Dirty (Dive Bar #1)(46)

To think, if I’d married Chris, I’d never have had this again. Seeing my needs reflected in someone else, being so in tune with another human being. Amazing. I might have spent my whole life having average sex with someone who wasn’t really into it, and all for the sake of security. To have a home.

“What are you thinking about?” Vaughan’s hands slid over my arms, untangling me from him, easing me back.

“Nothing.”

“Try again.”

I groaned, my face blazing to life. “I’m just grateful to have this time with you. I thought my life was ruined, that I’d made all these bad choices and messed everything up. But being here with you, things feel a long way from bad.”

“Good.” He kissed my forehead, smiled. “Let me tell you a story.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Right now.” Then he went down on one knee, picked up one of my feet and eased off the very sensible black flat I’d been wearing all day. Excellent, my foot odor would knock him dead. Very sexy.

“When I was fifteen I started seeing this girl who was a couple of years older than me, a senior.” He calmly set my shoe aside and reached for my other foot, baring it as well. Hair slid forward, hiding his face, and he pushed it back as he stood. “She was a cheerleader. Had a hell of a lot more experience than me, which wasn’t hard, ’cause I had none.”

“She was your first?”

“She was.” Fingers worked at the button on my pants, the zipper. The cooler night air hit my exposed skin, raising gooseflesh. Though probably, it was just him. Hot hands slid over my hips as he eased the material down. Down over my thighs, down until they lay on the floor and I stood there in a not so sensible pair of black lace panties.

You never could tell when swanky underwear would be needed. Best to be prepared.

I stepped out of my work pants, pushing them aside with a toe. “And?”

“And I had issues meeting her expectations.” He stroked my neck, running his fingers around the neckline of my work T-shirt. “Kept getting overexcited and coming too soon.”

I grinned.

“She liked me, but ah … she was starting to get a bit angry about it.” One finger wandered, drawing a line down the middle of my tee, pressing in between the divide between my breasts. Of course he had my nipples’ undivided attention. Hell, he had my whole body’s attention, apart from my brain. It was swimming with happy hormones, drowning in them.

“Huh,” I said, because I’m an intellectual genius like that.

“Not that I wouldn’t finish her off. She showed me how to give her a hand-job, told me how to use my mouth.” He gripped the hem of my T-shirt, the backs of his fingers sliding over my stomach, toying with me.

My insides tumbled and twisted. My panties were wet.

“Now that I think about it, she was seriously bossy. But I learned a lot.”

Up went my T-shirt, exposing my matching lace bra. Then away it went, flying off into the darkness.

“Christ,” he said.

All of a sudden light flooded the room, blinding me. Bright patterns danced before my eyes, making me blink like crazy.

“Sorry. I needed to see.” Vaughan’s big hands slid up over my rib cage, stopping beneath the band of my bra. His eyes were as big as … well, my boobs.

“Okay. You’ve seen now.” I fumbled my hand along the wall, trying to feel out the light switch. Darkness was good. Why, it hid all manner of things. The bulge of my tummy and the dimples on my thunder thighs. Darkness and me were great friends.

“It’s staying on.”

“But atmosphere!”

“Babe.” He caught my hand, kissing my knuckles. “It’s staying on.”

“Talk about bossy,” I grumbled.

He leveled me with a look. Or he tried to.

“It’s just that I would be more comfortable—”

Before I could even finish the thought, he whipped off his shirt, dropping it on the floor. Next his feet got busy toeing off his shoes while he tore into the buttons on his jeans. With a hand pressed against the wall for balance, his socks were gone, and then so were his pants. Hey presto, the man stood before me in no more than a snug pair of blue boxer briefs, which happily left little to the imagination. He was so pretty. When it came to Vaughan Hewson, words were insufficient. I could spend all day trying to describe every curve and plane, each subtly delineated muscle. His long lean body was pure poetry. Poetry or porn, maybe both. My brain and vagina were still at war over that one.

“That was fast,” I said.

“Now we’re both almost naked. Feel better?”

I shrugged, my greedy gaze roving over his body. Me in the light made for not much happy. But him in the light made for f*cking awesome. Odd how every bit of moisture evaporated from my open mouth. Though to be fair, the wetness was desperately required elsewhere.

“Lydia,” he remonstrated, going so far as to actually tut at me like I was some kid.

“What?”

Again, he dropped to his knees. His head almost, but not quite, level with my breasts. Lips an unimpressed line, he stared at my stomach. Fair enough. My belly didn’t do much for me either. Not that I’d put a ban on cheesecake and start jogging. Let’s not go crazy.

Instead of expressing concern regarding my Body Mass Index or some such, he pried away the hands covering my stomach, holding them captive with his own.