Her body throbbed, part tension, part arousal, as she started to cross the bar. Posture erect, shoulders back, she feigned a confidence she didn’t feel. With each click of her heels on the hardwood floor, each step closer to her destination, Ali’s nervousness doubled. She’d never propositioned a man before. In her youth, they’d always come looking for her. Palms sweaty, she stuck them, one at a time, into her jacket pockets to wipe them off.
About ten feet away from him, she hesitated, considered ordering a drink from the bar instead of continuing. Was Victoria right? Would she hate herself in the morning? She glanced in his direction. Their eyes met. Locked. She drew power from his stare, gave in to the pull of attraction between them, taking the final steps toward him without a second thought.
Ali slid in next to his stool, making sure her breasts rubbed against his arm as she did, and dropped a cannoli on the bar in front of him. A few crumbs scattered. It would have been more impressive to drop the entire box, but Roxie had refused to relinquish it. “This is about sex, right?” she asked, maybe a little louder than she should have. “Okay.
Let’s go.”
Jared didn’t move, actually looked a touch shocked by her boldness. Good!
“Come on, Doc. Time’s running out. You said so yourself. You want to have sex or not?”
Someone tapped Ali on the shoulder. A deep male voice behind her said, “If he doesn’t, I do.”
“Thanks for the offer,” Ali answered, without looking at who spoke, refusing to be mortified despite a full-body heated flush of embarrassment. “But I’ve got my sights set on this one.” The first man in years to rattle her self-control, to make her want to say yes to anything. Everything. She leaned in close and said, “Come now or don’t come at all.” Pun intended. She swallowed a laugh. “This one-time offer is about to expire.”
For a few seconds, after the front door closed behind her, she thought he hadn’t followed. Her bravado wavered. Maybe he wasn’t interested in her after all. Maybe it had all been an act, a game. When the door opened again, she glanced back and smiled. After making sure he saw her, she darted down the alley to the small parking lot behind the bar.
“You are in no condition to drive,” he yelled from behind her.
No. She wasn’t. But adrenaline pumped through her system, making her feel capable of anything. It felt so good. She sidestepped the shadow of a garbage can and pushed off the brick wall on her right to avoid crashing into it. “Come on, Dr. P. There’s something I want to show you.” A good time. She giggled to herself, running past the cars into the dark, down the grassy incline to the bench tucked in behind a bunch of trees. Moonlight guided her way. Her limbs feeling loose and floppy, how she didn’t trip and fall was a mystery.
Out of breath, she plopped onto the old wooden bench, lost herself in the moonlight swirling on the slow moving river while she waited.
“Ali,” Jared said as he burst through the trees, his shadowed form looming above her. “Let me take you home. It’s late. It’s cold.”
If it was cold, she didn’t feel it. “Sit,” she said.
He hesitated but did.
“This is where I bring the guys I pick up at the bar.” Actually, it’s where she and her gramps liked to feed the ducks. Gramps, who’d taken her in when her father hadn’t, who’d nurtured and encouraged her, taught her about respect, for herself and others. Gramps, the person she loved most in this world, his heart attack the reason she’d returned to town after college. Gramps who would be so disappointed if he knew what she was about to do.
Ali pushed Gramps from her mind.
She needed this. Had to have it. Now.
In a quick move she’d perfected long ago, Ali lifted her skirt to her hips and straddled Jared’s lap, the sensitive skin of her inner thighs brushing his jeans, effectively pinning him in place. Of course he could move if he wanted to, but in her experience no man wanted to escape their present position. “You were right about me, Dr. Padget,” she said, whispering in his ear, forcing her breath out hot and steamy as she rocked her hips, moving rhythmically over the denim covering his growing erection. “I’m a tramp who doesn’t deserve a good man.”
He stiffened beneath her. “Ali, I never said that.”
She ignored his statement. He may not have said the words, but his actions had implied them. “If you’re cold, I’ll warm you up.” She kissed down the side of his neck. “I’m real hot inside.” She opened the sides of her jacket and rubbed her body against his. “You want to feel me on the inside, Doc?”
“Call me Jared.” He reached under her skirt, beneath her panties, and gripped the bare skin of her butt with his large hands, pushing her down while lifting his hips, grinding his erection where she needed him most. God, it felt good.
He rocked against her again and again. She reveled in his strength, the intensity of his desire. In his masculine scent, the feel of his firm body beneath her, around her.
“Please, Ali. Call me by my name.”
Nope. Too personal. She sucked on his neck, tasting a mixture of salt and soap. The thing about controlling a situation was not to get too personal. “Not in a truck or in the muck or for a buck.” She giggled.
“You’re drunk.”
Buzzed—definitely. Giddy—oh, yeah. She was on the verge of acting out a fantasy. But drunk? No. “How did you expect I’d be after a girls’ night out? Isn’t that why you came looking for me?” She reached between them to unbutton his jeans, lowered his zipper and released him, took his hard length into her hand. Even though her back blocked the moonlight, making it too dark to see, he looked down, tried to watch.
She cupped her hand around his thick, hard shaft and began a leisurely slide along his hot, silky skin. “Didn’t you figure you’d have more luck getting some skin-on-skin action after I’d had a few drinks?”
He let out a frustrated breath. “I can’t do this.” He palmed her ribs like he planned to lift her off of him. Didn’t make any attempt to remove her hands, she noticed. “Let me take you home.”
So she would have to live with the memory of them together in her bed? Absolutely not. Right here. Right now. Or not at all. “Don’t worry about me.” Her knees resting on the bench at either side of his hips, she lifted up, slid her panties to the side, and lowered onto his impressive length. They were not leaving this bench until she got what she came for. “We experienced girls can get off anywhere.”
He sucked in a deep breath.
Slowly Ali sank down, moved up a bit then down, again and again, as her body stretched to make room for him, until she took him all. Aaaahhhh. Exactly what she needed.
Jared sat perfectly still, his head back, moonlight illuminating his handsome face, a face she wouldn’t mind waking up to, morning after morning, year after year, if he were anyone else. His eyes closed, his features relaxed, there was no sign of the dimples that seemed to wink at her every time he smiled. His hands dropped to her waist, held her loosely.
Physically, he was everything that attracted her in the opposite sex. Tall. Firm. A commanding presence. And he filled her like no man had before, touched something so deep, so unexpected and thrilling she didn’t want to move for fear she’d never feel such a perfect union again. Like he’d been made for her and her alone. Sublime.
She’d waited her entire life to feel this connection with a man. Why did she have to find it with him?
She started to move.
He groaned. “This is so wrong. You’re Michael’s …”
Suddenly he’d developed a conscience? “Not anymore.” Thanks to him. “Right now I’m yours. Now show me what you’ve got.”
With