Sexy Bad Halloween Read online

  “Good. Now I know what to say whenever I’m about to cave and let you have your wicked way.”

  She groans, and I chuckle and say, “Okay, fine. So your mom and my dad got married, and she—”

  She snorts. “They never got married. She’s never married any of the guys she’s had kids with. Doesn’t believe in the institution or some bullshit like that.”

  “What about you? Do you believe in it?”

  “Do you?” she shoots back.

  I nod, slowly, and then shove a triangle of ham and cheese into my mouth to buy me some time. “My boss and his wife, I’ve never seen two people more in love. Well, except for his two brothers and their wives, and his sister and her fiancé. And even James’s parents. I have a few friends who have taken the plunge, too, and they’re doing well, so far. So I have a lot of positive examples in my life.”

  “But?”

  Damn, she’s intuitive. She can hear my hesitation even as I spout all that proof that happily ever after really does exist. I shrug and sip my wine. “But I don’t know. I want to believe.”

  “But you’re worried that what happened to our parents will happen to you.”

  “Not literally. I’m nothing like my father. I hope.” I try damned hard to ensure I’m not, actually. I don’t yell, I don’t stomp around when I don’t get my way, and I’ve never, ever cheated on anyone. And I’m pretty sure that if I have children some day, I will actually care about their wellbeing.

  She brushes her fingers over my arm. “You are nothing like him. Trust me.” She hesitates and then says, “I’m sorry my mom stole him from you guys.”

  I shrug. “It wasn’t your fault. And really, she wouldn’t have been able to if he hadn’t wanted to. My parents’ relationship wasn’t roses and rainbows by any means. You’ve met my mom. And my dad.”

  “Your mom is pretty high-strung,” she agrees. “And your dad, well, he’s a lazy ass. And doesn’t give a shit about kids—even his own.”

  Don’t I know it. “Definitely not a good role model.”

  “How did either one of us turn out even halfway decent?”

  I tap her chest, above her left breast. “Because in here, we’re both good people.”

  “Ha. Speak for yourself.” She holds out her empty glass, and I obligingly refill it.

  We stuff our faces while moving the conversation to far less emotional topics, then we leave Toby to guard our stuff and head toward the water. I glance over my shoulder at the dog lying in the middle of the blanket with his head resting on his front paws. “You sure he’s okay?”

  She pats my cheek in a mocking manner. “It’s so cute how concerned you are over my baby. But yes, he’s fine. He doesn’t like the water, but he loves sleeping in the sun. So this is perfect. Come on.”

  She grabs my arm and jerks me into the surf, unbalancing me so that I nearly tumble headfirst into the water.

  “Turnabout is fair play,” I toss her words at her, and then I scoop her into my arms and wade out until I’m waist deep. She wraps her arms around my neck and squeals, kicking her legs but not trying to get out of my grasp. When I stop walking, breathing heavily from the exertion of running through water, she’s giving me that look again. I’m not sure if it’s saying kiss me or fuck me, but either way, I don’t want her to stop looking at me like that. Maybe not ever.

  Which means I probably shouldn’t do this....

  I turn slightly to the side and heft her as far as I can throw her. She lands ass first in the water, her scream engulfed by the waves as she goes under.

  When she emerges, mascara is streaming down her face, her rainbow-colored hair is plastered to her head, and her nipples are pressing against her bikini top. “Jerk,” she yells, and then she skims her hand across the top of the water, creating a wave that hits me square in the face.

  I laugh and wipe the wetness away and dive for her, catching her around the waist and pushing us both underwater. Instead of kicking me away, she grabs my face and kisses me, tongue and all. I pull her close, wrapping my arms around her back, squeezing her ass and continuing the kiss until there’s no more breath left in my lungs, and then I drag us both to the surface.

  Her lips are swollen and her eyes are dilated and I’m so fucking hard right now there’s no way I can head toward shore until I start thinking about baseball or…shit, what the hell else can I come up with that will deflate this sucker enough for me to be able to function in public?

  She sidles closer, rubbing herself against me and purring like a damn cat.

  “Problem?” she asks, a beacon of fake innocence.

  I reach below the surf and adjust myself. I seriously want to whack off right here. I’m not sure anything else will help at the moment. It was just a kiss, but damn, it was so much more than that. Or maybe it’s everything; the teasing, the flirting, the fact that I’m breaking down her barriers and having a hell of a good time doing it. And I didn’t jerk off last night like I told her I would, either.

  “I just need to hang out in the water for a while,” I tell her. There are people all around us, kids, adults, everything in between. I’m pretty sure they are all oblivious to my stiff situation, but if I get any closer to shore…

  Vicks stands in front of me, wraps her arms around my waist, and shoves her hand into my swimsuit so she can squeeze my ass cheek. “Walk out deeper with me.”

  With my arms around her back, I do as she says until she’s chest deep in the water. If she thought this would deflate my balloon, she’s wrong, but that’s no doubt because of her close proximity, the way her breasts look half-submerged in the water, her hand on my ass. ”Damn, I want to bone you so badly right now, I can’t think straight.”

  My back is to the beach. We’re far enough out in the waves that there are fewer people here. She treats me to a catlike smile and then, with her hand still in my shorts, she moves it, sliding around my hip until her fingers brush my erection. My entire body jerks, and I stare at her with wide eyes.

  “While that would probably be a little too obvious, I bet we can get away with this,” she murmurs, her eyes fluttering closed as she stands on tiptoe to brush her lips against mine.

  I’m not as confident we can get away with this—her hand is in my swimsuit, for the love of God—but it feels way too good to protest or move away from her touch.

  I lift my hand to cup the back of her head, stabbing my fingers in the wet strands and thrusting my tongue into her mouth in rhythm with her strokes. She moans, deep in her throat, and I flex my digits, trying to keep my hips from pumping, helping her along.

  “Vicks,” I gasp. My balls are tightening; my dick is swelling, getting even harder. She increases her speed, and, fuck me, I’m about to—

  I break the kiss and bury my face against her neck and shoot my load into my shorts. There is all sorts of wrong about this scenario, and yet, right at this moment, I can’t focus on anything but the positive. Her. Her smile, her laughter, her teasing. The sensation of my palms on her back while I rubbed sunscreen into her skin. The way her hand feels on my pecker. That fucking amazing orgasm she just gave me. The fact that I want to do this again, or definitely something similar. Preferably back at my place, and sans clothing.

  She gently extracts her hand from my shorts, but I don’t pull my face away from her neck. “Is it bad?” I ask, my words muffled against her skin.

  “You tell me.”

  “That part was great. I’m talking about everything else. Is everyone staring at us? Is there a cloud of cum in the water?”

  She snorts. “No cloud of cum. And you worry too much. No one is looking at us. No one cares what we’re doing.”

  I don’t believe her, but I reluctantly lift my head and straighten my shoulders. A swift glance at the water confirms no funny-looking cloud that might call attention to what just happened. Because, you know, even if there was something like that, the other swimmers would know what it’s from, right?

  Maybe I do worry too much.

 
“Um.” I clear my throat. “Thanks for that.”

  “My pleasure. I like it when you come undone.”

  Me too. When she’s the one making it happen.

  Chapter Six

  TORI

  “So, what’s next?” I ask after we’ve packed up our picnic and are walking along the path that separates the beach from the traffic and skyscrapers of downtown Chicago. “We have seven more dates. Let’s keep up the momentum.” We’re down to two days and I really want to take a tumble with this guy before I have to send him packing.

  He’s quiet. Too quiet. It makes me nervous, twitchy. I want to knock over some kid’s sandcastle to grab his attention, even if it means he’ll probably be angry with me. But that’s better than this quiet.

  I don’t usually sweat the small stuff. But nothing is small about Alex. Not his personality, not his plans, not his…well. All I could think about while I had my hand wrapped around that sucker was how it would feel inside me, stretching me, caressing me in places that crave him, are desperate for him. These ten dates can’t move along fast enough.

  For more than one reason, actually.

  Finally, he says, “I think the plan is null and void, don’t you?”

  What the hell is he talking about? He doesn’t want to finish our dates? He doesn’t want this experience to end with hot, sweaty sex, maybe the challenge of trying to do it all night long?

  “I know I’m out of practice, but it sure seemed like my hand job accomplished what is was supposed to.”

  He tosses a swift glance in my direction before turning to face the sidewalk again. “It did. It was perfect. Which is the problem.”

  “Color me officially confused.”

  With a huff, he stops walking, and then pulls me to the side so the hoard of pedestrians around us can continue on their path unimpeded.

  “The whole purpose of this ten dates thing was to get to know each other without hormones getting in the way. But now you’ve given me a hand job. And it was fucking fantastic. And now the hormones are all in the way, because I want to do it again.”

  “You weren’t interested in me giving you a hand job before it happened?”

  “Of course I was.”

  “Right. Because the hormones were always there, Alex. And a hand job is not sex, so we didn’t break any rules. We’re seeing this through to the end, damn it. So tell me, what’s date number—which one are we on again?”

  “Four. But what’s the point? We may as well go back to one of our apartments and just do the deed.”

  Okay, why am I not doing a happy dance right now? I 100 percent want to, as he puts it, do the deed with him. More so now that I have firsthand experience with tab A, which I hope to insert into slot B.

  But not right now.

  What’s wrong with me? Why am I not hailing a cab and shoving him inside and directing the driver to my place so we can do the naked mambo?

  Because I like this. Shit, it’s true. I like these dates. I like hanging out with Alex. Sure, I’m going to like the sex a lot too, but this part, this is…fun. Refreshing. Enjoyable. Different.

  None of my past relationships started like this. Most, if not all, began with sex on the first date. Or sex as the first date. Or just sex and no dating whatsoever. Because that’s all they were—sex, with a side order of annoying personality traits I tolerated until I couldn’t take it anymore. Or, in the case of my most recent screw up, until his fist met my face and I told him to fuck off and then called the cops for good measure. Because this chick will play hard, but that—that’s not playing. That’s abuse, and no one should stick around to see how it’s going to end.

  “Nope,” I say, crossing my arms and thrusting my chin in the air. “We are not having sex. Not yet at least.”

  He arches one eyebrow and gives me a look I’ve always thought only Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson could manage: an exaggerated combination of comical disbelief and morbid curiosity.

  “But we are going to continue with these dates,” I add.

  He doesn’t say anything, so I sigh. “Okay, look. I need a shower. And even though I’m not opening the shop until Tuesday, I need to get some work done. Accounting stuff. Inventory. So how about this? Let’s meet for dinner. A nice, standard date. Say, seven?”

  “Fine,” he grumbles. “I’ll figure out a place and text you.”

  ***

  “A champagne bar? Seriously?”

  The place is dark, really dark, with the only light coming from candles, white twinkle lights strung everywhere, and the glow of the cityscape in the background. We’re seated on the patio, at a corner two-top. I’m wearing this fifties style, off-the-shoulder dress and my favorite pair of flirty sandals, while he looks utterly edible in a pair of worn jeans and a button-down shirt with the tail hanging out and the cuffs rolled up over his forearms.

  Like really, really edible. Like I’d get down on my knees underneath this table if he asked me to. So I’d better not give him any ideas.

  Alex, who apparently knows a thing or two about wine, orders us a bottle of sparkling rosé and a dozen oysters on the half shell.

  “Is this supposed to be a joke?” I told him I didn’t want to have sex with him right away, and he chooses one of the most romantic dinner locales on the planet and then shows up looking like a GQ model and orders a fucking aphrodisiac as an appetizer? I had no idea my childhood friend had become such a sadist.

  He emulates the Cheshire cat with his smile as he touches the rim of his glass to mine before taking a sip and then dumping Tabasco and horseradish on an oyster, scooping it out of its shell, and tipping it to his lips.

  Jesus fuck, that’s hot.

  I take a slug of sparkling to hydrate my parched throat. “Just so you know, I’m not a big champagne fan, so you’re going to have to drink more than your fair share of this bottle. Which means I’m safe tonight, since you’re going to pass out cold before ten o’clock.”

  Although, damn, this stuff is good.

  He laughs. “This place actually is on the list, although it was supposed to be date number ten.”

  When did the tables turn? How is it I’m the one trying to hold us back, savoring the actual process of dating and he’s the one in a hurry to the finish line? We could be banging right now. Literally, right this second. My legs could be in the air, his buff body between my thighs, that third leg thrusting in and out of me, sending me hurtling toward a quite spectacular orgasm.

  “Damn, it’s hot out here,” I mutter, taking another hefty swallow of wine.

  Alex tops off my glass and then preps an oyster and offers it to me. Instead of taking it with my hand, I lean forward, open my mouth, and let him slide it down my throat. His eyes widen; his gaze is riveted on my face, and it makes me think of sex, so I take another drink. Apparently I like champagne more than I thought.

  “So, if I take you home after this date, are you saying we’re going to fuck?” I ask just as the server steps up to check on us. He makes this hacking noise as his face reddens, and he abruptly turns and heads for a table on the other side of the patio.

  Alex shakes his head but says, “If that’s what you want.”

  “Of course it’s what I want,” I snap. Damn it, that is exactly what I want. Right now. Right this minute. “But we had a deal.”

  “I’m trying to read into your sudden change of heart, but I’m really struggling here.”

  I purse my lips. “You’re such a woman. Men don’t read into things. They take everything at face value.”

  “Shows what you know. And I could say the same about you—that you’re such a man. Most women would love to be wined and dined, and I had to drag you along kicking and screaming.”

  “As you can see, I’ve realized the error of my ways.”

  He chuckles and shakes his head. “Because you gave me a hand job.”

  Once again, the server has spectacular timing. This time he manages not to run away, although the color of his face could only be described as mottled
tomato.

  We place our dinner order, and he bolts as fast as humanly possible.

  “We’re going to have to give this poor guy a hefty tip,” I say.

  “How about, don’t date difficult women?”

  I arch my eyebrows. “Are you calling me difficult?”

  He pretends to think about it. “Maybe complicated is a better word.”

  I can give him that one. I am definitely complicated. So much so that half the time I don’t even know what I want. I take another drink and drop my chin into my hand, which is propped on the table. “So we’re doing the world’s most romantic restaurant as date number four, apparently to test our collective willpower. What does that mean for date number ten?”

  “You still plan to see this through to date ten?”

  If we can get to that point before tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully with time to spare so we can do the naked mambo before my aunt and uncle and Artie return from their Labor Day vacation. “Have you already forgotten that I know what your shlong feels like? And how big it is?”

  He devours another oyster, and I enjoy the show.

  “You think my shlong is big?”

  “Sure do.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  I cant my head. “Have you had complaints?”

  “Nope. But I don’t really care what anyone else thinks. It’s your opinion that matters.”

  “Jesus, are you for real?” I sit up straight and look all around, searching for hidden cameras.

  He laughs. “Damn, I still need to get you those rose-colored glasses, don’t I?”

  “Apparently so,” I mutter and then I shake my head. “Let’s get off this subject. I told you about me, but you haven’t told me anything about you. What have you been up to for the past twelve years?”

  “You’ve barely told me anything about yourself.”

  Maybe because my story isn’t really all that much fun. Or maybe because I like hanging out with him and don’t want to scare him away.

  “So barely tell me something about you,” I suggest.

  He leans back in his chair, like he’s settling it, ready to divulge a long, drawn- out tale. An image flashes across my mind, an older version of him, sitting in a rocking chair with a couple of toddlers on his knees, and he’s telling them stories about the good old days.