Accidental Sex Goddess (15 page)

He was putting her on, of course. For the sake of her next step, he was exaggerating the typical reaction any single guy would have to a woman was using his tub. But even when she told herself these things, she couldn’t ignore the pulling ache between her legs, the wet heat she couldn’t credit to the tub.

“You probably say that to all the women who hang out in your bathroom naked.”

Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was the logical culmination of the sexual frustration spinning between them. Whatever the reason, she heard herself ask, “When a girl is in a guy’s tub, do you think he thinks about it?”

There was a long silence filled only by the whirring of the water. “I think about that more than I should. Every time you come over to use it, I wonder if this will be the time you leave the door open.”

She sucked in a breath. “It would be easy—too easy—to do.” She shifted, letting the tub’s swirling water rush between her legs. One hand still held her phone, but the other rested between her breasts, her fingertips tracing an invisible circle.

“Not just easy. Good.”

“Someone else could easily fit in this tub with me.”

“I might not want to climb in.”

“Oh?”

“I might just want to watch, to look at the tops of your breasts above the water, the outline of your body under the bubbles. I might just want to wait until the water cleared enough to reveal your legs…the tops of your thighs.”

She let her hand drift lower, tracing invisible circles on her belly now. “That would be better than joining me?”

“It would be torture. But if I was lucky, I might catch you touching yourself.”

Her breathing grew ragged and her hand stilled where it was traveling still lower on her abdomen. “That would be good?”

She could make out the faint sound of his choppy breathing. “Hell, yes.”

She took a breath. “Ben?” His name broke the silence. She wondered if he was in bed, slipped between the sheets. Maybe he was pacing across the soft beige bedroom rug. Or maybe he was standing at the bathroom door, head leaning against the jamb.

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?”

She ran her tongue over her lips, swallowed against the dryness in her mouth. “Phone sex?”

“Is that what you think this is?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Nah. It’s phone sex when I tell you what I’d do if you opened that door.”

She pressed her head against the back of the tub, closed her eyes against the ache brought by his words.

“Tell me,” she said, surprising herself.

He took in a long, ragged breath.

“You’ve really thought about it?” She skimmed her tongue over her bottom lip, tasted the wine there, wished it was
his
tongue doing the tasting. “Before tonight, I mean. You’ve thought about coming in the door?”

He could have easily blown off her question, blaming any more-than-friendly thoughts on his male anatomy. Instead, he said, “You have no idea. Every time you bathe here, my bathroom smells like flowers for days.”

“Sorry about that.”

She heard a brush of fabric and imagined him settling into the bed, imagined his hand settling over his cock.

“You ever touch yourself when you’re in my tub, Reese?”

Her breath left her in a rush. She barely gave a thought to denying it. Maybe that would have been the smarter choice, but she wanted this. Wanted this moment, this conversation. Him. “Sometimes.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jesus.
Reese touching herself in his tub. He could easily imagine it, had already imagined it a thousand times. “Are you now?”

“I want to.” Her voice was soft, quiet without being tentative.

He closed his eyes and pictured her, covered in suds, opening the door for him. Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’d stay in the tub and call for him. He wanted that. Wanted her. Wanted to touch her wet body, to wipe the suds off a beaded nipple with his thumb before dipping his hand into the water and cupping her sex, letting his palm rub against her clit as he leaned in to kiss her.

He forced himself to stay seated, propped up in his bed. He eyed the bathroom door. He wanted to pace. Wanted to press his hand against the door as he imagined her on the other side. But he didn’t trust himself not to turn the knob. Didn’t trust himself not to push the fragile and quickly-changing boundaries of their friendship.

He could hear her shallow breathing through the phone, could hear the whirring of the spa jets, the slosh of the water as she shifted.

“Touch yourself for me.”

“Ben.” Her shaky in-take of breath sounded in his ear. “This is dangerous.”

“Maybe.” But hell, wasn’t it too late? Pandora’s box had been opened, and they might as well see what was inside. “Maybe it’s not so different than the times you did it before.”

She released a strangled laugh. “It’s different.”

“How so?”

“You’re on the phone, for one.”

He dropped his hand to his lap and cupped his hand over his cock. “When you did it before, did you ever get yourself off?”

She moaned softly, out of discomfort or pleasure, he wasn’t sure. “Yeah.”

He leaned his head back and squeezed his eyes shut, imagining her sliding her hand between her legs. “Were you ever thinking of me?”

His heart thudded, filling his ears through the silence that followed the question.

“Yes.” A single word, whispered on an exhale, and everything shifted between them. “Do you ever…think of me?”

He squeezed his eyes shut.
Always
. He knew how screwed up that was. He was a guy. His fantasies were supposed to be many and varied. And his were varied alright, but lately they always featured Reese. “Yeah.”

The sound she made was half moan, half cry, the sexual frustration thick in the painful note.

“Put your hand between your legs.” His voice came out rougher than he’d intended but at her intake of breath, he knew she didn’t mind. “Slide a finger inside yourself for me.”

“Are you—God. Ben?”

“I’m here with you. Are you touching yourself?” He knew she was. He heard it in the change in her breathing.

“Yeah.” She breathed the word more than said it. “You?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.” She sighed into the phone. “Keep talking to me.”

He unbuttoned his jeans, freed his cock, and wrapped his hand around it, closed his eyes and imagined it was Reese’s hand. “I get so hard thinking about you—naked, in my house, in my tub, steps from my bed.”

“I think I always wanted to believe you thought about it. That it turned you on.”

He growled and stroked himself. “Touch yourself for me.” His voice was hard and rough and he couldn’t help it. He was brittle with hard-edged want, with need. He had to hear her come, had to know it was his voice, his words taking her there.

“Ben—God, this is—”

“Amazing? So fucking sexy?”

She hummed in reply. “Are you with me? Are you—” She cut herself off with a moan.

“Am I stroking my cock to the sound of your moans?”

Her breathing hitched. “If you’re not, lie to me.”

He chuckled, even as his cock pulsed harder, thicker against his palm. “I wouldn’t want you to be having a good time all by yourself.”

“This is crazy.”

He could tell by her voice that she was pulling back, thinking too damn much. “This is nothing. This is a phone call. Crazy is what I want to be doing to you.”

“Oh?” She took in another one of those shaky breaths that made him feel like king of the fucking universe. “What do you want to be doing to me?”

Ben opened his eyes and studied the closed door. He let the silence pull tight between them for half a dozen heartbeats before he answered. “I want to lift you out of the water and take you to my bed.” He stroked himself, imagining how she’d look, skin warm and pink from the hot water. “I want to feel your breasts in my hands and taste your nipples with my tongue.” He squeezed his eyes shut against the sound of her whimper. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “I want to spread your legs and look at you. I want to taste you—tease your clit with my tongue until you beg for more.”

He moved his hand faster, rougher, as she cried out—short little cries and the sound of sloshing water as she rode the pleasure. The sound of her orgasm had the head of his cock swelling. He imagined that it wasn’t her hand around him now, but her body, hot and tight and pulsing, pulling his cock deeper. His orgasm came fast and hard, hot liquid hitting his bare stomach.

“Holy crap,” she whispered.

He opened his eyes and smiled. He cleaned himself up with the shirt he’d discarded on the floor. “You doing okay in there?”

“You could say that.”

He stared at the door between them. “Reese, if you left that door open, I’d be in there in a heartbeat.”

“And then what?”

“I think we both know the answer to that question.”

“Ben—”

Water sloshed and as the open drain hummed in the background, he could imagine her stepping from the tub, her skin rosy and slick with water.

He was watching the door—waiting for it to open, for her to offer herself to him. The phone beeped to alert him the call had ended. He opened his eyes. She was standing before him his bathrobe, a fluffy navy blue thing he’d never used and always hated. On her, though, he liked it. A lot.

“Is this the part when things get awkward between us?” She gripped her phone by her side, her knuckles white.

“Only if we let them.” He stood and crossed to her, noting the way her gaze dropped to his chest, then lower, to the already-returning bulge in his jeans. Hell, where she was concerned, he was like a teen who couldn’t get enough.

“I thought you—” She licked her lips and nodded toward his erection.

He cleared his throat. “I did. You?”

Her cheeks pinkened. “What do you think?”

“I think you can no longer say you’ve never had an orgasm with a man.”

She grinned and slammed her palm against his chest. “I don’t think that counts.”

Before she could pull away, he grabbed her hand and tugged her toward him. “Did you come?”

Her flush grew deeper. “I don’t recall any of your body parts doing the work.”

“No?”

“No,” she breathed, her eyes dropping to his mouth.

“My hands weren’t there. I’ll give you that. But my mouth and tongue—they definitely played a role in getting you off.”

Her lips parted and her eyes grew darker. “You shouldn’t be so cocky,” she whispered. “If you’d been in there, I would have frozen up. That’s what I do.”

He growled and ran his fingers down the side of her neck. “You’re not frozen now.”

“This is different. There’s no pressure. We’re not going to have sex.”

He trailed his fingers across her collarbone and dipped them into the top of the robe between her breasts.

Her breathing was ragged. “We aren’t going to have sex, Ben.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

She stepped back and fisted the robe together at her neck. “Both.”

He nodded. He was going to have to take this slow. They both wanted it. He just had to get Reese to accept the inevitable. “Then you better get dressed before I try to change your mind.”

***

“There you are!” Someone called through the crowd.

The lobby of the recital hall was packed with proud parents, aunts, and uncles, all waiting for the concert to begin, and Reese frowned as she tried to identify the source of the voice.

She spotted Tricia and pushed through the crowd to join her.

“Wait!”

Reese looked down to the fingers curled around her arm and then up to the face they belonged to. “Lance? What are you doing here?”

Lance’s eyes went wide as she spun to face him. “God, look at you. You’re stunning.”

She felt a little satisfaction at that but not enough to diminish her annoyance. “Why are you
here
?” According to her watch, she had five minutes to make her way into the auditorium before Sydney’s concert would begin.

Lance tucked his hands into his pockets and gave a bashful smile. “We planned on coming together the day we found out she got to be in the band.”

Reese gaped. “We planned on a lot of things. Marriage, babies, growing old together. Should I have made it clear that those were also off the table when you left me?”

He dropped his shoulders. “Don’t be like this, Reese. I thought it would be nice to support Sydney together. She’s important to me too.”

Reese flinched.
Of course.
She rolled her shoulders. What was it Halie had said?
It’s not always about you.
“Okay, let’s get in there.”

Adjusting her dress, Reese led the way into the auditorium. Sydney was already on stage with the rest of the band. Sitting at the glossy black baby grand, she stretched her thin fingers over the keys as she tested them.

Reese’s heart tugged at the sight. God, she loved this kid.

Someone touched her shoulder. “Mind if I join you?”

Her heart stumbled at the sound of Ben’s voice, but as she turned to take in his face, it full-out tripped, wiping out right there in the middle of the aisle and stealing the words from her lips. Sweet green eyes crinkled at the edges, and her fingers itched to run over his ever-present scruff.

Ben caught sight of Lance and his smile fell away. “Oh.”

She swallowed and shook her head. She squeezed Ben’s arm before he could escape. “I’d love your company,” she said so Lance could hear. Then, softer, “
Please
.”

Before their odd trio could take three more steps toward their destination, Mark was calling after her. “Wait up!”

Laughter bubbled up inside Reese as they settled into their seats. The Hawk brothers bullied their way into the seats on either side of her and Lance slid into the seat directly behind her.

Lance leaned forward and brushed her hair away from her ear. “Hey.”

At his touch, a shudder passed through her. As far as shudders went, this one was less touched-by-sexual-longing and more touched-by-sexual-predator.

“I can’t get over how gorgeous you look.”