Kaylee’s First Crush (4 page)

She was waiting
for his answer.

“It’s a little
weird,” he finally admitted.

She pulled the
comforter up over her breasts defensively.
“A little weird.
Ha. More like a
lot
weird.”

He sighed.
“It’ll be fine.” At least she was all covered up. Maybe now his stupid dick
would calm the hell down. He slid under the duvet and arranged the pillows to
his liking, leaning back and trying to act nonchalant. When he caught sight of
the expression on her face, he knew he’d failed.

Chapter Three

Kaylee tried
not to stare at his chest as he shoved pillows against the headboard and leaned
back. He was an incredible specimen of manhood. She licked her lips and eased
further under the covers. Her whole body buzzed. She felt like someone had
shocked her with electricity.

Is this what
arousal feels like?
she
wondered. She guessed so, but it was so much stronger than what she felt
watching a sexy movie or reading a romance novel, she’d be hard pressed to
describe what she was experiencing. Her skin felt sensitized. Her pussy ached.
Ached
.
This was a totally new experience for her.

“Do you want me
to leave the light on low?” he asked, reaching over to flick it down a notch.

She nodded.
“Thanks.”

“No problem.”
He smiled at her and closed his eyes.

Kaylee shifted
until she was marginally less tense and tried to relax.

Silence.

Ten minutes
later Hugo huffed. “This isn’t working, is it?”

Kaylee sighed.
“Not really.”

He turned the
light back up a little. “What’s bothering you?”

She didn’t know
how to say
I want to lick you all over,
so she settled for a
noncommittal shrug.

He looked at
her for a long moment. “Okay. How about we play a game?”

“What?” Was he
joking?

“I ask you a
question and you have to answer, honestly, no matter what I ask. Then you get a
turn,” he said.

Kaylee stared
at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

His mouth
quirked and the wrinkles etched into the corners of his eyes deepened a bit.
For a moment, she’d forgotten how much older than her he was.

“Nope.
It’s a quick and dirty way to
get to know each other really fast. The more comfortable we get, the less tense
we’ll be, and the sleepier we’ll become,” he explained.

“That’s the
most insane thing I’ve ever heard,” she muttered.

He laughed.
“You never know, it might work.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Maybe,” he
said. “But what’s the harm?”

She rubbed her
eyes. She could think of a thousand different ways this could go horribly
wrong. Was she really considering this? Yes, of course she was. “Okay,” she
said, before she lost her nerve.
“Me first.”

He nodded
acquiescence.

Kaylee asked
him the one thing she’d been dying to know ever since she realized he was
obscenely wealthy. “Why did you teach English? Clearly you didn’t need the
money, even before your father died.”

He smiled.
“That’s an easy one. I liked teaching. I really enjoyed sharing my knowledge
with my students.”

She blinked.
For some reason, she never suspected that would be his answer. “I thought you’d
say it was a rebellion against your father.”

He smiled
ruefully. “You caught that, eh? Well, the fact that it drove him completely
insane was just a bonus.”

She giggled,
charmed. He
was
human and not
perfectly perfect, after all. She liked that about him.

“My turn,” he
reminded her when she opened her mouth to ask him another question.

She blushed.
“Okay.”

“What was your
first kiss with a man like?”

Kaylee choked
on her own saliva. That was the first question? Shit. She really didn’t want to
answer that. Hugo’s eyes gleamed in the low light as though he knew precisely
how much she didn’t want to answer. She blurted out the truth in one big rush,
hoping to get it over with.
“In one word?
Horrible.”

He waved his
hand in a ‘please elaborate’ gesture.
The jerk.

She rubbed her
eyes. “I was a senior in high school. Matt Johnson asked me out. We went to the
movies and right in the middle of an epic slasher
scene,
he leaned over and Frenched me.” She shuddered, remembering the true horror of
it. “He’d been eating chocolate and popcorn. It was horrible.”

He made a face.
“That’s awful.”

She nodded.
“You know what’s worse? I haven’t actually had a better kiss. Every single one
has been terrible.”

“What? That’s
impossible.” Hugo shoved up the bed a little and propped his head on his hand.

“No, it’s not.”
Kaylee ticked off the bad kisses on her hand. “There was the time John bashed
in my nose and I had to go to the emergency room. The date after that Josh
nicked my lip. Arnold missed entirely and fell down.” She looked up and found
Hugo staring at her, his expression disbelieving. “I’m not making this up,” she
assured him. “The last time I tried, the last date I was on, Hailey wouldn’t
let me come up for air. Ugh.” She made a face.

“Wait a second.
Your last date was with a girl?”

“Yes. I thought
that since my dates with guys had all been so bad, maybe I was gay. Nope. I
just suck at dates.
Or kissing.
Or something,” she
finished,
then
dropped her face into her palm. Oh God,
had she just told him all that?

“Your turn to
ask a question,” he said, sounding strangled.

She peeked
through her fingers at him. “You’re not laughing, are you?”

He shook his
head.
“Hell no.
I’m feeling traumatized on your
behalf, actually.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Ask me
something,” he prodded when the silence stretched out and Kaylee started
fidgeting with the sheet.

She thought
about what he’d asked her.
Fair is fair
,
she told herself.
He asked me something
unbearably personal, so I can ask him the same kind of thing.
“Were you
ever attracted to one of your students?” She sat up a little, wanting to see
his face.

He looked
surprised, but answered readily enough. “Yes.”

She sucked in a
breath. Had he really just answered that question, so easily?
“Really?”

He lifted a
shoulder. “I’m only human. I never acted on it, though. I would never do that.”

Kaylee frowned.
“Who was it?”

He narrowed his
eyes at her. “It’s my turn to ask a question.”

She leaned back
against her pillows. She hadn’t really expected him to fall for her second
question, but had been worth a try. “Fine, ask away,” she said, airily, as
though his answer hadn’t affected her at all. The truth was
,
she wanted him to tell her that
she
was the one. The student he’d been attracted to. She knew it was impossible,
but a woman could hope, right?

“Are you a
virgin?” he asked as she daydreamed about him liking her.

Kaylee sucked
in a shocked breath.
What did he just ask
me?

****

Hugo watched
her face. Her expression ranged from surprise to embarrassment to a fleeting
spark of arousal before finally settling into a defensive mask.

“What kind of
question is that?” she finally asked.

He smiled
gently, not wanting to scare her off.
The kind I’m dying to know the answer
to
, he thought in the darkest corner of his mind. The idea that she might
be completely untouched fired up something in him that he wasn’t sure he wanted
to examine too closely. His dick was so hard it hurt, but he ignored it.
“If all your dates sucked that bad…” he said mildly, trailing off
as he watched her relax a little, mouth twisting. “
I’m just curious.”

“Fine.”
She crossed her arms,
then
uncrossed them. “I’ve never had a boyfriend.”

“That’s not
what I asked.”

She flashed him
a look of irritation. “I know.”

“Answer the
question,” he commanded, wanting to see what she’d do if he pushed a little.

She glared at
him. “You already know the answer.”

He did. And it
aroused him.
Deeply.
Instead of speaking, he reached
over and put a finger on her lips. “You’re right, I do.”

She stared at
him, eyes wide. Her lips were warm and full beneath his touch.

“I can give you
a non-horrible kiss,” he said quietly. He could feel her heart fluttering just
from touching her mouth.

She swallowed
under his finger,
then
moved her face away. “What are
you saying?”

He ran his
thumb over her cheek.
So soft.
“Please, let me kiss
you?” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, watching as she trembled.

“Why would you
want to?”

He shrugged. “I
like you. I hate that you’ve never had a non-horrible kiss. That’s not right.
Every woman deserves at least one fantastic kiss per year.”

“You like me,”
she repeated, eyes disbelieving. Then she frowned. “What makes you think you
can deliver a good kiss? Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just a really bad kisser.”

His dick
twitched as he watched her twist her lips into a pout. “Please,” he begged,
wanting to give her the power to say no, but hoping she would say yes. “I
promise you’ll enjoy it.” She tensed up as he spoke, so when she responded,
he’d already steeled himself for denial, but that wasn’t what she gave him.

“Okay.”

Chapter Four

As soon as she
whispered
okay,
Hugo’s nostrils
flared and his eyes went heavy-lidded. She licked her lips, trying not to freak
out. Or pass out. She wasn’t sure which would happen first and how disastrous
it would be, so she tried really hard not to do either. She’d never been this
turned on in her whole life. She waited, not knowing what he would do. And
then, instead of moving closer, he slid away from her and stood up on the far
side of the bed, his body fading into the dark. She ruthlessly suppressed a
bolt of disappointment. She’d expected it to come to this, really. She wasn’t
surprised that he would totally go back on his word— He walked around the foot
bed and up the other side to sit down next to her.

“You’re sure?”
he asked, low and warm and rumbly.

She nodded, not
willing to trust that her voice would work if she tried to speak.

He slid a hand
around her cheek, cupping her jaw. “Wonderful,” he murmured, then moved in.
Kaylee wasn’t sure if he meant she was wonderful, or her agreement was
wonderful, but it didn’t matter. The moment his lips touched hers she gasped.

Hugo groaned,
and rubbed his mouth against hers, lips dragging across her sensitive skin. She
didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she put them on his shoulders. She
let her palms smooth over his hard muscles and down to his biceps. When he used
his tongue to flick at her lower lip, she dug her fingers into his body. “What
are you doing?” she asked breathlessly, not understanding why his kiss felt so
good.

He smiled
against her mouth.
“Kissing you.
I’m going to kiss you
until you forget all about the others. This is what a good kiss tastes like.”

Kaylee hung on
as he deepened the kiss, sparks shooting from the top of her head straight down
to her aching core. If she hadn’t been holding on so tightly she would’ve
thought she was dreaming, but he was real. All warm, hard male, everything
she’d ever wanted and never thought she could have. When he leaned back, ending
the kiss with a hot, open-mouthed lick, she stared at him.

Hugo Valtree,
her former high school English teacher, was clearly the sexiest man on the
planet.

He smiled
wickedly at her. “It’s your turn to ask a question.”

She blinked
stupidly at him.
“Question?”

“Remember?
Our game?”

Kaylee wrenched
her brain back from arousal-land and into reality. “Oh. Yeah.
The game.”
After that kiss, her thoughts were so scattered
she had no idea what she wanted to ask. She blurted out the first thing that
popped into her head. “How old were you the first time you had sex?” The moment
the words escaped her mouth, her face went hot.
I can’t believe I just asked
him that
. She dropped her head to his shoulder, hiding her flaming face.

He didn’t seem
the least bit put out. “I was seventeen. His name was Louis. We were friends,
and then one night, things got out of hand,” he said, as though he hadn’t just
completely blown her mind.