“Ready when you are.”
He gives Oscar a curt nod. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Oscar’s gaze flickers between us curiously, but he doesn’t look quite as mutinous as Dean. Then he hoists up his shopping basket and smiles. “Better get back to my grocery list.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, pressing a hand to the small of my back to steer me down the aisle. “Take care.”
“Bye, Oscar.”
“Bye, Rachel. Good seeing you again.” He winks at me before carrying on with his business.
Dean doesn’t say a word until we’re in the parking lot. “Again?” he echoes. “What the fuck did that mean? You two know each other?”
We stop next to a cart corral and I stare up at him, unimpressed with the jealous routine. “Reginald introduced us.”
“When was this?”
“I don’t know. A few weeks ago when I was at the gym.”
“Where was I?”
“Beats me.”
“You like him?”
“Are you serious right now?”
“You tell me, you’re the one who fucks accountants.”
I blanch. “Take that back.”
Dean stares at me furiously, but when I don’t back down he drags in a deep breath and looks away for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
He rolls his eyes. “For being insulting?”
“You should be. I didn’t attack you for talking to Jailbait back there.”
“Who?”
Shit. “What?”
“You got a nickname for her?” Dean’s grin is more than a little conceited.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s go. I rented a car. It’s over here somewhere.”
“Gimme the keys.”
“Absolutely not.” I stride off in the general direction of where I think I parked, eventually pressing the unlock button on the key chain so the lights flash on and I can locate my rental.
I reach the car first and open the driver’s side door, tossing my purse into the backseat. Dean squeezes between me and the car, hooking a finger under my chin and forcing me to look at him. “I’m sorry,” he says sincerely. “Let me drive. Please.”
“No.”
“Rachel...” he wheedles, kissing me softly.
“I won’t be convinced,” I say piously.
He smiles and I go a little weak in the knees. “I told you I was old-fashioned.”
“Your list only had three things on it.”
“Yeah? What were they?”
“Pay for meals, teach me to beat up coworkers and...” I lower my voice. “Screw me.”
“I don’t think that’s what I called it.”
“Close enough.”
“You missed the fourth item.”
“There was no fourth item. Come on, I want to drive. I didn’t get to drive the last time. Plus I have something for you.”
Dean’s ready to argue, but the last line stops him. “What is it?”
“You have to be sitting in the passenger seat to get it.”
His brows pull together. “You could blow me in either seat.”
I shove him out of the way and he allows it, giving me a patronizing look as he rounds the car and pulls open the passenger side door, glancing in and going still. I climb in and watch as Dean’s big hand reaches down to pick up the small pink box sitting on the seat. He cradles it in his palm as he gets in, studying it for a moment before turning to look at me.
“What is this?”
“Open it.”
“Rachel.”
I stare at him until he sighs and pries off the lid, revealing the chocolate cupcake inside. I reach over with the lighter I’d stashed in the cup holder and light the candle stuck in the frosting. “Happy birthday.”
“You didn’t have to do this.”
“It’s just a cupcake.”
“I didn’t think you remembered.”
“Blow out the candle. Make a wish.”
Dean glances at me, then lifts the cupcake and blows out the flame, leaving us in darkness.
“What’d you wish for?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Come on. I got you a cupcake.”
“Forget it. If I tell you, it won’t come true.”
I start the car, smiling as he lifts the cupcake out of the box, peels off the wrapper and takes a bite. “Fuck, Rachel,” he groans, making me laugh. “This is going to mess with my diet.”
“You’ll still be beautiful,” I assure him, steering us out of the parking lot and back toward the city.
“Where are we going?”
“You mind if we stay at my place tonight? I have to go to a birthday party tomorrow, and they live on the other side of town.”
“Whose party is this?”
“Are you going to eat that whole cupcake by yourself?”
Dean swipes a finger through the frosting, then leans over and pushes it unceremoniously into my mouth. “Whose party?” he asks again.
“Parker’s twins. He’s my coworker. He invited me a month ago.” Actually, he’d forced me to agree to go, but that’s neither here nor there.
“You like him?”
“Yeah. I love him. He’s my best friend.”
Dean looks over at me as he polishes off the cupcake. “He married?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I roll my eyes. “Tell me about Jailbait.”
“She’s not jailbait.”
“How old is she?”
“I don’t know. Twenty?”
“Did you...sleep with her?” I try to keep my tone cool, as if I’m just casually inquiring and not seriously pissed at the possibility.
“Why?”
“You ask me about everyone I talk to, I’m asking you about one person. Answer.”
“Would it bother you if I had?”
“If it were between now and the day we met,” I answer, only half lying.
The pause goes on so long I nearly give up on Dean replying until finally he says, “Almost. But no.”
“What does ‘almost’ mean?”
“Oral.”
I give a startled bark of laughter. “Jesus.”
“What?”
“Is she your...type?”
“My type of what?”
“Your type of girl, Dean. The kind you’re into.”
I risk a look over and he’s staring at me oddly. “You know what I’m into.”
“You’re only with me because we have history. I’m not your type. You said so yourself.”
“When?”
“When you told me to take the stick out of my ass, throw away my beautiful purse, take down my hair.”
“Oh yeah.”
I huff, offended when he doesn’t dispute the argument.
“Relax, Rach. You’re fine.”
My nose wrinkles in distaste but I’m determined not to show my hurt feelings. Fine. Fine, as in, all right. Passable. Like getting a C on a report card: not quite a failure, but certainly nothing to boast about.
Dean sighs and stretches back in the seat, folding up the empty cupcake box and wedging it into the cup holder. “When I got out of prison,” he begins cautiously, “those were the kind of girls I met.” He shoots me a wary look. “They were cute, they were willing, just...easy.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I’d been stuck in a cage for eight years with nothing but my hand to keep me company.”
I swallow, feeling somehow like that’s my fault.
“So for a while, maybe that’s what I was into. But it got old quick.” A rough laugh. “Fuck, I got old.”
“You’re not old.”
“I’m thirty.”
“I know.”
“Anyway,” he says, as though it’s the final word on the subject. “That answers your question. Tell Reginald I’m following his orders next time you talk to him, got it?”
“Aye aye.”
Dean reac
hes over to squeeze my knee. “And tell him to talk to me before he introduces you to any more accountants.”
The song on the radio ends and the next one begins. We both gasp as the familiar opening guitar strains filter out. “The bonfire!” I exclaim, stealing a glance at Dean.
A faint smile tugs at his lips as he remembers. “I thought for sure I was going to get laid that night.”
“As if. That was the first time you kissed me.”
I was fifteen, Dean was seventeen, and we were at Mitzy Lachlan’s sixteenth birthday party, a bonfire held in a field a few miles from the trailer park. We weren’t dating then, just flirting, and Dean had lured me away from the party with the promise of free beer. I can still remember how thrilling it was to follow that dangerous, determined boy away from the crowd and climb into the beat-up old Trans Am he’d mysteriously come to possess. Drinking the bitter brew while staticky music filled the car, I’d felt more alive than I knew was possible. Five minutes later I’d started feeling something else as Dean’s hand covered my leg and moved swiftly up my bare thigh to trace the hem of my shorts.
I’d known Dean my entire life, but it was only a few months before that night that he’d started looking at me differently. People had warned me away from him, swearing up and down that he only wanted to take my virginity so he could add my name to the list of conquests he kept taped to his bedroom wall, and I’d vowed to heed their advice. Dean Barclay was trouble, and even then I’d had big dreams that no one in Riverside factored into.
Of course, I also had hormones, and while that night ended at second base, the next time we met we’d gone to third, and it wasn’t too long before Dean was heading for home while I enthusiastically waved him on. Even now I can still picture us lying in the double-wide, breathing labored, my anxious eyes covertly scanning the room for signs of that rumored list.
“It’s not real,” he’d told me, exasperated.
“Then why does everybody think it is?”
“Guess they like the idea.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yours would be the only name on it,” he’d said after a while.
I’d felt my face heat, feeling like the last virgin on the planet. I’d seen the girls that flirted with Dean, their low-cut shirts and cheap tattoos, big hair and tight pants. I knew they’d all been better than me, sexy and confident, nothing like the quaking, eager mess I’d been.
“Great,” I’d said.
“Cause you’re the only one, dummy,” he’d added, reading my mind.
I’d propped myself up on one arm and stared down at him, stunned. “That was your first time?”
He’d closed his eyes briefly and nodded, smiling thinly. “Yeah.” Then those dark eyes had opened and fastened on mine so tightly I couldn’t bear to look away, even when it felt like he was looking right inside me, seeing things no one else knew existed. He could have demanded anything from me in that moment and I would have been powerless to resist. As it was, his request was much simpler. “So—whaddya say?” he’d asked, biting his lip as though there was any way I could have made the great Dean Barclay nervous. “You wanna be my girlfriend, or what?”
* * *
Apparently the recollection turns Dean on, because he slips his hand in my pants at every red light. By the time we stumble into my apartment I’m breathless with want and Dean’s rock hard. He prowls after me as I toss my bag onto the kitchen counter and start down the hall to the bedroom, stopping short when he snags the waistband of my jeans and yanks me back against his chest.
“Take these things off,” he orders. He’d had my jeans unbuttoned and unzipped for the car ride home, those seeking fingers wedging themselves determinedly inside me, thumb tormenting my clit.
I don’t argue, kicking off my shoes and shimmying out of the prohibitive pants as Dean impatiently tugs my top over my head. I shuck my bra and jewelry and stand naked as he studies me, fully dressed. Too often this has been our dynamic, but I’m too turned on to care. Clothes are a hindrance. Dean appears to agree as he strips away his T-shirt to reveal his ripped chest, shoulders tapering only slightly into straining pecs and a tight six-pack.
“Do you have any special requests for your birthday?” I ask, surprised at how my heart flutters in my chest at the question. I can’t decide if it’s nerves or excitement that make my blood flow faster.
“Nah.” Dean smiles fleetingly, stepping out of his shoes and pushing down his pants so he’s left in only a pair of black boxers. He lifts his arms over his head and stretches, eyes slipping closed for a second.
“Are you tired?”
His eyes open. “No.”
“Cause if you are, I don’t mind doing the work.”
“How many times do we gotta have the old-fashioned conversation?” Dean asks, stepping close and tipping up my chin so our eyes meet. “I’m the man—I fuck you.”
He’s not kidding, but I can’t help but laugh. “I know you’re the man. Why don’t you go lie on the chaise lounge and let me be on top?”
He looks disgusted. “I don’t know what the hell a chaise lounge is.”
I lead the way into the living room, stepping past the Italian sectional I’ve sat on approximately twice, the ottoman I’ve never used and the matching chaise lounge that sits in front of the window for all those lazy afternoons I spend at home.
“This is a chaise lounge,” I say, tugging down his shorts so his erection springs free. I wrap my hand around his cock, stroking lightly. “Why don’t you lie back and take in the view you like so much?”
Dean’s dark eyes flicker between me and the city stretching around us. “Which one?”
I smile. “Whichever one you want.”
He hesitates, unused to being the one taking orders, so I take the condom from his hand and push against his chest until he sits down stiffly. “Relax,” I whisper, straddling his legs and shifting forward so he has to lean back. I tear open the condom and roll it on, smiling when I hear Dean’s breath catch. I echo the words he’d said to me that night in the street after I’d stood him up. “You need to get laid.”
Dean’s eyes sink closed and he takes a deep breath, big hands gripping my hips hard enough to leave marks. “Jesus, Rachel. I don’t know.”
I straighten up on my knees and hold his cock in one hand, sliding the swollen head through my throbbing folds, back and forth, the pleasure and promise so intense it almost hurts. I take his hands in mine and slide them up over my breasts, watching the sensitive flesh fill his calloused palms. “It’s your birthday,” I remind him, enjoying the rare exchange of power as he looks on helplessly, gaze zeroed in between my legs. “Just take it.”
I sink down a little, his cock stretching me just enough, then slide back up, working him in one inch at a time.
“Fucking on a chaise lounge,” Dean mutters. At first I think he’s talking to himself, then his sharp gaze locks on mine. “Is this how you fucked Todd?”
I freeze, half his length buried inside me, my blood running cold. “What?”
Dean’s hands return to my hips and yank me down until I’m fully seated, impaled on his cock. I’m wet enough that it’s not painful, but it’s deep and unexpected, and I cry out in uncomfortable surprise, slapping futilely at his stomach.
“You heard me,” he says, hands pinning me in place when I try to pull away. “You got this big apartment, French furniture, rich boyfriends. Is this how you do it? They let you be in charge?”
If I’m being honest, I want to haul off and hit him. I want to claw his hands away, put on my clothes and throw him out with a dramatic send-off. But after these past two months, I know him. I know why he’s doing this. For all his size, those big muscles and angry words, Dean’s still afraid. He’s the boy from the trailer park and I’m the girl who left him there. I’m the one with the framed degrees, the good job in the big city. I’m the one who should know better.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” I say softly. I shift my hips slightly and feel
his cock stir inside me.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I don’t think straight when you’re around,” I admit, leaning forward to rest my hands on his chest, looking into his eyes. “You’re all I can see.”
It’s dark in the living room, but with the light spilling over from the entrance area I can see the uncertainty cross his face.
“When you’re inside me...” I tighten my pelvic muscles hard enough to make him groan. “You’re all I can feel. You’re so big it feels like too much, sometimes.”
“Rachel...”
“I never fucked Todd on this chaise lounge, Dean.”
“Rachel...”
“I’ve never fucked anybody on this chaise lounge. You’re the first.”
“I—”
“In fact, I’ve never fucked anybody on any of my living room furniture, so you don’t have to ask me about the sofa or the love seat or the ottoman.”
Dean covers his eyes with one hand and I can see his brow wrinkle in confusion, frustration, indecisiveness. What hasn’t changed, though, is the unflagging erection still wedged inside me.
I wrap my fingers around his and tug the hand away from his face, forcing him to look at me. “This is the second time you’ve mentioned someone else when we’re having sex,” I say firmly. “I don’t think about other men when we’re together—if that’s something that turns you on, keep it to yourself.”
Dean looks mortally offended. “That does not—”
“It turns me on when you touch me,” I continue, grinding my hips against his.
Dean grits his teeth.
“And it turns me on when you tell me what you want.”
I slide up and then back down, feeling his steely length pulsing inside me.
“But I don’t like being insulted...”
I pull off of his cock completely, even as my pussy clenches, arousal trying frantically to override my good sense.
“And if you don’t think you can fuck me without being insulting, then it’s time for you to go.”
“Rachel.” He tries to tug me back down, but I hold firm.
“What’s it going to be?”
The skin is pulled taut over his cheekbones and beads of sweat dot his hairline, glinting in the light. “Whatever you want,” Dean says eventually, voice so quiet I can barely make it out.
“What’s that?”
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