Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (168 page)

“You gained weight?” Nicole raised an
eyebrow, looking me up and down. “That I don’t believe for even a second.” I
laughed.

“It wasn’t a lot of weight, but I did put
on about ten pounds. It was great.” Nicole snorted and shook her head, still
giving me a disbelieving look.

The minute we walked into the restaurant,
I was so glad that I’d thought of it; I was so glad that I had Nicole with me.
She looked absolutely stunning, and she walked in on my arm as if she went into
nice restaurants every day. “Ty! Good to see you, brother,” one of the waiters
said, keeping his voice just below a shout.

“Who’s your new girl?” I smiled at the
hostess, Emily.

“This is Nicole,” I said, taking in the
approving nods of the front-of-house staff who had paused to say hello. As
always, the restaurant—called Allegro—smelled amazing, enough to make my mouth
water. “I brought her here so I could impress her with all the food knowledge
this place hammered into my head.”

“If you really wanted to impress her,
you’d have taken her to a place where you wouldn’t get half your ticket
comped,” Emily said, giving me a wink.

“Hey! I don’t count on you guys giving me
any kind of discount. I have enough money in my account to pay full price.”

“Look at Mr. High Roller here,” Emily
said, glancing at one of the other hostesses with a grin as she grabbed two
menus. “All right, we won’t sabotage you. We’ve got a table ready for you over
in Bryce’s section.”

Emily pulled out Nicole’s seat first and
then gave me a look to tell me I was on my own, and handed the menus to us
each. Allegro changed its menu seasonally, but since I’d worked there for
almost a year, I knew enough to be able to figure out what they’d changed and
what would be good to get. “How familiar are you with Italian food?” I looked
up from my menu to look at Nicole.

“I know a little bit about it,” Nicole
said, shrugging. “My parents like Italian a lot. But I’ve never been to a place
quite as nice as this.”

“Most of it’s pretty straightforward,” I
told her, looking down at my own menu for a moment. “What kinds of foods do you
like? Other than carnival food.” I looked up and grinned at her.

“I like everything,” Nicole said, returning
my grin. “That’s part of the problem. Everything on here sounds so good.” I
chuckled.

“I know that feeling,” I said. “I
definitely always have a tough time choosing when I come in here.”

Bryce finally dropped by the table, pad in
hand. “Good to see you in the dining room again, brother,” he said, before
glancing at Nicole. “You do me a favor and keep this animal in line, okay? Ever
since he got too good to wait tables, he’s a real menace.”

“I thought everyone had agreed not to
humiliate me in front of this beautiful woman,” I said, shaking my head in
pretend disappointment. “Tell Nicole about the specials.”

Bryce went through them and I listened
carefully; I knew that Emilio, the chef, used the specials to move things we
had too much of—but he also had really exacting standards. He wouldn’t put
anything on a plate that was close to expiration date. Anything that came out
of the kitchen would be good.

Nicole settled on the linguine with shrimp
and I went with the osso buco. “Do you remember which wines we have?” I rolled
my eyes at Bryce’s question.

“Considering you guys change them up every
three months, no,” I told him. “What do you recommend for the osso buco?”

“I think a good red,” Bryce said. “We’ve
got a good chianti in, that would go great with it.” I nodded.

“That’s what I’ll have then. What kind of
wine do you think you want, Nicole?” She hesitated and I remembered that she
was underage; Bryce looked from her to me, raising an eyebrow slightly.

“Should I ask her for her ID?” he asked me.
I shook my head.

“We’re just having a glass or two of wine,
and anyway you know I’m not going to tell,” I told him. Bryce looked around
quickly, shrugged, and turned his attention onto Nicole.

“With the shrimp, I’d definitely say the
pinot grigio is the way to go,” he told her. “You could probably also enjoy a
sauvignon blanc—and we do have one—but the pinot just makes everything taste
amazing in the dish.”

“That’s what I’ll have then,” Nicole said,
smiling a little nervously. Bryce took the rest of our order—I insisted on
Nicole getting the fruit with zabaglione for her dessert—and then left us. “Are
you sure it’s okay for me to have wine here?” I shrugged it off.

“They’re normally not big on carding
anyway,” I told her quietly. “If they know without a doubt that someone’s under
twenty-one they’ll do it but as long as you’re not going to get shit-faced and
destroy the restaurant or get the cops called on you, they kind of try and look
the other way. It’s just wine after all.”

We started talking about my short-lived
career waiting tables, and about food, and everything else and I watched Nicole
relax, bit by bit. She sipped her wine in between bites of food and thanked
Bryce for recommending it, and I felt like an absolute king: sitting at a table
with a beautiful woman, eating delicious food, absolutely at my ease. “I think
this night might actually be better than graduation will be,” I told Nicole.

“That’s right, you’re graduating in the
spring, aren’t you?” Nicole looked away for a second and then smiled again.

“Now don’t get all squirrely on
me—assuming you don’t get tired of me before then, I am not just going to run
off after graduation. You’re stuck with me until you tell me to go to hell,” I
told her.

“What are you going to do after you
graduate?” I shrugged.

“I’m hoping that I can get a job with the
accounting firm my dad works for, as a CPA,” I said. “I know it sounds really
boring, but I’ve always been great with numbers.” Nicole nodded.

“It’s good, too, that you’ve got your dad
to help you sort of find your way,” she said.

“What do you want to do when you
graduate?” Nicole laughed, finishing off her pasta and putting her fork aside
to take another sip of her wine.

“I don’t know, actually,” she said,
looking away for just a moment. “I used to think I knew what I wanted to do,
but I’m still trying to figure it out.” For just a second, there was a look on
her face like she might cry; but then it was gone.

“Well you have plenty of time,” I told her
quickly. “There’s all kinds of things to look into. And yours doesn’t have to
be as boring as mine!” Nicole smiled a little more genuinely and Bryce came to
the table to ask if we wanted our dessert.

When Nicole took her first bite of the
fruit and zabaglione, she closed her eyes and let out a little moan, and I
swear it sounded exactly like the sound she’d made when I nibbled at her neck a
few nights before. I felt a hot, electric jolt shoot through me at the sound of
her pleasure and I knew I’d made the right choice.

I didn’t give her the chance to even consider
looking at the check when it came at the end of the meal. Just like Emily had
said, they’d given me the wine for free, and given me the “employee” discount
on the meal. I compensated by putting the rest of what I had thought to spend
for the night as a tip when I signed the receipt. I walked Nicole to the car
and unlocked the passenger side door. “Oh god, I think I ate too much,” Nicole
said, carefully sliding into her seat. I grinned, pleased as hell that I had
been so successful.

When we got back to campus, I hesitated in
the car. “Do you want me to walk you back to your dorm?” I wanted to ask her to
come up to my room with me, but I didn’t want to push her. Nicole’s cheeks lit
up with the bright pink blush I knew so well and she smiled slowly.

“Actually, I kind of thought I wanted to
go back to your room,” she said shyly.

Chapter Nine

I wasn’t sure how far I was willing to go
with Ty on our second date, but I knew that I wanted to go up to his room with
him. I’d spent all of dinner thinking about how good it had felt to make out
with him on our first date, and how much I’d wanted to give into the temptation
for more. When we got to his room, he started to lead me toward the couch in
the common area. “Do you want to watch something on Netflix?” I thought about
it, and then remembered his roommate.

  
“No,”
I said, pressing my lips together. “Could…do you think we could maybe go to
your room? And put some music on?” I was so nervous; part of my brain was
screaming that I was making a huge mistake and that it would end up being
horrible, while another part of my brain insisted that I would regret the hell
out of it if I didn’t at least take the chance of getting more with Ty than I
had the first time we’d gone out. Ty gave me a quick, curious look, but then he
took my hand and led me toward his side of the dorm room.

  
He
closed the door behind us and gave me a quick kiss on the lips before turning
his computer on. “I’ll just put on Muse or something,” he said, glancing at me
to see if that was okay. I nodded my agreement, feeling nervous and jittery and
excited all at the same time. The music came on and Ty walked back over to me,
letting his hands fall to my waist. “If you need me to slow down or stop…”

  
“I’m
okay,” I said, smiling even as my nerves tingled and my whole body started to
warm up.

  
Ty
leaned in and started kissing me slowly, barely brushing his lips against mine,
caressing me slowly along my waist, up to my ribs. I shivered against him but
didn’t break away. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pressed
my body along his—it was the only way I could stop myself trembling. The kiss
became more and more intense by the moment, with Ty nibbling at my bottom lip,
his hands starting to drift up to my breasts, down to my hips.

  
He
led me toward the bed and then pressed me down onto it and I didn’t stop him; I
was buzzing all over, every nerve in my body tingling with the need for more. I
loved the feeling of his weight on top of me, the heat of his body underneath
my hands as I explored his back and shoulders.

  
I
barely even heard the music playing in the background as Ty’s lips left mine,
shifting down to my neck to kiss and nibble there. I moaned softly, tilting my
head back, my breath catching in my throat as I got hotter and hotter.

  
Ty
stopped all at once, his lips barely an inch away from mine. “Are you okay with
this? Do you need me to stop?” I shook my head.

  
“No.
Don’t stop,” I told him. He smiled against my lips and kissed me again, his
tongue sliding against mine, his teeth nipping into my bottom lip, his hands
wandering over my body everywhere.

  
In
a matter of minutes I was soaking wet, trembling underneath him, my whole body
on fire, and I started tugging and pulling at his shirt.

  
“Oh—you
really don’t want me to stop, do you?” Ty looked down at me with a grin, one
hand moving up to give my breast a squeeze.

  
“I
want you to keep going,” I told him, reaching around to the front of his shirt
to try and unbutton it. My fingers fumbled, and I could have screamed from the
frustration that was building up in me.

  
After
our first date, after the text messages, the only thing I could think of was
how much I wanted to see Ty naked, to feel his body against mine. I somehow
managed to get the shirt off of him, and Ty found the zipper along the side of
my dress and tugged it down. I squirmed underneath him, sliding my hands over
his chest and shoulders, feeling how soft his skin was, how hot he was to the
touch.

  
Bit
by bit, we stripped each other down, and I had no idea where any of my clothes
went. One moment I was almost fully dressed and the next minute I was in
nothing more than my panties. Ty buried his face against my breasts, kissing
and licking and sucking, sending jolts of pleasure through my body that were
almost too much for me to bear.

  
I
struggled with the belt on his pants, and then with the zipper and button on
the fly, but all at once, Ty and I were in bed together, in nothing more than
our underwear, rubbing against each other and kissing each other everywhere we
could reach.

  
Ty
slid one hand between my legs and started stroking up and down along my labia,
rubbing me lightly through the lacy fabric of my panties.

  
“Fuck,”
he murmured against my neck, shuddering a little bit. “You’re so wet, Nicki.
God…”

  
I
reached down and found the bulge of his cock, straining at the front of his
boxers and stroked it just a little bit. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I
thought he might be bigger than Dillon. The thought was almost as scary as it
was exciting. Ty’s fingers slipped underneath the fabric and I moaned out loud
as he began to touch me, nothing between us at all, his fingers slipping and
sliding against my soaking wet folds.

  
When
I was sure I couldn’t possibly take any more teasing, he tugged my panties down
over my hips and I squirmed under him, kicking and twisting, to get them all
the way off. I didn’t know or care where they ended up; all I cared about was
the fact that Ty was kissing a trail down from my mouth, along my throat. He
stopped at my breasts and looked up at me with his green-gray eyes glinting. I
shivered as he claimed first one and then the other of my nipples with his
mouth, sucking and licking.