After Hours Read online

  She giggled some more, this time not bothering to cover her mouth, but letting the sound roll out freely. Tears of amusement filled her eyes. Andy’s heart warmed. How long had it been since he’d seen Joyce’s true smile, heard her honest laughter? He didn’t know the answer and it brought his concerns over Rick’s treatment of her back to the forefront of his mind.

  He’d turned a blind eye on his sister’s two-year marriage, mostly because he wanted to believe she was happy. He couldn’t bring himself to keep turning that blind eye. Once he had Rick convinced that Tawny had nothing to do with the information leak at his ad firm, Andy would take on a case for himself. One he prayed revealed that Rick was an ideal husband deserving of Joyce’s love.

  “This is really beautiful, Andrew.”

  Andy looked from the starlit sky to the woman leaning against the hood of the sedan beside him. “Call me Drew. I like it.”

  “Drew,” Tawny amended, a smile curving her lips. “So, do you come here a lot?”

  Whenever he was hoping to get lucky. Something about the atmosphere and the throwback to parking as a teenager never ceased to get the women hot in a matter of minutes and naked nearly as fast. He shouldn’t have brought Tawny here, for those exact reasons. After leaving the book-club meeting, which had turned out to be only partially the drag he’d imagined, she’d suggested they go to his favorite place. The clearing in the center of the heavily treed metro park sprang to mind and was out of his mouth before he could stop it. “I come here quite a bit to observe.” He lied about the first part, but not the second. “I’d once hoped to be an astronomer.”

  Instead of answering indifferently, the way she did when he was acting the nerd, she leaned toward him and her smile grew. “It’s an intriguing subject. I took a few courses when I was in college. It started as a Greek mythology fetish. When I learned that most of the gods can be found in the constellations, I had to see it firsthand.”

  Greek mythology? Now that he’d never have guessed from this woman any more than he’d have believed she would attend a book-club meeting on her own. Only, she had to have, because in hindsight he remembered Rick telling him that’s how Joyce and Tawny met. He’d done a fair share of research on her before going to work for Neilson. That research had obviously left out a good deal, including the way her expression could go from friendly to hungry in two seconds flat.

  Tawny’s gaze went to his mouth. Her tongue slipped out, rimming her lips. Tonight they were unpainted. He’d guessed that he would prefer the hot-pink lipstick she favored to au naturel. He’d been wrong. Andy had vowed not to think about sex where Tawny was concerned. Apparently he was about to be wrong about that, too. “Do you have any more of those? Fetishes?”

  She nodded, her attention never leaving his mouth. “Kisses,” she murmured. “I have a thing for kisses.” She leaned closer until her hip rubbed against his.

  His shaft hardened with the subtle brush and her almost innocent actions. Whether her reserved behavior was part of making tonight about his supposedly natural self or something else entirely, he couldn’t stop from giving into the moment. “It makes sense. You’re good at it. Me, I’m not so good.”

  “Do you need more practice?”

  “Yeah.” He slipped an arm around her waist. “A lot of it.”

  Tawny’s arms came up, wrapping loosely around his neck. She tugged gently, as if encouraging him to come into her arms. Andy went, but—he could guess—not in the way she’d expected. Catching her around the waist, he lifted her onto the hood of the sedan and moved into the cradle of her thighs. The hard ridge of her mound brushed against his cock through their clothing. With a low moan, she squirmed. The pressure against his shaft increased with her wriggling, and he covered her mouth with his before he could speak the sort of carnal words she’d question coming from Andrew the geek.

  Her usual cinnamon scent might not cling to her tonight, but she tasted every bit as spicy hot as the woman he’d kissed the past two nights. The restless way she returned his kiss, sliding her tongue between his lips and rubbing his with demanding strokes was the brazen Tawny he’d come to know. The needy way her hands moved from his neck to his waist and then up under his shirt to coast over his abdomen and pectoral muscles suggested she was that brazen woman for certain.

  “Women like to touch.” She pulled back from his mouth as if she thought he required step-by-step instruction. “Especially when a guy has a body as good as yours.”

  She could give all the instructions she wanted, particularly if it meant she’d be talking dirty, but he planned to give a few of his own. He slid his hands under the hem of her sweatshirt and up beneath the silky cups of her bra. The night air was cool; the feel of her nipples as they beaded beneath his palms hot as hell. His balls drew tight to his body, commanding more space than what his briefs allowed.

  “Men like to touch, too,” he said roughly, not bothering to hide the effect caressing her bare breasts had on him.

  “Yeah, they do.” Her head fell to the side as he drew her nipples between his fingers and twisted. Her eyes closed with a husky mewl, her hands stilling their exploration beneath his shirt. “Oh, man, you have amazing hands, Drew. Strong with long fingers, perfect for cupping a woman’s breasts or sliding inside her body.”

  Andy’s pulse spiked with the thought of fingering her, feeling her sweet cunt creaming around his fingers the way it had last night. She’d been so fucking hot, so open to anything he’d wanted regardless of the fact that they were in plain sight. She was that way again now, and he couldn’t stop from asking questions he was certain would never leave geeky Andrew’s mouth. “Do you like to be touched that way? To feel a man’s fingers inside your pussy, bringing you to climax?”

  He plucked at a nipple. The breath wheezed from her mouth, fanning warmth into his face. She arched against his touch, her hips shifting once more and wreaking havoc on his aching dick. “I’m sure all women do,” she said breathily.

  He released her nipple and traveled his hands down her stomach. Leaving one to play at the dip of her surprisingly unadorned belly button, he brought the other to her crotch and rubbed her sex through her jeans. Tawny’s eyes flickered open to reveal a building inferno of desire. He knew that need, felt it reflected in every part of him.

  Applying a bit more pressure, he stroked the length of her slit, smiling wickedly when she squirmed. “How many fingers do you like at once?”

  “It depends on the guy. On the situation.” She whimpered and opened her legs wider, making it clear how anxious she was to have him beneath the fabric. “The two you had inside me last night felt perfect. But maybe I’m remembering wrong. Maybe you should try it again. I’d hate to give you bad guidance.”

  “That would be awful.” Stifling a chuckle, he helped her to her feet. He ached to rip the jeans from her body and follow suit with her panties, stripping away the layers until her pussy was bared to the moonlight—even better, to his tongue. Instead, he stepped back and watched dry-mouthed as she unzipped her jeans. She pushed them and her panties down her legs, revealing a triangle of dark red curls and an arousal that mingled with the pine scent of the woods and the clean smell of the November air.

  She toed off her sneakers and kicked aside the clothing. Lifting herself back onto the hood, she yelped upon contact of her bare bottom to the cold metal. “Chilly.”

  “I’ll heat you up,” he promised, returning between her thighs.

  “Excellent. Confidence is the key to everything. Make the woman see how badly you want to please her, and she’ll want to please you just as much in return.”

  Andy grinned. Confidence, she wanted? That he could give her in spades.

  “Lean back,” he ordered.

  She hesitated an instant, but then did as he asked, leaning back on the hood. He lifted her legs up, positioning her knees so that they were bent toward the night sky. Her pussy was open to him now, and glistening in the moonlight with the juices of arousal. He was tempted to taste her, but
that would be going against her instruction and ruining this game they played. If she even thought it was a game. Maybe to her this was all about fine-tuning his sexual education. For his sake, he hoped to hell not, because he had a feeling one night with Tawny would never be enough.

  Inhaling a sharp breath at the potential implications of his thoughts, Andy slipped a finger past her damp curls and into her sheath. Hot, wet warmth surrounded him. His cock twitched. He pushed aside his own need and focused on hers. He worked his finger in and out of her cunt, bringing forth more cream.

  His grin intensified when her hips bucked up and a throaty moan lit the still night. Though he could already guess her answer, he asked, “Is one enough?”

  “Good.” She sounded winded. “But I want another.”

  Eagerly, Andy added a second finger alongside the first, fingering her with long, hard strokes. The scent of her arousal grew stronger, obliterating the scents of the woods and the air. His nostrils flared. His tongue moved in his mouth with the urge to lap at her juices. He settled on working his finger faster, fucking her with vigor. “Better?”

  “Oh…yeah,” she breathed. “Better. Much better.”

  “Am I moving too fast?”

  “No. Not fast enough. I need more. I want to feel more than your fingers this time. I want to—”

  “This?” The temptation was too strong to ignore. He couldn’t stand here, inhaling her heady scent, and not taste her. Grabbing hold of her thighs, he buried his head between her legs and sank his tongue into her sex.

  Tawny’s hips bucked up against his face. Her hands shot to his head, her fingers pushing into his hair. The breath panted from her lips. “Ohmigod! You…you’ve been studying.”

  He chuckled against her pussy and she shivered in response. Studying was overrated. Firsthand experience had a definite appeal, as did feeling her come around him while he tongued her. He wanted to feel her orgasm, taste her essence as it dripped from her quaking body, more than he’d ever wanted to fuck a woman in his life, orally or otherwise. The thought urged him on, had his lazy licks turning to quick nibbles and darting thrusts. For long seconds he held on to her legs as she writhed beneath him, moaning, mewling, squeaking out words he couldn’t understand. Then guilt grabbed hold of him by the throat and he pulled back his head and let her thighs go.

  Shit, he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t have her this way when all she knew of him was lies. He couldn’t because he truly did want her more than any woman before her. He wanted the woman who’d volunteered her nights to help a nerd get a better sex life, and the one who looked just as hot in street clothes as she did in barely there ones. He wanted her beyond tonight and beyond every single one of his lies. “This is wrong.”

  Tawny bolted up on her elbows. She shook her head wildly, loosening her ponytail. “No. No, it isn’t. You were doing it exactly right. The only way to do it wrong is to stop once you’ve started. Don’t stop, Drew. Please, don’t stop permanently.”

  Damnit, he should. He should order her to get up and get dressed and then tell her every detail of his life and the lies between them. Only, he couldn’t, not when she was looking at him through the vee of two of the most stunning legs he’d ever set eyes or hands on, begging him to continue.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, apologizing not for stopping but for the fact that she would eventually despise him for the way he treated her tonight. Somehow he’d make it up to her, make her see once this whole ridiculous case was over that he wasn’t a nerd, but a man who was seriously into her. A man who wanted her so damned badly, his dick felt ready to explode.

  “Don’t apologize. Think confidence. Think—”

  He pushed his head back between her legs and plunged his tongue into her sex. Catching her clit between thumb and forefinger, he pulled at the swollen pearl, twisting until she bowed up and cried out.

  Tawny’s fingers threaded back through his hair, yanked. “Oh, hell, Drew!” she cried out, then added amidst ragged breaths, “You…learn…so…fast….”

  She released his hair and fell back against the hood. The air wheezed from her lungs. Tremors shook through her body. Around his tongue, her pussy lips contracted and released. Hot juice trickled onto his tongue and down his throat. The taste of her was alive in his body, in his mind. His cock throbbed. His heart hammered. He pulled from her sex as her orgasm reached a crescendo.

  He had no right going further than what he already had. No right at all. But, fuck it, he had to have her.

  Stepping back a few feet, he fumbled with his zipper, cursing when the tab refused to budge. Shit, he was acting like a pimple-faced kid on prom night, or, rather, a true nerd.

  “Drew?”

  He looked up to find Tawny sitting upright on the car’s hood, eyeing him. He’d missed his opportunity. Tonight’s lesson was finished and he’d be going home with a hard-as-hell erection and only his own hand to take care of it. Served him right. “Sorry, I just—”

  “Let me help.” She pushed off the car and came to him, seemingly mindless of her half-naked state and the fact that she looked like a seminude Eve padding sock-footed through the Garden of Eden.

  Drew wasn’t mindless. Liquid desire dribbled down her inner thighs and the tips of her nipples were so hard they looked ready to stab through her sweatshirt. He sighed as her words caught up with him. She didn’t want him to stop, just to offer her help, because he was acting like a geek who’d never had a hard-on before. Arrogance attempted to raise its head, and make him say he could do it on his own. The thought of Tawny’s warm fingers snaking into his pants and around his shaft stopped those cocky words from reaching his lips. “Thanks,” he said instead.

  “My pleasure.”

  No—Andy knew the moment she’d worked his zipper free and started his pants and briefs down his thighs—it was definitely all his. Her gasp as his cock sprang free was that of pure carnal delight. The eager way she fisted his shaft and pumped him spoke of raw want. He knew that want, had kept it caged far too long. It raged to get out, and it would take a better man than him to stop it.

  Grabbing her around the waist, he lifted her up his body and growled, “Hold on.”

  The moment her legs locked around his middle, her arms around his neck, he took her mouth in a deep, wet kiss. Stroking her tongue with urgent licks, he bent for the wallet in the pocket of his discarded pants. He jerked out a condom with one hand, not caring what else fell out in the process, and then tossed the wallet aside. Consuming her with his kiss, he brought them both back to the car hood. This time he sank against it, using it for support as he brought a hand between their bodies and rubbed the slick head of his cock against the lips of her sex.

  “You’re hot, babe. Hot and wet. I can’t stand not fucking you a second longer.”

  The shock over his coarse words was in Tawny’s eyes, and then was quickly replaced by that of elation as he rolled on the condom, reared back and pushed into her. Cries of ecstasy tore from both their mouths. Her pussy lips gave way, sucking him in greedily, taking him all the way to the glorious hilt.

  “How do you want it? Fast? Slow? Fast is my preference.” Next time they’d go slow, presuming there was a next time. More likely she’d find out what a lying bastard he was and demand he never come within a hundred feet of her again.

  “Fast.” She used her grip on his shoulders to lift herself up his shaft and slam back down again. “Oh, yeah,” she cried.

  “Definitely fast.”

  Lying bastard he might be, but right now that wasn’t stopping Andy from either finding or giving pleasure. Holding her with one hand, he moved the other between them. As he pumped into her with long, firm strokes, he found and fingered her clit. He circled the tight pearl, quickening the pace with each thrust into her slick sheath. Tawny’s erratic breathing and the pummel of her lush breasts against his chest had that pace hastening all the more.

  Next time he’d have her breasts bared. He’d take his time sucking each delicious nipple, laving it, loving
it. He’d have her wild mane of hair free to tickle and torment him. He’d have her in his bed, right where she belonged. And there would be a next time. They were too damned good together for there not to be.

  “I can’t…hold back…any longer,” Tawny panted.

  “Me neither, babe,” Andy assured as his balls hugged his body with the savage need to release. “Come with me,” he ordered, giving her clit a last tug.

  Her sex convulsed around him, milking his shaft with urgent strength as climax washed over her in rippling waves. His orgasm followed quickly behind. As it tore through his body, shaking him to the core, Andy knew tonight’s lesson was one neither of them would forget anytime soon.

  4

  T awny paused outside her front door. Neither she nor Andrew had spoken more than a few words since he’d pulled from her body. As if by some silent agreement, they’d dressed and climbed into the sedan. Now here they stood, back in her light-brightened subdivision, on the verge of saying good night.

  She didn’t want to say good night. She wanted to yank him inside her house and tug off his clothes until he was standing naked and proud and ready for her. She wanted him to do the same, to strip away her jeans and sweatshirt and to utter more of the coarse words he’d used back at the park.

  He’d either spent time around his sisters’ rowdy boyfriends these last couple days, picking up on their explicit dialect and behavior, or he’d been skipping his morning exercise routine to study The Kama Sutra. Aside from a slight problem with his zipper, he hadn’t been a fumbling nerd unsure of how to proceed. He’d been the bad boy she’d claimed he could never be. She’d been wrong, and she wanted that bad boy back.

  But did that bad boy want to come back?

  She still had no idea if he thought of her as anything more than an instructor. The purpose of taking him to the book club meeting, wearing clothes that for once didn’t expose more than they concealed, had been to show him she wasn’t always the wild woman he believed. She was that woman to some extent—a larger one than she would have guessed a few short days ago—but also one who appreciated the simpler things in life. One who appreciated his geeky moments almost as much as his sexy ones.