“Parents?”
“Dad took off when we were kids,” he said, touching it before he realized what he was doing. “Mom was around, but she’s an alcoholic. There, but really unreliable. Rose kept me honest.”
“I’d bet she has some stories to tell.”
He huffed out a laugh and gave her a lazy smile. Still sitting across the room on the piano bench, Erin kept one leg tucked under her bottom, the other crossed over her knee.
The liquid trembled in the glass. He set it carefully on a magazine on the coffee table and wove his fingers together, letting them dangle between his knees. The singer’s throaty voice filled the silence between them, and he felt his face heat. Two fingers of whiskey shouldn’t be enough to make him flush, but he was still wearing his sheepskin-lined bomber jacket, and the room was warm enough for Erin to sit there in her silky blouse and tight skirt.
“I want to make something really clear to you,” she said finally. “Before we … go any further with this.”
“Okay,” he said, suddenly wary.
“I’m not looking for anything permanent. This is just … fun. I haven’t had much fun the last few years.” She stopped, then gestured at him, a hand roll that conveyed embarrassed exasperation. “Not that you were expecting anything else, but it’s important to me that we both understand what this is about. I’m not looking for anything long-term.”
It was the most precisely framed statement of boundaries and expectations he’d ever heard. “Thank fuck,” he said. “I’m talking to some security companies about jobs out of the country. The last thing either one of us needs is some big emotional mess. Just so you know, if you lead with that on Tinder, your swipe-right rate is going to go through the roof.”
She laughed, a delighted, throaty chuckle. “I’ll keep it in mind.” She uncoiled her legs, set the glass of whiskey on the piano bench, and got to her feet, padding over to him. “May I try on your coat?”
He stared up at her. “What?”
“When I buy that bike, I’ll need protective gear,” she said. “That one looks nice and warm.”
A bit bewildered, he shouldered out of the coat and handed it to her.
“Oof,” she said, and wandered out of sight, presumably in search of a mirror. Her voice was muffled, distant when she spoke again. “It’s heavy.”
“It would weigh less in your size. It’s good for fall and spring riding,” he said absently, falling back on details, specifics, on being helpful. He picked up his whiskey and tossed it back. “Get lightweight leathers for the summer, but loose enough to layer thermals under … neath…”
His voice trailed off, because she was standing in the doorway, wearing thigh-high seamed stockings and his coat, her hair a tousled wreck around her face. The coat all but swallowed her up, but she hadn’t zipped the front, so he could see the pale lace of her bra and panties, mostly hidden by the heavy drape of leather and sheepskin.
“Oh,” he said, somewhat stupidly. “Damn.”
“I like it,” she said. “Very warm. What do you think?”
It took a moment for his brain to jerk out of neutral, wheels spinning, no traction, RPMs revving higher and higher, and into sex gear, but when it did, when his rational mind and his primitive brain stem slid into a groove together, a bolt of lust unlike anything he’d ever felt in his life, hot and possessive and raw, pulsed straight to his cock.
He straightened, vision going fuzzy at the edges. Her eyes widened ever so slightly, but she held her ground as he walked up to her. Opening the sides of the coat, he studied her, noting the rapid heartbeat in the quivering flesh of her breasts.
“I need to make a closer inspection,” he said, pleased his voice was so steady.
“Of course,” she said, and turned to walk down the hallway.
It wasn’t far; the house was small, but even the few steps she took with the hem of the jacket just barely covering the curve of her ass, were enough to narrow his focus. His body. Her body. A quiet, dim, private bedroom, lit by a floor lamp next to a comfy armchair. The colorful shade threw blue and green and red spots of color on the bed and the walls.
To his surprise, she clambered right up onto the bed, knee-walking to the center, where she turned to face him, sitting back on her heels with her knees slightly spread. Her chin lifted so she held his gaze, then she flipped up the jacket’s wide collar.