Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1) (12 page)

“Reid.”

He
couldn’t not line himself up with her, shaking so hard he misaligned twice
before easing through her slickness into the hot sweet sheath of her and
expelling a choked breath. This was different. Crazy, good different.

“You’re
so deep, so deep.”

And he
could use both hands still. He groaned like he’d been wounded when she bent her
elbows to the bed and shoved back at him.

“Fuck
me, hard and fast.”

He was
wounded. Fatally. Zarley changed his life, made him a new one built from
feelings he hadn’t known existed. Where he’d wanted nothing but the
intellectual challenge of work, now he wanted deeper, faster, harder, the sharp
release of sex, and the zinging, defiant gift of this woman.

Again,
and again and again.

He gripped
her hips and fucked her like an engine of need designed with one purpose,
building the pleasure in both of them until they boiled over.

TWELVE

Damned if Zarley didn’t make a decent sex educator. Damned if Reid
wasn’t the most adaptable, intuitive, appreciative student. He didn’t ask if he
could hold her after round two, doggie style went into hyper-drive and exploded
around them in a noisy frenzy of almost wild enough to break something sex, he
folded her into his sweaty body and held her till their aftershocks stopped
rippling and their breathing settled.

Lust
made him a little clumsy and he didn’t know his own strength. When he’d lifted
her over his shoulder, charged into the bedroom and thrown her on the bed, Zarley
wanted to kick and scream and bounce about from the pure fun of it. No one had
ever thrown her around like that, all her partners had worried she was too
small, that they’d crush her, or they expected her to be the one leaping about.

Reid
had looked so intense, as if he’d acted on impulse and it had drained his
battery, and all she could think about was how he’d managed to stay so
separate, avoiding entanglements for so long.

He
wasn’t avoiding them now. He was awkwardly enthusiastic and she’d have bruises
to show for it, and she didn’t bruise easily, but they were nothing compared to
how he made her feel. She hadn’t been excited about a man in a long time and
experienced men had failed to get her revved up like Reid did. Not all orgasms
were equal and not all men made them a combination of a roaring good time and
earnest sweetness.

Not any
other man did that. Not since Dalton. But then, she’d long worn rose-colored
glasses where it came to Dalton and with each passing year there was little
sense in not seeing that relationship for what it was. Her first, her best, her
most complicated, a pulled muscle in her heart that might never entirely heal.

No
other man had gotten under her skin, inside her head since Dalton, until right
now, lying in this bed, in the arms of a man she barely knew.

What
was she going to do with Reid? He was a virtual stranger, holding her like he
had no incentive to let go. It wasn’t just his cock that had gone deep inside
her. Sober, drunk only on sex, he intrigued her.

He
owned this empty palace of stone and glass, but he lived in it like he was
camping. He rode a bike and didn’t own a car. He had a refrigerator full of home-cooked
Indian food, but sugar satchels from McDonald’s in the world’s ugliest bowl. He
had words tattooed on his chest and a lost look in his eyes. He was disarmingly
honest, joyfully self-conscious, but quick to snap off a command and expect
compliance.

The
first part, the honesty, she still needed to test outside of the bedroom. That
last part was every coach she’d ever trained under. They gave commands and
expected rigorous, unquestioning obedience. The best of them, the only one
she’d loved, Costin Dobregneau, had a sense of humor and knew what to do with a
gymnast struggling against the physics of her body, her age and the
expectations placed on her, who refused to show fear even as it threatened to
devour her ligament by ligament.

Reid
had a sense of humor, but she had to test that too.

She had
to test everything about him if she intended to stick around. And she intended
to stick around, for now at least, until the gloss of him started to fade, or
he got demanding. This was still most certainly a thing, but a thing without a
set expiry date.

Reid
kissed the back of her neck. Give him a few more minutes and he could probably
go for round three. “What are you thinking?”

“Not
thinking.” He found her hand and threaded their fingers together. “You wrecked
my brain.”

Why did
holding his hand please her so much? “That bad.”

“Will
be if it’s permanent.” His stomach grumbled. “At least my gut still works.”

“You
should probably feed me.” Did he still have a refrigerator full of Indian food?
Lego men holding his computer cables?

“I
should.”

He
snuggled that much closer and it made her smile, but she was starving and she
badly wanted a shower and she needed to check her messages, text Cara. “Are you
worried about what happens if we leave this bed?”

“I
don’t have any clue about how things work. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be
cool and let you go back to your life, or if I’m flayed by the sex or, yeah,
I’m one hopelessly confused guy, so figured I’d keep you in bed where it’s warm
and comfortable and I don’t have to admit I’ve never fed a woman lunch without
there being a waiter around.”

She was
the adult here and adults planned, established parameters and made people feel
safe. “Would you like me to stay the night?”

“Yes. But
I might want you to stay all the nights there are and I don’t know where that’s
coming from. We don’t know each other.”

“As far
as the rules of a thing go, that’s okay. We get to know each other and we
either like what we see or the thing,” she shrugged, she didn’t have a good way
to close out that thought. There hadn’t been a night with a man that wasn’t fueled
by some kind of stimulant in a very long time. “The thing stops being fun.”

“I
don’t want it to stop being fun.”

“Until
it does.” Maybe she needed to teach him to be more closed up, like most men she
knew. Like her own father. This putting it all out there stuff was oddly harder
to deal with than strained silences. It was easy to shut the door on the
silences without a backward glance.

“We
come from very different worlds. The apartment I share with my friend, Cara, is
a walk-up. It’s tiny. The kitchen is a galley. There’s a Korean restaurant beneath
us so it always smells of kimchi. The fire brigade has been called to Se Jong’s
three times this month. I catch the bus or the trolley or I walk. But there’s real
sugar in our sugar bowl.”

“You’re
saying different doesn’t work.”

“I’m an
exotic dancer and if you’re not a drug dealer then you’re some trust fund
douchebag who doesn’t know how to order a decorator service.”

He
laughed, a gruff sound that came accompanied with a stomach gurgle. “Stay and
let me feed you. I’ll tell you my story.”

“Tell
me about this. She put her hand over the tattoo on his pec. Script decorated
with scrolls and curlicues, a short-sided cross, stumpy like a plus sign, that had
wings, flowers and a red heartbeat center, with the words
twisted into the design
:
It’s your road
and yours alone, others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you
.

His
stomach growled again. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but we need to
eat.” He uncurled himself from her and sat. “You take the en suite. I’ll use
the other bathroom. Meet you in the kitchen.”

Washed,
dried, except for her hair, teeth cleaned again, a text sent to Cara who might think
she was dead, and dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt, but barefoot, she met Reid
in the kitchen. He was dressed too, in the same sweats and t-shirt he’d had on
earlier.

He
totally checked her out.

“What?”
She knew what. The fact he wanted them naked again together was in his eyes,
but she wanted to hear him say it.

“What
else do you carry in that bag?”

She
laughed, he didn’t like being predictable. Textbooks, her laptop, a burned-out
hairdryer which she kept forgetting to ditch, a costume that needed washing,
her robe, spare underwear, tape, Band-Aids, Biofreeze, butt glue, pole wax, makeup,
hairspray, toothbrush, hairbrush, condoms, apartment keys, headache tablets and
mints, and that was off the top of her head. She’d lived out of a sports bag
most of her life and the habit sure came in handy at times like this.

She
took the stool. “I like to travel prepared.”

“I like
that about you.”

“Right
now you like everything about me and I’m going to bask in that a while.”

He
grinned. There were plates on the counter, forks. The microwave pinged. “There’s
so much to like about you, it’s hard to know where to start.” He turned away
and took a container out of the microwave and put another one in. Had he not
learned the rule that men made women work for approval?

“You
know you’re supposed to be playing hard to get, making me sweat for compliments
and worry about whether you’re really interested in me or I’m just a warm body.”

He
turned to face her, a hand to his head in a gesture of exasperation. “Why the
fuck would I do that?”

It’s
what most of the men she’d hung out with did. And every coach, even Costin. You
got the approval when you got things right and not before. “It’s what people
do.”

“Did I
tell you I’m no good with people? I don’t do the things they do.”

She could
see that. Not only his choosing to be alone and apart, he had that unnerving
laser focus, direct manner and commanding nature, that confronting honesty. And
he could be grumpy, sulky and moody, though he was none of those things now. He’d
also lost that uncomfortable nervous edge he’d had when they were last in the
kitchen together.

“Are
you religious?” Was that part of the reason he’d stayed a virgin?

“Hell,
no. My mom is. The town I came from is God-fearing. Never knew my father. There’s
no trust fund. There was no money. I went to college on a scholarship and a
church fundraiser paid my first year’s living expenses. After that I worked as
a laborer in the summers, bricklaying, roofing, doing odd jobs on building sites.”

Hah,
that accounted for the ease with which he’d picked her up and tossed her around
and why he didn’t have a soft office body.

The
microwave pinged. He began plating food, his back to her. “I started a software
company in college and it took off. I hired friends, Owen, Dev and Sarina, and
we worked our asses off and got proper funding and started to make money.” He
put a plate in front of her. Rice and vegetable dhal. It smelled delicious. “It
paid for this apartment and a new house for Mom and, you know,” he didn’t break
eye contact where a more modest man might’ve. “I’m comfortably well-off.”

“But
you’re unemployed.” She picked up her fork.

“I’m
loaded.”

And
froze with it halfway to her mouth. “But you took your pity party to Lucky’s.”

He
picked up his own plate and fork. “Your point?”

“You
could’ve been somewhere high-end. You were slumming it with us. No, wait. Are
you loaded enough not to need another job sometime soon?”

“Yep. Eat.”
He took a forkful of food.

“Holy shit.”
Some of the kids she’d trained with came from exceptionally well-off families,
but Reid was young. “You’re not even thirty. Are you some freaky techno whiz
kid?”

“Yes. Eat,
Zarley.”

“Holy
shit.” She picked up her fork and shoveled food into her mouth because a
fucking millionaire had microwaved it for her.

“But I
need to work. I don’t know what to do when I’m not working. It never occurred
to me I could go furniture shopping or get a girlfriend.”

“A
girlfriend.” He needed a girl who’d love him for his honesty and not take
advantage of him for his wealth. “This food is awesome. When I’m done with your
sex education, you’ll be able to snap your fingers and potential girlfriends
will knock themselves out trying to get to you, especially when they know you
can nuke food like a boss.”

“What
if I’ve got a certain girlfriend already picked out?”

“Reid.”

Laser-focus
eyes. No confusion in them. None. “Zarley.” And damn her foolish heart, she
liked it. The dhal was mild but her temperature spiked anyway.

“How did
you lose your job?”

He
poured water for them both. “I was crap with people.”

“How do
you lose your job for that?” Crap with people seemed to be a prerequisite for
some jobs.

“My
turn.”

“How
can what I already know about you be worse than knowing how you lost your job? I’ve
seen you paralytic drunk and vomiting.” She’d seen him so strung out on desire
he was barely functioning and that was an incredible turn-on.

He
groaned and put his empty plate down. “It’s my turn. A
gymnast. That explains a lot.”

“What
exactly does it explain? Apart from the fact you can be damn pushy.”

He
straight up ignored that. “Your phenomenal body. Muscle tone, strength, the way
you move, graceful, sensual, powerful. You’re the total athlete. Retiring must
have been difficult. What happened to you?”

She
smoothed a hand over her chest. “I grew tits and hips. I had to get used to a
whole new body after being a plank for so long.”

“I love
your hips and your tits.”

“And
yet they’re not big enough for the exotic dance world. Not that I’m doing
anything about it, so there’s that standing in the way of me being a proper
stripper.”

His
eyes narrowed. “I’m an asshole for riding you—all of you, about that.”