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“Yes.” He laughed without humor. “Of course.”
Melissa sidled away, putting distance between herself and this totally confusing person. She felt off balance and infuriated, and infatuated, and inebriated and pretty much anything else anyone cared to mention. This had to have been the most confusing half hour of her life. But one thing had been totally decided the minute he touched her, the minute he half whispered words into her hair. She wanted him. As soon as they got past this strange tension, she wanted him to be the one. Rose’s instincts were absolutely right on. This was a man she could stock ice cubes and honey for. But how the hell to get to that point?
Maybe if she got him away from the mind games, maybe if they got to the, uh, purpose of the evening, they could put this bizarre uncomfortable beginning behind them. She took a deep breath and crossed her fingers.
“So. How do you usually…I mean, do you want to talk first or just… Oh, forget it. I stink at this.” She put her drink down and turned in exasperation. “Can we just—”
He was right there. Somehow he’d moved while she’d been thinking and stuttering, and he was right there. She froze, whatever asinine thing she’d been about to say still dangling from the end of her tongue.
He moved forward so his body was all of a half-inch from hers, smiling down with that strange, challenging, know-it-all smile that made her want to slug him and kiss him at the same time. He dipped his head slightly toward her, still holding her eyes with his penetrating brown gaze. “You first.”
Melissa’s eyes widened. “What?”
His smile stretched briefly. “I said, you first.”
“But…you’re supposed to—” Melissa closed her eyes. Okay. So he wasn’t going to take the lead. She could kiss him. She’d done that before. She could do this. To hell with him.
She opened her eyes to find him still there, still staring, still with that smug, annoying-as-hell smirk. Her anger rose. Fine. Jackass. She lifted on tiptoes and planted a loud, closemouthed, little girl smack on his lips, complete with sound effects. “Mmm-ah.” Then she went back down on her heels, shrugged and batted her eyes with rhythmic fluttery precision. “Well, gee. That’s about the best I can do. You really have your work cut out for you, Riley.”
For a second she wasn’t sure what he would do, and it suddenly occurred to her that if he got angry, she could be a squashed bug under his fist in about ten seconds. She’d never felt physically vulnerable around a man, and it scared her.
If the sick truth be told, it fascinated her, too. And aroused her. She suddenly pictured him picking her up and taking her right here, standing in the middle of the room with her legs hooked around him, while he held her up with nothing but the strength in his shoulders.
All of which would not come to pass if he killed her now.
He didn’t. He pulled her against him and kissed her long and hard, a mean, messy kiss that left her feeling punished and violated and wanting to cry. “Is that what you wanted me to teach you?”
“No.” She turned away; he followed, grabbed her arms, lifted her up onto the kitchen table and pushed himself between her legs.
“How about this?”
“What are you doing?” She could barely gasp the words out. This was beyond horrible. Her worst nightmare. The man was a brutal, sick, macho pig and he was going to rape her, and it was partly her fault for coming up with this stupid idea in the first place. She pushed at his shoulders ineffectually, knowing she was totally powerless to keep him from doing anything he wanted. “Stop it. Stop!”
He drew back and looked at her incredulously. She didn’t move, other than to make strange uncontrollable sobbing noises without tears, breath heaving to get out of her chest.
“What the—” He narrowed his eyes and swore obscenely. “I can’t figure you out at all.”
“What do you mean? I’m the most straightforward person on the planet.” Tears spilled out of her eyes and onto her cheeks. “You’re the weird one. You come in here and start playing bizarre mind games. It’s like you hated me from the beginning. If you don’t want to be here why the hell did you come?”
He stared at her again, as if he didn’t speak her language and had no clue what she’d been trying to tell him. Then he released her and walked away, stood by the window, a big, male, solitary figure against the white lace curtains blowing in the soft evening air.
Melissa got down from the table, shaken and crying, and reached for a tissue from the lacquered box on Rose’s counter.
“How many men have you had sex with?”
She started. “What?”
He repeated the question, searching her face from across the room as if he thought her answer was the key to something mystical and life-saving.
She sank into an antique rocking chair and blew her nose loudly, not caring if she looked like Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer when she’d finished. Not caring about anything except the immense relief that he’d morphed back into the harmless sexy man he’d been when he first came in. Somehow, even in her badly shaken state, it was slowly entering her awareness that something—maybe something he’d misunderstood from his buddy Rose—had made him think badly of her. And even if it made her a spineless wimp, she desperately wanted to change his mind, to make it right, so they could start again with something approaching a normal meeting, and see if they could work things out.
“Only two. Two men. One in college—it hurt and it was horrible. Then Bill—it didn’t hurt, but it was still pretty horrible.”
“No others?”
She tossed her tissues into a wicker wastebasket, so drained and stripped emotionally that baring her sex life to a stranger seemed the most natural thing in the world. “The others were just dates. Just fun.”
He nodded, looked at her intently, as if he was making up his mind about something. Melissa could even sense the minute he changed his attitude, when his eyes and mouth softened into something strangely guilty and almost tender, and she wanted to cry again, from relief this time.
He crossed the room and crouched in front of her, his huge body compacting lightly and effortlessly. He put his hands on the outside of her thighs and looked up at her, his expression open and sincere for the first time since he’d come in.
“Tell me what you want from me, Rose.”
She almost laughed at his slip, except that she wasn’t capable of laughter at that moment. “It’s Melissa.”
He didn’t look remotely embarrassed by his mistake. “Melissa is your real name?”
“Yes.” She nearly cried again. Why couldn’t he take anything at face value?
“Okay.” He continued watching her closely. Very closely, as if she were his science experiment. “What do you want from me, Melissa?”
She took a deep breath, trying to gather her emotions into some semblance of order. “I…I want to try new things. I want to be safe, but I want an adventure. Something I can remember when I’m fifty and have been under the same guy for twenty years. Anything…except pain or humiliation. Everything but the same old missionary grind.”
“I understand.” His hands slid up her thighs to her waist; he tightened his hold into a strong, reassuring grip, brown eyes holding hers intently. “I make it a habit always to trust my instincts over my information. For some reason, tonight I didn’t. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”
Melissa gaped, certain he didn’t make apologizing an everyday habit, and somewhat awed that he’d done it for her. “You thought I was a phony.”
He grimaced. “Something like that.”
“But why?” She practically shouted the word. What on earth had Rose told him?
“I thought you were playing a role. That this was all a game.”
“I’m not, Riley. It’s not a game, I promise.” One more tear escaped and trickled down her cheek. He watched until it slid into the corner of her mouth, then stood, lifting her to her feet, and kissed her. Only this was nothing like the kissing he’d done before. Nothing mean or messy or punishing. This kiss was sweet, gentle, languorous, tasting the tear that had fallen on her lips, taking his time getting to know the shape of her mouth, each corner; each lip tugged, tasted, explored.
She pressed herself against him, shocked to feel him hard between them. Oh, man. He wanted her. A guy like this. She could scarcely take it in. He wanted her.
He led her over to the couch, sat and pulled her down across his lap, still kissing her as if he didn’t intend to stop for the rest of the evening. She sank against him, totally carried away by the man and his mouth, and managed only a slight moan of protest when he kissed a line from her lips to her throat and back along her jaw to behind her ear. His hands came up under her skirt, over her thighs, skimmed and settled on the mound of her sex through her panties.
Arousal seared through her; she gasped and arched up instinctively for more pressure, shocked by his boldness, shocked by her own. The nerves of the last few hours, the raw fear and subsequent safety, had fueled her; she’d never been this hot, this ready in such a short time. With his warm hand against her, she was burning nearly out of control, panting like an animal. If he touched her, she’d die. If he didn’t, she’d die faster.
He pushed his hand under her panties, incredibly warm, incredibly strong, incredibly sure. She opened her legs shamelessly and shut her eyes, aware he was watching her face, but not wanting to be aware of anything except the need his touch aroused in her body. He found her wetness, slid his finger inside, then started a light regular stroking in and out, rubbing her gently with his thumb, stopping now and then to tease and dip inside her again.
Melissa lost herself. She was gone. Nowhere. Nothing existed except the unfamiliar fingers of this man’s hand on and inside her, and the sensations he was making her feel. She squirmed against the coming climax, put it off, clenched her thighs to make him slow down. She wanted to feel like this forever.
He resisted, urged her on, pushed inside with two fingers, rubbed harder until she fell apart, gave in, let the burning current wash over her, let her muscles contract helplessly around his fingers, then subside.
She opened her eyes to find him still watching her, an incredulous expression on his face, the measuring look back in his eyes.
Melissa slid off his lap and fell onto the sofa beside him, dazed and flushed with passion, suddenly aware of how crazed she’d become, and embarrassed by it. How the hell could she let a stranger bring her so completely out of herself? Nothing even approaching that had ever happened to her.
She drew her hands down her face and throat and smiled at him shyly. “That was…nice.” The word came out as the ridiculous understatement it was, which made him smile wryly. She glanced at his erection, which was making his lap a thing of beauty and astonishing magnitude. “Uh, can I…I mean, shouldn’t I…do something for you?”
“No, thanks.” He got up and adjusted himself under his pants. “I put you through a rough start tonight. I deserve to suffer.”
“I don’t mind, really. I can—”
“It’s okay.” He pulled her to her feet, brushed aside her bangs and released her. “I ought to get going.”
“Oh.” Melissa wrapped her arms around herself, shocked at his abrupt departure, then chided herself the next second. What did she expect? Affectionate nuzzling for three hours? “Okay.”
He paused at the door, one hand on the knob on his way out. “When would you like to meet again?”
“Uh…” Her mind raced. Would now be too soon? Would he think she was too desperate if she suggested tomorrow or the next day? How long could she stand waiting for another adventure with him?
“Same time tomorrow?”
Yes! “That sounds…” She cringed. “I can’t tomorrow. I have to work. Day after is fine, though.”
She cleared her husky throat, trying to act as normal as possible scheduling sex with someone she’d just been intimate with and didn’t know at all, when her insides were singing the “Star Spangled Banner” because he wanted to see her again so soon.
“Okay.” He smiled under intense, serious eyes. “Day after tomorrow. See you then.”
Melissa waved and closed the door, then turned and leaned back against it, eyes closed, mouth curved in a sappy, happy grin.
On impulse, she rushed to the window and watched until she saw him come out of the building and walk down Garden Street, confident, graceful, masculine. Until he went around the corner and disappeared.
Melissa straightened and slowly closed the window. Rose’s unfamiliar, ultrafeminine apartment felt suddenly still and close and empty behind her.
Okay, Melissa. You asked for this and you got it. No strings. Just the physical. Just what you said you wanted.
She wrapped her arms around herself, lonely and bereft and unsatisfied in spite of the most amazing orgasm she’d ever experienced. What was the matter with her? She should be springing off the walls with self-satisfied happiness. She’d passed the test. She was desirable. He’d passed the test: he was so desirable as to redefine desirable. She’d have her fling, learn everything she could, explore her wild side and build up that stockpile of sensual memories she could draw on when Mr. Right and she were bored to death of each other.
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