Sweet Liar: Dirty Sweet #1 Page 5

  At the foyer, he paused to look from me to Audrey with an anxious plea in his eyes. “Please don’t do, well, don’t...hurt...anything.” I heard him muttering on to himself as the door shut behind him. Something that sounded a lot like I better not regret this.

  Which left me with my own regrets, namely the seductress in my midst.

  “That was quite impressive,” I said, not quite sure if I should have gone with the man rather than be left alone with her. Alone. So near a bed. And other furniture that could be used for fornication.

  She winked. “I have my talents.”

  Yes, she did. I was learning how skilled she was at wrapping men twice her age around her little pinkie. And now I was quite sure I should have left when I’d had the chance.

  Still, she had me on that string, towing me toward her when I should be swimming away. Could I even swim away at this point? Understanding how my fate was tied up in her—never mind that it was because she masterminded the whole thing—I considered giving in to the pull.

  I circled her, studying every delicious curve. “The thing I don’t understand as of yet is why it was so important to you that he let us stay here?”

  I stopped when I was facing her again so I had the full vantage point when she undid the tie at the side of her dress, shrugged it off her shoulders, and let it drop to the floor.

  Audrey Lind in nothing but her high-heeled boots and the naughtiest pair of matching panties and bra I’d ever seen on a woman.

  Goddamn, this apartment really needed curtains.

  Six

  Audrey

  Dylan seemed to go pale. He normally had rather fair skin—probably because he was British and because his work habits didn’t let him out in the sun too often—but now he was even whiter than usual.

  Maybe it was a bit scandalous to just drop my dress the way I had. I could have talked to him about my plan first, but after the way he’d kissed me the night before, I didn’t think conversation was necessary. I was certainly still buzzing from the feel of his lips and the sweep of his tongue. I thought a little skin would be all that was needed to reignite those passions in him as well.

  Instead, it seemed to throw him into a state of shock.

  “Audrey,” he stammered, his eyes darting everywhere, then to me, then quickly to anywhere else but me. He was deliberately trying not to look, but it seemed he couldn’t help himself. “What the bloody hell are you doing, girl?” He picked my dress up off the floor and brought it to me. “Put this on. Please. There aren’t curtains. The whole city can see you!”

  I glanced behind him at the windows. We were too high for anyone to see in through the street, and the apartments across the way didn’t have the floor-to-ceiling glass that this unit had. It was unlikely anyone could see me from there either.

  I took the dress from him anyway. Then tossed it over my shoulder to the ground. “I don’t care if everyone can see me. I only care if you see me.”

  This made the color return to his face.

  “And as for what I’m doing,” I continued, stepping toward him, but before I could say more he interrupted.

  “If you have more to say then could you please do it from the couch? Which is over there. A safe distance from me.”

  He muttered the last part so quietly that I wasn’t even sure I was supposed to hear it.

  It made me smile. He really was quite adorable. “If it makes you more comfortable.” I shrugged.

  “It does.”

  “Well, then.” I didn’t mind humoring him. And torturing him simultaneously. I sat on the sofa, crossing one leg over the other, hoping the slow, seductive routine didn’t come off as clumsy and embarrassing. Just because I felt confident didn’t mean I knew what I was doing. Hence this entire kismet project.

  Dylan immediately lined himself up between me and the window, using his body to make up for the lack of blinds.

  See? Adorable.

  “As you were saying,” he prompted.

  “As I was saying.” I took a breath in and let it out. “Here’s the deal—I’ve had two serious boyfriends in my life. Two men that I’ve had sex with, and I didn’t sleep with either of them until we’d said the L word. Which is to say, I don’t do this. Ever.”

  “Mm hmm.” His arms were crossed over his chest and he nodded furiously, as though urging me to go on.

  So I did. “With both of them the sex was blah.”

  “Right. You didn’t find either of them compatible. Yes, yes. You told me this last night. I remember. How exactly does this lead to you standing naked in my flat?”

  “Not your flat yet, Dylan,” I teased. “And not naked. I have lingerie on. Purchased just for you.” I uncrossed my legs, stretched them out in front of me, and leaned back on my palms so he could have the best view of my ensemble. “Do you like?”

  “I, uh.” He cleared his throat. “I do like. Very much.”

  The piercing gaze he hit me with made my heart trip and my skin prickle with goosebumps.

  “But that doesn’t explain the, um…” He gestured toward me with his entire hand. “This.”

  I chuckled. “I’m getting there. I was getting there last night, too, just, your lips became a distraction.” Maybe I’d gone over the top in the flirtation department, but it didn’t make the statement any less true. Besides, it was worth it to see the color in his cheeks deepen and the crotch of his pants expand while he let himself remember our kiss.

  It was especially worth it because of how much his pants expanded. Dang, that man was hung.

  After a distracted beat, I went on. “Anyway. After my last breakup, I decided that I needed to get the sex ed out of the way before I settle down. So. Isn’t it kismet that I met you? An experienced man who is only interested in banging? Wouldn’t you like to bang me now? Show me how it’s done?”

  He inhaled sharply then clutched his chest with one hand, wiping at his forehead with the other as he fell back against the glass behind him.

  I stood up, panicked. “Dylan! Are you okay? Are you having a heart attack?” I rushed to him, but he waved me away and stumbled toward the couch.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine. As long as you stay there, several feet from me, I’m fine.”

  Not his heart, then, but a good old-fashioned panic attack.

  I gave him a lazy grin. “How many feet away? Like is this too close?” I stepped predatorily near him. “Or how about this?” Another step.

  “It’s all too close. All of it. You and me in this same flat is too close.” He circled around the sofa, backing away from me as though I were a demon about to put a hex on him.

  “Why ever would you say that?” I asked innocently, following every step he took. “If anything, I’d say we aren’t close enough.”

  “No, no, no. This is not appropriate. This shouldn’t be happening. You should have your clothes on, for God’s sake. I shouldn’t have even allowed you to come here.”

  His rant felt directed more to himself than to me, but I continued to engage. “That’s a terrible thing to say! Aren’t we having fun together? The whole ‘daddy’ game with your realtor? That was a good time, wasn’t it?”

  He laughed incredulously as he rounded back to the front of the couch, one arm held out before himself as if to ward me off. “A good time is not the term I’d... Okay, yes, it was a fun bluff, but... Your sister is an employee in my firm! You are twenty years my junior!”

  “Is it really twenty?” I’d told him my age, but he hadn’t mentioned his to me. Sabrina hadn’t even been certain. Not that it mattered. The important thing was that we were attracted to each other. That we had chemistry. And we definitely had that, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

  “Yes, I’m sure. Or, it’s nearly twenty. Nineteen, to be precise.”

  “Nineteen.” I thought about that for a minute, growing more comfortable with the idea by the moment. “That’s kind of hot, isn’t it? That a woman that you’re interested in who is nineteen years your junior is throwing hersel
f at you? Begging you to teach her a thing or two. Or seven.”

  I’d closed in on him while I was talking, trapping him against the armchair. He didn’t realize until he’d tripped and fell backward into the seat, but he’d only caught the edge in his fall and immediately slipped to the ground.

  And I slipped right into his lap.

  I spread my legs, straddling him the way I had the night before. His breath came fast, but even, and his skin was hot to the touch as I swept my finger across his forehead, brushing away the hair that had fallen there. He locked his eyes on mine, the pupils darkening as they lingered in his stare.

  “I’m supposing you don’t need CPR,” I teased. I was terrible, but he was too easy.

  His gaze narrowed. “My heart is fine. It’s my morals that I’m struggling with.”

  “Because I’m so young? Because of Sabrina?”

  “Yes. Even if we can ignore that I’m your sister’s superior I am definitely old enough to be…” He shook his head, unable to finish the sentence.

  “My father? I told you I thought that was hot. Are you going to tell me it doesn’t interest you at all?”

  He didn’t answer but swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the action.

  “Because I won’t believe you if you do. There’s definitive proof to the contrary.”

  He scowled even as I could feel his body relaxing underneath me. “What proof?”

  “This bad boy.” I ground my hips, rubbing against his erection, nearly moaning from the thickness of it.

  “There’s a near-naked beautiful woman sitting on him. He can’t help himself. He has a mind of his own and is not always in agreement with my decisions.” Contrary to his words, he stroked a single finger up my arm, sending a shiver down my spine.

  Even this...even just the deliberate way he touched me was more experienced than the men I’d been with. Boys, really, fumbling to get their cock inside me without any sort of prelude. My dirty professor was a man. Someone who knew exactly what to do with a woman. Who could show me how to handle him in return.

  “He perked up long before I was sitting on him,” I said, tilting my hips again.

  This time he was the one to shudder. “You noticed that then?”

  “It was quite hard to miss.”

  His lips turned up into a cocky smile as he drew his finger further up my arm, over my shoulder to the strap of my bra. He fiddled with the thin elastic, so leisurely, so carefully, that I thought I might explode when he finally touched me for real.

  Once more, I tilted my hips back and then forward, tracing the stiff length of his cock with the damp crotch panel of my panties. I’d meant it to hurry him up, urge him into kissing me, but it felt so good that I was the one who threw my head back and sighed.

  Next thing I knew, I was on my back, on the floor, my hands pinned above my head with Dylan stretched out above me.

  Wow. That move was...wow. So manly and take-charge-like. So alpha and swoony.

  Somehow, he was even more good-looking from this angle. His expression was serious and heated, the creases near his eyes intense as he focused on me.

  My heart thumped against my rib cage, pounding, pounding at the possibility of what was to come next.

  “You don’t seem to need any lessons in the art of seduction,” he said sternly. Fatherly, almost, except for the sexy, rough edge to his voice.

  “You’re right. I know how to seduce a man.” I spread my legs, making room for him to settle in between my thighs. His eyes closed briefly as the ridge of his erection sunk down across my center. “What I don’t know is how to tell a man what I like. How can I if I don’t know what I like myself? If no one has ever shown me anything worth repeating.”

  He studied me silently for a moment. Every second felt like thirty as I measured time with the rapid lift and fall of my chest, waiting for him to make the next move, waiting for him to agree.

  “And you think I can show you what you might like?” His gaze shifted to my mouth then back to my eyes.

  I licked my lips in anticipation of the kiss he was obviously looking forward to as much as I was. “You’ve already shown me more than you can know.”

  His expression said he doubted that. “Assuming that’s true...how do I know you won’t fall for me in the process? You don’t have a track record to prove you can separate sex from love.”

  Wasn’t that a killer of a question?

  He had every right to ask. I wasn’t the least bit upset about it, though it did make me feel like the wind had been sucked out of my chest. Made me feel dizzy and unsure when just a moment ago I’d been drowning in confidence.

  “I guess…” I started out tentatively, formulating the answer as I gave it. “I guess you don’t know that. I guess I don’t really know it either. I could try to convince you it isn’t your problem—I’ll be gone at the end of the week, and you’ll be on the other side of the ocean—but I have a feeling you’re the kind of guy that would very much think it was his problem, no matter where he was. You might not be fond of the love emotion, but you do recognize it in other people. That you acknowledge the weight it can carry might be what makes me feel so safe with you.”

  That was a revelation. I hadn’t quite realized why I trusted him to be the guy to take on this task. We’d only just met. I shouldn’t be this sure about him. But, just like he was afraid of how I’d react to this arrangement because I’d shown enough of myself for him to know it was a possibility, I also had seen enough of him to know I trusted him.

  “I trust you,” I told him. “I trust you to be careful with my body, and I trust that you won’t lead me on in any way. That’s a good start, isn’t it?”

  Before he could say anything, I pushed forward, my words tumbling out rapidly. “And what I can tell you for sure is that I don’t have any intentions of becoming emotionally wrapped up in you. I am attracted to you. Crazy attracted to you. Turn-my-insides-into-mush kind of attracted to you, but I’ve always been able to separate attraction from real feelings. I’ve been crazy attracted to men before, given a few blow jobs to some of them, even, but I’ve only fallen in hard love with those two guys. Guys I hadn’t slept with while the falling was occurring. Maybe that can help you trust me? It’s not very reassuring, I suppose. I don’t know what else to say. I hope that doesn’t make you tell me no, though, because, Dylan, I want this. I want to learn from you. I want—”

  He cut me off, crashing his mouth into mine. His lips were firm and persuasive, telling mine exactly where to move and what speed. Telling them when to open and take more. I responded eagerly, matching the strokes of his tongue with my own as soft whimpers escaped from my throat. My sounds made him groan and made me wet—wetter than I already was, that is. He swept me up with his kiss. He took me from the solid ground into a spiraling, dizzy windstorm.

  He continued to hold my wrists above my head, which I found both highly erotic and frustrating at the same time. I wanted to caress his jaw. I wanted to slip my hands underneath his sweater. I wanted to draw the pads of my thumbs across his nipples and then trail my fingers down, down, down.

  Unable to touch him the way I wanted, the rest of me became more antsy beneath him, as though trying to make up for my restrained hands. I squirmed and bucked, trying to get as much of my body to come into contact with his as possible. But he counteracted every one of my moves, bracing his body higher above me, holding himself away.

  It took me a few minutes to realize he was purposefully taunting me.

  Then it took me another few minutes to realize I really liked this too. I mean, I hated it. But as the torture continued, a tension built inside me, low and deep. A hum that spread through my core and out to my limbs. By the time he lowered himself to grind across my crotch, I was already halfway to an orgasm.

  From there, the hum intensified quickly. Each thrust of his pelvis against mine sent me closer to the edge. He still had his pants on! I still had on panties, and yet he’d found the perfect spot, hit it on every s
troke, making the hum swell and expand and consume and take over and buzz, buzz, buzz, and…

  Suddenly it was all gone at the sound of a clearing throat.

  Guess when I’d sent the agent away I’d forgotten that he’d also be coming back.

  Whoops.

  I wasn’t sorry. I wasn’t sorry at all.

  Seven

  Dylan

  I’d never lost an erection so fast.

  Thank God, since it made it easier to scramble to my feet and distract Jeff Jones so Audrey could clothe herself privately. I was sweating and panicked as I diverted him back to the foyer. Behind me, I could hear the girl giggling.

  It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t.

  That she was laughing was a splendid example of why our age difference was a big problem. She was obviously not mature enough to handle matters that required adult responsibility. I was disappointed in myself for not being the adult from the start. If she hadn’t been so tenacious, so assertive, so beguiling, I wouldn’t have lost control of the situation.

  And I had lost control. Really lost it. Almost gone too far, even.

  The whole thing had left me flustered, and now there was a real chance I wasn’t going to get this apartment.

  “It’s...I’m...this isn’t at all what it looks like,” I explained to the agent. I ran a hand through my hair, creating a floppy mess if I were to judge by the uneven way it felt on my scalp. “I sincerely apologize. It was inappropriate and discourteous and—”

  “Just tell me one thing,” Mr. Jones interrupted. “She’s not really your daughter, is she?”

  “No! God, no.” I thought about it after I’d answered, what that must have looked like to the man when he’d walked in on us. It had been bad enough that we’d behaved so badly in an flat I hadn’t yet leased. The fact that he’d also thought we were father and daughter was…