“You live with your sister?” He looked down at me quizzically. We hadn’t exchanged much personal information tonight. We’d only really talked about movies and our rules for dating. This tidbit about having a sister who lived in my apartment was probably the one concrete thing he knew about me beyond the fact that I was a principal who used to date the biggest wad of human garbage from his high school.
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it.” Tonight was not about “getting to know you.” Tonight was about sneaking into my bedroom with this hot random dude and getting laid. I clutched his upper arms. His biceps—I couldn’t get enough of them. They were rock hard. So strong. He could probably lift me up like I weighed nothing. He could probably support me while we screwed against the shower wall. Now there was an idea. I dragged him by the hand toward my bedroom at the back of the condo, careful to tiptoe past my sister’s door. Thank goodness she slept like the dead. And she kept a white-noise machine humming all night long.
I shut the door and kicked off my heels. “Do you have a condom?”
“Yeah.” He sat down on the edge of my bed.
“Of course you do.” I grinned.
“My reputation precedes me.” He smiled, too, thank goodness. I didn’t want him to think I judged him for his life choices, because I totally didn’t. Tonight I worshipped those life choices, and also the way his untied bow tie hung around his neck and he undid his top two buttons with one hand—oh my God.
I reached behind my back and unzipped my dress, letting it fall to the floor in a puddle around my ankles. I hadn’t been this naked in front of someone in a while. Actually, the last person who saw me like this was my gynecologist, Dana, a few months ago—when Dirk had promised to meet me there but didn’t. Honestly neither of them had ever looked at me the way Ian gazed at me right now, which was probably a good thing for my gynecologist, but a total knock against my ex-boyfriend.
“You’re gorgeous, Erin.” Ian swallowed. He gawked right at my boobs, so I knew he definitely wasn’t kidding. I had great boobs.
I stepped closer to him and hopped onto his lap, straddling him, kissing him, grinding against him. His hands clutched my ass, drawing me closer, the entire length of him tormenting me through my underwear. “Fuck me,” I whispered in his ear.
He pulled a condom from his wallet and flipped me onto my back. Then he stepped away from the bed and pulled off his shirt, revealing a toned chest and abs that belied his forty-year-old age.
Ian undid his pants and dropped them next to my discarded dress on the floor. He slipped off his boxer briefs, and I slipped off my Costco value-pack panties, revealing myself to him. He bit his lip and slid on the condom like the pro I knew he was.
Waiting for him agonized me. I mean, come on, dude. “Now,” I said.
He crawled onto the bed, eyeing me like a tiger the entire way up, up, up, until he entered me and time simply stopped.
…
Ian
Fuck.
The pillow, the silky pillow, jolted me awake. I owned flannel sheets. Rugged, manly, too-hot-in-the-summertime sheets. I was not a satin man.
But satin currently tickled my cheek and glided against my naked ass.
I was not in my bed.
Fuck.
I flipped over, waking Erin in the process. Her eyes popped open and she bolted upright, pulling the pink sheets to her neck. She looked just as sexy in the morning, with the sunlight glinting off her platinum hair, which stood up at odd angles all over her head. Her eye makeup had smudged under her eyes, giving her a sultry, punk-rock vibe. I was getting hard just looking at her.
Unacceptable.
This was why I never spent the night anywhere. Spending the night led to morning sex, which led to breakfast, which led to exchanging numbers, which led to calls and texts, which led to making plans, which led to relationships, and I didn’t do relationships.
Erin would make some guy—some other guy—very happy someday. Believe me. She’d blown my mind last night, and it took a lot to do that. I was usually the one who blew minds.
“So,” I said.
“Hey.” She winced. Erin didn’t seem thrilled about this development, either, so that was a positive. I’d gone and fucked it up by making the rookie mistake of falling asleep and spending the night.
She’d just worn me out, I guess. Plus the alcohol. Plus resting my head against her full, gorgeous chest while she stroked my hair.
What had we even been doing? There never should’ve been any hair stroking! I should’ve just thrown my pants on and ducked out, like we’d agreed.
And speaking of pants, mine were still at the foot of the bed. I was naked under these pink satin sheets. I needed to figure out a way to gracefully get out from under the covers and pull my clothes on. I was never this bashful around my one-night stands—probably because I’d usually booked the hell out of there before things had a chance to get awkward—but now I’d become a blushing virgin or something.
Erin, however, did the grown-up thing and glided right out from under the covers—fully naked, beautiful, and unselfconscious. She snapped on her bra and slipped on her underwear. Then she stood in front of me, one hand on a full, shapely hip, her breasts presented to me like the prow of the best ship on the planet. “We’re both adults,” she said in her Dr. Principal voice.
I wasn’t sure about that. I felt like a boy at the moment, like a foolish noob. I should’ve been the one to hop out from under the covers like it was nothing.
So I did.
I jumped out of bed, trying to ignore the fact that I was sporting a semi (thanks, Erin’s boobs). I would not let Erin Sharpe, an elementary school principal, think I, Ian Donovan, venture capitalist, was shy.
I watched her watching me as I pulled on my boxer briefs and pants. Ha. She wasn’t immune to my presence either. Way to go, Ian. You’ve still got it.
I took my time pulling my undershirt over my head, giving Erin the opportunity to enjoy every last millimeter of my toned abs. “So.” The only thing left for me to do was make the walk of shame in my tuxedo from last night. The classiest walk of shame of all.
“So,” she repeated. “That was fun.” She grabbed a pink cotton T-shirt dress from her closet, probably something she wore all the time, for comfort, and pulled it over her head. Bye, boobs. Nice meeting you. “What’s the protocol now?” She ran a hand through her bedhead.
“The protocol?” I scanned the floor for my phone, which had fallen out of my pocket and rolled under her bed. This would not turn into a rom-com where I left anything important behind at her house. I was leaving this place with all my stuff, both shoes, every single piece of lint from my pockets.
“Do…I make you breakfast?”
No, was my first instinct. But since I was already there…maybe a cup of coffee for the road…?
She shook her head. “I’m being stupid. You’re probably looking for any excuse to get out of here.”
Totally. That was definitely what I was doing. I was for sure not thinking about sharing pancakes and coffee while reading the newspaper across the table from Dr. Erin Sharpe, no sir.
“Well, buddy, you don’t need to make an excuse. We hooked up. Good times. Now you can leave.” She stood at the door, staring at me, waiting for me to make a move.
“Now?” Oh. She really wanted me to go. I got the sense she wanted me out of here even more than I wanted to leave. Well, that was a new one.
I slowly donned my tuxedo jacket, giving her a little time, one last chance, to change her mind about the pancakes. She, resolute, stayed near the exit. “Well, thanks,” I said, officially taking the hint.
As Erin opened the bedroom door, she held up her hand. I high-fived her. I high-fived my one-night stand who was kicking me out of her house faster than I’d ever seen anyone do anything.
Booking it, Erin hustled me into the hall and toward the front door, while I tried to shove my shoes on. Her message blared loud and clear: I had to escape now before she tur
ned the hose on me or called the cops to report me for trespassing.
From the kitchen came a voice, “Erin?”
We both spun around. The roommate sister, apparently, sat at the kitchen table, eating cereal. She gawked at me and dropped her spoon. “Erin?” she said again, her eyes swinging toward her sister.
“This is No One. No One, this is my sister, Katie. No One was just leaving.” Erin yanked open the door and pushed me out into the hall. “Thanks.” She gave me a thumbs-up before slamming the door in my face.
And suddenly, standing alone in the hall with one shoe on and one dangling from my hand, I felt a whole bunch of empathy for the girls I’d ditched like this.
Chapter Three
Erin
“I told you to watch out for him.” Natalie sipped her tea and raised an eyebrow at me over the rim of her cup. She seemed a tad judgy this morning for someone who’d just admitted she’d gone to third base with the guy who’d bought her at the bachelorette auction. Apparently her thing was “better” because the two of them had made vague plans to see each other again, while Ian and I had not.
“Yes, you did, and I heeded your warning.” Now it was my turn to sip tea as if to prove a point. I’d gone out for brunch with Nat and my sister, Katie, a mere hour after Ian had left my house. Okay, after I’d kicked him out. After I’d literally pushed him into the hall and slammed the door in his face. I shuddered from guilt.
I could’ve been nicer. I could’ve offered him coffee. But he wouldn’t have accepted, and then I would’ve been the one who’d tried to keep the night going, and I couldn’t be that person. I couldn’t. I’d made a promise to myself—one ride and goodbye. (Okay more than one ride. Three rides. Three glorious rides.)
“You slept with him,” Nat said.
“I did.” I bit my cheek to stifle a creeping grin.
“How does that constitute ‘heeding my warning’?”
“Well.” I popped a grape into my mouth. “I knew exactly what I was getting into, thanks to you.”
“This dude obliterated Dirk in the hotness department.” Katie participated in the conversation while tapping away on her phone. My sister was only twenty-five. My parents had adopted her as a baby from Korea back when I was fifteen. I felt more like her aunt than her big sister most of the time. We had zero shared childhood experiences, because we grew up in two totally different generations. She glanced up from her phone, shaking her long, thick curls off her shoulders. “Kudos.”
“Thank you.” I’d had sex—thrice!—with a random hot dude and the world hadn’t stopped turning. In fact, the world looked pretty good right now. Colors seemed brighter. I could pick out subtle notes of caramel and sarsaparilla in my tea. Boning a stranger didn’t trump climbing Mount Everest or anything, but I was pretty proud of myself.
Nat narrowed her eyes. “I don’t buy it.”
“You don’t buy what?”
She waved her hand up and down to indicate me. “This. There’s no way you’re not feeling a little twinge of something—guilt, regret, wistfulness?”
“You want me to feel guilty? What the hell, Nat?” I’d never done anything remotely like this before. I deserved a little credit, not shame.
“I don’t want you to feel guilty,” she said. “I’m just shocked you’re not the teensiest bit regretful. I know you. I know us.” She waved a hand to indicate herself, me, and Katie. “We fall in love hard and fast.”
Katie, eyes still on her phone, nodded in agreement. She’d just gotten out of her first-ever relationship. She and the guy met the week she moved back to Chicago after college. They’d moved in together by the end of summer, and they were engaged two weeks after that. Now she was a twenty-five-year-old divorcée with no job and no apartment, which was why she currently lived with me.
“I’m trying to break the cycle,” I said, about to voice for the first time the decision I’d come to last night. “I’m gonna stay single for a while.”
“What’s ‘a while’?” Nat asked.
“A year. At least.” I rapped on the table as punctuation. I’d come up with the goal in the shower. As an administrator, I always encouraged my employees to devise SMART goals—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely—which I was now doing with my personal life. I hadn’t stayed single for more than a month since I was fifteen. For the next year, I’d adopt Ian’s rules for love as my own: no sleepovers, no second dates, no strings.
“That’s ridiculous,” Nat said. “You’re forty.” She tapped on her watch. Time was ticking.
My eyes stung. Like I didn’t fucking know that. Dirk and I had been “trying” to have a baby for years, but I only had one ovary and he had sluggish sperm—plus, we weren’t doing it all that much, to be honest. By the time I’d finally convinced him to look into fertility treatments with me, he’d already fallen “in love” with the nurse at my old school. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t have the best track record when it comes to guys. My entire life, I’ve settled for Mr. Right in Front of Me instead of waiting for Mr. Right,” I said. “I’ve dated pompous ass after pompous ass, and I’m done with it. I’m gonna take some time to figure out who I am without a guy.”
“But you want to be a mom.”
“About that,” I said, “I’ve decided I’m okay either way. I came to terms years ago with the fact that having a baby the ‘traditional’ way might not happen for me. But now that I’m single and getting my own shit together, the world’s my oyster. I could adopt or foster or go to a sperm bank…”
Nat shook her head. “This is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s not sad.” I pounded my fist on the table, and my spoon jumped about two inches, startling Katie. “It’s great. It’s reality. It’s me finally being an adult about the fact that I can’t count on men for anything.” Except maybe the occasional orgasm…or three.
“You can count on me.” Katie put her phone down, so I knew she was serious.
“Thank you,” I said. “And you can count on me.” I’d promised to help her find a job now that she, too, was on her own. “I got you on the list of substitutes at the Academy. And they said you could work as my assistant on the days you’re not teaching.”
Katie gave me a thumbs-up. “Thanks, sis.” Look at us women, working together to better our lives—penis-free! Or, well, relatively penis-free. The penis had now become a bonus, not a necessity.
“And you know what?” I said. “The Ian thing? It was the healthiest thing I’d done in a long time. Last night I proved to myself that not every interaction I have with a guy requires a fairytale ending. Sometimes one night is enough. And if it means I avoid falling for a prince who ends up being a royal asshole, all the better.”
“I don’t want to spoil the ending for you,” Nat said, “but Ian’s King of the Assholes. Wait around long enough and you’ll see.”
“That’s the point, though, Nat. I’m not waiting around. Our story is over.” I wiped my hands. Finished. “Besides, I think you’ve grossly overestimated Ian’s asshole-ishness. He’s not a jerk. He’s a guy who knows what he wants, and what he wants is to get laid—no strings. I’m one of the few women who took him at his word, and that’s why things ended so well for us this morning. We were on the same page.” I tried to scrub the forlorn look on his face as I slammed the door from my mind. I had simply been keeping up my end of the bargain. I did not have to feel bad about that.
“You’re absolutely, one hundred percent sure you don’t have feelings for him?” Nat said.
I’d been flashing back to my night with Ian all day. The sex was…a revelation. I’d never been so free like that before, so unselfconscious. But I had only been able do that, really let loose, because the situation with Ian was a one-night event. There’d be no tomorrow, no fretting over whether or not he’d call, whether I was too loud or too eager or not eager enough. I’d been able to lay it all on the line because the line had an end point. That was the beauty of the flin
g. It was what I’d missed out on in all my previous relationships. “I have no feelings for him,” I told the girls. “We went into last night in full agreement—no strings, no phone numbers, no expectations. I’m good with that. Really good.” I blushed, thinking about his full, sweet lips trailing kisses from my abdomen down, down, down—
“You might want to try a fling, Nat, I mean it.” I looked her up and down. Her last relationship hadn’t ended in the same hellfire mine had, but tears had flowed. Feelings had been hurt. She had been hoping for a ring, but instead he gave her jumper cables, which cued her to move on. “Or even better, a year of flings.”
“I don’t think so. I’ve already met someone who wants what I do. Chris and I are utterly on the same page.”
One night and one hand job later, and the two of them were already “Chris and I.”
“I’m just saying, maybe give it a shot. See who you are, sans a man. It might open your eyes.” After one night, I’d become one of those zealots who’d discovered something new and had to tell everyone about it—like that time three years ago when I did the whole “hug all your belongings and get rid of the ones that don’t spark joy.” I still lived that tidy life today. It had been one of the best things I’d ever done for myself. And this would be, too.
Katie rested her chin in her hand and gazed into the middle distance. “I think this is good. I’m in.”
“You’re in?” I asked.
She nodded. “I’m a divorced substitute teacher who lives in her sister’s guest room. I need to figure out who I am alone, before I figure out who I am with someone else. A year of no-strings sounds like the right play for me.”
I touched my nose. She got it. Good for her, figuring this out in her twenties instead of waiting until forty, like me.
“In fact,” she said, “I think we should make a pact to stay single for two years. We could do a year in our sleep.”
“Says the twenty-five-year-old.” Nat downed her mimosa. “Why not just stay single for the rest of your mortal lives?”
Knocked-Up Cinderella Page 4
