Playing With Seduction (11 page)

Her face flushed, contradicting the naughty smile on her lips. “I think it would be a mutually satisfying proposition. But I wouldn’t want you to do anything you didn’t want to.”

No, it certainly wouldn’t be a hardship to have Kendall naked and moaning beneath him. There wasn’t anything he didn’t want to do to her and with her. And if this fling was all he could have of her right now, then he’d take it. He wasn’t ready to let her go, and he sure as hell didn’t want her finding another man to scratch that itch. He’d figure out everything else later. Hopefully she’d come to realize that kind of empty affair wasn’t enough. He planned to do everything in his power to help her come to that conclusion.

He gently turned her hand over and stroked his fingers along her palm, watching the rise and fall of her chest as he touched her. “I think I can handle being a sex object for you.”

“I want…” Her voice was suddenly low and raspy, her fingers starting their twitching again. “I want more of what we did at The Players Club.” She hesitated once more, met his gaze, then spoke. “This is hard for me, but I’m going to be honest. Sex wasn’t all that great in my marriage. I thought it was because we were both so busy, with me working two jobs, and his schooling and internship. It was all very vanilla, mostly missionary, and nothing out of the ordinary or even adventurous.”

“No passion,” he murmured.

“No, no, passion,” she agreed with a small shake of her head. “And I was fine with that because it was really all I knew.” More quietly, she added, “And because I didn’t know what I was missing until that night with you at the club. Now I want more of that.”

He quickly glanced around the bar area to make sure they were alone, that nobody could overhear their conversation, before he asked, “More of what, exactly?”

“Being taken. Restrained. Spanked,” she said in a hushed tone, even as the pulse at the base of her neck began a rapid beat. “I want to be pushed beyond conventional sexual boundaries. I want to be fucked hard. I like it when you’re aggressive and demanding. When you pull my hair and make me do naughty, wicked things.”

Holy shit
. He couldn’t stop staring at her mouth, couldn’t stop thinking about all those naughty, wicked things he could make her do with it.
Stroke. Lick. Suck.
His cock twitched, hardened, totally on board with every filthy fantasy that drifted through his mind.

“And before I start dating again,” she went on, jarring him out of his dirty thoughts, “I want to experience all that and more.”

Before I start dating again.
Those words were like a bucket of ice water being dumped in his lap, even as another fierce, more possessive emotion rose to the surface. “I will fulfill every single desire you have, any way you want it,” he promised. “But from this moment forward, you and I are exclusive, and you’re mine. No online dating, no searching through profiles for that perfect guy who’s your age and is looking for the same things as you are. Just you and me.”

“Okay,” she agreed easily enough. Then she cracked a wry smile and shook her head. “I never thought I’d become a cougar.”

An older woman seducing a younger man.
He knew the eight-year age difference was an issue for her, but it wasn’t something he could change. But if he showed her that they were compatible outside of the bedroom, maybe she’d stop thinking in terms of him being so much younger than her, and all the issues she had with it personally.

That was his plan, anyway.

“You’re not a cougar,” he said as he tucked a few of those soft curls behind her ear before skimming the pad of his thumb along her jaw. “You’re a puma.”

“A puma?” she asked, laughter brimming in her voice. “What’s that?”

“A cougar is a woman in her forties who dates a man at least twenty years younger than she is. A puma is a woman in her thirties who dates a guy in his twenties. So really, the age difference isn’t all that bad.” He grinned.

She rolled her eyes, unconvinced, though her gaze danced with humor. “Oh, being a puma makes it
so
much better.”

He chuckled. “A puma is graceful and sleek and majestic. Not a bad thing to be compared to.”

She tossed him a sassy look. “If you pet me, I might even purr.”

He was tempted to do just that, but before he could follow through on the impulse and slip his hand beneath her dress again, they were interrupted.

“I am
so
sorry for the wait on your dessert,” Mallory said as she rushed to their end of the bar, a plate with a slice of chocolate cake on it in one hand and a large glass of milk in the other. “The restaurant suddenly got busy and the drink orders at the bar are getting crazy.”

“No problem,” Kendall said as the younger girl set the dessert and drink down in front of her. “Thank you.”

“You bet. Enjoy,” Mallory said, then was gone again.

Kendall didn’t waste any time in picking up her fork and taking a bite of the cake, which looked moist and fudgy. She closed her eyes as she savored the taste and let out a soft, appreciative “mmm” in the back of her throat as she swallowed.

Damn
. “I envy that cake right now,” he said, and he wasn’t kidding.

She opened her eyes and grinned at him, looking young and beautiful. “It’s amazing and worth every calorie,” she declared shamelessly. “Want a bite?”

She held a forkful up to his mouth, and he let her feed him the sample. The taste was rich, the texture gooey, and it surprisingly reminded him of home. “Yeah, that’s pretty damn good.”

“Right?” She picked up her glass of milk and took a drink.

Had he ever seen a woman enjoy dessert so much? If so, he couldn’t remember when, and it was so easy to take pleasure in
her
simple pleasure.
This
was what he wanted with Kendall. These moments that made him feel good, in a way that had nothing to do with sex. Just being happy and content in the moment.

“That cake reminds me of my mother,” he said, the words coming out of his mouth on their own, without conscious thought.

“Yeah?” She tipped her head to the side. “Why is that?”

He hadn’t meant to bring up his family, but since he had, he answered Kendall’s question. “My mom was a pastry chef, and she made some really great desserts. Chocolate was her specialty.” She’d also used those sweets as a substitution for affection, and to make up for the fact that she was rarely home. Not the greatest childhood memories.

“Oh.” Kendall’s eyes lit up with interest. “What a great job to have, but you used the word
was
, so I’m assuming she isn’t a pastry chef any longer?”

“No, she’s retired. So is my dad.”

She stared at him for a few moments, and he knew she was taking his young age into consideration, and it wasn’t all adding up. “Aren’t your parents a bit young to retire yet?”

“No. My mom is seventy-three, and my dad is seventy-six. They’ve been retired for a while now.”

She set her fork on her plate, and again, he could see the wheels turning in her mind as she did the logical math in her head. “Are you…adopted?”

A lot of people came to the same conclusion when they saw him with his parents. Or they thought that his mom and dad were actually his grandparents. “No. Not adopted. I was an accident.”

She glanced at him in confusion. “An accident?”

“I wasn’t planned,” he explained as he used his thumb to wipe away a smear of frosting from the corner of her mouth. He’d much rather kiss her to distract her from this uncomfortable conversation but licked the chocolate from his finger instead. If he wanted more with Kendall, then that meant sharing even the most painful aspects of his life with her, along with the raw, honest truth of it.

“My mother was forty-six when she found out she was pregnant with me. My parents were done having kids, and I was definitely not planned in any way. Both of my older sisters, who were twenty-three and twenty-five at the time, were already out of college and out of the house.”

“Oh, wow,” she said, her eyes wide. “How did it happen? I mean, I
know
how babies are made, of course…” She shook her head with a laugh. “You know what I’m getting at.”

He did, and it was a curious question a lot of people asked, given how old his parents were when they’d conceived him. “My dad had a vasectomy after my second sister was born, so to find out they were pregnant with me was a huge surprise. Come to find out, his tubes grew back together over time. It’s called recanalization, and the chances of it happening are extremely low, but here I am, proof that it does happen.”

Her green eyes danced playfully. “I’m sure you were a
good
kind of surprise.”

“No…not so much.” He watched her expression go from amusement to shock, and her lips parted in disbelief. “My parents, at their age, didn’t really want another child. After already raising two daughters who were grown adults, they thought they were done with diapers and nightly feedings and toddler tantrums. They’d just downsized to a two-bedroom house and had planned on doing all the traveling they hadn’t been able to do while my sisters were young. I was definitely an inconvenience for them, an annoyance that made it difficult for them to do the things they’d planned on before I came along.”

Kendall winced, her gaze sympathetic. “Is that why you joined the military? So you could leave home when you graduated high school?”

“Yep,” he said with a nod. “Growing up, I had a ton of different babysitters until I was old enough to be left alone, so I learned to be independent and self-sufficient at a young age. By the time I was ten, I was cooking my own meals, washing my own clothes, and was pretty much by myself during the day and early evenings. Materialistically—clothes, food, a roof over my head—they made sure I had everything a child needed. But emotionally, for the most part, I was an afterthought.”

“I’m so sorry, Jase,” she said softly, her features etched with compassion.

He shrugged, having come to terms with his unconventional childhood long ago. There was nothing he could do to change the past, but he knew he wouldn’t repeat his parents’ mistakes when it came to his own kids. They would always know that they were loved unconditionally, and that they were one of the most important things in his life.

“It is what it is,” he said with a small quirk of his lips. “I went into the Air Force because I knew exactly what I wanted to do, which involved computers and security. When I was a teenager, my parents bought me this elaborate computer system so I’d have something to do while they were at work, or not home, and that’s how I spent most of my time. I became really fascinated by the military’s computer network operations. Specifically cyber attack and defenses, and how to leverage and optimize those network operations in warfare,” he said, not going into depth or detail since he knew she’d never understand the terminology.

A slight frown creased her brows. “That sounds so complicated,” she said, proving his point as she ate another bite of her cake.

“I was a techie computer nerd growing up, so I loved all that cyber stuff. I still am a nerd,” he said humorously.

“You are so
not
a nerd,” she said with a roll of her eyes before bringing the discussion back to his family. “So, do your parents and sisters live around here?”

“No. They all live in South Carolina. That’s where I was born and raised.”

“Yet you live here in San Diego?”

He shrugged. “I really like everything about Southern California. The sun, the beach, the laid-back vibe. I’m happy with my job at Noble and Associates, I have great friends here, so it’s a perfect place for me to live.” He’d never felt those ties to his parents, and he wasn’t close to his sisters, so it had been easy for him to relocate somewhere else once he left the military. This was where he wanted to build his future.

“What about your family?” he asked, wanting to know about her, too.

She took a sip of her milk and absently swiped her tongue along her bottom lip to lick up any excess moisture. “My parents live in Delaware, not yet retired, and I have a brother who lives in Connecticut with his wife and two little girls.”

“Yet you live here in Southern California, as well,” he repeated back to her.

She looked away, but not before he saw the flash of pain in her eyes. “Yeah, well, you know how all that came about,” she said.

Yes, he did. She’d moved out to California to go to college, met her dickhead ex-husband there, put him through med school and worked two jobs to pay all their accumulated debt, then he’d divorced her to marry some bimbo who was pregnant with his kid.

Asshole
, Jase thought, and hoped he never came face-to-face with the prick, because he’d beat the shit out of him for hurting Kendall so badly.

After doing major damage to the chocolate cake, she’d pushed her plate away. Her hand was resting on the bar top, not fidgeting or nervous this time, but he gave in to the urge to pick it up and lace their fingers together, palm to palm, his grasp warm and reassuring. She didn’t pull away, and he reveled in that bit of affection and acceptance.

“You lived in Los Angeles with…him,” he said, loathe to say his actual name out loud. “So how did you end up here in San Diego?”

Now that she was done with her dessert, she turned toward him on the chair. He did the same but didn’t let go of her hand. He liked the physical connection. A lot. The contact was intimate and caring without being smothering, and when Kendall looked at him with those big green eyes that were filled with a hint of vulnerability, he felt his chest constrict with a tenderness that was foreign to him.

He wanted to protect Kendall from any other hurt. Shield her from the kind of pain that left deep scars and made it hard for her to trust again. Unfortunately, it was too late to shelter her from the emotional wreckage her selfish ex had left in the aftermath of his narcissism. No, that would take time. And patience.

Luckily, Jase had plenty of both.

Just when he thought she wasn’t going to answer his question, she replied quietly. “Well, after the divorce papers were signed and everything was split up, the one thing I knew was that I didn’t want to be anywhere near Drew. I didn’t want to accidentally run into him somewhere, or see Barbie pregnant with his baby when it should have been me.” She glanced down at their joined hands, then back up at him with a half smile. “I wanted to start somewhere fresh and new, and I’d been to San Diego on a photo shoot I did for a family reunion. I fell in love with it here. So, I quit my job at the ad agency, I found a small one-bedroom apartment here, and started a whole new business.”