anything. For now, anyway. He’d promised Braedon.
“I’m coming, sugar, hold on!” Braedon gnashed his teeth at the high-pitched exclamation, and gripped the tiny waist of Ryan’s next-door neighbor while thrusting deeply, her back hitting the wall with a satisfying thump-thump-thump.
She gave a little squeal of excitement and shimmied, her augmented tits dragging across his chest, their hardened nipples setting off zings of excitement zipping clear down to his pecker.
Her hot slippery canal caressed him like wet silk. The inner clenching began, milking him of his staying power. Every muscle in his body trembled with the effort to control his release.
Finally, she let loose a scream that would wake the dead. He was probably deaf in his left ear now.
Crushing her to him, he gave one final thrust, slamming her against the wall.
The air conditioning clicked on, blowing blessed cool air against his sweating back. Other than the distant hum of the compressor, no sound filled the condo except for their labored breathing.
Now what? He didn’t even know her name. Did Ryan? Doubtful, given the way she’d timidly knocked on his door earlier. He racked his brain in an effort to remember if she’d introduced herself. Her cleavage had had him so distracted, he couldn’t recall. He did remember she seemed genuinely surprised when he’d asked her in for a drink. Since he’d promised not to have sex with anyone Ryan knew, he rationalized it would be okay. His brother may know her, but probably not in the biblical sense.
She must’ve had the hots for Ryan because from there, things had progressed at the speed of lust.
Guilt reared its ugly head. What the hell was he thinking?
He lifted her from his diminishing erection and smoothed her miniskirt over her hips while he glanced around for the thong he’d all but ripped from her body a few minutes earlier.
Not seeing it, he pulled his swim trunks up and stepped back. She followed, her hand reaching tentatively toward his bare chest.
Shit! Go home, he wanted to yell.
Weak sunlight slanted across the foyer, illuminating the blue streak in her unnaturally light blond hair.
She pursed her collagen-enhanced lips—well, as much as they would allow anyway. “Wanna come to my place? I have some weed.”
Weed. Great. Just what he didn’t need in his life at this point.
“Ah, no thanks. I’m trying to quit.” In reality, it had to have been a good decade since he’d stopped, but she nodded as though she were totally impressed by that fact, so he let it ride. “Listen. I had fun, but, um, now I have some stuff I have to do. Alone-type stuff.” Take a hint.
She nodded absently and wandered into the living room, dragging her hand along the back of what Penny would call an oatmeal colored sectional sofa. Personally, he thought of it as blah beige. That was Ryan, all right. Blah.
He spotted her thong hanging on the fake tree by the door and snagged it on his way into the living room.
“Thanks,” she said when he handed her panties to her. Pausing with her leg lifted to put them on, she grinned, evidently noticing where his eyes were trained. “Should I leave them off a little while longer? If you want to fuck again, I wouldn’t mind.”
Maybe not, but I sure as hell would. The thought gave him pause. Since when did he turn down sex? Must be the vibes from Ryan rubbing off on him. “Ah, thanks, but I have stuff to do. Maybe some other time.”
Standing, she made a big production of sliding the string up her legs, hiking her skirt to her waist and pushing her tight little ass at him while she adjusted the thong. Talk about obvious.
Finally, she turned to face him. For the first time, he noticed she was still topless. Damn. There was a time he’d have spotted that right away. If he looked closely, the sunshine streaming in through the patio door touched the razor thin white scars running along the edge of her nipples. Why do women put their bodies through that? While he appreciated a gigantic rack as much as the next guy, when it came to playing with them, even he preferred the real thing to the water balloons with hard, plastic-feeling nipples in front of him.
“Put your top on. Please,” he added at her startled look. “Then I need to take off, so you have to leave.”
“Fine.” She shimmied into her minuscule tank top, her nipples jutting against the thin material. “At least now I know.”
“Now you know what?” He held the door open, wanting nothing more than for her to walk through it.
“I’ve wondered about you ever since you moved in. I thought you were so handsome, smooth, and sophisticated.” She shook her head. “But you’re not any different than the others. Permanent booty call.”
He shrugged. What could he say to defend his brother’s honor? For that matter, why would he want to?
Pausing with her hand on the door to prevent him from closing it, she gave her parting shot. “And the worst part is, you weren’t nearly as impressive as I’d thought you’d be. In fact, you’re a lousy lay. Sorry to have bothered you. Don’t bother walking me home. I never want to see you again.”
Stunned, he watched her sashay down the hall, then leaned out and yelled, “I am not a lousy lay!”
A door across the hallway cracked open.
“I’m not!” he yelled at whoever peeked through the crack, then stomped back into his brother’s condo, and slammed the door for good measure.
7
R yan shook the sand from his running shoes while sitting on the sun-warmed beach, and looked out over the clear blue water of the Gulf of Mexico. He was so exhausted, he’d have to rest before heading back to his brother’s apartment. And Penny.
Forty-five minutes of hard running had brought him no closer to an answer as to what to do about her. It was wrong to deceive her. Even more wrong to continue sleeping with her without revealing his identity.
His cock stirred at the thought of what they’d shared the night before. If he said he didn’t want a repeat performance, he would be lying. Again. Still.
“Damn.” He flopped back on the sand, eyes clenched against the bright morning sun. The sound of the surf should have relaxed him. Instead it reminded him of the minutes and hours ticking past. Minutes and hours with Penny. Minutes and hours he would never have again.
Did he really want to spend that time agonizing over something he could do nothing about? He’d made a solemn promise to his brother. Sure, he knew Brae would have no problem breaking a promise. But promises meant something to him, and despite his brother being a screw-up, he intended to honor that promise.
At least for a while. And that meant he had to continue deceiving Penny. But he would tell her. Eventually.
With a sigh, he got to his feet and jogged toward the beach access.
Maybe he was no better than Braedon. He wanted nothing more than to lock himself away with Penny, making love, and learning all he could
