She picks up the lemon one and swipes some of the icing with the tip of her tongue.
When I don’t react, at least not outwardly, she rolls her eyes and proceeds to eat the rest of the cupcake in the most delicate way possible. A swipe of icing, then a nibble of cake. Not a crumb falls as she consumes it, and my cock thickens as my brain readily transcribes what I’m seeing in front of me into an X-rated fantasy of Ali on her knees in front of me, lapping at my throbbing dick.
I shift in place and her gaze drops to my lap.
Aw, hell.
I cross my legs.
She laughs.
This is not happening. I grab one of the two chocolate cupcakes—I don’t count the raspberry one, because fruit has no place in a chocolate cupcake—and I peel back the wrapper.
I am not capable of eating it daintily. A crumb falls on my tie and before I get it, she’s leaning over the cupcake box and snagging it for herself.
“Yummy,” she whispers as she licks it off her finger.
“Stop it.”
“Make me.” She winks.
I stare her down as I finish eating, then I reach for my coffee. The staring contest continues as we finish our drinks, then I sit back and sigh. “Fine, you’ve got my full attention. Why me?”
“You’re hot.”
“Try harder.”
“You’re a good guy.” Not even a little bit. I snort, but she waves me off. "I've been watching you. You're good with Hailey—you get her. You see our f*ck
ed-up family and how screwed up our relationships are and you help smooth it over for her when she needs to bounce, or not show up at all."
"That's the job."
She shakes her head. "No. I've grown up around guys like you. Everyone has an angle. Nobody just does the job, no questions asked."
That makes me so mad at her father, who is a grade-A scum, and her mother, who has no moral compass that I am aware of. "They should."
"They don't. But you do.” She holds my gaze, daring me to tell her she’s wrong. She’s not, because yeah, I’m good at my job. She licks her lips. “And you want me.”
“No—”
“Don't deny it, not on my birthday. You want me," she repeats in a quick, staccato burst of nerves. "And you are a good guy, and I want this. I want you to have sex with me, because you're a good guy and you're hot and you want me. I want you too, in case that wasn't clear. But just for sex. I'm not—"
"Whoa. Slow down." If I ever thought Hailey was the earnest one, it was only because I hadn't had a conversation like this with Ali yet.
A dangerous, addictive conversation where her eyes are bright and her chest is rising and falling and her words have me so hard it hurts.
I don't want to like her. I don't want to think of her as Ali or know that she's lonely.
I definitely don't want to be a red blooded man with the knowledge that she's turned on and willing—eager, even—but picky.
And she's picked me because she thinks I'm a good guy.
“I do want you. Any man would, and I’m flattered that you think I’m good enough for you. But you don’t really know me, and if you did, you wouldn’t want me. I’m not the guy you think I am.”
“Okay, scratch the good guy stuff. I don’t think the details of that matter for a one-night stand. What matters is that you wouldn’t kiss-and-tell, that I can trust you not to hurt me, that you’ll wear a condom, that kind of thing.”
“That’s not being a good guy, Ali, that’s just…Jesus, don’t have sex with anyone…f*ck
that, don’t have lunch with anyone who doesn’t think those are the most basic ground rules.”
“I haven’t.”
“Good.” I glare at her. “But the answer is still no.”
Her lower lip stiffens and she drops her gaze to the cupcakes. Silently, she closes up the box and stands, carrying them to the small kitchenette near the window.
I stand as well. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” I offer lamely. “You’re gorgeous.”
She doesn’t say anything.
When I was a SEAL, we practiced surviving torture techniques way more complicated than the silent treatment from a beautiful woman. Even Maddie never successfully managed to guilt me by giving me the cold shoulder.
But tonight—f*ck
, it’s her birthday. And I’m breaking her heart. I stand in the middle of the room, ready to take the hits when she turns around. I deserve them.
“You break every single one of my rules,” I say quietly. “And I definitely don’t seduce women young enough to be my—”
She whirls around. “I am not… whatever you were about to say, I am not that much younger than you.”
“I’m thirty-five.”
She blinks at me. “Well…okay. You’re older than I thought. I won’t hold that against you.”
“That doesn’t mean that I can’t hold it against me. And I would. I do. There’s no part of me that isn’t anxious about the fact that you’re twenty.”
She looks at my dick again. Fine. There’s one part that has zero problem with the fact that she’s barely legal. He twitches. More than okay with that fact.