Tonight is for me and Ian and a whole world of sexy new possibilities.
Chapter 18
Ian
I pace back and forth across my living room, torn between excitement and dread. I’m eager to see Evie again—to touch her, taste her, and see if my hunch about her knowing far more than she thinks she knows about sex is correct.
She’s just innately sexy, so much so that I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before.
Hell, just the way she drags a French fry through ketchup and pops it into her mouth makes my pants tighter. The way she tucks the rogue curl on her right side behind her ear, the way her eyes dance with mischief when she smiles, the way her voice goes soft and husky when she talks about wanting to draw me—any one of those things alone would be enough to turn me on.
Altogether, they’re enough to make me positive she doesn’t need these practice sessions. She just needs to find a partner she can trust.
If I were a good friend, I would help her find that guy instead of taking advantage of her belief that I’m the only man she can be at ease with.
I almost text her as much a dozen times, but I don’t, and when the buzzer sounds a few minutes before seven, I don’t hesitate to punch the button and say, “Come on up.”
I don’t ask who it is—I’m not expecting anyone except Evie and the timing is right. She said she’d be here by seven. But when I open the door a minute later and glance toward the elevators, it isn’t Evie who steps out onto the tightly woven gray carpet in the hall.
It’s…Whitney.
The greeting on the tip of my tongue fades away as I scramble to think of a way to get rid of my ex before Evie arrives. Whitney is a gossip hound to the core of her delicate bones, and she’s still friends with the girlfriends of several guys on the team. If she sees Evie show up to my place at this time of night, she’s going to get suspicious. She was already jealous of Evie. Seeing her here will all but ensure a rumor that Evie and I are hooking up starts circulating by tomorrow morning.
Thinking fast, I start coughing. Hard.
Whitney’s steps slow as she lifts a hand to hover in front of her face. She’s also a germaphobe and once bailed on me halfway through a meal at a fancy restaurant because I cleared my throat one time too many.
“Sorry, I thought you were the pharmacy delivery,” I say in a deliberately rough, scratchy voice. “I think I have a little end-of-summer cold. But I’d love to talk later if you want. Could I call you tomorrow? Or maybe this weekend, if I’m better by then? I just—” I break off in a tortured round of hacking, squeezing my eyes shut as I pretend to struggle to regain control.
When I finally wheeze in a breath and open my eyes, Whitney is back by the elevator, furiously punching the down button with her knuckle. “I just came by to get the rest of my things, but fine. I’ll text you later and you can bring them by my work or something.”
Trying not to let my relief show, I nod. “Of course. Will do. Maybe during your lunch break?” I ask, regret swirling through me.
I’m not sad that it’s over between us—it should have been over a long time ago—but Whitney and I have been close for a long time. I don’t want to lose that, not if there’s any chance that we can still salvage what was good about our relationship. “I could take you for salads at the place you like, and we could talk. I’d really like to be friends, Whit. How will I know how to dress myself without you?”
She sniffs and lifts her nose higher in the air. “You’ll do just fine. Just ask a salesgirl. Or your new girlfriend.”
“I don’t have a new girlfriend,” I say. “We just broke up last weekend. I’m not ready to start anything new.”
I’m not, which is just another reason I should call this off with Evie before it’s too late. No matter how many times she assures me she’s down for a low-key, friends-with-benefits situation, my gut insists I’d be a fool to believe that and an asshole to take advantage of her innocence about things like this.
But after Whitney says, “Okay, then maybe we can talk. Hope you feel better soon,” and disappears into the elevator, I don’t text Evie to cancel.
In fact, I’m still standing in my doorway when Evie steps out of the elevator a few minutes later and starts toward me in a black mini dress with white stripes down the sides that clings to her curves. Paired with white-and-red rose-printed Vans on her feet and simple star earrings in her ears, she shouldn’t reduce me to a puddle of lust, but…she does.
I’m still trying to pull myself together when she says, “Sorry I’m late. I got busy drawing and lost track of time.” She stops in front of me, a mixture of uncertainty and flirtation in her tone as she adds, “I was drawing your hand and it turned out really sexy. If you’re good, I might show it to you later.”
“And if I find myself unable to be good?” I ask, my voice husky for reasons that have nothing to do with my fake coughing fit. “Because this dress…”
She smiles. “Better than overalls, right?”
“So much better.” I push the door open behind me. “You ready for this?”
She swallows before letting out a soft laugh. “As ready as I’ll ever be, but there’s one thing we should discuss first.” She takes a bracing breath and takes my hand. “Come on. Best if we talk about this inside where no one can hear you scream. Or me scream, when you say there’s no way you’re going to indulge my insanity.”
“All right,” I say, pulling her inside and shutting the door, already knowing I’m going to say yes, no matter how insane her request.
Her hand feels that good in mine.
Looking back later, I’ll see this as the first warning sign of trouble. But at the moment all I feel is happy to see her and even happier to finally have her all to myself.
Chapter 19
Evie
This should feel weird.
I’m here for a booty call.
Or booty call practice, anyway.
I have never done either of those things, Ian and I have spent very little time together one-on-one and none of that has been while we were naked, and despite all my big talk about not needing sex lessons…I might actually need sex lessons.
I’m a good kisser and decent at flirting, but I’ve never given a man a blow job. I almost did once, for Vince’s birthday, but I chickened out at the last minute. It just didn’t feel right to get down on my knees and put his penis in my mouth when I’d never even seen it before that night. We were still making out a lot at that point but always with our clothes on. Vince had said he was happy to take things slow, and I was naïve enough to believe him.
And now, here I am, facing the sexiest man alive across his coffee table with very little idea what to do with him. In addition to the no-blow-job factor, I can also count the number of hand jobs I’ve given on…
Well, one hand.
Vince was so unimpressed with my technique that on one occasion he fell asleep in the middle of my sweaty-palmed attempts to make him feel good. He said it was his fault for staying up late at a concert the night before and skipping his afternoon coffee, but it took my ego a long time to recover from that one.