How to Fail at Flirting(19)

“Well, since you can’t ditch me at the moment, it’s your turn.” He nudged his closed hand against the outside of my thigh.

The pressure of his touch against my leg sent all kinds of sensations pinging through me. It short-circuited my thoughts, and I said the first thing that came to mind. “I own an embarrassing amount of fancy lingerie I never wear.”

A curious expression crossed his features, and his gaze fell to my chest, his eyes darkening.

My nipples pebbled, and I gasped, realizing what I’d implied and what he might be imagining. “Oh! No! I always wear underwear! I mean, of course, not always, like not in the shower. I-I just meant I buy fancy, expensive stuff I never wear.” Open mouth. Insert entire leg.

He laughed, his tone husky, and rested our linked fingers on my knee. The same spark from earlier flashed up my thighs. Shaking his head as if resetting, the edges of his mouth tipped up. “My turn?”

I nodded, eager to move past my gaffe.

“What are the odds? I also own a staggering number of lacy underthings I never wear.”

I released his fingers and slid my hand up his arm to push his shoulder, feeling silly and buoyant and miles away from ordinary. He was making fun of me, but it didn’t feel cruel. “C’mon, a real one!”

“Okay, okay.” He glanced over my shoulder at the view, then focused on my face again. “Hm.” He ran a hand through his hair. He tilted his head. “Did we agree these needed to be embarrassing?”

“I think it’s safe to say I’ve set a precedent.”

“Fair enough. Okay . . . I was a virgin until I was twenty-three.” His voice lifted at the end of his statement as he considered the number.

“Really?”

“I was a chubby, shy kid through college.” He rocked forward in his seat, folding his fingers over the edge. “If I’m honest, women kind of scared me back then, so I was a late bloomer well into working on my MBA.”

“Seems like you’ve figured out how to talk to women since then.”

“It might just be you.” He flashed a boyish, playful smile. “That one must earn me something juicy, right?”

I stretched to stroke my fingernails over his shoulders, then let my hand fall to scratch lightly up and down his spine. I was about to pull my hand away, embarrassed at the intimacy of the gesture and unsure why I’d done it, when his voice rumbled with a low groan.

“That feels really good.”

My heart thudded in response to his words, the low timbre of his voice, and the way his body curled at my touch, and he inhaled sharply when I increased the pressure. “That’s not getting you out of your turn, but I can’t remember the last time someone scratched my back.”

The fluttering low in my belly diverted energy from my brain, and I blurted out the first thing that came to mind again. “I haven’t had sex in over three years.”

“Wow,” he mouthed, slowly.

It didn’t seem that shocking until I said it out loud. Three years. It was even longer since I’d enjoyed it, and I’d never gotten to the big finale, not with anyone else. The sex with Davis had never been good, but eventually, I dreaded it. On the rare occasions he was interested in me enjoying myself, he’d lose patience quickly, asking aren’t you done yet?

Jake’s voice dipped low. “Why so long?”

“That’s the last time I dated anyone, and work got busy. It kind of just happened.” I let my hand fall from his back and gazed out at the twinkling city and the lights reflecting off Lake Michigan, sensing his stare but avoiding his face, afraid I would find pity there. It was pitiful.

His head bobbed out of the corner of my eye.

“What about you?”

His elbow brushed against mine. “No one’s made my heart skip and my toes curl in quite a while.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever been with someone who made me feel that.” But you kind of do.

We sat in companionable silence for a minute before he spoke. “I have to go back to the no-sex admission. Three years? Are you ready to explode all the time?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted with a shrug. It wasn’t until the last few months that I’d felt antsy, missing sex. I didn’t plan on saying more, but something about the heat from his body made me keep talking. “But I have ten fingers, an expensive vibrator, and a stash of AA batteries. I get by.”

Jake’s mouth dropped a little as his gaze wandered to my fingers.

With a chuckle, I wiggled them in a quick flourish before changing the subject. “So, are you always like this?”

He paused before shaking his head, looking at me with surprise, eyelids a bit hooded as his gaze fell on my fingers again. “Sorry, I’m going to need a minute after that.”

He scrubbed his hand over his jaw. “Am I always like this . . . spilling my guts and praying I don’t plummet to my death on a weeknight?”

I bumped my shoulder against his and grinned. “You know what I mean.”

“No, it’s definitely not normal to spend a night like this, but I’m not usually spending nights with sexy, funny, interesting, sexy women. What about you?”

“Not normal for me, either.” This night was shaping up to be the furthest I’d been from normal in years. “And you said sexy twice.”