Time to Pretend (21 page)

Alaina’s smile cracked a bit. In her mind, she could see the crevices opening, and she could hear the porcelain as it shattered. He was there to discuss business. Why did that fact resonate like a blow to the chest? Just because Daniel seemed to be interested in continuing to sleep with her didn’t mean Evan felt the same. Perhaps they had compared notes and found out what a slut she was. Or maybe they flipped a coin to see who won the right to have her again.

Neither of them were forever material, not for her, and she was playing a dangerous game.

“Of course,” she said. “Come inside.” He followed her, setting his hat on the counter just inside the back door. “Do you always work late on Thursday?”
Time to Pretend

161

Alaina set her briefcase on the kitchen table and shrugged out of her jacket. Office dress was a style that happened in the air-conditioning. It didn’t care whether the hot August sun turned her house to an oven or not. “I had dinner with my brother. We have a standing date for the Thursdays he’s not with me.” Evan nodded, watching her with a thoughtful expression.

She didn’t want to know what he was thinking. Jerking her thumb toward the stairs, she ended the stilted conversation. “I’m going to change. You know your way around, right?” Changing her clothes turned out to be a tricky endeavor. The sight of her rumpled sheets reminded her of rolling in them with Evan. He was a phenomenal lover who understood and enjoyed the same things she did. Drifting into the bathroom, heat suffused her body, sending messages to her pussy that short-circuited just before they arrived.

Now that she had showered with both Daniel and Evan, the memories clashed, dueling for dominance. Perhaps Evan would want to shower with her again.

Alaina tried to shake them away. Nothing good could come from this game. Daniel had indicated an interest in seeing her again.

As she tugged a tank top over her head, a realization dawned.

Evan didn’t need a shower. His skin and his clothes were clean.

She jerked her favorite shorts over her hips and zipped them. They made her ass look exceptionally good, but she wondered if it was necessary. She ran a hand through her curls and tightened her ponytail. That morning it had been in a French braid, but those annoying curls always seemed to pull free by the end of the day.

Once downstairs, the metallic scrape of a tape measure rewinding pulled Alaina in the direction of her office. Evan squatted in front of the window behind her desk, a pencil clasped between his teeth as he inspected something on the low sill. In the summer, the big window let in plenty of light. In the winter, condensation built up on the panes something awful.

“Find anything interesting?”

162

Michele Zurlo

He removed the pencil from his mouth and pushed himself to standing. Powerful quads flexed, pulling the denim tight against his thighs. “Mold.”

Alaina sighed. “It’s usually gone this time of the year. I scrub it with bleach, but it comes back each spring.”

“Seals are broken. The mold is in the wood. You need new windows. I’m going to look at all of them to see the extent of the problem.”

She wished he wouldn’t. Sure, his company was new, and her house could use some updates, but she wasn’t rolling in the necessary cash. Still, he wasn’t looking at her like he was interested in her windows. She folded her arms under her breasts and leaned against the side of the desk separating her from Evan.

“Evan, why are you really here? Contractors don’t go home, clean themselves up, and go back to a job site for measurements.” He peeled his eyes from her breasts with obvious difficulty. She knew this tank rode low and her pose pushed those beauties together enough to strain against the thin fabric. He slotted his pencil onto the top of the clipboard and threw it on the desktop.

Alaina had one of those hard mats on the floor below her chair to protect the carpet and make rolling the chair back and forth easier.

Short legs left her without leverage when it came to pushing it in and out on carpet using only her feet.

The chair made a smooth scraping sound as Evan pulled it out and sat down heavily. He sighed and bit his lip, but his shoulders didn’t droop. For the longest time, he rubbed one hand over his thigh, watching it move.

“Have you ever met someone, and it seems like you’ve always known them?”

Alaina nodded. Meeting Camilla had been like that. Though she had only known the woman for a few years, it seemed like they had been friends since childhood. But she knew he wasn’t talking about a
Time to Pretend

163

relationship like that. He was talking about them, about how they seemed to know one another’s bodies before the first kiss.

Evan looked up in time to catch her nonverbal response. His eyes penetrated to her soul. “Have you ever had sex with someone, and it was so incredible that you can’t get them out of your mind? And it wasn’t just great sex, but it was the kind of connection where you develop an instant addiction?”

Numbly, Alaina nodded. Her situation was a little more complex, and she was addicted to sex with two different men who were completely ignorant of the other’s role in her life, but she knew exactly what he meant. Even when she had been with Daniel, thoughts of Evan had invaded her mind. Thoughts of having both of them together at the same time robbed her of breath.

She broke Evan’s spell over her as embarrassed heat crept up her neck. His feet moved as he walked the chair closer. He tugged at her crossed arms and pulled her onto his lap. She let him.

“Alaina, I can’t get you out of my head.” His fingertips grazed a path up and down her arm, the soft touch generating tremors and gooseflesh. “I like your spirit and your sense of humor. I like the way you blush when I tell you I like having sex with you, yet two days ago you broke out a bunch of sex toys and used them in ways that I’m sure are illegal in many states.”

The giggle erupting from her chest was more of the nervous variety than anything else. If he only knew that thoughts of having both of men together had caused the blush. Playing with a few vibrators wasn’t enough to embarrass her. She folded her hands together in her lap and concentrated on the warm feelings seeping from everywhere her body pressed into his.

The fingertips on her arm moved to follow the scooped neckline of her tank. When he caressed the top of her breast, her breath caught, and she closed her eyes to focus the sensation. Heat seeped through his cotton shirt, branding her arm, hip, and thigh. The arm he looped
164

Michele Zurlo

around her back and waist for support seared the clothes from her body, or at least it felt like it. She sat perfectly still.

His thumb brushed the tip of her nipple through the layers of shirt and bra, pebbling it instantly. Sparks arced from there to her pussy.

Air hissed from between her teeth.

“You’re a tigress, Alaina.” He flicked the other nipple with the same results.

Though her breast swelled, seeking more of his touch, she struggled to remain still. She did her best imitation of a derisive snort.

“More like a cougar.”

He chuckled. The motion shook her closer to him. “Whatever the title, you’re a wild thing, and I can’t seem to get enough.” Abandoning her nipples, he used his free hand to turn her face toward him. Her lips parted, anticipating his kiss. She didn’t know if it would be slow and teasing or hard and possessive, but she welcomed either.

He hovered an inch away. Heat from his breath fanned across her lips and chin, bringing the promise of Evan’s brand of passion. Just when Alaina thought she would go insane from waiting, he adjusted his grip on her jaw. His thumb brushed across her lips, stealing her ability to breathe.

“So soft, so beautiful. I’ve never felt about a woman the way I feel about you, Alaina. What is it about you that makes me question everything I ever assumed to be true?” The words whispered across her skin and her consciousness.

Alaina had no idea what he meant, but his question flew from her mind as he captured her mouth at long last. He slanted his lips over hers in a tender kiss that turned hard as passion grew. His hand dropped away to slip under the hem of her shorts, cup her hip, and pull her closer.

A soft moan, half sigh, half protest, caught in the back of her throat as he ended the kiss. The fingertips on her thigh moved in small circles, and he rested his forehead against hers.

Time to Pretend

165

“Tell me you want this.”

Need made the hand she brought to his cheek tremble. “I want this.”

His lips claimed her again. There was something both desperate and deliberate in the way he seemed to savor every second of their kiss. He let the heat build slowly, coaxing it on the path toward inferno, but not hurrying it along.

Alaina shifted gears much too easily. Evan was such a different kind of lover. Where Daniel was fast and frantic, driven by passion even when he slowed down, Evan stayed in the moment. How could such different men make her so completely horny?

Evan’s hands explored the exposed skin of her arms and legs. He caressed her shoulders and traced her collarbone with his fingertips.

Need trailed in his wake. She shifted, trying to follow his touch, trying to capture the unspoken promises he made.

When his mouth released hers, Alaina realized she hadn’t been breathing, and she could only gasp as he found the sensitive places on her neck and shoulder. She threaded her fingers through his short hair, holding him loosely because she knew a stronger grip wouldn’t hurry him along.

By the time he lifted her shirt over her head, Alaina was tight with need. Her pussy wept for want of attention, and he hadn’t even removed her bra.

He tilted her, cradling her head and back with one strong arm while the other tantalized the oft-neglected skin of her stomach.

Alaina stiffened, suddenly nervous that he would find out she wasn’t flat there. Then she let the thought fly away. He’d seen her naked before, and he hadn’t done anything except call her beautiful.

He enveloped her nipple through the thin satin of her bra with his hot, wet mouth. Vibrations echoed through her body, pinging through her system only to end up in her core. Alaina moaned, so close to an orgasm, and he hadn’t yet touched her pussy.

166

Michele Zurlo

“Evan.” His name felt so right falling from her lips like that. She said it again and again, the syllables as erotic against her tongue as his tongue had been against her clit two nights ago.

He paid the same attention to her other nipple. She had no idea if he heard the way she said his name or not. Her lips and tongue moved to form the words, but the rush of blood in her ears drowned out any sounds she might have been saying.

At long last, the heel of his hand came to rest on her mound.

Alaina rolled her hips and ground against the light pressure. The hard denim of her jean shorts dug into the sweet spot just south of her clit, but it wasn’t enough. She needed more.

He shifted, the movement as relaxed as everything else he’d been doing. The world tilted again, stopping when everything was upright.

She once again sat up in his lap, and his lips hovered inches from hers.

She thought he would kiss her again, so a surprised gasp of protest grunted from her throat when he stood up and set her on her feet. The sound wasn’t ladylike or sexy at all, but she didn’t care.

“Oh, honey, we’re just getting started.” He reached around behind her. She luxuriated in the feel of his heat so close and in those few places where he brushed against her.

Then he straightened, and her bra fell to the floor.

She couldn’t comment on his smooth move. Words wouldn’t form. She understood the rules of this game. Evan was calling the shots this time. Need blazed from every pore, and she could only hope he would remove her shorts next.

He didn’t. Alaina sagged against the edge of the desk as his head bent to worship her breasts without the fabric barrier between them.

Searing heat coated her areolas while his tongue danced lightly over her erect nipples.

Alaina pressed closer, and he responded by sliding his thigh between her legs, at last giving her something to grind against.

Time to Pretend

167

Reaching between them, she outlined his hardness with her hand.

Evan’s hips pressed closer, and his groan sent tremors into her skin.

They stayed like that for a while, maintaining the holding pattern until at last Evan ripped his mouth from her breast. One hand loosened her shorts and pushed her panties down. The other guided her backwards to lie on the desk.

Alaina kicked away the clothing that had fallen around her ankles.

She wanted—no, she
needed
—to feel him inside her, pounding away with sweet abandon until they both screamed out their releases. When he lifted one of her legs and positioned it over his shoulder, she almost sighed in relief. Then she noticed he was still dressed.

She frowned, but Evan only smiled in response, his blue eyes twinkling with mischief and desire. Then he bent, kneeling on the floor in front of her. He pushed her other leg up and out of the way, opening her to him completely. His tongue danced across her clit, blazing liquid fire in its wake.

He licked her, alternating long and short strokes. He traced circles and hexagons around her throbbing clit. Every time she settled into his pattern, he changed it. It didn’t take her long to realize he meant this as foreplay and nothing more. He didn’t intend for her to orgasm that way.

Then he pushed both of her knees up. “Hold these.” She hooked her hands under her knees, and he slid his hand under her ass to lift that as well. She was split wide open and completely vulnerable, yet she trusted this man she had only known for two days.

She breathed his name, both as a question and a plea.

He answered with his tongue on the tight muscle ringing her anus.