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Take Me Twice
Take Me Twice
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Take Me Twice

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She snorted with surprised laughter, nearly losing the lollipop. He commandeered it and pushed it slowly into his own mouth. “Mmm, cherry. My favorite.”

“You are awful. Give me that.”

“Okay.” He took it out of his mouth, held it out of reach when she tried to grab it back. “Open your mouth.”

“Grayson…”

“Open.”

She stared at him for a second with an expression he couldn’t read, then opened her mouth. He licked the candy one more time, then painted it, sticky and wet, across her lips.

She sucked her breath in sharply and froze. Grayson suppressed a smile of triumph. He had her right where he wanted her. Remembering a certain other lollipop—grape, as he recalled—that he’d drawn over her lips just like this, then back into his mouth to moisten like a water-colorist dipping his brush into water. Then he’d painted the candy again over her nipples, around her navel, between her legs, leisurely sucking off the sticky sweetness after each application.

This time she licked her own lips clean and grabbed for the sucker, which he held out of her reach again.

“Say please,” he said in the low whisper he used when they were playing sex games, when he’d make her beg.

“No. Grayson…” She pressed back against the wall, eyes wide, face flushed, but not with pleasure. She looked confused, troubled.

Immediately he let her go, put the lollipop back in her mouth and held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry. Just playing.”

“I know. It’s just…” She laughed uneasily, grabbed the stick and crunched the lollipop into bits. “Well, how about that beer now?”

“Beer sounds fine.” He followed her to the tiny kitchen, uneasy, deflated, and perched on a stool across the tile counter. What was that about? She still wanted him, she’d responded, but something was keeping her back. “Are you seeing someone?”

She put two bottles on the counter and turned to fish through a drawer. He picked one, gave the top a mighty twist and let go in a hurry, shaking his hand to ease the sting.

“Opener?” She pushed one across the counter and leaned forward on folded arms. “No, I’m not seeing anyone…yet.”

Yet? “Ben.”

“No, not Ben. I told you not Ben.”

He shrugged with a nonchalance he didn’t feel, pulled open the top to her beer, then his and took a long swallow, watching the top of her bent head. “Then who?”

“I don’t know yet.”

He paused with the bottle against his lip. “You don’t know.”

“Well some friends and I…some online friends from this reading group, Eve’s Apple…” She gestured aimlessly, then clutched the beer bottle in both hands. “We split off from the main group and we’re…looking for Men To Do.”

“Men to do?”

“Men To Do Before Saying I Do.”

He lowered the bottle to the counter, his taste for beer gone. “Work with me here, Laine. What the hell are you talking about?”

“We want to find men who are totally inappropriate for marriage—or even relationships—and…” She waggled her eyebrows.

“Do them.”

“Yup.” She straightened suddenly and opened a cabinet behind her. “You hungry?”

“No.” He folded his arms across his chest. Call him a caveman, call him irrationally possessive, call him whatever you wanted, he did not like the sound of this. “So you haven’t found a man yet?”

“Not yet.” She brought down a bag of sourdough pretzels, her mood entirely too cheerful for his taste. “I’ve found some possibles, though.”

“Where? Wait, don’t tell me. Men To Do magazine? MenToDo.com? The Men To Do Show?”

She tore open the bag and rolled her eyes, then walked around the counter and sat on the stool next to him. “NYdates.com.”

“Okay.” He pictured her e-mailing furiously in her bedroom just now and felt vaguely sick. “So what happens next?”

She crunched on a pretzel. “I find someone I like, we write back and forth, and if he sounds good, then I go meet him for a drink or dinner or something.”

“And do him.”

She chased the pretzel with a swallow of beer. “Yeah, if it works out.”

“And will you tell this guy that you’re just ‘doing’ him and not interested in anything more than that?”

“Like a guy would care?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Okay, you got me on that one.”

She laughed and punched him playfully; he caught her hand and pulled her off the stool, opened his legs and brought her in just between his knees. “You sure this is a good idea?”

“It’s perfect. Just right for my summer of fun.” She tried to pull away, but he kept her there, hands at her slim waist, dying to pull her forward flush against him but not wanting to upset her again.

“What if you meet a psycho?”

“Honey, I already dated you, what’s a psycho going to do?”

“Ha.” He tightened his hold, pulled her toward him another inch, and splayed his fingers along the sides of her body. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

She gave a forced laugh. “Too bad you didn’t feel that way when we were together.”

He started, shocked at the bitterness in her tone even though her expression stayed teasing. Okay. Maybe the past hadn’t been laid to rest on a lot of levels, but he wasn’t digging all that crap up now. “We’re talking about you and the Neanderthals of New York.”

“Getting hurt is not an option. These will be deliberately inappropriate men. The only thing involved will be my body.”

He suppressed a primal growl and moved his thumbs up and down her firm stomach, noting her sudden stillness with satisfaction. “So when you bring these guys home to do, can I watch?”

“Ha.” She gave a distracted grin as if she was responding on autopilot. “I don’t think so.”

He moved his thumbs up her rib cage, tugged her in even closer. “Maybe press a glass to the wall and listen?”

“Pervert.” She mumbled the word somewhat dreamily.

“Because I wouldn’t really need to see, if I could hear.” He spoke softly, moved his hands slowly up until his thumbs would be able to brush across her breasts if he extended them. “I already know the noises you make. I’d know when you were getting close, when you make that whimpering sound like nothing else in the world matters to you right then but coming.”

“Stop.” She was whispering, too, still motionless, caught.

“Stop what?” He was getting hard touching her, talking about her, picturing how she looked right before she came. “What am I doing?”

She pushed away and went back around to her side of the counter, grabbed her beer and shoved her hand into the bag of pretzels. “Trying to get into my pants.”

“So what’s your point?” He meant the comment playfully, but his dick was hard, he wanted her, it looked as if that wasn’t going to happen right now, he didn’t understand why not, and it pissed him off.

“My point is that my pants are off limits.”

“From what I just heard, it sounds like freaking open season.”

“Not for you, Grayson. Been there, done you, not going there again.”

She said the words calmly, looking right into his eyes. He tightened his mouth, felt a reflexive jerk in his gut. That time she was serious. Her body might still want him, but her brain was firmly opposed.

“Okay. Message received and understood.”

“Good.” She let out a breath and grinned a sweet grin he was in no mood to return. “Now that’s out of the way, are you hungry?”

She turned and reached up into another cabinet; the gesture parted her shirt and skirt, exposing smooth skin and accentuating the curve of her gorgeous ass.

“Yeah, I’m hungry.”

She had no idea how hungry. But damn it, getting the meal he wanted was going to be much more of a challenge than he thought.

4

From: Angie Keller

Sent: Tuesday

To: Laine Blackwell; Kathy Baker

Subject: Re: Men To Do and (ack!) Old Boyfriend Returns

Hey, girl. I’d say you have yourself a winner with this Antonio guy. Mmm-mmm, them’s good eatin’. If things don’t work out, you can send him on down here to North Carolina, and I’ll show the boy how to boogie.

But what I really want is to see pictures of this ex of yours, butt-naked if possible. And come on, give Angie a break. You’re planning to live with this guy all summer who was heaven-on-earth to screw and nothing’s gonna happen? Yeow! I’m betting the air was pretty darn thick when he walked in. Or maybe you two have already revisited paradise? That kind of chemistry doesn’t just get up and walk away.

Heck, girl, live a little! Two at once. Vain Foreigner and the Gray Stud.

Just make sure to send details. And pictures. And detailed pictures.

Me, I’m still prowling the bars of Asheville, N.C. No luck last night unless you count the drooling icky married guy, but come the weekend, I’m there again.

God bless,

Angie

From: Kathy Baker

Sent: Tuesday

To: Laine Blackwell; Angie Keller

Subject: The Vain Foreigner and Old Boyfriend

Of course I’m not such a god-awful slut-puppy as Angie, so I’ll say hey, the Vain Foreigner person sounds good and looks yummy, but Auntie Kathy just has to chime in and say be careful. Don’t give him your phone number or address or even your last name. And don’t let him pick you up at your apartment—meet him at the restaurant or wherever you go. And if you’ve done all that, then I’ve done my Auntie Duty, so have fun! And tell all when you come home. If you come home (nyuck nyuck).

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.