don’t lie well. I’m honest. Painfully so. It’s part of the awkwardness, which, I am aware of, by the way. It works for me in some settings.”
“If you say so.”
“Forbes says so, actually, but that’s beside the point.”
“Forbes has never said anything about me,” he said.
“Don’t feel bad. You’re young yet. Make something of yourself and maybe someday you’ll be as important as I am. That point aside, though,” she said, taking a deep breath, “here’s the truth. I just got out of a really long-term relationship. Like, if socks were as old as that relationship, throwing them out would have been the obvious thing to do.”
“Socks?”
“Metaphorically, it actually holds up well. It stunk and it was full of holes. Again, much like old socks. And then I lost the asshole in the wash, so to speak.”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, long-term relationship. So done with it. So done with him. And I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I know how to turn a few lines of code into a fortune, but I don’t know how to get a date. And I am…desperate for sex that’s more exciting than lukewarm oatmeal. Desperate. So…I’m sure I broke a cardinal rule by confessing my desperation, but—and this is a big but—I probably won’t be pursuing that non-bland sex with a stranger from a bar. Sorry.”
“Confessing desperation is probably a serious rule-breaker, you’re right.”
“No doubt.”
“I’m sure you’re supposed to be playing aloof. Hard to get. Like Jeff over there,” he said, gesturing to the man she’d made a pass at only a few minutes earlier.
That thought made her feel a little dizzy. She’d only been in the bar for an hour. She’d talked to four men. And she was going to go home with the fourth one if he was into it.
All in all, it was one of the more eventful hours in her life. And she’d had a few eventful hours in her lifetime.
“Well, I thought any more aloof and the bar would reach maximum aloofness capacity so I figured I’d tone it down.”
“I like honesty.”
“You just said you wanted the lie if it was better.”
He smiled. “Either I’m very honest or a good liar.”
“That shouldn’t be charming. How did you do that?”
“I’m good at flirting.”
“You have to show me. Because I think I need to understand the flirting since I’m making the app that’s supposed to help with the flirting. That is why I’m here, after all.”
“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll help you with the flirting after you show me your sex tips.”
“Is that an offer?” she asked.
“I thought you were the one offering. I’m accepting.”
“I already told you it was more of an experimental offer. But for the sake of argument, is this a happy acceptance or a pity acceptance?”
He moved toward her, his eyes locked on hers. The glitter of humor in his eyes taking on a dark light that seemed to pull her in. He didn’t smell like sweat coated in cheap body spray. He smelled like soap, a hint of cologne and an undertone of musky man that she hadn’t realized she’d been missing from her life.
“Care to guess?” he asked, his voice soft, barely rising above the music and conversation in the bar.
She shot a quick look over to Jeff the Aloof. He was looking more interested now. Well, screw him. Or rather, not.
But maybe, just maybe, she would screw Caleb.
“Eyes on me,” he said, his tone suddenly not so teasing at all. And she obeyed.
Heat shot through her, the commanding tone of his voice pushing off the edge of aroused and straight into a pool of lust. She wanted him. Research had nothing to do with it.
And if she wanted him…well, why shouldn’t she have him? She didn’t have a deadweight boyfriend keeping her from pursuing him.
Yes. Oh yes, she was going to have him. Decision made. There and now. But she wasn’t going to tell him that yet. The app suggested she not make herself a “sure thing.” She had to make him seduce her.
Though, she felt pretty well seduced.
“Do I what?” she asked, suddenly unable to remember anything except the color of his eyes. Warm and golden like whiskey held up against the light.
“Do you think I feel sorry for you? Or do you genuinely think I want you?”
“I’m not sure. Was it all my talk of being hardup or my foot blisters that got you?”
He bent down, his lips hovering just above hers. “I think it was the combination.”
“I can see how that would get you,” she said, sounding a little bit breathless now. “After all…there could be…ointment involved which is…not sexy.”
He winked and pressed his lips against hers. Light. The pressure so faint she almost thought she’d imagined it. “Not really,” he whispered. “Luckily, you are quite sexy.”
“Even with the awkward?”
“It’s charming.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been staring at your breasts this whole time. I can tell you without a doubt that they’re charming.”
Her heart jumped, a little shiver of pleasure skating over her skin. “How do you do that?”
“What?”
“Say the most douchey things and make them sound hot?”
“It’s a gift. I wasn’t good in school. I’ve been fired from almost every job I’ve ever had. But I can pick up a woman in a bar without even trying. In fact, I can actively attempt to push a woman away and still wind up in bed with her.”
“That’s douchey, too, and it’s still making me feel fluttery. Which was probably also detrimentally honest of me.”
He cupped her cheek and kissed her again, deeper this time, his tongue sliding along the seam of her lips. It was so strange, to kiss another man for the first time in a decade. For the first time ever. His lips felt so different. His technique made it like another activity entirely. She opened for him and the hot slide of his tongue against hers nearly buckled her knees.
He cupped her cheeks, his hands hot, rough on her skin, his mouth insistent on hers. If she hadn’t been certain about going home with him before, she was now.
She was making out with a stranger in
