Seduce Me Tonight (30 page)

* * *

Dublin may be known for its pubs but, in the stark little neighbourhood where we were, the closest was a dingy little hole in the wall with the unlikely name of Pungo’s Pub. Pungo, I surmised, was the owner’s dog: a photo of the homely mutt with his name scrawled underneath sat propped in the window and the creature – a curious mix of what looked to be bulldog, some kind of terrier and a Muppet – snored in front of the small brick fireplace.

I took a seat at one of three small tables, appreciative of the warmth of the fire while keeping my eye on the sleeping animal. A run-in with the neighbours’ dog when I was a kid had left me with a scar on the back of my hand and a distrust of all dogs.

Speaking of which, Greg was making his way back from the bar, two pints of dark beer in his hands. He put one in front of me and took a seat, scraping his chair loudly enough to rouse the snoozing canine. The dog gave us sleepy eyes before dropping his head back to the floor.

‘I ordered the ubiquitous fish and chips for you,’ he said. ‘Your first meal in Ireland has to be fish and chips.’

‘Thanks,’ I muttered, not sounding or feeling thankful at all.

I resented him ordering for me. I resented him disturbing my sleep. I resented him even being in the country. I was supposed to be escaping. Running away. Starting over. Doing something new. Watching Greg relax in his chair and drink his beer made me feel like I was back home at one of Landon’s parties, feeling envious of my brother and his friends, all of whom seemed to have the lives they wanted, with jobs they loved and relationships they deserved.

I sipped my beer and stared at the fire until our food was brought over. I had to admit, the fish looked good, as did Greg’s meal, some kind of meat pie with a flaky crust. Hunger got the better of me and I had downed almost my entire pint and half a plate of food before I even looked up to see Greg smiling at me.

‘What?’

‘Nothing, just really glad you’re here.’

I felt compelled to be nice. He had, after all, been nice to me. ‘So, how long are you here?’

He shrugged. ‘As long as they need me. Not my preference, but since I was the only one who was single and had nothing really tying me to home –’

There was that expression again. I really didn’t want to delve too deeply. I didn’t need to know his issues; I had issues of my own to sort out.

‘So, not dating anyone this week?’ I said it lightly, but the way he drew back made me regret it. ‘Sorry. It’s not like I’m here with my husband and three kids.’ I made a sweeping gesture taking in the entire pub. ‘Nope, it’s just me, you, the guy behind the bar and that thing.’

‘Don’t like dogs?’

I was grateful he ignored my question. ‘Not especially. I don’t trust them.’

‘Or men?’

Ouch. He wasn’t ignoring it after all. ‘I trust men. Or I don’t have any reason not to trust them as an entire group,’ I said, swallowing the rest of my beer.

‘Ah, I see,’ he said, though I doubt he did. ‘You just don’t like me.’

I nearly choked on my fish. ‘What? No! I mean, I don’t
not
like you,’ I said, trying very hard not to cough while also keeping my foot out of my mouth. Doing both at the same time proved difficult. ‘I don’t even really know you.’

‘We should change that.’ He stood up. ‘I’m going to get us another round.’

I didn’t think it was a good idea, but then I tamped down that voice in my head that hadn’t thought anything was a good idea until now. Maybe I needed to just do the opposite of whatever the voice in my head said. Take the path less travelled, the road not taken. All that. Be the different person I’d come to a different country to be. Or maybe that was just the Guinness talking.

In any case, when Greg returned with another two pints, I took mine and smiled graciously. ‘Thanks for asking me out,’ I said, though he hadn’t asked me at all. ‘I know I haven’t been very nice.’

‘Not very,’ he said dryly. ‘Why do you think I’m trying to get you drunk?’

I laughed, a honest-to-goodness full-bellied laugh. Whatever I knew and had judged about Greg, I liked his honesty. I liked how it made me feel to be with someone who was utterly without pretence. I wanted to be like that. I wanted to feel that free from awkwardness and discomfort.

‘Sounds like a plan,’ I said, taking a long swallow of my beer. It was tasting better the second time around, a sure sign I should stop. And true to my new promise, I ignored that little voice and took another long swallow. ‘So tell me, Greg, are you planning on taking me to bed tonight or are you going to take it slow and wait until tomorrow night?’

Watching his eyes bulge, and hearing the bizarre snorting noise he made that had even the dog staring at him, was worth the interrupted sleep. I laughed again. I laughed like I hadn’t laughed in a long time. I didn’t know what great cosmic mystery had brought the two of us together here, but I was going to enjoy it.

‘If I had thought I had even half a chance with you, I would’ve sprung for the cab fare and taken you someplace nicer,’ he said.

‘Damn, my loss.’ I didn’t feel like I’d lost out on a thing. In fact, I felt like I was right where I was supposed to be.

‘Maybe tomorrow, now that I know it’s an option,’ he said, the laugh lines around his eyes holding a fascination I’d never noticed before. ‘I have time to make it up to you, right?’

‘We’ll see.’

The funny thing about me is that it may take me for ever to make a decision, but once I do, I’m fully committed. I was committed to enjoying this night with Greg, to being someone who wasn’t unhappy and lonely and jealous of everyone else. To be the woman I’d come here to be. And so we laughed and we talked and, though I finished my second pint and started on a third, I was far from drunk. I felt good, as if the weight I’d been carrying on my shoulders had truly been left behind.

‘Ready to go?’

I hadn’t realised how long we’d been sitting there until Greg glanced at the brass-rimmed clock on the wall. I was still on East Coast time, but the clock said it was nearly midnight. Had we really sat there that long?

The temperature had dipped and I shivered as we made our way out to the street. After being warmed by the fire, not to mention the beer, I felt chilled. I didn’t complain when Greg put his arm around me, and I didn’t take it as a come-on. He was just being nice. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that.

It wasn’t far to the apartment building and we walked in a comfortable silence. I had no idea what Greg was thinking about, but I was contemplating those laugh lines around his eyes and how they crinkled when I said something he thought was funny. By the time we’d walked up the three flights of stairs to our floor, I was starting to be a little obsessive about those lines in the corners of his eyes. What were they called, other than laugh lines?

He stopped at my door, the one closest to the stairs, and I stared up at him, trying to remember that other name. The one my mother used to scowl about when she was using cover-up on hers.

‘Crow’s feet!’ I said triumphantly, while Greg looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. ‘That’s what they are.’

‘Frog’s balls!’ he exclaimed, his voice carrying down the hall.

I laughed, quickly fitted my key in the lock and opened the door. I dragged him into the entryway, intent on quieting him. And then, standing there in the darkness because I hadn’t remembered to turn on a light before we had headed out, I was intent on kissing those lines at the corners of his friendly blue eyes.

I put my hands on either side of his face and stood on tiptoe, turning his face so that I could kiss one set of crow’s feet, then the other. ‘They’re called crow’s feet,’ I murmured, staring into his eyes. ‘But yours are laugh lines. I like them.’

He nodded and held me away from him. ‘OK. Now, can you walk a straight line?’

It was my turn to stare and wonder what was wrong with him. ‘Huh?’

‘Can you walk a straight line?’

I turned away and demonstrated that I could, taking careful strides down the darkened hall of my small new home. ‘Yes. Why?’

‘And recite the alphabet forward and backward?’

I laughed. ‘I doubt I can do it backward. What is wrong with you?’

He crossed the distance between us and put his arms around me. ‘I want to make sure you’re not drunk before I do this.’

‘Do wha –’

He kissed me. Long, slow, tasting like Guinness and the mint I’d given him when I complained I had vinegar breath. It wasn’t what I had expected. It was better. I reached up and put my arms around his neck, liking his height even though it meant I had to arch my neck to kiss him back. I gave as good as I got, sweeping my tongue along his bottom lip before sucking it, then nipping it. We stood there kissing in my dark apartment for a long time, with only the wet sounds of our mouths and the faint noises of late-night street traffic to fill the quiet.

After several minutes of kissing him like that, when I could feel his arousal pressing against me and my own need building low in my belly, I pulled back.

‘I am not drunk,’ I said softly. ‘And if you don’t take me to bed tonight, I fully expect you to take me to bed tomorrow night.’

It wasn’t me. It wasn’t something I would say, it wasn’t something I would do. Which was exactly why I was saying it and doing it. I didn’t want to be someone else, I just wanted to be the Caitlin Morrow I had always been too afraid to be. The one who went for what she wanted. The one who ignored the little voice in her head that said something was a bad idea or that something was going to hurt her. I wanted to be the Caitlin that made Greg laugh. That made Greg hard just by kissing him.

‘Yeah?’ he asked, rubbing his thumb across my bottom lip. ‘What about tonight
and
tomorrow night?’

I laughed. ‘I like your confidence. I like it a lot.’

Then I took his hand and led him to my bedroom with the unmade bed and the luggage still mostly packed and piled in the corner. I turned on the light, because it was something the old Caitlin would never do, and I slowly stripped. Sweater, blouse, bra, I let each piece of clothing fall to the floor, my gaze never wavering from his. Topless, I kicked off my shoes, bent to take off my socks, then unhooked my trousers and peeled them down my legs. My panties were the last to go – a brand-new pair of turquoise boy shorts, a style I never wore, in a colour that was too bright for the old Caitlin. I stripped them off and tossed them at Greg’s chest. Then I stood there naked, trying not to feel self-conscious about my weight or my breasts or my thighs or freckles. Watching him, watching the way his expression changed from amusement to desire to something even more insistent and needy, it wasn’t hard at all. He wanted me. Me. This body, this woman. Me.

‘Now you,’ I whispered.

He stripped quicker than I did, sweater and jeans and boxer briefs piled on top of socks and shoes. His erection was beautiful and heavy, and I wasn’t embarrassed to stare at him, to admire him like that instead of pretending to look at his face or somewhere else.

I sat on the edge of the bed and beckoned him closer. He stood in front of me, his cock bobbing in an amusing and arousing way at once. And then I slowly licked from the heavy tip of him to the base where dark hair curled. Slowly, like I was painting him with my tongue, I licked strips up his cock. He stood there, arms at his side, head thrown back, and he let me. He didn’t urge me to take him in my mouth, he didn’t put his hands on my head to guide me, he simply let me do what I wanted. And so I did.

I licked his cock again, then took it in my hand and licked the underside. I ran the flat of my tongue along his heavy balls, noting the way they drew up against his body, the way he gasped in surprise and pleasure. I cupped them in my hand and stroked them gently, marvelling at their weight and softness. When his cock twitched of its own accord, I took it in my mouth and sucked softly, then harder. I liked the way he responded, with appreciative noises and a tremor in his narrow thighs.

I pulled my mouth from him and lay back on the edge of the bed. Legs spread and raised, I put my feet around him and pulled him closer. ‘Come here,’ I whispered, drawing him down on top of me. ‘I want you inside of me. Now.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ was all he said. Then he was sliding into me with one long stroke.

I groaned as my wetness engulfed him, but there was no sense of discomfort or need for adjustment. It was as if he was always meant to be inside me. He slid me further across the bed so he could stretch out on top of me, and hooked his hands under my hips so he could go deeper into me while I wrapped my legs high around his back. And then we were as close as we could be, his cock buried inside me, my pelvic bone pressed against him so that his wiry curls rubbed my clit in the most intensely delicious way. He leaned up to look in my eyes as we moved together, staring at me as if he were memorising my face, and every moment of this experience.

‘You’re something else, Caitlin,’ he whispered, lowering his mouth to kiss me again.

He filled me, absorbing my moans and whimpers into his mouth, teasing me with slow strokes, then thrusting harder, driving me across the bed until my hair cascaded over the side and I was gripping him with hands and nails and nipping at his shoulder to make him fuck me harder. He moaned and tensed against me and I thought he was coming, but no, he was only controlling himself. Making it last. Making it better for me.

Knowing that, knowing he was thinking about my pleasure, was enough to make me come. And I did, rubbing my clit sinuously against his belly, wetting him with my juices, clenching around his cock. Clinging to him, arms and legs and cunt, until he was filling me with his own wetness, holding me to him with his hands cupping my ass, pulling me up against him, filling me and filling me until I was whimpering and crying at the myriad sensations.

We lay damp and panting, him still on top of me, my head hanging off the edge of the bed until I started feeling light-headed and nudged him back. Then he pulled me up and sideways, so we could rest our heads on the pillows that smelled of lavender soap and my hair conditioner. And then we were both laughing and rolling on the bed, damp bodies rubbing against each other as if we’d done this a thousand times, the lamplight seeming suddenly brighter and more intense. I got up and padded naked to the light switch and turned it off, not out of embarrassment but because I wanted to lie with him in the darkness.