Operation Foreplay (33 page)

“She digs him?” I could picture his smirk, the lift of his eyebrow.

“Yeah. Apparently she can’t stop thinking about him. I’m pretty sure she’s gone bananas, too.”

“Well, at least they can be bananas over each other together.”

I paused, unsure if I should get clarification on the thoughts running through my head. It didn’t take long for my mouth to spit it out. “She keeps calling him her boyfriend.”

“Oh, well that adds to the story, now doesn’t it?”

My stomach pitched. “Seems to add something.” I hoped he was getting where I was coming from.

“If you ask me”—he cleared his throat—“if he’s as swoony and bananas as you say, then I’m pretty sure she’s right.”

“She’s right?”

“Well, yeah. I mean I’m sure if you asked him, he’d say that he thought of her as his girlfriend.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. Two peas in a pod.”

“At least they seem to be in pretty good company.” I yawned.

“Go to sleep, Mel. I’ll pick you up in the morning. We can go for a run before breakfast.”

“I wish you were here.”

“Me, too.”

“Use your key.”

“Okay.”

I stood and folded my blanket. “So I’ll talk to you tomorrow then.”

“It
is
tomorrow.”

“Six days.” I smoothed the front of the White Castle T-shirt I was wearing.

“Six days.” I heard him blow out a breath. “Good night, Mel.”

I crawled into bed. “Good night, Jared.”

*  *  *

As promised, Jared was at my apartment early. I woke to him crawling into bed next to me.

“Better make it fast, my boyfriend will be here soon.” I teased as his hands slid over my thighs. It felt good calling him my boyfriend. The thought didn’t have me wanting to run for the hills like it once did.

“I can take him.”

“I don’t know. He’s a pretty big dude.”

“Yeah?” He brushed my hair from my face.

“Crazy, too.” I smiled.

“I want to kiss you.”

“Then kiss me.”

“I think I’ll have a hard time controlling myself.” He brushed his lips against mine.

“That makes two of us.” I rolled so I was lying on top of him. I kissed each side of his face softly as my hands slid down his sides and slid under his ass. “I thought we were going running?”

He shifted as I secured my legs on either side of his hips and tucked my feet under his thighs. “It’s raining.” He pushed my hair off my face and gripped a handful behind my head.

“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” I ground my hips down into him and heard him inhale sharply. I watched his eyes widen.

I gasped when he pushed against me and tugged my head back, exposing my neck to his mouth. His lips trailed across my throat and his teeth grazed the tender skin below my ear. His hand fisted my hair tighter.

“You want to play it this way?” I smiled before scraping my nails across his chest. His grip let up and I used the opportunity to bite his nipple.

“Fuck,” he growled out as I ran my tongue over the bite. “I think you should be careful.”

“Of?” I sat up and squeezed my thighs together. I could feel his excitement grow under me.

“I’m barely holding on here.” His voice was breathy, gravelly. Goose bumps littered his chest and sweat slipped from his brow. He gripped the hem of my shirt until his knuckles were white. I knew it wouldn’t take long to push him over the edge.

“It’s okay.” I rolled my hips.

He grabbed me tight and tossed me to the side as he shifted on top of me. “We made a deal.” He bit my bottom lip. “We aren’t doing this yet.” He pushed himself up on his hands, holding himself above me.

I tugged at the bottom of his shirt. “Yes we are.”

“Mel.” His grabbed one of my hands and pulled it away. “I can’t believe I am even saying this, but we can’t.” He pulled my other hand away and held both above my head. “Not yet.”

“You’re kinda being a buzzkill.”

“Believe me, I know.” He rolled over and lay next to me, muttering under his breath.

“Why did we agree to this again?” I turned and looked at him. His profile was beautiful. With a slight bump in his nose, stubble across his jaw, and a full bottom lip, I found him perfect.

“Because we need it. We needed the break.” He rolled and propped himself up on his elbow. “Right?”

I reached out and ran my hand along his face. “Yeah, sweetie. We do.”

When his lips pressed against the palm of my hand, I clamped my legs together. The next five days might actually kill me.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

4 Days

I
t was noon and I was still throbbing from the day before. I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. Apparently sex with Jared in my dreams was just as good as I imagined it would be in real life.

I was jonesing.

Hard.

Honestly, I felt like my vagina was going to pack up her shit and leave. She was tired of the deprivation. I was tired of the deprivation, and if Jared’s snark was analyzed, I’m sure I’d find he was tired of it as well.

My phone interrupted thoughts that should have been on the spreadsheet in front of me. “What?” I cringed.

“Nice. So I guess my brother isn’t the only one with a shitty attitude today.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah well. The two of you are acting like you haven’t gotten any in…wait, you haven’t.” Her laugh pierced my soul.

“Nice.”

“I’m kidding. Kind of. I’d ask how you’re holding up but—”

“I’m not.” I threw my pencil on the desk. “Seriously. I’m over this.”

“Come on. How much time? Four days until your birthday?”

“Yes.” I stood and stared out the window, watching the cars below me snake along.

“You can do anything for four days.”

“Fuck, Sarah. It’s more than sex.”

“Maybe I’m not the best person to discuss this with.” I could hear her sipping something through a straw. “You know, you could go take a yoga class. Meditate or something. Go hiking.”

“Hiking?”

“I don’t know. I watched a show yesterday on how to be one with nature and how people destress by hiking and shit.”

“I’m not hiking.”

“I didn’t think so. Anyway, I’m calling because I am assuming we are celebrating your birthday Saturday?”

“Why Saturday?”

“Um, for reasons I refuse to discuss with you.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. I don’t want to do anything crazy. We can just go to the bar or stay in.” I riffled through my drawer looking for an unopened bag of gummy bears.

“Who are you and what have you done with my friend?”

“What?” I found one and fell back into my chair.

“You’ve always been the center of attention, Mel, because you demanded it. I’m not complaining, I’m stating fact, and now you want to
stay in
for your birthday celebration? You feeling okay?”

“I’m fine. I just don’t see any reason to go crazy over a birthday,” I reasoned through a mouthful of chewy bears.

“You’re turning thirty. You’ve had this day on countdown since you turned twenty-one. Seriously, you’ve got it bad and unfortunately the only cure is to get it good.”

“Unfortunately, huh?”

“Forget it. I can’t believe I never thought about how perfect the two of you are for each other.”

“He is kinda perfect.”

“And so are you. And I told him so.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. He’s not the only one who got the warning. If he hurts you, I’ll make his life miserable.”

“Well, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now, why don’t we all do early dinner on Saturday, then come hang here? Have some drinks. Play Pictionary. Whatever.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Good. I’ll make the calls. Later, babe.”

“Later, babe.”

*  *  *

3 Days

“What are you doing?” Jared asked as I made my way down to the yoga studio.

“Heading to a yoga class. I figured I had nothing better to do on my lunch break.”

“Maybe eat lunch?”

I pressed my phone to my ear as I pushed through a throng of suits on their way to lunch, meetings, and wherever the hell else people went in the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday. “No time for lunch. I need to get out of my head. Lunch doesn’t do that.”

“My sister told you to meditate, huh?”

“Yeah. She told you, too?”

“After she told me she’d find someone to chop off my balls if I ever broke your heart.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet of her.”

“Because they aren’t your balls.”

“I don’t know if I want to talk about your balls right now.”

“Too right. You go meditate. I’ll go have a working lunch with Berk and decide if the clients can afford the monstrosity of an apartment that they are fighting for.”

“Okay. Tell him I said hi. Dinner tonight?”

“Yes. Chinese?”

“Yes. Sleepover?”

“We’ll see. I’ll meet you at your house after work.”

“We’ll see?” I smiled, knowing he was having as much difficulty as I was. Thank God there were only three days left.

“I might have to stand under the shower with the water running ice cold.”

“We can stand in there together. Then we can wash each other. Get all soapy and slippery—”

He growled and muttered a curse under his breath. “I’m so happy I get to go into this meeting with a raging hard-on. I’m sure everyone will be so pleased to see me.”

“Berk will be happy.” I pointed out. “Besides, how do you think I feel? Downward dog is going to kill me.”

“True. And it does give me some satisfaction to know that your boner will be giving you as much trouble as mine. Maybe I can take care of it in the bathroom—”

“Don’t you dare! Unless, of course, you want me to take care of things on my end.”

“No. Definitely not. That’s something I’ve been looking forward to taking care of for a while now. Don’t take that from me.”

“Ugh.” I moaned. “Goodbye Jared.”

“See you later, Mels.”

I hung up the phone as I reached the yoga studio. I pulled open the door and climbed the flight to the small second-floor space. I was going to need to scare up some extra Zen. And something to bribe my bits from packing up and moving on.

*  *  *

2 Days

I walked up to Jared and noticed how his khakis hugged his ass and how his light blue shirt, rolled to the elbow, strained ever so slightly across his shoulders.

I called out. “No suit?”

He turned and his smile stopped my heart for a moment. When a guy smiles like that at a girl, she better grab on with both hands—and I was so happy I had.

“Not today. Easy day, just working numbers in the office.”

“I like your tie.” I ran my hand over the fabric as he leaned down to kiss me. His lips lingered and I snaked my free arm around his neck. Just as the kiss began to take on an urgency, he pulled back and hopped up and down a few times.

“You okay?” I laughed. I felt it, too, but my lady libido was lying in wait. I think I’d finally convinced her that something amazing would happen soon enough.

“Barely. You?” He grabbed his wallet to pay for two cups of coffee.

“You know what? I’m good today.” I handed Jared his cup as we made our way to the platform. “I didn’t have any weird, sweaty sex dreams last night. I’m good. I think I have a handle on this whole no-sex thing.”

“It only took you how long?” He laughed.

“Shut up! I slept like a baby last night. I’m going in to work to kick ass and make another client a lot of money and then I’m going to come home and fill the bathtub with bubbles, pour a nice big glass of wine, and read a smutty book.”

“Be careful.” He placed his hand on the small of my back as I climbed onto the train and walked toward the back to find a seat. “Smutty book, huh? What kind of smutty book?”

“Oh, you know. Girl meets boy, boy digs paddles and rope, girl likes it, hardcore fucking ensues. They live happily ever after.”

“Sounds”—he paused and shifted his briefcase between his feet and moved his coffee to his other hand—“interesting.”

“Not so much interesting as relaxing.”

“How many yoga classes have you taken?”

I laughed. “Only a couple.” I stretched my legs before crossing them and leaning my head back on the seat.

“Tired?”

“Yeah. I shouldn’t be. I got plenty of sleep.”

He slipped his hand around mine and squeezed. I slid my fingers between his and squeezed back. I leaned into him and dropped my head onto his shoulder.