch break, and Andy met up with her for the first time in two days. To her frustration, Andy’s schedule was as hectic as her own. She reminded herself that slow was the way to go with this affair. No need to live in each other’s back pockets. Despite that mental reminder, thoughts of him crept into her brain constantly, and every time she got a text from him she couldn’t stop the silly grin.
She had school, then weekly soccer games, then dinner with Ruby and Becca, where Becca managed to talk about Andy for an obnoxious amount of time. Lucy had to grit her teeth. And Aunt Ruby simply seemed happy to hear her daughter so excited.
Suddenly it was easy to see how similar Becca was to her own mother. Falling in love at the drop of a hat. Meanwhile, Ruby and Lucy seemed to both enjoy the even keel of a steady romance. A steady life, a steady job.
From their brief phone calls and texts, Lucy determined Andy drove his mom to physical therapy every day, then ran errands and had some job interviews that he was mighty evasive about. She suspected the jobs were back in Oregon and maybe he didn’t want to mention it to her.
“College? Why?” he murmured, moving his chair closer to nuzzle in to her neck. She thrilled at the contact, glancing around to see if anyone noticed them, but nobody paid any attention to two random people. It was exhilarating.
“I don’t know, I figured if you had a degree, maybe it would help you find a job.”
He pulled away to look at her, his face stony and blank.
“I mean, you seem to be working really hard on it, so maybe that would give you a leg up.”
His jaw clenched as he glanced across the room, removing his arm from her chair. “What makes you think I don’t have a degree?”
“You never mentioned it.” She gulped, surprised at his grim tone. “Do you?”
“No.” He couldn’t meet her gaze. “Not technically a degree.”
“You’ve never even mentioned what it is you do. Something with gaming, right?”
He nodded reluctantly.
“I go to an online community college. I’ve been doing a few classes every semester, and I’m almost done with my degree.” She hurried to fill the silence, unsure of his reaction. “Well, I will be done, once I can get signed off on a final internship. I can graduate at the end of this semester. Just a few weeks. This professor is being a real jerk. He won’t even meet with me to discuss it. I have no idea what his problem is. But you could do it too, if you wanted to. It’s hard work, but it’s a well-respected school.”
“Community college online?”
She saw the dismissive frown on his face before he lifted his cup of coffee to cover the smirk. He looked downright amused by her suggestion, as though she had mentioned training wheels for his mountain bike. Well, what the hell was this about?
“Yes, community college online. Here, I brought you a pamphlet.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a few fliers on her school and some sister schools. “You can take classes from wherever.”
Maybe he was embarrassed? This reaction was strange. But once you have an education you can go anywhere. If she hadn’t shot herself in the foot so many years ago, for that idiotic boyfriend who managed to fuck her over so well, who knows what she might have done? She dropped the pamphlets in front of him and flipped the page open. “See, this is the course I’m taking.”
When she was living in Nevada, waitressing and trying to heal her heart from being so publicly embarrassed on national television, she promised herself she’d get that education. No more excuses. Living on tips and trying to heal your heart took too much time and energy.
She wished she could blame it all on a broken heart and the jackass boyfriend. But the truth was, she was running from her mom. And her mom’s latest husband.
In high school, she had dated Kevin. They drifted apart after graduation, as high school romances do. Sure, she always had a soft spot in her heart for Kevin, but it was simply because he was her first love. Her first everything.
So when her mom announced she was getting married to husband number seven, it wasn’t the number that sent her on a weekend long bender. It was her mother, marrying Kevin.
A year later, she attended her mother’s funeral. She passed away from a carbon monoxide leak in their condo. Kevin and Lucy tiptoed around each other, and Aunt Ruby was the one who took care of all the details.
And thusly, rule number three on her list was born. No dating someone a friend or family member dated.
The money her mother left her was enough to start fresh. She returned to Nevada, but the drinking wasn’t enough anymore. She craved more. Aunt Ruby must have sensed Lucy’s desperation. Daily cheerful phone calls from both her and Becca reminded her that her family still loved her and wouldn’t give up.
After a weekend binge, she found Ruby and Becca on her doorstep. She looked down at herself, underweight, hiding from her life, her apartment a mere shell instead of a home to return to. Her refrigerator full of beer and pizza, the diet of a college kid or someone hiding from her future. She, Ruby and Becca packed up her meager belongings, and they went home.
She discovered what had been missing for so long, the family she was running from. Which was why she decided to try to find herself a man to start a family of her own with.
She owed Aunt Ruby and Becca everything. From her loyalty to her love. And yet, here she sat, wanting to jump in to the lap of someone Becca was nuts for. Granted, she was nuts in general, but it still rubbed her wrong.
Andy’s phone rang, and he glanced at it. “Yikes, it’s Becca.” He muted it. “I’m not really the community college kind of guy. I mean, it’s right for some people, just not me.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was beneath you, bucko.” That was enough of his attitude. “I personally think that an education, no matter where you get it, is one of the most valuable things you can do to better your future.”
“I don’t think community college is that important for me right now.”
“Well, if you had a degree, maybe you wouldn’t have so much trouble finding a job.” Her voice started to rise and her foot bounced. “Look, I am fighting my way through school, trying to work full-time. Watching you mooch off your mom is really unattractive. I thought you were, I don’t know, more than that. But I can
’t be with anyone who doesn’t have goals and ambitions. A five-year plan, at the very least.”
She snapped her mouth shut, surprised to find she had stood up during her rant and had a finger pointed at him. He stared at her, seemingly as surprised as she was by her outburst. Somehow, this one issue had become of utmost importance in her day.
Glancing around, she noticed a few patrons watched her with curious gazes. Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment. She pulled her finger back and dropped her arm limply to her side, not sure where she was taking the conversation. Of course, with perfect timing, his phone rang again.
Fueled by anger with that simple ring, she snatched up her bag and hurried out without a goodbye. A cold drizzle had started. She took a deep breath of the damp air before she rushed blindly down the street toward her store. Why had she gotten so upset with him about this? So he didn’t want to go to community college—so what? What business was it of hers? It wasn’t like she was invested in this guy. Hells bells, she didn’t even really know what he did.
“Hey, wait a minute, Lucy.” His voice rang after her in the drizzle. It hung heavy in the damp air. “Can we talk about this for a second?”
She stopped under a storefront awning to wait. “That was Becca again. I’m sorry. Listen, I think it’s amazing that you’re nearly at your goal of graduating. Truly.” He finished shrugging into his jacket and dropped his hands on her shoulders, making eye contact.
“I know how hard it is. I really do. I mean, maybe I don’t understand exactly why you felt you had to yell at me over it, but I love that you’re so passionate about it.”
She felt her cheeks warm. He was apologizing to her about her losing her temper? This was unbelievable.
“I didn’t mean to sound like a snob over community college. Right now, that’s not the path I need to take, but I’m impressed as hell that you’re doing it.”
Lucy nodded, accepting his apology. A bit stunned that he even bothered to apologize. She pressed her advantage. “So, what is it exactly you do for a living, anyway?” She crossed her arms over her chest. It was time to end this stupid secret. She thought she could handle just a surface relationship, but she had to know. How can you have a conversation, a relationship with someone, when you don’t even know what he does?
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