Delilah's Diary #1: A Sexy Journey (5 page)

Brad nodded, and I realized this was my cue to ask him a question. Again, things were a few beats behind, making it awkward.

"So, Brad, what—what do you do?"

"I'm an architect." He seemed to sense my discomfort, and gestured at my now-empty drink. "Get you another?"

I nodded and followed him to the bar. George caught my eye and gave me an excited double-thumbs up. I made a face that was somewhere between excited and oh-shit. George just rolled his eyes and went back to his conversation with Leon, with whom he seemed to be flirting.

When we had drinks, mine a vodka tonic, now, Brad leaned close and gave me a relaxed, sexy grin. "So, if this is your first time in Chicago, how'd you end up here?" He waved a finger vaguely, meaning the little club we were in.

I thought hard, trying to find a way of explaining it that didn't involve getting into my complete makeover, which would then lead to my sudden flight to Chicago, which would lead to Harry, which would lead to me either getting angry or crying or both, which would be bad.

"Oh, I met them at a salon," I said, hoping I sounded casual.

Brad looked confused, and I realized what I'd said was a non sequitur.

"Sorry, I meant José and George. I came with José and George."

Brad made an "ah-hah" face. "Gotcha. They're good people."

"Yeah, they're great."

Awkward silence.

"So, how long are you in Chicago for?" Brad asked.

He was obviously trying hard to cover my blunders. I wasn't sure if he was attracted to me or not. He was leaning close, but it was loud in the bar. On the other hand, I'd caught his gaze wandering to my cleavage several times, so that might have meant something. But then, men did that anyway, so it might not. I told myself to stop over-thinking and just go with it.

"Oh, for a while. No set plans. We'll see."

Brad nodded, his brow furrowed. "So, you're in town 'for awhile', and you're here for 'business', and you just met José and George at a salon." He seemed to be leading up to something, so I stayed silent and let him continue. "You know what I think, Delilah?"

I tilted my head, heart pounding. Had I given something away? Said something wrong?

"I think you're running away from someone." He smiled, a wicked little grin that said he knew he was right.

I swallowed. "Is it that obvious?"

"Ha! I was right." Brad leaned a little closer. "I was guessing."

"How'd you know?"

His hand brushed up my arm as he set his beer down on the bar-top. "Your finger," he said, touching the line of whiter-than-white skin where my wedding band and engagement rings had been.

I traced the pale line myself, trying to keep my voice neutral. "So yeah, I guess you could say I'm running from someone. It's complicated." I backed away, expecting him to cut and run, now that he knew I had some kind of personal baggage.

He didn't though. "You know what you need? Tequila." He raised a hand to summon a bartender and ordered a pair of Tequila shots.

He handed me one of the shot glasses and a wedge of lime. I wasn't going to admit it, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the lime. Then he took my hand in his, shook salt onto the web between my thumb and forefinger. I just stared blankly at him, and then the salt, and back to Brad.

He looked at me quizzically. "Never shot tequila before?"

I shook my head. "Nope. Let's just say I'm a little innocent when it comes to city life."

Brad chuckled, an amused rumble in his chest that made something in my belly tingle. The gleam in his eyes, a shine somewhere in between hunger, lust, and amusement, made my knees weak. I wasn't sure I was ready for what Brad obviously had in mind, but I wasn't willing to back out. Not yet.

"Well, innocent Delilah, you lick the salt, then you drink the tequila, then you suck the juice from the lime."

I shrugged and lifted my hand to my mouth, but Brad caught my wrist in his. "Not yet. We have to toast first." He didn't let go of my wrist. "To getting rid of exes."

He wiggled the fingers on his left hand; his ring finger had a similar white band where a ring had been. He lifted my hand to his mouth, never taking his vivid green eyes off mine, and licked the salt off my thumb, a slow, erotic swipe of his tongue. I blushed and a flicker of fire lit my belly.

"Your turn," he said, and tipped the shot glass to his mouth.

He'd already sprinkled salt on his hand. I took his hand in mine, realizing how huge his hand was, how strong, and lifted it to my mouth. My heart blasted in my chest, hammering so hard I thought he was certain to hear it, even over the music and laughter and voices. I ran my tongue along his hand, tasting the salty heat of his skin and then the sudden, powerful tang of the table salt, and then I had the shot glass to my lips and poured the clear liquid into my mouth. I swallowed it, and nearly sputtered it all over Brad, but managed to get it down. My face twisted into a grimace at the exotic, potent liquor, and then Brad shoved a lime into my mouth and I sucked it, the sweetly sour citrus dousing some of the fire in my mouth.

"Wow," I said, when I could breathe again. "That was...ahem...really something."

"It is, isn't it?" He was still holding my hand in his, and I wasn't pulling it away.

His fingers were playing along my wrist, tracing circles and patterns with the pads of his fingers around the inside, not quite tickling. I couldn't look away from his hypnotizing green eyes, and I felt a strange, fiery pressure in my belly, low, deep down where I'd felt it when I touched myself yesterday.

Then, the heat passed upwards, and something roiled in my belly, and I started to sweat, and get dizzy, and...

"I think I need some air," I said, trying to keep my feet steady underneath me.

"Ah, the shot must have hit you. Come on, I know a spot." He took my hand in his and led me through the crowd.

I felt another hand on my opposite elbow, and then George's voice cut through the dizzy fog.

"Where are you going, Delilah?" His voice was concerned, tinged with suspicion.

"I'm taking her outside to get some air," Brad said. "She did a shot with me, and now she's overheating."

I turned to George, and then to Brad, feeling wobbly. "I really need some air. I feel dizzy and hot. Sitting down would be nice." I glanced at George meaningfully. "Is that okay, George?"

I hoped he knew what I was asking, and that it wasn't too obvious.

Brad laughed. "George, you know me. Brad Mullins. I work with Uri. I'll take care of her, I promise."

George nodded and disappeared.

I glanced up at Brad, wondering if I'd insulted him. He seemed to be laughing still as he led me up a flight of stairs and out onto a roof. He sat me down on a bench and lowered himself next to me, his arm across the back of the bench but not exactly around my shoulders.

"I hope you don't think I—" I started.

"I'd rather you were suspicious than too trusting. Safer that way."

Now that I was outside in the cool night air, I felt better. Still a little too loose and too dizzy, but not sick anymore. I was intensely aware of how close Brad was, how near his huge arm was to me. I was stuck between wanting him to put his arm around me and being afraid.

I looked up at him, trying to gauge what he was thinking. His calm green eyes met mine, and I felt like he was assessing me too, not just my level of inebriation, but what I wanted.

What did I want? A kiss? That would be nice. A good place to start, perhaps.

I let myself lean a little nearer to him, closer to the curve of his arm. Brad adjusted ever so slightly, and then his arm was resting on my shoulders. It felt nice, hard and protective.

"Sorry to pull you away from all the fun," I said.

He shrugged a shoulder. "I needed some air too. Gets stuffy in there with that many people."

I just stared up at him, willing him to lean a little further. His face was only inches from mine, closer and getting closer, and my heart was thumping wildly...

His lips were softer than I'd thought they'd be, firm and scratchy with whiskers, but moist and hot and searching. He tasted like beer, not unpleasantly. My hand lifted up and rested on his shoulder, and his palm touched my face, pulling me nearer. This was nice. He wasn't pushing me to kiss harder or faster, wasn't groping me, just kissing me, slowly and gently.

The man knew how to kiss. Not that I had much by way of comparison, but...if Harry's and Brad's kisses were purses, Harry's would be an off-brand knock off from the bargain bin in K-Mart, the seams already ripping and the zipper stuck; Brad's kiss...oh my. His kiss would be a Louis Vuitton satchel bag.

I may or may not have moaned just a little, in the back of my throat.

"Wow, all I did was kiss you," Brad said, when we broke apart.

I felt my cheeks flame with embarrassment. "Yeah, well...you're a really good kisser," I mumbled into his lips.

He smiled, a tight curve of lips against mine. "You are too."

"What? No. You're just saying that." My fingers were somehow in his hair, and I was desperately fighting against the urge to pull him into another kiss.

"No, really." He touched his lips to mine, a teasing touch. "You taste like tequila, lipstick, and limes."

"Is that a good thing?"

"To me, yeah." He grinned. "I like tequila."

"It seems to be loosening my inhibitions a good bit," I said, smirking. "I mean, here I am, first day in Chicago, kissing a strange man on a rooftop."

"I'm not strange," Brad protested.

"I meant a stranger."

"I'm not a stranger, either. My name is Brad Mullins, I'm an architect, and I'm recently divorced. What else do you want to know?"

"I was teasing. I like being up here, kissing you. It's nice. It's a distraction."

His eyes bored into mine. "You need distraction?"

Don't talk drama, don't talk drama.

"Yeah, it's all still kind of...new." Shoot. Shit. I hadn't meant to say that.

"New?" Brad seemed concerned, suddenly. Now I'd done it.

Bye-bye, Brad.

"Don't worry about it. I'm here, now," I said, hoping to salvage things, if I could.

Brad's eyes narrowed. "How new?"

I slumped my head back against his arm. "Let's go back inside. I could use another drink."

I stood up, wobbling ever so slightly. Brad's hand shot out and touched my hip to steady me. His hand sent thrills of lightning through my body.

"I think maybe you should hold off on the drink," he said, standing up with me. "How about some coffee instead?"

"Do they serve coffee here?" I asked.

He laughed. "No, I meant get out of here, go get some coffee."

He wanted to
talk
. I just wanted to kiss a bit more, and then go home. Okay, maybe a lot more. But that was it. Just kiss. Certainly no talking. I'd told my story a million times in the last forty-eight hours, and I didn't want to rehash it all over again. Certainly not with a man I liked, and was kissing. Or had kissed. Or whatever.

"Sure," my mouth said, in spite of my brain's attempts at interference. "That sounds good."

He led me back downstairs and I found José and George huddled in a corner with two other men, looking very comfy and not a little flushed.

"Brad and I are going to go get some coffee," I said.

"Are you sure?" George said, pulling away from his friends. "You're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. We're just going to have coffee."

"Okay," George said. "Just remember, don't do anything you don't want to do."

"I won't." I hugged George, and then José, who had appeared next to George. "Thanks, you two. I mean, seriously. Thank you
so
much. You don't even know."

George kissed me on the cheek, his palm circling my back. "Oh honey. I
do
know. I've been where you are. Exactly where you are. José here did for me what we're doing for you. He helped me see who I really was." He wrapped his arm around José's waist and pulled him close. "Just be true to who you
want
to be. Don't let anything hold you back. Now. Go have coffee with hunky Brad Mullins."

Coffee was a long, lazy conversation at an all-night diner, burnt coffee in chipped white porcelain mugs. Brad told me about his divorce, finding his ex in his bed with not just one man, but two. She got a better lawyer than he did and took everything, their high-rise condo, their savings, their car, everything.

I, in turn, told him my story. Helen Warner and her varicose legs, my sister, nearly every woman between the ages of twenty-one and fifty in the entire town. Taking the savings and running, the makeover, my vague plans of world travel.

"So this all happened like, days ago?" Brad asked.

"Yeah. I left on the ten a.m. bus yesterday morning."

Brad shook his head, amazed. "Well you're handling it a shit-load better than I did. I was a wreck for months. I mean, I got drunk and stayed drunk for a week straight. I almost lost my job until I finally went in and told my boss what had happened."

My mouth split open in a jaw-cracking yawn, and Brad pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

"Holy shit. It's past four in the morning. I should get you to your hotel."

He walked me to my hotel room door and we stood in front of it, hands touching, faces inches away. I let my body take over, leaned up to kiss him. He froze, then returned it, hesitantly at first, and then more eagerly. His hand moved to my waist and pulled me against him. Moments passed, and then more, and then my hands were running across his chest and in his hair...

I felt something hard bulging against my stomach, and it took a few seconds for the penny to drop.

And that's when the panic set in. Kissing a man, that was one thing. Touching his hair and feeling his arms around me, that was one thing. But his manhood...the idea of him naked in my room, touching me intimately...

I jerked free and fell back against the door.

"I'm sorry..." I said, touching my swollen lips with my fingertips. "I'm sorry, I can't...I can't."

Brad stepped closer to me, but stopped. I could see the bulge in his pants, pressing huge and hard against his zipper. My body and brain and hormones and heart were all at war, in a free-for-all.