Sexting the Limits (8 page)

yours…well, that‟s worth some embarrassment, don‟t you think?” Noah asked.

Celeste pulled her hands away from her face to really look at Noah. “I think that‟s

beautiful. I also am a little shocked that you said it.”

Noah laughed and drained his beer. “Well, you‟d be really shocked at what I‟m

about to do.” He patted her on the shoulder and threw a few bills down on the bar. “See

you later, kid.”

Celeste shook her head as she watched him leave the bar. That had gone differently

than she‟d anticipated. She couldn‟t say that she was disappointed that he wasn‟t the

one but it certainly put her back at square one on the suspect pool. Celeste let her head

thump down onto the bar as she thought about her next move. It wasn‟t long until she

heard a voice above her.

“Love troubles?”

She raised her face to find herself staring up at Grant, who did not look happy.

“What?”

“Well, I saw you talking to Romeo over there, then he left—and now you don‟t look

happy anymore.” Grant‟s arms were folded and he looked like he was spoiling for a

fight. Actually, he looked jealous. Celeste decided to put it to a test.

“Well, Noah‟s a friend. A good-looking one, to be sure.”

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Sexting the Limits

Grant grunted and looked even more sour and started wiping down the bar in front

of her with swift, strong strokes. She decided to put him out of his misery.

“But that‟s all Noah is. Just a friend.” Celeste put her hand on top of his as he

cleaned. His movements slowed to a stop and he raised his head to look her in the eyes.

“Just a friend,” she repeated.

“Yeah?”

She nodded and smiled at him. Her fingers tingled from where they rested on his

hand. If that‟s what he could do to her when he wasn‟t even trying to touch her, what

could he do with some effort? The thought made her cheeks turn red and had her

averting her eyes and changing the subject.

“So you never did explain why you didn‟t tell me that you owned the place the first

time I met you,” she said.

He shrugged. “It‟s not exactly hidden and it‟s not something I try to work into

every conversation. Besides, you didn‟t tell me what you do for a living the first time

we met. In fact, I still don‟t know.”

“I‟m an administrative assistant at an advertising agency.”

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“I do. My boss is a great and I enjoy the work.” Celeste paused and smile at him.

“Thanks.”

Grant looked surprised. “For what?”

“For not assuming that I‟m an assistant because I can‟t get anything else. People are

always asking me what it is that I really want to do, as if I can‟t actually like being a

„lowly secretary‟. But my job is about so much more than that. Of course I make

appointments and answer phone calls, but my boss actually listens to my opinion on

some of the creative stuff and defers to me on a lot of the day-to-day things that make

the department tick. And at the end of the day, I can walk away and leave it at the

office.”

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Remy Richard

“I feel the same way about the bar. Sure, when I was starting up there were some

sleepless nights over the budget, but now things run like a well-oiled machine around

here. But I could have used someone like you when I started. I‟m not very organized or

efficient, which it sounds like you have to be to do your job.” Grant smiled back at her

and leaned a little bit closer. “So now that you do know that I own the bar, does it

change your opinion of me at all?”

“Of course.” Grant seemed a little taken aback by the answer. “It makes me admire

you that much more for having the ability and guts to open your own business.”

“Well, since you have such a good opinion of me now, I have another question for

you. Are there any more handsome „just friends‟ in your life that I should know about?”

Celeste hesitated. “There was someone but…we never really connected. I‟m not

seeing anyone right now.”

“Would you like to see me? Say, Saturday night?”

Grant was trying to look casual but Celeste could see that he was very interested.

The feeling was most definitely mutual. “I‟d love to.”

Grant smiled at her and seemed about to say something else when a commotion

from the other side of the bar caught his attention. Apparently the hockey game wasn‟t

going well for the local team and the fans were taking it personally…in the form of

drunken trash talk and flying fists. Grant looked irritated but took the time to turn back

to her and stroke her cheek with one finger.

“I hate to see you go but you should probably get out of here before this turns into a

brawl and I have to stop these idiots from ruining my bar. Saturday, okay? I‟ll give you

a call.”

He had started to turn away when she called him back.

“Wait. Let me give you my number.” A look she couldn‟t quite interpret crossed his

face as he handed her a pen and paper from behind the bar. The noise from the fight

was getting louder so she scribbled her number quickly and pushed it across the

wooden surface. He glanced at the number before shoving it in his pocket.

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Sexting the Limits

He started to walk to the back before she called out to him one last time. “Grant? Be

careful.”

She quickly walked out before he had the chance to respond. She was thrilled to be

going out with him, thrilled to spend any time at all with him, but with all that had

happened over the past few days she needed to be sure to follow her head and not her

heart. And most definitely not her libido. She would take her own advice and be very,

very careful. Now if only she could get her heart to stop beating so fast and agree.

* * * * *

Grant pulled up in front of the restaurant with a heart beating too fast and a

gorgeous woman in the passenger seat. Their Saturday-night date had finally arrived

and, unfortunately, he was no closer to a plan of attack about how he was going to

reveal that he was her text-message lover. He only knew that he had to do it face-to-face

and he had to do it tonight. Every time that he had seen Celeste talking to Noah, or any

guy at all, for that matter, he‟d been jealous. He had wanted to leap across the bar and

hang that smug, too-good-looking jerk up by his toes. And the guy had just left when

she‟d begun talking about the special connection she had with another mystery guy. He

knew that
he
was the mystery guy in disguise but it still hadn‟t stopped him from

feeling the searing edge of envy. That was what she‟d reduced him to. He was jealous of

himself.

Even though the conversation was going to be difficult he was going to have to tell

Celeste who he was. He couldn‟t leave any room for doubt about who she belonged

with, especially not in her own head. It had been a long two days between when she

had visited him at the bar and when he had picked her up for their date. Two days that

she‟d apparently spent becoming even more beautiful while he had run around

scheming and racking his brain for a graceful way out of the situation he had made.

Calling to confirm the date and get her address had been a project in and of itself.

He had almost slipped up when he had told her that he‟d call her. He had

completely forgotten that he wasn‟t supposed to have her phone number. He had

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Remy Richard

vowed to be more careful after that close call, so he couldn‟t make any of his calls from

his cell phone, which he had used to text her as her mystery man. She‟d surely

recognize the number. So he had to make his calls from his home line, which meant that

they had played a lot of phone tag.

Finally they had gotten everything together and now all he had to do was confess.

For now, though, he was more interested in ogling the pretty picture that she made.

She‟d dressed in some sort of slinky black dress that was doing great things for her

cleavage and his imagination. When he had handed her into the front seat of his car the

hem of her dress had slid up enough to almost give him a heart attack. Thankfully,

there had been a lot of traffic on the way to the restaurant, so he‟d needed to keep his

hands on the steering wheel rather than on her thighs. As much as he wanted to touch

her, he didn‟t want to have anything between them the next time he made love to her.

Or the first time he made love to her, depending on how he looked at it.

At least the restaurant he had chosen was working out. He had never been to the

small Italian eatery before but he had been told that it was very romantic—and it was

living up to expectations. Celeste looked beautiful in the flickering light of the candle on

their table and they had talked about their lives and childhoods and dreams. They were

close to closing down the restaurant, it seemed. In fact, the conversation had been going

so well that he couldn‟t seem to find the right time to tell her the truth about the texts.

Which was ironic, because he hadn‟t been able to stop the memories of the things he

had told her to do, the mental images of Celeste touching herself on his command, from

flooding his mind.

He couldn‟t seem to make himself sever the connection they had made by dropping

the bomb. What if she didn‟t want to see him anymore? He couldn‟t even think about

that. He figured she might need some time to process but there was no way he was

going to be able to leave her alone indefinitely. Even though their time together had

been short, she was too deeply inside for him to let her go.

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Sexting the Limits

Celeste chose that moment to lean forward and cover his hand with hers. “Are you

all right, Grant?”

He cleared his throat and smiled back at her. “I‟m here with you. I‟m more than all

right.”

Celeste laughed and leaned back. “You seemed a million miles away for a minute

there. Do you need to leave?”

It was Grant‟s turn to lean forward and take her hand. “Ah, sweet Celeste, I am

right where I want to be.” He turned her hand over to press a kiss into the palm, the

first time he had made a sexual move of any kind. He could smell her cake-like scent

where it gathered on her pulse point and it took all of his self-restraint to keep his

mouth from exploring the soft skin of her wrist and arm. Reluctantly, he moved their

joined hands back to the table and pulled his mouth away. When he looked back at her,

he couldn‟t quite decipher the look that was on her face. It was somewhere between

shock and discovery.

“What‟s wrong?”

Celeste shook her head and drank the last of her wine in one long swallow. She

pulled her hand away and pushed her chair back. “If you‟ll excuse me, I‟m going to use

the ladies‟ room.” She smiled faintly at him and left the table.

He sat back and started working on the rest of his beer. He wasn‟t positive what

had caused Celeste to leave so abruptly but he had an idea. As soon as he had touched

her in a sexual way, she had withdrawn. Apparently she wasn‟t as attracted to him as

he was to her, although he had seen the way she‟d been looking at him. There was some

pull there between them. He knew it. So the only other option was that she was still

thinking about her mystery lover, maybe even comparing the two of them. Grant

almost laughed at the position he had put himself in.

He surveyed the restaurant as he drank the last of his beer. There were only two

other tables left and they looked like they were almost finished with their meals. It was

now or never. He had to find out what had put that strange look on Celeste‟s face and

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Remy Richard

he had to come clean with her about their relationship. He only hoped that she didn‟t

decide to walk out on him if she was upset.

* * * * *

Celeste stared at her white face in the mirror. It was at least a little gratifying that

her outward appearance matched the shock inside.

Ah sweet Celeste, I’m right where I want to be.

Her mystery lover was the only person who had ever called her “sweet Celeste”. It

could have been a coincidence, but somehow she knew that it wasn‟t. Grant was her

mystery lover.

It was hard for her to dissect the emotions swirling inside her. Definitely there was

surprise, but there was also some anger, relief and an awful lot of turned-on feelings

fighting for supremacy. Anger was a given. He hadn‟t exactly
lied
to her, but he had to

know that she was searching for the man who had shared so much pleasure with her.

They had been at dinner together for three hours already. When was he planning on

telling her?

Assuming that he even
was
planning on it. Maybe he was just playing with her. She

doubted it, though. The idea that he was making a sport out of her feelings didn‟t fit