On Sale for Christmas (2 page)

"Yes,
I
know," I hissed. "But how do
you
know?"

He grinned. "This may come as a shock to you, City Slicker. But I've had access to a thing called the internet. So is that your kink? You want to play a round of giddy-up?"

He was teasing, but remained remarkably sober, as if steeling himself in case he'd actually guessed right. And something about his effort to keep a straight face, no matter what I might say, was unexpectedly endearing. "No. No pony girl fantasies…"

"Then tell me," he said, his thumbs gently caressing my hips where his fingers still looped in my jeans. And I felt a spark of definite sexual heat pass between us. Could the boy next door have somehow become…
sexy
?

I wanted to reach forward and muss up his hair. Yank open the tie he'd worn to the party. Bite his lower lip. Roll over him like a sexual hurricane, leaving him wrecked in my aftermath. Maybe it was because of his admission that he'd been crushing on me since we were in braces. Or maybe it was because I didn't want to admit to myself that there might be more to him than met the eye. But suddenly I
wanted
to shock him.

"It's a call girl fantasy," I said, all bravado. "I want to get paid for it." Having said the words, I wasn't cold anymore. In fact, I was quite warm. Blushing all over. And the hottest parts of my body were the places that touched him.

I waited for his wide-eyes. The uncomfortable laugh. Or even the lascivious veil that falls over a man's eyes when you become an object to him. And for a moment, I was sure Ben was going to do something awful, like pull out his wallet, and ask me how much I'd charge. Instead, his eyes narrowed with intensity. "So, what's the catch?"

"What do you mean?"

"There's got to be a catch," he said. "Because a call girl fantasy doesn't sound so weird. Pretty Woman. All those books about Billionaires and their Bought Brides. Sounds pretty normal to think about. Unless…you're looking for a career change?"

"No, it's just a fantasy. I want to be a total
whore
."

I used the word to shock him. To make him let me go. But instead, he asked, "Do you like that word?"

My mouth went a little dry. "I—I don't know. It sounds really wrong. Humiliating. Degrading. But it also makes my pulse beat a little faster."

"Yeah." His heated eyes never left mine.

"Okay, so, now you know. Are we done here?"

"Not even close," he said, thumbs pressing harder into my hip bones. "I
can
make your fantasy come true, you know."

That was the wrong thing to say and I gave him a little shove. "I don't want you to. Besides, it can't
be
you that buys me. And I hope you're satisfied, because now I'm creeped out."

"Whoa," he said, releasing the loops of my jeans all at once. "Did I read this situation wrong? I thought we were flirting, having a good time. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be a creeper—"

"Crap, no. I shouldn't have said that," I replied, cringing all the while.
"
I'm not creeped out, I swear. Just embarrassed, and a little turned on…" He smiled at that last bit, at least until I added, "And a lot awkward. So maybe we can just go back to the party, eat some cookies, and forget we ever had this conversation."

"You don't want to go back to that party any more than I do. And I don't think either of us are going to forget this conversation."

I bit my lower lip. "But I really can't look at you right now."

"Then c'mere," he said, daring to draw me down into his lap, so that I didn't have to see his face. And for some reason, I let him. Though his surprisingly strong arms wrapped around me with warmth and comfort, I squeezed my eyes shut wondering if it was possible to be more humiliated.

Now he was going to give me the nice guy speech now, about how he didn't judge me, how everybody had a right to their fantasies, about how he was sorry he let things get out of hand.

Instead he asked, "It's gotta be a stranger, right?" I groaned, as if to fend off anything else he might say about my kinky call girl fantasy. But it didn't stop him. "Because if it was somebody you were dating, you could pretend it was only a game. If a guy like me gave you real cash to go to bed with him, it'd feel like monopoly money."

I nodded before I could stop myself.

"And you want it to be real," he said.

Maybe it was because I was an actress that sexual fantasies didn't have the same kick unless they were more than just acted out. But somehow Ben had figured that out—pried open my mind and seen into its darkest corners. He knew my secret and now it was like he had some kind of magic power over me that made me keep telling him more. "Yes…just once…I want to do it for real."

He nodded, still cradling me in his lap. "So some guy who just wants to buy you for the night?"

"Or for the hour," I said, all pretense falling away.

While I alternately died inside with shame and roared alive again with arousal, by-the-book Ben was still sorting out the specifics. "And what do you want to do for this stranger?"

"Have sex with him. Go down on him. Whatever he wants to pay for…"

Ben's fingers twined with mine, and I confess, I felt a wildly bizarre attraction to him in light of the fact we were talking about my fantasy to bang some other guy. I wasn't sure what was happening between us, but I loved the woodsy scent of him, something between pine and cedar. And I loved the brush of his stubble against my ear when he finally said, "There's gotta be more to it. What aren't you telling me?"

"What do you mean?"

"If that's all this fantasy is about, you could've done it by now. You're a completely gorgeous girl and an actress. You could convince a stranger that you were a high priced call girl if you wanted to…"

He thought I was gorgeous?
"Maybe I don't really want to
do
it," I said, having told myself this all along. "Maybe it's just the kind of thing I only want to
think
about when I touch myself."

The mention of touching myself elicited a growl of approval. "Becca, I think you want to do it. I think that's why you're shaking like a leaf."

"I'm shaking because it's cold and you won't let me back inside…"

"Still a bad liar," he said, taking my hand in his, and putting it between my knees, forcing me to squeeze the heated place between my own thighs.

Jesus.
Where'd he learn to do that? "Ben!"

"What? You said it's something you like to think about while you touch yourself. We're thinking about it so I want you to touch…"

Oh. Oh,
wow
. So not what I ever imagined Ben saying… or wanting… but somehow the fact that he wanted it, and the fact that I was turned on, made me want to do it. Still, I hesitated. "Someone could come out—"

"No one's gonna catch us," he said, nuzzling my neck with his lips and sending a shiver of pleasure down my neck. "Door opens out. My back's against it. And Becca, believe me when I say that I'd fight off a battalion to keep you in my arms now that I've got you here."

Who said shit like that?
Sappy, earnest, glib—

"So, tell me why you haven't pimped yourself out yet?" he asked, wiping the notion of glib romance out of my mind. "You could go up to
any
guy in
any
bar in the city and proposition him, and only a blind, impotent idiot would say no."

"Um…because I don't want to get arrested. It's kind of illegal, you know."

He snorted. "Not really. Not everywhere."

"It's dangerous," I countered, outrageously aware of my hand between my thighs, and his on top of it. Disbelieving that the boy next door was taking liberties with me in my mom's garage. Shocked to the core that I liked it. "Some guy could hurt me. Kidnap me. God only knows what."

It wasn't the whole reason I'd never done it, but it was close enough.

"I'd never let anybody hurt you," Ben said, very seriously, his breath warm on my ear. "I can make your fantasy come true and keep you safe. And I want to. Hell, I'd love to do that for you."

As if he'd drawn some invisible guitar string on my body and plucked it, something tugged at my clit and my nipples at the same time. It was temptation. But it couldn't be real. Not with this guy. "Why would you
want
to?"

"Because I want to turn you on," Ben said, squeezing more insistently.

Gasping at the pleasure of being made to touch myself with a houseful of people not far away, I asked, "You want to turn me on by helping me fuck some stranger?"

"Do you like
that
word?"

"Oh, god, yes," I whimpered, my breath puffing steam into the air.

Fuck
, I loved that word.

He took my admission as an invitation, tugging at the zipper of my jeans, and slipping his hand into my panties. It happened as simply as that. We hadn't even kissed yet, but he was suddenly fingering me, and I was letting him! More than letting him. Encouraging him with every little motion of my hips.

"You
are
a bad girl," he said, obviously delighting in finding me soaking wet.

I couldn't hide it or deny how turned on I was. Especially when he shifted me in his lap and felt—well, let's just say he was either rock hard for me or had a very big candy cane in his pocket.

Meanwhile his thumb circled through the wetness between my legs and threatened to turn me into a puddle.
What the hell had I gotten myself into?

Even working my way through a string of bad-boy boyfriends in the city, I'd never felt so bewitched by a guy. "Not a bad strategy for seduction," I whispered, panting a little bit, afraid of where he was going with this. More afraid that he'd stop. "Corner a girl in a freezing garage, get her talking about her fantasies, pretend like—"

"I'm not pretending anything," Ben said, so seriously it made me swallow. "You wanna fuck for money, Becca, and I'm gonna make it happen for you if you let me. But right now, I want to get you off."

I'd never imagined Ben could even
say
something dirty, much less put such sex-appeal behind it. He was pressing all my buttons—literal and metaphorical. And I could no longer remember why I ought to resist. Moaning, I pushed back against his lap to feel his erection. He slipped his free hand over my shirt, capturing my breast in his hand and squeezing it.
Oh
. I didn't expect how pleasurable it would be to have his entire palm close over it—and I pressed my back tight against his strong chest.

"Oh my god," I whispered as he fingered me faster, slip-sliding expertly over my clit, the rough pad of his finger skating between my soft folds. "Ben…"

"What?"

"I dunno. Nice guys don't do this kind of thing."

"Yes, they fucking do," he said, biting the soft flesh below my ear and holding me tight against him. "But just how bad of a girl are you? Are you gonna scream, so that everybody inside knows you came for me under the mistletoe? Or are you going to beg me to cover your mouth?"

I
was
going to come for him. I couldn't hold it back even if I'd wanted to, and I didn't want to. I was insanely turned on. "C-cover," I stammered, sweat breaking across the back of my neck. Every muscle tensed in my body and I felt entirely at his mercy, in his lap, in his arms, being brought off by a guy I'd known all my life, but who was apparently a complete stranger.

He rubbed in just the right way, urging me to roll my hips, pinching my nipple through my shirt and bra, nibbling down my neck to my shoulder. Moments later, the first wave of pleasure began to peak. I yelped just before it hit me full force, and he released my breast to yank my head back.

He covered my scream with his mouth, which closed over mine in a kiss. A firm kiss. A capturing kiss with firm lips and a conquering tongue. A kiss that tasted like cinnamon cookies and eggnog and burned hotter than a Yule log. A kiss that went on and on, stealing my breath and swallowing my orgasmic screams as pleasure washed over me.

A kiss that didn't let up until after I'd shuddered the last spasm…

My eyes blinked slowly open to find his face near to mine. His eyes disarmingly adoring. I didn't know what to say, so I just panted.

He grinned. "Still think I can't handle you?"

Oh. He'd handled me. But a girl has her pride. "Could've been a fluke."

"Not a fluke."

"Prove it," I said, twisting around in his lap so that I could kiss him without getting a crick in my neck. I wanted him,
now
. My sex drive was raring to go. I wanted to rip his clothes off, so I started right in on his zipper.

But he caught my hands. "That's probably not a good idea…"

He was probably right, but given my state of arousal, it was the
only
idea. "You started this, Ben. And now you're wussing out?"

"Oh, I'm not afraid to take it all the way." His breath puffed out, a flush on his cheeks as he angled me so that I could feel just how ready he was to do just that. "But when we kissed just now, you tasted—well,
awesome
—but a lot like rum. I think you're a little drunk and I don't want to take advantage of that any more than I already have."

Ug
. Goddamn it. Of all the times for him to revert to type! Didn't he know that I was turned on by the risk, the recklessness, the sheer unexpected heat of our random encounter? "Thanks
Dad
, but I can hold my liquor," I said, freeing one of my hands so that I could tug on his tie. Sure, I blamed the eggnog for getting myself into this, but now that I was in it, I wanted more. "And by the time I climb off you, maybe you'll think I'm the one taking advantage of you."

He grinned at that, and nipped lightly at my bottom lip. "Trust me, I want you. Pretty much more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. But it's going to have to wait until after our reindeer game."

"What reindeer game?"

"I've got a sexy call-girl fantasy to put together for you, remember?"

That can't have happened
, I thought, helping my mom to sweep up cookie crumbs and gather empty plastic cups into the trash. My whole body was still burning with the sexual heat that had awakened inside me.