Reaching First (8 page)

“It’ll be late. Maybe midnight.”

“I’m a big girl. I can stay up late.”

“Nothing’s changed, Emily. You’re still going to tell me this is a bad idea.”

He could hear her breathing, and he wished he’d just kept his mouth shut. What was the big deal? He’d go by her house. Get laid. He’d done that plenty of times before, without turning it into a federal case.

But that was exactly the problem. It
was
a federal case. Or a state one, anyway. A state case, in front of a state judge, who had handed responsibility for his sentence to Emily.

“It’s a bad idea,” she agreed at last. “But a lot has changed. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

He hung up the phone before she could change her mind. One night. One game to play. One flight across country. Tomorrow night was never going to get there.
 

He pounded his pillow and told his imagination to stop spinning out its reels of Emily fantasy footage. Shit. He might as well take a cold shower. Otherwise, he wasn’t falling asleep any time soon.

* * *

Emily looked at the clock on her nightstand. 11:57. Exactly three minutes since the last time she’d checked.
 

She picked up her highball glass and tilted her head back to get the last drops of vodka around the ice.
 

How many drinks was that? Who was counting? She’d spaced them out over the evening. She could have one more, just another drop of courage. Tyler could get there any time.

She held onto the bannister as she made her way down the stairs. The hallway swayed a bit as she headed back to the kitchen. Fresh ice cubes clinked into her glass. Vodka, a finger’s worth. Two. What the hell? Three. She added a splash of tonic water and squeezed in a generous wedge of lime.

There. That was better. She sipped again, letting the icy fire sooth her.

Her feet were freezing on the linoleum floor. Of course her feet were cold. She was wearing the skimpiest of camisoles, a froth of ecru lace and spaghetti straps. The matching panties certainly weren’t going to stave off any chill.

Looking at her outfit, she felt astonishment all over again. She’d bought these clothes that afternoon, bought them for Tyler. She’d bought them so he could see her like this—not in any of the other panties and bras she owned, not in anything she’d ever worn for herself, for anyone else.

This was different.

Tyler
was different.

The logical part of her brain—the part that made her graduate magna cum laude from Michigan, that made her interview for and get a rare job in a crowded field—that mechanical voice told her she’d only known Tyler for a short time.
Less than three weeks
. And she’d only seen him for half of that, because he’d been on the road.

But for the first time in her life, Emily was listening to the other part of her brain. She was listening to the voice that said there was something
special
with Tyler. She’d felt it from the moment he walked into Anna’s office—the sheer magnetism that made her feel like an iron needle spinning toward him as he moved across the room.
 

That was the voice that had urged her to take on monitoring his community service, because otherwise she’d walk away from him and never see him again. That was the voice that had whispered for her to accept his dinner invitation to Artie’s. That was the voice that had mewed from the back of her throat when he walked away from her front door, when she sent him away after dinner. And that was the voice that had ratcheted higher and higher, controlling her breathing, controlling her
thoughts
as they talked on the phone.
 

Tyler knew her. Tyler understood her. She found herself telling him things she’d never told another living soul—doubts about her job, about her abilities. Dreams for her future. Desires for the way she wanted to live her life, for who she wanted to be.

And every outrageous thing she told him, he accepted. She loved the simple confidence in his voice. He
believed
in her. He trusted her. And his faith gave her permission to trust herself.
 

She hadn’t felt that permission in weeks.
Months
. Since she’d been called into her boss’s office, blindsided by his announcement that he was letting her go. It wasn’t until the past week—when this funny, sexy man told her so—that she realized she’d been thinking the wrong things for ages.
She
wasn’t to blame.
She
hadn’t failed. She was the same overachiever she’d always been, and getting laid off didn’t change that.

Sure, there were a million conversations she and Tyler had not yet had. But they
could
have them. They
would
have them. Especially after she got rid of the one barrier between them. The Virgin Technicality.

She gritted her teeth and downed the rest of her drink. The vodka shimmered through her like water over silk, hot then cold. Before she could decide whether to make herself another, there was a knock at the front door.

This was it.
 

This was her chance to redeem the embarrassment of that night two years ago when One False Love had fled like she had some sort of plague. This was her chance to undo the decisions she’d made in high school, in college, all the nights of her life.

All she had to do was answer the door.

Her heart hammered as loud as the deadbolt as she flipped the lock open. She thought about hiding behind the door, about letting it shield her. But that wasn’t what this night was about. That wasn’t why she’d asked Tyler to come to her.

She planted her feet against the slight spin of the room, and she opened the door.

The shock on his face was transparent. His eyes grew huge, and she heard his breath catch in his throat. She saw the muscles of his belly tighten under his T-shirt, saw the flicker as his fingers tensed. “Jesus, Emily,” he breathed.

She wanted to cover herself. She wanted to fold her hands across her breasts, arch her palms over the nearly exposed juncture at the top of her thighs. Her feet ached to escape into her office; her entire body longed to flee.

But her brain didn’t want her to go. Her mind wanted her right here, right now, with this man beside her.

Tyler glided over the threshold. He apparently had the presence of mind do to what she did not—he closed the door and shot the bolt, all in one smooth motion. “I was going to bring you something,” he said. “Stop for flowers. But there wasn’t any place open after midnight on Sunday.”

“I don’t need your flowers.” That voice didn’t belong to her. Those
fingers
didn’t belong to her—the ones that were closing around his hand, bring his palm to her chest. To her breast.

His fingers traced over the camisole’s lace, igniting a song inside her head, a humming that synchronized with the wavering edges of the room. Without thinking, without planning, she arched toward him, wanting to feel more than that one finger, wanting to sense more than that one line of lace.

And he understood exactly what she needed. Through the satin of the garment, he brushed against her nipple. The rush of sensation lanced through her, from the tight bud that he caressed, through her belly, into the mysterious warmth that throbbed between her legs.

His lips followed where his palm had gone, suckling through the fabric. His hands spread across her back, supporting her as she yielded to the sensation. Her hair was trapped beneath his fingertips. Her neck arched like a bow.

He shoved at the cami, pushing it up to her neck. In the same motion, he moved his head to her other breast, tongued the aching nipple that had been ignored for so long. The feeling was sharper, deeper, now that she was no longer protected by the cloth, and a gasp of pleasure forced its way past her lips.

The sound embarrassed her. She’d never exposed herself to a man this way, never been as explicit about what she wanted, and when and how. Sure, she’d
made out
with any number of boyfriends—friendly groping on a couch, heated fumbling with zippers, with inconvenient folds of cloth. She wasn’t
totally
inexperienced with what one person’s hands could do to another. Even with what mouths could do.

But this was the first time she’d ever offered herself up for a man, the first time she’d ever made herself this vulnerable. And if she didn’t do something
now
, she was going to lose her nerve completely. She was going to chicken out and cover herself and retreat into the safety she’d preserved all the rest of her life.

And she didn’t want that.

Not any more. Not with Tyler.

She closed her fingers around his wrist, pulling his hand to her side. He looked at her from eyes gone smoky with desire. “No?” he asked, and she felt him start to back off, a look of confusion beginning to twist those incredible lips into a frown.

“Not here,” she whispered.

And she led him up the stairs.

The sweeping staircase looked like something out of a movie set. It was designed for Scarlett O’Hara to stand at the top, for white-clad society girls to pose for their debuts. But Emily didn’t let that stop her as she steadied herself against the classic railing. Taking a deep breath against the vodka-infused waves in the air around her, she led Tyler to her bedroom.
 

She’d lit candles. Nearly a dozen, glinting off the giant mirror suspended over the dresser that had been in her family for generations. The fat white columns glowed, perfuming the air with a hint of vanilla.
 

She’d stacked decorative pillows in the corner—arranging them and rearranging them in an effort to make everything look casual. The first time she’d prepared the room, she’d turned back the comforter and sheet in a precise, demure line. After her first vodka tonic, though, that had looked too careful, too precious. She’d tangled the comforter and left it looking like the lair of some feral beast.

And two hours and many drinks later that was exactly how she felt—like a wild animal.

Her heart pounded, far faster than climbing any sweep of stairs could account for. Her head spun as her thoughts leaped from the candles to the bed sheets to the damp curls of hair against the nape of her neck. She licked her lips, but barely felt the motion; her entire body hummed as if she’d brushed against a generator.

She couldn’t delay any longer. She had to look at Tyler. Had to admit that she had drawn him here, that she was the one who was leading every step of this dance.
 

Possessed by a power she’d never felt before, she prowled over to the bed. It felt completely natural to kneel amid the froth of sheets, to arch her back and smile an invitation. Tyler’s eyes flared with hunger as one strap of her camisole slipped from her shoulder.

She beckoned with one finger—commanding, promising. He closed the distance like a man in a dream.

Her fingers burned as she worked his belt buckle. The metal tongue slipped free like a charm. She loosened the leather and eased it out of a couple of loops, watching Tyler’s eyes close, studying the bob of his Adam’s apple as he leaned his head back. One more loop, easing, teasing, and then she whipped the rest of the leather free.

He started at the sound, a jerking motion that threatened to pull him away from her. She couldn’t have that, though. Not when she was finally on the verge of getting what she truly needed.
 

She looped the belt around her neck, pulling it tight enough that the dark leather would stand out against her flesh. There were no holes for the metal tongue, no way to keep the belt close. But she took the free end and slapped it, once, twice, a demanding three times against his jean-clad thigh.
 

He groaned and trapped the belt between her fingers and the sturdy layer of denim. She traced the edge of the leather with one scarlet fingernail, pressing hard enough into his twitching muscle to draw a gasp from his throat. She used his momentary distraction to free her hand, to slip her fingers into the waistband of his pants, to tug loose his T-shirt. His belly was as toned as she had imagined—hard lines that tightened when she spread her painted fingers across his abs.

And there was the line of dark hair, the arrow that led her back to his jeans, to the button fly that was straining taut. Her fingers were less nimble than they would have been a drink or two before, but she managed to twist the buttons free. Each one ratcheted up the tension—in Tyler’s clenched fists, in her own caught breath as his belt slipped loose across her throat. She eased her hands between the fabric and his body, protecting him even as she pulled him closer.

Finally, the pants were undone, the flaps hanging open, exposing the generous bulge beneath. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she hooked her heels behind his calves, forcing him closer. The motion anchored her, made the room stop wobbling on its axis. She settled a feather kiss at the crown of his boxers, flicking her tongue against his flesh even as her fingernails dug into his hips.

“Emily,” he breathed. “I—”

But anything else he planned on saying was lost as she slipped her hand inside the slit at the front of his shorts. The hard length of him was raging to escape. She barely had to guide him, scarcely had to run her quivering palm to the tangle of curls at his base, and he was free.

She had to taste him. She had to feel his hard warmth against her lips, let him fill her hot, ready mouth. Her fingers automatically curled around him, cupping his balls, and he shuddered so hard she had to pull back. Deliberately, as slowly as she could, she traced one throbbing vein with a crimson nail.

When she had the full measure of him, when he was quivering with expectation, she returned to her original intent. She licked her lips, moistening them before she closed over him. At first, she took just the tip, savoring the moan that rose deep in his throat. She tongued the ridge of hard flesh, the collar of excitement like the leather collar of his belt. She took her time exploring him, studying him as if he were some wild new creature, some exotic species she’d never seen before.

The taste of him intoxicated her more than the vodka ever had. She had to have more of him, had to drink in more of his searing flesh. She flicked her tongue against him as she moved down his length, feeling him grow impossibly longer, harder.