Picking Up the Pieces (Pieces, #2)(14)

“Well, have a good time,” my mom called to me as she guided Eva into the living room.

“Thanks. You too.” I watched my two favorite women in the world snuggle next to each other on the couch and start talking a mile a minute about who-knows-what. A smile tugged at my lips as I walked out of the door and closed it behind me.

Marnie lived in Gladwyne, an affluent town about twenty minutes from my house. From what I gathered from Frank, Marnie had married well and divorced even better. But she had seemed sweet and genuine on the phone, so I suppressed my nagging suspicions about her and asked her out to dinner.

My GPS guided me to a high-rise that screamed over-priced condominiums. I pulled up to the front of the building where I saw a familiar woman speaking to the doorman. I quickly put on my hazard lights, put my car in park, and jumped out. “Marnie?”

“Adam?”

“Yes.” I walked confidently up to her and shook her outstretched hand. Score one for me. She was even hotter than her picture. Her low-cut green dress clung tightly to her body in all the right places, allowing me a glimpse at her cleavage without even having to try. Nice. And as my gaze lowered down to her flat stomach, I tried to resist stealing a look at her toned legs. Thankfully, her deep blue eyes caught mine right before I could take my visual molestation any further. “Nice to meet you,” I said quickly.

“You, too. Really nice.” She bit her lower lip as her eyes traveled the length of me.

I shifted my shoulders uncomfortably and cleared my throat. “You ready to go?” Her predatory gaze discomfited me. While it was always nice to be appraised appreciatively by the opposite sex, Marnie looked like she wanted to chain me up in her basement and make me her love slave.

“Definitely.” Marnie slipped her arm through mine and I guided her to the car. Once she was shut safely inside, I released the breath I’d been holding and looked back at the doorman. Maybe it was just a figment of my frazzled imagination, but I was pretty sure he winked at me. I took a few deep gulps of air before climbing into the driver’s seat next to Marnie and starting toward the restaurant.

***

Dinner was initially uneventful. Conversation flowed easily, Marnie stowed her roving eyes, and I started to loosen up. She told me about her ten-year-old son Tyler who was diagnosed with autism when he was three. Her husband had withdrawn from the family after the diagnosis, feeling shortchanged that he didn’t get the “perfect” son who would be a junior version of him. After four more years of enduring a cold and distant man, Marnie finally filed for divorce and her now ex-husband completely disappeared from their lives, other than the child support check she received from him every month.

I shared my past about Eva’s mother: how she’d been unable to cope with the prospect of being a mother and left me to raise Eva alone. Then, with the heavy stuff out of the way, the conversation shifted to lighter topics like hobbies, favorite vacation spots, and where we’d gone to college. I was feeling really good about this date.

Until Marnie ordered a third martini. And then a fourth. And then a dessert wine. I watched her guzzle alcohol like she had been deprived of liquid for two days. Shock raged through me as she began to sway in her chair, giggle like a lunatic, and slur her words. By the time the waiter brought the bill, Marnie was obliterated. She had inched closer to me, nearly tipping off her chair in the process, and began running her fingernails up my thigh. My brain and body fought to get on the same page, but both were starting to short circuit.

My cock stiffened slightly at her touch and arousal coursed through my body. I’d have to be blind not to be attracted to her. She had the best tits money could buy, and they accentuated her narrow waist. She was strikingly beautiful. The entire package would make any man horny as hell.

But my brain was firing off warning shots left and right. Something about Marnie screamed shark, and I didn’t want to be caught in the water when she decided to strike. I had heard stories about women who seduced men, lured them home, treated them to a good time, only to threaten them with police action if they didn’t pay up the next morning. And Marnie fit the stereotype I had built in my head. I wasn’t about to risk my future for one night of pleasure.

As I drove back toward Marnie’s house, the internal battle waged on. Her hand continued to pet me as I drove, never reaching my dick, but getting damn close. My brain suddenly flooded with memories of another time when I had been in this situation. Only that time I had been in a movie theater and had actually respected the woman touching me. The overt sexual behavior Marnie delivered was cheap and fleeting. So unlike what I had felt in the theater that night. But, of course, I had also been a different person back then. It still amazed me how much I had changed in five months. The core of me was still the same, but I was more guarded, less trusting, and a little . . . colder toward women. I had been on numerous dates since Lily, and while I still hoped to meet my perfect match, I was also enjoying the search. Sex no longer had to mean something to me. It clearly hadn’t meant much to her, and from what I saw at Eva’s school the other morning, she was doing just fine. I could be just fine too.

But did this feel fine? Fuck.

My mood took a downturn as Marnie instructed me to pull into a parking space off to the right side of her building. I now had absolutely no intention of having sex with her. But, since she was drunk as shit, I needed to at least make sure she got inside okay.