Going Hard (Single Ladies' Travel Agency Book 2)

by Carina Wilder

  “Very hot, apparently,” Mom says. I’m not sure if the double meaning is intentional.

  Okay, it’s past time to change the subject. “But I thought you weren’t supposed to get here before Sunday,” I moan. For the first time it’s hit me that I may not get to spend another night with Dylan for a week. My parents won’t exactly approve of my having him over here, and if I desert them to spend the night with him, I’ll never hear the end of it.

  Kill me.

  “We wanted to see about getting into the service at St. Peter’s on Sunday, so we came early. We thought we’d surprise you, dear. We thought maybe you’d be lonely.”

  Nope. Not lonely at-fucking-all.

  “Are you tired, Mr. and Mrs. Horner?” asks Dylan, who’s far more considerate than I am. He seems so comfortable in this situation that I’m beginning to wonder how many parents have walked in on him naked in his time. “Could we show you around a little?”

  “I think you’ve shown us quite enough,” says my father. Ah, I see what’s happened. He thinks I’m thirteen all over again, and he’s doing that angry father thing. Most dads get the luxury of imagining that their daughters never have sex. Even when their first grandchild comes, they’re somehow convinced that it was all immaculately done, and by some miracle daddy’s little girl has retained her virginity. But the overwhelming evidence just flew in his face, a cruel blow to his deluded paternal mind.

  “Let me take you for dinner, Mom and Dad,” I say. “You must be hungry.”

  “Actually, we are. But we should unpack first, then maybe a shower.”

  “Right. Okay. Well, my bedroom’s in there—” I point to the chamber where, until a few minutes ago, I’d hoped to get laid.

  Dylan stands up, grabs their suitcases and carries them into the bedroom. I follow close behind, making little whimpering noises as I go.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper as he lays the bags on the bed.

  “It’s all good,” he replies, chuckling. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll make a great story.”

  “I can’t imagine who would ever want to hear it.” But I’ll admit it, I’m laughing a little, too. It’s all so ridiculous.

  “You’ll sleep in my bed tonight, then?” he asks.

  I shake my head, my lips turning down in a pout that I can’t quite help. “What?” he whispers. “Why not?”

  “Because my mother is a devil woman who wants me to be miserable and alone and sexless and horny because horniness is suffering and suffering is noble. She doesn’t want me to be single, but she also doesn’t want me fucking anyone. If she knew how many blowjobs I’ve given you, she’d die of a heart attack.”

  “Oh, mothers. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t sell them on the Black Market,” he says. “Wait—are you telling me that I won’t get to lick your pussy for a week?” He thrusts his fist into his chest like he’s stabbing himself.

  “Not necessarily. I’m saying we’d need to sneak around like we’re naughty seventeen-year-olds again. But…”

  “I’m all for sneaking. You know where I live. Come find me tonight.”

  “I’m not sure if I can. My parents are super old-fashioned. It’ll ruin their trip if they think we’re…”

  “What exactly do they think we were about to do?”

  “Maybe if I send them off somewhere tomorrow, we can find some time alone.”

  “I have meetings all day tomorrow.”

  “Damn it.” In spite of everything, I’m still horny as hell. “Well, I’ll try and sneak over later, then. Sorry again.”

  “Loose.” He slips over to me and reaches for my hand, then thinks better of it. I’m sure he can feel my dad’s Superman eyes burning a hole through the wall. “I’ve waited to be with you for seven years. I can wait another night. Besides, every night with you is like four nights in one.”

  I don’t care about my father’s X-ray vision. I lurch forward and throw my arms around him, squeezing his neck. “Thank you for saying that,” I tell him. I don’t really know if he meant the part about waiting seven years, but it means everything to me to hear it right now. “I’ll try to come by tonight,” I say, “but I can’t promise anything.”

  “I know.” He lands a kiss on my lips that reminds me how much I need to find my way back into his bed.

  “Okay, yes, I can promise. Totally. I’m yours,” I tell him robotically. “But right now I’ve got to get back out there. They’ll suspect that we’re in here doing the nasty.”

  He heaves a sigh. “All right,” he says, adjusting the towel by pulling it apart and re-tucking it, which gives me a glimpse of his delectable manhood.

  “You’re so mean,” I moan.

  “I know,” he says. “As for you, you’re incredible. You really don’t know how amazing you are, do you?” he asks.

  I back away. Tears are rimming my eyes; there’s just been too much emotional mayhem thrown at me in the last hour. I shake my head. “No, I guess I don’t.”

  “Well, I know. And that’s enough for now.” He kisses me quickly, then marches back into the living room, still sporting the towel.

  Men’s new fashion accessory for summer ’17.

  Twenty-Six

  Lucy

  “There’s a nice restaurant around the corner,” I tell my parents as we walk down the arched tunnel towards the street. I can feel that my cheeks are still red. The idea of eye contact with either of them is still too horrifying to conceive.

  “Whatever you think is best, dear,” my mother says. “So is that the Dylan I remember from your university days?”

  I pull open the wrought iron gate. “Yes,” I say. “We’ve known each other for a long time.”

  “He’s a very handsome boy. Very…well put together.”

  My father makes a noise like a dying cow, and I get it. He doesn’t want to acknowledge the idea of a nude man in his daughter’s flat. He doesn’t want to think about whether or not Dylan is handsome. I suspect that if my father gets his hands on a bottle of wine this evening, he’ll chug it like water.

  “I’ve been doing some research for my clothing line,” I announce, trying desperately to change the subject as we make our way along the street. “I have some really good ideas after wandering around Rome.”

  “Did you know that Trudy’s daughter just married a surgeon?” my mother asks, which has nothing to do with what I just said, yet has everything to do with it.

  “Um, that’s great,” I reply.

  “Is Dylan a doctor?”

  “He’s an architect. I’ve told you that. And we’re not about to get married.”

  “An architect, you say?” my father replies. He’s finally perking up. Finally, something he can sink his teeth into.

  “Yes,” I say, smiling and looking at him for the first time since his arrival. “He has his own firm back in the States.” As I utter the word firm I wince, reminded of Dylan’s hard-on. “He’s studying the villas here in Rome. He wants to use their style for some American buildings.”

  “Well, that sounds interesting. I’d like to…”

  “How much do architects make, dear?” my mother interrupts. I swear to God, she does this just to see if she can make my blood pressure spike.

  “I don’t know, Mom. I imagine quite a bit.”

  “Maybe you should have invited Dylan to join us this evening.”

  “I think Dylan might have been a little embarrassed.” I think Dylan wanted to run away screaming is more like it.

  “I don’t know. He was very comfortable in his towel, chatting with us.”

  When we arrive at the restaurant, a waiter gestures us towards a table by the window with a nice view of a vine-covered façade across the way.

  Dinner is mostly painless, with the odd passive-aggressive comment about my choice of food, clothing or the fact that I chose to wear my hair up instead of down thrown my way. But we somehow get through it. My father seems to have gotten over his shock; I suppose he’s worked out that maybe next time it would be
wise to knock on my door before barging in.

  After an hour or so, we head back to the apartment. The entire time, I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way I can sneak over to Dylan’s without causing problems. As much as I want to see him, I know I won’t be able to relax if I think my parents are lying in bed with their judgy-faces going.

  “There are fresh sheets in the closet,” I tell my mother as we climb the stairs to the flat. “I’ll change them when we get back.”

  “Yes, I think that would be best,” she replies, like my current ones are sullied with gallons of sweat and the aftermath of wild animal sex.

  What is it with mothers and daughters? It’s like there’s some unwritten animosity, a barbed wall of criticism that rises up between us like fortifications. My father and I have always gotten along like a house on fire, albeit a fairly tame blaze. We chat about life, we laugh. We enjoy each other. My mother, on the other hand, lives to let me know that I am not, nor will I ever be, perfect. Or anything close to it, for that matter.

  It’s no wonder I’m a freaking basket case.

  When the sheets are changed, I find myself standing in the bedroom doorway, staring at my parents. I stretch my arms over my head and fake-yawn. It’s, like, eight o’clock and I’m totally not tired, but I hope to hell that they are.

  “Well, I think it’s time for me to lie down,” I say.

  “So early? I thought Europeans stayed up half the night,” says my mother.

  “Yeah, it’s been a long day. I think I’ll just crash.”

  “Actually, I’m tired too,” my father says, winking at me. Winking! He’s got it. My father understands my need to get my ass across to Dylan’s place. He hears my plea for sanity and calm. “I think I’ll brush my teeth and get to bed. Best way to stave off jet lag is to get lots of sleep the first night, they say.”

  “Okay, then,” my mother replies, looking like she’s disappointed that she’ll have to cease her barrage of critique at such an unreasonably early hour.

  Thank God there are two bathrooms, and the one attached to the bedroom guarantees that they won’t have to walk through the living room in the middle of the night. It means there’s a chance that I might manage to sneak out to Dylan’s place. Of course it’ll have to be without the negligée, but that’s okay.

  Naked is better, after all.

  When we’ve said good night and my parents have finally closed their door, I wait a suitable amount of time. Which means at least half an hour, during which I play every game on my phone, stare longingly at the window and touch up the polish on my toenails. Finally I hear my father’s deep snore erupting from the bedroom.

  Excellent.

  It’s time.

  Twenty-Seven

  Dylan

  I could pretend I’m not excited to see Lucy walking this way, her head occasionally turning to look back as she sneaks over to my place. But the giant smile would prove me a total liar.

  When she knocks, I open the door immediately, pulling her inside before shutting it again.

  “I can’t stay long,” she says, like a woman who’s having some torrid affair and is worried about being seen.

  “Don’t worry,” I reply, grabbing her by the waist and dipping her backwards as though we’re wrapped up in a passionate tango, “I’ll make quick work of you, beautiful woman.”

  She laughs, the worried look disappearing from her face. I pull her back up and kiss her. She kisses me back, throwing her arms around my neck, and I start walking backwards towards the bedroom. I need my Lucy dose. I’m an addict by now.

  Within seconds I’m on my back and she’s on top of me, stripping away her dress. I pull off my t-shirt, she tosses her bra onto the floor.

  “Wait,” I say as she reaches for the front of my jeans.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “Nothing. I’m grinning from ear to ear, Loose. Do you really think there’s anything wrong? I just wanted to take it slightly slower.”

  She leans forward, propping herself up on her hands, and kisses me again. “I thought maybe you’d changed your mind,” she says, pulling back just enough to give me an eyeful of those magnificent breasts of hers.

  “I will never change my mind where you’re concerned,” I tell her. “Are you kidding me? Look at this.”

  I stroke my hands over her tapered waist, slipping them up to her breasts.

  “These old things?” she says, looking down. “You really like them?”

  “Fuck, yes,” I tell her.

  She pushes herself back, slipping her ass over the hard-on now raging in my jeans, and gyrates just enough to make me nuts.

  “You’ve learned a thing or two since we were kids, you know,” I observe.

  “Things I wanted to learn with you,” she mutters. As soon as she says the words, she goes silent.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer. “Loose…what do you mean?”

  “I…nothing. Nothing at all. It doesn’t matter anymore.” She smiles and kisses me. “The only thing that matters is here and now. I’m starting to think everything that happened back then was for a reason.”

  I stare at her. “What reason is that?” I ask.

  “So we could be together now,” she replies. “If we’d gotten together back then we would have broken up for some stupid reason or other.”

  “Agreed.” I lay a gentle kiss her shoulder. “Look at us now. Enjoying a secret, sexy romance in Rome.”

  She lets out an adorable little giggle and throws her hands over her face. “It’s all so crazy,” she says. Pulling her hands away, she looks at me again. “You remember when we were kids and people talked about ‘going together?’”

  I nod. “Yes. If you so much as gave a girl a blade of grass in elementary school, you were going steady.”

  “Yup.” She strokes a finger over my stubbled jawline. “Is that what this is? Are we going steady?” she asks.

  I shake my head, smiling. “No.”

  “So what are we doing?” she asks. I can see worry on her furrowed brow, like she’s waiting for a blow.

  “We’re going hard,” I reply in a low growl. With one flurried motion I’ve flipped her onto her back and I’m on top of her, my hands pinning her wrists into the mattress. “Hard, like difficult. Hard, like so the only things in life that are worth doing are the hard ones.”

  The smile forming on her lips is turning my heart into melted chocolate.

  “What else?” She mouths the words almost silently.

  “Hard, like my…” I say, pressing down to kiss her again. Our mouths are so hungry for one another, so fucking greedy.

  I keep her wrists in my grasp as I work my way down to her perfect breasts, taking one nipple and then the other into my mouth as I listen to her moans of Lucy-laced pleasure. Her hips are dancing under me, asking me silently to keep traveling down her body until I get to the magical place between her legs.

  Don’t worry, Loose. I intend to spend several hours there.

  Or possibly my entire life.

  Twenty-Eight

  Lucy

  For the next three days I play tour guide to my parents. We visit the Pantheon, the Colosseum, The Spanish Steps, the Piazza del Popolo. All Dad wants to do is eat gelato, all Mom wants to do is complain abut her feet and how the Romans should really get off their asses and pave this place with asphalt like normal human beings, because the cobblestones are irritating her corns.

  The whole time, I have to admit that I’m totally preoccupied with very pleasant thoughts. Counting down the days until Friday, when they’ll finally leave for Florence. I can’t wait to drop them at the train station, pretend to be sad to see them go, then spend my last two weeks here with Dylan by my side. His time in Rome is coming to an end, too; he’s supposed to head back to New York a few days after I leave.

  I have no idea what will happen after that. All I know is that I want to make the most of the time we have together.

  He and
I have talked about our little experiment with “going hard.” We’ve talked about the present—a lot. We’ve touched on the past too of course, but mostly, we’ve been smart enough to leave it in the vault where it belongs.

  What we haven’t talked about is the future.

  It seems stupid to even think about. We’ve only really been together for a few days. They’ve been amazing days, but it’s not like a few amazing days ever end in a “let’s get married” or anything, except in story books. As much as I hate to say it, this romance of ours really will probably amount to little more than a pretty intense summer fling.

  The thing is, though, that I care about him. So much that it almost hurts. After denying my feelings, after pushing away attachment and intimacy for so many years, something in me has finally opened up and let him in. I’m not ashamed of my feelings, though I’m terrified to use the word love, even in my own mind. But what else can I call it when every time I see him, I feel like the world becomes a better place? Every time I think about him, I feel like I understand what I’ve been waiting for all my life.

  When I’m away from him I sometimes come close to forgetting how much I love his smile, the way his eyes narrow a little when he’s being mischievous. I forget how sexy his voice is, the way he growls “Loose” when he’s looking at me a certain way. How good it feels to have him worship at the altar of my body, how sweet it is to feel his mouth on me, kissing every inch of skin. How generous he is. How thoughtful.

  I forget how he makes me feel like a kid again. But he also makes me feel like a woman.

  He’s offered to take my parents out for gelato, to walk them through the back streets of Rome and show them the hidden gems that tourists never get to see. He’s taken them to see Bernini’s amazing statues in the Piazza Navona, explained the intricacies of classical architecture to them.

  My father loves him now. My mother already did; what woman wouldn’t? Of course, they’re also naive enough to think I haven’t been sneaking over to give him blowjobs at night or to moan while he eats me out and brings me to multiple climaxes with his fingertips. Not so sure they’d love him if they knew he’d done the nasty with their daughter quite so many times since their arrival.