Since Last Time: A Bad Boy Second Chance Romance

by Sienna Ciles

  When our arancini and wine came to the table, the idyll busted. A couple of people that Bethany recognized from her graduating class came in, probably seeking to get away from the crowd like we had. I couldn’t blame them for that, but it irritated me nonetheless. At least the couple sat down a few tables away from us, and at least they weren’t interested in having some in-depth conversation with us; apart from a quick hello and a comment on how nice Bethany looked in her sweater-dress, they didn’t really engage us. But it did mean that we had to start acting at least a little bit like a couple again, and to my surprise it was actually easier than I thought to just fall back into the little roleplaying game.

  We got through the dinner and headed back to the hotel as soon as we could. There was some kind of movie night event going on, but Bethany and I both agreed we didn’t feel up to going to it--we just wanted to stay in.

  Once again, we ran out of luck, when we ran into a couple of people we’d talked to separately the night before at the big dinner. “You two look so good together,” Bethany’s former classmate, Nadine, said. She was with Katie and Becky, all three of them working on the setup for the movie night, and they’d caught us on the way to the elevators up to our room.

  “I do try to only date guys who make me look good,” Bethany said, glancing at me with a mixture of playfulness and sarcasm.

  “It’s not hard to make you look good, babe,” I pointed out.

  “I just can’t believe that the two of you went to an amusement park for your first date,” Katie said, shaking her head. “It’s such a weird, sweet thing.” I looked at Bethany sharply. I hadn’t said anything about an amusement park--she must have.

  “Wait, I thought you said the first date you took her on was to your friend’s restaurant,” Becky said, pointing to me.

  “It depends on which date you think of as our ‘first’ date,” I said quickly. “I guess you don’t think that dinner at Luciano’s restaurant counts,” I added, giving Bethany a playful poke.

  “If I remember right, you didn’t actually ask me out on a date with that one,” she said, picking up where I was going with our cover. “You just said it would be good to get dinner with someone and your friend Luciano’s restaurant had just opened.”

  “Oh, come on--that’s an obvious date,” Nadine protested.

  “Technically, he hadn’t finished the contract with my company, so it better not have been a date,” Bethany said, giving me a mock-severe look.

  The other three women laughed, and the elevator chimed to announce that it had arrived, saving us from the stress of the moment.

  “We’ve got a date with a movie of our own, and I think Beth needs a good, hot bath,” I said, herding Bethany onto the elevator with me. We said goodbye to her friends and I punched for our floor. As soon as the girls left and the doors closed, I sighed with more than a little relief that we hadn’t managed to get caught out at a moment like that.

  “That was close,” Bethany said, and I nodded.

  “Obviously, we need to hammer out a few more details on our story,” I pointed out.

  Bethany looked at me for a moment. “Yeah, that would probably be a good idea,” she agreed.

  We got to the room and a devil of a thought occurred to me. When the door closed behind us I saw that the housekeeping staff had been in and straightened everything up, but left behind the non-perishable parts of the bottle service we’d ordered the night before. Apparently, we’d earned the right to keep the bottles, by paying so much.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed and watched as Bethany kicked off her boots and took off her coat. “I have an idea,” I said, reaching over to the cart and picking up the bottle of vodka. It was still more than half-full, and while I don’t normally drink every night, I thought it might spur things forward a bit.

  “What’s that?”

  “We quiz each other, the way we did the first day,” I suggested. “But instead of the normal forfeits, for each one we get wrong, we have to take off an item of clothing.” Bethany crossed her arms over her chest and half-smiled.

  “You say that after I’ve already taken two things off--that’s not fair,” she said.

  I shrugged and took off my own jacket and shoes.

  “Now we’re starting out even,” I said happily. I should have been more discreet--I knew I should--but I couldn’t resist the temptation to see this gorgeous woman naked once again.

  She held my gaze for a moment longer and then her smile grew on her face. “Okay,” she said. “We can do that.”

  I almost laughed. No matter what she’d said before--even the night before--about orgasms, it was obvious to me in her eagerness that she wanted to get me naked again, and that she wanted to be naked with me. Whatever I’d accomplished the night before, I’d done a good job of things--good enough for her to actually be interested in messing around.

  “Let’s have a drink while we’re at it,” I suggested, getting to my feet to mix us both one. We’d had a glass of wine each at the restaurant, but it wasn’t enough to get either of us even close to tipsy--maybe lightly buzzed, but that was it. I mixed us each a vodka and tonic, and we clinked glasses as we settled in for the game.

  “What was my major in college?” she asked.

  I thought about it for a moment. I know she’d said something to me about it, but it was hard to pull up in my mind. “You started with literature, right? And then went on to something in psychology, with some kind of business minor.”

  Bethany chuckled. “I guess that’s close enough,” she said.

  “That’s not something I would even know if I actually was your boyfriend, anyway. You have to pick fair questions,” I pointed out.

  Bethany rolled her eyes. “Fine, your turn.”

  “What is my favorite thing that you cook?” I could see that I’d gotten her with that one--it wasn’t a question that had come up, but it was one that absolutely could.

  “Damnit,” she said, sighing. She shook her head, took a sip of her vodka-tonic, and slipped one of her socks off.

  We went on like that for a while, asking each other questions, getting them wrong--or getting them right. I really did want to make sure that we both knew each other well enough to get through the last day or so of the reunion without tipping anyone off to what was really going on, but I also couldn’t deny that I really wanted to see Bethany naked again. The little taste I’d had the night before hadn’t been enough.

  It was ridiculous, since she was just another woman, and one I was probably never going to see again--I didn’t think she was all that interested in seeing me again, at least not consistently, no matter how things had gone down the night before. And I should have been focused on making sure I kept up my end of the deal and that Bethany kept up hers. But as both of us lost one bit of clothing after another, I found myself getting more and more excited at the prospect of being alone with a gorgeous woman who I knew could make me come hard.

  I started coming up with harder and harder questions, trying to get rid of Bethany’s sweater dress, her leggings, as much as I could get her to take off. She was obviously doing the same--I realized it when I got a question from her that I couldn’t even remember us talking about at all, something from her middle-school years that there was no way I could have known.

  Finally, we were down to underwear--boxers for me, and a pair of panties for Bethany. We’d finished our first drinks and I got up to make us another round.

  “We should really make it interesting,” I said, as I poured a vodka-cranberry for Bethany and another vodka-tonic for me.

  “What do you mean?”

  I hadn’t missed the way that she’d blushed more than once when I was taking off my shirt, or my pants. She had the look on her face of someone who was starting to get turned on, but was desperate not to show it.

  “Well, we’re both down to one last thing to take off,” I pointed out. “But we’re not really done getting to the bottom of what we need to know about each other to pull
this off.”

  “So how do we go from there?” she asked, licking her lips. Nervousness or arousal? I couldn’t tell, but I would have bet the latter.

  I grinned and handed Bethany her drink. “Every question we get wrong, we have to do some kind of physical act to the other person,” I said. “Like--start with a kiss. Just a peck on the lips. And then move up.”

  Bethany considered it for a moment and sipped her drink.

  “I think we can do that,” she said, giving me a quick, raking look.

  I could see the wheels turning in her head, and I knew we were heading towards something good--even if we didn’t necessarily end up achieving the goal of knowing each other as if we’d been dating a year.

  “Whose turn is it?” I sat down with my drink and took a sip. I could feel the heat starting to pool in my groin, though I hadn’t started to get hard yet. But I knew I’d be hard soon enough, and I was already thinking of how difficult I could make the questions, to see how far Bethany was going to go with me.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bethany

  At first, I couldn’t bring myself to really push things with Ransom. In spite of the fact that I’d felt like a pot on the simmer all day, I was also sure that I would just be disappointed. So even though I’d jumped at the idea of upping the ante on what we’d do if we couldn’t remember the answer to a question, I couldn’t make myself go through with it for a few rounds. Ransom was obviously pretty on top of the idea--it had been his, after all--and in spite of how weirdly shy I’d felt, after two rounds I ended up kissing him on the cheek and then on the lips, for sixty seconds. Then I finally managed to stump him, and made him kiss me.

  My curiosity--and my desire--started to overcome my certainty that I was going to be disappointed, and I started making my questions a little harder. But Ransom had obviously been paying better attention to the things I said than I had to his comments; I couldn’t get him.

  “What high school did I go to?” When Ransom asked me that question, I stared at him. It was so out of the blue, and something that I had no way to know how to answer. First, because while I remembered what he’d told me about himself--that he’d gone to more than one high school--I didn’t know, or couldn’t remember, what his official cover was. And I didn’t know whether he meant his cover or the real information, for just a moment.

  “You never told me,” I countered. “So that question doesn’t count.”

  “I think you just don’t want to get another forfeit,” Ransom said, grinning at me teasingly.

  “Give me a valid question, and if I can’t answer it right, you can give me the forfeit,” I said.

  “What year did I graduate high school?” I looked at Ransom sharply. I should be able to figure it out--even just by his age, I should have been able to come up with the right answer. I did some quick mental math and rattled off a year that was two years after my graduation.

  Ransom shook his head.

  “What?” I said. “You’re only two years older than me, aren’t you?”

  Ransom grinned. “Three years,” he told me. “Both James and I are three years older than you.”

  I groaned. “Okay, what’s the forfeit?” I shifted on the bed we’d both ended up sitting on, feeling uncomfortable and excited all at once.

  “Sit in my lap and make out with me,” Ransom said. “Seven minutes in heaven style. Since we’re harkening back to high school, that seems appropriate.”

  I blushed furiously, and tried to remind myself that this was a man that had gone down on me the night before. A little bit of kissing is nothing.

  I climbed onto Ransom’s lap and felt his cock start to harden, just a bit, through the thin fabric of his boxers. The sensation of it coming to life right up against me sent a little jolt of heat through me, and as I leaned in to kiss Ransom, I felt that little shiver in my nerves, that feeling I hadn’t gotten with anyone else. My lips connected with his, and I waited a few seconds before I slid my tongue against his lips.

  Almost immediately, Ransom wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close and deepening the kiss. I thought I wasn’t ready for it, but I found myself responding a heartbeat later, draping my arms around his shoulders, even moaning a little bit as I felt his hands come up to cop a feel of my breasts. I hadn’t set a timer or anything, so I realized too late that I had no way to make sure that we would stop at seven minutes--and in that moment, I didn’t really want to. I rubbed against Ransom’s hardening bulge, and his fingers rolled my nipples, sending little crackling tingles of sensation seemingly straight between my legs.

  I hadn’t made out with someone in so long, and when I had, it had been okay, and I’d thought I was getting turned on. But as Ransom and I started pawing at each other, touching each other everywhere, even while we kept our clothes on, I realized that what I’d done before with other guys was like a candle a few feet away from me, compared to how hot I felt after just a few minutes sitting in Ransom’s lap and feeling him get turned on right along with me.

  Ransom’s hand had wandered down to my inner thighs, just barely avoiding my clit through the lacy fabric of my panties, and then he pulled back, breaking away from my lips.

  “That’s seven minutes,” he said, sounding a little tense but not nearly as worked up as I felt.

  I clenched my teeth and awkwardly climbed off of him. That sensation I’d been having all day, like a pot full of water simmering, was getting even worse. Inanely, my brain parroted the stupid saying: a watched pot never boils!

  “I think it’s my turn,” I said, after I took a long sip of my drink.

  “Go right ahead,” Ransom said. “Do your worst.”

  I wanted to pay him back if only for the fact that he seemed so composed, compared to the way I felt. I racked my brain to try and think of something I would have told him in passing, but that he would probably not remember.

  “What was my go-to dish before I met you?” I was almost certain I’d said something about it to him, but I didn’t think he could possibly remember.

  “Sunny-side up eggs on toast,” Ransom said, irritating me with the right answer.

  “You go,” I said, feeling like I had electricity coursing through my veins, like if the lights went out, I would glow in the dark from how hot I already was.

  I managed to get the next few questions right out of sheer spite, but my arousal was getting the better of me. “You know, I was thinking about last night,” I said, finishing off the drink in my glass and setting it aside. I didn’t want to get drunk--I actually, shockingly, wanted to get laid.

  “Oh? I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Ransom said, smiling slowly. “I’m looking forward to getting the rest of the information you promised me.”

  “I mean what you did last night. I think it was a fluke,” I told him with an eye roll.

  Ransom laughed out loud, putting his glass down on the other bedside table.

  “You think that was a fluke, when you were trying everything you could to keep me from getting you off?” He shook his head. “Face it, babe. I am good, and you are not physically incapable of climaxing.”

  “I never said it’s impossible, just that it’s never happened,” I protested.

  “Well, it did last night,” Ransom said.

  “I’m not sure that it really did,” I said. “And even if it did, I’m not sure it proves anything.”

  “If you want me to get you off again, you can just ask,” Ransom countered.

  “It’s not that I want you to, it’s that I don’t think it was valid,” I insisted.

  “It was valid, and I can do it again. I can do it with more than just my fingers and mouth, too,” he said.

  It was--I had to admit privately--exactly what I’d wanted to get him to say. He sat there holding my gaze, with a look on his face like he knew that I’d been trying to manipulate him but he didn’t care.

  “I mean, if you want to prove it, then who am I to argue?” I crossed my arms over my chest and felt the fact t
hat my nipples were still hard from the way Ransom had been teasing them during our short makeout session.

  Almost before I knew what was happening, Ransom pulled me to him, pinning me down on the bed and covering my body with his. I could feel that his cock had gotten harder, almost straining at his boxers, and I felt a little triumphant thrill that in spite of how composed he’d been acting, he was clearly turned on, too.

  I gave myself up to the kiss, pressing my body against Ransom’s, getting more and more turned on by the moment as he nibbled my bottom lip and sucked my tongue. I nipped at him, feeling breathless and needy and playful, and our hands started to wander all over each other’s bodies.

  “I think we can forego the massage to start,” Ransom said, barely breaking away from my lips. “I think you’re relaxed enough already, and besides--this is one of the things I’m best at.”

  I giggled, and then gasped as he dipped down to the column of my throat, nipping me sharply and licking at the pulse spot there with his tongue.

  He worked his way downward and then stopped at my breasts, just like he had the night before. Even though I knew what to expect, the feeling of his mouth worshipping my nipples--one and then the other, then back again--while his fingers rolled and twisted whichever nipple wasn’t in his mouth--was like dropping a match in gunpowder. I’d been with guys who liked boobs before, and they’d done what they thought was something sexy, but it was nothing compared to the way Ransom went to town on me, sucking hard enough to almost hurt, swirling his tongue around each of the two hard little nubs as if they were the same as my clitoris. I moaned out, getting hotter and hotter with every beat of my heart, twisting and writhing underneath him.

  Just when I thought I couldn’t stand any more delay, Ransom moved on, tickling my waist with his hot breath and moist lips, working downward toward my already-wet center. That had been something else that had shocked me the night before--while it wasn’t like I didn’t get wet with other guys, by the time Ransom got to licking and rubbing and fingering me, I’d been so drenched, so slick and hot, that I was surprised that there wasn’t a pool of my own fluids under me on the bed.