Somebody's Ex (7 page)

“I figured if you got home late and
didn’t leave a light on, you’d be liable to break your neck on those rotten
boards.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” She
stared as his boots as she spoke. “But thanks. I’ve been asking the landlord
for a while now. He doesn’t listen well.”

She should have been more
insistent, but he opted not to voice the thought.

“I’m almost done now.” He was
usually good at polite conversation. But with Randi and all the crap roiling in
his gut, he felt stilted and uncomfortable.

“Thanks. I bought burrito stuff.
Can I offer you dinner to pay you back?” She shifted from one foot to the
other, edging nearer to the porch, the dog milling about her feet.

“Burritos?” He searched for
something to lighten the mood, the tenseness, the proverbial morning after the
night before. He dropped down past the new porch steps, closer to her, within
touching distance. “Another Norwegian delicacy?”

The only Norwegian delicacy he
wanted was her.

She smiled self-consciously. “Since
I wasn’t so hot last night, I figured I’d better get back to the basics.” Then
she blushed, belatedly realizing, as he did, the innuendo in her words. “What I
mean is, I thought I’d try something besides meatball mush.”

He tipped her chin, forcing her to
look at his face instead of his footwear. “No sense dancing around the issue,
Randi. Last night was hot, and we both know it. I didn’t come back for dinner
or solely to fix your porch. And I shouldn’t have left last night without
waking you up to say good-bye.” Serious intentions or not, that had been just
plain wrong.

Randi shuffled her feet. The last
thing she’d anticipated was to find him drilling screws into new slats for her
front stoop. She hadn’t expected to see him at all. The sudden punch of joy
followed quickly by a sheer drop into despair had left her feeling off balance.

“I didn’t expect you to wake me
up.” She didn’t expect to fall in love with him in a day and a heartbeat.

He didn’t let go of her chin when
she tried to avoid his gaze. “Look, last night was fantastic. I think we
should...” He paused, searching her eyes as if he’d somehow find the words he
wanted hidden there. “I think we should explore this thing.”

“Explore?”

“We were good. Really good. And I’d
like to see you again.” He glanced down at Royal this time, as if
she
had the answer. “I’m not looking for anything...permanent. But I don’t see why
we can’t get to know each other better.”

In the biblical sense. Yep, that’s
what he meant. “You don’t have to hem and haw. We were very compatible in bed,
and you’d like to try it again. Right? Well, that’s okay with me. I like you.
You fixed my porch. You didn’t complain about the meatballs, and sure, let’s
get to know each other better.”

She was a glutton for punishment,
but she was used to surviving on crumbs. She’d done it long enough with Mick,
and the sex had never been as good as it was with David.

“For a nice guy,” she went on,
“you’re a wild man in bed.” She hadn’t had a man in her bed for a long time,
wild or not, so what the heck. “Let’s go for it. I’m on the rebound,” kind of,
“and it isn’t good for me to get into anything serious anyway. You know the
whole rebound thing, mixing up feelings and stuff, so playing it low-key and
all is really the best thing for me anyway. So, burritos for dinner. Yeah, that
sounds great.”

She smiled. Her heart was not
breaking. Because really, she
was
on the rebound. For sure. Hadn’t David
sparked her interest because he seemed to be the exact opposite of Mick? Yes,
he had. So casual was a good thing.

She sidled by him and tested her
new porch step. “Hey, this is great, wow, thank you. Come on, Royal, it’s
dinnertime. I’ll feed her first, then get the burritos ready.” She smiled even
though it seemed to hurt oddly, feeling brittle at the edges. “There’s a couple
of boards left, and I just know you want to get to those before dark. I’ll call
you when everything’s ready.”

She juggled her purse, the grocery
bag, and her keys. David stepped up on the porch beside her, took the keys, and
unlocked the door. Royal rushed in like a whirlwind of dust.

Leaving the keys hanging in the
door, David leaned down to bring her lips to his. Soft, undemanding, he stroked
her lower lip with his tongue, then sucked gently until she opened her mouth.
It was sweet yet the meeting of their tongues promised hot, carnal pleasures
later in the night.

He released her, patted her on the
butt, and turned her to the kitchen.

She’d told David she hadn’t had an
orgasm in over a year. It had been too embarrassing to admit she simply hadn’t
had one with a man. A man in her bed was better than sex by herself.

Now
that
was looking on the
bright side.

* * * * *

Her next awkward moment came right
after dinner. What now? Did she suggest coffee? Wine? Popcorn and a movie? Sex?
Maybe she should do the dishes first. She wasn’t shy about sex, something she’d
proven well enough last night. But tonight David made her shy, or rather, her
feelings about him did.

“I just have to sort a load of
laundry. I’d planned to stop by the laundromat on the way home from the store
tomorrow night.” That
was
her plan for the evening. Honest.

Standing abruptly, Randi piled his
plate on top of hers, then crushed the paper towels they’d used as napkins and
tossed them on top. As she went to pick up the whole mess, David held her still
by the wrist.

“I’ve got a washer and dryer at my
place. Why don’t you bring your laundry over tomorrow night?”

She stopped, still, stock-still.
“You want me to do your laundry as well?”

He tilted his head up and to the
side. “I did it this weekend. I was just thinking that I could make you dinner,
and it would spare you having to go to the laundromat.”

She really did hate the laundromat.
The dryers were too hot and were hell on her clothing. Not to mention that
creepy guys littered the place. She didn’t say that, asking instead, with a hint
of breathy awe in her voice, “You can cook?”

“I’m thirty-four years old and I’ve
been living on my own since I was twenty. Yes, I can cook.”

“Beans on toast?”

“Scaloppini.”

“Ooh.” The sound slipped out with
yet another touch of awe. “And you’re going to cook scaloppini for me? But you
fixed the porch. Last night’s dinner was to pay you back for rescuing me on the
road and tonight it was for the porch, so you don’t owe me anything.” Mick
would never have considered that one good turn deserved another.

David slipped his fingers down to
hold her hand, his thumb caressing her palm.

“It’s self-serving.” His voice had
dropped a note, quieter, huskier, and his eyes simmered with the hot glow of
last night. “If you do laundry tomorrow at my place, you don’t have to sort it
tonight. And if I make dinner, then you’ll be eternally grateful and turn to
putty in my hands.”

She was already putty in his hands.
He scooted his chair back, took her other wrist, and reeled her in between his
legs.

“There were several things we
didn’t get to last night.” His voice, soft in the early evening, seduced her.

“What things?”

He put her hands on his shoulders.
She laced them behind his neck.

“Where’s the dog?”

She tilted her head at his non
sequitur.

“She’s too young to overhear what
I’m about to say.”

She laughed, the first unstilted,
honest-to-goodness laugh she’d had all evening. “You’re just afraid she’ll jump
on the bed at a crucial moment and break your concentration.”

He shook his head. “Nope. I’m
afraid she’ll see what I’m going to do to you right now and be traumatized for
life.”

“Hmm, well, in that case, I put her
out back earlier so we could eat in peace.”

David grinned. It was perhaps the
most evil, lascivious grin she’d ever seen on a nice guy.

“That was the magic word.”

“Which one?” She suddenly knew even
as she asked. “Oh.”

His gaze heated her as he caressed
the bare skin above the waistband of her skirt.

“You did do that to me last night.”
She’d practically begged him to lick her to orgasm. He’d been sweetly obliging.

“I didn’t do it to you in the
kitchen.” He winked. “On that nice, clean countertop.”

The whole conversation from last
night came back to her. She’d told him cleaning the house made her think about
sex, and the memory of that hot, sexy talk heated her. Talking was as much a
part of foreplay as touching.

“How about it?” he coaxed in a
husky whisper.

How about it? He didn’t want a
serious relationship. But he did want her now. A girl had to work with what was
presented to her.

Randi dropped gracefully to her knees
between his legs. “You know, it’s only fair that since I made dinner, I get to
decide what’s for dessert.” Her gaze fell to the front of his jeans. He filled
them out a little more even as she watched.

“And what did you want for
dessert?”

She let one side of her mouth curve
in a smile. Some women felt that doing that particular thing to a man was
demeaning. It gave him the power. Randi knew the opposite was true. She might
be the one literally on her knees, but taking a man in her mouth metaphorically
put
him
on his knees.

Besides, she relished doing it to
him.

She placed her palm over him
without exerting pressure. Just touching, a barely discernible stroke. “I’d
like to have
you
for dessert. We didn’t do
that
last night.” She
couldn’t have forgotten doing that. Selective memory. She only forgot what she
didn’t want to think about. Tasting him would have been ingrained in her brain.

“If you insist.” He put his hand
over hers and rubbed harder. “I think I might like that.” His eyes darkened and
that lascivious grin said he’d more than like it.

She tugged on his buckle, then his
zipper. He raised his hips, helping her pull down the jeans and tight white
briefs.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered,
in admiration of his majesty.

“Shucks, it ain’t nothing, ma’am.”

She sank back on her haunches,
tilting her head to peek up at him through her lashes. “Don’t you think you’re
beautiful?”

He cupped her chin. “Right now, I
am whatever you say I am.” All trace of laughter had left his eyes, leaving
behind some message she didn’t get.

“And I say you’re beautiful.” She
urged his hand to the side of her throat and leaned forward to glide her tongue
straight up his hard flesh.

He let out a long, delicious sigh
that teased the fine strands of hair at her temples. She gave herself up to the
pleasure of his taste, warm male, salty flesh, and hot desire.

Holding his cock aloft, Randi rode
the length with her lips, down, down, down, meeting the fist she’d made of her
fingers. David shoved one hand beneath her hair, pulling the mass of it to the
back of her head.

This was the essence of beauty, her
plump lips around him, her fingers wrapped at the base of his cock, kneading
gently. The feel of her mouth, the pure sensation of warmth and wet, the slight
rasp of her teeth. She tongued his crown, and his eyes felt like rolling back
in his head.

He slouched in the chair, widening
his legs, pulling her closer, forcing himself deeper. She took every inch, a
hum in her throat vibrating through him. Her little noises, sounds of pleasure
and delight, hoisted him closer to the horizon, the peak, where only her mouth
on his cock existed.

No woman had ever made him feel so
intensely. No woman had ever made a simple sexual act seem like the sun, the
moon, and the stars wanted to explode inside his head.

No woman had taken her own pleasure
in the very process of giving him his.

She shoved her hands up to his
hips, holding him tight, and took his cock deeper than he’d ever gone.

Want, need, and desire beat inside
him, behind his closed eyelids. Heat pulsed from his balls to the tip of his
cock, then raced to his extremities. He wanted to come deep inside her body,
his cock buried in her warmth, but more, he wanted to fill her mouth, have her
take him, swallow him, devour him, consume everything he had in him to give.

When he touched the sky at the back
of her throat, he shot to the heavens and emptied himself inside her.

David came down off the high to
find his fingers tangled in her hair, massaging her scalp. His body jerked
once, involuntarily, then he leaned forward to wrap himself around her body.
She cuddled close, her cheek to his abdomen.

“No one’s ever done that for me
before,” he whispered against the smooth, fragrant skin of her neck.

“Done what?” she whispered back as
if they were deep beneath a pile of bedclothes on an intimate stormy night
where only reverent whispers were allowed.

“Taken me like that. Made me come.
Swallowed for me.”

He heard how pathetic that sounded
as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Shit. Yet in some weird way, the
act had been more intimate, more intense, more powerful than losing himself
inside a woman’s body, even hers last night.

She smoothed her hands along his
thighs, his butt, but she didn’t say anything.

Yeah, he might be pathetic, but she’d
given him something he’d never had, and damned if he would spoil the best
freaking moment of his life. “Come here.”

He pulled her up onto his lap and
wrapped his arms around her. She clung to him as he clung to her, still without
a word. And as odd as it was that a blow job was more intimate than burying
himself deep in her body, the silence rang with more meaning than any words
could have done.