23. Tori
23
TORI
Tall trees passed by the truck, and I watched them to distract myself from the guilt and dismay. Kyle was silent as he drove, but I could almost feel unhappiness radiating from him.
This was all on me.
Kyle was an easy-going guy. All he’d wanted to do was to go to the batting cages. I’d not only turned him down, but I also reminded him of topics he didn’t want to think about. About the academics he struggled so much with. And his bad history with Lucas.
That redhead would’ve gone with him to the batting cages to fawn over his muscles, his skill. She likely would’ve gone everywhere he asked, including his bed. I didn’t want him to be with her, but I also didn’t want him to be so miserable.
Especially when it was my fault. I’d been upset about my mom, and it had affected my judgment.
How to fix this? I thought about what I knew about him, what he might like to talk about. There was baseball, of course. And himself—that seemed like a favorite topic. And sex. That was definitely one of his interests.
I didn’t know much about baseball, but maybe I could get him talking about one of the other two.
Or both.
It took me a minute to figure out an approach, but then I turned to him and tried to keep my voice casual and carefree. “Hey, I was wondering if you could help me understand something. About guys. About how they think.”
Kyle didn’t take his eyes off the road, but he answered quickly enough. “Maybe they don’t think. My grades are proof of that.” It was a clear attempt to lighten the mood, and I appreciated it, even if I felt I didn’t deserve it.
“Just wait until you get your paper back. You might be surprised.”
“Not likely,” he said succinctly. “And women always say they want to know how men think—and then they’re often horrified by what they find out.”
“I’ll risk it. I think you might be able to help me understand because this is someone you know.”
“Ah, one of the great brains back at the house.”
“No. It’s this other guy.” I braved looking at him. His face was neutral, which was better than glum. “You see, this guy asked me if I’d go on a date with him, but then he never followed up after that.”
Kyle’s expression morphed into a reluctant grin. “Did he actually ask you or did he blackmail you into it?”
“I forget the details.”
He gave a low laugh, and I was so glad to hear that sound. He took a deep breath. “Okay, school’s in session, little tutor. I’m going to let you in on a huge secret about men.”
He cocked a finger at me, and I leaned in. He brought his head close, his eyes still facing forward, and whispered, “Most men are idiots.”
I laughed, straightening back up, thrilled that he was acting more like himself. “That’s not a secret.”
“True. But there are some exceptions. Some men are handsome, charming, and know how to handle their bat.” He smirked. “Like I did at the game yesterday, I mean.”
“Sure that’s what you meant.” My relief at the change in mood was making me feel playful.
“I always mean what I say, Victoria. Just like I meant it when I asked you on a date.”
“ Blackmailed me for a date.”
“I forget the details.” His use of my line from before made me laugh. “But I do still want to take you out. A deal’s a deal, and I showed up at your nerd convention.”
“Study group.”
“Same difference. Anyway, I was waiting for the right time for our date.”
“When’s the right time?” It felt like he was stalling.
“Sunday night.”
My pulse quickened. “Sunday? Why Sunday?”
“Because the thing I want to take you to is happening this Sunday.”
That seemed strange, and I couldn’t quite figure out if he was serious or not. But I kind of preferred the narrative that he’d been waiting for the right time over a scenario in which he’d forgotten. “What happens on Sunday night?”
“Magic, Victoria. I’m going to rock your world. Make you see stars. Make you scream my name.”
All of that would have been hot—and indeed, my heart rate sped up—if he hadn’t said it all so flippantly.
“So you say.” It was an effort to keep my voice steady. “Where exactly are you going to do this?”
“In my bed, or up against the wall, or?—”
“ Kyle.”
He grinned. “When you say my name in that no-nonsense tone, I can totally see you as a future high school English teacher.”
I looked away, but I was smiling. Even though he was teasing, I still liked hearing it. So many people took one look at me and assumed I was too small or delicate to teach high school.
A hand stroked my hair, and I leaned into his touch for a moment.
His voice was rumbly. “Okay, I’ll stop teasing. Here’s the deal. I’m taking you to sort of a… well, like a pop-up restaurant. Or at least one that’s not there all the time. But it is this weekend, for one night only, and I’d like for you to go with me.”
“What kind of place is it?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
What? “Why not?”
“It’s a secret.”
I blew out a huff of air, trying to make sense of that. “Is it fancy?”
“Yes. Very.”
“How fancy? Would the dress I wore the other night look out of place?”
He hesitated, which was an answer in and of itself. “It’s pretty damn fancy.”
“You said that already.”
“I can’t tell you all the details, but how about I tell you what I’m planning to wear?”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to wear a fitted black suit. Black shirt. Black shoes. And when you see me, you’re going to think you’re the luckiest girl in the world.”
“Because you’re wearing all black?” I scoffed. “So does Batman or Zorro.”
“Yes, I am like a superhero. But I don’t think you’re quite getting the full visual. A black suit so fitted that it’ll highlight every muscle on my body—especially the ones you drool over when you see me without my shirt. The jacket will sit snug on my shoulders—none of that baggy crap. It’s going to fit like a glove… and it’s going to look good .” He drew that last word out as I caught my breath. “So good that you’ll have to turn away out of fear you might come right then and there.”
I couldn’t look at him, but I knew he was smirking. He was clearly enjoying trying to get me riled up—and it was working. “You still haven’t told me when and where.” My voice was hoarse.
“I can’t tell you where. But I can tell you when—at nine.”
“Nine?” I echoed.
“PM,” he clarified, amusement in his voice.
“I know that.” His arrogance was getting me flustered. “I just meant that’s a little late for dinner.”
“Not at this place. The night will just be getting started.”
“I see.”
He studied me for a long moment until I pointed at the road he was supposed to be looking at. “You’ll have a good time, Victoria.” All traces of teasing had vanished from his voice. “Trust me.”
For some strange reason, I did. “Okay. Looking forward to finding out where the hell we’re going.”
“And I’m looking forward to showing it to you. So, speaking of orgasms?—”
“What?” I squeaked. “We weren’t speaking of that.”
“Well, we are now. Do you remember your safeword?”
My heart pounded harder in my chest as I tried to keep up with his rapid-fire banter. “Yes, do you?”
“Of course. It’s encyclopedia, right?”
After falling for his lie about online gambling in class, I knew better than to believe him. “Very funny.”
“I thought so.” He smirked. “Okay, remember that first drive when I gave you the safeword? Which is thesaurus, but the way.”
He did remember the word, and my shoulders relaxed a little. “I remember.”
“You asked what my pet peeve was during sex, which I wasn’t expecting. That took balls. Or, like, lady balls.” He grinned. “Do you remember what I answered?”
My face flushed, because I remembered that conversation very well. “You said you didn’t like it when women were quiet in bed.”
“Very good.”
“How come all of a sudden you sound like the tutor, and I sound like the student?”
“Because we’re talking about sex. Do you remember why I said I didn’t like it when they were quiet?”
That entire conversation was somehow engraved in my brain. “Because you like knowing you’re making them feel good.”
“Right again. But—that’s not the only reason.” He paused, his eyebrows raised, as if waiting for me to ask what the other reason was.
Which I wouldn’t do.
I didn’t care.
I—dammit. “What’s the other reason?”
He smirked at my capitulation. “Because those sounds a woman makes—the moans, the gasps, the squeals, the screams—are hot as fuck. Hot. As. Fuck.”
My thighs clenched and I resisted the urge to squeeze them tighter together. Kyle seemed to be speaking directly to my body, and the flush on my skin and pounding of my pulse responded to his words.
“Nothing to say to that, Victoria?”
Say something. Say anything.
But I was pretty sure I’d forgotten how to speak, so I shook my head.
He chuckled. “That’s okay. You don’t need to say anything at all for this next part.”
My speech returned. “Next part?” Did he mean Sunday night?
“You’re going to give me a preview of what you sound like when you come. Every gasp. Every whimper. Every moan. Right now, Victoria. Fake an orgasm for me—and make it good.”
My mouth gaped open. Surely he wasn’t serious?
His blue eyes met mine and my heart pounded in my chest. God, he was serious.
“You know what to say if you don’t want to do it,” he said softly. “But I think you’ll like it. And I know I will.”
Trying to keep up with a guy this cocky, arrogant, and let’s face it—sexy, was an exercise in futility. There was no way I was going to perform on cue. I’d probably sound stupid, anyway. But god, my senses were heightened, and my muscles tensed—the way they did during the buildup to an actual orgasm. Not that I’d ever had what I’d consider to be a mind-blowing orgasm. And certainly not one in the presence of another person.
“It’s easy,” Kyle said. “Just think of me. Think of all the things I could do with you. Do to you. I know you’ve thought about it before.”
I had… but in the privacy of my own room. And my own head. Not out loud for someone else to hear.
“I’m waiting.”
I wanted to tell him that he could wait forever, as far as I was concerned. That he could take his cocky attitude and shove it where the sun didn’t shine. But instead, I drew in a deep, shuddery breath. And then let it out slowly.
“Close your eyes,” Kyle said softly.
I obeyed, and the world fell away. The road. The truck. All other concerns. Instead, I focused on my body, breathing in deeply as warmth flooded me. In my mind, he was there. Naked. Hovering over me as I lay in bed. His bed, I realized. I’d visualized the bed I first slept in at their house rather than the one I currently used.
This time, there was a small moan when I exhaled.
I pictured him staring at me. Those blue eyes hungry. The arrogant twitch of his lips as he decides how hard he’s going to make me come—and how many times.
I drew in a sharp breath and moaned again. His knee would be between my legs—near the spot where his hand strayed on movie night. Except he wouldn’t stop there. He’d press it against my slit and the delicious pressure would make me squirm and moan.
Both of which I was doing now.
My breathing grew more ragged, the sound of it filling the car. It was like a circle… I was getting turned on, so my breathing got louder—but my breathing getting louder was turning me on.
“Moan for me, baby.” His voice was low and rumbly.
Kyle’s voice should have made me jump, but it didn’t. It floated in my ears and shot past my hardened nipples. Straight to where the blood was pounding between my legs.
A whimper escaped my lips, and even though I had my eyes closed, I knew this was turning me on. It sure as hell was turning me on.
I sucked in a sharp breath of air and moaned again, my voice low and throaty, and I felt Kyle shift in the seat next to me.
This was getting to me. The moans. The whimpers. The breathing. I didn’t know why, but it was getting me so damn aroused.
Except I did know why. Because he was listening.
He was so over-the-top sexy… the way he teased me. His smirk. The confidence he had on the baseball field.
My breath came out in little whimpers. Faster and faster.
He was arrogant, and sometimes I wanted to wipe the smirk off his face, but he was also hot as hell. I’d never known a sexier man.
“Let me hear you, baby.”
I bit my lip as chills filled my body. My muscles grew rigid, but it felt so good. Almost like the real thing.
“Louder,” he growled, and I obeyed. My gasps filled the cab of the truck, my breaths shallow and rapid. I moaned again, my blood thundering through my body, almost as if he was really touching me.
Then my mind jumped back to the image of him hovering over me on the bed. I pictured him lining his huge cock up at my entrance, and I wanted him so badly. He gave me a wicked grin, and he pinched my nipples and—wait. He was still above me, keeping his weight off me with his hands. That was someone else pinching my nipples. It was Jayden. And then Lucas sank his hand in my hair and pulled me toward him for a kiss. Then Kyle drove into me all the way and in the fantasy, I screamed. My back arched as they all touched me everywhere. Kissing me everywhere.
I cried out, so caught up in the fantasy that it almost felt like a real climax. My skin heated, my limbs seizing up as I cried out again.
And I could barely catch my breath
Shit. What was that? What had happened? My body felt shaky and loose as my ragged breathing filled the cab. What was that? Why were all three of them in my fantasy?
I knew I should examine that more, but I couldn’t. Not now. Right now was the time to just enjoy how good that had felt. Not quite real, but god, really damn good. I slumped back against the seat, my eyes still closed, my breathing heavy as I tried to calm down. Small whimpers came on every third breath or so, and I no longer knew what was real and what was pretend.
My eyes fluttered open at long last, only to meet Kyle’s gaze. His eyes were dark—and hungry. I met his gaze until he had turn his head back to the road. “Shit, Tori, that was hot.”
His words thrilled me, and that feeling mixed with all the sensations rolling in waves across my body.
“So fucking hot,” he repeated.
“W-why?” My throat was so dry from the moaning that the words wouldn’t come. I tried again. “Why did that feel so good? Why did it turn me on so much?”
“It turned me on, too.”
“Really?” I slanted a glance at him.
“Hell yes.” He looked over again, a gleam in his eye. “Want me to prove it to you?”
What? He reached for my hand and then tugged on it, pulling it closer to his leg.
No. Not his leg. His erection.
I only got a quick glance before I looked away, but he was really turned on. And, from what I could tell, as huge as I’d imagined in my fantasy.
Kyle set my hand on his thigh, just inches away from that massive bulge. I could practically feel the heat from it.
Did I want to touch it? To feel for myself how hard he was? How hard I made him?
I almost wanted to. I nearly stretched my hand out those last few inches?—
But it was too much. A bridge too far. “Thesaurus,” I gasped.
Kyle froze and set my hand back on the bench seat, squeezing my fingers before releasing them.
I stared out the windshield, my breath still not quite in my control. Had I made the right call? It was a strange sensation to both want to do something and not want to do it.
But as my blood stopped racing through my body, more of it returned to my brain. Yes, I’d made the right call. He was my roommate. The guy I was tutoring. And the arch enemy of one of my best friends.
I’d forgotten all that when I imagined him thrusting into me. When I’d imagined the others…
“You sounded so sexy, Tori.” Kyle’s voice was quieter now.
“You’re not mad?” He’d said I could use the safeword at any time, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be disappointed.
“Of course not. That was fucking amazing. I’d say that you’re a very good actress, but I think you really got into it.”
“I did,” I said with a soft exhale.
He turned left when we passed by the little town with the coffee shop we’d studied at. “I’m not sure I should take you home yet. Your face is all flushed… and there are other signs.” His gaze raked across my chest. “Lucas and Jay will take one look at you and give me hell.”
“Probably best you don’t go in there like that, either.” I gestured at his impressive bulge. “Maybe we should take the long way back.” If there even was one.
“Maybe,” he agreed. “And maybe I should make you do that again sometime soon.”
I didn’t answer, but I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as I looked out the window. One of the hottest men I’d ever met had been turned on by me. Not the redhead on campus. Not some pushy woman who threw herself at him. But by me.
Kyle pulled his truck up in front of the house. “I’ll be in in a minute,” he said, and in a strange reversal, I smirked at him.
No one was on the first floor, but when I walked across the living room, I heard voices downstairs. “We’re working down here,” Lucas called.
“I’ll be down in a minute.”
It was a bit of a letdown to go from an almost orgasm to clearing clutter out of the basement, but I was eager to see Lucas and Jayden, too. As long as I could look at them without being reminded of that confusing fantasy.
When I got to my room, my phone chimed with a text from Kyle, who was still out in his truck. I read his message once, then twice. And then I smiled.
That was hot as fuck, but you’ll scream even louder when I make you come for real.