Tempting Research (2 page)

“So she’s into younger men?” he asked.

“Not men, just one guy. A younger guy, who tests her, brings her out and gives her an adventure.”

“The book sounds hot.”

“The book refuses to write itself.”

“Why?”

Melissa hesitated. “Well...well this is research for me, the massage and everything but I can’t bring about the younger man. He just isn’t happening.” Melissa confided in him.

“What isn’t happening?” he asked.

She sighed in frustration. “Because I don’t know much about younger men. I’m trying to understand why a woman would go for someone younger when there are more experienced blokes out there.”

She felt his hands leave her back. Oh shit. He was younger than her. She hoped she hadn’t just insulted him.

“Maybe what you need is to experience life with a younger man,” he whispered into her ear. He was close and the intimate contact of him against her body was not lost on Melissa. She yelped jumping up as his teeth sank into her neck, kissing her and a hand curved under the cloth to her naked ass.

Without thinking she faced him head on. She watched as his eyes widened and his pants tented. Looking down her body, she was naked.

Yelping again, she tried to use the tiny towel to cover her body. It didn’t cover much of anything.

She was panting, she was turned on—which was just plain weird—and she didn’t know whether to be outraged or flattered.

“What the hell were you doing?” she asked him.

She noticed he was having trouble, his breaths coming in shallow pants.

“Look I’m sorry...” He stopped. Melissa looked at him wondering what the hell was going on. It was like she had just stepped into an alternative universe.

Running fingers through her hair, Melissa looked around the room, thinking. That was when a plan started to form.

“I’m really sorry, I swear I didn’t mean anything by it—” Melissa stopped him by holding her hand up.

She needed silence to work through her erratic thoughts.

It could work and it wasn’t like she had a lot to lose.

“How old are you?” she asked him.

“I’m twenty-four,” he replied.

“Would you like to help me?”

“Yes.” Melissa was impressed that he didn’t start pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about. She couldn’t stop her reaction.  She could feel her body pulsing.

“Do you know what you’ll be helping me with?” she asked. She needed to make sure he knew what he was getting himself into.

“Experiencing life with a younger man?”

Melissa shook her head there was no way she could go through with this. “Forget it. What the hell was I thinking?” She kept muttering to herself as she walked over to her clothes, bending down to pick them up. “I should just call my publishers and tell them to forget it. Cougars aren’t that great anyway.” She had forgotten Jack was there. She was too busy talking to herself and the dire situation which was her life.

He tapped her on the shoulder. “Melissa?”

She turned around and smacked into naked hard muscle. She gasped as his arms circled her waist, and his lips pressed against hers plundering her wet warmth with his tongue. Melissa dropped the towel and her arms curved round his neck. She moaned as his naked body pressed against hers. It was an instant attraction and instant fire.

She didn’t think she could only respond to the power and presence of his body. His tongue, wicked, as it teased her mouth open, coaxing her to give him hers. He tasted of mint and coffee a heady combination. She could feel his hand move up her smooth back until he cupped the back of her head.

Melissa was pressed against the full length of his body.

“I want you,” he told her in between kisses. He broke the contact, his mouth going to her neck, nibbling, travelling down her body to her breasts. She cried out as he thumbed her nipples. His tongue circled one nipple while his thumb pressed against the other.

Against the onslaught of lust and passion, Melissa kept feeling like she was missing something. Something wasn’t quite right.

She looked down at his head, cried out as his teeth nipped her red flesh.

“Stop. Stop.” She pulled his head off her breast. His face flushed, his lips swollen from her kisses.

“Why should I stop?”

Melissa couldn’t think of a single reason why he should.

Chapter Two

Melissa was a dream come true. Passionate, smart and sexy as hell. Jack was struggling against the urge to bend her over the massage bed and fuck her hard and fast.

The woman was an erotic writer, she thought about sex for a living and she was looking to experience the cougar inside her.

He was more than happy to oblige. He held her face between his hands. She was so beautiful all the other women he’d had paled in comparison to this woman.

“Why should I stop?” he asked the question again.

“Do you really want to do this?” she asked him.

It had been something he’d been fantasizing about for the longest time, the only thing he looked forward too.

“You have no idea how much I want to do this.”

She smiled. She had the cutest smile.

Jack felt like such a jerk. She must have men with better lines. It wasn’t a line, he truly believed she had an amazing smile. He was babbling.

He could see the indecision waring with her. He leaned down and cupped her head, he pressed a kiss to her lips. A demanding kiss. A kiss to show her how much he wanted her.

“I want you so bad. I was going to ask you today on a date,” he confessed.

She gasped.

“You barely know me.”

Jack shrugged. “Doesn’t change how much I want you.”

He would let her believe he was doing this for her research but in truth he was doing this because he wanted to spend time with the woman plaguing his every waking thought.

Melissa was fighting with herself. Should she take him up on the offer or leave it? He looked so sincere. She really needed someone who was willing to help her with her research and with her deadline fast approaching and the fact she hadn’t met anyone else who could give her some life experiences. This could be her time to get her research but from her own experience.

He was a good-looking man. He was twenty-four years old and an adult. He looked like he knew what he was doing.

“Are you sure about this? I mean if you have a girlfriend or something, I don’t want you to feel any pressure. I promise I wouldn’t complain or anything about your job.”

Jack pressed a finger against her lips.

“Do I look like the kind of guy who would feel pressure about helping a sexy woman?” He gave her a cocky, devilish smile.

Laughing Melissa shook her head.

They both jumped as someone knocked on the door.

Melissa glanced at the door and then at her naked state. Wait, she was supposed to be naked. She glanced over at Jack. He was naked.

“Get dressed,” she whispered trying to instill all of her sense of urgency in her words.

She hopped on the bed, arranging her towel so she looked like a woman who was getting a back rub and not a woman who was propositioning a younger man.

Within seconds he was dressed, oil on his hands and pressing those sinful hands against the tightness of her muscles.

“Relax.  Otherwise, they won’t think I’m doing my job properly.”

She tried to calm down. She must have managed it because he called for the person to enter. She was shocked. The door was unlocked. At any time during that conversation anyone could have entered.

The relaxation he needed came when she breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn’t been caught.

“Hey Jack, I’m off, oh, I thought your last customer finished at twelve?”

Melissa could hear the other man. Had it really been forty five minutes?

“My last customer. She came a bit late.”

She hated being talked about while she was there.

“Right, erm, we’re going to the beach later if you want to come?” His friend sounded distracted.

“No, I’m good. Got other plans for this weekend.” His hands stopped on her flesh.

“Okay, erm...” He was saying that a lot. “Jack, you might want to bring the towel down a bit further.” Melissa wondered what the hell that was supposed to mean. Was that code for something?

The door shut and Jack pushed the towel down over her butt.

She gasped as his friends words suddenly dawned.

“Oh my god,” she gasped, embarrassed.

He leaned down and gently whispered, “next time I would suggest keeping your legs closed.”

Melissa blushed.

Of all the things that could happen. She had given his best friend a great shot of her private parts. She was an erotic writer.  She didn’t know what upset her the most. The fact that she referred to genitals as private parts or his best friend seemed to like what he was looking at?

He could have mentioned it at the beginning when he first came in.

It seemed today was the day to be ogled by younger men. It could be far worse.

Chapter Three

Melissa sat waiting while Jack read through her manuscript. This was the first time she had allowed anyone to read her work. Especially unedited.

She brought out tea and biscuits. Sat and watched as he flicked through the pages on the screen. When he seemed to be taking his time, she got up and cleaned something that really didn’t need cleaning but she did it anyway.

About two hours later he sat back and stared at her.

He kept staring at her.

“Well?” she asked him.

“You’re a great writer.” That was it. Two hour’s worth of reading and he told her she was a great writer.

“That’s it?”

“You’ve never been with a younger man, have you?”

Melissa blushed.

“W-well. Erm, no. Could you tell?” She bit her lip.

Jack looked around her apartment. “Yes, you can.”

“How?” she asked him. He could hear the anger at his words.

Sighing, he stood moving around her apartment. Looking at the pictures and trinkets, she’d collected over the years. A couple of book covers, she obviously liked. He could tell she took her writing very seriously, but would she take him seriously?

“You’re forcing them together. At the end of the day, we’re like other men, older and younger.” He stopped to pick up a picture of her, she was smiling with a group of people and it looked like she was at a conference.

“If you guys are all the same, then why is it some women swear by younger men or toy boys?”

He put the picture down and moved around her space.

“The same way us men go after cougars. Sometimes, younger men are freer in their sexuality where as older men are comfortable in their ability and are not willing to try new stuff.” He stopped picking up a notebook. “The desire for the cougar, well, for me. Is a woman who is willing to have a younger guy must be really confident in bed? She could take charge and have me and not care. Take her pleasure and in turn I’ll be having the time of my life.”

He turned to her. She seemed to be really interested in what he had to say.

“Have you had a cougar before?”

He smiled. “My first time was with a cougar.”

Melissa chuckled. She could just imagine a younger Jack with a sexy older woman.

“You don’t seem young.”

Jack shrugged. He had always been more serious than his friends. It was fun to get drunk and laid but there had to be more to life than that.

“Maybe you should try it on me?” he suggested.

“Try what on you?”

He came and stood in front of her, taking hold of her hands he brought her to her feet.

“The scene, you have your masseuse and younger man. You have your older woman. The apartment. Work the scene in your book. Become the woman, who’d been traded in. Become her. Forget about yourself. This is your book. Your life. Work it.”

Melissa stared at him skeptically. She’d never tried writing from experience. She was a creative writer.  She used her imagination.

“What have you got to lose? You obviously hit a snag, your publishers will be pissed if you don’t get it done and with this economical climate do you really need the reputation of being someone who doesn’t deliver?” He argued out his points and with everyone he made, she couldn’t think of any other reason to not do it.

Taking a deep breath, Melissa turned away and thought about her character. Every emotion she wrote about she absorbed it in.

Walking around her apartment with her eyes closed, she’d memorized it late at night. She was stood by her alcohol station.

This was it.

She opened her eyes.

“So tell me, what has made you become a masseuse?” She poured a generous shot of brandy into a glass.

“I’m good with my hands.”

“I bet you are.” Melissa was shocked with how easy it was for her to get into the role of her main character.

“I’m sure you’ll find out how good I can be very soon.”

She let out a chuckle, coming over to him and passed him his brandy. “To new beginnings?”

“And even newer experiences,” he added. They clinked their glasses. Melissa sipped hers while Jack threw his right back.

He handed her back the glass.

“Another?” she asked him.

He moved closer. “There is something else, I’d like better.” Melissa craned her neck to see him. He really was gorgeous.

She opened her arms inviting him closer, taking another sip of her drink. “What else would you like?”She could hear her teasing and she couldn’t help it. Everything she was doing felt natural. Nothing forced. The sexual tension was present but she had to acknowledge it had been present there for weeks. It was why she’d never initiated a conversation. She enjoyed the tension, the way it ran through her heating her body with the mystery and unexpected. Talking can ruin it, especially if the person didn’t know what they were doing.

This gave an edge of fantasy to her reality. It allowed her to pretend to be her character, when in truth it was how she wanted to be. To have this confidence, to be able to look at him and show her blatant need.

He moved in pressing her against the wall where she stood. She felt the press as she took a step back. She gasped as her head tapped the wall. He was so close.