Cal stepped into the single stalled men’s room, locked the door, and raked his hands quickly through his hair in an attempt to regain the self-control that Winnie Briggs seemed especially suited to demolish.
He’d almost kissed the woman, right in the middle of the damn restaurant. She had been there, tucked beneath his arm on his side of the booth, her body giving a merciless amount of attention to his upper thighs. In mere seconds, he could have scooped her closer, devoured her mouth, filled his hands with piles of that unruly hair that always seemed to be springing in a dozen directions. He could have set her atop his lap and let her feel for herself just how much he appreciated her firm touch on his body.
Shit. No. He was in here to cool down, not to get worked up again. Winnie had her charms, but hell, he was hardly an inexperienced teen. He’d been with plenty of gorgeous women with tempting bodies. Yet somehow, none of them had gripped his mind or his balls like the very real woman sitting out at that table fifty feet away.
Tonight’s meeting really had been born of good intentions. Winnie needed community information that he possessed, and some professional accommodation toward her would get his mother off his back. Two birds, one stone. So he’d texted her and set the date.
But his first wrong move was suggesting Cafe Gioia. No matter how good the food was, the place felt too intimate. Too flooded with soft, golden light that made the smooth, creamy skin at the top of Winnie’s breasts positively glow from where they peaked out above that satiny lavender top.
No, he ordered himself again. No thoughts of her low-cut blouse or her heavy breasts or how nice the latter would be without the former. His dick needed a breather if he was to step back out in public any time soon.
Income taxes. Polar plunges into icy lakes. Nails on a chalkboard. Undercooked meat. His mind filtered through the least pleasant thoughts possible. Jesus, Winnie reduced him to a middle school kid dealing with his first gym class erection.
Somehow, Winnie’s absolute lack of awareness about the sensuality she emitted made her all the more potent to him. She didn’t understand the effect of her bottomless chocolate eyes. Her infectious laugh. Her pink mouth, so quick to smile. Her full breasts. Her thick, swinging hips atop strong legs.
But none of this was Winnie’s fault. Simply put, it had been too long since he’d been with a woman. Six months? Eight? The fact that he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d relieved himself in the tight, warm clutches of a woman reinforced the urgency of his current situation. He had set himself up for this.
Last night, feeling rattled about Winnie after the football game and the Sunday dinner altercation with his mother, he’d pulled up Tinder for the first time in months. He flicked through his matches, hoping to identify someone who might be available for some quick, mutual relief, but none of the women’s profiles managed to hold his interest. In fact, just looking through the list of random women available one swipe away felt off-putting.
Later that evening, when he’d reached for himself in the shower in a last-ditch effort to quiet the cravings of his body, the only image his mind could form to help him along was of Winnie in there with him—her hair drenched, water catching in her long lashes. Her full lips wet and glistening. A sparkly trail of sudsy soap winding across the full slopes of her breasts and down, down, down to her center where he worked to temp cries of pleasure from her. Where her sex clenched needily around his fingers as she cried out his name.
Sure, the image had helped him out in the shower, but it wasn’t doing him a damn bit of good when it came to keeping his composure around the woman today.
He just plain wanted her. There wasn’t any more to it. His body and his psyche clearly agreed on this. It was only his brain that was putting on the breaks. But why?
Winnie didn’t date. That much he knew, and he respected it, because he didn’t date either. And he sure as hell wasn’t in the market for a girlfriend, let alone a happily ever after. That wasn’t his birth right. Was it because they were work associates? That excuse wore thin, too, when he realized that it would be no less awkward to be her ex-lover one day down the road than to be her wannabe lover right now.
For every truth he acknowledged about his inability to romance a woman, or to think about long-term monogamy, Cal knew he could please a woman and take pleasure from her, and the only person who seemed qualified to meet his body’s criteria right now was Winnie Briggs. So why fight such a natural instinct? If there was anyone who needed some mindless physical passion more than him, it was that tightly wound woman sitting out at their booth. If they approached this the right way, both of them would walk away with some satisfaction, and some relief from the churning needs of their bodies, without having to deal with the messiness of a failed romance.
And if they approached it the wrong way? Well, Cal’s brain wouldn’t quite let him process that possibility. He splashed some water on his face, took a few final deep breaths, and made his way back out to the only woman who could give his body peace, determined to find a solution they could both live with.
~-~-~-~-~-~-
Back at the booth, Winnie’s hands returned to the shakiness they experienced at the start of the evening.
What in the holy hell was she doing here? Why did she think she could handle a casual dinner with a man who exuded such bone-deep sexuality? Her traitorous mind flickered back to moments before, when her hand was on Cal’s leg. God, the sheer muscularity of it unmoored her. She’d never been with a fit man. Never had the urge to run her palms along the contours of a man’s thighs. But Cal’s legs had been a revelation. The thought of the novelties that the rest of his body offered made her want to whimper. Until her hands had pressed into Cal Spencer’s body, it never occurred to her all the things she hadn’t experienced.
She wanted him at a cellular level. Wanted to stretch him across a bed and spend hours examining the shape of him, his intimate patches of hair, his thick cords of muscle and the places on his body that grew sweaty from exertion.
Crikey.
Wanting Cal was no more practical than wanting a forty-room mansion in Los Angeles or a personal chef or a weekly massage. Some things, as nice as they sounded, and for as much bodily pleasure as they offered, simply were not meant for her, and part of being a grown-up was accepting reality.
Ever aware of the man’s proximity, Winnie noticed Cal returning from the men’s room and, like the mature woman she was, she buried herself behind the dessert menu in an attempt to escape her own mortification.
He resumed his place in the booth, her every cell heightened with awareness of his proximity. She peered over the large menu toward him.
“Seriously, if there is permanent damage to that suit, I will buy you another one,” Winnie promised, feeling foolish. “After a few more paychecks, though, because I think your wardrobe reflects a different price point than mine.”
“Winnie, forget it. I mean, I won’t ever let you completely forget it, because it was too funny,” he teased. “But really, you can forget it. It’s not a big deal at all. It’s just water.”
He was playful, but sincere and it put Winnie mostly back at ease. Cal was well dressed and criminally sexy, but she was pleasantly surprised to learn how laid back he was, considering. Once Winnie had spilled sweet and sour sauce on one of Anthony’s favorite suit jackets and he hadn’t talked to her for two days after the incident. She didn’t think he ever fully forgave her. She mentally winced, realizing in hindsight just how frequently she chose to overlook those everyday indications of his true nature. It was startling to her just what she had been able to overlook in the name of not rocking the boat.
“So, now that you’ve completely soaked me, you’ve got to answer some questions for me. It’s only fair.”
Winnie’s heart beat raced, suddenly feeling like she was back in a middle school game of truth or dare.
“I’ll try,” she offered, too timid to fully, willingly, submit to Cal’s games.
“What brought you here?”
Her heart rate ticked up, up, up.
“A good job opportunity,” she bluffed.
He didn’t hesitate a moment before saying, “I call bullshit.”
Fair enough. The man was sexy, but he wasn’t stupid.
She took another long sip of her second vodka and tonic, the alcohol soothing the nerves that might otherwise render her spineless. Perhaps it also helped her forget, ever so briefly, that this was only a business meeting. She met his eyes directly, their deep green depths seeming to reverberate between her legs.
“A man.”
He nodded. Senselessly, his lack of response urged her to elaborate.
“A three-year relationship went south. He cheated on me. My world imploded.”
“How?”
“Mutual friends, a small professional network—” she began, her mind flooding with all those suddenly distant Chicago memories. Taking the elevator up to Anthony’s condo to surprise him with a night out on the town for their anniversary. Following the sound of groans and gasps to his bathroom, where he screwed his blonde intern against the side of his glass-walled shower. Her mixed drink wasn’t strong enough to forget all that.
“No, I meant how did he cheat on you.”
Winnie searched Cal’s face for a moment—wondering, hoping, yet knowing that his words couldn’t mean what they seemed.
“Lawyer Anthony, in the stand-up shower, with his impossibly slender blonde intern,” Winnie said drolly, harkening the phrasing from the classic board game. “A tale as old as time.”
“I’m not talking logistics, though that’s shitty as hell,” Cal relented, his gaze upon her relentless. Hungry.
Winnie’s heart beat doubled on itself, and nausea rose through her core at the possible implications of Cal’s words.
“You’d have to ask him that.”
“I’d like to think I would if given the chance, but to be honest, if I met him, I’d probably just punch him in the face.”
And then she found herself grinning. She didn’t, as a rule, condone violence, but she might make an exception for her bastard ex.
“And what about you?” she asked, emboldened by vodka and the man’s blatant flirtation. “What’s your relationship history like?”
He blinked.
“I don’t really do relationships,” he said simply, as if that settled it.
“No?” she asked, yearning to hear more. She wanted the man’s sob stories. His sexy recollections. No man who looked that gorgeous in a royal blue suit could have a simple romantic history.
“There have been women,” he allowed. Oh, she could only imagine the parade of women who followed in Cal Spencer’s wake.
“Mmm,” she offered. Vague. Noncommittal.
“I’m not the slow and steady type. I don’t do romance. I don’t do long-term. But I take my pleasure where I can get it.”
She bet he did. And with another sip of her vodka and tonic, she loosened up enough to imagine what that might look like. His mouth. Those hands.
Mercifully, the waiter arrived just then, delivering the most delectable meal Winnie had seen since arriving in town.
She looked up to Cal in disbelief.
“I told you it’d be good,” he offered, before filling his mouth with a forkful of fried ravioli in rich marinara sauce.
Winnie had never before envied a pillow of ravioli, but there was a first time for everything.
And so it went into the evening. Eating. Flirting. Filling her mouth, her body, and her mind with a storm of pleasing sensations—from Cal, from the food, from the charged ambience of the café.
By the time they finished their meal and settled the bill, the restaurant was all but abandoned. They had shut down the place. Transfixed, Winnie walked out the door of the restaurant, only realizing in the very back recesses of her mind that she and Cal had failed to discuss one single pertinent detail of Bloomsburo Days.
Lightly buzzed, not so much from her earlier drinks, but from the food and the sexy company, Winnie arrived at Fiona the Ford in something like a daze. She wanted to linger there. Wanted this night with this beautiful man to somehow, impossibly, last.
The chit chat that had brought them out to the empty parking lot had faded, and there they stood, her body leaning against Fiona, so near to his. Near enough to cause her throat to tighten. For something deep within her to contract with need.
Her eyes grazed upon him, such an uncommonly attractive figure, suddenly thrust into her life, all because of her random response to an online rental ad.
Fate had placed him here, an arm’s length away, and she was just content enough not to mind. To not to think that it was a cruel twist of fate. She scanned him once more, not yet able to fathom his beauty, from the honey-gold strands of his wavy hair, to his endless green eyes, to that mouth.
God, that mouth.
“You keep doing that,” Cal observed, his deep green eyes alighting with mischief.
“Doing what?”
“Watching my mouth.”
Winnie cleared her throat, suddenly feeling cold sober.
“I don’t —” she started, but he cut off the lie.
“Yes, you do.”
Her eyes widened. In what… annoyance? Guilt? Shock, at the way he seemed to see through her, as if she were made of glass? As if he could see her every accelerated heartbeat. Her throbbing pulse.
But he’d caught her, and the man wasn’t wrong. And since she was caught, she relented, her gaze falling once more to his lips. Full. Satiny. Bitable. A plush haven amidst the stubble and hardness of his strong jaw. What was the point of denying the magnetic draw she had to them?
“What are you thinking about when you look at me like that?” he asked, his directness like lightning through her core.
A blush filled her cheeks and her eyes fell to her feet.
“Winnie, look at me,” he said gently.
From beneath her lashes, she peered toward him, but she didn’t dare open her mouth. His directness gutted her and she knew he caught every signal that her traitorous body sent—the quickened pulse, the shallow breath, the shaky hands. This desire she felt in his presence felt bigger than she could handle.
And surely bigger than she could conceal.
“I’m not asking what would happen if you acted on it, or about the long-term ramifications, or what I might think about your thoughts. Just, what are you thinking? Can you be honest with me?”
His candor made her feel five years old. Why couldn’t she just say it? Why was it so hard to acknowledge the overwhelming urge surging through her body? Her every cell knew exactly what she wanted to do to the man, yet she couldn’t force herself to be her body’s own spokeswoman.
“Tell me,” he said, his body inching ever so slightly toward her.
“There’s no sense in talking about things that aren’t possible,” she finally managed, her voice strangled.
“Sensibility and pleasure are hardly easy companions.”
It might as well be the man’s motto.
“Tell me,” he repeated.
Exasperated, she relented.
“I want to feel them,” she finally cried. “Your lips look so soft. So tempting. Like they’d know exactly what to do to with a woman beneath them.”
Desire burned in his eyes. And confidence. No doubt he agreed with her assessment. He knew full well the expertise he had to offer, and what it could do to her.
“So feel them,” he dared her, moving a half step closer to her, the lack of space between them now overwhelming Winnie with wants and needs.
She shook her head no.
“Why not?”
“I made a promise to myself.”
“The pledge?”
“Yes. No dating.”
“Right. I don’t date either.”
“Good.”
“So, let’s not date. That has nothing to do with what’s happening between our bodies.”
Her heart thudded harder in her chest. She swore he could see it pounding away beneath the thin material of her blouse. His eyes flickered to her breasts and she cursed the attention her own breathlessness drew from his burning gaze.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do. Do you make it a point to deny your body what it wants?”
“What?” she laughed, forced. Panicky. “Of course not.”
“You eat the saddest food imaginable. You work all weekend and most evenings. You avoid men. Where do you find your pleasure, Briggs?”
“I find plenty of pleasure,” she said too quickly, her defensiveness as evident as her arousal.
“Where?”
She thought for a moment, annoyed that an answer didn’t come to her more quickly. Damn the man for short-circuiting her brain.
“I take pleasure in my work,” she relented, as if career satisfaction held a candle to what his mouth could offer. His fingers.
“Okay,” he conceded, however mildly. “So do I. It’s a starting place, and important, but not nearly enough. Where else?”
Why was it suddenly so hard to remember what she did just because it felt good? Random thoughts came to her, but they were too outdated to mention—old memories of weekend trips with girlfriends in college, the crafts she used to create but had long since abandoned. She might as well mention “playing with Barbies.” She hated how everything she thought of might sound silly. Frivolous.
Mercifully, an idea came to her.
“I take pleasure in my style,” she said.
“Your style?”
“My clothes, my fashion sense. How I accessorize. It makes me feel good. Different. I like it.”
“I like it, too. I have to force myself to look away from you.”
Warmth spread through her body at his approval, followed quickly by a tiny spark of annoyance. She didn’t dress how she did for men. In fact, she honed her style in spite of them, as a reclaiming of power.
But damn if she didn’t want this particular man to like the look of her.
“What else gives you pleasure?” he persisted.
His body was closer now. Close enough to reach out for, to grab. She could smell him—the expensive woody tones of his cologne that she breathed in despite its potential to destroy her. Need throbbed through her veins.
“Naps,” she managed. Though she wouldn’t tell him of the self-pleasure that helped her nod off. That was only for her to know.
His sweet lips spread into a grin.
“Hmmm,” he said, the low vibration of his mouth unraveling something within her.
“Saturdays and Sundays, I usually take one. They’re delicious.”
The word set off a spark in his endless green eyes.
“That’s closer. But couldn’t you do with a little more?”
“More what?”
“Pleasure in your life. I could help with that.”
Desire singed every inch of her, each one desperate for this man’s touch. It decimated her defenses. Her insecurities. For a brief moment, she felt like a different woman, as if she was somehow floating outside of the self-conscious body that carried her around on a day-to-day basis.
Or maybe she had it all wrong. Maybe this man wasn’t here to destroy her. Maybe he was here to embolden her. To teach her to literally reach out and grab what she wanted out of life.
To hell with the pledge. Because at the end of the day, wasn’t it just one more way to let men control her life?
Winnie first.
“Yes, I could do with a little more pleasure,” she said, surprising them both. She watched his face, searching, as he contemplated his next move. With one more step, he closed the gap between them.
“Name the parameters,” he ordered, barely containing the need that coiled his muscular body as tight as a rope.
Her heart thumped in her chest at the thought of the line they were about to cross. She took some solace in the fact the she’d just picked up and moved her entire life hundreds of miles away. If this thing, whatever it was burning between her and Cal, were to go up in flames, if he ignited her entire world and burned it to ashes, she could flee and do it all again.
A small comfort. Her brain whirled, trying to calculate the conditions that might help to minimize the damage this experiment would surely yield.
It didn’t help that the man’s fingers brushed her cheek, stroking her jawline tenderly. She wanted those fingers to explore every centimeter of her body. She knew they could make her weep with desire.
“Uh, no dates,” she managed, closing her eyes in an attempt to focus. “No more sexy business meetings either. We stay professional on the job. Not a whiff of indiscretion.”
Had her eyes been open, she might have seen what was coming, but as it was, the soft kiss Cal placed exactly where her ear met her neck shot a wave of sensations through her body, every one of which seemed to ultimately settle in a throbbing pool between her legs.
“Mmm-hmm,” he consented, his lips still close enough to her skin that she could feel the sound vibrate off them.
A tiny moan echoed in Winnie’s throat, but she forced her mind to focus for just a few minutes more. She would gladly lose herself in this moment with this man, but not before she outlined a few more ground rules.
“It builds slowly,” she said as his lips made a trail down her neck to the curve of her collarbone. Already it was so clear the ways he could leverage that mouth to please her. “You cannot incinerate me.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said, his voice husky and warm on her skin.
“Cal,” she pleaded, the panicked tone of her voice stopping his mouth’s pleasure assault.
He stood to his full height, suddenly so tall, so imposing, so all-consuming pressed there against her body. His green eyes locked into hers, and her stomach dropped.
“I mean it,” she said, her quiet voice quivering.
“I do, too. I’ll take care of you. One inch at a time.”
She looked for a reason to doubt him. For a reason to be cynical. But damn it, she believed him.
“What else?” he asked, his hand slipping behind her neck, his thumb sweetly brushing her sensitive skin.
“No terms of endearment. No sleepovers. And I can call it off at any time.”
His eyes flashed at the last line, though she couldn’t quite discern the meaning in the darkness of the parking lot.
“I assume that goes for me, too?”
Her stomach sank. Naturally, her thoughts wanted to swirl toward the negative. Of course he’ll want to call it off. You’re vastly inexperienced with men. You’re beyond complicated.
But she fortified herself. This hadn’t been her idea. He made the offer, and he wouldn’t have done it if there wasn’t real interest there.
“Of course.”
He nodded and she couldn’t help but grin. It was amazing how cooperative the man had become now that the topic related to him getting some action.
“I mean, what if I can’t handle you? What if you annihilate me, Briggs?”
She laughed lightly, grateful that he could lighten the mood again. She took comfort in her deep sense that Cal would be a playful lover.
Lover. Lord. She’d never had a lover in her entire life. She’d had two long-term relationships, both of which took their sweet time to work up to incredibly basic relationship sex. Now, here she was being mouthed by the sexiest man she’d ever seen.
What a difference a month could make. She couldn’t help but smile, astonished at not only this twist of fate, but at how excited she felt about it.
“And most importantly,” she continued, “your mother cannot, under any circumstance, know about our pleasure hunting.”
He smiled at the phrase.
“As a general rule, I tend not to keep her abreast of what I do with my lovers.”
She smiled, yet the comment rankled in Winnie’s stomach. Lovers, plural. How many women had experienced pleasure beneath Cal’s hands? His mouth? How would her own sexual history, with only two self-absorbed men, possibly compare?
It wasn’t something she wanted to dwell on or talk about. This realization led to another condition.
“No deep digging into each other’s backstories or baggage,” she said. “Let’s focus on the present.”
“Gladly,” he said, his hands raking up her curls by the handful so he could kiss the side of her neck without obstruction. His fingertips gently massaged her scalp, sending chills all throughout her body.
But thoughts of other lovers brought to mind a final, non-negotiable rule.
“One last condition.”
“Anything,” he said, his eyes sparked with a lust that empowered her enough to believe him.
“No one else.”
His brow quirked, confused.
“We devote some time to getting this thing that’s bouncing between us completely out of our system, you teach me a thing or two about manifesting pleasure in my life, but during that time, we have no other partners.”
“Deal.”
He consented too quickly. He’d shake out of whatever haze he was in soon. He’d remember what caliber of woman he was surely accustomed to, and he’d take his clever hands and hot mouth and sweet ass along his merry way.
Winnie could already imagine the depth of that inevitable loss, of that physical withdrawal she’d experience when his body was no longer hers to peruse, but it didn’t deter her. Until then, she intended to absorb every ounce of pleasure this man could offer her. Some opportunities came around only once in a lifetime, and Winnie intended to relish this gift, even if it scared her to death.
Surprising herself and Cal, she slipped her arms inside his suit jacket, reaching up his back and rubbing down his broad, muscular shoulders as she burrowed into the comfort of his chest. He felt better than she could have imagined.
He hugged her close to him and the intimacy of it allowed her to speak the final words she needed to say before they started this fiery game.
“I just need you to know that I’ve never done anything remotely like this,” she whispered into the strength of his chest. How something so hard and muscular could provide so much comfort was a mystery. “I’m terrified.”
His hands gently ran across her shoulders as he spoke his response softly into Winnie’s hair beneath his chin.
“You don’t need to worry. You’re in good hands.”
“Those good hands are exactly what I’m afraid of. And looking forward to.”
He laughed.
Having gotten that vulnerable admission of her chest, Winnie felt emboldened to begin her own long-awaited exploration. He filled his hands with her hair as she kissed his chest through his shirt, imagining the hot skin beneath it.
She peeled herself away and slid her hands up to his neck, then his hair. That hair, which had tortured her from the very beginning. She practically pulled herself up with it until her mouth reached his throat. It felt hot and right beneath her lips.
Cal let out a low, satisfied groan, urging Winnie on. She could feel his racing pulse throb beneath her lips near his Adam’s apple.
She thought of his mouth, but she couldn’t rush. Not after waiting so long. She needed time with every inch of him. He tilted his head as her mouth moved up the side of his neck and under his chin, her breath hot on his skin as she kissed her way up.
“That feels so good,” he whispered.
He put her face in his hands and leaned toward her, his mouth landing on her forehead, then brushing her cheek quickly, before finally, mercifully, landing on her lips. Again, then again, he pressed into her before she opened her mouth, inviting him to deepen the kiss with softness and wetness. Their hungry mouths revealed the truth that had been there all along: that these bodies were destined to connect from the inside out.
As his tongue swept between her lips, Winnie moaned, no longer concerned with the ruse of disinterest. The freedom of pursuing pleasure just for pleasure’s sake thrilled her. She met him there, in the hot, velvety softness of their connected mouths, and she tasted him.
Perfection.
She could lose herself in this man, but finally she leaned back, desperate for air. She needed a moment to gather herself, but he pushed his lips against hers once more, his hands reaching down across her back, along the sides of her breast, down to the full curve of her backside. As his fingers kneaded her and his tongue caressed her and the thick length of his arousal pressed against her, she knew there was nowhere she’d rather be than here tasting Cal Spencer. Here, holding this magnificent man’s full bodily attention.
She’d never known such power.
It was Cal who finally pulled back, pressing his forehead to hers in an unexpectedly intimate gesture. He panted, and it took every iota of self-discipline for Winnie to not stretch onto her tippy toes and press her lips against his once more.
“Slowly,” he said, his breath ragged. His desire for her seemed as sharp and as unsettling as what she felt for him. Nothing could have shocked her more.
“Mmm,” she managed, the closest semblance of words she could formulate under Cal’s hands. His perfect mouth.
He pressed his lips to her forehead, the sweetness of the gesture somehow more devastating than the warm passion that had just surged between their open mouths. It was more tender than she could have imagined. She pictured him rough, aggressive. Not gentle enough to melt her.
“Good night, Briggs,” he said, his breath hot on her skin.
She may have whimpered. For her pride’s sake, she hoped she didn’t, but the quirk of his kiss-swollen lips suggested otherwise.
“Buh…bye,” she managed, as the most delicious guy she’d ever met pushed his body away from hers, and began the slow walk across the parking lot.
Her mouth, her breasts, her sex, her heart, they all ached for the man now too far away from her, and she knew in the pit of her lust-ravaged stomach that no matter what he said, this game they were playing would consume her in flames.
What surprised Winnie was her deep sense that in the end, it would be worth it.