Chapter 11
11
Tracey got through the next morning in a daze. She helped Shirley get breakfast together, greeted the guests, repaired the broken hook for the curtains in the parlor and called a plumber to check the leak in the carriage house. Things she would normally do, except her brain was only halfway there. Thoughts of the night before kept popping into her head.
When she’d run into Craig at the grocery store in the vegetable aisle and he’d asked her out, she hadn’t had a reason to say no. She knew the rumors about Craig. He was a hit-it-and-quit-it type of guy. The only thing in her future with him would be a one-night stand, and she’d been ready and willing to take that. After announcing to Mattie that she was sleeping with someone, she couldn’t hide out in the inn every night. Besides, even though she was having a good time pleasuring herself, she did miss the feel of a body against hers. The divorce was recently finalized, but she and Bernard had been separated for a year and hadn’t had sex for months before that.
She wanted to have sex, and Craig had seemed like a good enough candidate. Despite him being a serial playboy, the rumors about his abilities in the bedroom had given her hope that he would at least provide a good time.
Everything had gone great. He was a bit slick, but the appreciation and desire in his eyes was something she hadn’t seen in the last few years of her marriage. She’d been on board, until Brian had to come up and kill the vibe.
Which made no sense at all. She didn’t understand why he thought it was okay to interrupt her date with Craig. Then for him to try and pull her aside as if she were some female family member he needed to protect from the Big Bad Wolf was ridiculous. After sending him away, all she could focus on was his eyes staring at her and Craig in the bar. She’d practically jumped up and ran out when Craig suggested they go back to his place. Leaving the cigar lounge and going back to Craig’s had seemed like the best way to get back into the Let’s Get Laid game. Except, everything about Craig’s setup had made her want to roll her eyes and laugh. The soft music he’d played, the way he’d supposedly accidentally spilled the wine on his shirt and had to take it off so he could flex his pecs. It was all from a played-out book of seduction. Played-out or not, she’d gone with it, and when he’d kissed her, for a moment she believed she would be able to relax and let go. His hand was beneath her shirt and her heart rate was accelerating when Brian’s face popped into her mind. Her mom called at the same moment. Her mom hadn’t wanted anything important, but Tracey used the interruption as an excuse to leave and help her mom with a made-up emergency.
Craig had looked disappointed, but he hadn’t pushed for her to stay. He’d kissed her and invited her to come back over tonight. Tracey should go back over. Craig hadn’t been over bearing or rude, he kissed well, and he’d been getting her body hot. Why not get back out there with a man who knew what he was doing?
“Ms. Tracey!”
Tracey jumped and spun around. She’d been staring out of the window in her office replaying the night before. Jessica stood at her door. “Why are you yelling?”
Jessica held up three fingers. “I called you three times. You didn’t hear me.”
The tone of her voice made Tracey want to ask her who she thought she was talking to. The only reason she didn’t was because she had been distracted and not hearing people call her name all morning.
“My bad. What is it?”
“Brian is here. He says he had an appointment.”
Tracey’s heart did a nervous flip. The unexpected flutter made her want to kick the wall. Or Brian’s shin. This was all his fault. Stepping in like some jealous lover and getting her brain all mixed up. They were supposed to study, but before they did anything she was going to tell Brian to stop getting in her way and minding her business.
“We do. Send him on in.”
Brian stepped up behind Jessica. “I’m right here.” He raised a hand. The corner of his lips lifted in a small smile.
Tracey’s stomach clenched. The urge to kick returned. Time to get this over with and soon. She motioned with her finger for him to come in. “Good. Come on in.”
Jessica walked away. Brian came into the office and put a book bag down in one of the chairs in the sitting area next to the window. He was dressed casually, tan T-shirt with his nursery’s name that strained against muscled biceps and a pair of jeans that sagged just enough to show the top edge of his briefs. Even in casual clothes the man still looked like he could walk a runway.
Tracey walked past him and closed the office door, which he’d left open. When she turned to face him he’d come closer. She sucked in a breath as the room seemed much smaller with him there. He smelled nice, not like the earthy smell that clung to him when he was delivering the plants, but a combination of some spicy cologne and his own distinct scent.
“How was last night?” he asked.
Was she losing it, or did he sound like a jealous boyfriend? Shaking her head she pushed that thought aside and pointed at him. This was exactly why she needed to set him straight. “About last night. I don’t appreciate the way you came up on me and Craig like that.”
She expected him to back down. To hold up his hands in surrender and apologize like he usually did whenever she called him out for getting into her business.
Instead, he crossed his thick arms and spread his legs as if settling in to tell her a thing or two. “Since you’re going there, I will, too. Craig is no good.”
Tracey put her hands on her hips. “Why do you say that?”
“Because he’s sleeping with half the women at the gym.”
Tracey waited for something else. When he didn’t give her another reason she shrugged. “And?”
Brian blinked then looked at her as if she’d sprouted horns. “ And? Tracey, you deserve better than a guy like Craig.”
Tracey rolled her eyes so hard she was surprised they didn’t roll right out of her head. Who was he to tell her what kind of guy she deserved? She’d twisted herself into someone she didn’t recognize because she’d thought she didn’t deserve Bernard when they first got married. All her life she’d been told she wasn’t good enough for a certain type of guy and now she was suddenly too good for another type. She wasn’t living by what other people thought. She wasn’t looking for a perfect guy. She was looking for someone to make her feel hot, sweaty, passionate desire after years of being frozen in a bad marriage.
“Don’t tell me what I do and do not deserve. I’m not trying to marry him, damn! I’m just trying to fuck.”
She used the word on purpose. She needed to be blunt. She needed him to understand that she wasn’t some damsel he needed to save. She no longer cared if people thought she was being loose like her mom. She was a grown woman with needs. She was looking for a guy to sleep with, not to get tangled back up in a bad situation like she had with Bernard for years.
“Then, fuck me,” he shot back without blinking an eye.
The words were so surprising and hit her with such force she stumbled back as if he’d pushed her. Her heart jumped to her throat and fell to her feet. Brian stepped forward and placed his hand on her elbow, steadying her body, but her insides still tumbled.
“Stop playing.” Her voice trembled, her usual composure blown away by Brian’s equally blunt words. He had to be playing. Brian was her colleague, at most a casual friend. But he wasn’t interested in her. He’d never been. Had he?
“Do I look like I’m playing?” His dark gaze didn’t leave hers. He took a step closer. The heat of him. The intensity of him as he stared back made her breath stutter.
“You don’t like me like that.” Disbelief coated her words.
Brian cocked his head to the side. “Says who?”
She sputtered for a second and waved a hand. “No one has to say it. I saw the girls you’ve dated since high school. The cute, pretty-girl type. Your ex-wife was a model or something.”
Brian grimaced then shook his head. “No, she wasn’t.”
“Still, I looked her up and know what she looks like. That’s not me.”
She was still so surprised by the turn of the conversation that she couldn’t even be embarrassed about admitting as much. The Peachtree Cove grapevine had put the word out that he’d quit college and married some model before moving to California. Curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she’d dug through their mutual friends on social media until she’d found a picture.
“What’s wrong with you?” Brian asked as if the answer wasn’t obvious.
“I’m loud. I’m always messing up. I’m—”
Brian stepped even closer. Cutting off her words as his voice lowered and he said in a soft but confident voice, “The person I’ve wanted to fuck since I was a teenager.”
White-hot desire slid through her midsection and settled heavily between her legs. Her sex clenched. The rawness of his words, the heat in his eyes and the proximity of his body made her want to believe him. She closed her eyes and held up a hand. “Okay, we can stop saying that word.”
“Does it matter how I say it? Sleep with. Make love. Have sex with. It’s all the same. I want to sleep with you, Tracey. I’ve wanted to sleep with you for a very long time.”
Her eyes popped open. “Really?”
He nodded slowly. “Really. Why do you think I was always looking at you in high school?”
“Because I was always getting in trouble around you.” Every time she got in trouble he was there. But he’d also watched her in class. In the lunch room. At school events. She’d thought he watched her because he was waiting to see her screw up again. Not because he’d been interested. He’d never looked at her with the sloppy lust some of the other guys used to throw her way.
“Why do you think I pay attention to you now?”
She poked his chest. “ You said we were friends. That’s all this was.”
“We are, so let’s be friends with benefits.”
She sighed and held up a hand. “Men say that mess when all they want are the benefits. Not the friendship.”
“I do all the friend stuff already. This way I’ll also give you orgasms.” His lips lifted in a half smile.
Her heart fluttered and her sex tightened. Did he know ex actly how sexy he was? She wanted to sleep with someone, but a warning bell in the back of her brain said she might not be able to handle Brian. Craig, with his played-out lines and transparent attempts at seduction, made it easy to not get her emotions involved. Brian, on the other hand, was closer to her. He knew her secrets and weaknesses because he’d witnessed them throughout the years. If he wanted to embarrass or hurt her later, he could.
She shook her head. “Nah, we can’t.”
“Why not? You’re looking for a lover. I’m a much better candidate than Craig.” He tossed out Craig’s name as if he was already on a list of the World’s Worst Lovers.
“How would you know? You slept with him?”
“I don’t have to sleep with him to know that I can make love to you much better than Craig can. He couldn’t possibly crave the taste of your skin the way I do.” He slid forward, erasing the final bit of distance between them. “Has he fantasized about all the ways to make you come? Thought about kissing your lips when you pull the corner of your bottom lip between your teeth? Wondered what your fingers would feel like against his body while watching you write?”
Breathing became impossible. “You do that?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“I do. Don’t sleep with Craig. If you’re going to sleep with anyone, sleep with me.”
Her control slipped. She was falling into the trap. Brian was also good at seduction. He was just better than Craig. “You sleep around, too.”
“Not while I’m with you.”
She raised a brow. “Cute girl at the bar? You’re really going to stop seeing her.”
“It’s already over. I mean what I’m saying, Tracey. It’ll just be you for the entire time we’re together.”
He was too close. His gaze too intense. She felt partly like a gazelle caught in the lion’s gaze and partly like the lion ready to pounce on its prey. He wasn’t even touching her yet, and already her skin was hot. “I don’t know if this is right.”
She shifted to move away. Brian shifted with her. “Why not?”
“I never thought about you like that,” she lied. She’d thought about him like that more times than she could count, but it had always been a secret fantasy. Something she would let pop in her head then push away because Brian was out of her league.
“Then, let me give you something to think about.”
He wrapped an arm around her waist and pressed her against him. His head lowered, his lips brushed against hers. She should push away. He would let her go if she did, but control had flown out the window like a long-caged bird. She lifted her chin and parted her lips. Brian’s tongue slid across hers as his other arm wrapped around her until she was engulfed in his embrace. Had fireworks gone off, or was that just the explosion of passion in her brain? Brian’s kiss blew Craig’s completely out of her mind. His lips and tongue played across hers with a confidence that had her melting into him.
Maybe he sensed it, because he pushed forward, walking her back until she was pressed against the door. His hand went from her back to brush along the side of her breasts. Her nipples hardened, and she moaned. She arched her back, hoping he would touch her more. Instead, his hand moved up and gently wrapped around her neck. The slight, possessive move had her whimpering and wanting to be claimed as his.
When he pulled back his breathing was heavy, and his eyes simmered with desire. “Yes or no, Tracey?” His thumb rubbed the pulse pounding at the base of her throat.
Yes was on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to shout yes from the rooftop. But if she was anything she was stubborn. She would not let Brian think he could just come in here and get her in his bed with just a kiss. One bone-melting, heart-hammering kiss, but still it was just a kiss.
She pushed his chest. He immediately let her go and stepped back. Her fingers curled into a fist to stop herself from reaching out, grabbing his shirt and jerking him back to her. He’d proven his point. They had chemistry. Sex could be good between them. But she also knew herself. She couldn’t jump into this without thinking of the consequences.
Tracey straightened her clothes and lifted her chin. “I’ll think about it and let you know later this week.”
Brian’s lips lifted in a knowing smile. She kept her eyes on him, refusing to blink or back down. He nodded. “Later this week, then.”