Take Me Twice

As for this boyfriend-type person, hmm. Danger there, I won’t say more, but I’ll be curious to see how it all pans out. And yeah, how about treating us to a picture of him, too?

Me, I have a guy at work that would make a perfect Man To Do, but I think taking coworkers to bed is right up there in the stupidity department with handing steak through the bars of a lion’s cage (typed “bras of a lion’s cage” the first time. Hello?). So I will continue to search far and afield (is that the right expression? What field? Where?) for my man.

Hmm…maybe the hunky UPS guy who just pulled up…

Gotta go!

Kathy

LAINE LIFTED the ten-pound weight up, then down, up, then down, working her biceps, following the chirpy instructions of the exercise instructor on the video. Laine needed a workout in a big way this morning; she’d slept like crap knowing Grayson was in the next bedroom, and woke with a tired and bleary brain. Thank goodness he’d left early, gone already when she got up at eight. She was not in the mood to handle the all-too-familiar intimacy of a shared morning.

Up for two, down for two, hold for a pulse of three. She finished working her arm, got the matching weight and moved both to her shoulders for leg work. Then the other arm. Aerobic intervals. More leg work—squats, lunges, dips. Her body felt good, clean and strong, the weights satisfyingly tough to handle. And her brain was responding slowly, returning from its Grayson-induced disorientation.

Seeing him had been totally different than she’d expected. Instead of the sisterly affection she was so sure would comprise her now and future feelings, the second she opened the door and saw him standing there—masculine, magnetic, full of life—she’d been shot back into her own past, which she’d worked so hard to leave behind. Yeesh. The rest of the evening, even when he wasn’t coming on to her—force of habit for God’s sake, the man was a walking pass—she’d been struggling against the pull of what they’d been together.

She draped herself on all fours over her exercise step, fitted a three-pound weight behind her knee and bent her leg to keep it in place. Lift and down, lift and down, sixteen reps, then up and cross over the other leg for eight. Her deepest fear? If the initial thrill of seeing him didn’t fade, she might find out, to her ultimate horror, that she hadn’t managed to put him on the shelf after all. That couldn’t happen. If she didn’t get herself under control, she’d be toast. Burned black. Never survive the summer.

Leg reps over, she sat back to stretch, then lay on one side and started working her adductor muscles, the three-pound weight now resting on her outer thigh. Lift leg, lower, lift, lower, toe pointed down. She couldn’t think that way, couldn’t even acknowledge the possibility that her feelings weren’t dead and buried. She was older and wiser now, understood exactly why she and Grayson had been bad together.

For him, it was always about the chase. When they’d been legitimate boyfriend and girlfriend in college, he’d been so passionate, so into her, so sincere. She’d gradually come to trust him and fallen hard, finally told him she loved him, that she could see their future working out together. Complete capitulation, end of chase. He’d given a hunted smile and run off to immerse himself in a French kissathon with Joanne Randle, which Laine had been lucky enough to walk in on a few hours later. Such fun.

After that she’d slammed her emotional door shut, locked her heart safely away from him and away from the pain that little incident had produced—more than she would have thought possible. They’d never even sat down to discuss what had happened, apart from the first few accusatory shouting matches. And even though she’d been crazy enough, or helpless enough, or hooked enough to allow their sexual relationship to continue on and off for years before he moved away, she’d never allowed those deep-down feelings to resurface entirely. On the few occasions when she’d slipped, became too tender, made assumptions about the future, even in terms of weeks, he’d bolt and she wouldn’t hear from him. For a week or two, a month, two months, three… Then he’d call, and she’d go back like an addict unable to quit.

She finished stretching the other leg, lay on her back and began the killer abdominal crunch series. However— Hello. Attention, please—in the past five years she’d made tremendous strides, and she was no longer so crazy or hooked or helpless as to let him pull her back into that kind of destructive pattern again. If for no other reason than because Grayson was still so much the same.

Within a minute of his arrival he’d jumped to the conclusion that the only thing on Ben’s mind was sex, which would of course be correct if Grayson were the flower-sender. Nothing she said would change his mind. Then he tried to manipulate her into resuming a sexual relationship—didn’t ask, didn’t invite, manipulated. Assumed she would still respond to him the same way—okay, never mind that she did—that she’d jump right back in, no questions asked, nothing to discuss. And he was still the champion of suppressing his emotions to cool, in-control masculinity—like pretending her Men To Do scheme didn’t bother him.

Oh, please.

She’d had the distinct satisfaction of watching his okay-you-can-worship-my-bod-all-over-again routine crack and nearly fall apart.

The video instructor mercifully stopped and Laine flopped back, letting her body relax into the glow of fatigue. Stretches done, she headed for her bedroom, stripped, tossed her workout clothes onto her bed and jumped into the shower, exulting in the lukewarm stream on her heated body.

Honesty time? Yeah, she’d been worshiping his bod. Surreptitiously she hoped. What a bod it was. Only better now that he’d bulked into real manhood. When he’d started undressing in Monica’s room, she’d been hard-put to leave. Which meant she’d sort of responded the way he assumed she would. That damn lollipop trick—he knew just what buttons to push. Knew when he dragged the wet candy across her lips, she’d instantly start reliving the first time. The way he’d licked the lollipop—that one was grape—painted it on various parts of her body, then sucked the flavor off her skin. The way he’d dipped it all the way inside her, then put it back in his mouth, circled her clit and sucked off the melted sweetness…she’d come within seconds. Practically set the bed on fire.

Laine blew out a breath and reminded herself to move. She turned the knob to stop the shower, opened the curtain, then stared at the water running out of the tub faucet.

Oh, it was just too tempting.

She grinned, sank down and scooted close, leaning back on her elbows. Dropping her head back, she let the warm splashing stream play between her spread legs. Within seconds her breathing grew rough, her hips arched. The stimulation was warm, liquid and so intense. She gasped, felt the climax building, gasped again and moaned. Nearly there. Nearly there. Nearly…

The door burst open. She squealed and rolled to the side, huddled down in the tub and peeked over the edge, heart racing. Grayson. In suspiciously tented running shorts and nothing else.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Sorry.” He backed toward the door. “I was, uh…”

“Spying, you creep.” Laine lunged to the end of the tub, grabbed her towel and stood, wrapping it around her, brain enraged, body bewildered by being jerked away from its anticipated completion. “Damn it, Grayson, we are going to make rules around here.”

“I’m sorry. I really am.” He held his hands up in surrender, dark eyes earnest, face and hair damp with perspiration from his run. “I wasn’t sure you were here, I pressed against the door to listen and it gave on me.”

“Oh, right.” Her gaze skittered over his chest and back to his eyes. Grrrrr. Why did she have to check that out? “It didn’t occur to you to knock?”

“Next time I will.” His eyes flicked to the water still pouring out of the tap and took on a wicked gleam. “Still your favorite method?”

She bent, blushing furiously, one hand pressing her towel in place, and yanked off the faucets. The guy knew way too much about her. “I was just turning off the shower when you barged in on me.”

“Really.” He crossed his arms over his fantastic chest, which made the stupid part of her brain still wanting that orgasm send her eyes down again. “Turning off the shower makes you moan like that?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You were listening, you pig.”

“I heard. I wasn’t listening. There’s a diff—”

“Hair-splitting pig.”

“That’s Mr. Hair-Splitting Pig to you.”

She fought off laughter, clutched the towel in both fists, face still hot, body trembling. This was exactly Grayson’s operating mode: sneaking around, coming from behind—figuratively, she meant—to try to get what he was after. Well she wasn’t playing that game anymore. “Okay, you’re done, you’ve apologized, you can go.”

His eyes dropped from hers to her bare shoulders, wandered across her well-covered breasts, sauntered down suggestively further, then back up to her eyes, with that look of sleepy desire he was so freaking good at that her freaking traitorous body responded, Oh, goody, here’s what we want, let’s get started.

She swallowed loud enough to be heard and pointed to the exit. “Go.”

“Okay.” He nodded, his voice low and husky, turned, then paused in the doorway, head to one side. “You still make me crazy.”

She stared at the door closing behind him, at the crack in the ivory paint that looked like a clumsily drawn bolt of lightning. She wanted to throw something after him, to hear it crash against the wall and thud to the ground, to yell, to throw him out for good. He’d engineered the entire episode, from pushing open the door once he figured out what she was up to, to saying she made him crazy just before his convenient exit. He’d intended to leave her stunned and drooling after him. Pig, pig and double, triple pig.

He made her a lot crazier than she made him. And not crazy in the same way he meant. But he wouldn’t take control of her again. Absolutely not, either sexually or emotionally. She had let him go and he was going to stay gone.

Taking a deep breath and holding the towel firmly around her, she sailed out of the bathroom and into her room, closed the door behind her and made sure it latched properly in case Peeping Tom decided he wanted more sicko action.

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