Chapter Two
As Deke started describing the book he’d started on the flight to Denver—the one with The Girl in the title that was subverting all those damsel-in-distress genre conventions—Becky did her very best to resist the urge to jump down his pants.
She thought he was putting out signals. He kept looking at her lips. He was laughing at her bad jokes. He had his hand resting on the back of her barstool.
He was the lumberjack of her dreams. All she had to do was make the first move.
“I loved that book,” she said and put a hand on his wrist, the one that was still on the table.
“Don’t spoil the ending,” he warned, shifting a little and intertwining his fingers with hers.
“Oh, so I shouldn’t tell you that it was the ghost of the hero’s possessive mother?”
“Wow, that’s a twist. As long as the dog doesn’t die at the end. I can’t deal with a book where the dog dies in the end.”
Oh God. She was in love.
She leaned in and whispered the most erotic thing she could think of in this emptying sports bar to a virtual stranger. “The dog doesn’t die at the end.”
He shivered.
She might have nipped his earlobe.
He cursed.
“Do you want to walk me to my car?” she asked, toying with the sleeve of his shirt. Who was this woman? Who was this sexpot Becky, seducing sexy lumberjacks? Maybe Dakota was right. Maybe this was the reset she needed.
“Not really.”
Oh.
“But I live not too far from here, if you want to come up for a drink. A coffee. A water. I might have some orange juice.”
“That’s quite a menu.”
“I’m trying to be enticing.”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t need a full bar for that.” Oh my God, she was totally flirting!
And it was working!
Because he leaned in, and those lips she’d been staring at all night were right there, on hers, and she squeezed his forearm—holy crap, that forearm—until he moved it and cupped her cheek.
As far as kisses went, it wasn’t the kind of deep, passionate, all-consuming kiss she’d been imagining ever since he and those lips had walked into the bar, but it was hot, and it held the promise of more to come.
“Not far?”
“Not far.”
She smiled. She was so ready for a reset.
* * *
He did live conveniently close. She’d barely sent Dakota a text, telling her that she was right and sending her Deke’s address, before he was opening the door to a shiny lobby, the kind that housed luxury apartments. All glass, no warmth.
Pretty fancy digs for a lumberjack.
“I’m subletting from a friend,” he explained as he nodded to the concierge. An apartment building with a concierge. Definitely not the apartment of a lumberjack.
Deke’s hand was at the small of her back, guiding her into the elevator. He leaned around her to press the button, but she didn’t notice which floor because, uh, forearms.
“Jesus, you smell good.” And he did. Sort of woodsy and manly.
He gave her a crooked smile and, yeah, she was being kind of dumb, saying things out loud that should have been inner monologue only, but what could she do? A few hours ago, lumberjacks weren’t even in the running for guys who weren’t her type who she should probably try to get it on with. Now, she knew otherwise.
Anyway, when had keeping her mouth shut ever solved anything? She’d kept her opinion to herself with Paul, and all the Pauls before him, and all that got her was single in a sports bar on a Saturday night. Ooo . . . and she was alliterative.
Before she could ponder more of her recent productive self-discovery, Deke had bent closer and brushed her hair aside and leaned into her neck and . . . and sniffed.
She wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or completely fucking turned on.
“You smell good, too,” he said, his face so close to hers she could almost feel his beard against her cheek.
She was definitely turned on. She was shaking with it.
“Good thing or that would have been weird, right?”
Aaaaaaand now she remembered why she kept her mouth shut.
Deke leaned back; not far, but far enough that she couldn’t almost feel his stubble.
“Are you nervous?” he asked her, and his eyes looked concerned. Dark and turned on, but concerned.
“No, no,” she started. But if she was going to speak, she might as well tell the truth. “Yeah. A little.”
“We don’t have to—”
“Oh no. Yes, we do. Otherwise Dakota will kill me.”
A cute little furrow line appeared between his eyebrows. Hot and cute. She had to get this guy naked.
“No offense, but if you’re only here because your friend made you . . .”
“No! No. That came out wrong. Dakota just . . . she just encouraged me. I want to be here. I want to do this.” She ran her hands up his arms, bumping over ridges of muscle. “Oh God do I want to do this.”
“Good.” He started to lean into her, but then he stopped. Blergh. “Why did Dakota encourage you to do, uh, this?”
And then, before she could even formulate the thought that she should shut the hell up, it all came out in a breathless rush. “She says I really need to get laid. She says I go out with boring guys who don’t know my ass from their elbow—her expression. And she’s right. My boyfriends are boring. That’s why it never works out, no matter how hard I try. Tonight, I just need to get my world rocked by a muscly stranger who can make me forget that boring Pauls even exist in the world. I just want my toes to curl. I want to feel the warm, hot weight of a naked man on top of me. I want to come until I stop breathing.” She stopped, realizing that a lot more stuff had come out of her mouth than she’d intended. “So . . .” She fiddled with the button on the front of his flannel shirt, but she didn’t look up at him. She couldn’t. She’d just told him she wanted to orgasm to death.
“That’s a lot of pressure.”
“I know.”
“We haven’t even kissed yet. Not properly.”
“Even if the night ends right now, this has been a hundred times more erotic than the past several years of my dating life.”
“Still, I think we can do better than that.”
“If you think you’re up for it.”
“I know I’m up for it.” He nudged his hips into hers and, yup, he was up for it.
Then his hands were in her hair, surprisingly gentle but she got the message, and she tilted her head back and up to him and she was there waiting when his lips came down and met hers and . . .
The elevator dinged.
* * *
Foster cursed the gods of technology and time that made him break contact with Becky. But they were on his floor, and on his floor was his apartment, and in his apartment was his bed, and if she could talk him into this state of excitement in less than two minutes in the elevator, what was she going to do to him when they had all night? And no clothes?
He’d never typed the passcode on his door faster.
Well, not his door, a fact he was reminded of as he threw the door open in an attempt to really let the seduction begin, only to be thwarted by a stack of cardboard boxes.
He caught himself just in time. He didn’t think he could act out all the stuff Becky had described if he broke his pelvis by tripping over his own unpacked crap. One bad experience with public undressing was enough for a guy.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said as he tossed unboxed clothes back into boxes. “My stuff just arrived today.”
“Wow.” He watched her take in Brock’s apartment. It was an impressive place, he had to admit: the modern furniture, the big open room, the view. If he was going to stay, this would be the kind of place he would want. Low maintenance, and he could watch the sun set over the mountains.
“You’re a terrible houseguest.”
“Huh?”
“Is this what you call crashing at a friend’s place?”
So she wasn’t as dazzled by the modern amenities as he thought she was. She was right, though. If Brock was here, his friend would kill him. Hell, he wanted to kill him, and it was his stuff. He’d sold everything he didn’t need when he’d left New York, and yet he was surrounded by boxes.
The mess stressed him out. He should have stayed in and unpacked. His palms were sweating just thinking about it.
Then Becky took off her jacket and tossed it on a pile of boxes and reached up and undid the clip in her hair. The blond waves fell over her shoulders, teasing the tops of her breasts.
Nope, he’d made the right decision going out tonight.
“What does your friend do when he wants to get to his couch?”
“First of all, there’s a very clear trail to the couch.” To prove it, he took her hand and led her through the valley of cardboard to the clean lines of the modern sofa. It wasn’t the most comfortable couch, but it looked cool. He sat, pulled her down next to him, and wrapped his arm around her. Because the couch wasn’t that comfortable and he wanted to be a good host.
Also, he liked the smell of her hair.
“Secondly,” he said, propping his feet on the boxes that were closer than the coffee table. “Secondly, my friend isn’t here; I’m subletting. Brock is on a year-long fellowship, traveling the world studying lace-making techniques.”
“Wow. That’s pretty cool.”
“That’s one of his things.” He pointed to the framed lace hanging on the wall behind them. He wasn’t sure if Brock had made it or repaired it or collected it or what. He kind of zoned out when Brock talked about lace. But Foster felt like he should make an effort because Brock was letting him sublet.
She twisted around. “Huh. If I asked you questions about it, would you be able to answer them?”
He was slightly distracted by the curve of her neck, but he managed a quick “nope.”
“So you have a friend named Bullhorn and a friend named Brock.”
“I do.”
“How?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Bullhorn was a frat brother—”
“Of course.”
“—and I met Brock in grad school.” He didn’t like to throw around law school on a first date, if this even was a date. The women he went out with thought lawyers were a catch, and he wasn’t here to be caught.
Well, caught for tonight.
“Grad school? What’d you study?”
He might not have a future with Becky, but he didn’t want to lie to her.
So he didn’t.
“What about that drink? I have delicious Denver tap water and possibly a beer.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She shivered.
“You promised me orange juice.”
“Right. I believe I said maybe orange juice.”
“Semantics.”
“Why are we talking about orange juice?” He leaned in.
“I’m not sure.” She met him in the middle, her breath brushing across his lips.
“I thought you came up here to ravage me?” She was fiddling with something, but he couldn’t stop looking at her lips long enough to see.
“I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to do the ravaging,” she said and shuffled just out of his reach.
“We can ravage each other.”
He was going to take a moment to congratulate himself on his quick wordplay—he wasn’t, generally speaking, a funny guy—but he found himself with a Becky on his lap, and this Becky had no shirt on.
Good lord. That bra. “That bra is magical.”
“Wait ’til you see what’s underneath it,” she said, and that was it. The ravaging was on. He pulled her close and put his mouth on every square inch of her he could reach. She was soft and sweet, and she gasped and arched under his touch.
“I don’t think we should have sex on Brock’s couch,” she gasped into his mouth. She was right. So he stood, and she squealed but held on tight as he walked them back to the bedroom.
Then he dropped her on the bed and she bounced and, holy shit, she was gorgeous. He climbed over her, but she pushed him off and reached for the button of his jeans.
“Yes,” he said. She was smart. He reached for the button of hers.
It took a minute because they kept getting in each other’s way, but soon their pants were off and he’d thrown his shirt over his head. She took the moment he was off balance to roll over him. She straddled his hips and ran her fingers up and down his chest.
“Wow,” she said as she traced each line of muscle. “Is this real?” She leaned down and bit his pec.
“Ow!”
“Sorry.” She kissed it better, then kissed a trail of kisses across his chest, down his stomach, down . . .
Oh God. He was pretty sure he was in love.
But before he fell too much in love, she had climbed back up. “Condom?” she asked as her hair made a curtain around their faces. He rolled over far enough to reach the nightstand, then remembered he wasn’t in his apartment, which had condoms in the nightstand. He thought quickly, which was difficult with Becky wiggling on top of him.
“Never mind.” She jumped off him and off the bed and dug in the pocket of her jeans. “Ta-da!” She climbed back on him, wielding her treasure. “Ready?” she asked, and all he could do was grunt because her hands were on him, and then she was on him, and then he was inside her, and they both gasped and rocked and cried out and, holy God, he was definitely in love.