Bates
Lana tosses her golden ponytail over her shoulder and shrugs before returning her soft hands to mine.
We’re on opposite sides of the table, so our hands are the wrong way around for holding the way I want to, but I quite like the way her fingertips lightly brush over the sensitive skin of my wrists. It sort of tickles, in a good way.
“Well, I wouldn’t call her a friend,” she says carefully, as if weighing her words.
“I don’t especially enjoy spending time with her, so acquaintance seems more fitting.
Anyway, she owed me for covering her workload when she didn’t adequately complete her portion of a group assignment — on account of her being far too popular and sociable to get it done. ”
I hide my smile, so she won’t think I’m laughing at her when I just genuinely enjoy the way she talks. “One of those, huh?”
“I know,” Lana says in whole-hearted agreement. “I got us an A, so I figured it was fair payment to request that she use her popularity and social skills to set me up on a date.”
My left eyebrow lifts before I can stop it, and Lana studies its position, even after I lower it again.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not very good at flirting, or…” She gestures between us before resting her hands back in my palms as if they belong there. “Social stuff.”
“You’re better at it than you think,” I assure her, unable to keep from running my thumbs over her soft knuckles.
Her hands feel strangely right in mine. I’ve never had a woman hold my hands upside-down so unexpectedly and for so long, but she makes it seem totally natural. “I have no complaints so far.”
Her lips curl upward, and her teeth sink into the bottom one as if she can barely handle the praise. “You’re really sweet.”
My cheeks start to warm again.
I don’t know what the fuck this girl is doing to me, but I feel like a big ol’ goofball around her. I slip my hands out from under hers. “I can assure you that I’m not sweet,” I warn before taking another sip of my beer.
She sucks her lower lip as she considers that, then she emits a soft humming noise that makes my balls ache. “I’ll find out for sure soon enough, I guess. Did you want to hear the rest of the story, or should we go upstairs and find out how un-sweet you are right now?”
I almost choke on my beer, and she gasps.
She clamps her hand over her mouth as if she’s said something wrong.
She winces, leans in, and lifts her fingers from her lips just enough so that she can whisper to me.
“Was that too forward? I was trying not to be as direct as I normally would be, but I think the tequila’s starting to take effect. ”
I finish coughing and shake my head. “I like direct. It just took me by surprise, is all.”
She’s so... unconventional. And honest, which is a trait that is wildly attractive to me right now.
She gets hotter every time she opens her mouth, and as much as I want to take her upstairs, I’m just as interested in hearing what’ll come out of her mouth next.
“Please continue your story. We’ll head upstairs soon enough. We have all night, right?”
Lana furrows her brow as she seems to think on it a moment, then she nods. “You’re right. I haven’t reached the punchline of my evening yet. You’ll be in suspense. I wouldn’t want that to interfere with anything.”
I can’t say I’m following her logic, but I am enjoying the fuck out of this girl, and I sure as eggs don’t want to rush wherever this is going and have it end all too soon.
She takes a big breath. “Well, I didn’t want this acquaintance to fix me up with some lame asshole, so I told her that if she put some effort in and convinced someone awesome to go on a date with me, then I’d help her with her other assignment.
She asked what would happen if nobody was interested, and I told her they would be because I was going to be an easy lay. ”
I almost spray her with beer again. “You said that?” I ask between coughs. I’m going to have to stop drinking when she’s talking or she’ll think I have throat problems.
Lana shrugs and offers me the napkin from under the unused cutlery we’ve moved to the side. “For the right guy, it would have been true. I was playing the odds.”
“Right.”
I get to thinking about how she propositioned me.
Does she think I’m the right guy? Because I’m definitely not.
I’m way too old and filthy for her. Aren’t I?
She doesn’t seem the type of woman who’d give it up to just any guy she meets…
Or is she? Everything she does surprises me, so the more I think about what kind of woman she is, the more I’m sure I don’t know.
“Bates?”
“Mm?”
“You look concerned. If you’re wondering about the level of my promiscuity, I would like to state clearly and firmly that it is low.
Very low. I’m not usually in the habit going to hotel bars to pick up guys and invite them back to my room or anything.
I’m just here for the night and thought I’d try it.
There’s a first time for everything, right? ”
She slaps a hand to her forehead and drags it down over her eyes as she groans.
“God, I am making it so painfully obvious that this is my first time picking up a guy in a bar. I should have waited for the tequila to hit before I went anywhere near you, but you just kind of blindsided me with your pretty eyes, and your pretty arms, and your pretty…”
Her fingers open enough for her to peek through, and she gives me another once-over before groaning again. “You just have entirely too much pretty going on, and it has me all hot and bothered,” she explains, fanning her flaming-crimson cheeks. “Makes a girl do crazy shit.”
I shift in my seat to give my dick more room.
If Lana ever had a filter, it broke. She’s so open and matter-of-fact, it has me reeling. Everything she says is what she’s actually thinking. She doesn’t play games, and she actually thinks I’m… pretty? Fuck.
The more she talks, the more I want her.
And she’s beautiful. And she wants to go upstairs with me.
Is there a catch? There’s got to be. Inside and out, I’m struggling to keep calm and remain still.
My cock is straining against my thigh like a bronco poised to escape its pen at a rodeo, and the stitching of my jeans is going to be stamped on the fucking thing if she doesn’t stop saying things that make me want to fuck her mouth. Shit.
Think sweeter things, meathead.
She’s a good girl. I can tell. She deserves sweet.
I call on all my strength and wisdom and do my best to stay cool and collected.
“We’ll explore some crazy shit in good time,” I promise.
“But before we do that, tell me about your date, Lana. You look beautiful, and you’re sweet as hell, so I can’t imagine you were rejected.
Did this acquaintance fail in her responsibilities again?
” I ask before my heart starts pounding in a bad way.
“Please don’t tell me she made you have dinner with an asshole. Was he mean to you?”
My blood pressure keeps rising as I think of all the things that could have driven Lana toward tequila shots and me. “Did you meet him in the hotel restaurant?” I push up my sleeves and look around. “Is he still here? Should I go kick his ass?”
Lana takes my hands and unfurls my fingers so she can press her palms back to mine and stroke my wrists with her fingertips.
“Sweet with a side of overprotective rage. Who knew that was a turn-on,” she whispers.
“I have definitely been looking for men in the wrong places. Do you live around here? Just passing through? What’s the deal?
I’m done with school and flying out tomorrow, and I didn’t think I’d ever be back, but if you’re here… ”
Her gaze lifts to my face, and her eyes get really wide, really fast. They’re probably matching mine. She rushes her fingers to her lips as she gasps.
“What did I say? Oh, God. Did I just sound like one of those women who meets a great guy and then five minutes later changes the entire course of her life to accommodate him? Ugh. No wonder you look so shocked. That’s not what I was doing, Bates.
I have a plan for my life, and this night was meant to include getting laid, but that’s it.
I was just asking for context. Like, how have I been here for three years and not known there was someone like you around here? That’s all. I swear.”
“I… doubt we hang out in the same circles,” I say in as soothing a tone as I can manage. “And I was just tying up some loose ends before I leave Colorado tomorrow. Forever.”
“That’s a long time,” she utters softly.
“The longest,” I agree.
“Why so permanent?”
An awful, ill feeling rises in my throat. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She nods. “That’s code for woman problems, right?”
When I don’t answer, she draws her own conclusions.
“If we go upstairs to… do stuff, am I going to be an RF?” she asks in a shaky voice before her finger presses to my lips to stop me from giving an answer. “That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker; it just… changes things.”
My heart bursts into a gallop.
How is this woman even real? She’s so sweet she’s making it hard for me to breathe. I’ve never believed my friends when they tell me I fall in love too easily, but it’s hard to deny it when the proof is sitting right in front of me.
I kiss her finger and lower it from my lips. “You are the furthest thing from a revenge fuck a person can get. At least you will be,” I clarify, offering her a smile. “Once we’re doing it.”
She visibly relaxes and offers me a smile, too. “Okay. Should we go now?”
I shake my head. “Finish your story.”
“Oh.” She nods, and her cheeks flush with the deepest pink yet.
I wince on her behalf. “It was that bad, huh? Did she set you up with a toothless, incontinent old man with a phlegmy cough?”
Lana wrinkles her nose. “No. But in some ways that might have been better.”
“How?” I ask, laughing at the lack of possibilities.
She gives me a look so defensive and harsh, it’s as if she may never tell me.
I raise my hands in surrender. “Not laughing at you. I’m laughing because I can’t think of anything worse, and my imagination is working really hard on it. Please tell me. I need to know.”
“I didn’t say it was worse,” she clarifies, shaking her head.
“I said an old gummy man with wet pants and a chest infection might have been better. Because I was almost expecting that. I prepared for it. I’m not even remotely cool, and this acquaintance seemed to have little respect for me, so honestly, meeting that kind of date would have made more sense — I had a plan for such a scenario.
But the reality was a surprise curveball I hadn’t pre-planned a response to, and that’s what made it bad.
Really, really bad. My reaction, that is. Not the person.”
“Lana, please just tell me.”