Playing It Safe(18)

My mom, my angelic and pure-as-the-driven-snow mother, yells out a muffled, “Harder!” This is followed by a quick succession of pounding, which I soooo don’t want to know what the hell that is and have no intention of sticking around to find out.

“I’m going to be sick,” Darren says as we both bolt for the front door. It’s a race against time when we start our respective cars. He sticks his head out of his window yelling, “Go, go, go!”

I end up pulling out of there so fast that I may have left skid marks in the driveway. And if I didn’t, I’m certain Darren did as he flew past me down the street in his car, easily reaching sixty miles per hour in no time at all.

When I get home, I make a beeline for the fridge and grab a beer before collapsing onto the couch in a daze. There are so many things wrong with what just happened at my parents’ house I don’t even know where to begin. I think the one thing that’s bothering me the most is how my parents are “doing it” on the regular, which is still gross, but at least someone is getting some action. And I’m more than happy that my parents are still in love with each other as well as physically attracted to each other after all this time, but I could have easily lived the rest of my life without ever hearing it.

I kick my feet up and lay my head on the backrest, staring up at the ceiling, and then I hear my cell phone buzzing away in my purse in the foyer. I’m contemplating letting it go to voice mail when it stops ringing and then starts up again. Dammit, whoever it is must really want to talk to me, so I begrudgingly stand back up and rummage through my purse until I find my phone.

Alex.

What the hell could he want with me, on a weekend, no less? I debate with myself for a second or two over whether I should answer, but curiosity gets the better of me.

“Don’t you have something better to be doing than calling me on a Saturday afternoon?” I ask while making my way back to the couch.

“That depends,” Alex rasps in my ear. “Would you care to enlighten me as to what that something might be?”

My heart drops, my pulse starts to race, and even my freaking palms get clammy. It’s official, I’m a slave to his torment.

“Settle down. I didn’t expect to hear from you on a Saturday.”

His light chuckle sets off another chain reaction in my body, but this kind is far more pleasant. I imagine him relaxed in a pair of black boxer briefs and nothing else, in bed of course. And those dimples—those dimples that can wreak havoc on me while he has a devilish look in his eyes. A look that could easily make me orgasm without him touching any part of my body, no matter how much I begged. God, would I beg. With absolutely no shame, like a dog for a bone.

“I’m glad to know that I can surprise you, but this shouldn’t take long.”

“That’s what she said,” I mutter, trying to bring some levity to the conversation.

“I guarantee that you wouldn’t be saying that,” he says with an unmistakable smile in his voice.

Do you see what I’m dealing with here? This has been the way each conversation of ours ends up going. It’s maddening and frustrating and exhilarating and probably a bunch of other “ings” that I can’t articulate at the moment.

“I was calling,” he goes on to say like I’m not at all in a trance over here, “because I’m ready to cash in on our little deal we made last year.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Are you still game?”

“Of course I am,” I snap. “I never back out of a deal. What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Julia,” he almost purrs, “you really need to stop leaving yourself wide open with some of the things you say.”

“I could say the same about you.”

A short pause follows until he finally speaks up. “How about you come over to my house tomorrow, say one o’clock, and we’ll figure something out?”

“You’re inviting me to your house?” I ask in shock because I’ve never been to his house and I’m convinced it has something to do with it being the Batcave.

“Yes, I’m inviting you to my house. I’ll text you the address in a bit, if that’s okay with you.”

“Sure, that’s totally fine.”

“Good,” he says. “Looking forward to it.”

“Me too.”

We say our good-byes, and I hate to admit it, but I kind of miss the being toyed with bit at the end of the conversation. It’s becoming something of a trademark for us.


Oh my God! Did you hear what I just said? A trademark for us!

I get up and walk toward my bedroom, the whole time thinking to myself, I’m not going to sleep with him, over and over again. And to ensure that I won’t, I pull out the rattiest pair of granny period undies from the very bottom of my underwear drawer. You know the ones that you keep for those four to five days every month? Every woman owns at least one pair, and I’m going to be wearing mine, holes and all, tomorrow. If that doesn’t keep me clothed, then I’m f*cked—in more ways than one.





CHAPTER SEVEN


Alex did end up texting me his address last night, and wouldn’t you know it, the guy has been living about twenty minutes away from me this entire time. I’m taking the last winding side street in a ficus-tree-lined Coconut Grove neighborhood, wondering how I didn’t know this and feeling antsy about it. Actually, I’m not sure exactly how I feel about Alex in general now that I know he’s so close to me. Because I can see it now—in a moment of weakness I’ll be at his door, wearing a trench coat (because everyone in Miami has one for no reason at all, but it goes with the fantasy) and nothing underneath except for thigh highs and black stilettos. He’d open the door, and I’d waltz right in with such confidence it would make him confused at first. No words would be exchanged. I would simply command him with a quick snap of my fingers to sit on the couch. Then I’d turn on the music. “Straight On” by Heart would flood our senses as a small smile played on his lips when it dawned on him what was about to happen. I’d perform my best teasing stripper dance for him while he tried to grab a hold of me. But I wouldn’t let him. Not until I ended up on his lap, straddling him, would I allow him to yank the belt of the trench coat open and watch as his eyes feasted on my naked body, splayed open for him like a present on Christmas morning. At that point, I’d be so turned on by his heated gaze that I’d hand the reins over to him by leaning over and whispering in his ear, “I want you to do everything to me … please.” Yeah, I’d add the please bit at the end with a little whimper for effect just to see how he’d react. He’d take the bait, of course, and he’d do everything to me, acts that might even be illegal in some states, and I’d love every single second of it.