Chapter Thirteen
Emma
I wasn’t sure how I felt about the five hundred dollars in my purse, but as Stefan and I stepped into his apartment, I knew that I actually felt—surprisingly—really good about him.
“Do you want another drink?” he asked.
I thought about it. I was a little bit tipsy from the champagne and the gin-and-tonic, but I wasn’t drunk, and I didn’t want to be. “I think I’m okay for alcohol for tonight.”
“Coffee? Tea?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “When did you get all polite?”
Stefan rolled his eyes, kicked off his shoes, and strode into the kitchen. “I usually am pretty polite, you know,” he told me. “So, do you want anything non-alcoholic to drink?”
“I could do with some coffee, I guess,” I said. It was as good a reason to stick around as any. I watched him make the coffee, taking down mugs from the cabinets as it brewed. Things had suddenly gotten so awkward between us, and I wasn’t sure how to change that.
“So, how are your friends feeling about you ditching them?” he asked.
“Actually, my friends ditched me first,” I said. “Those other ladies at the bar with Sabrina and me were my coworker Ginger and my boss, Nora.”
“Your friends ditched you? Harsh,” Stefan said.
“I am pretty okay with it right now,” I told him.
Stefan laughed and poured coffee for us both. “Cream, sugar?”
“Both,” I confirmed. “Not a lot of either, though.”
Stefan went to work fixing my coffee up for me, and I had to admit there was something sweet about it, totally different from what I would have expected from the cocky guy I had met the day before.
“So, why did your mother send you such an expensive bouquet for Valentine’s Day?” I asked.
Stefan handed me my coffee and gestured toward the living room, where the bouquet still sat on his coffee table.
“She always has, since I was a kid,” Stefan explained. “Not usually that expensive, though. I think she was feeling bad for me.”
“Why?” I frowned.
Stefan gave me a long look and I almost regretted the question. “My girlfriend—who I was supposed to be out with tonight—left me, a little bit before Christmas.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, that would probably make me feel bad for you, if I was your mom,” I admitted.
Stefan raised an eyebrow. “But you don’t feel bad for me as yourself?”
I grinned wryly. “Well, if you’d still been with her, it would have been her with you at the dinner tonight, and then dancing with you at the bar,” I pointed out. “So, my self-interest is a bit at odds with my compassion.”
“See? And here you almost turned me down,” he said, as we both sat down on the couch.
“I did turn you down, actually,” I pointed out. “I just changed my mind.”
“I’m glad you did.” Stefan held my gaze for a moment and set his coffee cup down. “Why did you? The money?”
I shook my head. “I’m actually not all that comfortable with the money at this point,” I admitted. “It was mostly because my friends insisted that I should go through with it, for the story if nothing else.”
Stefan chuckled. “I wouldn’t think Sabrina would have been all that into the idea, after I mistook her for you.”
“Yeah, I never really got a good explanation for that.” I took off my shoes and saw Stefan’s gaze shift to my feet. “Sorry, they’re the most comfortable heels I have, but they’re still heels.”
“Put your feet up here,” Stefan suggested, patting his lap.
I felt my heart start beating a little bit faster, but I also felt a little weird at the suggestion. “What?”
“Please do not tell me you’ve never been given a foot-rub before,” Stefan said matter-of-factly.
“I don’t think I have, actually,” I confessed.
“Oh, you deprived thing!” Stefan reached down and, glancing at me for permission, took my ankles in his hands. I didn’t quite yelp, but my body did tense up as he gently pulled my legs up, turning my body on the couch. I tucked the skirt of my dress around my thighs as he settled my feet on his lap and began to go to work on them, kneading and rubbing.
“Oh! Oh, my god, that’s amazing,” I said, tensing up just a moment more before I began to relax. I moaned in pleasure as Stefan’s thumbs and fingers pressed into the surprisingly sensitive flesh of my feet, unwinding knots that I hadn’t even realized were there, relaxing something inside of me that I had just been taking for granted as a basic fact of life for as long as I could remember.
“So, the reason for the mix up was that I’d forgotten your name,” Stefan said. “And I don’t really have a good excuse for that except for the fact that I met a good two dozen women last night.”
I stared at him, stirred out of the relaxation he was giving me for a moment.
“It isn’t like that—I hosted a bachelor auction last night,” Stefan told me.
“Oh. Hosted, not participated?”
He nodded. “Anyway, I called the flower shop and asked about who delivered the flowers yesterday, and they said Sabrina was the delivery person. Did you know that she sounds exactly like you on the phone?”
I closed my eyes and nodded; I knew that fact well, because the last time Sabrina had had a boyfriend, more than once he’d mistaken me for her when I answered.
“That’s fair, I guess,” I said. “I’m still not all that into the idea that you couldn’t remember my name, but beyond that, everything else is fair.”
Stefan chuckled, and I realized belatedly than his fingertips were working my ankles and seemed to be moving upward.
“I should have remembered your name,” Stefan said. “You were definitely the hottest of all the women I met yesterday.”
“You’re not really helping your case here,” I pointed out.
“You were by far the hottest woman I met yesterday,” Stefan told me.
“That’s better,” I said.
Stefan chuckled, and his hands moved up to my calves. I knew that if I didn’t stop him, his hands would keep moving upward to my knees, and that if I didn’t stop him, he’d find an excuse to work up to my thighs. I was enjoying the massage; his strong fingers working at my muscles, rubbing and kneading the tension out of my legs. I liked him, and he was definitely interested in me.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” Stefan said, his voice light.
“I’m pretty good with the direction things are going right now,” I told him, feeling my breath catch in my throat with excitement as his fingers slowly moved up along my calves. “You’re really good at that,” I observed, still feeling breathless.
“I was hoping I could give you a little preview of my skills,” Stefan said playfully. “Of course, where the night goes from here is up to you, but I’d like to think I could make it worth coming home with me.”
“Oh?” He found a knot in the muscles along my right calf that I hadn’t even known was there, and as it gave way I moaned softly again. I hadn’t even been aware of how tense my legs were, how sore I was.
Stefan kept massaging me, but he looked up from my legs to meet my gaze. “We could pretend that Valentine’s Day actually means something,” Stefan suggested. “That we actually are girlfriend and boyfriend, celebrating…” He smiled slowly. “I think you’d like celebrating Valentine’s Day with me.”
“Well, we have spent half the night pretending already,” I observed. “What would be the harm in pretending a little while longer?”
Stefan’s smile grew, wolfish and almost predatory, and I felt my heart skip a beat in its eagerness to throb faster in my chest. As the tension had left my feet and my legs, moving upward, it was as if it had transferred to some spot between my hips, and I could feel myself starting to get turned on, the damp heat between my legs already starting up.
“You can tell me to stop anytime,” Stefan reminded me, even as his hands ceased massaging my legs and he leaned in, brushing his lips against mine. It reminded me of the kiss in the restaurant; I had started to feel that warm kind of tingle even then, like something crackling down my spine, gathering between my hips. I reached out and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and Stefan somehow managed to pull me fully into his lap as he deepened the kiss, his hands beginning to move over my body.
In the part of my brain still capable of thinking clearly, I realized that he was actually really good at what he was doing, teasing me with his hands, barely brushing against my breasts through my dress as his tongue slid past my lips. I moaned into his mouth, shifting in his lap, and almost before I knew what I was doing, I had straddled his hips, positioning myself so I could have a little better control of the kiss. But as we both kissed each other more hungrily, I could feel the hard ridge of Stefan’s erection pressed up against me, his clothes and my panties the only thing separating it from where I suddenly had to have it.
He rocked his hips up against mine, and I moaned again, feeling the heat of him, the hardness rubbing against me, even up against my pleasure center, through the layers of cloth. I broke away from his lips and dipped down to the column of his throat, tugging the collar of his dress shirt away from his skin to nip and nibble at the spot where I could feel his pulse, just below his jaw.
Before I knew it, we were both pawing at each other’s clothes by mutual accord, trying to get each other naked as quickly as possible and getting all tangled up in each other. I broke away from Stefan with a breathless laugh, more turned on than I could remember being in years.
“Maybe we should take this one step at a time,” I suggested. “It’ll be kind of hard for you to get this dress off of me with me still on top of you.”
“I could rip it off of you,” Stefan offered.
“You’d owe me a dress,” I countered.
Stefan seemed to consider that for all of two seconds, and then—before I could even figure out what he was doing—he stood, lifting me with him, and set me on my feet. His hands worked quickly, tugging my already-unzipped dress down over my hips and letting it fall to the floor before he grabbed me again, tumbling me down onto the couch on my back. Stefan peeled the cups of my bra down, away from my breasts, and then ducked his head, missing my lips to kiss the tops of my breasts.
The next moment, he claimed one of my nipples with his mouth, sucking and licking, and I remembered my dream from the night before—my stupid sex dream of Stefan. But this was so much better than any dream, especially since I was pretty sure I’d actually get to the main event this time. He nibbled carefully, and I gasped, shivering at the sensation of electric heat that seemed to jolt down straight to the already-wet tightness between my legs.
I fumbled briefly to get Stefan’s shirt off of him, eager to get him at least as naked as I was, and tried to focus even as Stefan worshipped my breasts with his mouth, sucking and licking until my nipples were almost unbearably hard, sending jolts of sensation coursing through my body. Bit by bit, almost without Emma understanding how, I managed to get his shirt off and then managed to get the fly on his dress pants open, and before I knew it, we were both naked, rubbing against each other, kissing each other with sloppy eagerness, touching each other everywhere.
Stefan’s hand slipped up between my legs, and I gasped as he began to stroke and rub my pleasure center, making me even wetter. As one—and then two—of his fingers slipped inside of me, I moaned against his neck, reaching down blindly and seeking the heavy, thick erection I could feel pressed against my thigh. I began to stroke him even as he worked me, struggling to keep enough focus on what I was doing to make it worthwhile. It was difficult, the way that Stefan played with me seeming to find every spot I had ever wanted to be touched.
We fell into a rhythm together, touching and teasing each other, and I felt myself getting closer and closer to climax, so close that I could almost taste it. So close that it was almost unbearable, as Stefan slowed down and sped up, bringing me to the edge and then denying me what I wanted so badly that I could almost have begged for it. I tried to do the same to him, tried to make him feel as frustrated as I felt, as a kind of revenge, but somehow, he managed to outlast me, until I was panting and trembling with the need to get off.
“If you don’t finish me off—” I couldn’t even form a full sentence.
Stefan laughed and kissed me hungrily, nibbling at my bottom lip and teasingly evading my tongue with his own, until I found myself letting go of his erection to grab at his face with both hands, my fingers tangling in his hair.
“If I don’t finish you off, what are you going to do? Get up, get dressed, and leave?” Stefan shifted his hips against mine, and I moaned softly as I felt the heat and thickness of his erection rubbing against me.
“Maybe,” I said, knowing I was utterly unconvincing.
Stefan chuckled again and rocked his hips steadily against mine, pressing right up against my pleasure center. “As wet as you are, and as turned on as you are, I really doubt you’re going to leave without getting off first.”
“So, get me off already,” I said, almost growling. Stefan dipped down to the column of my throat and nibbled at the spot where my pulse fluttered, stopping me from saying anything more, at least for a moment.
“Ready for me, Emma?”
I nodded, meeting his gaze, too turned on to speak.
“Fuck, I should get a condom,” Stefan said a moment later.
“Do you have any diseases?”
Stefan shook his head.
“I don’t either.”
“Are you on the pill or something?”
I pulled my hand free of his head and showed him the spot on my arm where my implant was; I’d gotten it nine months before, when I’d gotten tired of taking the pill every day to make sure my monthly visits from Aunt Flo didn’t make work impossible.
“Don’t need a pill,” I said with a grin. “Next best thing to getting my tubes tied.”
Stefan grinned back at me, and then kissed me again, and I felt his fingers brush against my pleasure center once more even as he guided the tip of his erection up against my slick folds, right where I wanted it the most.